The Narrowing Path: The Complete Trilogy (The Narrowing Path Series Book 4)

by David J Normoyle

  “I didn’t think so,” Coensaw said. “Nevertheless you have had access to certain secrets for a while and haven’t done anything to betray them. Just so you know, the consequences for betrayal are just as severe whether you’ve taken the oaths or not. Do you like my chair?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Bowe said.

  “One of my people visited Jarind and brought back the ideas from there. Fascinating place, Jarind. Over there, old people are respected. Here, they are expected to quietly die before the first gray hairs so as not to be taking places in the Refuge from those who are younger and stronger.”

  “There’s only so much room in the Refuge,” Bowe said.

  “Possibly. The Jarindors see things very differently from us in so many ways. I met one. I believe you met him too—a man by the name of Washima.”

  Bowe nodded. Iyra must have been the one who told Coensaw about him. Bowe wanted to ask Coensaw if Iyra was still alive, but he held his tongue. He didn’t want the Guild leader to know he still thought about her.

  “After talking to him for a while, it makes one see how wrong our society is here in Arcandis. Washima used to get so angry when we’d tell him what life was like here. He hated you ascor, you know? He hated the system we live in with a passion that was strange even for someone like me who has fought against it his whole life. It’s harder to see something clearly and understand it when you’re inside it.”

  “Washima didn’t tell me any of this.” The Jarindor spy had been reasonably polite when Bowe had met him.

  “Well, he needed you to help him free his crewmembers on the ship. But if he had his way, the whole of Arcandis society would be turned upside down and inside out.”

  “Maybe that’s why we don’t let outlanders visit Arcandis.”

  Coensaw smiled. “Yes, they don’t want us knowing what goes on in other countries, and they don’t want other countries knowing what goes on here. What are your thoughts on matters like the Green Path and old people not getting places in the Refuge?” Coensaw rubbed his bald head and smiled. “Though you might have noticed that I’m an exception.”

  Bowe shrugged. The Green Path was a terrible thing and he intended to do something about it if he ever got a chance, but old people giving up their places in the Refuge for younger people made sense. There didn’t seem much advantage in giving the old man insight into what he thought, though, so he let the old man continue to talk.

  “My friends thought I was valuable enough to be worth the effort of getting an old man into the Refuge three years ago. It cost more in bribes to get someone as enfeebled as me in, though I could walk more back then. I wasn’t as bad as I am now.”

  “So what does the Guild want with me?” Bowe asked. “How come I always run into the Guild when things are going badly?” It had been a while since he’d allowed himself to think about it, but Iyra had said he was an escay. Was it because the Guild believed him to be an escay, to be one of them, that they helped him? Was he not really a Bellanger—had his whole life been a lie? “How come I can never shake your organization?”

  “We have helped you, and now you complain.” Coensaw turned to Xarcon. “He isn’t very grateful, is he?”

  Xarcon shrugged. “He sees the world like an ascor, looking to take from it what he can.”

  Bowe felt another pang. “When did this happen, Xarcon? You and the Guild. We were friends once, or at least I thought we were. I remember you being repulsed by the idea of the Guild at one point, and I had to defend it to you.”

  “I was still under the ascor conditioning then,” Xarcon said. “I feel ashamed whenever I remember my thoughts from back then. I’ll admit you were the one who first pointed me in the right direction. You got me to open my eyes and actually look, rather than just see what I’d been told to see. When I looked at Arcandis and its society—truly looked—it was clear who was on the side of good and who was on the side of evil.” Xarcon took a step toward Bowe. “I know you aren’t blind to what’s going on around you like others. You could join the Guild, Bowe.”

  Bowe shook his head. “There are some issues in Arcandis, I know that, and I want things to improve. But this isn’t the way. A bunch of underground criminals. You’re better than this, Xarcon.”

  “After all the help we’ve given you, Bowe, that’s how you think of us?” Coensaw wheeled his chair closer. “A guild member saved you from Dulnato on the docks when he was about to have you killed. We paid your debt to the Raines when you were dying from poison.”

