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

  “Some would say it’s a mercy you didn’t deserve,” Kailash said. “By fleeing Agamuskara, you made the end of life all but certain. I could say it’s better you died then than get swept up in the decimation that will come when the Smiling Fire regains his full power.”

  Jay started to protest, but the dreams in his mind flickered. Through the pain, images flashed that were far worse than the aches and stabs from his broken body.

  “I thought he was still imprisoned?”

  “So glad you’re no longer arguing that all this was falsehood and fantasy,” Kailash said. “If you did, I’d just whack you with my stick.” She tapped it on the floor twice, with twin cracks that made the floorboards wince.

  “He’s free, Jay. I won’t go so far as to say because of you. Something else was happening that we only just learned, and we learned it at a great cost.”

  “What’s happened? And…” Jay said. “And what about Jade and Rucksack? Are they okay?”

  “It does these old bones good to hear you ask about them,” Kailash replied. “I will tell you all I know. There’s much we didn’t discuss while you slept. It would have been too much for you, and I still remember enough of kindness to spare you that until you had the strength.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It will be faster and you will understand more fully if we skip the conversation part of this.” She raised her hand then paused. “What I held back I’m going to put directly into your mind. It will take you many hours to go through this—and hours more to understand. You won’t sleep tonight. Then again, you’ve slept long enough. We’ll talk more in the morning. But remember this, Jay: come morning, the mirror eclipse will be but a day away.”

  Worry flooded him. She’s said so little of Rucksack and Jade, he thought. Or of Jigme and Asha.

  Jay nodded. “I want to understand,” he said. “I’m ready now.”

  “You’re awake and time is short,” Kailash said. “You no longer have any choice but to be ready.”

  She touched her hands to his face. From her mind to his, her heart to his, all that had happened over the last month, since he had fled Agamuskara, flowed into him.

  At first he screamed and wailed. He clenched his fists, even though his knitting bones ached when he did so. Soon there were no more screams, no more tears. No more wailing.

  The night had long since taken over the day when she left. But she was right: he did not sleep.

  He thought. He felt.

  In the morning, when Kailash stood in the doorway again, Jay looked at her with a surprising strength in his weary eyes. “I understand,” he said, glancing at his broken body and shaking his head. “But I don’t know what I can possibly do about it from here, like this. Was this supposed to be part of the destiny?”

  Kailash shrugged as she came back to the chair by the bed. “I wish I could answer that. These last few weeks while you’ve healed, I’ve asked that question of every god I could corner. If anyone knows, they aren’t sharing. There are many things I don’t know. I’m no god, Jay. I’m a woman, with a bit added on. Maybe this was part of your destiny. If I can draw any conclusion, I can say with some confidence that the choice you made must have been part of my destiny.”

  “I’m sorry I left and brought all this on you,” Jay said. “I should have stayed. I should have forgiven Rucksack and Jade. I felt trapped. I felt manipulated. Cornered. I took the only chance I saw.”

  She nodded. “And of all the places where you could have jumped from that train, you jumped at the edge of my village, the little haven where I’ve secreted myself over the eons. I thought I could keep myself safe from the Smiling Fire, you see. Not so much to save myself but to ensure he didn’t recapture the power I had taken from him so long ago. It turns out I have to risk that too.”

  “We know that the destiny is mine,” Jay said. “I have to go back. I have to face him.”

  “Your voice still has bitterness. Most mortals would be so excited to become a god.”

  “I just want to be me, but there’s something far more important than what I want. Life must live,” Jay said. “Thrive and strive, that’s all that matters.”

  “That’s why the world thought you were such a good choice after all,” Kailash said. “It knew you’d get there in the end, and the end is here.”

  “If I make it long enough to become this god, I don’t suppose the dia ubh will heal me the rest of the way?”

  Kailash chuckled. “It will do more than that,” she said. “Love and power are inverses of one another. The key to destroying the Smiling Fire is to bring both love and power into balance in your own self so that from the depths of your soul to the tips of your fingernails you are both boundless love and unstoppable power.”

