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

  Eight pints with Rucksack had hazed Jay’s eyes and given him a certain sway as he stood there, but he still grinned when he saw her. She started walking over, but she felt dizzy again, as if the two men’s helixes had whip-cracked her about the ankles. The floor didn’t seem to be where it should be. She stumbled. Her leg spun out to the side, and she fell forward. Light glinted off of the polished edge of the bar, right where she knew her forehead would hit.

  A dull sound stopped the world. Jade stared at the edge of the bar, which was dangerously close but at least not embedded in her head.

  She looked up. Jay’s hands were holding her shoulders, firmly but not too tightly. He helped her back up.

  “Y’kay’?” Jay slurred.

  “Yes, I’m okay,” Jade replied, trying to hide her irritation and stepping back from his hands. An entire night of fast movement, never stopping for a moment, no mistakes, no problems, no tripping, she thought. But one look at this eejit and suddenly I’m nearly falling behind my own bar?

  “Mm bit druk. C’n y’ nd’stnd me?”

  “Anyone around Rucksack more than an hour winds up hammered, mate,” she said. “It’s okay. I speak drunkese.” More fluent than you could believe, she thought. Drunkese had been a required part of her training. The Management had explained that true drunk talk was not just intoxication but a form of primitive speech that humans regained when their minds were free of inhibitions like high cognitive functions and learned language.

  Jay nodded. “Hoz’h’no’druk?”

  Jade shrugged. “Wish I knew. I’ve never seen anyone put away as much stout as he does, but for all the effect it has, you’d think he was drinking decaf coffee.” Sometimes I so wish he would order something else, Jade thought. Something I could influence. Maybe then I could figure out more about him…

  More nods. Jay’s eyes slipped closed and his sway became like a buoy in an ocean getting stormy. “Um, Jay?” Jade touched his shoulder to steady him.

  His eyes opened wide, and his voice rang clear. “Melt their legs off,” he said.

  “What?”

  He nodded and the stout returned to his voice. “R’ck’sk said y’ knew ’bout… ’bout… roaches.”

  Jade laughed before she could stop herself. “They’re a way of life around here,” she replied. “Just a sec.” She came back and handed Jay a bottle full of amber liquid, covered with a black label and large red letters like flames. “Ram Rum. This is the worst we have. It’s the same one I use to get rid of the buggers,” she said. “Whatever you do, don’t drink it. You’ve had enough. Especially for your first night hanging around Rucksack. To bed with you.”

  “Mm’kay. Th’ks.”

  He was still standing there, but Jade sensed a customer heading to the bar, and she started to walk away.

  “Jade?”

  She stopped and came back over to Jay, relieved to have stayed on her feet this time. “Yes?”

  He smiled and nodded. “You… are… a really, really good bartender,” he said, slowly and deliberately, as if relearning speech.

  “Thanks, Jay. I appreciate that.”

  “And… and you’re really pretty too.”

  The words fell as fast as a monsoon. Before either of them could say anything else, Jay waved to her and staggered out of the pub toward the stairs that would take him to his dorm. A rustling sound followed him out, and it looked like something in his daypack was moving.

  She stood still. He thinks I’m pretty, she thought. Then she saw herself in the bar mirror.

  “You’re grinning like you won a billion rupees,” Rucksack said, standing at the bar with an empty glass in his hand.

  I’m grinning like a bigger eejit than you are, she thought, trying to force the smile away. “He’s funny when he’s drunk,” she replied. The corners of her mouth still poked up. “Another stout, I take it?”

  “One more. Man’s gotta have his nightcap.”

  Jade started pouring another pint of GPS. “Are you marinating Jay from the inside out in this stuff?”

  “He clearly needed nourishment.”

  Jade laughed. “Next thing I know you’ll be taking him to The Mystery Chickpea.”

  “I doubt I could keep him away. We walked past it with Jigme earlier, and Asha was the only reason he didn’t stop there then.” Rucksack leaned forward. “Gotta give that to him. He certainly knows what to be fascinated by,” he said with a wink.