  “You paid the debt with my money. I helped you make a profit on the red garnets, and you paid the debt out of my share. Yes, I was helped by a Guild member, but I also helped Washima escape for you. I owe you nothing.”

  “What about now?” Coensaw asked. “You want our help to escape the city.”

  “I wanted Xarcon’s help,” Bowe said. “I was under the mistaken impression that his loyalties still lay with the Bellangers.”

  “Now that you know the truth, are you asking for our help?”

  Bowe crossed his arms. “You do what you have to do. I’m not going to beg for help.” Bowe didn’t want to get caught in the Guild’s web. He wasn’t going to betray Arcandis just to save his own hide.

  “You’re a Guardian of Arcandis. Shouldn’t you be bargaining, scheming? I know you don’t want to go down without a fight.”

  Even if Bowe could make some deal to save his skin, it’d only be temporary. Though he got the sense that he didn’t even need to agree to anything. “I don’t need to bargain. I know you’re going to help me whatever I say.”

  “Why would I do that?” Coensaw leaned back into his chair with a small smile on his face.

  “It doesn’t matter why. That’s just what’s going to happen.” Coensaw hadn’t come all this way to see Bowe die. The Guild had helped Bowe before, and Bowe suspected that they intended to again. Maybe it was because the Guild thought he was really an escay, maybe it wasn’t, but for some reason they had an interest in him.

  “But it can’t be that simple,” Coensaw said. “Is it my guilt in causing the fall of the Bellangers fifteen years ago? Do I feel the need to protect the remnants of the family because of that?”

  Bowe started. “You had nothing to do with that.”

  Coensaw raised his eyebrows. “You’re not the only one who can play Harmony games with the Guardians.”

  “I would have heard.” Bowe was beginning to wonder how much he could trust what Coensaw said. Did the old man play his own version of the ascorim? Schemes and lies webbed together into a giant net.

  “Yes, because I’m sure if the Guild were behind it the ascor would shout that from the rooftops. They do so like people to talk about the Guild. It’s true that I was involved, though. It wasn’t just me; the Guild isn’t powerful enough to bring down one of the great families on its own. But sometimes a little push in the right direction is all it takes. It doesn’t really matter now after so lo—” Coensaw stopped talking, his body went rigid, and his face twisted in pain. He closed his eyes and it took a few moments for the spasm to pass. “My body betrays me.” He took rapid shallow breaths. “I can feel a change coming for Arcandis, though. I don’t suppose your bones tell you anything, do they?”

  “My bones?” Bowe asked, confused.

  “You’re young, you wouldn’t have experienced this. Only the old can hear the wisdom in their bones. They tell me if the weather is going to turn poorly and if the day will go well for me. I don’t know how they do it—perhaps it’s because bones are solid immobile structures and they are sensitive to change. And my bones tell me that something major is going to happen. And my gut tells me that you, Bowe Bellanger, could be at the heart of it. So you’re right. I don’t expect any oaths from you in exchange for help.”

  Coensaw nodded to Xarcon, and Xarcon went behind the wheeled chair and pushed it forward. The four men who’d been leaning against the walls moved to open the door.

  “I’ll send someone tomorrow to
help you out of the city. Even I can’t keep you safe inside the walls for now. But if you go to ground in the countryside for a while, perhaps you’ll be able to return at a later date.”

  As Bowe watched the chair on wheels get pushed across the room, he wondered what else the Guild had learned from the Jarindors. Obviously Washima’s visit had not been the only illicit contact between the Jarindors and the Arcandis escay. Thinking about Washima brought Iyra’s words back to Bowe’s mind again. This man might be the best person to tell Bowe the truth, and Bowe might never get another chance to ask. “One moment,” Bowe called out.

  Xarcon stopped at the doorway and turned Coensaw’s chair around so he faced Bowe.

  “I’d like to discuss something with Coensaw,” Bowe said. “Alone.”

  “No, he’s not to the trusted,” Xarcon said. Bowe felt another splinter of betrayal as Xarcon showed just how much he was Coensaw’s man. Xarcon now saw Bowe as nothing more than a possible threat to his leader.

