The Collapsing Path (The Narrowing Path Series Book 3)

by David J Normoyle

  Hess studied Bowe. “So what do we have to talk about, Guardian? I saw you admiring all my scars. Do you want to know which ones I got at which fights? Do you want to know which ascor were entertained by my blood? Do you want to know which of my colleagues I had to kill for them?”

  Escay watched Eye fights more often than ascor, but it didn’t seem a good idea to make that point. “I’m sure all combatants on both sides fought with honor.”

  Hess spat on the floor. “As much honor in the Eye as in the abattoir. Maybe we should organize a special Eye fight for you so you can experience this honor.”

  Bowe smiled weakly. “I only have one hand. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Same amount of fairness in the abattoir.” Hess licked his lips. “I can sense your fear. It smells like old woman sweat.”

  Bowe rubbed his hands on his tunic. This man terrified him, but not just because of the immediate danger. He seemed to be a physical representation of what Xarcon and Bowe were discussing before he came in. Chaos.

  “Don’t worry, Guardian.” Hess said the word Guardian with a long rolling sound, as if he was tasting it in his mouth, savoring the word. “There’s a time for everything and your time is not now. Maybe soon though.” Hess stood up, then placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. The table groaned. Hess’s breath smelled of raw meat. “I’ve seen what an ascor’s version of honor and fairness looks like. I mean to let you all know that an escay’s version can be as bad.” Hess straightened and walked out, and his three men filed out behind him. One paused to catch Bowe’s eye, then spat on the floor.

  When they were gone, Xarcon retook his seat.

  “Is that what you meant when you said that things had gone too far?” Bowe asked him.

  “Things had already gone too far. He’s just the scary face of that reality.” Xarcon sighed. “Coensaw kept him in check somewhat—the old man was the only one that Hess respected. You had better go. You now know what you came to find out.”

  “I’ve found what I needed to know, yes.” Bowe had come looking for an answers, and instead found that the problems were a lot worse than he imagined.

  Chapter 7

  30 Days Left

  “What was that again?”

  “I said that the two-headed oxen were swimming to Urni,” Sorrin said. “Should I take care of that?”

  “Yes, that would be great.”

  “Listen back to the last part of our conversation in your head.”

  Bowe thought back. “Oh, two-headed oxen. Very funny.” He didn’t laugh.

  “What’s going on, Bowe? I’m happy take care of things as best I’m able while you concentrate on freeing Sindar. It’s just that you seem permanently distracted and there’s no progress on Sindar.”

  “Helion, Sorrin, I’m sorry.” Bowe wiped sleepiness from his eyes. Hess’s spiked smile invading his nightmares hadn’t helped with getting a good night’s sleep. “Everywhere I turn, there seems to be a problem without a solution. The more I think, the more my mind goes in circles.”

  Sorrin sat. “Talking usually helps.”

  Bowe hesitated, then shook his head. “Right now it’s better that you concentrate on taking care of Bellanger affairs.” Bowe hadn’t told anyone about the dangers of Hess and the new aggressive nature of the Guild. The Grenier marshals should be warned, but he couldn’t betray the Guild either. As Xarcon had warned, Bowe had difficulty finding a middle ground. It was better that Sorrin kept apart from having a Guild entanglement, at least until Bowe had a better idea which way everything was going to fall. “When the time is right, I’ll need your help.” Bowe realized he had no idea of Sorrin’s true feelings on the way the ascor treated the escay. There were some things that just weren’t talked about. Bowe guessed that showed how far he had to change things when he hesitated to even broach the subject with his one of his most trusted friends.

  Sorrin sat and watched the thoughts play across Bowe’s features. “Let me know what’s going on. I can’t help if I don’t know.”

  “Trust me,” Bowe pleaded.

  Sorrin considered and eventually nodded. He stood. “Eolnar sent word. He wants to meet, he didn’t specify what about.”

