Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(36)
Although she never confessed her age, he guessed it at twenty-five—and a true twenty-five. There was something about an older person who reset back to their twenties that made them easy to spot. There was a staleness to their youth. But the emerald scythe was going through life for the first time.
Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely convinced that the woman even was a scythe. She did have a scythe’s ring, and it appeared to be real, but he never saw her go out gleaning—and he knew enough about scythes to know they had a quota to fill. What’s more, she never met with other scythes. Wasn’t there some sort of meeting they were obliged to attend several times a year? Conclave, it was called. Well, perhaps this isolation was a Texas thing. Rules and traditions were different here than in the rest of the Mericas. They didn’t call it the Lone Star region for nothing.
Regardless, he wasn’t about to look this gift horse in the mouth. In a family where he had always been an afterthought at best, he had no problem being the center of someone’s attention.
And he was strong now. ?Agile. ?A specimen to be envied and admired. So even if it was all for naught, and the emerald scythe turned him loose without as much as a goodbye-and-thank-you, he could return to the party circuit without missing a beat—and with a build like he had now, he’d be in high demand. His ripped physique would make him high-end eye candy for sure.
And if he wasn’t let go, then what? Would he be given a ring and sent out to glean? Could he bring himself to do it? Sure, he had pulled his share of pseudo-lethal practical jokes—hadn’t everyone? He still smiled to think of his all-time best one. The diving pool at his high school had been drained for maintenance, and Tyger had the bright idea of filling it with holographic water. The school’s best diver went up to the ten-meter platform, and proceeded to do a perfect swan dive that ended in an unintentional splat. The moan he let out before he went deadish was classic. It was almost worth the three-day suspension and the six weekends of public service levied on him by the Thunderhead. Even the diver, after getting back from the recovery center a few days later, admitted it was a pretty good joke.
But deadish and dead were two entirely different things. Did he have it in him to end life permanently, and do it every day? Well, maybe he could be like that scythe whom Rowan had apprenticed under. Scythe Goddard—who knew how to throw great parties. If that was part of the job description, Tyger could handle the rest of it, he supposed.
Of course, Tyger wasn’t entirely convinced that this was an apprenticeship for scythehood. After all, Rowan had failed his apprenticeship. Tyger found it hard to believe that he could succeed where Rowan had not. Plus, Rowan had been changed by his experience. He had turned all dark and serious by the mental challenges he had been forced to face. There were no such mental challenges for Tyger. His brain was pretty much left out of it, and that was fine by him. It had never been his best organ.
Perhaps he was being trained to be a scythe’s bodyguard, although he couldn’t imagine why a scythe would need one. No one was stupid enough to attack a scythe, when the punishment was the gleaning of one’s entire family. If that turned out to be the case, he wasn’t sure he would accept the job. All the severity with none of the power? The perks would have to be primo for him to agree to do it.
? ? ?
“I think you’re almost ready,” the emerald scythe told him over dinner that night. Her bot had just served them each a lean slab of steak—and real steak, not the synthesized stuff. Natural protein was, after all, the best for building muscle.
“Ready for my ring, you mean?” he asked. “Or do you have something else in mind?”
She offered him an enigmatic smile that he found more attractive than he wanted to admit. He hadn’t found her so when he first arrived, but there was something about the vicious, yet intimate nature of Bokator sparring that changed a relationship.
“If it’s for a scythe’s ring, aren’t there trials I have to face in conclave?” he asked.
“Trust me, party boy,” she said, “you’ll have that ring on your finger without ever having to go to conclave. You have my personal guarantee.”
So he was going to be a scythe! Tyger ate the rest of his meal with gusto. It was both heady and chilling to finally know the nature of his destiny!
Part Three
ENEMIES WITHIN ENEMIES
* * *
Let’s all forsake, The Land of Wake,
And break for the Land of Nod.
Where we can try,
To touch the sky,
Or dance beneath the sod.
A toll for the living, A toll for the lost, A toll for the wise ones, Who tally the cost, So let’s escape,
Due south of ?Wake, And make for the Land of Nod.
—Nursery Rhyme (origin unknown)
* * *
15
Hall of the Founders
The Great Library of Alexandria—considered one of the wonders of the ancient world—was the crowning glory of Ptolemy’s reign. It was the intellectual center of the world, when the world was still the center of the universe and all else revolved around it. Unfortunately, the Roman Empire believed their version of the world was the center of the universe, and burned the library to the ground. It was considered one of the greatest losses of literature and wisdom that the world has ever known.