Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel)

  Contents

  Title Page

  About Forever the Road

  India Through the Third Eye

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  Before you go...

  Also by Anthony St. Clair

  Join the Rucksack Universe

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Special Features

  About the Author

  Forever the Road

  Anthony St. Clair

  Rucksack Press

  About Forever the Road

  Travel. Destiny. Beer.

  When an evil as old as the world awakens, only three wanderers can prevent the annihilation of all life. Nobody in Agamuskara, India, remembers why the river and the ancient city both carry the name “smiling fire” or why no one goes near the heart of the city. But when rootless globetrotter Jay arrives with a strange object in his backpack, everything changes.

  In the global secret order of Jakes and Jades, destiny-slinging bartender Jade Agamuskara Bluegold stands above the rest. But now she struggles to untangle the terrible future she foresees, and to ignore her doubts about her own life’s choices.

  Despite themselves, both befriend the world’s only Himalayan-Irish sage: the evasive, stout-quaffing Faddah Rucksack. Now, a man without a destiny steers them toward their own. As this unlikely trio races toward the day of a rare and powerful mirror eclipse, an incredible fate will lead to an impossible choice.

  “Agamuskara shares its name with the river that runs through India’s holiest city, which is also its unholiest. While no records survive to tell us when Agamuskara was founded, local lore maintains the area was settled by the first people to come to the Indian subcontinent. History also does not explain why the city and the river should be named what, in the Hindi, translates as ‘smiling fire.’ This mystery, the delights of daily life and Indian culture, and the unrivaled drinks at the Everest Base Camp Pub and Hostel continue to attract travelers from all over the world.”

  — Guru Deep, India Through the Third Eye

  I

  “IT COULD BE a mirror eclipse,” Rucksack said to Jade. Her hand jerked. The pint glass banged against the tap, sending the black Galway Pradesh Stout foaming and sloshing. She set it down so the beer could settle before resuming the seven-minute pour that made for a perfect pint of GPS.

  “But there hasn’t been a mirror eclipse since The Blast,” she replied. “And that was nearly two hundred years ago.”

  Rucksack looked up from the newspaper and ran his gloved left hand over his bald brown head. A dark sadness flickered over his eyes, as brown and black as earth and trees. “Well, in two month’s time, there may be.” His accent, an ambiguous combination of Irish and everywhere, refused as usual to acknowledge the sound “th,” so “there” sounded more like “t’ere.” His gaze flicked from Jade’s face to the bottles at the back of the bar, then slowly came back to her.

  “Mirror’s not for certain, though,” he said. “They won’t know till closer to the time. Just says the atmospheric conditions may be right.” He harrumphed. “Bloody irresponsible, saying that. All it’ll do is scare people. And mentioning the damn Blast on top o’ it…”

  Jade poured, then set down the brimming pint so it could finish settling, black beer under snow-white foam. “Let me guess,” she said. “There’s no cause for alarm.”

  “O’ course,” Rucksack said. “It’s all coincidence.” His thin, tight smile said the rest.

  Even the steaming-hot India day outside couldn’t alleviate the chill in Jade’s gut. She remembered talking of The Blast as a schoolgirl, scared hushed whispers after history lessons about the strange double-sided eclipse that had burned before Night’s Day, then a world changed and scarred. As an adult and a Jade, many times she had tried to ask The Management what role The Blast was supposed to play, but they never spoke of it. Then again, there were many things they never spoke of.

  Jade handed Rucksack his pint. The heat didn’t matter. At her touch, the glass and beer became the perfect temperature for the stout, as if the Irish pub were in Ireland itself, instead of the middle of one of India’s hottest cities.

  “I’ll be outside,” Rucksack said. “Suddenly I feel a chill.”

  You’re not the only one, Jade thought as her first customer of the day opened the double mahogany doors. Flat yellow sunshine spilled heat into the pub, but she still felt cold.