  Heat tickled Jade’s cheeks. “You know travelers,” she said. “They can be big flirts.”

  “And I know Jakes and Jades,” Rucksack said. “They act like they aren’t people. Especially when they’re feeling some emotion that reminds them how human they still are.”

  Jade looked away to the emptying pub. The door closed behind four people. The Brazilian woman and her travel companions were nursing what Jade sensed was their last round. The two men slowly worked their way through another pitcher. Most of the locals had left; a handful of travelers remained scattered at tables, some deep in conversation, some deep in flirting, some deep in their Guru Deep guidebooks, figuring out tomorrow’s adventures. “Did you notice anything weird about Jay’s daypack?” Jade said, lowering her voice.

  “People like to say I speak in evasions and riddles. I’ve nothing on you,” Rucksack replied. “But since you’re insisting, yes. And his large pack too.”

  “It’s almost like he’s got a pet in there.”

  “A traveler’s backpack might as well be a dog, but I don’t know what’s in that pack. Jigme fell on it earlier, and for a moment his hand lay on a bulge where the sound seemed to be coming from.” Rucksack thought for a moment. “His eyes got wide. I didn’t mark it then. But now… Now I think I will have to ask Jigme about it. What he noticed. What…” Rucksack’s voice faded. He seemed to stare at something far away.

  “What is it?” Jade asked.

  “Nothing yet,” he replied. “Just a tremor in my mind. A memory of stories from long ago, told when I was a child. Maybe I’ll learn more and something will be relevant. Or maybe my past is just too much on my mind this evening.”

  “I thought you said you never got drunk.”

  “I don’t. Not on stout, leastways. But that’s why I never touch anything else.”

  “Liquor is quicker, it’s said.”

  “In me it’s just sicker. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re on about. Try to pull that influencing stuff with me, only thing you’ll know for sure is you’ll be giving the floor a good mop,” Rucksack replied. “You’ll never see me touch a drop o’ booze, other than my stout. No, I don’t get drunk. But the stout helps me see clearer, and tonight it seems to have me nostalgic.”

  “Nostalgia doesn’t help us figure out what happened earlier today,” Jade said, “but extrapolating from events does.” She checked the pint, and as she came back the Brazilians left the pub. Jade smiled a small smile when she saw a glint in the woman’s eyes, careworn yet fiery and determined. Other people left too, and soon only the two men and their pitcher of Deep’s Special Lager were left in the Everest Base Camp.

  “I’ve been thinking backward from when Jay got here,” Jade said. “When he entered Agamuskara should correspond to when we saw the helixes.”

  “I can see where they would be connected,” Rucksack replied. “So, whatever is in Jay’s pack somehow, for a moment, made clear the destinies and decisions lying before the world?”

  “That’s what I’ve got so far.”

  Rucksack nodded. “We need to figure out what’s in his pack.”

  “What were you remembering?” Jade asked.

  “I thought nostalgia was no help.”

  “It’s not. But you aren’t a man who has idle, random thoughts. Maybe I spoke hastily.”

  “I’ll take that as an apology.” Rucksack told her about the woman who had been staring at him, the envelope Jay had found, and his own letter, written in the same hand as the envelope the woman had left behind.

  “Kailash is
n’t exactly a rare name,” Jade said, making sure her eyes said nothing additional. “There’s an old woman who’s been cleaning the pub the last few months, and her name is Kailash. But the same handwriting? And the woman was staring at you? Could she be some sort of relation? Maybe someone who was entrusted with something originally meant for your mother?”

  Rucksack shook his head.

  “How can you be so dismissive?”

  “I was an only child,” Rucksack said. “And I had no other family. With my parents dead, there are none left who share my blood and spirit.”

  “You sound so certain.”

  “There are many things I’m no longer certain of. But this I know. I know it from bone to earth, soul to sky.”

  “How can that be? You’re not telling me something, Rucksack. If we’re going to figure this out… Look, we have to trust each other. You know I’m not just a bartender. And I know you’re not just some itinerant drunk who rambles off nonsense that passes as wisdom.”

