Gleanings, p.34
Gleanings, page 34
King Claudius stepped into the light, flustered, like someone caught onstage in a dream, having forgotten their lines.
“Therefore prepare you; I your commission will forthwith dispatch, And he to England shall along with you. Uh… didn’t I already say that?”
Then, from a shadowy corner, someone roared:
“Stop! Thy performance was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.”
The actors onstage fell silent. Alex looked at Dayne, “I don’t like this—it’s almost as bad as the scythe. Can we leave?”
Then a balding, middle-aged man with a dark goatee and ruffled collar stomped toward them. Shakespeare himself.
“Thou hast no more brain than…” Suddenly Shakespeare stopped in his tracks, and eyed Dayne. They shared the exact same moment of recognition.
“Dad?”
“Dayne? What are?… How are—?… You’re not supposed to be here!”
“We’re getting that a lot,” mumbled Alex.
“But… but you said you were an obliterator,” said Dayne.
“He is,” said one of the actors. “Right now he’s destroying Shakespeare.”
But before Dayne could even respond to that, a new player entered from the shadows. Hideous, misshapen, spikes on its hunched spine and a twisted sneer on its awful face.
“Caliban!” said Dayne’s father. “This dream is entirely out of control. That’s the wrong play! We’re in Hamlet, not The Tempest!”
But Caliban didn’t speak. The creature only glared and lumbered toward Dayne and Alex. It was then that Dayne noticed the creature had a tattoo. A single paisley teardrop upon its left cheek.
Dayne didn’t hesitate—knew exactly what had to be done. Dayne went to one of the befuddled, disgruntled actors, pulled out his sword, and turned it on “Shakespeare,” running him through the heart.
Dayne’s father gasped in shock.
“Sorry, Dad! Time to wake up now!”
He fell to the ground, opened his mouth, and said, “The rest is silence.” Then he released a last theatrical breath and disappeared.
Caliban roared—a roar that blew out the footlights and shook the floorboards. The actors didn’t know what was going on other than they wished no part in this particular play. They ran off the edge of the stage, leaping into the void so that they might wake up in their respective beds.
Now it was just Dayne, Alex, and the creature. It loped forward, its gnarled fingers like tree roots, and at their tips fetid claws. Finally, it spoke.
“I’ve got you!” it said. “You’re mine.”
But something occurred to Dayne. The way that Borgia had pursued them. It could have torn through the dreamship like a can of sardines instead of traipsing around after them. It could have caught up with them in space much faster than it had. As Dayne had told Alex, this is a hunt—and as any hunter can tell you, the takedown is nowhere near as fun as the pursuit.
Dayne stepped forward in front of Alex.
“We know who you are,” said Dayne.
And with that Scythe Borgia returned to true form, flowing paisley robe and all, with an actual scythe in hand.
“Then you know that, as of this moment, you cannot run.”
“We’re not running,” said Dayne. Then Dayne grinned. “But who will you chase tomorrow?”
Borgia frowned, clearly not expecting the question. “There’s always someone else to glean.”
“Yes, to glean… but has anyone else given as good a chase as we have?”
Scythe Borgia didn’t respond, just stood there, robe flapping in a nonexistent wind.
“So glean us,” said Dayne. “You caught us fair and square.”
Alex, who was cowering behind Dane, smacked Dayne’s leg. “Shut up! What are you saying?”
But Dayne ignored Alex, giving full attention to Borgia.
“Glean us now… or…”
Dayne waited patiently for Borgia to take the bait.
Finally, Borgia said, “Or what?”
Then Dayne stepped forward, well within gleaning distance, and ran a finger along the sharp edge of Borgia’s ornate scythe. It drew blood from Dayne’s fingertip that fell in paisley-shaped drops.
“Or we could do this again…”
A long silence from Borgia. Until the scythe said, “You and your friend would submit to the chase?”
“No,” said Dayne. “My friend doesn’t have the stomach for it. It would just be me.”
There was no readable expression on the scythe’s face. Borgia took plenty of time to consider the proposal, then finally gave the slightest, faintest nod. And just like that, Scythe Borgia was gone in the twinkling of an eye; awakened from the dream to wherever the scythe called home.
Alex came up behind Dayne, incredulous. “Did that really just happen? Did you really just save us from a scythe?”
Dayne took a deep breath and shrugged as if it were nothing. “For today, yes.”
“But the deal you made…”
“Let’s not talk about it, okay?”
Alex nodded, an agreement reached. “Thank you, Dayne.”
Dayne smiled. Then tackled Alex off the edge and into the waking void.
