Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(92)

He looked at the two flaming vehicles and sighed, knowing he’d be a laughingstock for his failure today. He looked at Scythe Curie—her steely gray eyes, her calm control of the situation—and he realized he never really stood a chance against the Marquesa de la Muerte. There wasn’t much he could do but glare at her in heartfelt disapproval.

“Very bad!” he said, wagging a finger. “Very, very bad.”





* * *





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

I have one dream that recurs far too often. I am walking on an unfamiliar street that I feel I should know, but don’t. I have a pitchfork, which I’ve never used in real life; its awkward tines are not well suited for gleaning, and when it strikes it reverberates, giving off a sound that is something between ringing and moaning, like the numbing vibration of a Tonist bident.

There is a woman before me whom I must glean. I jab at her, yet the pitchfork fails to do the job. Her wounds heal instantaneously. She is not upset or frightened. Nor is she amused. She is simply resigned to stand there, allowing me to futilely attempt to end her life. She opens her mouth to speak, but her voice is soft and her words are drowned out by the fork’s ghastly moans, so I never hear her.

And I always wake up screaming.

—From the gleaning journal of H.S. Curie



* * *





32


Troubled Pilgrimage




All publicars are on the grid, but scythes can’t track their movements until their navigational data is dropped into the backbrain. That happens every sixty minutes, so that’s how often you’ll have to change cars.

Scythe Curie’s instructions had come at Citra quickly—she only hoped she could remember them all. She could do this. Her apprenticeship had taught her to be self-sufficient and resourceful. She ditched the first publicar at a small town right on time. She was worried that there might not be as many vacant publicars in the Chilargentine Region, especially this remote an area, but the Thunderhead was remarkable at projecting local need. In all things, there always seemed to be a supply to fit the demand.

She had already changed into the coarse Tonist frock and had pulled its hood over her head. It was remarkable how people avoided her.

Vehicle changes every hour meant that her pursuers were always right behind her. She realized she had to cut a weaving course, like cargo ships in mortal-age wartime, to throw them off her path and keep them from anticipating where she’d be next. For over a day she could never sleep for more than an hour at a time, and several instances when there was only road and no civilization for long stretches, she had to be crafty, ditching the car before arriving in town, where Chilargentine scythes and officers of the local BladeGuard were already waiting for her. She actually walked right past one scythe, certain she’d be caught, but she was smart enough to cross downwind of his DNA detector. The fact that the scythes themselves were supervising the hunt and not just leaving it to the BladeGuard made Citra feel all the more terrified, yet oddly important, too.

Once you reach Buenos Aires, take a hypertrain north, across Amazonia to the city of Caracas. As soon as you cross the border into Amazonia, you’ll be safe. They won’t lift a finger to help Xenocrates, or to detain you.

Citra knew the reason for this from her historical studies. Too many scythes from other regions glean out of their jurisdiction while on vacation in Amazonia. There’s no law against it, but it has made the Amazonian Scythedom uncooperative and openly obstructionist when it comes to assisting scythes from any other region.

The problem was the train in Buenos Aires. They’d be waiting for her in force at every train station and airport. She was saved by a group of Tonists headed to Isthmus.

“We seek the Great Fork in the umbilical between north and south,” they told her, thinking she was one of them. “There are rumors it is hidden in an ancient engineering work. We believe it could be sealed within one of the gates of the Panama Canal.”

It took all her will not to laugh.

“Will you join us, sister?”

And so she did, just long enough to board the train north right under the noses of more watchful eyes than she could count, holding her breath—not out of fear, but so she wouldn’t trip any DNA detectors in the station.

There were seven Tonists in the group. Apparently, this branch of the cult only traveled in groups of seven or twelve, as per musical mathematics—but they were willing to break the rule and add her to their number. Their accent suggested they weren’t from Merican continents, but somewhere in EuroScandia.

“Where have your journeys taken you?” one of them asked, a man who seemed the leader. He smiled whenever he spoke, which made him all the more off-putting.

“Here and there,” she told him.

“What is your quest?”

“My quest?”

“Don’t all wandering pilgrims have quests?”

“Yes,” she said, “I . . . seek an answer to the burning question: Is it A-flat or G-sharp?”

And one of the others said, “Don’t even get me started!”

There were no windows, for there was no scenery to see in the subsurface vacuum tube. Citra had traveled by air and on standard maglev trains, but the narrow, claustrophobic nature of a hypertrain made her uneasy.