Xelu’s pieces were lined up against Bowe’s. Bowe began to concentrate more; he leaned over the board, his hands trembling with each move. Xelu’s lips curled into a snarl as he realized his opponent wasn’t easy meat. Bowe was dug into a defensive shell, but couldn’t hold out too long against Xelu’s superior position. He just had to hope—and then it happened. Tokanu and Myro made their moves, attacking Xelu. Bowe sat up straight on his chair. Xelu’s strength was now his weakness. His control of the important central areas made him an appetizing target for the others, and with Bowe proving tougher than expected, Xelu was overextended. Xelu began to redeploy his pieces to deal with the new threat, but Bowe wasn’t going to give him time to regroup.
Bowe’s pieces on Xelu’s flank now launched a strong attack into the heart of his position. Spectators who had gotten bored and drifted away now returned and pushed in closer. It felt like fifty people were breathing down Bowe’s neck as they studied the board. Bowe won the next few tactical battles against Xelu, and, with both Tokanu and Myro attacking, Xelu’s demise was sudden. He went from having the most pieces to having none within a handful of turns.
“And with the elimination of Xelu, we’ll take a short break.” Jeniano looked like he couldn’t believe what he’d just said.
Bowe stood up, stretched, and pushed his way out through a knot of onlookers who still studied the board.
He spotted Zofila darting away from her companion and moved to intercept her. She turned sharply when he touched her shoulder.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be playing a game?”
“Life’s a game,” Bowe said. “We are always playing at something or another. How goes your game?”
“Since when do you care about what I do?”
“I was watching you talk to the ascor you were with. You didn’t seem happy.”
She was about to retort when her face seemed to fall into itself, and she burst into tears.
“Hey, hey—now there.” No one else had noticed her quiet sobbing, and Bowe put his arm around her and eased her out of the ballroom and into a corridor.
He waited, his hand resting on her upper arm while she dried her eyes. “You have some strange effect on me,” she said. “I never cry, but I’ve met you twice and I’ve cried both times.”
Bowe studied her. “I don’t believe you never cry.” Her tears came too easily.
She laughed at that, or tried to. It turned into a sob, and she buried her face into her hands and wept once more. After a few moments, she rubbed her hands down her face, wiping the tears away. “Right, I’m done crying. No time for it. My makeup must be a mess.”
That was an understatement—she looked like someone had dipped a mop into several vats of makeup and scrubbed her face with it. “It could use a touch-up.”
She laughed, and this time it didn’t turn to tears. “You’re right. I cry more than I should. Most nights. But not in public, except with you.”
“I’m sorry I upset you.”
“It’s not that you upset me; it’s that you are kind to me. I spend all day putting up this shield around me, protecting me from all the ascor can throw at me, and then you make me crumble by caring.”
Bowe turned away. “That might not be a good thing, you know. Bad things happen to those I care about. What do you need a shield for, anyway? It can’t be that bad, coming to events like this. Wined and dined by the ascor looking for your hand in marriage.”
Zofila snorted. “What would you know about it? Just because the Greenette Path doesn’t have the prestige of yours doesn’t mean it isn’t just as tough. For ugly girls like me, at any rate.”
“You aren’t…” Bowe tried to protest her self-proclaimed ugliness, but had difficulty finding the words with her face a mess of tears and makeup.
“The pretty girls have it easy.” Her eyes were focused on a point above his head. “In getting married, at least, and surviving past the Infernam. The senior wives make their lives hell after, I’ve heard, but that’s a problem for another day. After the initial flurry of selections of the attractive girls, the ascor men sit back and wait for the rest of us to come on to them. They have the power of life and death over us, and they enjoy watching us squirm. The only ones who have yet to select wives now seem to want to torture us. They treat us—they treat me—” She scowled. “—like whores. Whispering all kinds of perverted suggestions to us. Like we were just their escay women. Of course, if one of us goes too far before we are married, word gets round, and then that girl is shunned and might as well immediately take Paradise’s Kiss for all the chance she has of getting a place in the Refuge.” She looked suddenly at Bowe. “What am I telling you all this for? You probably don’t understand half of it; you are nothing but a boy.”
