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

Authors: Anthony St. Clair

Tags: #rucksack universe, #fantasy and science fiction, #fantasy novella, #adventure and fantasy, #adventure fiction, #contemporary fantasy, #urban fantasy, #series fantasy

Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel)

Contents

Title Page

About Forever the Road

India Through the Third Eye

I

II

III

IV

Before you go...

Also by Anthony St. Clair

Join the Rucksack Universe

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Copyright

Special Features

About the Author

Forever the Road

Anthony St. Clair

Rucksack Press

About
Forever the Road

Travel. Destiny. Beer.

When an evil as old as the world awakens, only three wanderers can prevent the annihilation of all life.
Nobody in Agamuskara, India, remembers why the river and the ancient city both carry the name “smiling fire” or why no one goes near the heart of the city. But when rootless globetrotter Jay arrives with a strange object in his backpack, everything changes.

In the global secret order of Jakes and Jades, destiny-slinging bartender Jade Agamuskara Bluegold stands above the rest. But now she struggles to untangle the terrible future she foresees, and to ignore her doubts about her own life’s choices.

Despite themselves, both befriend the world’s only Himalayan-Irish sage: the evasive, stout-quaffing Faddah Rucksack. Now, a man without a destiny steers them toward their own. As this unlikely trio races toward the day of a rare and powerful mirror eclipse, an incredible fate will lead to an impossible choice.

“Agamuskara shares its name with the river that runs through India’s holiest city, which is also its unholiest. While no records survive to tell us when Agamuskara was founded, local lore maintains the area was settled by the first people to come to the Indian subcontinent. History also does not explain why the city and the river should be named what, in the Hindi, translates as ‘smiling fire.’ This mystery, the delights of daily life and Indian culture, and the unrivaled drinks at the Everest Base Camp Pub and Hostel continue to attract travelers from all over the world.”

— Guru Deep,
India Through the Third Eye

I


I
T COULD BE
a mirror eclipse,” Rucksack said to Jade. Her hand jerked. The pint glass banged against the tap, sending the black Galway Pradesh Stout foaming and sloshing. She set it down so the beer could settle before resuming the seven-minute pour that made for a perfect pint of GPS.

“But there hasn’t been a mirror eclipse since The Blast,” she replied. “And that was nearly two hundred years ago.”

Rucksack looked up from the newspaper and ran his gloved left hand over his bald brown head. A dark sadness flickered over his eyes, as brown and black as earth and trees. “Well, in two month’s time, there may be.” His accent, an ambiguous combination of Irish and everywhere, refused as usual to acknowledge the sound “th,” so “there” sounded more like “t’ere.” His gaze flicked from Jade’s face to the bottles at the back of the bar, then slowly came back to her.

“Mirror’s not for certain, though,” he said. “They won’t know till closer to the time. Just says the atmospheric conditions may be right.” He harrumphed. “Bloody irresponsible, saying that. All it’ll do is scare people. And mentioning the damn Blast on top o’ it…”

Jade poured, then set down the brimming pint so it could finish settling, black beer under snow-white foam. “Let me guess,” she said. “There’s no cause for alarm.”

“O’ course,” Rucksack said. “It’s all coincidence.” His thin, tight smile said the rest.

Even the steaming-hot India day outside couldn’t alleviate the chill in Jade’s gut. She remembered talking of The Blast as a schoolgirl, scared hushed whispers after history lessons about the strange double-sided eclipse that had burned before Night’s Day, then a world changed and scarred. As an adult and a Jade, many times she had tried to ask The Management what role The Blast was supposed to play, but they never spoke of it. Then again, there were many things they never spoke of.

Jade handed Rucksack his pint. The heat didn’t matter. At her touch, the glass and beer became the perfect temperature for the stout, as if the Irish pub were in Ireland itself, instead of the middle of one of India’s hottest cities.

“I’ll be outside,” Rucksack said. “Suddenly I feel a chill.”

You’re not the only one
, Jade thought as her first customer of the day opened the double mahogany doors. Flat yellow sunshine spilled heat into the pub, but she still felt cold.

Once the doors closed, Jade eyed the liquor, where not so much as a speck of dust dulled the bottles or the glass shelves. The bar’s lights glinted off the bottles, which sat on shelves against the mirror that ran from the ceiling to Jade’s waist, as wide as the length of the bar. It was well stocked for now, though later she knew there’d be a run on the cheaper stuff: Ram Rum, Liquid Courage, Manager’s Reserve, Jimmy Runner, Potato Juice, Blue Label Special, Nirvanic, Captain’s Special Box.

The knock-off Indian booze might all taste like sugary antifreeze, but it had the best names. Jade chuckled and wondered who had thought of them all. In the mirror, the light caught her smile and her blue-and-gold eyes, framed by her almond face, olive skin, and the kinky brown-and-black hair that hung just past her shoulders.

Then she reached down, just there on the paneling, just below the bottom shelf of the mirrored bar, just below the phone that never rang. Jade tapped the spot and the cabinet opened. Unseen and unseeable by anyone but her—though lately she wondered about Rucksack—the cabinet held her true duty.

