Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) Page 28

  “Dammit. Jade was right. We should’ve—”

  “Jade knew too?”

  “Wait, Jay,” Rucksack said. “Let’s calm down. I can explain this. I know how this must seem. It’s hard to understand. Yes, I lied. I had to lie. You have to be here when the dia ubh opens.”

  “Choice?” Jay said quietly. “Decision? It’s up to me? Bull—”

  “It’s up to you!”

  “You took my choice from me the moment you lied.” Jay zipped his daypack and put it on his back. “I’m done,” he said. “Done with you. Done with this city. I have my passport back. I don’t care what you have to say or what you fear. There’s no big boogeyman waiting to set fire to the world. There’s just the scared talk of a lost, broken old man with a useless hand. Stay away from me, Faddah Rucksack. I’m leaving Agamuskara. Don’t ever let me see you again.”

  Before Rucksack could say a word or plead for Jay to discuss this over a pint or anything, Jay turned and ran down the hill. He thought he heard Rucksack shout his name, and something about the world burning, but he didn’t stop or slow down. He just ran faster.

  I don’t care anymore, Jay thought. Nothing but lies. And he’s probably lying about all this too. Just for whatever it is that he’s trying to do. He betrayed me.

  So did Jade.

  I’m going to the Everest Base Camp, Jay thought. I’m packing up and leaving. Before I do, I’m going to look Jade in the eye and ask her to tell me the truth.

  Jay didn’t run for the boat. He could feel in what direction the city lay. He’d walked only a few kilometers when the dirt path turned to cracked asphalt.

  Wherever there were roads, there were taxis. He’d hardly set foot on the pavement when he smelled the acrid exhaust and heard the rumbling buzz of a small engine. The yellow-and-black bumblebee pulled up next to him.

  “Everest Base Camp,” Jay said. “No funny business. I know the way. And believe you me, the fare will be worth the while.”

  As they entered the city center again, Jay stared at the buildings and the streets. He took in every detail, every texture of the plaster, every dung pile in the street, the colors of all the saris on the women, the way the children laughed as they chased the rickshaw.

  This is the last time I’ll see any of this, Jay thought. Once I leave Agamuskara, I’m never coming back.

  THE DRAWERS AND CABINETS stood empty, the interiors now dark voids she would never reach into again. Jade had bared and cleaned every surface, and the room was as fresh as if it had never been lived in.

  The open window let in the harsh afternoon light and the city’s reminders of the sounds and smells of the outside world, but inside the air loomed dark, stuffy, and heavy. The little room had never looked full, but now her pending absence washed over the walls and floor with a lonely emptiness.

  This was my home, Jade thought. This room, the pub, this hostel. This was my world. I knew every inch and breath of it. Now I’m leaving. But how do you learn to live in a different world?

  Her backpack lay on the bed, fuller than she expected, but not so full it wouldn’t hold the occasional memento and souvenir. Its pale green reminded her of the stone of her name, of Jay’s eyes, of pale seawater. She cinched the compression straps a little tighter around the pack, making it more compact.

  “Now this is my world,” she said.

  Jade turned from the pack to the desk. The three notes glared at her.

  How much of who I am was really just what I was told? she thought. For so long now I’ve done what I was directed to do. I always thought I was so capable, so strong and fast, but really I was just good at taking orders, good at living the life demanded by sheets of paper.

  She read the first note again:

  The new traveler is not just the new traveler. He and the world must remain in Agamuskara until the eclipse, so he can be as a sunrise that never ends. When the time is right, you must make him forget himself and follow what he would never follow.

  “Will he follow his heart?” she asked as she moved to the second note:

  The traveler must forget himself and follow what he would never follow. The heart is not the path.

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “There is no path but the heart.”

  The Management I served so long and capably, she thought, I ignored their instructions. Did I betray them? Or did I choose instead to follow the guidance of a greater power? And what is that greater power? Who do The Management serve? Who do I serve now? Love? Myself? The world? Something else?

  She read the third and final note:

  We have been long in discussion, Jade Agamuskara Bluegold. What you have done was wrong for a Jade to do. Another would have been dismissed immediately. But because we understand the lonely rigors of your role and because of your long service, we present you a choice:

  Love is not the traveler’s path. Influence him with the mixture below. Remain a Jade. You will be forgiven and rewarded.

  Continue resisting your duty and the needs of the world, and you will cease to be a Jade.

  You have three days to choose your destiny.

  “I choose not to control or to be controlled,” she said. “I choose to be free.” She looked from the desk to the open window. The world outside seemed different now—bigger, darker, harsher, louder, more mysterious.

  There’s so much I can’t hear anymore.

  “I may no longer be a Jade,” she said, taking a deep breath and keeping her voice as level as she could as she addressed the world outside the window. “But I don’t have to be. There’s no world tougher than me. I can do this. I can do this.”

  I hope so, anyway.

  Then she heard a rapping noise and a voice, loud and harsh.

  “Jade!”

  She walked to the door and listened. “Jade!” came the shout again, followed by more rapping.

  Jay’s voice. But he’s not knocking on my door, she thought. He doesn’t know about my room.

