Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) Page 30

  Jade tried to push the window open, but it stuck. “Stupid gods,” she said, hitting the sash. “Always thinking you’re so damn powerful.” Rucksack pushed with her. Finally, the window opened and they raised it as high as it would go.

  The Smiling Fire raised the dia ubh over his head. “Not so damn powerful,” he replied. “All powerful.”

  “He’s trying to open the dia ubh!” Rucksack shouted.

  The blast of heat came again, hotter this time. Jade smelled singed hair and fabric. What is it going to feel like to burn? she thought. Fear sapped her strength and will.

  For a moment, nothing happened. The Smiling Fire held the dia ubh, and his red-and-black grin became wider. Then, dark as the Agamuskara night, a crack appeared in the gray featureless surface.

  “Go!” Rucksack shouted, pulling Jade into the window opening. “Dammit, go!”

  A light exploded from the dia ubh, and the world turned white.

  Somehow, as if she were suddenly floating bodiless above the city, Jade could see the Everest Base Camp on fire. The roof fell in. Liquor bottles exploded. Flames leaped up from the polished bar. Hostel beds briefly became perfect rectangles of fire. Oddly, though, she couldn’t help noticing, all the roaches seemed fine. The voice of the pub pulled at her, screaming in her mind.

  Dying.

  Where’s Rucksack?

  Something pushed her. Something pulled her. Something seemed like someone holding her hand.

  The burning heap of the building collapsed in on itself like a black hole forming in the world. The life burned and melted out of the Everest Base Camp, finest pub and hostel in India, former home of the Jade of all Jades. As the last thought from the dead pub fell silent, Jade too stopped seeing, listening, feeling.

  Some new life, Jade thought, fading as the world turned red, dim, and black.

  THROUGH THE SMALL TICKET WINDOW, the ticket attendant smiled and asked, “Destination?”

  Jay coughed, trying to get his breath back after the running, the taxi flagging, the traffic jam, and the more running, all to make sure he could get to the train station before anyone caught up to him. Late afternoon sun glinted off the glass. Jay wondered if Rucksack was back in the city center yet.

  “Somewhere,” Jay said. “Anywhere. Everywhere.”

  “Those are not on our route,” the attendant replied. “Destination?”

  Jay looked at the people behind him in line and wondered where they were going. They could all see him at the window or in the window’s reflection.

  He smiled and turned back to the attendant. “The person in front of me,” Jay said. “Where did he buy a ticket to?”

  “Kolkata.”

  “Then that’s where I’m heading. Kolkata. One third-class ticket. One-way.”

  “Our second-class and first-class cars will be more to the comfort of a tourist such as yourself,” the attendant replied. “Sleeping berths, air conditioning, included meals. And only a small bit more for a tourist such as yourself.”

  “This traveler wants a third-class ticket,” Jay said. “I don’t need comfort and that car is going to the same place as the fancy ones.”

  The attendant bobbed his head. Jay dug money out of his pants pocket, and the attendant handed over the ticket with a shrug. Printed in black ink on light blue paper, the Hindi script reminded Jay of dancing or of the flames of a campfire.

  “When does the train leave?” he asked.

  A smile arced up the attendant’s face. “Five minutes.”

  Jay ran to the platform.

  Panting, he came to a stop by the empty track. No train. A large crowd stood still. The clock said he had made it just in time. Jay nodded to a nearby family. “Has the Kolkata train left?”

  They bobbed their heads. “Five minutes,” the man said, smiling.

  India, Jay thought. Seems the entire world happens five minutes from now. After five minutes have passed, though, things have a way of still being five minutes away.

  He shook his head. I’m half surprised Jade hasn’t caught up to me already. And if Rucksack’s back in the city, surely he’s figured out I’d head to the train station. They could be here any minute. They could be here now.

  He looked around as best he could, but if they were there, Jay couldn’t see them. His shoulders relaxed as he took a deep breath.

  “Mr. Jay?”

  He whipped around. Jay stopped walking, but his backpack kept going and he stumbled.