  Coensaw glanced outside to where his bodyguards waited for him. “Leave me in the center of the room,” Coensaw ordered Xarcon. “And stand by the door and watch.”

  Xarcon scowled but did as ordered. Bowe crouched down so his mouth was close to Coensaw’s ear. “I was told I wasn’t an ascor,” Bowe whispered. “That was just a lie, right?”

  Coensaw hesitated before answering. “I know who told you that. She wasn’t supposed to say anything,” he whispered back.

  Bowe’s stomach clenched. “Well, she did. Is it true?”

  “Does it matter?” Coensaw asked. “Say we planted an escay baby in the heart of an ascor mansion and it was raised as an ascor child. What would emerge a decade and a half later would be an ascor teenager.”

  “No.” Bowe shook his head. “No.” He shouted out the second no, causing Xarcon to start. Bowe calmed himself down, and Xarcon stayed where he was.

  That there was no difference between ascor and escay was a Guild lie. Bowe had to know the truth. Was he an imposter? Was his whole life a Guild plot to undermine the ascor?

  “Look at it this way,” Coensaw said. “From what I’ve heard, you hate the escay as much as or more than any other ascor.”

  “When I was younger, maybe. Not anymore,” Bowe muttered. The behavior of his thirteen-year-old self was an embarrassment to him now. He was horrified at how he had treated Iyra, who had only helped him.

  “You were physically repulsed by escay. Even if you were born an escay and Xarcon was born an ascor, whom would we prefer to have on our side now? I don’t care who anyone’s parents are; I only care if a person is on our side or not.”

  “Why can’t you just answer my question?”

  “Let me tell you a story,” Coensaw said. “It’s set fifteen years ago and the Bellanger family has been ruined. Most of the escay servants who worked in Bellanger Mansion have no hope of getting a place in the Refuge. One of the escay servants is a woman of remarkable courage and strength. She accepts that there’s no way to save herself, but isn’t willing to accept death for her one-year-old boy. So she sneaks him into Bellanger Mansion on the very last day, she drugs him to sleep so he will not cry, she dresses him in the clothes of one of the ascor children, and she hides him in a vase.”

  Bowe felt a sinking feeling as he listened to Coensaw’s story. “What happened to the woman?”

  “She went out on the escay funeral barge that very day. She never even waited to see if her plan succeeded. Knowing that it was better that absolutely no one knew about it, she planned on telling no one. But she bonded with another woman, a fish-seller, on the funeral barge, and knowing that both were about to die, she whispered her secret to that one person. The fish-seller decided the secret was valuable enough to buy her own life, so she didn’t go into the water with the rest. She watched the servant go to a watery grave, told the priests she had changed her mind, and returned with the barge. The fish-seller knew enough about the Guild to be able to get a meeting with the Guild leader.”

  “And you were that Guild leader?” Bowe suggested.

  “Let me finish the story. The Guild leader promised to find a place for her in the Refuge if she revealed her knowledge to no one else. She agreed. Unfortunately, at the entrance to the Refuge her papers were not in order, and the marshals killed her.”

  “Why did you phrase it as a story?” Bowe had a sick taste in his mouth. “Clearly you’re saying that you were the Guild leader and that’s what happened. I’m the son of some escay servant who disguised her baby as an ascor.”

  “Do you trust me, Bowe Bellanger?” Coensaw had a strange smile on his face.

  Bowe shook his head. “No, of course not.”

  “Then why do you believe that the story I just told you is true?”

  “It’s so detailed.”

  “I told you I didn’t care whether you were escay or not. But what if it was in my interest for you to believe you were? I’d tell you a story like that whether it was true or not. My mind is fertile enough to supply all the little details to make it seem plausible, I can assure you.”

  “So which is it? Is it true, or do you just want me to believe it’s true?”

  “I have no proof either way,” Coensaw said. “And you don’t trust me not to lie. So what point is there in me telling you either way?”

  “If you wanted me to believe I was escay, why would you tell that story and then immediately cast aspersions about its truth? If you didn’t want me to believe that, why even tell me that story?” Bowe was used to the webs of deception of the ascorim, but this was ridiculous.