A soft, silvery light shimmered from no distinct source. The cabinet could have opened to the sky; the small space inside seemed to have no back, no bottom, no sides, no top.
All these years,
Jade thought,
and sometimes I still don’t know.
She reached inside, wondering if she would just keep reaching and reaching, but as always her knuckles rapped on the wood at the back of the cabinet, the same deep mahogany of the bar and the doors.

The bottles seemed to float on the light: Green #2, Red #4, Brown #5, Yellow #6, Blue #7, Orange #9, Silver #10. Almost an ordinary day, except that there was extra Blue #7 and Red #4. No Gold #1, Gray #3, Purple #8, or Black #11, but those came only with special circumstances. Two or even three could be combined. All eleven were never supposed to be mixed together, except under personal guidance from The Management. For a moment Jade wondered why The Management had never been able to figure out a twelfth elixir. It was said that they nearly had, just before The Blast, but after the catastrophe they had stopped trying. The twelfth elixir remained a myth that could not be made real.
 

Jade glanced at the clock. Early the hour and empty the pub, but hot was the day, and people would be thirsty. The news spoke of The Blast and another mirror eclipse. People would be scared, indecisive, unsure. The people would need those extra elixirs, and Jade would be ready to steer them.

She closed the cabinet, rose, and turned to face the doors. Her eyes blazed, but her insides still felt cold. For a moment, her mind faded back to long ago, to another life that seemed further away than The Blast.

“Why are you posting me here?” she had asked The Management.

“Because of who you are,” the three hooded, floating figures had replied. The voices of The Management always seemed at once like three voices in perfect unison and like one voice that they passed to each other like a ball.

“But I’m just me,” she had said.

If they knew her thoughts, they gave no indication. Jade couldn’t figure out if they read minds or not. All you could ever see were the hoods—never a face or limb or any indication of what The Management were behind their cloaks. In a way that still haunted her every move and decision, they had replied, “You are here because you are the best of us, Jade Agamuskara Bluegold.”

She hoped she still was. Lately, she didn’t feel so certain. No matter how perfect the drink, no matter how she steered the drinker down the path that life needed him or her to take, she no longer fully trusted her decisions or her own path. Whoever she helped, her own choices rang in her mind all the time.
Who am I now?
she thought.
Why did I choose this, instead of saying yes in Hong Kong when he asked?

But that was another life ago.

When the pub door opened again, her thoughts returned to where she was: behind the bar of the best pub and hostel in Agamuskara, India. A man entered and sat at a table. His straight black hair hung ragged, as if he’d given himself a haircut after drinking a few beers—a common look with many of the budget backpackers she’d seen pass through the hostel. His clothes suggested a young American, and in his brown eyes hung doubts of his place in the world, how he was trying to find it but had a hard time knowing where to look. He stuck his nose in his guidebooks, a dry thirst in his throat and a yearning in his heart.

Jade ignored him.

A few minutes later, a woman came in, sat at a different table, and quickly buried her nose in her guidebooks. The pub lights gleamed off her short blonde hair. A ferocity burned in her, one that Jade knew well: a brittle wall, hard voice, and driving velocity that concealed intense fear and doubt.

Jade ignored her too.
The less you do,
she thought,
the more they do what they were supposed to do anyway.
So Jade stood behind the bar, her back to the tables. After a few more minutes, first the man and then the woman approached the bar. Jade kept her back to them, waiting.

“Excuse me,” the man said.

“Oy!” the woman said.

Jade turned around. “Oh, hello! What can I do for you both?”

“I’ve been here for—” they both began in unison.

“Oh, oh, so sorry!” Jade replied. “What can I get the two of you?”

“We’re not together,” the woman said, looking at the man for the first time.

“No, um,” the man said, looking back at the woman, “I’m, um, over there.”

“I’m surprised,” Jade said. “I would’ve thought you were traveling together.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Why do you say that?”

Jade pointed at the book each was carrying. “You each have
Deep’s Enlightened Guide to Spiritual Travel
and
India Through the Third Eye
. Seemed like a for-sure.” Jade shrugged. “Even a bartender can’t be right all the time.”

“Oh,” the woman said, not just looking at the man but also paying attention to him for the first time. He looked at her, then at the worn, identical book in her hand. “Are you heading to Godhpur?”

“Um, yeah,” said the man. “Yeah, I was, I mean, it’s—”

“It’s amazing!” the woman said. “I’ve been wanting to find myself there for years!”

“Me too!” the man said. “Well, I mean, find myself, not yourself. I, um, you know…”

Gotta be Californian
, Jade thought as she smiled at him. “You want a Deep’s Special Lager,” she said, then nodded to the woman.
Australian, no doubt
. “And you want a chardonnay.”

Both nodded.

“I’ll bring your drinks right over. Why don’t you sit and swap travel plans.”

They both wandered over to the woman’s table and resumed talking.

Now for the hard part.

While they pointed to the same highlighted sections in their guidebooks, Jade looked at the paths of their lives—how they connected, intertwined, ran together for so long.

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