  She realized he was in the foyer. He must think I’m in the pub, she thought. That’s the door he’s knocking on, probably wondering why he can’t just go in since the pub should be open.

  Jade knew she had to go to him, but if she left her room, she wouldn’t be able to return. Then she smiled, staring at the door.

  Or can I?

  Standing in the hall, Jade held her breath as she listened to the door whisper closed then stop before it could latch. It’s time, she thought, taking a deep breath. Time to choose my destiny.

  She wondered what it must have looked like to Jay, the way she apparently walked out of the wall and the painting. He stood with his mouth open, a syllable standing like an ice cube on his tongue, his hand stopped a couple of inches away from another knock on the pub door.

  Oh backpack boy, she thought, I have so much to tell you. It’s a good thing we have the whole world and all its time to discuss it.

  Well, she thought with a small grin, if and when we get the opportunity.

  Then she stopped. The grin was gone from her face. He wore his large black backpack with the smaller daypack zipped onto it.

  “You’re leaving?” she asked.

  “I put some money under the door,” Jay replied. “It should be more than enough to cover my bill.”

  Only then did she see how fierce his eyes looked.

  Don’t let him say more yet, she thought. It’ll all be over if you do.

  “Come with me,” she said, stepping back through the illusion of the wall.

  Jade held her breath. What if the strangeness of what she’d done, and his curiosity about it, weren’t enough? What if he just shook his head and left?

  She exhaled only when he stepped through the illusion and stood in the small hallway leading to her room. She walked to the door and opened it fully, then picked up her large backpack from where it had kept the door from closing.

  Keep him off balance, she thought. I don’t know what he’s angry about, but I have to keep him curious enough to listen.

 
; “What the hell is going on?” Jay asked, following her into the room.

  “Once I leave this room and that door closes behind me,” Jade replied, “I can never go back. It’s a world that I’ll be shut out of forever.”

  “Does this have something to do with the pub being closed?”

  She nodded. “I did something I wasn’t supposed to do, and I refused to do something I was supposed to do. For that, I’ve been sacked. I’m no longer a bartender. I’m no longer…” Tell him, she thought, tell him everything.

  “I’m no longer a Jade.”

  “A Jade? What, you have to go by a different name or something now?”

  She shook her head. “Jake or Jade is usually just a title, and we put our names aside while we serve. Luckily my actual name is Jade too.”

  “What did you do?”

  Jade stepped forward and took his hands. “I chose you.”

  “Those must be some strict policies about dating customers.”

  “I wasn’t just a bartender, Jay. As a Jade, I work for a group called The Management. I’m one of hundreds of people all over the world called the Jakes and Jades. We’re bartenders. More or less. But really what we do is help The Management direct the course of destiny and decisions for people. We’ve existed for hundreds of years. We use drinks to influence people’s decisions. The Management had a destiny they were determined that you should follow, and it was my job to make sure you followed it.”

  “And that’s what you didn’t do.”

  “I couldn’t. The night we first kissed, when I took your scotch, it wasn’t because I had mixed up our drinks. It was because I was… I was a good soldier, following the orders I’d been given. I originally was going to do what I was told, but instead when I took your drink, I took that destiny away from you. Since I’m not the person it was intended for, though, nothing happened. It was inert. Your destiny—what they said was your destiny. I just couldn’t. I didn’t want you to be steered and driven. I wanted you to make your own decisions. I freed you, Jay. I freed you because I was falling in love with you.”

  “You chose me over this… work?”

  “I chose for you to make your own decisions. Now you’re leaving. I hope in time I’ll understand.” She pointed to her backpack. “I have to leave here today. The pub is shut to me, and it will be locked and closed until my replacement comes—maybe a new Jake, maybe a new Jade, or one called from duty somewhere else in the world. I’m hoping that you would like me to go with you. My life has been this work, Jay. Until you. I want to be with you. Share the world with you. If you’ll have me.”

  With cheeks puffed out, a large sigh whooshed out of him. “Can you explain something to me?”

  “Anything,” Jade said. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but I’ll explain everything I can.”

  “I’m hearing that a lot today,” he said. “All this time I’ve been here, drinking all those pints of stout, you’ve been… You’ve been messing with my destiny.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not every drink I serve, only particular drinks for a particular person. And we can’t influence stout. It’s somehow immune to us. That’s why it’s all Rucksack drinks.”

  Jay’s eyes flashed. He let go of Jade’s hands. “Rucksack knows about you?”

  “I don’t know how he learned about us, and it’s not something The Management ever discuss. But far as I can tell Rucksack’s intentions are good. He’s just trying to find his own way back to a destiny he lost long ago.”

  “Yeah, so I understand. Lot of destinies around this town.”

  “Jay?”

  He looked past her then walked to the desk.

  Oh crap, she thought. The notes.

  She turned around, staring at Jay, but he didn’t look at her again until he’d read the three notes.

  “What are these?” he said.

  Tell him, she thought, tell him all. “The Management’s instructions to me. About you.”

  “But you didn’t… influence… me?”

