The Collapsing Path (The Narrowing Path Series Book 3)

by David J Normoyle

  “What’s a gumbo?”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “But you don’t want to tell me?”

  “Not at the kitchen table, B—ah, Vitarr.”

  The smells of cooking developed, becoming richer as Leti continued to direct operations. The tables filled up as the rest of Leti’s community arrived for their evening meal. Before sitting, most threw an appraising look at Bowe and a few made a comment designed to make Iyra blush. She took everything in good spirits though and often had a rejoinder that evoked laughter from everyone except Bowe, who didn’t know the inside jokes. Still, Bowe enjoyed the warm camaraderie even if he wasn’t fully included.

  When a young teenage girl walked in, Iyra gestured her over. The girl sat beside Iyra and leaned back into the crook of Iyra’s arm.

  “This is Morah,” Iyra introduced her. She was about fourteen with beautiful, long black hair.

  “Nice to meet you,” Bowe said, having figured out that well met as a greeting was too formal for this gathering.

  Iyra sniffed Morah’s hair, then twisted Morah around to face her. “I smell grass and dry heather on you. You’ve been outside the walls again, haven’t you? I warned you to stay away from the tunnels.”

  “I just had to.”

  “It’s become so dangerous. Even a few weeks ago, it wasn’t so bad, but now...”

  Yac slid in beside Bowe. “We shouldn’t be talking about such things here.” He glanced at Bowe.

  “He’s all right,” Iyra told Yac, then addressed Morah again. “What did you mean you had to? Does someone have you sending messages?”

  Morah shook her head. “Nothing like that. It was just that I had to say goodbye to Old Papa one more time. To say thanks. Before the Infernam, you know.”

  “Oh, darling.” Iyra hugged Morah to her chest. “Old Papa wouldn’t have wanted you to do any such thing. He made his sacrifice so you wouldn’t be in danger.”

  “The sacrifice only matters if the ascor follow up with their promises,” Yac said.

  Leti, carrying stew to the tables, heard Yac’s remark and thundered over, thumped the pot on the table, and clobbered Yac above the ear. “What are you talking about, idiot? Of course the ascor will honor their promise.”

  Yac held his arms over his head, cowering down. “It’s never happened before, offering a place in the Refuge for dying. I don’t trust that Bowe Bellanger.”

  “He’s a Guardian, isn’t he?” Leti said. “What more to you need? I haven’t many good words to say about the ascor, but if someone has a right to a place in the Refuge, they don’t turn them away.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Just shut your mouth, Yac. I won’t let you worry people needlessly.” She glanced at Morah. “If you want to speculate about things that won’t happen, do it elsewhere.”

  “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

  Leti gave Yac a disgusted look and addressed the girl. “Listen, Morah, no more going through tunnels, you understand? I’ll talk to other relatives of those who died in that awful battle and we’ll organize a group of us to go visit where they fell. Make a bit of a ceremony out of it.”

  Bowe glanced at Iyra, and she looked away. Morah’s Old Papa had clearly died at the Battle of Pots and Pans, earning a place in the Refuge for her. Bowe had brought in the scheme whereby those who died earned places for loved ones, getting the escay to defeat the Jarindors by being willing to sacrifice themselves. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Iyra had introduced him to the girl. Bowe was starting to get the impression that Iyra hadn’t just invited him for treats and kisses.

  “The battle was horrible,” Iyra said. “And horrible for that Bowe Bellanger to make those people give up their lives like that.”

  “He didn’t make them.” Bowe glared at her. “He offered them the choice.”

  “In any case, we shouldn’t ever forget that those who took the field that day and willingly offered their lives were true heroes,” Iyra said.

  “We shouldn’t be celebrating those who died fighting for the ascor.” Yac looked sullen. “Celebrate those who fight against them.”

  “I’ve warned you before, Yac,” Leti said. “We’ll have no revolutionary talk at my table. If that’s your game tonight, you can eat elsewhere.”

  Yac stood, speaking loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “You can all bury your heads in the sand if you want, but the storm is coming. Either be a part of it or get blown over by it.”