  “Good. That means I am making progress on helping Sindar.” That wasn’t exactly true but Sorrin would want to know what the meeting was about, and it would ease his worries if he thought Bowe was close to a solution on freeing their friend. The truth was that Bowe had reached out to Eolnar in the hope of finding a like-minded ally in another family, someone who could help Bowe bring about the change from within that he had talked about.

  * * *

  The rickshaw rumbled to a halt. Bowe peeked from behind the curtains into the street. The sun had set moments earlier, and the heat of the day was beginning to leak from the air. It was a cloudless night and Helion sat bright and full-bellied, like a watching spider, high above Arcandis’s cityscape.

  Wheels crunched against crumbling paving stone on the opposite side of the street and a second rickshaw came to a stop. The two pullers gratefully lowered the poles and wiped sweat from their brows. Even with the worse of the heat gone, pulling a rickshaw was hard work. The sight of the exhausted Lessard pullers reminded Bowe to thank his own pullers more. Toose had gotten into the habit of assigning marshals as Bowe’s pullers so that Bowe always had at least two bodyguards on hand whenever he was outside the mansion. Except when he left by the tunnel, but Toose didn’t know about that.

  Eolnar stepped out of the rickshaw and Bowe did the same, stepping forward to greet the Lessard ascor.

  “Well met,” Bowe said. “Thanks for agreeing to meet me, though I do find your choice of venue unusual.” They were in a deserted part of the city. All the buildings were run-down and several had completely fallen down. “This part of the city hasn’t heard a mason’s hammer in many sexennia.”

  “At this stage, all the houses around here should be demolished and rebuilt before being repaired.”

  “A decent patch-up job could be enough.” Bowe couldn't help but remember Xarcon’s contention that the ascor had to be completely overthrown, that things had gone beyond repair.

  “There are more houses than people in the city. Let the abandoned ones fall in their own time. Come this way; leave your guards behind.”

  Toose shook his head. “This part of Arcandis is usually abandoned, but anyone could be lurking.”

  “Your marshal is forward.” Eolnar shrugged. “Simple brigands aren’t going to attack ascor, but bring someone if you wish. We aren’t going far.” He stepped into a narrow alleyway.

  Bowe followed, with Toose close behind. Eolnar’s confidence in an ascor’s safety would not last long if Hess announced his arrival on the scene. Helion’s light shone over the shoulder of the left hand building, slicing the alleyway diagonally in two, with purple light playing across the right-hand wall and shadows clinging to the left wall. Bowe peered downward, doing his best to safely negotiate his footing in the murky dark.

  Eolnar, up ahead, was silent, and Bowe had to be content to wait to find out why they were meeting at this unusual spot. They all turned right, following Eolnar down an even narrower path, this one shadowed totally from Helion’s purple light. Walls crowded to either side, seemingly ready to fall at any moment.

  The doorway that Eolnar chose was no different from many similar doorways they had already passed, and inside gave no clue as to why they had been brought. It was a single-roomed dwelling, empty, though in better condition than many of its neighbors, given that the roof was intact. A rectangle of purple light sat on the dusty floor, the light given entry by the room’s single window.

  Toose came in behind Bowe, did a quick circuit of the room, then left. Bowe knew he would keep an eye on the doorway while remaining out of earshot.

  Eolnar squatted low, took something from his pocket, and placed it on the floor inside the rectangle of purple light. Bowe leaned closer to see that it was a yellow flower.

  “I come here e
very Infernam,” Eolnar told Bowe. “I can’t forget.”

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  “You are only the second person who has witnessed this little ceremony other than myself. The first time I brought Sorani, but unlike me, he has been able to forget and move on.”

  “You’ll have to start at the beginning. What type of flower is that?”

  “It’s a dandelion. Have you thought more about what I said to you in Drywell Square? I heard what happened after—the boy you were trying to protect murdered and dumped on top of you. Alandar doesn’t take being foiled lightly.”

  “I guess I could have expected it. Or something like it.” There was no point in revealing that Coinal was the one he’d been trying to protect. “The Green Path and mercy don’t exactly go hand in hand.”

