Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(63)

We became unnatural the moment we conquered death, Scythe Faraday would say—but couldn’t that be a reason to seek whatever nature we could find within ourselves? If he learned to enjoy gleaning, would it be such a tragedy?

He kept these thoughts to himself, but Scythe Volta could read, if not the specifics, then the general nature of his thoughts.

“I know you were first brought on as an apprentice for very different traits than the ones Scythe Goddard admires,” Volta told him. “He sees compassion and forbearance as weakness. But you have other traits that are beginning to awaken. You’ll be a new-order scythe yet!”

Of all of Goddard’s junior scythes, Volta was the most admirable and the one Rowan most related to. He imagined they might be friends, once they were equals.

“Do you remember the pain when we beat you down?” Volta asked one afternoon, at the end of memory training.

“How could I ever forget?”

“There are three reasons for it,” ?Volta told him. “The first is to connect you with our ancestors, reliving the pain, and the fear of pain, because that’s what led to civilization and humanity’s advancement beyond its own mortality. The second is a rite of passage—something sorely missing in our passive world. But the third reason may be the most important: Being made to suffer pain frees us to feel the joy of being human.”

To Rowan it sounded like more empty platitudes—but Volta wasn’t like Goddard that way. He didn’t usually speak in lofty, meaningless ideas.

“I felt plenty of joy in my life without having to be beaten to a pulp,” Rowan told him.

Volta nodded. “You felt some—but just a shadow of what it can be. Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy. The best we get is pleasantness.”

Rowan had no response to that, because it struck him as true. He had led a pleasant life. His biggest complaint was being marginalized. But didn’t everyone feel marginalized? They lived in a world where nothing anyone did really mattered. Survival was guaranteed. Income was guaranteed. Food was plentiful, and comfort was a given. The Thunderhead saw to everyone’s needs. When you need nothing, what else can life be but pleasant?

“You’ll get it eventually,” Scythe Volta told him. “Now that your pain nanites are dialed to zero, it’s inevitable.”

? ? ?

Esme remained a mystery. Sometimes she came down to eat with them, sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes Rowan would catch her reading in various places around the mansion: mortal age books made of paper that had apparently been collected by the owner before he surrendered it all to Scythe Goddard. She would always hide from him whatever it was she was reading, as if embarrassed by it.

“When you become a scythe, are you going to stay?” she asked him.

“Maybe,” he told her. “And maybe not. Maybe I won’t get to be a scythe. So maybe I’ll be nowhere.”

She ignored that last part of his answer. “You should stay,” she told him.

The fact that this nine-year-old girl seemed to have a crush on him was one more complication Rowan didn’t need. She seemed to get everything she wanted. So did that mean she got him if she wanted that, too?

“My name’s Esmerelda, but everyone calls me Esme,” she told him when she followed him into the weight room one morning. Usually he’d be nice to younger kids—but since he was told he had to be nice, he suddenly found he didn’t want to be.

“I know, Scythe Goddard told me. You really shouldn’t be here—these weights can be dangerous.”

“And you’re not supposed to be here without Scythe Chomsky to spot you,” she pointed out, then sat down on a bench press showing no sign of leaving. “If you like, we could play a game or something when you’re done with your training.”

“I really don’t play games.”

“Not even cards?”

“Not even cards.”

“It must have been boring to be you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not boring anymore.”

“I’ll teach you to play cards after dinner tomorrow,” she announced. And since Esme got what she wanted, Rowan was there at the appointed time, whether he wanted to be there or not.

“Esme must be kept happy,” Scythe Volta reminded him after Rowan’s card game with her.

“Why?” Rowan asked. “Goddard doesn’t seem to care about anyone who doesn’t wear scythe robes, so why does he care about her?”

“Just be decent to her.”

“I’m decent to everyone,” Rowan pointed out. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a decent person.”

Volta laughed. “Hold on to that for as long as you can,” he said, as if doing so would be a very difficult thing.

? ? ?

Then came the day Scythe Goddard threw a new wrinkle into the taut fabric of Rowan’s life. It came without warning, as did all things Scythe Goddard threw at him. It was during killcraft. Today Rowan was working with two blades—daggers in each hand. Two blades were difficult for him; he favored his right and had little dexterity with his left. Scythe Goddard loved to make it difficult for Rowan in these training sessions and always judged him harshly when he didn’t rise to some imaginary level of perfection. Yet Rowan had been surprising himself. He had been getting better at wielding weaponry, and had even drawn forth mild admissions of approval from Goddard.