Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(77)

“Hi, Rowan.”

It was Tyger. He was silhouetted against the light coming in from the hallway, so Rowan couldn’t see his face, but he recognized the voice. He sounded tired and raspy.

“What’s going on, Tyger? Why did Rand do this to me? And what the hell is that you’re sitting in?”

“It’s called a wheelchair,” he said, choosing only to answer the third question. “It’s from the Age of Mortality. Not much need for it these days, but it came in useful today.”

There was something odd about the way Tyger spoke. Not just the raspy tone of his voice, but the cadence of his speech, his choice of words, and the way he enunciated them so clearly.

Tyger shifted a hand, and something on it caught the moonlight. Rowan didn’t need to be told what it was.

“You got your ring.”

“Yes,”? Tyger said. “Yes, I did.”

There was a feeling in Rowan’s gut now, heavy and putrid. It was trying to work its way up to the surface. A part of Rowan already knew what it was, but he wasn’t willing to let it seep into his awareness—as if refusing to think about it could chase away a dark specter of truth. But illumination was only a moment away.

“Ayn, I can’t quite reach the light switch—could you get it?”

She reached over, turned on the light, and the reality of the situation hit Rowan with both barrels . . . because although it was Tyger Salazar sitting in the wheelchair, it wasn’t Tyger who Rowan found himself looking at.

He was looking at the smiling face of Scythe Goddard.





* * *




I can communicate in 6,909 living and dead languages. I can have more than fifteen billion simultaneous conversations, and be fully engaged in every single one. I can be eloquent, and charming, funny, and endearing, speaking the words you most need to hear, at the exact moment you need to hear them.

Yet even so, there are unthinkable moments where I can find no words, in any language, living or dead.

And in those moments, if I had a mouth, I might open it to scream.

—The Thunderhead



* * *





29


Repurposed


Rowan felt the world spin. He could breathe out, but couldn’t breathe in, as if Scythe Rand’s knee was on his chest again—as if the room were floating in space, and he longed for the ecstasy of unconsciousness, because that was a better alternative than what he now faced.

“Yes, I can see how the voice would have confused you,” Goddard said, still sounding like Tyger. “It couldn’t be helped.”

“How . . . how . . . ,” was all Rowan could get out. While Rand’s survival had been a shock, at least it made sense—but Rowan had decapitated Goddard! He had seen the man’s headless body burn!

But now Rowan looked to Rand, who stood there in obedience to her mentor, and Rowan knew. Oh, God, he knew.

“You managed to decapitate me right at the jawline,” Goddard said, “above the larynx. Thus my old vocal chords are gone forever. But these will do.”

And what made it even worse was that Goddard wasn’t wearing a scythe’s robe; he was wearing Tyger’s clothes, all the way down to his shoes. It was intentional, Rowan realized—so there would be no doubt in Rowan’s mind what had been done. Rowan turned away.

“No, you must look,” Goddard said. “I insist.” The guard went behind Rowan, grabbed his head, and forced him to face the man in the wheelchair.

“How could you do this?” Rowan hissed.

“Me? Heavens no!” he told Rowan. “It was all Ayn’s idea. I couldn’t do much of anything. She had the presence of mind to rescue the critical part of me from the burning cloister. I am told that I was senseless for nearly a year—blissfully on ice. Believe me, if this had been my doing, it would have been different. It would be your body to which my head would now be attached.”

Rowan could not hide his anguish. His tears flowed with fury and unimaginable sorrow. ?They could have chosen anyone for this, but they hadn’t. They chose Tyger. For the sole reason that he was Rowan’s friend.

“You sick bastards!”

“Sick?” said Goddard. “I wasn’t the one who beheaded his mentor scythe and turned against his comrades. What you did—and what you’ve been doing during my nitrogen slumber—is unforgivable by scythe law! Ayn and I, on the other hand, have broken no laws. Your friend Tyger was gleaned, and then his body was repurposed. Simple as that. It may be unorthodox, but under the circumstances, it is entirely understandable. What you see before you is nothing more and nothing less than the consequence of your own actions.”

Rowan watched Tyger’s chest rise and fall with Goddard’s breathing. His hands rested limply on the arms of the wheelchair. It seemed a chore for him to move them.

“This sort of procedure is, of course, much more delicate than simple speedhealing,” Goddard said. “It will take a few more days until I have full control of your friend’s body.”

Then he struggled to raise his hand, regarding it as he flexed his fingers into a fist.

“Look at that progress! I look forward to the day that I can take you on in Bokator. I understand you’ve already been helping to train me.”

Training. It all made a twisted sort of sense now. The sparring, the attention to Tyger’s physique. Even the massages—like Kobe beef being prepared for slaughter. But there was one question left. Something Rowan did not want to ask, but he felt he owed it to Tyger.