“You’re not much older than me,” Bowe said.
“Boys mature more slowly than girls.” She raised her hand to forestall Bowe’s protests. “I don’t mean in terms of fighting or playing your games; I mean with regard to marriage and the debased things that men do to women. Ascor don’t take a wife until they are at least eighteen. We Greenettes have to walk our Path at the same age you Greens walk yours—some of us are only thirteen.”
Bowe flushed slightly, remembering his kisses with Iyra. Zofila would surely consider that a perverted act with an escay woman.
Zofila studied Bowe. “But boys do get urges before then. They are watched closely in the harem section once they reach your age.” She smiled and tugged at Bowe’s cheek. “You look so cute when you blush all red like that.”
Bowe pushed her hand away. “Until you did that, I was going to offer you a chance to escape the—as you call it—Greenette Path.”
Zofila took a step back and looked him up and down. “There. You did it again.”
“Did what?” Bowe asked.
“Every now and again, you fill out that absurd blue outfit and make it look like kingly robes. And you look like a Guardian trapped in a boy’s body.” She laughed. “Now you’re blushing again and the effect is ruined.” She turned serious. “What was that about escape?”
Bowe opened his mouth and then closed it again. What was he doing making more promises when he had no idea how to keep his current ones? “I’m hoping to find a way to get all my Defenders into the Refuge. Perhaps I could get you in, too.”
She looked at him with a quizzical expression. “But you’ve no idea how you are going to do that, right?”
Bowe rubbed a knuckle against the side of his head. “Well…at this moment…”
Zofila tilted her head upward and roared with laughter. “Look at that, you’ve cheered me up completely. But the worst of the perverted suggestions from the ascor sound better than your escape plan. At least they’re real. I’d better get back.”
“Ah.” Bowe raised a finger. “You’re going back in there? You could use a touch-up of your makeup.”
“Helion’s daughters! Now that you mention it, I couldn’t be bothered going back right now. Not just after you’ve cheered me up. They can save up their torments for another time. I’m leaving.”
She turned back the other way. Bowe raised his finger again. “You’re going outside? People might see you. You could use a…you know…on your face.”
She laughed again, her shoulders shaking with mirth. “You’ve put me in such a good mood, I don’t know if I’ll even be able to cry tonight. How will I ever get to sleep?” She and strode away, still laughing.
Bowe went back to the ballroom, trying to understand how she had gone from tears to laughter so quickly. He hadn’t helped her with any of her problems.
Before he had a chance to get his bearings back inside the ballroom, Legrand intercepted him. The scarlet hair looked even more ridiculous up close. “There you are. We are trying to get the game started again.”
“Okay.” Bowe tried to move past him, but Legrand grabbed his arm and leaned in close.
“That was some stunt you pulled—Xelu was supposed to win today. I saw you t
alking to Eolnar when you came in. Did you two come up with this scheme together?”
Bowe opened his mouth to deny it and stopped. Perhaps it would be better to have Legrand annoyed at Eolnar and, thereby, at his house’s player, Tokanu. “Eolnar told me that he expected Xelu to win unless I could pull off something crazy. So I did.” Legrand released Bowe’s arm and Bowe returned to the Harmony board. All the other players were there, and once Legrand took his place on the judges’ bench, Jeniano instructed the players to recommence.
Bowe quickly scanned the board. Usually at this stage of a Harmony game with advanced players, many stalemate lines would have been set up at strategic locations. But because of Xelu’s sudden and unexpected fall, each player’s forces were much more jumbled up than usual. Tokanu had the safest position, hugging his side of the board. Myro occupied the center, making him stronger but more vulnerable. Considering that, due to the Raine/Grenier pact, Myro would be selected as winner in the event of a three-way draw, Bowe’s plan was clear. With his first move, he struck aggressively against the Raine player and his silver pieces.
