Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) (23 page)

The walls of the dim room were as featureless inside as they were outside. The floor showed no lines of age, wear, or stonecutting. Other than the hole, there was only a continuous sheet of black stone. It was like he was walking on a void. The ceiling was a starless night from which there would be no dawn.

What is this place?

Jigme moved forward.

But I didn’t walk,
he thought.
I hadn’t moved…

Still he shuffled, not conscious of moving, as if his body and mind were wrapped in the grasp of a powerful force.

“It has come,” said a voice that wasn’t Jigme’s.

Who’s here?
Jigme said—or thought he said.
I can’t actually speak in here,
he realized.
I have no voice. Only thought. What does it mean to have no voice?

“It has freed me. It is time.”

A wall got closer and closer as the shuffling seemed to speed up. Just before the wall, the shuffling stopped. Something raised itself. Jigme guessed it was an arm, but it was indistinct, as if made of shadow and smoke. At the end of the arm, something raw, red, and black reached out to touch the wall.

A doorway, tall and rectangular, opened out onto the world. Jigme glimpsed the alley again. The backs of the two statues were before him now. The world outside the chamber seemed dimmer, farther away, as if the very walls were shrinking back from the thing in the doorway. A deep, rasping noise reminded Jigme of someone taking a deep breath. “Life steals the fires,” said the voice, like steel scraping rock, like wood popping as it burned. “But the fires will be mine again.”

The creature lifted what seemed to be a foot, raw-fleshed and swathed in shadow and smoke. It took a step over the threshold and touched down outside the black walls.

“Free again,” said the voice, with a noise that seemed at once like laughing and coughing.

All around Jigme, triumph swelled like a new flame, bigger than the Himalayas, a pyre ready to burn the world.

“’Life belongs to the world, and the world belongs to life,’” said the voice. The laugh rasped louder. “But both belong to me.”

Jigme wondered what would happen when the wave of flame crashed down and flooded the city like a river wild and swollen.

The creature started to step over the threshold into the outside world. But as it did, a chill crept into the laugh and froze it into silence.

“No,” said the voice.

Around Jigme, the flame shuddered. A chill swept through the chamber. Jigme shivered.

“The cold!” shrieked the voice. “Colder! So much life! My fires. It has stolen them all!”

The world shifted again.

No, not the world,
Jigme thought.
The creature. It’s falling. It’s as if the world is killing it. It said “life,” but how can life suck the life out of another living thing?

The creature tottered forward, its frail body careening over the threshold.
If it falls out of this place and into the world,
Jigme thought,
it will die. Life will kill it.

He didn’t know why, but he thought only of leaping backward, of tugging and pulling the creature with him, back inside the chamber. The creature kept falling.

It doesn’t matter,
Jigme thought.
He’s going to die and I can’t save him.

Something shifted in the creature’s fall. Instead of landing outside in the alley, the creature fell backward into the chamber. The doorway closed. The creature lay on the floor in a ragged pile, writhing and twisting like smoke in a breeze.

“The cold!” he shrieked. “The cold!”

The shriek became a wail, but the wail soon faded into a sputtering cough.
Last breaths,
Jigme thought.
He’s still dying.

Jigme’s thoughts turned to his mother, all but lifeless in her hospital bed.
I would do anything to save her. Isn’t this pitiful creature also worth saving? What has he done, other than want to walk outside? There’s only me,
he thought.
Only I can save him. But how?

He stared at the creature. It thrashed less and less, weaker with every moment.
I’m not in his mind anymore,
Jigme realized.
I’m standing next to him.

A feeling surged through Jigme, like power and responsibility, strength and maturity.

Purpose,
he thought.
This is how purpose burns.

With the thought came the understanding. With the understanding, Jigme found his voice again.

He kneeled on the ground next to the writhing, shrieking smoke.

“I will help you,” he said, reaching out his hand. All his fears were ash. All his hopes blazed higher than the flame that for a moment had seemed bigger than the Himalayas. Jigme touched the creature. He felt his strength, the fire of his life, siphon into it.

The thrashing stopped.

Did he die?
Jigme thought.
Did I fail to save him?

Grief and relief moved through Jigme, distinct and raw, yet each also resisted the other.

Jigme was overcome with lightheartedness. The dark place swirled. His vision faded in and out.

When the world came into focus again, the chamber was sideways. He had been standing, Jigme realized, but now the floor was cold against his cheek. His strength continued to pour into the still creature.

Am I dying too?
Jigme thought. The world seemed to fade. Jigme’s self felt like it was passing from his life, his body, to the creature.

Then the world snapped back. Jigme opened his eyes but could barely move. The world was firm again. Strength trickled into him. He sat up. A chill ached in the hand that had touched the creature.

Smoke and shadow no longer writhed and swirled.
I feel so weak,
Jigme thought.
Was I not enough?

He waited, staring.

Nothing moved. He started to look away.

A red-and-black smile began to gleam.

Like the door of a furnace slowly rising, a thin curved line shone out. Then the line grew taller, brighter, and wider. The heat from the smile seared Jigme’s skin, and a strange burning smell came from Jigme’s eyebrows.

Jigme sat on his knees, afraid to look up. The creature rose, tall, slender, wrapped in shadow and smoke. The curved line of fire seemed like both a blazing smile and an impaling stare.

“You will serve,” said the same voice, rough and rasping yet stronger now.

Jigme said nothing in reply, only felt the corners of his mouth stretch. As the grin widened, his skin and muscles burned from the tension, as if he were smiling too big for his face.

A faraway voice, gentle and warm, said, “Jigme?”

