Iyra, watching Bowe, smiled, a sad smile but still a smile.
Bowe lost the feeling in his fingers and let his hand fall away from Iyra’s hair. His breath came with difficulty, in shallow bursts. As a Green, he’d been taught that death was nothing, a simple stepping off the path. He wanted to feel that now, but he couldn’t. He knew the cost of death, what it was taking from him, depriving him of Iyra and the connection they shared, their love. It was taking away Bowe’s ability to see the new world that the escay would build in the sexennia to come.
Perhaps in the old world, the world the ascor had created for themselves, death was a small step. From the first, Bowe had rejected the cold way that they wanted him to live. From Vitarr through Glil and all the way to the recent and still harrowing loss of Sorrin and Zofila, Bowe had loved his friends and suffered when he lost them.
Helion’s purple light was fading. Not far away, Thrace and Oamir and Xarcon and Sindar’s faces swam into view and disappeared. He died with those who loved him watching.
Iyra still clung to his chest, but he could no longer feel.
Even though he knew what he was giving up, even though he didn’t embrace his death, his last breaths were happy ones. He thought of the new. What he gave up, he gave willingly, knowing of the evil in the world that he had lived in and seeing the possibilities of a new world.
A new way.
Epilogue
I think we all long for death. No one says it—no one says much of anything down in the bowels of the Refuge. But how can we not? Several dozen others are within a few paces of me, and it has been like this since we entered. We are close physically but I don’t even know the name of anyone around.
Every time I wake from a nap, I retch from the smell until I have time to grow accustomed to it once more. Despite having nothing to puke up except my own stomach acid. Not a single morsel of food has passed through this tunnel in days. When the waterskins arrived, we are only allowed a few sips. They have stopped coming.
We long for death, but we survive. It’s what we do. It’s what we have always done.
I wish what I felt inside wasn’t worse than what I feel outside. But, in a way, the Refuge is the perfect place for me right now, a reflection of the interior of my heart. Bowe wanted me to be happy, to celebrate what we achieved, but it is not that easy.
A lamp waves at the mouth of the tunnel, bright enough to see but not bright enough to shed light near me.
“Iyra!” The shouted name echoes through the darkness, out of place in the restless silence.
I crawl toward the light. It is impossible to avoid crawling on other people, so I just whisper a warning ahead so others know to protect themselves. Some barely register my passing over them.
I find a morsel of space and am able to stand. I follow the ghost of a path, a trail that those carrying waterskins used—a series of spaces just large enough for a foot.
Perhaps I should be happy that I am getting outside early. But this isn’t a place for positive emotions, even if my heart could support them. Also, outside will be a worse hell than inside, hard as that is to imagine.
The committee decided that more drinking water was needed to prevent large-scale deaths during the final days of the Refuge. Even though the Infernam isn’t over, the fires have burned themselves out, and the heat is bearable during nighttime hours. Or that is the theory; no one is sure. Just like many aspects of this Infernam, sending a party out this early is a first.
I was there when the decision was made and I volunteered. When I reach the lamp, Rianel is waiting with several others who I don’t recognize. He hands me several empty waterskins tied together in pairs. I strap them over my shoulders. No one says anything.
Rianel turns to go and the others follow. They all carry waterskins and I fall in behind the rest. Traveling at the back of the group, it is easier to find ground to walk on. I just have to put my feet the same place as the person in front of me. Rianel’s lamp swings in his hand, sending light skittering across a sea of faces, dirt lodged in the furrows of their skin.
“Girl, over here. I recognize you,” a voice says.
I kneel down by the side of an old man whose face has shrunk into a ball of wrinkles.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”
“Bowe was a friend of mine,” the old man says. “I am Finshire.”
“The newswriter?”
“Indeed. And you are the Guidemistress.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Did you know he asked me to spread certain types of stories about him. He wanted to be respected, maybe even loved by the escay. But it didn’t work. Stories have a life of their own, some are stillborn, others spread like Infernam fires. They can’t be manufactured.”
“About the Guidemistress?”
“The newsbards have been conserving their breath lately. But in the first few days of the Infernam all anyone wanted to hear were stories about Bowe the Savior. How he appeared in the house of the dead when a vase smashed open. How he was born escay, grew up in the houses of the ascor, and became escay again. How he died so that everyone could live.”
“People are calling mush-for-brains Bowe the Savior. Seriously?” I ask. I loved him with all my heart but he always had too big of a head.
“And you, the Guidemistress, the one who showed him the paths he must follow.”
“No one said anything to me.” I want to strangle whoever invented that dumb name.
“Like I said, the stories have a life of their own. The people about who they are told sometimes only get in the way.”
“I must go.” I hurry onward. Rianel’s lamp is still within view, but its light no longer illuminates my path. So I end up stepping on top of and banging into people to make progress. There is nothing to do except apologize and continue onward.
I feel a tug on the waterskin and I swivel around.
