Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) (42 page)

He glanced behind the half-circle of men. Alone and propped up on the opposite wall, his backpack sulked in darkness.
If I didn’t know better,
Jay thought,
I’d swear it was mad at me for being here. But why? We’re travelers. Traveling means leaving Agamuskara and moving on. It’ll get over it.

The talk went on and the clacking of the train wheels joined in the conversation and camaraderie. Outside the small windows, the sky darkened as the train made its way east. As the hours went by, Jay realized, the food and drink never ran out. Every time they emptied a bottle, another appeared.
 

“You have seen much of the world,” someone said to the man in the robes. “Tell us one of your stories.”

The man nodded. “I have not seen as much as I would like, and there is much I will never see. Much of what I have seen pales before the bright, shining moments of your own lives. But if there is one story that I must tell, it is something that happened not to me but near me, to someone else. I was but fortunate to have been in the area at the time.”

Everyone drank in his words. Jay glanced behind the men again. His pack seemed to be standing straighter, as if anticipating yet listening to a story it already knew.

“My life takes me far,” the man said at last. “Recently, I was in the shadow of Qomolongma—Mount Everest herself, mountain of the world. The moon was full that night, shining silver and gold in the cold thin air of the Himalayas. I had stepped out of my tent to have a cigarette and gaze at the mountain as the moon rose high above it. Between my tent and the vast plains and hills that lead to the foot of Qomolongma, there was a small rise at camp—not even a hill, just a small rounded slope where one can gain a better vantage. I thought about going to it, but I also sought solitude on this trip, and someone already stood atop the hill.

“This person and I watched the moon rise up from the valleys and mountains, as if it rose from out of the Heart of the World itself. She was full and bright, big as the mountain. I have seen much beauty in this world, my friends, but never have I seen anything as beautiful as this.”

Twinges of pain poked Jay. He realized how tense and stiff he was, no longer enraptured by the story but terrified.
No,
he thought.
It can’t be.

“I looked from the moon to the man, standing on the little rise at the edge of Mount Everest Base Camp. The darkness around him lightened, and then I could not take my eyes off him.”

This didn’t happen,
Jay thought.
You didn’t see this. Please, you didn’t see this. You couldn’t see something that didn’t happen.

“All around the man, the darkness became moonlight, and the moonlight became as a gentle hand, lifting the man off the hill and taking him to Qomolongma herself. I watched until I could no longer see the man. I never saw his face, but as far as I could tell, the mountain carried him all the way up to the summit of Qomolongma. That is all I know. That is all I saw. Whatever the moon and the mountain had to say to the man, I do not know. But oh, how I wish I did. And oh, how I am glad to have seen such a moment of magic on a moonlit night by the mountain of the world.”

The man fell silent. No one else spoke. All of the men sat as still as children before a teacher.

Jay stood and left the car.
 

In the vestibule between train cars, the evening air hung hot and wet but no longer blazing. The wind of the fast train washed over Jay as he held onto the rails of the open doorway at the side of the vestibule, half-standing, half-hanging out of the train.

That didn’t happen,
he thought.
It was just a story. A story I’ve left behind, just like the rest. No more Jade. No more Rucksack. No more legends. No more destiny. I’m free.

He stared into the darkness as the train rushed through the night. What lay at the end of the line but another city, more pubs, more sights to see already pawed over by throngs of Swedes, Israelis, and Australians, all carrying Guru Deep guidebooks? More taxis and hostels, more questionable food and water, more touts...

No more,
Jay thought.

Clouds had gathered over the countryside. The air felt damp, heavy, and charged. Off in the blackness, flashes of brown lightning made the world shine. For a moment, the skin of existence had faded away, revealing something beneath, like an everlasting brilliance.

Why bother with another city or another country?
Jay thought.
Countries aren’t sealed and separate. We just act like they are. But we’re connected to the it. And the it is the everywhere. Since we’re connected, I can go anywhere.

Lightning flashed again.
What’s out there,
Jay thought,
beyond the narrow vein of these tracks? There are fields and villages and places that will never know the mention of a guidebook.

He walked back to the car.

“Are you all right?” the man asked.

Jay nodded. “Needed some air. And now I need another drink.”

More drinks, jokes, stories, songs. Jay told his friends his good name and that he wasn’t from anywhere. He was just a traveler and the road was his home. He was not married, and his occupation was to live fully being alive. Laughter and affection glowed from the train car.

Everyone talked about their new friend Jay.

I can go anywhere,
Jay thought.
I need nothing but myself and my backpack. Nothing else...

Taking another swig of a new bottle—
How many fit in that case anyway?
—Jay decided the time had come.

For all the years he’d traveled, Jay had never reached into his money belt in public view. Usually, he’d gone into a toilet when he needed to get out a ticket, his passport, or some more cash. Out of sight, out of mind was everything when it came to the crown jewels.

Jay reached around to his right hip and unbuckled the strap that held the money belt in place. Pulling the pouch free, he held it loose in his hand. Thousands of rupees were inside, as were hundreds of US dollars. He thought too of the plane ticket, the fare paid that could get him emergency passage on any plane at any time.

“My friends!” he said, holding up his hand, packed with money. “I don’t need this anymore! May it help your dreams come true!” He threw wads of bills out among the men.

Then he reached into his money belt again, pulled out his emergency ticket, and nodded to the man across from him. “Didn’t you say you wanted to study abroad?”

Wait,
Jay thought,
he hadn’t said anything. The hooch must be messing with my brain.

But the way the man nodded, Jay knew it was true.

Jay handed him the plane ticket. “Here. Go. Live your dreams. Live the world.”