  “I prefer to think I ramble off wisdom that passes as nonsense.”

  Jade set his fresh pint in front of him and grinned. “Jakes and Jades have lots of stories about you, did you know that?”

  Rucksack chuckled. “I’m sure your Management love that.”

  “They tolerate it. It’s like ghost stories kids tell around a campfire. Though if most people saw you, they’d never tie you back to the stories.”

  “You’ve got a fierce quick mind, Jade of the Everest Base Camp. You can seem like old winter ice, but your heart blazes. You remind me of my mum.”

  “That’s not something any woman ever wants to hear.”

  “If you’d known my mother, you’d know what a compliment it was.”

  Jade stepped back and stared at him. His heart beats like a person’s, she thought. He breathes and blinks. He drinks and eats… and drinks. The sun, cold, wind, water, and dust of the world are etched into him like tattoos. He could seem like other people. Jade stared hard at where his silvery helix should flow out into the world. Except for this emptiness, this loneliness around him. He is so alive, life burns like a fire in him and hums like a song, but he has no path. She locked her gaze on his. “Tell me why you don’t have a helix,” she said.

  Rucksack looked away.

  “You don’t want to tell me?”

  “It’s not that. It’s pretty hard to believe.”

  “I accept plenty that would be considered hard to believe. It’s pretty much a Jade’s job description.”

  Rucksack looked at her again. “I lost my helix—my paths of decision and destiny—when I lost my parents.”

  “How did your parents die?”

  Rucksack sighed.

  “I told you,” Jade said. “I can believe it.”

  “Jade, my parents died in The Blast.”

  “But that… but that would make you…”

  “A lot older than I look,” he said, nodding. “I appreciate you saying that I’m keeping well for my age.”

  She stepped back.

  “I thought you said you could believe it.”

  “Just because I can believe it doesn’t mean I don’t need a moment to let it sink in,” Jade replied. She smiled, thought for a little while, then said, “No wonder the letter is so perplexing. Your parents died so long ago, then to be told that you would be reunited with her. But for this to happen today, the same day Jay arrives with something strange in his backpack? The same day you and I see helixes clear as leaves and rivers? These things are connected.”

  “You’re okay with this? Really?” Rucksack drank another long quaff of stout.

  Jade shrugged. “It’s high up on my list of strangenesses that I’ve encountered or have learned about, yes. But it explains a lot.” She stared at him a moment, chewing her lip. “Rucksack,” she said, “did you survive The Blast?”

  “Mostly,” he replied, his left hand clenched tight. “Sometimes I think I didn’t survive enough. Sometimes I think I survived too much.” He drained his pint and set the empty glass on the bar. “Do you trust me now, Jade?”

  “I heard there was this guy,” said one of the two men at the table. “Went to the top of Mount Everest and back in a night.”

  Rucksack nearly knocked over his glass when he whipped around. Jade stared at the men and their empty pitcher. She’d now and again caught snippets of their conversation. They were like two traveling businessmen who were catching up and swapping stories. This is the loudest they’ve been all evening. Lager making them louder? she thought. Their winding helixes were like existence’s practical jokes. Or do they mean for us to hear this?

  “I know, right? Impossible,” the man continued, his indistinct face looking only at his companion. “Takes days to climb Everest. Hell, takes ages just to get to the foot of the damn mountain. Yet here’s a tale of some damn traveler who skips up and back in time for tea. They say he didn’t even remember it.”

  The man took a long drink of Deep’s Special Lager. “But he was standing on a little rise at Everest Base Camp, the Tibetan side, looking toward the mountain that night. The full moon rose over the slope, silver light shining on the white snow and the gray-black stone. The next morning, they say he was standing there again, only his clothes were ragged and torn. His face was bruised, his hands scratched up. He looked like he’d lost a fight with a pack of wild cats. Thing is, no one had seen him come to bed, but no one had seen him standing there all night either. But it’s Everest, you know? Sometimes you hallucinate up there. Low oxygen, high altitude, frigid temperatures. He couldn’t have been outside all night. The exposure would kill him.”