“There’s water in there, isn’t there?” He has the telltale scars of an Eye fighter.
“They are empty. We are going to get water.”
“When you come back, you’ll give some to me?”
“The committee will divide it up fairly.”
The Eye fighter scowls. “They are keeping most of the water for themselves. Hess would have made sure that we got enough.”
“Hess is dead.” I leave him behind, glad that no weapons made it inside the Refuge.
He isn’t alone in distrusting the committee. Most don’t know who they are nor why the committee is even in charge. Everybody is hungry and thirsty and wants to blame someone.
I know those in the committee are barely sleeping as they struggle to make sure everyone gets enough to survive. When they made mistakes, people died. If anything, they give themselves less water and food than they should.
Perhaps if Bowe the Savior were in charge, people wouldn’t be so mistrustful. If Bowe the Savior was around, he could piss out cherry-flavored drinking water and everyone would drink their fill. I catch up to Rianel and the others and progress becomes easier. As light sweeps through the tunnel, grubby faces turn upward with hope, seeing the waterskins, only to bow back down again as we move past.
I see a sharp-faced woman. The ascora who rescued Bowe? No, it is someone different. I remember that ascora and she worries me. We might have sown the seed of our own undoing when we let her in and those she brought. How had she gathered such a large group of Greens, Greenettes, and ascora to her cause so quickly? Not with promises of a future life as a peasant, that’s for certain.
We reach the tunnel that leads to the surface, and we begin to ascend. The air freshens, and the heat increases. In other Infernams, the entrance tunnel would be empty, but they didn’t have that luxury this year. Instead the committee devised a system so that those here were constantly shuffled so no one stayed near the top too long.
The tunnel curls around as it leads upward. Layers of cloth and wood insulate people from the heat pounding up from the ground below. On top of that makeshift platform, eyes
are closed as many retreat inside themselves to cope with their own misery. No doubt they curse Bowe the Savior, wishing he’d never thought to squeeze everyone into the Refuge.
A group totters down the slope, and we move out to the way to let them pass. Their relief is palpable, one or two almost running. They did their stint in the entrance tunnel, and are able to descend to the cooler belly of the Refuge. Gazes are cast bleakly upward as their owners judge how much longer they have endure, how much higher they have to go, before reluctantly shuffling upward.
We must do better next Infernam, I decide. There’s only so much that can be endured. But is there a better way? More than usual died this sexennium, and finding room for everyone, even in these terrible conditions, was a miracle. In the coming sexennium, the population would be bigger to start with. So what was going to happen next Infernam? And the one after? Would a new process to exclude people from the Refuge have to be implemented? Would that gradually lead them to a world as bad as that they had come from?
Rianel climbs beyond the last of the people and lowers his lamp. We gather around. I want to stop breathing because the air burns my lungs. And we still have a ways to go to reach the surface.
Rianel gestures at a bunch of clothes to the side. “Make sure you cover your skin as well as possible. Strong boots. Gloves. Clothes without holes. Once outside, touching anything could give you severe burns.”
I find a pair of heavy boots that fit and some mismatched gloves.
“We’ll take it in stages from here,” Rianel tells us. “Try to get accustomed to the additional heat each time we stop. It may feel like the heat is too much to bear, but trust me, it isn’t.”
I don’t know how he is so sure. The air is scorching my face. Possibly Rianel is using a trick of Bowe’s by pretending to be sure to give others confidence.
Once everyone is satisfied with their clothing, we continue. Every fifty paces, we pause for several minutes. I want to turn around and run back. But if I can bear the pain inside, I can bear this. What was it Bowe used to say—death was just a small step? I take another step upward.
We reach the top. The doors of the four entrances stand open, and the curve of Helion’s lower edge is visible through the rightmost one. The one that was known as the Bellanger entrance.
“Anyone feel they can’t go on?” Rianel asks.
Gazes shift back and forth. The air burns against my skin, I want to scream out, then charge back down the tunnel. I don’t say anything.
“There’s no shame in it,” Rianel says. “It will only get worse, and if you are at your limit, you won’t be capable of collecting water and returning with it.”
A young man to my left raises his hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t think—” His voice cracks.
“It’s fine, go back right now. And make sure to demand an extra few sips of water.”
The young man lowers his gaze, then trundles back down the slope, slowly at first, then speeding up. He stumbles but doesn’t fall. Then he is around the corner and out of sight.
“Keep it slow and steady. If you stop for too long, the soles of your boots will start smoking. Look for light-colored firm ground. Don’t fall. If you do, don’t let your skin touch the ground or let any dirt get under your clothes. But don’t fall.”
Rianel leads them out the rightmost door, what used to be the Grenier door. Helion is enormous; it’s so close that I fear it will fall out of the sky and crush us. Like a malevolent giant eye, it watches our progress, begrudging every breath we take, every new footprint we leave on the dead landscape.