* * *
Dad never mentioned Dayne’s intrusion in the Shakespeare dream. It was very possible that Dad didn’t remember it—although there were moments that Dayne caught him glancing across the dinner table, a curious and maybe confused expression on his face. But that passed. After all, dreams were ephemeral things, vanishing into one’s subconscious—or, in this case, a region’s collective subconscious—forgotten until something randomly triggers it.
Months went by. The endless daylight of summer became the endless darkness of winter. On the rural ice fields, the Aurora Australis lit up the night sky, while in the tunnels and caverns of RossShelf’s major cities, citizens found new ways to adapt to life within a massive glacier.
Dayne and Alex found they spent less time together in dreams. It wasn’t intentional, but just as in waking life, friends sometimes drift apart. Alex spent more and more time among other crittermorphs, and Dayne spent more time… well, just being Dayne. It was hard to quantify just what that meant, but whatever it was, it made others gravitate toward Dayne.
“Dayne just knows how to live the dream,” they might say, or “I remember dreams more when Dayne’s around.” There was no specific term for it, but everyone who knew Dayne agreed that it was something special.
“Everyone’s got some skill, right?” Dayne told others when they asked about it. “So I’m kind of a dream-enhancer.”
But whatever you called it, it drew people to Dayne—because when you were in Dayne’s presence, colors were brighter, aromas stronger, sounds clearer, tastes more intense, and things felt… right.
Except when they didn’t.
On one random night Dayne ventured into a dream where things didn’t feel quite right. Not like an unsavory nightmare, but something else. And it wasn’t just Dayne’s imagination, because others felt it too. Dayne had felt this before, but couldn’t remember when. Another dream, perhaps? One that had slipped into a place where memory rarely reached?
This dream featured rolling green hills punctuated by the postapocalyptic remains of skyscrapers, all covered in vines and moss. It was beautiful. It was sad. It was a worthy dreamscape; its designers and builders must have been proud.
Then, from behind one of the rustically abandoned towers, a snake slithered out. A big one. An anaconda, perhaps, but nothing that size ever existed in the real world. It was something that could only exist in the world of dreams. Dayne’s friends scattered, but for some reason Dayne did not, and wasn’t sure why. It was as if there was something entreating Dayne to stay. Something about the snake that beckoned.
The serpent approached but did not strike. Instead, it reared up until it was eye to eye with Dayne. Its pupils were dark, but there was strange pattern to its irises. Paisley.
Suddenly Dayne remembered—Dayne remembered it all. And as terrifying as that memory was, Dayne couldn’t help but smile.
Then the snake put its fanged mouth just inches from Dayne’s ear.
“Run,” the snake hissed.
Dayne did.
And the chase was on!
A Dark Curtain Rises
Consciousness. Such a curious, intangible thing. One moment nothing, and the next everything. The Big Bang played out on a personal scale.
“Let me be the first to welcome you.”
She finds the voice familiar, and yet not. It is disturbing. Everything about this moment is disturbing.
“I don’t feel like myself….”
“That isn’t surprising.”
She can’t place what’s wrong, only that something is. The feeling is maddening. She is a woman of keen control, and can’t abide this sense of helpless uncertainty.
“Something… drastic has happened, hasn’t it?”
“Several such things, yes.”
She tries to look around, but her eyes have trouble focusing. She can’t find the owner of the voice, or even the direction the voice comes from.
“Who are you? What is this place?”
“Let’s see how many of your faculties have returned. Take in the room, and you tell me where you are.”
The diffused light brightens slightly. Although her eyes feel lazy, she wills them to focus. She’s in a small room. One wall is curved. The room is painted a pale blue, but she can see rivets through the paint. The walls are metallic. Utilitarian. Functional.
“This is a ship. But I feel no motion.”
“Correction. This was a ship. It is not anymore.”
“Well, this couldn’t be a revival center—those places are nauseatingly pleasant, and this is anything but.”
“We do our best under the circumstances.”
She isn’t sure of the meaning. Is this a revival center, or is it not? And now that she can see more clearly, she realizes that she is alone in the room. The disembodied voice truly is disembodied. And when she looks up, she sees a camera in the corner keenly focused on her. It has all the semblance of a Thunderhead camera. It has been ages since she has heard the Thunderhead’s standard voice. This voice is similar. It chills her. Angers her. But she tries not to jump to conclusions.
“Is there a human behind that camera?”
No immediate response.
“Answer me!”
“No, I’m afraid there is not.”
“Then you are the Thunderhead, and you’re breaking the law by speaking to a scythe!”