“But you, sir?” the man said. “Are you living your dreams?”

Jay shrugged. “I’ve got one foot in front of the other, and I’ve got a world to see. That’ll do me fine.”

The men roared and clapped Jay on the back. He handed out money and dreams like a god among men.
I’m traveling again,
he thought.
No, I’m really traveling for the first time. I was a tourist. Now I’m a traveler. I can go wherever I want. Be whoever I want to be. Tell whatever tales I want to tell.

When the money belt was empty of the crown jewels, Jay took out the photo of his parents and tucked it in his pocket. “You’ll still be with me,” he said. “Always.”

He looked at the flimsy dirty nylon in his other hand. “But it’s time we parted,” he said, dropping the money belt to the floor of the train car.

Outside, lightning flashed brown-gold in the heat of the subcontinental night.

As the men began to talk excitedly about their plans, Jay gradually shrank back out of the circle. He slipped his pack onto his back, grateful it was cooperating again.

The man in the robes stared as Jay walked to the door. For a moment their eyes locked, and the man’s gray-blue gaze seemed to crackle. They nodded at each other, saying no more. Jay left before the man could ask the question he knew was burning at his mind.

Jay walked out between the train cars, swaying with the weight on his back and the motion of the train, holding the railing as he watched the lightning flash over the countryside.

“This is all we are,” Jay said to the world. “A moment’s flash, a brief spark against void and nothing. But in a brief flash, I can go anywhere. And I will.”

In his mind, Jade and Rucksack flashed, but he pushed back the thoughts.
Look ahead,
he thought.
Never back. Never again. What’s behind is what no longer matters.

“Wherever. Whenever,” Jay said. “Why, I could jump from this train, have no idea where I am. Ah tomorrow, what a mystery! What an adventure!”

Jay decided.

“What an adventure!” Jay said to the lightning. If he ran fast enough, across the dark, unknown fields, could he catch the lightning, maybe haggle a ride?

The train would run on and on, to the known and done. Behind Jay, all he’d known. Before him…

Jay braced himself, waiting for the lightning. The sky flashed bright against the black. For a moment, Jay could hardly see. Blue and green flecks dotted his vision. His pack felt heavier than ever, as if trying to pull him backward.

He ran forward anyway.

From the speeding train, Jay jumped into the unseen world before him.

For a moment he flew.

Man of the world. Man above the world. The backpacker of all time. Jay the legend. Jay the myth. Jay of the road. All the world, all his past fell away, dregs of a life long since drained. He stared toward the sky.

Then his pack twisted, and Jay was turning every which way in mid-air, limbs loose and confused as he began to fall.

Where am I looking now?
Jay thought.
Where am I going? I’m falling. How far away is the ground? What if we’re traveling over a bridge? Or along a gorge? What if there are rocks below?

He flailed in the air as he tried to right himself. He turned around and around in the air. But no matter what he did, the weight of the twisting backpack kept him off balance.

Lightning struck.

Jay saw the flash in the same moment he heard a crack. The thunder, the only thunder this whole night, split the sky from the earth, split past and present and future, split Jay from himself and the world.

The sound faded but the lightning did not.

Jay realized the lightning had hit him. Fire and blue pain, fire and a silver void, fire and a green oblivion, fire and a shimmering gold, pain and pain and pain.

Unable even to scream, all Jay could do was fall.

His burned body broke upon the brown-and-black earth.

The train clattered on toward Kolkata, leaving behind it only the silent night and a traveler who lay still.

III

U
NDER THE HEAVY GRAY-AND-BLACK CLOUDS
, two bodies lay in rubble that had once been the white walls of Agamuskara. The blackened walls and charred bones lay jumbled together with burned wood, plaster, skulls, and ribs. Here and there, flecks of white showed through, a futile reminder that there had been a time before the fires—a time when the bones were part of people who lived, who breathed.

Who loved.

The fingers were part blackened flesh, part bone. But in death the two bodies had held hands. On one of the hands, the gold ring was warped from the heat of the flames, but it flashed in the meager daylight. On another left hand nearby, more gold glinted.

How long had they shared that love? How long had they worn those rings? When they knew they were going to die, what comfort did they take in knowing that at least they would leave this world together, just as they had wandered through it?

A tear fell on a ring.

The woman stood before more tears came, but as she stepped her foot brushed the body. Ash fell away and blew off as a hot wind crashed through the street.

Blue shone.

The man leaned down and pulled the postcard free. A large script in the top left corner of the card said, “Godhpur… Go find yourself!” The famous blue-and-gold sandstone buildings of the city shone out from the photo covering the rest of the card. Compared to the black ruins of Agamuskara, Godhpur might as well have been in another world.

“It’s incredible,” the man said. “The rest is ash yet this survived.” He turned over the card and read out loud, “Godhpur brought us to marriage, but you brought us together. Here is a photo of our wedding. Thank you.”

The words flew through the woman’s memories, past the agonies and horrors of the last month, through the fog of the days that were lost, past all that had happened before the night the fires came, back to the simple sunny day when everything had changed.

Rucksack leaned down and dug through the ash with his gloved left hand. Part of the photo had been burned away, and the bottom edge was ragged and iridescent. She took the photo from him and stared at the bright eyes, the warm smiles of the newlyweds. They had been so glad they had found each other in such a random heartless world.

She could feel him staring at her. “Jade?”

The tears came back. “That was for me,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you remember the day Jay arrived in the city? These two came into the pub. I was to bring them together and I did. They’d only just met, Rucksack. Now they’re dead. Because of us.”