Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) Read online

Pim bobbed his head. “We can easily fix your visa,” he started to say, but he frowned and stopped. “Oh, but Mr. Jay, it is worse than we thought! Wrong your visa is!”

  “Wrong? My visa is fine. I got it properly. It didn’t even cost extra.”

  Both men stared at him.

  “Okay, only a little extra. But the dates are fine!”

  “No and no, sir,” Mim said. “We are sorry but for you and it are all wrong.”

  “Look, I get it. Find the dopey Yank. Do a little squeeze. Fine. How much for my visa to be” —Jay winked—“’fixed?’”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Jay?”

  “How much?” Jay held up his hand and rubbed his thumb over his first and middle fingers. “Come on. I know the game. Baksheesh. Money is the grease that makes the wheels of the world turn, and all that dahl. A few rupees and the glue on my visa will be perfect. So, how much will it take?”

  The men exchanged horrified looks. “No, no, Mr. Jay!” Pim said. “We have all we need. It shall be fixed. Wrong your visa is. New better glue it needs. Not your fault. We fix. You no pay. Only wait.”

  “Wait?” Jay said. Waiting meant staying in Agamuskara. Staying where that damn alley was. Staying around Jade and Jigme and Rucksack. Each of them kept howling in his mind that they were reasons to stay. Even without them, there was the fire that singed his mind every time his thoughts turned to the alley and the black wall, and it seemed harder and harder not to think about them.

  Already in his mind’s eye he could see the train station and the long blue line of the Kolkata Very Express. He couldn’t wait. He had to leave. Now.

  “No. You wait,” Jay said, shaking his head. The words seemed to trip and jam in his mouth. “No. You know what?” he said. “That sounds great, just—” Jay lunged forward to snatch his passport back, but his lunge became a stumble.

  Something wasn’t working right between his mind and limbs anymore. Or vision. The men were fuzzy. They stood right in front of him, so why did they sound like they were down a tunnel?

  “All is fine, sir,” the second man said. “You and your passport could not be safer, and both fixed soon!”

  “The chai,” Jay said, his mouth and eyes sagging. “You...” Drugged me…

  As his vision faded, for a moment Jay saw clearly. A winding light shone from the men, silvery like a chain. But the silver faded like a mask removed, and beneath it their chains were blue.

  “You,” Jay said. “You look familiar.”

  He fell.

  No hard floor whacked his head though. There was only a soft flump onto his bed, as if the two men had caught him then set him down as gently as a baby.

  Jay’s vision faded, but still he could see hazily what Mim and Pim were doing. Mim set the large backpack on the floor, while Pim lifted Jay’s arm and tucked the daypack between his arm and his chest like a teddy bear.

  “You are safe,” Pim said, patting Jay’s cheek. “And you will keep it safe until the time is come.”

  Mim walked back around the bed and stood next to Pim. The two men smiled at each other and bobbed their heads. Then they seemed to realize what they were doing and stopped.

  “Always takes a moment to get out of character, you know?” Mim said.

  “I wish we didn’t have to be so over the top with the accents,” Pim said in flat, bemused English.

  “Or all the ‘sir’ and ‘mister such-and-such’ stuff,” Mim said, his voice crisp as the fresh poppadom cracker bread Jay had eaten with his samosa earlier.

  “Though the whole ‘Office of World Light and Foreign Visitors’ bit never gets old.”

  “At least it’s close to the truth,” Mim said. “I could never lie to them, you know?”

  Pim nodded. “If only we could tell them the whole truth.”

  “It’d never work. You know that. It’s one thing to be truthful, but if we were outright honest they couldn’t take it. And they wouldn’t believe us anyway.”

  “True,” Pim replied. “I’m glad we caught him. For a moment I thought the poor chap might conk his head on the floor, and he’s had a rough day already.”

  “Nothing compared to what he’s got to look forward to,” Mim said. “I don’t envy him.” He looked at his colleague. “But really, faulty glue?”

