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Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.
Black was an absence of light, and scythes were the opposite. Luminous and enlightened, they were acknowledged as the very best of humanity—which is why they were chosen for the job.
There were rumors of scythes who required their victims to prepare them a meal before being gleaned.
Hope in the shadow of fear is the world’s most powerful motivator.
Citra was well known for her temper. It often arrived before reason, and left only after the damage was done. Tonight would be no exception.
“That a scythe is merely the instrument of death, but it is your hand that swings me. You and your parents, and everyone else in this world are the wielders of scythes.” Then he gently put the knife in her hands. “We are all accomplices. You must share the responsibility.”
The ending of human life used to be in the hands of nature. But we stole it. Now we have a monopoly on death. We are its sole distributor.
“Be warned that you will not receive kindness from anyone but me for what you did here today,” he said. “But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell.”
It was no use—he had been tried and convicted—and the more he denied it, the more convinced they’d be of his guilt. They didn’t need his act of courage; what they needed was someone to blame. Someone to hate. They couldn’t take their wrath out on the scythe, but Rowan Damisch was the perfect candidate.
“Therein lies the paradox of the profession,” Faraday said. “Those who wish to have the job should not have it… and those who would most refuse to kill are the only ones who should.”
“But look at it in perspective: A scythe wants for nothing in this world. All of your needs and desires would be met, and you’d never have to fear being gleaned.”
“You’d never have worry about being gleaned either.… A scythe’s family is immune from gleaning for as long as that scythe’s alive.”
“You want me to spend my life killing people?”
“Please, Citra, it’s not killing, it’s gleaning. It’s important. It’s necessary. Sure, nobody likes it, but everyone agrees it has to happen and that someone has to do it. Why not you?”
What must life have been like in the Age of Mortality? Full of passions, both good and bad. Fear giving rise to faith. Despair giving meaning to elation. They say even the winters were colder and the summers were warmer in those days.
“People playing at poverty,”
The greatest achievement of the human race was not conquering death. It was ending government.
The emperor not only had no clothes—turns out he had no testicles either.
It was standard procedure for scythes to glean the families of those who resist or run from being gleaned. Familial gleaning was a remarkable deterrent.
People can read anything, but no one does. All they do is play games and watch cat holograms.”
Now Esme began to panic. She had heard stories of scythes who did mass gleanings, but until now she thought they were nothing but stories.
Life was about forging time, not just passing time.
I wouldn’t want the return of crime, but I do tire of we scythes being the sole purveyors of fear. It would be nice to have competition.
She wanted to tell him how much she admired him for what he had done. Choosing compassion over obligation. There was a lesson to be learned in every gleaning, and today’s was one she would not soon forget. The sanctity of the law… and the wisdom to know when it must be broken.
Power politics might have been a thing of the past elsewhere, but it was alive and seething in the Scythedom.
“There are no accolades for the unworthy,” Faraday said.
“Motives can easily be beaten into weapons.”
“I propose,” said Scythe Rand, with the slickness of a deathstalker scorpion, “that upon the confirmation of the winner, the first order of business will be for that winner to glean the loser.”
“They will find whatever button will make you dance, and dance you will, no matter how hideous the tune.”
“Perhaps everything will change again.”
I am a man who chooses to glean with pride, not shame. I choose to embrace life, even as I deal death. Make no mistake—we scythes are above the law because we deserve to be.
Goddard, huh
but where power is concerned there are always those who find ways to grasp for it.
I can accept a world without me in it… but I can’t bear the thought of other scythes gleaning in my absence.
“The difference between you and most other people, Citra, is that another person would not have cared once that girl was revived. They would have simply forgotten about it. Scythe Faraday saw something in you when he chose you—perhaps the weight of your conscience.” And then she added, “It was that same weight that let me know you were lying in conclave.”
Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death, and then brought about that death with vicious consistency.
“Perhaps… but you can’t deny this is a turning point in your life, and every turning point must be marked by an event—one that burns itself into you as indelibly as a brand.”
Training under Scythe Goddard is different from under Scythe Faraday. It’s intense, physical, and I can’t deny that I’m getting better at everything I do. If I am a weapon, then I’m being sharpened against a grindstone every day.
“Yesterday you were gods. Today you are mortal. Your death is my gift to you. Accept it with grace and humility.”
Fuck
things, or to pass judgment on what she saw. She accepted her situation at face value, and never spoke ill of her benefactor—or more accurately, her captor, for she was clearly Goddard’s prisoner, even though she might not see it that way. Hers was a gilded cage, but it was a cage nonetheless.
He sees you as a challenge—because if he can turn one of Faraday’s apprentices to his way of thinking, it proves he can turn anyone.”
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Rowan said. “Goddard isn’t a scythe. He’s a killer.” It was the first time Rowan dared to say it out loud. “There’s a lot written about killers from the mortal age—monsters like Jack the Ripper, or Charlie Manson, or Cyber Sally—and the only difference between them and Goddard is that people let Goddard get away with it. The mortals knew how wrong it was, but somehow we’ve forgotten.”
“The killers are rising to power,” Scythe Curie said. “And if they do, the days of this world will be very dark indeed. It is left to the truly honorable scythes to stand firm against it. I look forward to the day you join in that fight.”
then your best possible position would be to achieve scythehood yourself, and fight it from the inside.”
“Self-gleaning is every scythe’s last prerogative. You can’t rob that from me, Rowan. Don’t even try.”
“Promise me you’ll be a better scythe than I was.” “I promise, Shawn.”
My greatest wish for humanity is not for peace or comfort or joy. It is that we all still die a little inside every time we witness the death of another. For only the pain of empathy will keep us human. There’s no version of God that can help us if we ever lose that.
“We could have been called reapers,” Goddard said, “but our founders saw fit to call us scythes—because we are the weapons in mankind’s immortal hand. You are a fine weapon, Rowan, sharp, and precise. And when you strike, you are glorious to behold.”
“You’re a monster!” he shouted. “The worst kind, because you don’t just kill, you turn others into killers like yourself.”
I have become the monster of monsters, he thought as he watched it all burn. The butcher of lions. The executioner of eagles.
Dasurv? or dasurv!
For now I must give all my attention to gleaning with compassion and conscience, with hopes that it will help our perfect world stay perfect.