  Once the doors closed, Jade eyed the liquor, where not so much as a speck of dust dulled the bottles or the glass shelves. The bar’s lights glinted off the bottles, which sat on shelves against the mirror that ran from the ceiling to Jade’s waist, as wide as the length of the bar. It was well stocked for now, though later she knew there’d be a run on the cheaper stuff: Ram Rum, Liquid Courage, Manager’s Reserve, Jimmy Runner, Potato Juice, Blue Label Special, Nirvanic, Captain’s Special Box.

  The knock-off Indian booze might all taste like sugary antifreeze, but it had the best names. Jade chuckled and wondered who had thought of them all. In the mirror, the light caught her smile and her blue-and-gold eyes, framed by her almond face, olive skin, and the kinky brown-and-black hair that hung just past her shoulders.

  Then she reached down, just there on the paneling, just below the bottom shelf of the mirrored bar, just below the phone that never rang. Jade tapped the spot and the cabinet opened. Unseen and unseeable by anyone but her—though lately she wondered about Rucksack—the cabinet held her true duty.

  A soft, silvery light shimmered from no distinct source. The cabinet could have opened to the sky; the small space inside seemed to have no back, no bottom, no sides, no top. All these years, Jade thought, and sometimes I still don’t know. She reached inside, wondering if she would just keep reaching and reaching, but as always her knuckles rapped on the wood at the back of the cabinet, the same deep mahogany of the bar and the doors.

  The bottles seemed to float on the light: Green #2, Red #4, Brown #5, Yellow #6, Blue #7, Orange #9, Silver #10. Almost an ordinary day, except that there was extra Blue #7 and Red #4. No Gold #1, Gray #3, Purple #8, or Black #11, but those came only with special circumstances. Two or even three could be combined. All eleven were never supposed to be mixed together, except under personal guidance from The Management. For a moment Jade wondered why The Management had never been able to figure out a twelfth elixir. It was said that they nearly had, just before The Blast, but after the catastrophe they had stopped trying. The twelfth elixir remained a myth that could not be made real.

  Jade glanced at the clock. Early the hour and empty the pub, but hot was the day, and people would be thirsty. The news spoke of The Blast and another mirror eclipse. People would be scared, indecisive, unsure. The people would need those extra elixirs, and Jade would be ready to steer them.

  She closed the cabinet, rose, and turned to face the doors. Her eyes blazed, but her insides still felt cold. For a moment, her mind faded back to long ago, to another life that seemed further away than The Blast.

  “Why are you posting me here?” she had asked The Management.

  “Because of who you are,” the three hooded, floating figures had replied. The voices of The Management always seemed at once like three voices in perfect unison and like one voice that they passed to each other like a ball.

  “But I’m just me,” she had said.

  If they knew her thoughts, they gave no indication. Jade couldn’t figure out if they read minds or not. All you could ever see were the hoods—never a face or limb or any indication of what The Management were behind their cloa
ks. In a way that still haunted her every move and decision, they had replied, “You are here because you are the best of us, Jade Agamuskara Bluegold.”

  She hoped she still was. Lately, she didn’t feel so certain. No matter how perfect the drink, no matter how she steered the drinker down the path that life needed him or her to take, she no longer fully trusted her decisions or her own path. Whoever she helped, her own choices rang in her mind all the time. Who am I now? she thought. Why did I choose this, instead of saying yes in Hong Kong when he asked?

  But that was another life ago.

  When the pub door opened again, her thoughts returned to where she was: behind the bar of the best pub and hostel in Agamuskara, India. A man entered and sat at a table. His straight black hair hung ragged, as if he’d given himself a haircut after drinking a few beers—a common look with many of the budget backpackers she’d seen pass through the hostel. His clothes suggested a young American, and in his brown eyes hung doubts of his place in the world, how he was trying to find it but had a hard time knowing where to look. He stuck his nose in his guidebooks, a dry thirst in his throat and a yearning in his heart.

  Jade ignored him.

