“Are you going to wallow in them?”
He turned to see Scythe Rand standing in the doorway. She sauntered to the bed and picked up a scythe diamond. She turned it in her fingers, looking into its many facets. “Are you going to roll in them like a pig in mud?”
Goddard did not have the strength to be angry with her. “I am in a dark place, Ayn,” he said. “More and more people are rallying around Scythe Anastasia and her accusations.” He reached down and rolled his hand across the diamonds on the bed, their sharp edges scraping the skin of his palm. Then he impulsively gripped a handful of them, squeezing them tightly until they drew blood.
“Why must I always be the victim? Why must people make it their mission to tear me down? Have I not honored the commandments and done all a scythe is sworn to do? Have I not been a unifier in troubled times?”
“Yes, Robert,” she agreed. “But we’re the ones who made the times troubled.”
He couldn’t deny the truth of that, but it was always just a means to an end.
“Is it true what Alighieri said?” she asked.
“Is it true?” he mocked. “Is it true? Of course it’s true. And, just as that preening old weasel said, we were protecting our world, protecting our way of life.”
“Protecting yourself.”
“And you, Ayn,” Goddard pointed out. “Every scythe who will ever be ordained has benefited from our bid to keep humanity planet-bound.”
She made no comment, no challenge to his defense. He didn’t know whether it was because she agreed, or because she simply didn’t care.
“Constantine joined the LoneStar scythedom,” she told him.
The thought of it was so absurd, it actually made Goddard laugh. “Good riddance. The man was useless to us.” Then he took a good look at Scythe Rand. “Are you leaving as well?”
“Not today, Robert,” she told him.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’m naming you third underscythe, in Constantine’s place. I should have done it long ago. You’ve been loyal, Ayn. You speak your mind whether I ask for it or not, but you’re loyal.”
Her expression didn’t change. She didn’t thank him. She didn’t look away. She just held his gaze, studying him. If there was one thing Goddard did not like, it was being the subject of scrutiny.
“We will get past this,” he told her. “We’ll turn the angry eye of inquiry back on the Tonists, where it belongs.” And when she didn’t respond, he dismissed her with a curt “That will be all.”
She stood there for a moment more, then turned and left. After she was gone, he closed the door and gently climbed into bed. He didn’t so much wallow in the diamonds as he did spread himself across them, feeling their unforgiving sharpness dig into his back, his legs, and his arms.
The Toll’s inner circle had now expanded to six: the Toll, Curate Mendoza, Sister Astrid, Scythe Morrison – and now Scythe Anastasia and Jeri Soberanis. They were one short of a Tonist Octave – although Astrid was quick to point out that the Thunder was with them, and that made seven.
Alighieri’s confession was now out there, its truth beyond anyone’s ability to deny. Now it was a matter of letting the news take root in the world. After they had left the old scythe to his mirror, with a brand-new gold-plated brush, Morrison found them a farmhouse where they could spend the night. One where the owners were not home.
“In mortal days,” Jeri pointed out, “this would have been considered breaking and entering.”
“Well, we entered, but we didn’t break anything,” Morrison said. “And besides, as scythes we’re still allowed to. Just because the world’s turning on Goddard and his followers doesn’t mean it’ll turn on the rest of us … right?”
But no one answered, because no one was sure anymore. It was all uncharted territory.
Mendoza was busy as ever, gathering intel, telling curates in his network how to handle aggression, because anger against Tonists was at an all-time high.
“There is no question that we are at war now,” he told the others. “But I have every faith that we will triumph.”
To which Astrid gave a somewhat facetious “All rejoice.”
“So now the world knows Goddard’s crimes against humanity,” Anastasia said. “Even his own followers will start to tear him down … but he won’t go down easy.”
“Cunning people find other people to drown for them,” Jeri said.
“You played a good hand,” Greyson told Anastasia. “It’ll be hard for him to come up with a better one.”
She soon went to bed, the day having exhausted her, and although Greyson was just as spent, he was too uneasy to sleep. But the farmhouse had a fireplace, and Jeri found some chamomile tea to brew. The two of them sat together in front of the fire.
“Flames are strange things,” Jeri said. “Enticing, comforting, and yet the most dangerous force there is.”
“No, that would be Goddard,” Greyson said, and Jeri laughed.
“I know you might feel this is insincere,” Jeri said, “but I am honored to be part of this troop of world changers. When I was hired by Scythe Possuelo to salvage Endura, I never dreamed I’d be part of something so important.”
“I don’t think you’re being insincere, Jeri. And thank you. But I don’t feel important. I keep waiting for people to figure out that I’m nothing special.”
“I think the Thunderhead made a good choice,” Jeri told him. “The position that you’re in, the power that you wield … anyone else would have let it go to their head. If I was the only one who could talk to the Thunderhead, it certainly would have gone to my head.” Jeri grinned. “I would have been a very bad Toll.”
“Maybe,” said Greyson, “but you would have done it with style.”
Jeri’s smile broadened. “The holy man speaks the truth.”
The Thunderhead was present in all rooms of the farmhouse, because the owners, like most people, had cameras and sensors everywhere. They hadn’t turned them off just because the Thunderhead had stopped speaking to them.
It was present for Greyson’s conversation with Jeri. It was there when Greyson finally relaxed enough to go to sleep in the room he had chosen – the smallest of the bedrooms. And although he turned off the lights, one of the three cameras in the room was infrared, so the Thunderhead could still see his heat signature as a bright silhouette in the darkness. It could still watch him sleep, and that was, as always, a comfort.
It could tell, from his breathing and his nanites, the exact moment he slipped into delta sleep – the deepest stage of slumber. No dreaming, no stirring. Greyson’s brain emitted slow delta waves. It was the way the human brain rejuvenated, defragged, and prepared itself for the rigors of waking life. It was also the time when the sleeper was so far from consciousness that they could not be reached.
Which is why the Thunderhead chose this time to speak.
“I’m afraid, Greyson,” it said, barely a whisper over the sound of crickets. “I’m afraid that this task is beyond me. Beyond us. I am now certain of the actions that need to be taken, but not certain of the outcome.”