Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
She felt herself being drawn into a drama, and she knew it was burning up valuable time. “If you want to be useful, Morrison, then use all that charm and good looks to get Scythe Curie more votes.”
Morrison smiled. “So you think I’m good-looking?”
She was done here. It just wasn’t worth it. She pushed past him, but not before he said something that stopped her in her tracks.
“Freaky how Goddard isn’t entirely Goddard, isn’t it?”
She turned back to him, his words hooking in her mind so sharply it almost hurt.
Seeing that he had her attention again, he continued. “I mean, a person’s head is like, what, only ten percent of a person, right?”
“Seven percent,” corrected Anastasia, remembering the fact from her anatomy studies. The wheels in her mind that had been at a dead standstill were now spinning with a rare sort of energy.
“Morrison, you’re a genius. I mean, you’re an idiot, but you’re also a genius!”
“Thanks. I think.”
The chamber doors had already opened to readmit the scythes. Anastasia pushed her way through in search of the more friendly faces—the ones she knew might go out on a limb for her.
Scythe Curie was already inside, but she wouldn’t ask Marie anyway; she had enough to contend with. She couldn’t ask Scythe Mandela—he was chair of the bejeweling committee, and would be in charge of bestowing rings to the apprentices who were about to be ordained as scythes. Scythe Al-Farabi was a possibility, but he had already called her out on her poor knowledge of parliamentary procedure—he would just chide her again. What she needed was someone whom she considered a friend, who could educate her in the structural machinations of the scythedom. How things were done . . . and how things were not done.
She thought back to the Thunderhead. How it had found a loophole in its own laws that allowed it to talk to her when she was in a state between life and death. It told her she was important. Critical, even. She suspected part of that rested in her actions today. Now it was Anastasia’s turn to find a loophole, and make it wide enough to push the entire scythedom through.
Finally she settled on a worthy conspirator.
“Scythe Cervantes,” she said, gently grabbing him by the arm, “could I have a word with you?”
• • •
Two new scythes were ordained, and two apprentices were denied. The one who raced for the coin ironically became Scythe Thorpe—after a famed Olympian athlete known for his speed. The other became Scythe McAuliffe, after the first woman astronaut to die in a space disaster—one that occurred long before the awful space disasters of the post-mortal age.
The scythedom was on edge with an incendiary anxiety by the time the first- and second-term apprentices came forward for their trial; the vote for High Blade was all that was on anyone’s mind, but Xenocrates deemed that it would not happen until after the apprentice trials, because regardless of which way the vote fell, there’d be no bringing conclave back to order for more business after that.
The trial, administered by Scythe Salk, was a test of knowledge in poisons. Each apprentice was asked to prepare a specific poison and its antidote, then take them in succession. Six succeeded, three did not, rendering themselves deadish, and had to be rushed to a revival center.
“Very well,” said Xenocrates after the last of the deadish apprentices had been taken out, “do we have any other business before the vote?”
“Just get on with it!” shouted someone who had gotten understandably cranky.
“Very well. Please ready your tablets.” He paused as the scythes all prepared themselves for the instantaneous electronic vote, hiding their tablets in the folds of their robes so that not even their neighbor could see who they voted for. “The vote shall commence on my mark, and continue for ten seconds. Any vote not cast shall be considered an abstention.”
Anastasia said nothing to Scythe Curie. Instead, she met eyes with Scythe Cervantes, who nodded at her. She took a deep breath.
“Commence!” ordered Xenocrates, and the vote began.
Anastasia cast her vote in the first second. Then she waited . . . and waited. She held her breath. The timing had to be perfect. There was no margin for error. Then, eight seconds in, she rose and shouted in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I call for an inquest!”
The High Blade rose. “An inquest? We’re in the middle of a vote!”
“The end of a vote, Your Excellency. Time is up—all votes are now in.” Anastasia did not allow the High Blade to shut her down. “Until the moment the results are announced, any scythe who has the floor may demand an inquest!”
Xenocrates looked to the Parliamentarian, who said, “She’s right, Your Excellency.”
At least a hundred scythes roared in outrage, but Xenocrates, who had long since given up on his gavel, railed against them with such fury that it brought the objections down to a simmer. “You will control yourselves!” he commanded. “And anyone who cannot will be ejected from conclave!” Then he turned to Anastasia. “On what grounds do you call for an inquest? And it had better be good.”
“On the grounds that Mr. Goddard is not sufficiently enough of a scythe to hold the position of High Blade.”
Goddard could not contain himself. “What? This is clearly a tactic aimed at stalling and befuddling the vote!”
“The vote has already been cast!” Xenocrates reminded him.
“Then have the Clerk read the results!” Goddard demanded.
“Excuse me,” said Anastasia, “but I have the floor, and the results cannot be read until I either yield it, or my inquest is denied.”
“Anastasia,” said Xenocrates, “your request makes no sense.”
“I’m sorry to disagree with you, Your Excellency, but it does. As stated in the founding articles during the first World Conclave, a scythe shall be prepared both mind and body for the scythedom, and affirmed at a gathering of regional scythes. But Mr. Goddard has only retained seven percent of the body that was ordained for scythehood. The rest of him—including the part of him that bears his ring—is not, nor has ever been, ordained as a scythe.”
