“My dearest Rowan,” Goddard said, arms wide as if moving in for a hug, yet stopping a few yards away.
“Surprised to see me?” Rowan asked, as flip as he could force himself to be.
“Nothing surprises me about you, Rowan,” Goddard said. “But I’ll admit I’m impressed that you managed to come back after the sinking of Endura.”
“Which you sank.”
“On the contrary,” Goddard said. “You sank it. That’s what the record shows and will always show.”
If he was trying to get a rise out of Rowan, it wasn’t working. He had already made his peace with bad publicity. When he chose to become Scythe Lucifer, he knew he’d be hated. Of course, he just expected it to be hatred among scythes. He never thought he’d be despised by the rest of the world.
“You seem happy to see me,” Rowan observed. “That’s probably because of the physiology of the body you stole. Tyger’s body reacting to seeing his best friend.”
“Perhaps,” said Goddard, glancing at Tyger’s hands, as if they might actually grow mouths and say something to him. “But the rest of me is happy to see you as well! You see, as a boogeyman, Scythe Lucifer is a nuisance. But as an actual man, he’s someone I can use for the betterment of humankind.”
“The betterment of Goddard, you mean.”
“What’s good for me is good for the world – you must realize that by now,” Goddard said. “I see the larger picture, Rowan. I always have. And now, by showing the world that Scythe Lucifer is subject to judgment, it will help people to rest a little easier.”
Through all of this, Scythe Rand said nothing. She had taken a seat and was watching. Waiting to see what Rowan would do. What accusations he’d make. After all, she was the one who’d set Rowan free on Endura. He could be quite a fly in her ointment. But that would be no better than throwing a stone.
“If you’re hoping to be remembered, don’t worry, you will be. Once you’ve been gleaned, your name will be an eternal receptacle for the world’s hatred. You’re infamous, Rowan – you should embrace that! It’s the only fame you’ll ever have, and much more than you deserve. Consider it a gift for all we’ve been to each other.”
“You really are enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”
“Oh, immensely,” admitted Goddard. “You can’t imagine how many times I’ve stood here pondering all the ways I could torment you!”
“Who will you torment when I’m gone?”
“I’m sure I’ll find someone. Or maybe I won’t need to. Maybe you’re the last thorn in my side I’ll ever have to deal with.”
“Naah – there’s always another thorn.”
Goddard clapped his hands together, truly tickled. “I have so missed these conversations with you!”
“You mean the ones where you gloat, and I’m tied up?”
“You see? The way you get to the heart of the matter is always so refreshing. So entertaining. I’d keep you as a house pet, if I didn’t fear you’d somehow escape and burn me to a crisp in my sleep.”
“I would, and I would,” Rowan told him.
“I have no doubt. Well, rest assured you won’t be escaping today. We no longer have the blunderings of Scythe Brahms to deal with.”
“Why? Was he devoured by sharks like the rest of them?”
“Yes, I’m sure he was,” Goddard said, “but he was dead before they got to him. Punishment for having allowed you to escape.”
“Right.” Rowan said nothing more about it. But he did catch Rand out of the corner of his eye shifting in her chair as if it had suddenly grown hot.
Goddard came closer to him. His voice became softer. “You might not believe this, but I really have missed you, Rowan.” There was an honesty to this simple statement that transcended Goddard’s habitual showmanship. “You’re the only one who dares to speak back to me anymore. I have adversaries, yes, but they’re all pushovers. Easily bested. You were different from the beginning.”
He took a step back and looked Rowan over, appraising him, the way one might appraise a faded painting that had lost its allure. “You could have been my first underscythe,” Goddard said. “An heir to the world scythedom – and make no mistake, there will be a single world scythedom when I’m done with it. That would have been your future.”
“If only I had ignored my conscience.”
Goddard shook his head in pity. “Conscience is a tool, just like any other. If you don’t wield it, it wields you – and from what I can see, it has bludgeoned you senseless. No, the world needs the unity that I offer far more than it needs your simplistic understanding of right and wrong.”
The thing about Goddard was that he always came close enough to making sense that it was demoralizing. He could twist your own thoughts until they were no longer yours, but his. That’s what made him so dangerous.
Rowan found his defiance and fortitude draining away. Was Goddard right about anything? A voice inside him said no, but that voice was spiraling deep into its shell.
“What’s going to happen to me?” Rowan asked.
Goddard leaned close and whispered in his ear.
“A reckoning.”
Scythe Rand thought all this was behind her. She had been on one of her construct-sanctum excursions when word came that Scythe Lucifer was alive and in Amazonia. The mission to retrieve him from the Amazonians took place without her knowledge. He was already en route when Goddard told her the “glorious news.”
It was terrible timing. With more warning, she would have found a way to glean him before he reached Goddard, if only to keep his mouth shut.
But here he was, and his mouth stayed shut anyway. At least about her. Did he keep the secret just to see her squirm? Ayn wondered what his game was.
This time Goddard wasn’t so cavalier as to leave Rowan alone in his room. Two guards were assigned to be in there with him. They were ordered to keep their distance, and their eyes on him at all times.
“You’ll check on him every hour,” Goddard told Ayn. “To see that he hasn’t loosened his restraints or compromised the guards.”
“You should render them deaf, so he can’t subvert them,” she suggested. It was meant as a joke, but Goddard took it seriously.
“Sadly, they’d heal within an hour.”
So instead of deafening the guards, silence was achieved the old-fashioned way. Rowan was gagged. However, when Ayn came to check on Rowan that afternoon, he had managed to work the gag off. He was all smiles in spite of being practically hog-tied.
“Hi, Ayn,” he said brightly. “Having a good day?”
“Haven’t you heard?” she quipped back. “Every day’s a good day since Goddard became Overblade.”
“We’re sorry, Your Honor,” said one of the guards. “Since we were ordered to keep our distance, we couldn’t replace the gag. Perhaps you can do it.”
“What’s he been saying?”
“Nothing,” said the other guard. “He’s been singing a song that was popular a few years ago. He tried to get us to sing along, but we didn’t.”