  “I warned you,” Leti said.

  “Going.” Yac took a bowl from the table and scooped stew from the pot into it. He walked to the door with stew dripping from his bowl and onto the floor, marking his trail. “A storm is coming,” he said dramatically, pausing in the doorway, and then he was gone.

  “Idiot,” Iyra said.

  Leti addressed Bowe. “I must apologize for that. My table is usually much calmer.” She shook her head. “‘A storm is coming.’ Young folk do like action and drama. Though I’ve never seen so many of them riled up like this. Yac isn’t the worse of them. Who knows how it will all end?” She picked up her pot. “Food’s getting cold. Let’s grub up.”

  Leti and her girls served the stew and the background chatter gradually returned. The food was good, and Bowe complimented Leti every chance he got, but she still hadn’t forgiven him for calling her kitchen a barn.

  Everyone had been served when Leti, passing a window, spotted someone she knew outside. She invited him and his family in, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Those at Bowe’s table scrunched up and Leti set two more places where Yac had left an empty space.

  “Poor man is at his wit’s end,” Leti said. “He’s had terrible luck, his family never has enough to eat, and with his pride he won’t ask others for help.” She shook her head. “It’s just stupidity. As if anyone has a problem helping a man with a young child at his time of year. Tealman always helped others when he had extra.”

  “How much is he short?” Iyra asked. “Perhaps I can help.”

  “You are helping plenty of people these days,” Leti said. “Make sure you don’t forget yourself.” A young girl, around three years old, ran in. “Hush, now, enough about the subject.”

  From the age of the girl, Bowe expected Tealman to be a young man. Instead he was middle-aged, a circlet of scruffy brown hair surrounding a bald crown. Skin hung loosely from his face.

  Tealman nodded to the other diners in Leti’s kitchen, then set the child before taking his own place.

  “This is Iyra’s young man.” Leti introduced us.

  Tealman opened his mouth, but whatever he’d been about to say went unsaid, for at that moment, Bowe and Tealman recognized each other. Bowe knew him as Tee, the man who, in the service of the Guild, had helped Bowe escape the city three years earlier.

  “You know each other already?” Leti asked.

  “I ran into him once,” Tealman said. “Don’t know his name, though.”

  “Vitarr,” Bowe offered.

  “Vitarr, of course.” Tealman spooned stew into his mouth. “Thank you so much for this.”

  “It’s no problem,” Leti said. “You should eat here more often. I always have too much. Just throwing it away otherwise.”

  Tealman nodded, accepting the obvious lie. The food had been good, but the portions were small.

  Iyra was watched both Tealman and Bowe closely, obviously wondering about the connection. She didn’t realize that Tealman had more to fear from Bowe than the other way around.

  Tealman ate fast, stopping only to help his girl with her food. As they finished, the diners returned their plates to the sink and retired to their rooms. Iyra slid off the bench, picking up her plate. Bowe did the same.

  Tealman looked up at Bowe. “About what we talked about the last time we met.”

  Bowe had promised Tee he wouldn’t betray the other man’s connection to the Guild. He had actually sworn it on Vitarr’s life, the very name that Bowe had adopted at the gathering. “Nothing has cha
nged.”

  Tealman studied Bowe’s face, then nodded. “Good.”

  Bowe put his plate in the sink on top of Iyra’s.

  “I’ll walk him home,” Iyra said to Leti as she headed for the exit.

  As Bowe passed Leti, the woman grabbed his arm and pulled him close and whispered in his ear, “If you end up in her bedroom, check out the box in the corner.”

  “Why?” Bowe asked, but Leti moved away without clarifying further.

  Outside, clouds covered Helion, shrouding the street in darkness. Bowe could barely make out Iyra in front of him.

  “This way.” Iyra led him around the corner. Bowe followed. Then, barely breaking stride, she grabbed hold of the sill of a window and vaulted though to the other side. Bowe paused, confused.

  Iyra stuck her head back out. “Are you coming or what?”

  “Are we doing a bit of midnight thieving?”

  “Course not, mush-for-brains, this is my room.”