  A few minutes later, a woman came in, sat at a different table, and quickly buried her nose in her guidebooks. The pub lights gleamed off her short blonde hair. A ferocity burned in her, one that Jade knew well: a brittle wall, hard voice, and driving velocity that concealed intense fear and doubt.

  Jade ignored her too. The less you do, she thought, the more they do what they were supposed to do anyway. So Jade stood behind the bar, her back to the tables. After a few more minutes, first the man and then the woman approached the bar. Jade kept her back to them, waiting.

  “Excuse me,” the man said.

  “Oy!” the woman said.

  Jade turned around. “Oh, hello! What can I do for you both?”

  “I’ve been here for—” they both began in unison.

  “Oh, oh, so sorry!” Jade replied. “What can I get the two of you?”

  “We’re not together,” the woman said, looking at the man for the first time.

  “No, um,” the man said, looking back at the woman, “I’m, um, over there.”

  “I’m surprised,” Jade said. “I would’ve thought you were traveling together.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “Why do you say that?”

  Jade pointed at the book each was carrying. “You each have Deep’s Enlightened Guide to Spiritual Travel and India Through the Third Eye. Seemed like a for-sure.” Jade shrugged. “Even a bartender can’t be right all the time.”

  “Oh,” the woman said, not just looking at the man but also paying attention to him for the first time. He looked at her, then at the worn, identical book in her hand. “Are you heading to Godhpur?”

  “Um, yeah,” said the man. “Yeah, I was, I mean, it’s—”

  “It’s amazing!” the woman said. “I’ve been wanting to find myself there for years!”

  “Me too!” the man said. “Well, I mean, find myself, not yourself. I, um, you know…”

  Gotta be Californian, Jade thought as she smiled at him. “You want a Deep’s Special Lager,” she said, then nodded to the woman. Australian, no doubt. “And you want a chardonnay.”

  Both nodded.

  “I’ll bring your drinks right over. Why don’t you sit and swap travel plans.”

  They both wandered over to the woman’s table and resumed talking.

  Now for the hard part.

  While they pointed to the same highlighted sections in their guidebooks, Jade looked at the paths of their lives—how they connected, intertwined, ran together for so long.

  How they broke apart.

  Falling in love, Jade thought. It’s easier than falling down the stairs.

  But he would never show his confidence, and she would never let down her guard. In time, their bright eyes would turn cold, their words sharp. Eventually, there would come a day when they would turn away from each other, preferring the coldness of the world to the frigidity of each other’s company.

  That’s the future, Jade thought. It was all there in the paths that only Jakes and Jades could watch—and influence. She grinned as the tapped the cabinet.

  Unless I do my job.

  Neither the man nor the woman saw Jade pour the beer and the wine. Nor did they see her smile as she pulled out Red #4 and Blue #7. “Best to you both,” Jade whispered, tipping drops into each glass. The drinks brightened for a moment, as if revealing some inner divinity, then faded back to their usual merely golden selves.

  They should be lifelong, Jade thought. But they will let themselves get in the way, instead of trusting each other enough to be their true selves with each other. Jade set the drinks on the table.

  The challenge isn’t falling in love, she thought. The challenge is landing safely and staying in love.

  An hour later and well past their first round, the man no longer stammered, and the hard edge of the woman’s voice was gone. The woman looked deep into his eyes, one hand near his, almost but not quite touching. Not yet. Though too far away to hear, Jade needed only to watch to know what was happening. They sat closer now, knees touching, hands occasionally tapping a shoulder, arm, or thigh. From serendipitous wonder had come laughter. Now the talk was serious with “you do? me too!” moments.

  Then it happened.

  Mid-sentence, the talk ended. The man and the woman looked deeply into each other’s eyes. He leaned toward her, his hand on her hand. She leaned toward him. They connected in the smallest, most passionate, tender, relieved-to-have-found-you-in-such-a-random-heartless-world first kiss.

