Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) (24 page)

“What was that?” Jay asked.

What the hell do they possibly need to tell me right now?
Jade thought.

“Jade?”

“Oh,” she replied, her mind trying to work again. “Something behind the bar must have slipped.” She touched his arm. “You’re right about dinner,” she said. “Let’s freshen up a little first. You bring the food. I’ll do the drinks.”

He opened his mouth, but Jade ended his protest before he could speak. “I insist,” she said with a grin. “My pub. My rules. And I make the best drinks in Asia. Whatever you want.”

“Okay then,” Jay said. “Your best single-malt scotch.”

“How do you take it?”

Jay leaned in close again. “I thought you were the best bartender in Asia.” A small smile curved up his lips. “You tell me.”

“You’re on,” Jade replied. “See you soon.”

Jay went out first, through the side door and up to his room. Jade lingered a moment, staring at the special cabinet. She thought of the note in her back pocket, and defiance swept through her.
It’s my day off,
she thought.
You can bloody well wait.

After freshening up in her room, Jade decided to change clothes. She took the note out of her pocket and read it again:

The new traveler is not just the new traveler. He and the world must remain in Agamuskara until the eclipse, so he can be as a sunrise that never ends. When the time is right, you must make him forget himself and follow what he would never follow.

Maybe it’s time to let that go,
she thought. She set the note on her desk and waited.

The paper remained.

No,
she thought,
you disappear. You always disappear.

The paper stubbornly continued to exist.

Jade shook her head.
You’re not going to worry about this right now,
she thought.
You’re going to get ready to have dinner with Jay.

She looked away from the paper and opened her small closet. She flipped through her bartender’s white button-down shirts, a two-piece
salwar kameez
, some t-shirts, pants, skirts, the sari, and…

Ah,
she thought.
What every traveling woman needs.

If the black silk dress had feelings, it would have been mad at her for neglect. Jade tried to think of the last time she’d worn it, and she cringed at how long it had been. But time had been merciful. The dress looked fine and it smelled softly of the sandalwood sachets she kept in the closet. She put the dress on in front of the mirror.

The flowing silk moved with Jade—not tight, but fitted just enough to accentuate her curves. The A-line skirt flared out above her knees, and it swished with every move of her hips. Bare up to the cap sleeves at her shoulders, Jade’s golden-brown arms shone in the light. The front of the dress dipped into a slight V-neck.

She wore no make-up and shook out her hair so that it lay loosely over her shoulders. Looking closer at herself in the mirror, Jade knew her body had hardly changed in ten years, but how she looked at herself, how she felt in her body had changed.
 

Jade knew her movements were strong and precise, capable and powerful. But sensual? Aside from some rumors about Jake Bangkok, Jakes and Jades weren’t exactly known for being romantic. The solitude, the apartness, the sense of duty all had a way of leeching away one’s attractiveness or sense of sexuality.

I haven’t tried to look like this in a long time,
Jade thought.
Will he notice?

After slipping on a pair of strappy black short heels, she went back into the pub. Jay hadn’t returned yet, but he probably wouldn’t be much longer.

She stopped.

Her gaze went to the top shelf behind the bar, where the best liquors were kept. She looked, comparing what she saw to how the shelf had been stocked before.

Ah.

The bottle of scotch hadn’t been there before.

Its simple label barely covered the clear glass and amber liquid, which was renowned as the best single-malt scotch in the world. When a special circumstance didn’t leave time for their usual distribution, The Management delivered something like this from out of nowhere. Once, she recalled, a bottle had appeared before her very eyes while she was standing on a stool and dusting the top shelf. The shock had nearly made her fall.

After taking down the bottle, Jade’s gaze went to the cabinet.

There’s no way they sent this as a good luck token.

The note was as simple as before. Jade often wondered which directives came on the paper she had made during the training. She was certain this sheet was one of hers; something about the patterns and layers of the fibers pulled at her memory. But all that fell away as she read:

The traveler must forget himself and follow what he would never follow. The heart is not the path.

As strange as the first,
she thought as she read the lines again. Clearly it was time for Jay to follow the right destiny that was before him. He seemed on it already, with so many circumstances conspiring to keep him in Agamuskara until the day of the eclipse. But there was more.

As she read, her surprise and unease grew.

Usually, The Management gave nothing but their vague, somewhat poetic, somewhat awkward instructions, leaving the Jake or Jade to supply the correct influence. It was unusual for them to send a recipe, much less one so specific.

Her eyes got bigger as she read. She was to combine three elixirs for his drink; usually only one was needed.

I’ve never had to combine more than two before,
she thought.
What the hell is it about this guy?

She decided to keep this note too, folding the paper and tucking it down the front of her dress.

Part of her mind tugged her to think more about the line, “the heart is not the path,” but she ignored it. Duty was duty. A Jade was a Jade. And a Jade was duty.

“We serve because we love,” they had said during the training.

There is no question of disobeying,
Jade thought.
We obey because we love. To disobey would be as futile as telling our hearts not to beat.

But it no longer seemed that simple anymore.

At least,
she thought,
it used to be that way for me.
She stared at the note.
Why is this right?
She shook her head.

It’s right because it’s what must be done.

Jade took down a small tulip-shaped glass—the best way to present the scotch’s aroma—and poured in the exact amounts of each of the three elixirs in the order specified by The Management. After putting away the elixirs, Jade set the glass down on the bar next to the bottle of scotch.