  “Oh. Doesn’t your room have a door?”

  “Sometimes I don’t want everyone in Leti’s house to know my comings and goings.”

  “Ah.” From what Leti had said to Bowe, she wasn’t fooling everyone. The woman expected Bowe to end up in Iyra’s room.

  “So?”

  Bowe had found himself strangely passive all day, just following Iyra’s lead. In the mansion, Bowe was always looked to for decisions. It made a nice change. “Does you inviting me in mean what I think?”

  “Only if you think it means we are going to talk more.”

  “Just talk?

  “What else could a boy expect who wasn’t even gallant enough to treat his girl to anything?”

  “Next time.”

  “And maybe next time we’ll do more than talk.” Bowe couldn’t make out her features in the darkness, but he sensed her smiling.

  Bowe leaned his right forearm and left hand on the windowsill, leaped up and halfway into the window, then slithered the rest of the way in before falling with a thump on the other side.

  “Good job we aren’t thieving, you’d have woken everyone in the street by now.” Iyra softly opened her door, checked both ways in the corridor, and exited. She returned a moment later with a lit candle, then closed the door behind her. She used the first candle to light a second one, placed one on either side of the room, then sat on the bed. The room was small and undecorated, furnished only by a single bed and a box for clothes in the corner. Bowe wasn’t surprised at the bareness of the room, though it would have expected to at least see one or two of her own sculptures. With no chair, Bowe sat down on the bed beside her.

  They then sat beside each other, not saying anything. It was the first moment of awkwardness between them since he’d re-met her.

  Finally: “You know Tealman?” she asked.

  “We met once. He won’t say anything about who I am.” Bowe couldn’t reveal Tealman’s secret, even to Iyra.

  “So are you going to tell me the real reason you brought me here?”

  “Bowe, Bowe, Bowe.” Iyra took Bowe’s right sleeve and rolled it up. “I give you a chance to be romantic and this is what you do.”

  “You wanted to talk.”

  “I said I wanted to talk.”

  Iyra took the stump in her hand and Bowe snatched it away. “You don’t want to see that ugly thing.” The misshapen lump on the end of Bowe’s arm ended in pinkish scarred flesh.

  Iyra reached out and retook the stump again. “It’s beautiful.”

  Bowe snorted. “Helion, no.”

  The pads of her fingers made small circles along the pink flesh. “A sacrifice to help others is always beautiful.”

  “I wasn’t aiming to make it sacrifice. It’s just a wound in the fight with Dulnato that festered.”

  “I remember things differently. I remember you grabbing a naked blade to save my life,” Iyra said. “Is it painful?”

  “Not in the normal sense. But sometimes it feels like I still have a hand and fingers. And, in a way, that’s worse than pain.” He shook his head. “It’s hard to describe why though. Now, back to why you left that note in my rickshaw.”

  “We were to forget the reasons and the whys for one day.”

  “You told me that it was because of our connection. Then I meet Morah...”

  “Can’t there be more than one reason?”

  “Of course. I just want to understand.”

  “I wanted you to see life on the other side. How we live. You make decisions in your mansion but you don’t see the effects.”

  “So meeting Leti and Morah...and Fredo too, that was part of it.”

  “Yac was right about a storm coming. I can feel it. You know I fought with the Guild to change things, but I don’t like the new face of it. And you and the other ascor will like it less. I wanted you to know that there are more escay like Leti and Fredo than there are ones like Yac.”

  “More escay like Coensaw than Hess.”

  “You met Hess? Then you know what I mean. You see, I left the Guild. I’m not a part of what’s coming. I don’t have anything more to offer. Except this.” Iyra placed her palm against Bowe’s chest. “As a Guardian, you will be at the center of what is coming. I wanted to try and make you see the world the way an escay does. The way I do. So you can understand. And make the right decisions when the time comes. I want to use my connection to you to help you see Arcandis through the eyes of an escay.”

  Bowe smiled. “You want me to have an escay heart to go along with my ascor brain?”

  Iyra removed her hand from Bowe’s chest and she resumed tracing patterns on his bare stump. “Sounds dumb, doesn’t it?”

