“This baby is not your ordinary pyre!” explained the tech in charge as he wanded off Rowan’s pain nanites. “I was part of the team that designed this beauty! There are actually four kinds of wood here. Ash wood for an even burn, Osage orange for heat, rowan wood for – well – obvious reasons, and a few pockets of knotty pine for a nice crackle!”
The tech checked the tweaker’s readout, confirming that Rowan’s pain nanites had been shut down, then got back to explaining the wonders of the death float, like a kid at the science fair.
“Oh, and you’re gonna love this!” he said. “The branches on the outer rim have been treated with potassium salts, so they’ll burn violet – then farther up, it’s calcium chloride, so they’ll burn blue, and so on and so forth, through all the colors of the spectrum!” Then he pointed at the black robe that the guards had forcibly put Rowan in. “And that robe has been infused with strontium chloride so it burns deep red. You’ll be better than New Year’s Eve fireworks!”
“Gee, thanks,” Rowan said flatly. “Too bad I won’t get to see it.”
“Oh, you will,” the tech said cheerily. “There’s an exhaust fan built into the base that will suck all the smoke away, so everyone will get a good view – even you!” Then he took out a piece of brown cloth. “This is a guncotton gag,” the tech told him. “It’s quick burning, and’ll incinerate right off the moment it’s exposed to heat.” Then he stopped himself, finally realizing that Rowan didn’t need or want to know these things. A quick-burning gag that allowed people to hear him scream was not the kind of accessory he could get enthused about. Now Rowan was glad they hadn’t offered him a last meal, because he was way too nauseated to have held it down.
Behind the tech, Scythe Rand entered the snarl of branches. Even the prospect of her was better than a blow-by-blow description of his dazzling incineration.
“You’re not here to talk to him,” Rand snapped.
Immediately the tech caved like a scolded pup. “Yes, Your Honor. I’m sorry, Your Honor.”
“Give me the gag and get lost.”
“Yes, Scythe Rand. Sorry again. Anyway, he’s good to go.” He gave her a thumbs-up, she grabbed the gag, and he retreated with his shoulders hunched.
“How much longer?” Rowan asked Rand.
“It’s about to start,” she told him. “A few speeches and you’re on.”
Rowan found he had no heart left to banter with her. He could not be cavalier about this anymore. “Will you watch,” he asked, “or look away?” He didn’t know why he cared, but he did.
Rand didn’t answer him. Instead she said, “I’m not sorry to see you die, Rowan. But I’m annoyed by how it’s going down. Frankly, I just want it to be over.”
“So do I,” he told her. “I’m trying to figure out if it’s worse knowing what’s going to happen, or if it would have been better not to know.” He took a moment, then asked, “Did Tyger know?”
She took a step back from him. “I’m not letting you play your little head games on me anymore, Rowan.”
“No games,” he said honestly. “I just want to know. Did you tell him what was happening to him before you took his body? Did he have at least a few moments to make peace with it?”
“No,” she told him. “He never knew. He thought he was about to be ordained as a scythe. Then we put him under, and that was that.”
Rowan nodded. “Kind of like dying in his sleep.”
“What?”
“It’s how they say all mortals wanted to go. In their sleep, peacefully, without ever knowing. I guess it makes sense.”
Rowan supposed he said too much, because Rand put the gag on and tightened it.
“Once the flames reach you, try to breathe them in,” she told him. “It will go faster for you if you do.”
Then she left without looking back.
Ayn could not get the image of Rowan Damisch out of her head. She’d seen him incapacitated before – tied up, tied down, shackled, and restrained any number of ways. But this time it was different. He wasn’t plucky or defiant; he was resigned. He didn’t look like the shrewd killing machine Goddard had turned him into. He looked like exactly what he was: a frightened boy who got in over his head.
Well, it serves him right, Ayn thought, trying to shake it off. What goes around comes around, isn’t that what mortals used to say?
As she walked out onto the field, a wind swooped through the bowl of the stadium, fluttering her robe. The stands were just about full now. More than one thousand scythes and thirty thousand citizens. A capacity crowd.
Rand sat beside Goddard and his underscythes. Constantine would not miss the gleaning of Rowan Damisch, but he didn’t seem any more pleased by this than Ayn did.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Constantine?” Goddard asked, clearly to goad him.
“I recognize the importance of an event around which to rally the public and present a unified North Merica,” Constantine said. “It’s a strong strategy and one that is likely to mark a turning point in scythe affairs.”
It was complimentary but didn’t answer the question. A perfectly diplomatic response. Goddard read through it, though, as Ayn knew he would, picking up on Constantine’s disapproval.
“You are nothing, if not consistent,” Goddard told him. “Constantine the Consistent. I do believe that is how history will come to know you.”
“There are worse attributes,” Constantine told him.
“Did you at least extend a personal invitation to our ‘friends’ in Texas to attend?” Goddard asked.
“I did. They didn’t respond.”
“No, I expect they wouldn’t. Shame – I would have much liked them to see the family they’ve chosen to exclude themselves from.”
The agenda for the evening had the four other North Merican High Blades giving speeches – each one carefully written to hit a certain point that Goddard wanted hit.
High Blade Hammerstein of EastMerica would lament the many souls lost on Endura, and the other unlucky scythes so brutally ended by Scythe Lucifer.
High Blade Pickford of WestMerica would talk about North Merican unity and how the alliance of five out of the six North Merican scythedoms made life better for everyone.
High Blade Tizoc of Mexiteca would invoke the mortal age, point out how far the world had come, and leave the audience with a veiled warning to other scythedoms that not aligning with Goddard could bring back the bad old days.
High Blade MacPhail of NorthernReach would give credit to all those involved in putting this event together. She would also highlight members of the audience, scythes and ordinary people as well, whose favor it was worth currying.
And then finally Goddard would deliver an address that would wrap it all up in a nice bow before he set the pyre ablaze.
“This will not just be the gleaning of a public enemy,” he had told Ayn and his underscythes. “It’s a bottle of champagne smashed upon a ship. This shall mark the christening of a new time for the human race.” It was as if Goddard looked upon it religiously. A burnt offering to purify the path and appease the gods.