Myro fidgeted with his fingers as he considered his next move. It was clear he’d never played a Harmony game like this before. Bowe’s best hope for a solo victory was for Tokanu to sit and hold his position. But it soon became clear that that wasn’t going to happen. Tokanu quickly launched his own attack against the silver pieces. Myro wasn’t able to put up much of a fight against the two-pronged attack. His position collapsed almost as quickly as Xelu’s had.
Jeniano stood. “Remarkable. Two contestants left. Tokanu Lessard and Bowe Bellanger.” He looked down at both the players. “Should we take another break before resuming?” he asked.
Bowe re-examined the board. Tokanu hadn’t made the mistakes of Xelu or Myro in overextending himself. Large parts of the board now had stalemate lines set, and Bowe could clearly see that the game would end in a two-way draw. Perhaps against Vitarr Bowe would have been able to win from this position, but Tokanu had proven himself to be an excellent player.
Bowe looked back at the judges’ table. Perhaps he could use a break in play to nudge Jeniano toward selecting him instead of Tokanu, the way he had done with Legrand. Bowe took one look at the ascor’s eyes and knew that wouldn’t work. They were the kind of eyes that could read the ascorim as easily as other people could see colors. Trying to manipulate him was bound to be ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst.
“No need for a break,” Bowe said. “The match is nearly over.”
And it was. Bowe and Tokanu played out the rest of the game without surprises, though Tokanu played like he suspected a trap at every turn. When they finished, Jeniano announced that the judges would confer before announcing their decision. Bowe tried to stretch his hearing toward their bench, but the room had descended into an uproar of arguing and discussion, making that impossible. Eolnar and Legrand needed to lean in close to Jeniano just so they could hear each other.
Tokanu reached out his arm to Bowe. “That was the most remarkable game of Harmony I’ve ever played.”
Bowe clasped his arm and grinned. “I was hoping to take you down, as well.”
“In both of our encounters you’ve surprised me. I’ll be wary at our next meeting, that’s for sure,” Tokanu said.
Jeniano stood, and the room hushed. “I have the pleasure to announce that, by a vote of two to one, there will be a Bellanger at the Grand Sexennial Harmony Match one last time.”
The ballroom erupted. If Bowe had thought the crowd was loud before, that was nothing compared to now.
* * *
Bowe’s elation gave him a floating feeling as he exited Lessard Mansion. Even the renewed blast of heat when he stepped outside and the realization that he had no money for a rickshaw couldn’t dim his euphoria. He wasn’t exactly sure how the Harmony win would help him survive the Path. Most of the Path was twists and turns, humps and hollows—it was often hard to tell victories from defeats. But this was a win. No one could take that away.
A familiar face appeared and disappeared in the crowd. Bowe stopped dead. One of Dulnato’s Defenders? People thronged through the main street in front of Lessard Mansion, and Bowe couldn’t find the face again. He suddenly felt alone and vulnerable. How could he have been so dumb as to forget whom he had seen on the way in? He should have asked Eolnar or Jeniano for an escort. He decided to return to the mansion, but when he turned, he saw two teenagers lounging close to the main entrance. They had the look of Grenier Greens about them, with black hair and thick limbs.
Bowe saw the face again. The man was closer, and this time he recognized him for sure. Clain, one of Dulnato’s main lieutenants. He closed in on Bowe from one side, and Bowe sensed another person approaching on his other side. A large rickshaw pulled in front of him. The two at the entrance were now approaching him from behind. He was surrounded.
The rickshaw window’s curtain was jerked to the side and a white mask with only one eyehole appeared. “Get in,” the White Spider said in an urgent whisper.
Bowe knew it could be a trap, but there was no love lost between the White Spider and Dulnato. And Bowe didn’t exactly have much choice. Even as those thoughts flashed through his mind, Bowe climbed into the rickshaw.
“Go,” the White spider said to the two pullers at the front. Through the crack in the curtain, Bowe caught a brief glimpse of Clain’s confusion before the rickshaw jerked forward.