What will this combination of decision and destiny do to Jay?
she wondered.
What path is it keeping him on? What effect will it have on his traveling, on that look in his eyes, on—

A knock on the outside door made Jade look up.
Whatever happens, we’ve still got tonight,
she thought.
The rest is destiny.

She poured a dram of scotch into the glass, followed by a slight trickle of water to bring out the aromas and flavors. Then she unlocked the door.

“Whoa,” she said.

Jay had never exactly seemed cleaned up to her before. Haggard when she first saw him, slightly de-fatigued last night, and showered but hung over today, the globetrotter had always carried a rumpled look. But some soap and a razor had scraped away all the grime and exhaustion. The man shone.

Hints of creamy skin, bronzed by wandering days in the sun, glowed on his clean-shaven face. Jade wondered how smooth his cheek would feel under her hand. Even after going into the dusty air of the city in the evening, his scrubbed skin gleamed, and his short hair accentuated his cheekbones and his bright green-and-gold eyes. The long-sleeve black shirt he wore had some wrinkles and rumples to it, sure, but she could tell he’d smoothed it out as best he could. His khaki cargo pants were devoid of so much as a grease splotch on the knee or dried mud on the cuff.

“You beat me to it,” Jay said. “You look incredible.”

“So do you, backpack boy,” she replied. “Sometimes I forget how well a traveler can clean up.”

“It’s the shirt. An English guy I once met told me every globetrotter needs one black button-down shirt. It’ll smarten him up for just about any special occasion.”

Jade showed Jay into the pub and locked the door behind him. He set a bag on a table as she poured herself a glass of water with lime. “I was just getting our drinks,” she said.

Oh the hell with it.

She poured a second scotch and brought the drinks over.

“How do I take my scotch?” Jay asked, glancing at the bottle on the bar and nodding his approval.

“With three drops of water. Just a touch to help the aromas bloom.”

“That’s how my dad took it too, and I’ve never drunk it any other way. You truly are the best bartender in Asia.” He looked at the two glasses. “I thought you didn’t drink?”

Jade shrugged. “It’s my day off. I figured I might as well have one nearby. In case I felt like it.”

“I still can’t wrap my head around everything that’s happened today,” Jay said. “But looking at you, somehow things make more sense.” Jay picked up his scotch.

This is it,
Jade thought.
The moment his life changes. The moment he firmly puts himself on his path, on his destiny. I don’t know what that is. I just know that it must be.

Jade’s stomach twisted. Adrenalin pumped through her.
I’m following orders,
she thought.
What’s wrong?

“Here’s to you.” Jay raised the glass to his lips. Breathing in the scotch’s aromas, he readied for the sip, the amber scotch almost shining near his lips.

“Wow,” he said, lowering the glass slightly. “That aroma is perfect. You really brought out the vanilla notes. It might be the world’s best scotch, but now you’ve made it a beautiful drink.” He smiled. “All the better to drink with a beautiful woman.”

He brought the glass to his lips again. The scotch rolled toward his mouth.

“Wait!”

Jay shook his head and sat back, just before the scotch touched him. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry,” Jade replied. “Silly mistake.” She took the glass from his hand and moved hers over. “I prefer it neat, and I just realized I’d given you mine.”

“Oh. No big deal.”

Very big deal,
Jade thought.
I can’t do it. His heart isn’t the path? Since when is the heart not the path? Why shouldn’t it be?

“To the rules,” Jay said, raising the uninfluenced scotch. He smiled. “And more importantly, to breaking the rules.”

You have no idea,
Jade thought. No, she wasn’t supposed to drink. But that was an on-duty rule. Off the clock was a gray area. Not encouraged, not expressly permitted, but not prohibited either.

She raised her glass to his with a
tink
, and they drank deeply.

Drinking someone else’s influenced drink, though?

I might be off the clock,
she thought,
but I still took this directive upon myself. Jay’s now having the perfect, uninfluenced scotch I originally poured for myself, and I’m drinking someone else’s destiny—his destiny. What does that mean? Sure, it’s happened before. Someone got a drink order mixed up or swapped drinks with someone, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. But a Jake or Jade drinking someone else’s decision and destiny?
She thought hard to remember whether this had happened before, but no other times came to mind.

She waited for the impact. The scotch warmed her like Indian sunshine all the way down, but that was no different from any other scotch. After they lowered their glasses, they looked into each other’s eyes. Jay seemed content not to say anything. She felt the same. And she didn’t feel anything else. No great magnitude of existence. No shift in the order of things. No sense of changing direction. The world seemed the same.

“Oh,” Jay said. “Dinner. Let me get that out before it gets cold.”

Jade got them two Deep’s Special Lagers.
He noticed nothing,
she thought.
I don’t feel any different.

Was it that simple?

Just because I drank his destiny doesn’t mean I’ve taken his path for him,
she thought.
I’m not him. It can’t work the same. Maybe it doesn’t work at all on someone else. Maybe that combination of elixirs is so specific because it can work only with one person, as a protection against mistakes—or, well, other occurrences. By me drinking it, it’s canceled itself out. I just can’t do it. Not to him. If The Management want Jay on a particular path that badly, well, they’ll just have to sort it out themselves.

I like him too much.

As they ate chicken and vegetables over rice—expertly spiced and cooked, with oven-fresh
naan
breads on the side—they gradually began to talk more. Jay spoke of his travels, and Jade talked about her years in Agamuskara. She thought about trying to explain more, but she couldn’t do that either. He’d taken on so much already today.

She realized Jay had asked her about her family. “I had a lot of siblings,” she said. “Brothers and sisters.”