Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) Page 15

  “Why there?”

  “He’s still got to pack. But there’s no way Jay’s leaving us.” She spoke from a sense of duty, trying to ignore the strange anger boiling under her words.

  “No way he’s leaving,” she said. “It’s time we got some answers. It’s time we saw what’s in that pack.”

  THE FOG reminded Jay of the down comforter he’d slept under as a boy. When his mom woke him for school, the smells of coffee and toast would float in like quiet birds. His dad would always be sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee while they all talked about the day ahead.

  It’s so nice being back here, Jay thought. It’s good to be home.

  His dad set down the paper and said, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

  Jay started to answer, but a knock tore a hole in the fog. His mom and dad faded away.

  Can’t it just be quiet again? Jay thought. I like being under my comforter. It’s cozy. It’s calm.

  Voices outside the fog said something that reminded him of his name. He squeezed his teddy bear closer. Where did the comforter go?

  A rattle of metal on metal opened his eyes. The fog was gone. His boyhood room vanished back into memory. He was in his bed in the Everest Base Camp dorm room. The teddy bear turned out to be his daypack, tucked under his arm.

  A key turned in the lock.

  Jay tried to jump off the bed, but most of his body was still asleep. When he tried to swivel on his arse to put his feet on the floor, he succeeded only in falling back onto his thin pillow. His daypack fell on his face. Why do I feel so hazy? he thought, setting the pack on the floor. And what the hell am I doing here anyway? I thought I was sightseeing today. Who’s here?

  The door opened.

  Jade and Rucksack had each tried to come in the door first, and now they were stuck in the doorway, glaring at each other while also looking at Jay. Something in their eyes seemed to say they were trying to make sure he wouldn’t vanish on the spot.

  “Jade,” Rucksack said, “could you just back off and let me through? We’ll never get in here otherwise.”

  She turned slightly and gave Rucksack enough of a shove to pop him back out into the hallway. “Ladies first,” she said, laughing and stepping like a dancer into the room. When she looked at Jay, her lighthearted smile brightened. Then it faded as she breathed out and closed her eyes, as if relieved the room wasn’t empty.

  “I don’t remember being here,” Jay said. “What’s going on?”

  Rucksack rubbed his belly as he walked into the room. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Jay shrugged. “I was talking with Jade. Then I went to get some breakfast.”

  A wary glance passed between Jade and Rucksack, and Jade’s face softened. She sat next to Jay on the bed. “What did you have for breakfast?”

  A fog blanketed through Jay’s mind again. Why do I feel so groggy? he thought.

  “Samosas. And a lassi,” he said at last. “Wait. That’s not right. I was really hungry, so I got two samosas. But I only ate one. Oh. I ran into Jigme. We were looking at this crazy statue that had appeared at the mouth of the alley where he lives. I gave him the other samosa.”

  He started to say more, but a spark in his mind burned up the fog. The rest of the morning shone brightly again. He told them about the alley and the weird quake and the strange men who had come to his room.

  “My passport!” he yelled, standing. “That’s it. Those guys took my passport. I have to find it. Otherwise I’ll never get out of here!”

  A wary look passed between Jade and Rucksack again. “Why do you keep looking at each other like that?” Jay asked.

  “We understand you’re scared,” Jade said. “It’s been beyond a weird morning for you. But there are things we need to talk about. Things we all need to understand. And things you need to show us.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jay said. “Look, it was great meeting you both. You’re cool people. But I’ve decided I’m not digging Agamuskara. Or India. I’m heading to Thailand and lay low for a while. I appreciate that you’re worried about something, but I need to find my passport. Or head to the embassy to get it replaced. I need to hit the world and see the road.”

  Rucksack shook his head. “We’ll get the passport sorted. Jade and I will help.”

  “Great!” Jay said. “Let’s go!”

  Rucksack closed the door. “Let’s talk about your daypack first.”