  “So next time you would just let the boy be killed, is that it?”

  “Perhaps Alandar did what he had to, and I did what I had to.” Bowe didn’t know what he’d do in the same situation again. He knew what he should do, but could he just stand by if the same happened again?

  Eolnar studied the flower for a moment before seeming to make a decision. “I can understand why you didn’t believe me before. And I want there to be trust between us. That’s why I asked for us to meet here. So I could explain.” He swiveled around, pointing at one corner of the room. “It was there that it happened, he said. I can still picture it even now so many sexennia later. Frodan stood there.”

  “Who’s Frodan?”

  “My brother,” Eolnar said. “My brother who died as a Green. I know there are now real families for Greens. As ascor we have a mother, but no sisters or fathers or brothers. Instead of brothers, we had rivals. But it was different for Sorani, Frodan, and me. We were like three parts of one whole. When Frodan died, a part of me died.”

  “The flower ceremony is to remember him?”

  “To honor him. I have no problem remembering. He was the best person I ever knew, but because of that, he had no chance of surviving the Green Path. He died so that Sorani and I could live.”

  “Vitarr was the best person I knew.” Bowe’s throat tightened as he remembered his childhood friend. “He had no chance of walking the Path. He used to joke about it, to make it easier to deal with.”

  “Our brothers and sons are killed off sexennium after sexennium and we just stand by and let it happen. No, worse than that: we actively enforce it.”

  Bowe no longer had doubts about Eolnar’s sincerity. Just as Bowe had been first turned against the Path by Vitarr’s death, Eolnar had lost someone close to him. “If two of us feel this way, there must be more. Other ascor who fear to speak out.”

  “I’m not sure there are many who feel the way we do,” Eolnar said. “But I know I can persuade Sorani, and you if you can get your family onboard, then that’s two families who can push for change. Or at least start the discussion.”

  “Yes, yes.” Bowe held out his arm. “Together we can do it. We can end this slaughter of young boys that is accepted so readily.”

  Eolnar clasped Bowe’s arm and grinned. “Feels great to have an ally. To not have to push my doubts to a dark corner of my mind. To know that thinking like I do is not a craziness of my mind.”

  Bowe had never considered that he might be the crazy one. “What changes do we look to make? The Refuge has limited space. We can’t get around that.”

  “If we put our minds to it, we can come up with a fairer solution. We have six years, after all.”

  “Six years?”

  Eolnar nodded. “This sexennium’s Path has already begun. There’s no way we’d be able to do anything before the Infernam. The important thing is that we make a change before next time.”

  “So we, as mentors, preside over this year’s ritual slaughter.”

  Eolnar nodded. “Unfortunately there’s no way around that. We take strength from having to do it this time, knowing it’ll be the last time. We can’t change the past and bring back Frodan or Vitarr; it’s about the future.”

  “And the present?” Bowe felt like he’d been given a present only to have it snatched away from him.

  “A massive upheaval like this is not something that can be done with a snap of your fingers. It requires a whole new way of thinking.”

  Bowe imagined trying to tell Hess about patience, telling him to just wait another six years. “Something needs to be done now. The situation with the Guild is worse than anyone knows.”

  “What does the Guild have to do with anything?”

  Bowe had conflated the problems of the escay with the problems of the Greens in his mind for so long, he had just jumped ahead. “It’s all connected. The way everything fits together. The Green Path is just one small part of the bigger cracks that fracture Arcandis society. When the Jarindors came three years ago, it wasn’t just the Green Path that they found abhorrent about our society.”

  “They were defeated.”

  “They were right about what was wrong here, but wrong in how they set about trying to fix it. An armed invasion never solved anyone’s problems.” Bowe grasped Eolnar’s arm, pulling him closer. “Say we solve the Green Path, helping our sons and future sons. What about our daughters? All the unmarried noble girls have to fight for a husband to choose them, with Paradise’s Kiss awaiting any who fail. The Greenette Path, some call it, not as talked about as the Green Path, but it can be as brutal. And what about the escay? They have to slave away for six years, hoping to earn a place in the Refuge for them and their families. But there’s never enough room. Many have to sacrifice themselves so that friends or family members can live.”