  “I like to mess with people’s heads,” Coensaw said.

  “So what you told me about the Guild bringing down the Bellanger family fifteen years ago—that was similarly a lie?”

  “That was similarly something I said. Whether it is the truth or not, that is another question. During our conversation this evening I have told some truths and some lies.”

  Bowe considered. He thought he’d learned something this evening, but if he couldn’t tell the truth from the lies, he’d learned nothing.

  “I can see you thinking back over our talk, trying to figure out the truth from the lies. But maybe saying I told some truth was a lie. Or maybe I told all truths. Though I think there’s a paradox somewhere if said I told all truths. Doesn’t matter, I embrace paradoxes. For one of the lowly underclass to be able to challenge the mighty ascor leadership is a paradox in itself.” Coensaw nodded to Xarcon, who came over and wheeled him away. “It’s been fun talking to you, Bowe Bellanger. I hope we meet again.”

  Then he was gone, leaving Bowe wondering if Coensaw had lied when he’d said that he would help Bowe escape the city.

  Chapter 4

  Day 7

  Hunched over the floor, Bowe studied the makeshift Harmony board. With the light fading, he could barely make out the pieces anymore. He’d scratched out the board on the floor with a stone and used crosses for one side’s pieces and circles for the other. He was trying to play a game against himself to practice and learn, but mainly to distract himself. It wasn’t really working; he kept thinking about what Coensaw had said. He couldn’t figure out which parts were the truth and which parts were lies. His mind kept going in circles thinking about it.

  There came a knock at the door. “Who is it?” Bowe asked, standing up.

  The door opened a crack and a cloth bag was thrown into the room. “Put this on,” a man’s voice said.

  “Is that really necessary?” Bowe asked.

  “Just do it if you want to get out of the city tonight. It won’t take much for me to decide to abort the plan.”

  Bowe didn’t know what the plan was, but he wasn’t likely to get many chances to escape the city. He picked up the cloth bag and put it over his head. “Done. Come on.”

  Bowe heard someone entering and closing the door behind them. The person then paced back and forth across the room.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he said.

  “What i
sn’t?” Bowe asked. But the man seemed to be talking to himself rather than to Bowe.

  “He’s supposed to be honorable.” Bowe could just about understand the man’s muttering monologue. “If such is even possibly for an ascor. I was told he could be trusted to an extent. What does to an extent mean? Someone can either be trusted or not.”

  “I can hear you.” Bowe wondered if the man looked as crazy as he sounded. What kind of rescuer had Coensaw sent?

  “Listen.” The man stopped his pacing and stood in front of Bowe. “There’s no way we won’t get caught if you’re wearing that bag on your head.”

  “Finally, some sense.” Bowe reached for the cloth above his head. Why hadn’t his rescuer thought of this before he arrived with his bag?

  “Wait.” A hand gripped Bowe’s wrist. “I want you to swear to me that you’ll never betray that I helped you, or that I’m connected to the Guild. Swear it on...” He paused. “Swear it on the life of your friend who died early on the Green Path.”

  “Vitarr. How come everyone can remember how he died and no one remembers his name?”

  “Yes, that’s him. Vitarr. Now swear.”

  “You know I’ve seen the faces of other members of the Guild and not betrayed them.” There was a shuffling of feet and Bowe sighed. “Very well. I swear on the memory of my friend Vitarr that I will not betray you to anyone.” Bowe pulled the bag off his head.

  Standing in front of him was a middle-aged man with pudgy arms and a protruding midriff. The crown of his head was bald. He didn’t look crazy; he seemed to be a guy who’d be more comfortable at home with kids on his knee than he would skulking around the city after dark.

  “This way.” He opened the door and exited.

  Bowe followed him out. “What’s your name?”

  “Call me Tee.”

  It was a dark cloudy night. Most of the light came from torches and candles from within the houses, but it was enough to make out the outlines of the streets.

  Tee didn’t waste any time. He glanced both ways then led Bowe toward the city walls. Bowe was glad that Tee didn’t seem inclined to travel via the rooftops; Bowe didn’t fancy trying to traverse them in this light.