  “No. Stout is immune. Like I said, I took the scotch that would have influenced you.”

  His eyes widened. “What about the scotch you left by my bed last night? Did that do something to me?”

  “That scotch is why they fired me. Instead of doing what they said, I broke their influence. It’s called the All and Nothing. The person who consumes it can no longer be influenced by The Management or by the Jakes and Jades. It’s like a… like a vaccination. You have to understand, Jay, I did this to free you. Make it so you could follow your heart, wherever that leads.”

  He held up a sheet of paper. “But this says the heart is not the path.”

  Jade shrugged. “I say they’re wrong.”

  “Do you think you know my heart?”

  “Not as well as I would like.” She tried to smile but found it too difficult. “I’m hopeful though.”

  “Hopeful that I’ll choose you.”

  “But not over travel. You can have both, Jay. If you want to see the world, I’ll go with you. We know we have something special here, something amazing as the world. We owe it to ourselves to see it through.”

  Jay closed his eyes tight. When he opened them again, the fierceness had returned. “How do I know that?” he said. “Everything else has been a lie. Why not this too?”

  “A lie? I’ve never lied to you.”

  Jay reached into his pocket. Jade gasped when she saw his passport. “Did you know that Rucksack has had my passport this entire time?”

  Jade started to speak again. Instead she looked at the floor and nodded.

  “And you also knew that there’s all this hubbub about me having some destiny to become a god? All this weirdness with the dia ubh and the smiling bonfire boogeyman thing?”

  Again, she could only nod.

  “So, for these last few weeks, you’ve known all along that I was on a wild goose chase and that Rucksack wanted me to stay here to be part of this supposed destiny.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she nodded in reply. “Jay—”

  “How can I be with you when you lied to me? How can I be with you when you buy into the same destiny crap as Rucksack?”

  “But I don’t,” Jade replied. “I told you, I freed you from that.”

  “You can’t feel a need to free me from something unless you believe it’s real.”

  “I did this for you,” Jade said. “For us. I went against everything I’ve known for the last ten years. I gave it all up to be with you.”

  “No,” Jay replied. “You gave it up for a roll of the dice.”

  “I gave it up for what might someday be love. Do you love me?”

  He stepped forward, his eyes locked on hers. “How can I love someone I don’t trust?”

  “You can trust me.”

  “No, Jade, I can’t.” Jay reached up and tightened the shoulder straps on his pack. “If I’ve learned anything during my time here, it’s that the only thing I can trust is the road. If I stop, trouble catches up to me. I’m going now. I’m leaving all of this, all of you, behind. You’re right. We had a chance. We had something special. But you didn’t just decide against your work when you lied to me. You decided against whatever we might have been. There is no more us.”

  Before she could say anything, Jay had unlatched the door and was gone.

  She took a deep breath. The notes crumpled as she stuffed them in her pocket. Jade grabbed her pack, swung it onto her back, and ran out the door. It latched behind her with more than just locks. This time when she emerged from the wall, she felt a change in the air, as if behind her the illusion of the wall had stopped being an illusion.

  No turning back now.

  Jade opened the side door that led out into Agamuskara. Find him, she thought. Follow him.

  But Jay had moved quickly, and already she couldn’t see him among the crowds and the many streets. The loud buzz of the outside world pummeled her, and she could no longer isolate the individual voices that had guided her for so lo
ng.

  He was gone and she had no way to find him.

  A soft click made her swing around, the heavy pack swinging her off balance and making her stumble. “No!” she said, grabbing the latch, trying to open the door. But the Everest Base Camp, best pub and hostel in India, refused to open for her.

  I don’t know where to go now, she thought, unhooking her pack and sitting at the outside table. Who am I now? What do I do?

  No matter how much she asked, how deeply she looked or listened, she found no answer, only hot tears that she couldn’t stop from rolling down her face.

  THE LAST TENDRILS of orange cloud faded as the sun set, but the looming black wall removed all thoughts of the darkening sky, of sunshine and bright days.

  Jigme tried to get his breath back, standing stooped from the exertion of getting here, but even breathing was a hard labor now. He choked back tears, and at last no more came to take their place.

  Asha slipped again, barely standing even as she leaned against her son. Jigme tightened his hand around her shoulder, and the pain from his broken fingers made him gasp. Something seemed to grate in his leg as he shifted to take more of her weight. His swollen knee pressed so hard against his pants that he wondered whether the pressure would tear fabric or flesh first.

  “We’re almost there, Amma,” he said. “Soon you will be truly healed, and everything will be better. I promise.”

  She didn’t reply. Her drooping head lolled. Jigme couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or not. She’d been barely conscious ever since he had returned to their room, just before the first glints of dawn brought light back to Agamuskara. There had been no rest when he had returned, only fear of the people of the city learning what he had done, only fear of taking his eyes off Asha as she lay in and out of weak consciousness.

  Amma’s dying, he thought. No tears followed.

  I have to get her inside, get her to him, Jigme thought. But I have to get my breath back first. I’m barely standing. Just a moment more.

  Jigme looked up, past where the black line of the temple gave way to the darkening sky. Only the slightest gleam remained.