Left Post and Right Post have been reduced to cinders. A few beams of wood that haven’t been completely burnt are the only evidence of what they were. Building the Posts so close to the Refuge was a mistake. While they burned, the heat and air quality within the Refuge had worsened.
The fresh air feels good, even if I take shallow breaths so it doesn’t burn too much. It carries the smell of the sea. Out in the harbor, dozens of ships stand tall. None of them have suffered from fires, though I guess that those that had are below the waves. They are well separated from each other, so fires don’t spread between them.
If the ships have escaped relatively unharmed, they are the only things that have. The forests beyond the city have been reduced to soot; same for the plains. Even the scrub that clung to the lower reaches of the mountains is gone. Not the slightest bit of green remains anywhere in sight. Many parts of the city have been blackened, worse than usual. The fireproofing of buildings was neglected with everything else going on. The fires must have raged for days. I couldn’t imagine what the island looked like at the height of the Infernam.
“Keep moving,” Rianel says.
Flakes of ash float on the breeze. We trudge through the desolation. It feels like we are the last living things in existence, the six of us, wrapped up against the heat, carrying waterskins.
A young man, a teenager, falls back to walk alongside me. I half-recognize him. “You knew Bowe?” I ask.
“I was a Green that he tried to help.” He brushes ash from his hair. “That he did help.”
“I remember now. Coinal, right? He told me that you had a smile like sunlight.”
“He didn’t want me to lose it.”
“It’ll be back. The Infernam ends.”
Coinal glances around. “That’s hard to believe right now.”
“It’s the way of life. Look over there.” I point to the center of a dark patch of ash where a needle-thin green shoot had emerged. “It’s begun already.” Although I talk of hope, my voice is sad. The sight of new life makes my heart ache. Not everything would be back. “Soon the birds will return from wherever they shelter during the Infernam, and the insects and small animals will burrow back to the surface. The trees will be taller than the biggest Eye fighter within a year.” I’m not sure who I am telling. Myself, I guess.
“This time around, everything’s changed,” Coinal says. “No ascor, no marshals. I wish Bowe was still alive. He’d know what has to happen next.”
I shake my head. “He didn’t know. He probably pretended he did to give others confidence. He had faith, though, that things would be better.”
“There are no Guardians and no Hess. But maybe someone worse will take over.”
“Bowe had faith that a new order would be better because he saw the sacrifice and kindness in the hearts of so many escay. He didn’t fully understand it, having grown up as an ascor, but he admired it greatly. He felt sure that if people capable of such nobility of spirit were in charge, then Arcandis would be a better place. More than that—he knew it would be good place.” I glance upward. “Despite what Helion wants.”
“Or maybe no one will take charge, and we’ll drift hopelessly to a much more devastating Infernam next time around.”
“No. Not after everything that has been lost to get us this far.” By everything, I guess I mean Bowe. “I won’t let that happen.” In that instant, I realize what I will do afterward. I will travel to other countries and learn how each of them prepare for and survive the Infernam. Get ideas from each of them, then return with that knowledge. I feel sure that ideas from around the world, fused with the escay spirit, will make a viable and happy future possible. As I think that, I feel a spark inside me, like the first green shoot has sprouted within my desolate heart.
“Still. If only he were alive.”
Tears dribble down my cheeks but I can’t allow myself to contemplate that possibility. “He would say that this was for the best. That, if people looked to him, then an ascor was still in charge. And perhaps he is still helping us. I hate the stories that call him Bowe the Savior, but they are how the people want to remember him. Perhaps those remembrances will guide and help as a new future is built. A better future.”
“You called him an ascor. Was he truly ascor or escay? Surely you know, even if no one else does.”
“No one alive knows. He didn’t even know for sure himself. He grew up as an ascor, and he had t
he brain of an ascor, but he wanted to be an escay, I think, and he had the heart of an escay. He didn’t fully fit into either world. Perhaps, at the end, he joined those two halves. He used ascor strategies to figure out what needed to be done, and embraced the escay spirit of sacrifice when he gave up his life so that the Arcandis he loved could have a brighter future.”
The End
Further Information
Make sure you have read the prequel, The Cruel Path. It adds depth to the stories of Eolnar and Sorani. See below for details.
As one story ends, others begin. Read details about the epic fantasy, Weapons of Power, and the urban fantasy, The Sentinels, on my website. http://davidjnormoyle.com/ Or get a taste for the series with the free prequels.
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In The Cruel Path: Three brothers take on the pitiless test of the Green Path, knowing that even if they win, one of them must die.
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Join the author’s mailing list and get The Cruel Path, plus prequels to two other great series: http://davidjnormoyle.com/readers-list/
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this story. Consider leaving a review on your favorite book site. I always love to hear from readers so send an email ([email protected]) or message me on FACEBOOK if you want to get in contact.
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COPYRIGHT
THE COLLAPSING PATH
Copyright © 2016 by David J. Normoyle
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Collapsing Path (The Narrowing Path Series Book 3) Page 23