  “Sorry, I blanked. I had to think fast. The original story wasn’t going to work.”

  “Why?” Mim asked. “Did you think he might recognize us from Everest that morning?”

  “Or from last night in the pub,” Pim replied. “At least it worked. Besides, the glue is faulty. Gluing a visa into a passport like his, with all that’s about to happen? Silliness. Glue is so... ordinary.”

  “Shall we go fix his passport, then?”

  “Yes. By the time we’re done, he’ll never need a visa again.”

  Pim closed the door and locked it. Mim and Pim smiled at Jay, and Mim held up Jay’s passport like a salute. Then they vanished with a smile, leaving behind only the scent of chai. Despite the sun, the world turned dark as Jay fell asleep.

  DOES HE EVER BLINK? Jade thought as she finished recounting to Rucksack all she hadn’t told him yet: Kailash and their strange conversation, the tricksters and the note, Jay and the alley.

  He’d hardly said a word since she had started talking. When she stopped, Rucksack just breathed in deeply as he sat back in his chair. “I need to think on this a moment,” he said, the laughter in his gaze fading.

  Deep in thought, he closed his eyes. This troubled her even more. Rucksack sat between her and the window of his small third-floor room, a few blocks away from the Everest Base Camp (“No offense to your fine rooms,” he’d told her, “but I prefer to improve my constitution before I improve my constitution.”). Yet Rucksack’s voice was like dancing. Whenever he spoke with someone and looked at them, he had a way of making them feel they were the most important person in existence. Without his voice or gaze, he seemed to be far away, as if he’d rambled across the universe and slipped back in time ten thousand years.

  Who are you? she thought.

  Since The Management didn’t like to speak of it, the Jakes and Jades were left to rumor and speculation. She’d heard the stories that in the world there were men like ghosts who had been cut off from destiny and decision. Usually The Management monitored for these ghosts in all places where a Jake or Jade was stationed. It was said that one ghost had never been seen by Jakes and Jades, since he had first lost his helix, but Rucksack had been sighted for years.

  Word had it Rucksack had been involved in the incident in the Hong Kong pub some years back, but The Management were even more silent than usual about what had happened.

  All Jade knew was that as a result of the Hong Kong incident, The Management had worked out a way to keep the ghosts out of their pubs, but they had relaxed it at Everest Base Camp when Rucksack first came to Agamuskara. Of course, they didn’t tell her why. Yet with the notes coming her way lately, she couldn’t shake the feeling that The Management were watching the Everest Base Camp more closely than usual and more closely than they watched other pubs.

  Or maybe they’re not watching the pub, she thought. Sometimes it feels like they’re watching me.

  The sad laughter of Rucksack’s eyes flared up when he opened them. Jade realized she’d been holding her breath. The world seemed to inhale, and so did she. “You back then?” she asked.

  With a smile he stood up. “Ah, Jade,” Rucksack replied. “You know as much as I do the importance o’ thinking things over before you speak. It’s like letting a good quaff o’ stout wash ambrosia in your mouth before finally allowing admittance to your soul. And you’ve given me a lot to think on.”

  “Where should we begin?” Jade asked. “I’ve turned this over and over in my mind. I know all these events are connected and somehow Jay’s at the center of it all. I just don’t know which path to take first.”

  “Aye,” Rucksack said. “Especially since we don’t know how they wind, or if they go to or away from anothe
r in a way that could prove just as vital.”

  Jade walked to the window, looking out over the city’s packed streets. “Rucksack?” she said.

  “Aye?”

  “How about you run downstairs and we start with Kailash?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Jade turned around. “Because she’s standing on the street opposite, staring at your window.”

  The color fell out of Rucksack’s face.

  Jade ran to the door. “Come on,” she said. “Don’t you want to know who she is?”

  Yes and no wrestled in his gaze, and he didn’t move.

  “That wasn’t really a question,” Jade said, firmly yet gently. “You have to find out who she is. No matter where that leads.”

  “You have no idea what that path could be.”