  The couple left soon thereafter, toward their shared lifetime ahead. Jade smiled, but only for a moment. I can help anyone fall in love, she thought, but myself. Like the smile, this thought lasted only a moment. I am a Jade, she thought, and I am the best. Love has no place in decision and destiny.

  She went back to work.

  THE NO-SHOCKS, NO-WORRIES TRUCK clunked in and out of another pothole. For the millionth time since hopping in the back of the truck at Mt. Everest Base Camp in Tibet, Jay bounced up and slammed back down into the truck bed. His bruised body seared under the blazing Indian day. He hardly winced anymore. The effort wasn’t worth it.

  When Jay was crammed into the corner where the truck bed met the cab, the jarring and jostling affected him less. He tried sitting on his backpack again. Instead of merely pounding his arse, each bump nearly tossed him onto the cracked road.

  Jay sat back down on the hot metal of the truck bed and patted his backpack. Faded, black, waterproofed by dust, nearly as wide as Jay, and as tall as his tenderized torso, the backpack dozed next to him like a dog beside its master. A round lump stretched the fabric at the top of the pack.

  It had come back.

  Again.

  A triple shot of fear, awe, and revulsion washed through him. Jay had lost track of the number of times he’d dropped the thing off cliffs, flushed it down toilet holes, and lobbed it into rivers. Each time, he’d hardly zipped up his pack when the lump would appear again. Jay looked away. Instead of thinking about the… thing, Jay tried to think about Agamuskara. Guru Deep’s India Through the Third Eye called it “India’s holiest and unholiest city,” though the guidebook never explained why.

  Jay couldn’t explain to himself why he felt so compelled to go there. It was said that people went to Varanasi to die holy, but they went to Agamuskara to live fully. Jay figured he really must want to live, even if his manner of getting to the city suggested otherwise.

  After three days of the truck’s tires barely not going over the edges of cliffside roads in Tibet, nearly crashing to a halt from axle-bending potholes in Nepal, and using endless horn blasts to navigate the oncoming trucks and standstill cows of northern India’s river plains, Agamuskara couldn’t be much farther now. Before setting out this morning, the driver had told Jay they would not be going to the city center, but that was fine. He’d
make his own way to the middle of town, even if he had to walk. With his skin clogged with grit and his throat caked in dust, all Jay wanted right now was a hot shower and a cold beer. India was India, though. He suspected he would get the opposite. But he would rest and clean up. Then he’d find his way through the city and figure out what he had to see, what drew him so.

  The rattling truck moved so fast that the world passed in a blur, but Jay marveled at all he saw. Countless people wore brilliant colors and smiled from weathered, driven faces. They defied the washed-out landscape and the humid mat of the air. Every village had been here before time was time, it seemed. Each village also brought a glimpse of temples and shrines, elephant-headed gods, bulls, monkeys, multi-limbed deities rendered in brick, stone, concrete, and reverence.

  Approaching Agamuskara, Jay now understood that India was four things: heat, humans, history, and gods. They shaped India not so much into a country or a culture but a world. India was all of the world, all of time in every passing moment, and every emotion, every depravity and transcendence, every hope realized and every futility suffered, of all the human race.

  And, gods, was India heat. Humid, blazing, sopping heat. India felt as if wet blankets had been baked for an hour in a pot of water, then, steaming and boiling, wrapped around the country. Even Jay’s sweat glands felt sluggish. The humidity jellied the will. It softened the wood of the few meager trees. Even the concrete blocks of houses and shacks seemed to sag, drip, and simmer in the midday, clear-sky blaze of sunlight.

  The truck turned onto a highway, renown throughout northeastern India for being maintained. The road reminded Jay of the interstate highways of his left-long-ago home, except that as far as the traffic was concerned, the four lanes were simultaneously one lane, three lanes, twenty lanes, and no lanes. Still, the truck’s consistent speed and motion brought a soothing breeze to Jay’s skin, and the smooth road took him from a blazing sear to a nearly gentle simmer.