  The second man nodded, but his back was to Jade and Rucksack. “I heard about that too while I was finishing some business in Kathmandu. The stranger the news is, the faster it travels. Even weirder, from what I heard? The guy was clutching an Indian flag, and the flag was covered with signatures. Here’s the thing.” He tapped the table. “An Indian climbing team had recently summited Everest. And they had left that flag at the top.”

  The second man took a swig of beer and continued. “People say that when they saw the guy that morning, he dropped the flag and staggered from the little hill to his tent. You’d figure he’d want a long flop. But no. A couple minutes later, he’s running out of there, this huge black backpack on his back. Next thing everyone knew, he’d talked to these two guys and hopped into the bed of their truck as they were leaving. Don’t know who they were. They could’ve been from anywhere, you know?”

  The first man grinned. “Sounds like what I heard. No one knows for sure what happened or where he went after that. I heard he found something in his backpack that made him run. But I’ve also heard others say he’d worn out his welcome in Tibet—something about hocking portraits of the Dalai Lama—and the authorities were after him. Maybe a little of both. All I know is that somehow this guy had a flag that had last been seen at the top of the world’s tallest mountain. I also heard later that the flag wasn’t on the summit anymore. I don’t know where he is now or who he is or anything... But I tell you what. That’s one hell of a traveler.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” the second man said. They clinked glasses and finished their beers.

  “What the hell?” Jade said, moving around the bar.

  “What else have you heard?” Rucksack said, walking toward the men at their table.

  One of the men smiled at Rucksack, then glanced at the bar and nodded once.

  A crash behind Jade and Rucksack made them stop and turn around. The Deep’s Special Lager tap handle had shot off and was clattering on the bar. Beer gushed onto the floor.

  “Don’t let them leave!” Jade said. She ran to the taps and turned off the flow. “Who are they?”

  Rucksack shook his head. “Wish I knew,” he replied. “They’re gone.”

  “We were only turned around a moment,” Jade said. “How’d they get out the door that quickly?”

  Rucksack’s face was tight and grim. “They didn’t use
the door,” he said. “They vanished.”

  “My new guest isn’t just another backpacker, is he?” Jade said.

  Rucksack didn’t reply. Jade looked at the empty pub, and thought of all the things she hadn’t told him yet.

  HOW MUCH MORE did it cost him for us to have our own room? Jigme thought as he looked out the window at the city.

  I wish I could calm down, Jigme thought. Maybe then I could sleep. Instead he stared out the window, trying to make sense of the last few hours.

  They had walked by the other rooms. The beds were in rows along the walls, and all seemed to have people in them. At first, Jigme was certain that’s where they were going, but they hadn’t stopped. After the big wards, they passed an area where nurses bustled. Beyond it, the attendant rolling Amma had stopped. He started to open a door, but then he stood still and looked at Jigme. Kindness softened his smile. “Do the honors, son,” he said. “Let your mum in so we can get her better.”

  Jigme stared at him. His feet froze to the floor. The word “son” coming out of a man’s mouth made no sense. Only Amma called him “son.” No one else used that word with him.

  “It’s okay, Jigme,” Rucksack said. “You can see her whenever you want. We just have to get her settled in first.”

  Jigme nodded. He stepped forward and touched the silvery handle.

  The cream and brown of the simple room reminded Jigme of cows. To the left he saw rails and buttons, a flat surface that sloped at one end, and beneath it all, a big beige metal platform. “What is that?” Jigme asked.

  “That’s your mum’s bed,” the attendant said as he wheeled in the chair that held Asha.

  “It’s really nice,” Jigme said, thinking of how the thin fabric that had passed for a mattress crinkled when the attendant had lifted Amma off her bed.

  “She’ll be much more comfortable now,” the attendant replied.

  The car hadn’t been able to come down the alley. The attendant couldn’t even drive to the street that led to the alley, because The Mystery Chickpea was in the way. Jay, Jigme, and the attendant had left the car at the end of the street, dodging annoyed looks and shouts from vendors and people walking through.