  “Never easy to walk around with a house on your back,” a second voice said.

  Jay righted himself. Mim and Pim stood in front of him.

  “What do you want?” Jay said. “Here to steal something else from me? Or are you trying to find your accents? You certainly don’t sound like the same two guys who drugged me and nicked my passport.”

  Mim smiled. “You’re right. We’re not in character, as we were before. We are simply and totally ourselves.”

  “Well aren’t I just bloody honored,” Jay replied.

  “You do not understand, Mr. Jay,” Mim said. “Soon I believe you will, but soon is not the same as yet.”

  “I’m sure yet is only five minutes from now.”

  Pim grinned. “We understand why you are angry with us, with Jade, with Rucksack. We came to say we’re sorry.”

  Jay had prepped himself for anything: a battle of wits, evading their strange words, dumping their drugged tea. Maybe there’d be a sprinting chase or even a fight. But the apology threw him off balance more than his backpack had.

  “You’re apologizing?” Jay said. “Let’s drop the games and pretexts. How about you just tell me what you’re really here for.”

  “We are here to apologize, Mr. Jay,” Pim said.

  “Why?”

  “Because we have existed a long time,” Mim replied. “We know how important it is for someone to be in control of his own life. We too were working toward the destiny you now know about. It would have been better if we all had been honest with you.”

  “And if you hadn’t stolen my passport?” Jay snorted. “What were you doing to it anyway? Why are the pages blank?”

  “It is all to do with the destiny,” Pim replied. “We truly were fixing it.”

  All those weeks the tiny lightweight blue booklet had chained Jay to the city better than a ball and chain. He’d kept his passport in his pocket in case the attendant wanted it, but the man hadn’t asked. Jay took it out now and flipped through the pages.

  I’ve treasured it, he thought. Crown jewels indeed. Passport. Tickets. Money. Jewels of a different coin. Riches of a different value.

  Chains that can make a traveler into a prisoner.

  When he looked up again, Jay knew his smile could have outshone the Indian sun. “Here,” he said, handing the passport to Mim. “If it’s so important to this destiny, you can have it. Where I’m going, I won’t need it anymore.”

  “Jay?” Pim said, concern in his eyes. “This is part of you.”

  “That’s why you took it,” Jay said. “You knew I wouldn’t leave the city until I found it. But in trapping me, you set me free. I’m never letting anything hold me down, hold me back, like that again. This is yours now.”

  “Your destiny is crucial to the world.”

  Jay shrugged. “So are my decisions. You keep wanting me to choose to stay. I choose to keep going. To see all I can see and never stop again.”

  “What about Jade?”

  “I’m sure she’ll be just fine.”

  Mim stared at the track. “We could do something, you know,” he said. “Break the train. Cause every bus in the city to stop working the moment you come near it.”

  The grin came back, even bigger this time. “You could,” Jay said. “But you won’t. I’m leaving and you won’t stop me.”

  Pim put his hand on Mim’s shoulder. “You’re right, of course,” Pim said. “You’ve made your decision, and we won’t try to dissuade you. Thank you for the passport, Jay. It’s good to have it back, as we sti
ll have much to do. We’ll keep it close. You never know when you may want it back.”

  “That would suggest we’ll meet again someday. We won’t.”

  “As you say. Best of luck.”

  The train hissed and squealed as it pulled up. With a resigned smile, a bow, and a bob of the head, Mim and Pim vanished into the confluence of people rushing on and off the train, crowding and pushing for the doors. Jay walked slowly.

  I feel light, he thought. I’ve traveled so long, I don’t even need the crown jewels anymore. It’s time to free myself.

  When he set a foot on the step up to the train car, excitement shot through him. I haven’t felt this excited since I first left Idaho. That’s how it’s going to be from now on. Wherever I want to go, whenever I want to go there, I’ll go.

  Jay glanced at his ticket and turned left. Farther up the train there would be cars with comfortable seats, benches that became beds, air conditioning, even luxurious rooms. I could afford any of them, Jay thought. But money can do other things.