His smile continued stretching. Just when he thought the pain of it would make him cry out, the black walls, the hole in the floor, and the fiery smile all vanished.

Jigme opened his eyes, not sure how much time had passed or how far he had moved.
Too much light in here,
he thought. He closed his eyes tight again.

“Jigme?” repeated the voice.

He opened his eyes once more and kept them open. Morning light poured into the hospital room. His hand tingled as if he had touched something freezing, but the only thing he was touching was his mother’s hand, which he still grasped tightly.

“Jigme?” he heard once more. The voice sounded both strange and familiar, as if known but not heard for so long he’d begun to forget.

He looked to his mother’s face, into her wide, bright, open eyes.

Asha smiled.

A
S JADE LOCKED THE DOOR
behind Rucksack and Kailash, the click reminded her that she was now alone in the pub with Jay.

She turned to see him standing behind her, looking at her. A fire flared through her body. The shock of it nearly made her look away, but instead she held his gaze.

So much life blazes in those eyes,
she thought,
and right now there’s so much happening to him. To me. To us.

She could all but see it, the big weight of the world that had fallen into his pack.
I don’t know the how of it all—this Smiling Fire, The Mystery Chickpea’s absence, Jay’s stolen passport—but Rucksack and Kailash and I are part of it too. There’s so much I should say to reassure Jay. Tell him that yes, this is all overwhelming, but… But what?
she thought.
Yes, it’s overwhelming, but he has so much to rely on? What does he have to rely on? His backpack? Rucksack? Me?

Yes. Maybe he has me.

“Are you okay?” Jay asked.

“Me?” Jade replied, but nothing followed. No witty bartender repartee. No one-liner. Nothing.

“I know I’m pretty freaked out right now,” Jay said. “I’ve hardly been here twenty-four hours, and it’s like my entire world has changed. But you look more scared than I feel.”

Jade nodded. “We just saw a woman grow from old to young before our eyes. It turns out you’re carrying some sort of divine egg that accidentally woke up an ancient evil that wants to wipe out all life on the planet. Rucksack and his mother are not only ancient; they’re not quite human yet not quite gods.”

And I really, really like looking in your eyes,
she added but managed not to say. “It’s a lot to take in.”
And I’m a Jade,
she thought.
Weird is my world. But this is beyond me. Can even The Management cope with this? Or is it beyond all of us?

“When you haven’t seen each other in nearly two centuries,” Jay said, “how long does it take to catch up?”

Jade chuckled. The fear blooming in her seemed smaller, less potent, less overwhelming.
He can make me laugh,
she thought.
I like that.
“Who knows when we’ll see them next.”

“Who exactly is Rucksack?” Jay asked.

“Clearly more than either of us understands.”

“True,” Jay replied. “I can’t help but really like the guy. There’s something about him… like… like a brother.”

“Do you have siblings?” Jade asked.

He shook his head.

“He’s not like what a brother is,” Jade said. “He’s what a brother should be.”

Jay’s eyes widened. “So, you’re not…”

“Not what?”

“You know.” Redness crept over Jay’s face. “Involved. You and Rucksack.”

Jade grinned then sputtered. A huge laugh burst out of her. No chuckle, this time. She doubled over, as belly laughs rolled out of her. Tears welled up and fell on her cheeks.
Did I just slap my knee?
she thought.

“Is that a no?” Jay said.

Jade nodded. The laughter slowed to a trickle then faded out. “That’s a no,” she replied. “Rucksack is fascinating, and there’s a fair bit we have in common. We’re more like siblings and colleagues. But romance? No. It’d be like dating my brother.”

“A really, really, really older brother,” Jay said.

The laughs poured out of her again. When she looked up, a bright hope glimmered in Jay’s eyes.

“I have an idea,” he said.

She cleared her throat and tried to reassert her usual resolve. “Does it involve leaving town?”

He shook his head. “I can’t leave without my passport.”

Oh crap,
she thought.
He’s going to want to go out and hunt for it now. And he has no idea what he’s dealing with. I don’t even understand these Mim and Pim guys. He could have a dozen god-eggs in his pack and he wouldn’t stand a chance. What a… What a man
, she thought.
Can’t he see the way I look him in the eye? Can’t he tell that he makes me laugh and how rare that is?

Jay shook his head again. “I want my passport back, but I’m not going to find it tonight. Tomorrow I can look for it. Maybe it’s tied up in all this other weirdness. No, I was thinking of something else.”

“Okay.”
Smarter than I gave him credit for,
she thought.

“The pub is closed tonight,” Jay said. “We’ve had a day beyond crazy. Could I… Could I buy you dinner, and we just… you know, stay here, talk, have a bite to eat?”

She smiled. “That sounds perfect.” They stood closer. In the pub light, his eyes reminded her of dew-covered grass in early morning sunlight.
He really makes me laugh,
she thought.

“I,” he said, a quiver in his voice. “I’m not asking you out or anything.”
 

Bugger that,
Jade thought. Her fingers brushed his hand. “Maybe you should be.”

Jay moved closer. “You’re a tough woman to read,” he said. “Strong. I can see where a lot of men would be scared as hell of you.”

Jade took another step forward. “Are you scared of me?”
His lips look really soft,
she thought.

“I am,” Jay said. “You are a little scary. I’ve never known anyone like you.”

Now they stood only a few inches apart.

“My dad once told me it takes a strong man to love a strong woman,” Jay said. “If I’ve learned anything from the road, it’s that fearing something is a chance to become stronger.”

He leaned forward. His lips were so near. Jade realized their eyes were closing.

A soft
pthump
made them open their eyes and step back.