  “So it comes down to me.”

  Kailash nodded. “First, though, we have to get you out of bed.”

  Jay tried to shift his legs, but his legs and arms cried out when he moved them. Ignoring the pain, he set his feet on the floor. The moment he rose, his knees buckled and he fell back onto the bed. The agony brought tears to his eyes.

  “How can I save the world if I can’t even stand?”

  Kailash looked away from him, but Jay saw the fear and longing in her eyes. When she looked back, her gaze was hard again.

  “That brings us to the worst part. At least, that’s what I thought it would be,” Kailash said. “Now that this time has finally come, I actually find I’m excited about it. You think of the joy of new adventures, Jay, and I would say that’s what I’m feeling. I’ve been who I am for a long time. I’m ready to be something more. I’m ready to get my balance right.”

  “I can’t even get up,” Jay said, “much less go to the heart of Agamuskara to defeat the Smiling Fire.”

  “And that, dear Jay, is why you’re really here.” Kailash squeezed his hand. “You didn’t heal enough. So I’m going to finish the job for you.”

  She reached over and took his other hand. “This will hurt,” she said. “But don’t worry. Once we’re done, you will be completely healed, ready to arrive in Agamuskara just in the nick of time.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  She smiled. “In a sense, yes. What I know, you will know. Who I am will now be part of you. The power I have I now give so that you may be whole again.”

  “You’re sacrificing yourself for me,” Jay said. He tried to pull his hands away, but there was no escaping the power of her grip. The aches of his body turned into silent screams.

  “Don’t think of it as me dying,” she said. “Think of it as you helping me be reborn.”

  Her brown-and-black eyes turned white, and so did all that Jay saw. Rushes of pain and warmth flooded him until all he perceived was only white, calm, and silent.

  When he could see the room again, the pain was gone.

  So was Kailash.

  Jay swung his legs out of the bed, felt the rough-smooth texture of the wood as his feet touched the floor. He stood.

  He did not fall.

  Kailash gave her life to save me, Jay thought. I have to see this through.

  The new memories from Kailash settled into his blood and his soul. The doubt was gone, as absent as the pain from his healed body.

  He had a quick wash. The blue had faded from his skin, replaced by a soft blue glow. Jay opened the backpack for new clothes. Tan as sun-beaten earth, the trusty cargo pants looked like new. He pulled out the white t-shirt and smiled.

  Seems fitting, he thought, reading the slogan on the shirt, though I don’t remember where in the world I bought this one.

  The pack seemed to smile as he zipped it closed. He slung it over his shoulders as easily as a pillow. Outside the little cottage where Kailash had lived, Jay stared north at the plains, which stretched as far as his eyes could see. Just at the edge of his sight a mountain, impossible in its size, bigger than all others in the world, stood proud.

  Jay thought back to when he met Rucksack. He joined his palms and held his hands in
front of his chest. “Namaste,” he said.

  The mountain vanished into the horizon. Jay could’ve sworn it winked at him.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Good-bye, Kailash.”

  Much closer to him, a tunnel of dust approached.

  When at last it stopped, right in front of him, Mim and Pim got out of a taxi.

  “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” Mim said, nodding. “Nice shirt.”

  “Are you ready?” Pim asked.

  “I don’t have any choice.” Jay set his pack in the car and climbed into the back.

  “Get me to Agamuskara,” he said. “I’ve got a god to kill.”

  JADE WOKE ALONE. Her eyes adjusted to the dim reddish light, and slowly she sat up.

  “I’m alive,” she said. For now, she thought, but I’ll take what I can get.

  She swung her legs off the stone block where she lay, noticing as she stood on the floor that a groove had been worn into the surface of the block.

  This is where he slept, she thought. On a big stone slab against the wall of a prison. He’s been here for so many uncountable years that he wore into the stone.