  What Iyra said made sense, but there was something about the way she said it that he didn’t like. Something fatalistic. He remembered what Leti had told him and, without warning, he got off the bed and rummaged through the box of Iyra’s clothes in the corner.

  Iyra came up behind him to stop him, but there wasn’t much inside and it didn’t take long to find the patchwork cloak.

  Bowe held it up and she shirked back to her place on the bed. “Can you explain this?”

  “How did you know it was there?”

  “I didn’t know exactly what I’d find, but Leti told me I’d find something here.”

  “Nosy old woman.”

  “You have given up?” Bowe threw the cloak to the ground at his feet. “I didn’t take you for a quitter.” Those who adopted the patchwork cloak gave up all their possessions and became priests. They helped those who weren’t going to get a place in the Refuge. A priest didn’t attempt to survive the Infernam.

  “It’s not about giving up, it’s about giving. It’s better that the money I’ve made this sexennium can help others, perhaps someone with a family and children. I can’t enter the Refuge knowing someone else will die in my place.”

  “That’s madness.” Bowe’s voice started to rise and he forced himself to calm down. “By living, you can help others in six years’ time. And six years after that. And again. You are so young. This isn’t like an old person giving up their place to a younger one.”

  Iyra lowered her head. “I can’t emerge alive at the end of the Infernam knowing that I didn’t do all I could to help everyone. And then go to the same thing again in six years time. I can’t live when so many die. Violent revolution, the Guild, it isn’t for me. This is the only way I can give everything I have and leave the world in peace.”

  “No. I won’t let you do this.”

  “Bowe, remember, for us, today is a one-day thing. We can never be.”

  Bowe wanted to argue, but knew that to be true. No matter how much he might wish otherwise. He couldn’t promise her anything. “Not yet,” he said. “Hold off. I’ll come up with something.”

  Iyra reached up and touched Bowe’s cheek. “Mush-for-brains, what could you possibly come up with?”

  Bowe took her hand in his and kissed it. “I don’t know. Something. Promise me you’ll delay.”

  “Can we f
orget about all...everything again? Go back to just being a boy and a girl.”

  “If you promise.”

  She nodded. “All right.”

  “So we are just an ordinary boy and ordinary girl who love each other.” Bowe’s heart beat faster. “Given that, what happens next?”

  Iyra blew out first one candle, then the other. “Magic.”

  Chapter 9

  24 Days Left

  The two pretty girls in front of Bowe were falling over themselves to try and impress him. He made non-committal replies, surveying the ballroom over their heads. Dancers cut elegant figures, spiraling across the floor. Ascora and their daughters were expert dancers, learning the art from a young age in the hope of impressing an ascor in just such a moment. Bowe didn’t know many of the steps but most ascor danced well enough to show off their partner’s skill.

  It was an ascor ball, so of course the best musicians played, the finest jewels glittered, the most expensive clothes were on display. Despite all this, Bowe couldn't help comparing it all to the simple scene in Leti’s kitchen and finding it lacking. Here, everything was practiced, rehearsed, planned, deliberate. Cold.

  Bowe couldn’t say what he was thinking to anyone here in Raine Mansion, though, not even Zofila or Sorrin. They would think that Bowe had lost his mind. Either that or the escay girl had cast a spell on him.

  Perhaps she had. When he’d been with her, he’d felt ready to throw everything away, to risk anything to be with her. And perhaps if it was just him to think about, he’d still feel that way. But he had to think about his family and the whole of Arcandis first.

  At the last ascor gathering, Sindar had accused Bowe of having cold blood. Well, his blood ran hot with Iyra, but Sindar depended on Bowe for his freedom, and that wouldn’t happen if Bowe allowed himself to become distracted from what he needed to do. The old Bowe Bellanger had doomed his whole family with his runaway desires.

  As powerful as his connection with Iyra was, he had to make the best decisions for all. If she wanted to take the patchwork cloak, he couldn’t put everything aside to figure out a way to save her. The cold logic couldn’t prevent a lump from forming in his throat.