فصل 7

In my early years, I wondered why it was so rare to catch a scythe out of his or her robes and in common street clothes. It’s a rule in some places, but not in MidMerica. Here it is just an accepted practice, although rarely violated. Then, as I settled in, it occurred to me why it must be. For our own peace of mind, we scythes must retain a certain level of separation from the rest of humanity. Even in the privacy of my own home I find myself wearing only the simple lavender frock that I wear beneath my robes.

Some would call this behavior aloof. I suppose on some level it is, but for me it’s more the need to remind myself that I am “other.” Certainly, most uniformed positions allow the wearers to have a separate life. Peace officers and firefighters, for instance, are only partially defined by their job. In the off hours they wear jeans and T-shirts. They have barbecues for neighbors and coach their children in sports. But to be a scythe means you are a scythe every hour of every day. It defines you to the core of your being, and only in dreams is one free of the yoke.

Yet even in dreams I often find myself gleaning. . . .

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie

7

Killcraft

“During your year with me,” Scythe Faraday told Rowan and Citra, “you will learn the proper way to wield various blades, you will become marksmen in more than a dozen types of firearms, you will have a working knowledge of toxicology, and you will train in the deadliest of martial arts. You will not become masters in these things—that takes many years—but will have the basic skills upon which you will build.” “Skills that will be useless for the one you don’t choose,” Citra pointed out.

“Nothing we learn is useless,” he told her.

While the scythe’s house was modest and unadorned, it had one impressive feature: the weapons den. It had once been the garage of the old house, but now was lined with the scythe’s extensive weapons collection. One wall was hung with blades, another firearms. A third wall looked like a pharmacist’s shelf, and the fourth wall held more archaic objects. Elaborately carved bows, a quiver of obsidian-tipped arrows, frighteningly muscular crossbows—even a mace, although it was hard for them to imagine Scythe Faraday taking someone out with a mace. The fourth wall was more of a museum, they supposed, but the fact that they weren’t sure was unsettling.

The daily regimen was rigorous. Rowan and Citra trained with blades and staffs, sparring against the scythe, who was surprisingly strong and limber for a man of his apparent age. They learned to shoot at a special firing range for scythes and apprentices, where weapons that were banned for public use were not only allowed, but encouraged. They learned the basics of Black Widow Bokator—a deadly version of the ancient Cambodian martial art developed specifically for the Scythedom. It left them exhausted, but stronger than either of them had ever been.

Physical training, however, was only half their regimen. There was an old oak table in the center of the weapons den, clearly a relic from the Age of Mortality. This is where Scythe Faraday spent several hours a day schooling them in the ways of a scythe.

Studies in mental acuity, history, and the chemistry of poisons—as well as daily entries in their apprentice journals. There was more to learn about death than either of them had ever considered.

“History, chemistry, writing—this is like school,” Rowan grumbled to Citra, because he wouldn’t dare complain to Scythe Faraday.

And then there was the gleaning.

“Each scythe must perform a quota of two hundred sixty gleanings per year,” Scythe Faraday told them, “which averages to five per week.” “So you get weekends off,” joked Rowan—trying to add a little nervous levity to the discussion. But Faraday was not amused. For him nothing about gleaning was a laughing matter. “On days that I don’t glean, I attend funerals and do research for future gleanings. Scythes . . . or should I say good scythes . . . don’t often have days off.” The idea that not all scythes were good was something neither Rowan or Citra had ever considered. It was widely accepted that scythes adhered to the highest moral and ethical standards. They were wise in their dealings and fair in their choices. Even the ones who sought celebrity were seen to deserve it. The idea that some scythes might not be as honorable as Scythe Faraday did not sit well with either of his new apprentices.

• • •

The raw shock of gleaning never left Citra. Although Scythe Faraday had not, since that first day, asked them to be the life-taking hand, being an accomplice was difficult enough. Each untimely end came draped in its own shroud of dread, like a recurring nightmare that never lost its potency. She had thought she would grow numb—that she would become used to the work. But it didn’t happen.

“It means I chose wisely,” Scythe Faraday told her. “If you do not cry yourself to sleep on a regular basis, you are not compassionate enough to be a scythe.” She doubted Rowan cried himself to sleep. He was the type of kid who kept his emotions very much to himself. She couldn’t read him. He was opaque, and it bothered her. Or perhaps he was so transparent, she was seeing through him to the other side. She couldn’t be sure.

They quickly learned that Scythe Faraday was very creative in his gleaning methods. He never repeated the exact same method twice.

“But aren’t there scythes who are ritualistic in their work,” Citra asked him, “performing each gleaning exactly the same?” “Yes, but we must each find our own way,” he told her. “Our own code of conduct. I prefer to see each person I glean as an individual deserving of an end that is unique.” He outlined for them the seven basic methods of killcraft. “Most common are the three Bs: blade, bullet, and blunt force. The next three are asphyxiation, poison, and catastrophic induction, such as electrocution or fire—although I find fire a horrific way to glean and would never use it. The final method is weaponless force, which is why we train you in Bokator.” To be a scythe, he explained, meant that one had to be well-versed in all methods. Citra realized that being “well-versed” meant she would have to participate in various types of gleaning. Would he have her pull the trigger? Thrust the knife? Swing the club? She wanted to believe she wasn’t capable of it. She desperately wanted to believe she wasn’t scythe material. It was the first time in her life that she aspired to fail.

