Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(51)

“I like it,” he said, “but you still haven’t told me what we’re going to do.”

Then she smiled. Not her usual sly grin, but something much broader, and much more frightening. Much more alluring.

“We’re gonna kill us a couple of scythes.”





* * *




My greatest challenge has always been to take care of every man, woman, and child on a personal level. To always be available. To continuously see to their needs, both physical and emotional, and yet to exist far enough in the background as to not step on their free will. I am the safety net that allows them to soar.

This is the challenge I must rise to every day.? It should be exhausting, but exhaustion is not a thing I am capable of feeling. I understand the concept, of course, but I do not experience it. This is a good thing, for exhaustion would hinder my ability to be omnipresent.

I am most concerned for those to whom, by my own law, I cannot speak. The scythes, who have no one but each other. Unsavories, who have either slipped temporarily from a more noble life, or have chosen a lifestyle of defiance. But although I am silent, this doesn’t mean that I don’t see, or hear, or feel profound empathy for their struggles due to the poor choices they make. And the terrible things that they sometimes do.

—The Thunderhead



* * *





20


In Hot Water


High Blade Xenocrates enjoyed his bath. In fact, the ornate, Roman-style bathhouse had been built expressly for him. He made it clear, however, that it was a public facility. It was filled with many separate chambers where anyone could partake of its soothing mineral waters. Of course, his own personal bath chamber was off-limits to the public. He could not abide the idea of stewing in the sweat of strangers.

His bath was larger than the others—the size of a small swimming pool, decorated above and below the surface of the water with colorful mosaic tiles depicting the lives of the first scythes. The bath served two functions for the High Blade. First it was a place of refuge, where he could commune with his deeper self in the scalding waters, which he kept at a temperature at the very limit of his ability to endure. Second, it was a place of business. He would invite other scythes, and prominent men and women of the MidMerican community, to discuss matters of importance. Proposals would be entertained, deals would be made. And since most who joined him were not accustomed to the heat, it always put the High Blade at a distinct advantage.

The Year of the Capybara was drawing to a close, and as the days of each year waned, the High Blade visited his bath more frequently. It was a way to cleanse himself of the old year and prepare for the new. ?And this year there was so much to cleanse. Not so much his own acts, but the acts of others that clung to him like a reeking garment. All the unpleasant things that happened on his watch.

Most of his tenure as MidMerican High Blade had been uneventful and somewhat tedious—but the past few years had more than made up for it in both misery and intrigue. It was his hope that calm, relaxed reflection would help put it all behind him, and prepare him for the new challenges ahead.

As was his custom, he was drinking a Moscow mule. It had always been his drink of choice—a blend of vodka, ginger beer, and lime, named after the infamous city in the TransSiberian region where the last resistance riots took place. That was way back in the early immortal days, when the Thunderhead was first elevated to power, and the scythedom accepted dominion over death.

It was a symbolic drink for the High Blade. A meaningful one—both sweet and bitter, and substantially intoxicating in sufficient quantity. It always made him think of that glorious day when the riots were subdued and the world finally settled into its current peaceful state. More than ten thousand people were rendered deadish by the end of the Moscow resistance riots—but unlike mortal-age riots, no lives were lost. All those killed were revived, and were returned to their loved ones. Of course, the scythedom saw fit to glean the most offensive of the objectors, as well as those who objected to the gleaning of objectors. After that, objections were few and far between.

Those were harder times, to be sure. Nowadays, anyone who railed against the system was ignored with indifference by the scythedom, and was embraced with understanding by the Thunderhead. Nowadays, to glean someone because of one’s opinion—or even because of one’s behavior—would be deemed a serious breach of the second scythe commandment, because it would most certainly show a bias. Scythe Curie was the last one to truly test the commandment over a hundred years ago, by ridding the world of its last notorious political figures. It could have been considered a violation of the second commandment, but not a single scythe leveled an accusation against her. Scythes had no love of politicians.

Xenocrates was handed a second Moscow mule by a bath attendant. He had yet to take a sip, when the attendant said the oddest thing.

“Have you sufficiently boiled yourself, Your Excellency, or has the heat this year not been enough for you?”

The High Blade never much noticed the attendants who served him here. Their stealthy, unobtrusive nature typified their service. Rarely did anyone, much less a servant, speak to him with such disrespect.

“Excuse me?” he said, with a calculated dose of indignation, and turned to the attendant. It took a moment for the High Blade to recognize the young man. He wore no black robe, just the pale uniform of a bath worker. He looked no more intimidating now than he had when Xenocrates had first met him nearly two years before, when he was an innocent apprentice. There was nothing innocent about him anymore.