“To Bellanger Mansion,” the White Spider called out to the pullers, leaning back into the cushioned seat. “They won’t bother us in this. They wouldn’t dare—two-man rickshaws are rarely used by anyone except the ascor.”
“So how come you have one?”
“I bought it. I like my privacy and this helps.” Due to the mask, his voice had a disembodied quality.
Bowe suppressed a shiver as he looked at the expressionless visage. The mask was all white and curved around his face. Contours on it drew the mouth and nose. Two eyeholes had been carved into it, but one had been blocked by the same white material. “I’m sorry, you know,” Bowe said, “about what happened on the pier that night.”
“Wasn’t your fault. We were on the same side at the time. Dulnato is the one who needs to pay. And he will—believe me, he will.”
“Is that why you saved me from Dulnato’s Defenders just now? What were you doing here anyway?” Bowe tried to get comfortable in the seat, but he was on edge. He still feared a trap within a trap, and having a guy in a creepy mask beside him didn’t lower the tension.
“I was here on other business when I saw Dulnato’s goons, and I decided to wait and see what they were up to. When I saw you about to be surrounded, I decided to intervene.”
It’s the second time that his intervention has saved me from Dulnato, Bowe thought. But he didn’t bring it up again. Bowe got the impression that the White Spider didn’t like talking about that night on the docks. “Thanks,” Bowe said instead.
“How did your Harmony match go?”
“I won.” Bowe grinned, but the smile quickly died when faced with the mask’s blank expression. “Well, actually Tokanu and I drew, and the judges declared me the winner.”
“Interesting.” The White Spider’s voice was as expressionless as his visage. “What do you think of alliances on the Green Path?” he asked. “Are true allies possible? Not between Elect and their Defenders, but between two Elects?”
Bowe frowned, thinking. “Zidel and Dulnato have an understanding, as I learned to my cost. But true allies? I imagine either one would stab the other in the back without an instance’s thought if they decided it was to their benefit.”
“Indeed. But you are made of different mettle than either of them, I believe. Either that, or your ascorim skills are beyond what anyone has thought possible.”
“Are you suggesting an alliance? I don’t see how we can help each other.” The rickshaw stopped, and Bowe peeked out the curtain. “We’re at Bellanger Mansion.” He said it in a surp
rised voice—he’d still been half-expecting a trap.
“The three who headed the lists on the first day of the Path are all still alive with thirteen days to go. Do you know how unusual that is?” the White Spider asked.
Bowe shook his head.
“Zidel, Dulnato, and Reyanu…” He trailed off. “You can go.” The White Spider gestured for him to leave, and Bowe slid out of the rickshaw and onto the street. A quick glance around revealed no sign of any of Dulnato’s Defenders.
“I may have something to show you in few days. Will you come if I send for you?” the White Spider asked.
“I’m not sure,” Bowe replied. Could a trap be elaborate enough to let him go simply to gain his trust? After all, the ascorim had many levels.
“Think on it,” the White Spider said. The rickshaw moved off and disappeared around the corner.
Bowe tried to follow the White Spider’s line of reasoning before he’d trailed off. Zidel, Dulnato, and Reyanu still led the lists. After them, the White Spider could be fourth. And I could be close to fifth after today, Bowe thought. Is he suggesting we eliminate the leading Elects?
Chapter 15
10 Days Left
The White Spider had asked to meet at a tavern and Bowe decided to go. “There’s no point in even giving you advice.” Glil was animated. “Like you ever listen to me.”
“I do, I even listen to your Th…Thar-something stories about trees or some such,” Bowe said. He was with Glil, Sorrin, Edison, and Thrace in one of Bellanger Mansion’s second floor rooms. The wooden floors had been polished. Old furniture had been cleaned, dusted off, and placed here. Now that it was revamped, this room wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of the other mansions. A mirror with a gilded frame hung on one wall, and an ancient portrait of a long-dead Bellanger Guardian glared down at the gathering.
The Narrowing Path (The Narrowing Path Series Book 1) Page 16