Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) (20 page)

Then Jade realized she was lying on the street. She knew all too well the feet, hooves, and wheels that ground old food, fresh dung, and more into the pavement. She got up quickly and so did Rucksack. He looked behind her. The widening of his eyes, like a punch in the gut, told Jade she didn’t need to turn around to know that Kailash was gone.

“What the hell happened?” Jade asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Rucksack replied. “But I think I know where it came from.”

“The heart of the city.”

He nodded. “We were going to go there anyway.”

They started walking as the city found its breath again. All around them, people dealt with the strangeness of what had happened by deciding nothing had happened at all. But not all of them.

“People are starting to wonder,” Jade said.

“Aye,” Rucksack replied. “But it’s a city resilient against hard lives. They won’t wonder for long.”

“They will if more weird things keep happening.”

“I’ll worry when the city worries,” he replied, but his flat voice said otherwise.

“We’re going to see her again,” Jade said.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. She may be scared, but she’s here. She knows something of what’s going on too. It terrifies her but she’s drawn to it too.”

“Like Jay,” Rucksack said.

“Like us, apparently.”

“She seems so familiar,” Rucksack said.

“You could have been brother and sister,” Jade replied, “but you said you don’t have any siblings. At least none that you know of.”

“I definitely don’t have siblings.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“My mother told me there were… complications around my birth,” Rucksack said. “She and my father never could have had other children.”

“I hate to say this, but sometimes people have children with someone other than their partner.”

“Believe it or not, Jade, I’m old enough to know that.” Rucksack shook his head. “Neither of my parents was able to have children again.”

They walked in silence. Jade tried to use the time to think through what had happened and to listen to the city. People indeed were getting back to their days, but the tiniest yellow threads of fear had begun to bloom like anemones.

Agamuskara was a city of gods, and nothing could remind you of that like the solid earth suddenly giving you a good shake.
What do the buggers get up to if they get bored?
Jade thought.
Are they bored?

As they neared the alley, Jade realized what was most different. The walls here, from some of the city’s oldest buildings, seemed to have pulled into themselves like a scared child curled into the fetal position.
I need to understand this,
she thought,
but how?

The idea scared her. It would be so hard, so draining. The walls were old. Even though she wanted to hear what they had to say, they would be reluctant to talk.

But I have to,
she thought.
I have to listen to the walls.

She and Rucksack were nearly to the alley when Jigme came running toward them. His strange smile seemed like it was someone else’s mouth, swollen to the wrong size, as if something inside him was growing and wanted to burst out. When Jigme saw her and Rucksack, he stopped.

“I told him it wasn’t a good idea, but he said it’s what travelers do.”

“What?” Rucksack said.

Jigme explained about the alley and Jay’s decision to leave Agamuskara.

“How long ago did he run away from you?” Jade said.

“Not long,” Jigme replied.

Jade looked deep into the teenager’s eyes, but he turned away. Jade thought she saw his cheeks flush red. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He bobbed his head. “Mum will be okay,” he said. “I know it now.”

“Go see her,” Rucksack said. “I’ll come by later.”

Jigme ran off toward the hospital, the strange smile back on his face.

“We have to get to the hostel,” Jade said. “Now.”

“Why there?”

“He’s still got to pack. But there’s no way Jay’s leaving us.” She spoke from a sense of duty, trying to ignore the strange anger boiling under her words.

“No way he’s leaving,” she said. “It’s time we got some answers. It’s time we saw what’s in that pack.”

T
HE FOG
reminded Jay of the down comforter he’d slept under as a boy. When his mom woke him for school, the smells of coffee and toast would float in like quiet birds. His dad would always be sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee while they all talked about the day ahead.

It’s so nice being back here,
Jay thought.
It’s good to be home.

His dad set down the paper and said, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Jay started to answer, but a knock tore a hole in the fog. His mom and dad faded away.

Can’t it just be quiet again?
Jay thought.
I like being under my comforter. It’s cozy. It’s calm.

Voices outside the fog said something that reminded him of his name. He squeezed his teddy bear closer. Where did the comforter go?

A rattle of metal on metal opened his eyes. The fog was gone. His boyhood room vanished back into memory. He was in his bed in the Everest Base Camp dorm room. The teddy bear turned out to be his daypack, tucked under his arm.

A key turned in the lock.

Jay tried to jump off the bed, but most of his body was still asleep. When he tried to swivel on his arse to put his feet on the floor, he succeeded only in falling back onto his thin pillow. His daypack fell on his face.
Why do I feel so hazy?
he thought, setting the pack on the floor.
And what the hell am I doing here anyway? I thought I was sightseeing today. Who’s here?

The door opened.

Jade and Rucksack had each tried to come in the door first, and now they were stuck in the doorway, glaring at each other while also looking at Jay. Something in their eyes seemed to say they were trying to make sure he wouldn’t vanish on the spot.

“Jade,” Rucksack said, “could you just back off and let me through? We’ll never get in here otherwise.”

She turned slightly and gave Rucksack enough of a shove to pop him back out into the hallway. “Ladies first,” she said, laughing and stepping like a dancer into the room. When she looked at Jay, her lighthearted smile brightened. Then it faded as she breathed out and closed her eyes, as if relieved the room wasn’t empty.

“I don’t remember being here,” Jay said. “What’s going on?”

Rucksack rubbed his belly as he walked into the room. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Jay shrugged. “I was talking with Jade. Then I went to get some breakfast.”

A wary glance passed between Jade and Rucksack, and Jade’s face softened. She sat next to Jay on the bed. “What did you have for breakfast?”