  Jade walked around the chamber and stared at the walls. The smooth, solid black rock had no cracks or joints, no sections or textures. The entire chamber seemed like it had been hollowed out from one piece of perfect, featureless obsidian.

  The walls were warm to her touch. I’m surrounded by the molten rock of the world, she thought. No wonder I’m sweating.

  Above her, in the center of the ceiling, cracks stretched like forks of lightning from an opening that must originally have been rectangular. Now it had been ripped open, breaking and warping the stone. Jade stared up into the darkness of a narrow vertical shaft.

  The world is up there and I’m trapped down here, she thought. No way out. Only one way in. It almost feels safe. Then again, you keep the bait safe until it’s time to set the trap.

  She stared into the eye of the dark shaft. “Are you up there?” she shouted. “We’re going to stop you. No matter what.”

  Darkness and silence were the only reply. As Jade’s words faded, so too did her courage.

  “Who am I kidding?” she said, much quieter. “We don’t stand a chance.”

  Despair hovered like a dark shadow over the light of her courage and strength. “I’m scared as hell of dying,” she said to the darkness outside and in. “I never knew if I would be or not. But if it takes my death to save the world, I’ll die. Whatever it takes to get Jay into that light. Destroying the Smiling Fire is all that matters.”

  Inside, the despair faded back. While she did not feel brave, she felt she at least knew the destiny before her.

  “Destroying the Smiling Fire is all that matters,” she said again. “Life must live.”

  “Why?”

  The sound of the rasping voice made her jump back. Jade pressed against a corner, a wall to her right and the worn stone slab to her left. From the opposite corner of the room, a shadow unfolded, stretching taller and moving slowly toward her. Soon she stared once more into the eyes of the Smiling Fire.

  “Why must you live?” he asked. “Life is a thief.”

  “We stole nothing from you,” Jade replied, clenching at the wall. Stay calm, she thought. Make him talk. Learn. He won’t kill me. Yet.

  “You can’t claim rights to something that isn’t yours to begin with,” Jade said.

  “It was always mine,” the Smiling Fire replied. “Living things are an accident of coincidences, always on the thin edge of overrun and annihilation. You use continuance and renewal to conceal the decimation of your true nature.”

  “How is that different from yours?”

  “In my time the world was simpler,” the Smiling Fire said. “It needed no organisms. The simple physical processes of rock and water, fire and wind were enough. I seek only to remove a scourge and restore the old harmony. Or is that what you would say you yourself intend to do?”

  “The world decided merely existing wasn’t enough,” Jade said. “Life makes the world fascinating, varied. Life fills the world with love, laughter, togetherness, striving.”

  He has existed so long in hate, she thought. Has he ever tried to understand living things?

  “Am I not alive?” the Smiling Fire said. “Do I not also deserve to live?”

  “We defend ourselves against things that wish to kill us,” Jade replied.

  “If I live, I also seek to protect myself,” the Smiling Fire said. “Life kills me. If I am to exist, living things must be killed. Or do you somehow deserve to live more than I do?”

  Jade had no reply. Something flickered in the Smiling Fire’s eyes. I’ve seen that before, she thought.

  “You know nothing. You burn with a fire that isn’t yours,” the Smiling Fire said. “I seek only to be as I was. You have nothing to offer me but weakness in a world whose every breath makes me less.”

  Jade closed her eyes. “If you are alive, you should have a chance to live,” Jade said. “But not if it means destroying everything else in the world.” She stared into the flickering red eyes.

  “You cannot stop me. What all stole will be all mine again.” The Smiling Fire moved to the center of the room, below the opening in the ceiling.

  “When next I return, it will be time.”

  Then he was gone.

  He’s right, Jade thought. Alone again, she took the photo out of her pocket and looked at the faces of the dead couple, then put it away.

  Jade’s knees buckled. She slid down the wall until she crouched on the floor. There were no tears to cry anymore. There was no rage to shout with. I can only hope Jay comes back, she thought. He’s our only chance.