  Jay sat back down on the bed. “Black nylon. Has a twenty-liter capacity. Been run over by two bikes, one motorcycle, three rickshaws, and one truck. Has one main compartment reached through a locking zipper,” Jay said. “I’m pretty sure you can get knock-offs anywhere from here to Lhasa. We can talk about it more on the way to the embassy.”

  “Sorry Rucksack wasn’t more specific,” Jade said. “It’s time you showed us what was in your pack, Jay.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No, you don’t,” Rucksack replied, his voice soft as the click of a spring coiling closed despite an intense power locked up in it. “And it’s high time you bloody did.”

  “You know what it is?” Jay said, shutting his mouth quickly. You said too much, he thought.

  “I have a suspicion. If I see it, I can tell you if I’m right,” Rucksack said. “And I can tell you what it is.”

  “You mean you’ll actually explain?” Jay said. “It won’t be all witticisms and evasions?”

  Rucksack grinned. “Explanations galore, as many as I can spare.”

  “Then we can start hunting down my passport?”

  Jade nodded, though she seemed to be trying not to glance at Rucksack. “I’ll go with you to the embassy myself, while Rucksack hits the streets.”

  “I don’t know how I got it,” Jay said, pulling up his daypack and resting it on his thigh. “I can’t seem to get rid of the thing. But I don’t know what to do with it. Before the two men vanished, they said something about me taking care of it until the time came. I guess this must be what they meant.” With a deep breath, he unzipped the pack.

  Jay hadn’t touched it directly, skin to world, since the first time he saw it in his tent at Everest. As his hands wrapped around it, careful so as not to bruise the clouds, a golden song rang in his mind, sung in a language he did not know yet somehow understood.

  He pulled the thing out of his pack.

  The words and tune rang softly yet Jay could have heard them anywhere, from a mountain taller than Everest to the very core of the world. The air shimmered as if made of golden afternoon sunlight.

  Rucksack and Jade shone with gold and silver, black and brown, green and blue. Rucksack’s eyes were like the voids of existence and possibility, where worlds were made and unmade. Jade’s eyes were their own suns. As he gazed at her, at the twining lengths streaming from her, he saw him and her, the world…

  Jay felt his feet leave the floor. Was he really floating between floor and ceiling, earth and heaven?

  Then a shadow of red and black poured over his vision, and the shock made Jay fling his hands over his face, palms open and empty. The song collapsed. The colors vanished. Jay fell to the floor, landing on his arse and smacking his head on the bed frame.

  Around him, he saw stars and haze as a dull ache passed through his head. Jade and Rucksack stared, and Jay looked where they looked. The ache faded as he stared.

  I was so intent on getting rid of it, so scared of how impossible the thing was, he thought. I never let myself see how beautiful it is.

  In between them, about the size of a small cabbage, a globe floated.

  Jay recognized the continents from all the maps he’d studied over the years. Asia, complete with the Indian subcontinent, stared back at him. Clouds floated over the land and the oceans rippled, their colors contrasting sharply. As the little globe turned, part of it shimmered in bright daylight, and part of it slumbered under night’s dark blanket. Golden points of light twinkled against the bla
ck continents.

  “Is that…” Jade started to ask.

  “Yes,” Rucksack replied. “It’s the world.”

  RUCKSACK’S FACE fell faster than a glass knocked off a table. “Jade,” he said. “Someone could show up here at any moment, and we could do with some privacy. Since the pub is closed, is there any chance we could continue this discussion over a pint?”

  “You want a drink at a time like this?” Jay said.

  “It’s actually a good idea,” Jade replied. “As Rucksack likes to point out, nothing makes the world clear like darkest beer. You could do with seeing a bit more clearly.”

  “What about you?” Jay asked.

  “I don’t actually drink,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a… company policy thing.”

  Jay raised an eyebrow as he shut the globe back into his daypack.

  In the empty pub, Jade turned on the lights, poured pints of GPS for Jay and Rucksack, and made herself a cup of coffee.

  Rucksack took a pull from his pint. “Let’s see that world again.”