  She stared him in the eye. “Neither do you. But do you think you could stand continuing not to know?”

  Rucksack had started down the steps before Jade could move.

  The hot day greeted them as they ran into the river of people, and immediately they were in the thick of the crowded street separating them from Kailash. Too many people, too much happening in the street, Jade realized too late.

  Rickshaws and lorries closed in on them from both directions.

  Nowhere to go, Jade thought.

  Jade looked left. The rickshaw driver’s face confirmed he had nowhere to swerve. She looked right. Thirteen, she thought. That’s how many small bars are on the grill of this truck. Its engine stood taller than she was. Even if the driver had seen them, there was no way he could avoid them.

  The look in Rucksack’s eyes mirrored hers.

  Not like this.

  The breath left her. Who will miss me? she thought. As her eyes closed, an image of Jay’s eyes passed into her mind.

  The shout had to be loud to be heard above the crowd, yet it seemed to Jade that whoever was shouting was as calm and quiet as someone saying good morning.

  Seconds passed. Jade opened her eyes.

  The vehicles continued on their way, safely beyond both Jade and Rucksack.

  A wobbliness whooshed into Jade’s legs with a warmth, she imagined, that must feel similar to peeing one’s pants. Will anyone notice when I fall? she thought.

  Rucksack turned. The fire in his eyes seemed brighter than ever, as if fed by a new sense of hope, purpose, and direction. His hand wrapped around her upper arm faster than she could see him move.

  “Jade,” he said. “If I can do this, so can you.”

  What fueled the fire in him passed to her. With a breath her legs propelled her forward again. At least my pants aren’t wet after all, she thought.

  The traffic was nothing to them now. They danced through it like a crowded ballroom and didn’t step on a single foot. At the other side of the street, Kailash stood still. Her eyes were closed, and she breathed heavily, as if exhausted.

  “I’ll go up first,” Jade said to Rucksack. “Stay here.”

  “But—”

  “Just trust me.”

  Rucksack stood still.

  Not wanting to surprise Kailash, Jade slowed her pace, but the woman’s eyes opened.

  “I wondered when you would finally notice me down here,” Kailash said.

  “Are you okay?” Jade asked.

  “About as shaken as you,” Kailash replied. “That was much harder than it used to be.” She glanced at the traffic.

  Jade looked too. Wait, Jade thought. Is she telling me that she’s the one who shouted, that she’s the one who saved us?

  “I’m sorry I left in such a hurry last night,” Kailash said. “I thought I was ready, but I was too afraid.”

  “What are you afraid of?” Jade asked.

  “Many things. More than you have time to hear. But the one I am here to face is the one I fear the most.”

  As Jade looked at Kailash, she noticed a difference in the woman. Or maybe I just didn’t notice before, she thought.

  The face seemed young, but the eyes did not. There was age there. Joy and sorrow far beyond what Jade thought a life capable of holding inside. She thought she glimpsed it in the woman’s helix too, strong yet weary, but a fog and a shadow obscured what little Jade could see. “Why do you fear it?” Jade asked.

  “I fear for the past. I fear for the future, which hinges on this present. I fear for him. For you. And for the other one. I never thought I would see another in all my days.”

  “Another what?”

  Kailash smiled but it faded just as quickly. Kailash looked away from Jade, toward the heart of the city. Tears shimmered in Kailash’s eyes when she looked at Jade again.

  “I want you to know, Jade, that I did not want this. Any of this,” Kailash said. “If I could go back to the Heart and undo all of it, I would, even if it cost me all I ever loved. I fear I may lose it all anyway. But I did as I did, and I never knew what would happen. Now I am older. I know too much, but I don’t know enough to help you as I wish I could. I don’t even know if I can help him, and if I can help anyone, I should be able to help him.”

  Rucksack stepped forward. He and Kailash looked directly at each other. Jade hadn’t noticed before, but now she did. Their eyes were nearly identically brown-and-black. So were the emotions churning in their respective gazes. Deep loss and impossible hopes. Regret and guilt. A wish for different times. A sad acceptance of what was.