  With a grin, he knew what to do.

  Raised voices met him in the dim third-class car. Everywhere, men pointed at filled seats, raised defensive arms from where they sat, and argued over who should go where.

  I’ll stand from here to Kolkata, Jay thought. I don’t need to sit.

  As he adjusted to the din, Jay realized that although no one argued in English, he could understand what everyone was shouting.

  It’s like the day I first came to Agamuskara, Jay thought, when that parade passed by and I was touching the dia ubh through my pack. All those voices made sense, just as these do. But I don’t have the dia ubh anymore. Finally it isn’t following me. It feels like it’s set me free.

  He made his way to a bare patch of wall. His pack seemed to squirm as he set it down. “What’s your deal?” Jay said. “Thought you’d be happy finally being out and about again.”

  Around him, the loud voices continued. Jay thought about the men in the car—no women to be seen, no children—and wondered what their lives were like.

  The noise stopped. All the men had settled in to their seats or the spots where they stood, and all arguments were completed. It reminded Jay of a story Rucksack had told him about how in India people did only what was necessary at the time. Jay shook his head and the memory went away.

  Some of the men stared at him. This was understandable, given that Jay’s was the only non-Indian face in the car. He looked around the car at the faces, then stopped.

  The man sat at the center of the opposite wall of the train car, surrounded by an emptiness that no one would cross. A blue turban covered his head, and he wore loose white robes, leaving only his hands and face visible. The face was smooth, with almost feminine features, and the hands were graceful yet hardened from years of rough work. Gray-blue eyes shone like stars, somehow brightening the train car.

  Jay couldn’t tell if he was Indian or where he was from. He didn’t have the anywhere face that Rucksack had. He must be in the sun a lot but wasn’t from here. Before he realized it, Jay was halfway across the car, and he stumbled as the train lurched into motion.

  “You must be a traveler,” the man said with a voice soft and young, old and hard all at once.

  Jay nodded. “Thanks for understanding the distinction.”

  The man smiled. “What is your good name?”

  “Jay.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Idaho, in America.”

  “Annoyica?”

  “America.”

  “Ah, yes,” the man said. “Good place. Loud but good. What do you do?”

  “I live the world.”

  The man stared at Jay’s t-shirt. Jay looked down too. He hadn’t noticed it when he had put on the shirt as he packed his things and got ready to leave Everest Base Camp. Overall, the fabric was pale blue, yet it had the barest hint of green. A brown-and-black outline of a hand stamp, like what had pressed many of the visa stamps in Jay’s passport, seemed to hover over an outline of the planet.

  I don’t even remember where I got this shirt, Jay thought, but it’s fitting.

  “That is a most interesting occupation,” the man said. “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  The man nodded. His smile faded and he said nothing more.

  Did I fail some sort of a test? Jay thought.

  Then the smile came back. With a wink, the man reached behind him and opened a rectangular case that was smaller than a suitcase but larger than a briefcase. “Would you like a drink?”

  “That’s the best thing anyone’s said to me all day.”

  With a blur, the graceful hands opened the case. Soon a clear bottle filled with an amber liquid, almost golden, was in Jay’s hand. “What is it?” he asked.

  “My own recipe,” the man replied. “Medicinal. Stimulating. Inspiring. And tastes good too.”

  “No hooch like homemade hooch,” Jay said, raising his arm and nodding to the man. “As long as it’s not a damn pint of stout.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Never mind,” Jay said. “It’s not important. Will you join me?”

  “Would that I could,” he replied. “I myself don’t drink but I find that carrying a bottle or two always helps me find friends on these long trips. It can change your world, a good newfound friend.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Jay said, tipping back a long swallow.

  Soon other men came over, some taking a pull from the bottle, some bringing out bottles of their own or food or instruments. It’s like a mobile Everest Base Camp, Jay thought. Just a little while ago they were arguing. Now we’re all talking, drinking, laughing, swapping stories. This is how it can be for me for the rest of my days. I’ll take it.