  Jay pulled the globe out of his daypack and set it above the table, floating in between the three of them. The little world spun slowly and silently. Jay told them about Everest, the strange impossible night, his fleeing to India, and his various attempts to get rid of the globe.

  “I don’t understand,” Jay said. “How is something like this even possible? And why me?”

  “It’d take someone far wiser than me to explain how it’s possible,” Rucksack said. “But I said I’d tell you all I can, and that’s what I’ll do. Just give me a moment to figure out where to begin.”

  Jade stared hard at the globe. This is what the world looks like from space, she thought. If I were standing on the moon and looking back to Earth, this is what I would see, only bigger. Is this little world populated with teeny tiny versions of us and everyone else in the world? Do they have any idea that they live in a traveler’s backpack?

  If this is the world but in miniature, Jade thought, then what are we living and walking and traveling on? She looked at the ceiling. How do I know we’re not living in a backpack too? A cosmic pack, flung around the universe by some itinerant being, some itchy-footed god who now and again takes us out and looks at us like a souvenir?

  “It’s been a long, long time since there was one of these around,” Rucksack began. “They’re rare beyond belief. When one appears, it means big changes for the world. The appearance is striking. It really is like a wee world, though as I understand it, it’s more just a visual reminder.”

  “A reminder of what?” Jade asked.

  “That the world is at stake,” Rucksack replied. “Every bit of it, from land to life.”

  They all stared at the globe, then Rucksack continued. “You’ll find something like this carved and depicted all over the planet: a small world, floating over a person or a group o’ people. Though it’s not really a world. In any language, culture, or mythology, it’s always described as an egg, but the proper name is dia ubh. That’s me native Irish. It means ‘god egg.’”

  “Eggs crack,” Jay said.

  Rucksack nodded. “And eggs contain a force of life, though in this case it’s far more than a tasty breakfast. When a dia ubh opens, it shines a great golden light. At that time, the world stands on a razor’s edge. If a force o’ good and love stands within that light, great kindness and learning happen in the world. If a force o’ evil and hate stands within that light, great destruction falls. When a dia ubh opens—and before you know it, this will open—the world’s destiny has brought us to a moment of decision.”

  “What kind of decision?” Jay asked.

  “The choice is what the choice always has been and always will be,” Rucksack said. “Life or death. Continuance or final destruction. Yes or no.”

  “The egg,” Jay said. “The dia ubh… It brought me here, didn’t it?”

  “I think it did, Jay.”

  “I suddenly wanted a change of scene, but I hadn’t been considering India until I arrived here. At least, something was considering India, but it wasn’t me.” Jay drank more of his stout. “Do you know when the dia ubh will open?”

  Rucksack shook his head.

  Jade looked from one man to the other. “I can guess,” she said. “We’re having an eclipse in two months.”

  Rucksack nodded. “Aye, that’s our most likely time.”

  “Why did this come to me?” Jay said. “I’m just a traveler. I’m no saint. I’m no hero. I’ve never done anything of note or merit. At one time I was just a working guy in Idaho. Then… Then I started traveling. I’ve eaten with the locals, haggled for souvenirs, paid unofficial fees for visas, and drunk oceans of beer in various countries. That’s all I’ve done. There’s no reason for something like this to come to me.”

  As Jade looked from Jay to Rucksack, a light seemed to catch fire in the brown-and-black eyes. “Merit does not always play into the world’s decisions,” Rucksack said. “The greatest loves and choices often come from the unlikeliest people. One day they find themselves on a path they didn’t know they were taking, and they simply do the best they can. Sometimes life’s best hope is the most improbable chance.”

  “This came to me because I was such an unlikely choice?”

  “It doesn’t always happen that way. But in this case, I would say so.”

  “Am I supposed to be the one who stands in the light?” Jay asked.

  “It could be,” Rucksack said. “But that isn’t for certain. For all I know, you could have been nothing more than the most convenient way for the dia ubh to get here. We probably won’t know for sure until the day it opens.”

  “What happens to the person who stands in the light?” Jade asked.