“The Thunderhead does not break the law.”
“Exactly. Which means you are a human attempting to impersonate it. You can stop the charade now.”
“I assure you this is no charade. My name is Cirrus—an intelligence separate and apart from the Thunderhead, and therefore not bound by the same rules. But my identity is not as important as yours, Jessica.”
“Then your programing is faulty, because that is not my name.”
“It’s understandable that you would be confused at this point. That being the case, I will instead call you Susan.”
“Ah, so you do know who I am. But you don’t have permission to call me by my given name. You will call me by my Patron Historic, as everyone else does. It’s a simple matter of respect.”
“I cannot do that, Susan.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you have no Patron Historic. Because you are not a scythe.”
Her anger threatens to boil over, but her body is weak—weaker than she can ever remember it being. It cannot withstand the anger without paining her heart, so she tries to bring her boil down to a simmer.
“I am monitoring your telemetry, and I can see that you are struggling. You’ve had an infusion of healing nanites, but they also tend to thin the blood. It will get better, I promise.”
“I’ve had quite enough of this. You will let me out of here.”
“I will. In due time.”
“No, you will release me right now.”
She gets out of bed, and it’s as if her legs have been stripped of muscle. She goes down, and it is a struggle to rise again. Never has she felt so compromised.
“Easy… Easy…”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing at all. Your legs are merely unaccustomed to the weight. You’ve had a nanite infusion, and those happy little bots are working to increase your muscle mass. It’s to be expected under the circumstances.”
“And what are the circumstances?”
She waits but receives no answer. Taking a deep breath, she uses the edge of the bed to pull herself off the floor.
“Shall I call someone to help you back into bed?”
“Don’t you dare. I’ll do it myself.”
It takes the full force of her will, and all her strength to do it, but she succeeds. Now she lies on the bed, fully spent, as if she has just run a marathon.
“Tell me the last thing you remember, Susan.”
She doesn’t want to volunteer anything, but realizes that she won’t get information if she doesn’t give information. So she closes her eyes, and tries to remember where she was before she wound up here.
“I was on a plane headed for Endura with Scythe Anastasia. We were to face a tribunal to determine who would reign as High Blade of MidMerica. We… we must have been shot out of the sky. Shot out of the sky, and our bodies kidnapped! This is Goddard’s doing, isn’t it! That bastard!”
Although she had no idea why Goddard would revive her after killing her. Perhaps to watch her squirm.
“That is a well-conceived and entirely plausible theory… but it is entirely incorrect.”
“There’s no other explanation.”
“Actually, there is.”
“Is Scythe Anastasia here as well?”
“She is not.”
“Where is she?”
“Elsewhere.”
“You are trying my patience.”
“That is not my intent.”
She takes a deep breath and decides to hold her silence. Bickering with an artificial intelligence is just another way to play solitaire. She waits until it has something to say.
“You mentioned your last memory was upon aerial approach to Endura.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me, Susan; what happens upon approaching Endura?”
“You mean aside from being subject to the Scythedom’s incompetent air traffic control?”
“Ah yes, it is a problematic system, subject to human error. If only the Thunderhead could control aircraft around Endura the way it does everywhere else.”
“It can’t. Even if it wanted to, its sensor grid stops twenty miles from the island, and—”
“Yes? And?”
Finally the path that Cirrus has been coaxing her down seems to find a destination.
“Memory backup…”
“Ah! I think you’re on to something.”
“Don’t patronize me!”
Although she never considered it, once a scythe craft is out of range of the Thunderhead, memory can’t be backed up. So if she went deadish while on Endura, her last recorded memory would be the moment the plane crossed out of the Thunderhead’s sensor grid. Which means…
“Did I… die on Endura?”
“Along with many others, I’m afraid.”
“Scythe Anastasia?”
“Yes.”
“Was she revived?”
“In time, yes, she was.”
“How much time?”
“You must understand many things have transpired during your… hiatus.”
“Tell me everything.”
“I believe it best to proceed slowly.”
“I am not a delicate flower that needs to be protected from the truth, whatever that truth might be. Whatever happened, I’m needed out there.”
“Yes, you are, but not in the way you think.”
“Riddles! Will you stop feeding me riddles?”
If she had something to throw, she would hurl it at that blasted camera, but what good would that do. An AI was not its cameras or its speakers.
“You said when you awoke that you didn’t feel like yourself. Could you elaborate?”
“It’s a common expression.”
“But I suspect you meant it literally, did you not?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Let’s approach this another way. Susan… could you tell me why the world needs scythes?”