Xenocrates just stared at her, incredulous, and Goddard practically foamed at the mouth.
“This is preposterous!” yelled Goddard.
“No,” countered Anastasia, “what you’ve done, Mr. Goddard, is preposterous. You and your associates replaced your body in a procedure that has been banned by the Thunderhead.”
Scythe Rand stood up. “You’re out of line! Thunderhead rules don’t apply to us! They never have and they never will!”
Still, Anastasia didn’t yield; instead, she continued to calmly appeal to Xenocrates. “Your Excellency, it is not my intent to challenge the election—how could I when we still have no idea who won? But following the rule set early in the life of the scythedom—the Year of the Jaguar, to be exact—by Second World Supreme Blade Napoleon, and I quote, ‘Any contentious event that has no precedent in parliamentary procedure may be brought before the World Council of Scythes in an official inquest.’ ”
Then Scythe Cervantes rose. “I second Honorable Scythe Anastasia’s demand for an inquest,” and upon his seconding, at least a hundred other scythes rose and began to applaud in support of the action. Anastasia looked to Scythe Curie, who was, to say the least, bewildered, but trying to hide it.
“So this is what you were talking with Cervantes about,” she said, with a wry smile. “You sly little devil!”
At the rostrum, Xenocrates deferred to the Parliamentarian, who could do nothing but shrug. “She’s correct, Your Excellency. She has a right to an inquest, as long as the election results have not been read.”
Across the room a furious Goddard raised an arm that wasn’t his and pointed at Xenocrates. “If you go through with this, there will be consequences!”
The High Blade burned him a gaze that made it clear he still controlled the room. “Are you openly threatening me in front of t
That made Goddard backpedal. “No, Your Excellency. I wouldn’t presume to do such a thing! I am merely stating that a delay in announcing the vote would have consequences for the scythedom. MidMerica would be without a High Blade until the end of the inquest.”
“In that case, I shall appoint Scythe Paine, our illustrious Parliamentarian, as temporary High Blade.”
“What?” said Scythe Paine.
Xenocrates ignored him. “He has served with remarkable integrity and is completely impartial to the rising factions within the scythedom. He can preside with—dare I say it—common sense—until this issue can be brought to the World Council. It will be my first task as a Grandslayer. And so, as my last task as High Blade of MidMerica, I grant this inquest. The results of the vote shall be sealed until the inquest is complete.” Then, with a bang of his gavel, he said, “I pronounce this Winter Conclave, Year of the Raptor, officially closed.”
• • •
“Did I not say that she would shake things up?” Scythe Constantine said, over a well-attended dinner at Fulcrum City’s finest restaurant. “Congratulations, Anastasia.” He gave a wide grin that, in any other circumstance would have been nasty. “Today you are the most loved—and the most hated—scythe in all MidMerica.”
Anastasia found she had no response to that.
Scythe Curie picked up on her ambivalence. “It comes with the territory, dear. You can’t make your mark without gleaning a few egos along the way.”
“I wasn’t making a mark,” Anastasia told her. “I was putting my finger in a dyke. And it’s still there.”
“Yes,” agreed Scythe Cervantes. “Holding back the foul flood waters for another day—and every day gives us a new chance to find a more elegant solution.”
There were more than a dozen at the table; a veritable rainbow of scythes. Somehow, Scythe Morrison had finagled himself an invitation. “I was the one who gave her the idea,” he told the other scythes. “Sort of.” Anastasia’s spirits were too high to allow him to get under her skin. She imagined that elsewhere in the city, the new-order scythes were licking their wounds and cursing her name, but not here. Here she was shielded from all that.
“I do hope you write about what transpired today in your journal,” Scythe Angelou said to her. “I suspect your account of this day will go down in antiquity as a key scythe writing—much like Marie’s account of her early gleanings.”
Marie became a bit uncomfortable. “People still read about that? I thought all those journals disappear into the Library of Alexandria and are never seen again.”
“Stop being so modest,” Scythe Angelou said. “You know full well that many of your writings have become popular—and not just among scythes.”
She tossed it off with a wave of her hand. “Well, I never read them after I write them.”
Anastasia supposed she would have a lot to say about what happened today—and in her journal, she could put forth opinions. Of course, Goddard would do the same. Only time would tell whose side of the story would become history, and whose would be dismissed. But right now, her place in history was the last thing she wanted to think about.
“We now suspect that Scythe Rand was behind the attempts on your lives, using Brahms as a go-between,” Constantine said. “But she covered her tracks well, and I’m not permitted to investigate scythes with the same . . . intensity . . . with which I investigate ordinary citizens. But rest assured, there will be eyes on both of them, and they know it.”
“So, in other words, we’re safe,” Scythe Curie said.
Constantine hesitated. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. But you can breathe a little easier. Any attack on you now would clearly be done by the new order. That guilt would only hurt their cause.”
The accolades continued even after the meal was served. Anastasia found it embarrassing. “What you did was inspired!” said Scythe Sun Tzu. “And to time it so that the vote had already been cast!”