A fog blanketed through Jay’s mind again.
Why do I feel so groggy?
he thought.

“Samosas. And a lassi,” he said at last. “Wait. That’s not right. I was really hungry, so I got two samosas. But I only ate one. Oh. I ran into Jigme. We were looking at this crazy statue that had appeared at the mouth of the alley where he lives. I gave him the other samosa.”

He started to say more, but a spark in his mind burned up the fog. The rest of the morning shone brightly again. He told them about the alley and the weird quake and the strange men who had come to his room.

“My passport!” he yelled, standing. “That’s it. Those guys took my passport. I have to find it. Otherwise I’ll never get out of here!”

A wary look passed between Jade and Rucksack again. “Why do you keep looking at each other like that?” Jay asked.

“We understand you’re scared,” Jade said. “It’s been beyond a weird morning for you. But there are things we need to talk about. Things we all need to understand. And things you need to show us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jay said. “Look, it was great meeting you both. You’re cool people. But I’ve decided I’m not digging Agamuskara. Or India. I’m heading to Thailand and lay low for a while. I appreciate that you’re worried about something, but I need to find my passport. Or head to the embassy to get it replaced. I need to hit the world and see the road.”

Rucksack shook his head. “We’ll get the passport sorted. Jade and I will help.”

“Great!” Jay said. “Let’s go!”

Rucksack closed the door. “Let’s talk about your daypack first.”

Jay sat back down on the bed. “Black nylon. Has a twenty-liter capacity. Been run over by two bikes, one motorcycle, three rickshaws, and one truck. Has one main compartment reached through a locking zipper,” Jay said. “I’m pretty sure you can get knock-offs anywhere from here to Lhasa. We can talk about it more on the way to the embassy.”

“Sorry Rucksack wasn’t more specific,” Jade said. “It’s time you showed us what was in your pack, Jay.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“No, you don’t,” Rucksack replied, his voice soft as the click of a spring coiling closed despite an intense power locked up in it. “And it’s high time you bloody did.”

“You know what it is?” Jay said, shutting his mouth quickly.
You said too much,
he thought.

“I have a suspicion. If I see it, I can tell you if I’m right,” Rucksack said. “And I can tell you what it is.”

“You mean you’ll actually explain?” Jay said. “It won’t be all witticisms and evasions?”

Rucksack grinned. “Explanations galore, as many as I can spare.”

“Then we can start hunting down my passport?”

Jade nodded, though she seemed to be trying not to glance at Rucksack. “I’ll go with you to the embassy myself, while Rucksack hits the streets.”

“I don’t know how I got it,” Jay said, pulling up his daypack and resting it on his thigh. “I can’t seem to get rid of the thing. But I don’t know what to do with it. Before the two men vanished, they said something about me taking care of it until the time came. I guess this must be what they meant.” With a deep breath, he unzipped the pack.

Jay hadn’t touched it directly, skin to world, since the first time he saw it in his tent at Everest. As his hands wrapped around it, careful so as not to bruise the clouds, a golden song rang in his mind, sung in a language he did not know yet somehow understood.

He pulled the thing out of his pack.

The words and tune rang softly yet Jay could have heard them anywhere, from a mountain taller than Everest to the very core of the world. The air shimmered as if made of golden afternoon sunlight.

Rucksack and Jade shone with gold and silver, black and brown, green and blue. Rucksack’s eyes were like the voids of existence and possibility, where worlds were made and unmade. Jade’s eyes were their own suns. As he gazed at her, at the twining lengths streaming from her, he saw him and her, the world…

Jay felt his feet leave the floor. Was he really floating between floor and ceiling, earth and heaven?

Then a shadow of red and black poured over his vision, and the shock made Jay fling his hands over his face, palms open and empty. The song collapsed. The colors vanished. Jay fell to the floor, landing on his arse and smacking his head on the bed frame.

Around him, he saw stars and haze as a dull ache passed through his head. Jade and Rucksack stared, and Jay looked where they looked. The ache faded as he stared.

I was so intent on getting rid of it, so scared of how impossible the thing was,
he thought.
I never let myself see how beautiful it is.

In between them, about the size of a small cabbage, a globe floated.

Jay recognized the continents from all the maps he’d studied over the years. Asia, complete with the Indian subcontinent, stared back at him. Clouds floated over the land and the oceans rippled, their colors contrasting sharply. As the little globe turned, part of it shimmered in bright daylight, and part of it slumbered under night’s dark blanket. Golden points of light twinkled against the black continents.

“Is that…” Jade started to ask.

“Yes,” Rucksack replied. “It’s the world.”

R
UCKSACK’S FACE
fell faster than a glass knocked off a table. “Jade,” he said. “Someone could show up here at any moment, and we could do with some privacy. Since the pub is closed, is there any chance we could continue this discussion over a pint?”

“You want a drink at a time like this?” Jay said.

“It’s actually a good idea,” Jade replied. “As Rucksack likes to point out, nothing makes the world clear like darkest beer. You could do with seeing a bit more clearly.”

“What about you?” Jay asked.

“I don’t actually drink,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a… company policy thing.”

Jay raised an eyebrow as he shut the globe back into his daypack.

In the empty pub, Jade turned on the lights, poured pints of GPS for Jay and Rucksack, and made herself a cup of coffee.

Rucksack took a pull from his pint. “Let’s see that world again.”

Jay pulled the globe out of his daypack and set it above the table, floating in between the three of them. The little world spun slowly and silently. Jay told them about Everest, the strange impossible night, his fleeing to India, and his various attempts to get rid of the globe.