  As she looked from one eye to the other, Jade understood the well from which Rucksack drew his laughter and his bravado. He transformed his grief into gold, a rich happiness that didn’t serve him but served to bring out the joy in others, since he seemed not to have any of his own. It was an amazing alchemy, Jade realized. She couldn’t help but admire him.

  He and Kailash both seemed on the verge of speaking. Then something rocked through the ground, and Jade was looking at the sky.

  Rucksack lay next to her. A pebble was pressing into his cheek. Around them, the stunned city had also paused. Screams and crashes shouted into the sky, but they were small sounds against the intense silence that fell over Agamuskara.

  Jade could feel it being said already: “Strange things,” the city said. “Strange things happening again.”

  Then Jade realized she was lying on the street. She knew all too well the feet, hooves, and wheels that ground old food, fresh dung, and more into the pavement. She got up quickly and so did Rucksack. He looked behind her. The widening of his eyes, like a punch in the gut, told Jade she didn’t need to turn around to know that Kailash was gone.

  “What the hell happened?” Jade asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Rucksack replied. “But I think I know where it came from.”

  “The heart of the city.”

  He nodded. “We were going to go there anyway.”

  They started walking as the city found its breath again. All around them, people dealt with the strangeness of what had happened by deciding nothing had happened at all. But not all of them.

  “People are starting to wonder,” Jade said.

  “Aye,” Rucksack replied. “But it’s a city resilient against hard lives. They won’t wonder for long.”

  “They will if more weird things keep happening.”

  “I’ll worry when the city worries,” he replied, but his flat voice said otherwise.

  “We’re going to see her again,” Jade said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do. She may be scared, but she’s here. She knows something of what’s going on too. It terrifies her but she’s drawn to it too.”

  “Like Jay,” Rucksack said.

  “Like us, apparently.”

  “She seems so familiar,” Rucksack said.

  “You could have been brother and sister,” Jade replied, “but you said you don’t have any siblings. At least none that you know of.”

  “I definitely don’t have siblings.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “My mother told me there were… complications around
my birth,” Rucksack said. “She and my father never could have had other children.”

  “I hate to say this, but sometimes people have children with someone other than their partner.”

  “Believe it or not, Jade, I’m old enough to know that.” Rucksack shook his head. “Neither of my parents was able to have children again.”

  They walked in silence. Jade tried to use the time to think through what had happened and to listen to the city. People indeed were getting back to their days, but the tiniest yellow threads of fear had begun to bloom like anemones.

  Agamuskara was a city of gods, and nothing could remind you of that like the solid earth suddenly giving you a good shake. What do the buggers get up to if they get bored? Jade thought. Are they bored?

  As they neared the alley, Jade realized what was most different. The walls here, from some of the city’s oldest buildings, seemed to have pulled into themselves like a scared child curled into the fetal position. I need to understand this, she thought, but how?

  The idea scared her. It would be so hard, so draining. The walls were old. Even though she wanted to hear what they had to say, they would be reluctant to talk.

  But I have to, she thought. I have to listen to the walls.

  She and Rucksack were nearly to the alley when Jigme came running toward them. His strange smile seemed like it was someone else’s mouth, swollen to the wrong size, as if something inside him was growing and wanted to burst out. When Jigme saw her and Rucksack, he stopped.

  “I told him it wasn’t a good idea, but he said it’s what travelers do.”

  “What?” Rucksack said.

  Jigme explained about the alley and Jay’s decision to leave Agamuskara.

  “How long ago did he run away from you?” Jade said.

  “Not long,” Jigme replied.

  Jade looked deep into the teenager’s eyes, but he turned away. Jade thought she saw his cheeks flush red. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He bobbed his head. “Mum will be okay,” he said. “I know it now.”

  “Go see her,” Rucksack said. “I’ll come by later.”

  Jigme ran off toward the hospital, the strange smile back on his face.

  “We have to get to the hostel,” Jade said. “Now.”