• • •

Rowan’s feelings on the matter were mixed. He found that Scythe Faraday’s moral imperative and ethical high ground infused Rowan with purpose—but only in the scythe’s presence. When left to his own thoughts, Rowan doubted everything. Burned into his mind was the look on that woman’s face as she fearfully yet obediently opened her mouth to be poisoned. The look on her face the moment before she bit down. I am an accomplice to the world’s oldest crime, he told himself in his loneliest moments. And it will only get worse.

While the journals of scythes were public record, an apprentice still had the luxury of privacy. Scythe Faraday gave Rowan and Citra pale leather-bound volumes of rough-edged parchment. To Rowan it looked like a relic from the dark ages. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Faraday gave them a feather quill to go with it. Mercifully, however, they were allowed to use normal writing utensils.

“A scythe’s journal is traditionally made of lambskin parchment and kid leather.” “I assume you mean ‘kid’ as in ‘goat,’” Rowan said, “and not ‘kid’ as in ‘kid.’” That finally made the scythe laugh. Citra seemed to be annoyed that he had made Faraday laugh—as if it put him a point ahead of her. Rowan knew that as much as she hated the idea of being a scythe, she would jockey for position over him because that’s how she was hardwired. Competition was in her very nature; she couldn’t help herself.

Rowan was much better at picking his battles. He could compete when necessary, but rarely got caught up in petty one-upsmanship. He wondered if that would give him an advantage over Citra. He wondered if he wanted one.

Being a scythe would not have been his life choice. He had not made any life choices yet, so he had no real clue what he would do with his eternal future. But now that he was being mentored by a scythe, he began to feel he might have the mettle to be one. If Scythe Faraday had selected him as morally capable of the job, perhaps he was.

As for the journal, Rowan hated it. In a large family where no one particularly cared to hear his thoughts on anything, he had become accustomed to keeping his thoughts to himself.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Citra said as they worked in their journals after dinner one evening. “No one will ever read it but you.” “So why write it?” Rowan snapped back.

Citra sighed as if talking to a child. “It’s to prepare you for writing an official scythe’s journal. Whichever one of us gets the ring will be legally obligated by commandment six to keep a journal every day of our lives.” “Which I’m sure no one will read,” added Rowan.

“But people could read it. The Scythe Archive is open to everyone.”

“Yeah,” said Rowan, “like the Thunderhead. People can read anything, but no one does. All they do is play games and watch cat holograms.” Citra shrugged. “All the more reason not to worry about writing one. If it’s lost among a gazillion pages, you can write your grocery list and what you ate for breakfast. No one will care.” But Rowan cared. If he was going to put pen to paper—if he was going to do what a scythe does—he would do it right or not at all. And so far, as he looked at his painfully blank page, he was leaning toward “not at all.” He watched Citra as she wrote, completely absorbed in her journal. From where he sat, he couldn’t read what she had written, but he could tell it was in fine penmanship. It figures she would take penmanship in school. It was one of those classes people took just to be superior. Like Latin. He supposed he’d have to learn to write in cursive if he became a scythe, but right now he’d be stuck with inelegant, sloppy printing.

He wondered, had Citra and he been in the same school, would they have gotten along? They probably wouldn’t have even known each other. She was the type of girl who participates, and Rowan was the kind of kid who avoids. Their circles were about as far from intersecting as Jupiter and Mars in the night sky. Now, however, they had been pulled into convergence. They were not exactly friends—they were never given the opportunity to develop a friendship before being thrust into apprenticeship together. They were partners; they were adversaries—and Rowan found it increasingly hard to parse his feelings about her. All he knew was that he liked watching her write.

• • •

Scythe Faraday was strict on his no-family policy. “It is ill-advised for yo,u to have contact with your family during your apprenticeship.” It was difficult for Citra. She missed her parents, but more than that, she missed her brother, Ben—which surprised her, because at home, she never had much patience for him.

Rowan seemed to have no problem with being separated from his family.

“They’d much rather have their immunity than have me around, anyway,” he told Citra.

“Boo hoo,” Citra said. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”

“Not at all. Envious maybe. It makes it easier for me to leave it all behind.” Scythe Faraday did bend his own rule once, however. About a month in, he allowed Citra to attend her aunt’s wedding.

While everyone else was dressed in gowns and tuxedos, Scythe Faraday did not allow Citra to dress up, “Lest you feel yourself a part of that world.” It worked. Wearing simple street clothes amid the pageantry made her feel even more the outsider—and the apprentice armband made it worse. Perhaps this was the reason Faraday allowed her to attend—to make crystal clear the distinction between who she had been and who she was now.

“So, what’s it like?” asked her cousin Amanda. “Gleaning and stuff. Is it, like, gross?” “We’re not allowed to talk about it,” Citra told her. Which was not true, but she had no interest in discussing gleaning like it was school gossip.

She should have nurtured that conversation, however, instead of shutting it down, because Amanda was one of the few people who spoke to her. There were plenty of sideways glances and people talking about her when they thought she wasn’t watching, but most everyone avoided her like she carried a mortal-age disease. Perhaps if she already had her ring they might try to curry favor in hopes of receiving immunity, but apparently as an apprentice she offered them nothing but the creeps.

Her brother was standoffish, and even speaking to her mother was awkward. She asked standard questions like “Are you eating?” and “Are you getting enough sleep?” “I understand there’s a boy living with you,” her father said.

“He has his own room and he’s not interested in me at all,” she told him, which she found oddly embarrassed to admit.

Citra sat through the wedding ceremony, but excused herself before the reception and took a publicar back to Scythe Faraday’s house, unable to bear another minute of it.

“You’re back early,” Scythe Faraday commented when she returned. And although he feigned surprise, he had set her place for dinner.