  “You can’t put all that on us. Helion demands her due every six years.”

  “Those from Urni and Jarind deal with the same Infernam. And other nations. And it’s not as bad in those places.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know exactly. And that’s part of the problem. We don’t let foreigners in to see how we live here, and we don’t try to learn how they survive the Infernam. There are better ways. There have to be.”

  “The escay, though—come on, you aren’t seriously worried about them. Let’s deal with important problem first. The Path. We can talk about the escay after that.”

  Bowe sighed and turned away, leaning against the far wall. The rectangle of purple light had moved and now illuminated the bottom of the wall. Eolnar’s attitude to the escay was the same as the rest of the ascor. How was Bowe going to change anything? The specter of Hess loomed ever larger.

  “Frodan always treated the servants like they were part of the family,” Eolnar said after a short silence.

  Bowe straightened. The Lessard ascor wanted to understand and Bowe needed to start somewhere. Bowe wouldn’t accept that chaos was the only way forward.

  “How do you know that you aren’t an escay?” Bowe asked.

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “No trick. Say there was some kind of mix-up and an escay baby got left in an ascor cradle.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  Bowe hesitated, but only for an instant. He had to take a leap into the unknown and trust an ascor with what Coensaw had told him. He didn’t see any other way forward. The tightness in Bowe’s chest made getting the first words out difficult. “I’m escay.” Then the rest came out in a rush. “Or, at least, I might be. I was told that an escay servant who worked in Bellanger Mansion had a one-year-old child and no place in the Refuge. She dressed the babe in ascor swaddling clothes and hid the baby in a vase the night that all the Bellangers committed suicide. The night I was found.”

  Eolnar had a horrified look on his face. It hurt Bowe, but he understood. Bowe had looked at himself the same way when he first found out. “That’s just a fable, right? It couldn’t be true.”

  “I fear I’ll never know. I wish there was a birthmark or something that would prove things one way or the other.” Bowe shrugged. “I’ve come to terms with living without knowing.”

  “No. Whoev
er told you that lied to you. After everything you have done, you have to be ascor.”

  “The person who told me the story admitted that he did it to mess with my head. He had no evidence one way or the other.” Bowe wasn’t ready to admit to Eolnar that he heard it from the old Guild leader. “That doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

  “I don’t believe it. Why, I’ve heard many people say you must be the son of the old Bowe Bellanger since you look so like him.”

  “How many people really remember what the old Bowe Bellanger looks like? All his portraits have been lost.” Bowe could be both an escay and the son of Bowe Bellanger if the old Guardian had slept with his servants, which was in keeping with what Bowe knew of his character. “The important point is that the difference between escay and ascor is nothing more than a matter of station. And we often treat them as no more than intelligent livestock.”

  “It’s a matter of blood. We are not the same.”

  “Hard-working escay can become marshals, and a few generations later be made ascor. The blood is the same.”

  “It happens rarely and it’s only a slight dilution over time.”

  “Escay and ascor are not the same, but only because the escay grow up in a much different environment from us.” Bowe had found the escay to be better than the ascor in the ways that mattered. “But for a quirk in circumstance, they are us and we are they. I only realized that when I had to think about which baby was in my cradle.” Bowe glanced across at Eolnar, his expression impossible to read in his shadowed features. “Because of how you view the Path, I believe you may feel the same as I do if you think deeply about it with an open mind. No other ascor has heard a hint that I might be an escay, not even anyone in my family, so I put my trust—and possibly my life—in your hands.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll think about it.”

  “It’ll be impossible not to.”

  “Then my work for tonight is done. Shall we start back?” Bowe took a last look around the darkened single room, wondering if something massive had begun in these unlikely surroundings before he exited. Toose rejoined them in the alleyway and he led them back to their waiting rickshaws.