  Her hand brushed the stone of the worn slab. It seemed warmer than before, though nothing else in the room seemed different. Images flashed through her mind: The Smiling Fire, dim and faint, pounding on the wall. Then, exhausted, he collapsed onto the stone slab. Time passed. The room shook. The figure rose. As he stood, head back and arms outstretched, the Smiling Fire darkened, becoming more distinct and solid with every tremor. The first hint of his fiery grin glimmered, thin and faint, but there. The Smiling Fire stared at the ceiling of his prison, and then he leaped...

  Jade’s hand stopped touching the slab. The images were gone as quickly as they had appeared.

  Jade scrambled to her feet and stared at the impression worn into the obsidian.

  The Smiling Fire has been here for eons, she thought. Even after he freed himself, he’s kept returning here. His body has worn itself into the stone… Her eyes widened.

  “Has his mind as well?” she whispered.

  Jade pressed her hands to the stone and waited for the images to come back.

  Nothing happened.

  “You’ve never had anyone to listen,” Jade said softly to the rock. “But you have the most important story to tell. I am here to listen. You are rock of this world. If you know of life, if you know what he intends to do, if you care at all for a world with things that live, grow, and love, then please, please tell me your story.”

  Jade waited. And waited.

  Silence.

  She shook her head. This was foolish, she thought, ready to take her hands away.

  “It would help,” said the slow, low voice rumbling in her mind, “if you lie down.”

  “Of course.” Jade climbed back onto the stone and settled her body down into the impression where the Smiling Fire used to lay.

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  The rock’s long story wove into her soul like music. It wove into the fibers of her body. She forgot time, hunger, and thirst. Jade lived only the story of the Smiling Fire: how he had come here, all his dark thoughts, the escape, and how different he seemed since the night he freed himself.

  When at last the rock finished its story, Jade began to understand, but she did not get up. She stayed only in her deepest thoughts, thought beyond thought, seeing the Smiling Fire as it really was. And
as it could be.

  She found herself smiling. I know what that flickering is, she thought, even though she wasn’t yet sure how it could help.

  Jade stirred only when a shadowy hand, hot as the fires of the early world yet colder than deepest space, pulled her to her feet.

  “It is time,” the Smiling Fire said. “The mirror eclipse comes, and so does he.”

  “Then let’s get going,” Jade said, smiling back.

  ON THE LAST DAY of the world, Jigme never would have expected the sky to be so blue, bright, and clear. The sun rose toward its summit. Golden light poured warmth on Agamuskara, so different from the burning heat of the fading fires.

  In the decimated city, the sun shone on a world of shadows.

  From the opposite side of the sky, the full moon rose too. Ghostly silver-white, it hung level with the sun, but they did not overlap yet.

  Soon it will happen, Jigme thought, staring at the world through the eyes of the Smiling Fire. One way or another, soon all of us will die.

  “There is still no way,” said the voice of his father.

  Jigme turned away from the outside world.

  My father, he thought.

  Even now it felt so hard to believe. The man who could not speak. The man Jigme had walked past many times a day for years.

  Anger welled in him. So did longing. Then the anger seemed less important.

  Then a new feeling arose. It said his longing was not important. Nor was his anger. Nor was anything Jigme felt; it all mattered less than the problem before them. Though his feelings roiled and collided, ebbed and crashed, Jigme tried to focus himself on what was happening and what they could do about it.

  Seeing both the sun and moon in the sky, Jigme knew how long they had been arguing and trying to find a way around the impossible. Could the Smiling Fire be stopped in a way that would not also destroy the souls preserved inside? No solutions came. If the Smiling Fire was destroyed, so were they and the children and all the others Jigme’s father had sought to protect after being consumed by the Smiling Fire.

  But they didn’t give up. Amma’s concern for the children and for Jigme had brought out a fiery resolve in his mother that he had never seen before. When he or his father felt like their efforts were futile, Amma bolstered them. When Jigme despaired that he should have fully died, Amma pointed out that any life was a chance for them all. No matter how many dead ends they came to, she found another direction.