  He glanced behind the half-circle of men. Alone and propped up on the opposite wall, his backpack sulked in darkness. If I didn’t know better, Jay thought, I’d swear it was mad at me for being here. But why? We’re travelers. Traveling means leaving Agamuskara and moving on. It’ll get over it.

  The talk went on and the clacking of the train wheels joined in the conversation and camaraderie. Outside the small windows, the sky darkened as the train made its way east. As the hours went by, Jay realized, the food and drink never ran out. Every time they emptied a bottle, another appeared.

  “You have seen much of the world,” someone said to the man in the robes. “Tell us one of your stories.”

  The man nodded. “I have not seen as much as I would like, and there is much I will never see. Much of what I have seen pales before the bright, shining moments of your own lives. But if there is one story that I must tell, it is something that happened not to me but near me, to someone else. I was but fortunate to have been in the area at the time.”

  Everyone drank in his words. Jay glanced behind the men again. His pack seemed to be standing straighter, as if anticipating yet listening to a story it already knew.

  “My life takes me far,” the man said at last. “Recently, I was in the shadow of Qomolongma—Mount Everest herself, mountain of the world. The moon was full that night, shining silver and gold in the cold thin air of the Himalayas. I had stepped out of my tent to have a cigarette and gaze at the mountain as the moon rose high above it. Between my tent and the vast plains and hills that lead to the foot of Qomolongma, there was a small rise at camp—not even a hill, just a small rounded slope where one can gain a better vantage. I thought about going to it, but I also sought solitude on this trip, and someone already stood atop the hill.

  “This person and I watched the moon rise up from the valleys and mountains, as if it rose from out of the Heart of the World itself. She was full and bright, big as the mountain. I have seen much beauty in this world, my friends, but never have I seen anything as beautiful as this.”

  Twinges of pain poked Jay. He realized how tense and stiff he was, no longer enraptured by the story but terrified. No, he thought. It can’t be.

  “I looked from the moon to the ma
n, standing on the little rise at the edge of Mount Everest Base Camp. The darkness around him lightened, and then I could not take my eyes off him.”

  This didn’t happen, Jay thought. You didn’t see this. Please, you didn’t see this. You couldn’t see something that didn’t happen.

  “All around the man, the darkness became moonlight, and the moonlight became as a gentle hand, lifting the man off the hill and taking him to Qomolongma herself. I watched until I could no longer see the man. I never saw his face, but as far as I could tell, the mountain carried him all the way up to the summit of Qomolongma. That is all I know. That is all I saw. Whatever the moon and the mountain had to say to the man, I do not know. But oh, how I wish I did. And oh, how I am glad to have seen such a moment of magic on a moonlit night by the mountain of the world.”

  The man fell silent. No one else spoke. All of the men sat as still as children before a teacher.

  Jay stood and left the car.

  In the vestibule between train cars, the evening air hung hot and wet but no longer blazing. The wind of the fast train washed over Jay as he held onto the rails of the open doorway at the side of the vestibule, half-standing, half-hanging out of the train.

  That didn’t happen, he thought. It was just a story. A story I’ve left behind, just like the rest. No more Jade. No more Rucksack. No more legends. No more destiny. I’m free.

  He stared into the darkness as the train rushed through the night. What lay at the end of the line but another city, more pubs, more sights to see already pawed over by throngs of Swedes, Israelis, and Australians, all carrying Guru Deep guidebooks? More taxis and hostels, more questionable food and water, more touts...

  No more, Jay thought.

  Clouds had gathered over the countryside. The air felt damp, heavy, and charged. Off in the blackness, flashes of brown lightning made the world shine. For a moment, the skin of existence had faded away, revealing something beneath, like an everlasting brilliance.

  Why bother with another city or another country? Jay thought. Countries aren’t sealed and separate. We just act like they are. But we’re connected to the it. And the it is the everywhere. Since we’re connected, I can go anywhere.