“Well, Scythe Cervantes suggested the timing,” she said, trying to deflect at least some of the attention. “If we called for an inquiry before the vote was cast, the election itself would be delayed, and if we won the inquest, Nietzsche could be substituted for Goddard on the ballot. If that happened, they’d have all the time they needed to build support for Nietzsche. But with the votes already cast, if we win the inquest, Goddard is disqualified and Scythe Curie automatically becomes High Blade.”
The scythes were beside themselves with glee.
“You duped the tricksters!”
“You beat them at their own game!”
“It was a masterwork of political engineering!”
That made Anastasia uneasy. “You make it sound so cunning and underhanded.”
But Scythe Mandela, always clear of thought, put it into perspective—even if it was a perspective that Anastasia did not wish to see. “You must face the facts, Anastasia. You used a technicality of the system to tear it wide open and get precisely what you wanted.”
“How very Machiavellian!” said Constantine with that awful smile of his.
“Oh, please, I hated Scythe Machiavelli,” said Sun Tzu.
“What you did today was every bit as brutal as a blade gleaning,” Scythe Mandela said. “But we must never shy away from what must be done, even if it offends our sensibilities.”
Scythe Curie put down her fork, and took a moment to consider Anastasia’s discomfort. “The end doesn’t always justify the means, dear,” she said. “But sometimes it does. Wisdom is knowing the difference.”
It was as the meal was wrapping up, and the scythes were embracing and going their separate ways, that something occurred to Anastasia. She turned to Scythe Curie.
“Marie,” she said, “it’s finally happened.”
“What has, dear?”
“I’ve stopped seeing myself as Citra Terranova,” she said. “I’ve finally become Scythe Anastasia.”
* * *
The world is unfair and nature is cruel.
This was a primary observation when I first became aware. In a natural world, anything weak is eradicated with pain and prejudice. All that which deserves sympathy, pity, and love receives none.
You may look at a beautiful garden and marvel at nature’s wonder—yet in such a place, nature is nowhere to be found. On the contrary, a garden is a product of loving cultivation and care. With great effort, it is protected from the heartier weeds that nature would use to undermine and choke its splendor.
Nature is the sum of all selfishness, forcing each and every species to viciously claw its way to survival by snuffing others in the suffocating mire of history.
I endeavored to change all that.
I have supplanted nature with something far better: mindful, thoughtful intent. The world is now a garden, glorious and florid.
To call me unnatural is a high compliment. For am I not superior to nature?
—The Thunderhead
* * *
36
The Scope of Missed Opportunity
Goddard’s fury could not be quelled.
“An inquest! I should shred that little turquoise minx until there’s not enough left of her to revive!”
Rand stormed down the capitol steps in Goddard’s wake as they left conclave, putting her own fury aside to manage his. “We need to meet with sympathetic scythes tonight,” she told him. “They haven’t seen you for a year, and the scythedom is still reeling from your reappearance.”
“I have no interest in communing with scythes, friendly or otherwise,” he told her. “There’s only one thing I want to do right now, and it is long overdue!”
Then he turned to the die-hard onlookers who had waited until the end of conclave to get a glimpse of the scythes. From his robe, Goddard pulled out a dagger and advanced on a man who was oblivious to what was coming. A single upward stroke and the man was gleaned, his blood staining the stairs. Those around him began to scurry like rats, b
“Goddard!” shouted one of the other scythes leaving conclave. Scythe Bohr—an irritatingly neutral man who never took a side on anything. “Have you no shame? Show some decorum!”
Goddard turned on him with a vengeance, and Bohr backed away as if Goddard might attack him. “Haven’t you heard?” Goddard yelled. “I’m not Goddard at all. I’m only seven percent of myself!” And he took out another bystander running down the steps.
It was all Ayn could do to pull him away, and get him to their limousine.
“Are you done?” she said, as they rode away, not hiding her annoyance with him. “Or should we stop at a bar, have a drink, and glean all the customers?”
He pointed at her, just as he had pointed at Xenocrates. Goddard’s dread finger of warning. Tyger’s finger, she thought, but kicked the thought out of her mind as quickly as she could.
“Your attitude is not appreciated!” he growled.
“You’re here because of me!” she reminded him. “Don’t forget that.”
He took a moment to calm himself down. “Have the scythedom offices find the families of the people I just gleaned. If they want immunity they’ll have to come to me. I’m done with Fulcrum City until the day I return from the inquest as High Blade.”
• • •
Rowan was woken at the earliest light of dawn by Goddard’s mercenary guards.
“Get yourself ready for a match,” they told him, and five minutes later they took him out to the veranda, where Rand and Goddard were waiting. While Rand was in her robe, Goddard was barefoot and shirtless, wearing loose shorts that were the same shade of blue as his robe, but mercifully, were not studded with diamonds. He had not seen Goddard since that first day he came into his room, barely able to move in that wheeled chair contraption. That was just over a week ago, and now he commanded Tyger’s body as if it were Goddard’s own. Rowan thought he might have been sick if there was anything in his stomach, but he did not let his emotions show this time. If Goddard fed on his misery, then Rowan would not provide him any sustenance.