  “Many things can happen,” said an ancient voice behind them.

  Jade and the others turned around. An old woman stood by the mahogany doors at the front of the pub.

  “The light brings out the person’s truest self, amplifies it, and makes that all of who you are. Some say it can make gods. Some say it can destroy the world. All these things are probably true.”

  What the hell is she doing here? Jade thought.

  The old woman had a wrinkled face and a stooped back. Jade stared hard at her now. When the woman first came to her, her helix had looked normal. But now it was obscured from Jade’s sight, as if by a cloud or a haze.

  Adrenalin tapped into Jade’s body. Her mind tightened in on itself. Stay focused, she thought. There’s enough impossible and crazy happening here without the Jade of Agamuskara losing her cool.

  “Those doors were locked,” she said, her voice flat, despite her pounding heart. “And it’s not your day to clean.”

  “They are still locked,” the old woman replied. “Your Management can continue to feel proud of their security. But there are things in this world older than locks. Older than The Management. And there are ways into a place other than doors.”

  “I should’ve asked for references,” Jade replied.

  “Who is she?” Rucksack asked. “How do you know her?”

  “Remember when I told you an old woman named Kailash had been helping me with the cleaning around here?” Jade said. “Faddah Rucksack, meet Kailash. Kailash, meet Faddah Rucksack and Jay.”

  “Not the old woman you thought I was,” Kailash replied as she hobbled toward the table.

  Jade blew out a sharp breath. “I do prefer truthfulness when people work for me. You said you needed extra money and asked me for work.”

  “Why would you think I was lying?” Kailash said. The playfulness in her steady tone made her sound younger. “In this world, one can always do with extra money, especially when you’re an old woman who doesn’t know how long she has left in this life. But being truthful is not the same thing as telling an entire truth.”

  “Are you here to keep an eye on the pub?” Jade said. “Have you been watching me? Did The Management send you?”

  “No, no, and no, Jade Agamuskar
a Bluegold,” Kailash said. “I’ve known The Management for a long time, but they did not send for me, though they are perfectly aware that I’m here. They just clearly did not see a need to inform you. As for what I’ve been watching?”

  Kailash locked her eyes on Jay. “I’ve been watching for you. Waiting for you to finally become curious about the dia ubh. It’s about time you started being more accepting of the things that have happened to you, and of the things that are going to happen to you. I’ve been trying to get you to do that for years.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jay asked.

  “I’m named for the world mountain,” Kailash replied. “The mountain that moves. The mountain that is bigger than Everest, though some say I am Everest, am Qomolangma, the world mother. But I am not Qomolangma. I am only Kailash. I am old, if not quite so old as the world mountains. But Kailash is the mountain of the soul, the axis around which the world turns, that sits in Tibet and shares my name. The mountain that is small enough to fit in your dreams, and that you have seen in every mountain range and behind every stretch of hills ever since you started traveling.”

  “That’s an impressive speech,” Jay said, a smirk growing on his face. “Are you going to talk as long as a mountain is tall?”

  “You certainly thought the mountain was impressive in Ireland,” Kailash replied. “It wasn’t only the white sign that surprised you so.”

  Jay’s smirk vanished.

  “The mountain has followed you everywhere,” Kailash continued. “The full moon has spoken with you. You carried the dia ubh, just like you were asked to do. Thank you.”

  Jay shook his head. “How do you know about that?”

  But Kailash talked over him, and he fell silent. “To speak only of Jay is not enough to convince all of you. After all, I’m just an old woman who showed up unexpectedly,” she said, looking from Jay to Jade. “But tell me, Jade Agamuskara Bluegold, has any day of your life been more important than the day of the blue dragon?”

  The pulse of Jade’s adrenalin flashed into a flood. She saw it all again: the strange gardens, the blue dragon carved into the wall, the outstretched hand where the ring’s blue-and-green stone glinted in the afternoon light. And then the world had stopped. The Management appeared, Jade thought, and I chose duty over love.