Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel)

by Anthony St. Clair

  “Are you from India?”

  The woman bobbed her head. “India. Himalaya. Here and there, you would say.”

  “Where in India?”

  “A small village.”

  Jade handed over the water with lime. The woman sat at a table near the wall, and she cast a wary glance at the two men sitting with their pitcher of Deep’s Special Lager. A look of recognition, perhaps? Unusually well guarded, Jade thought as she tried to listen to the woman’s feelings. The only thing I can tell is she’s older than she looks.

  And she’s nervous.

  The woman took out an envelope, opened up a sheet of paper, and read it over and over and over. Jade regularly brought her more waters with lime.

  “If you don’t mind my saying,” Jade said, “you look like you’re waiting for someone.”

  The woman folded the paper and set it on the envelope. “I wait on a dream,” she replied. She gazed deeply into Jade; it was like being tested, evaluated, measured. Only when the woman spoke again did Jade realize she must have passed the test.

  “Have you ever been presented with something you knew was impossible,” the woman said in a voice bright and flowing yet also ancient and sad, “but all the same you had to see if you were wrong—that it could be possible after all?”

  Every day, Jade thought, except for the second part. “Lots of people wait on dreams in a pub. Are you sure I can’t bring you something else to soothe your nerves?” Jade hoped she would say yes; a drop of hope and two of confidence would give the woman the steadiness and sight she needed to see through whatever she was anticipating and waiting for.

  “Only the waters, please,” the woman said.

  “We have food too,” Jade said. I can influence food no more than I can water, she thought. But it’s only right to offer.

  “Yes, that does sound good. Do you know thukpa?”

  The training took over. “Barley noodles,” Jade said, “plus vegetables and meat in broth, right?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Okay.” She started to walk away but stopped herself. “If you need anything,” she said, “my name is Jade. I don’t want to pry, but if you want to talk, I’m around.”

  “You are very busy,” the woman replied. “Many to serve.”

  “And always time to help someone who needs it.”

  The woman nodded. “Thank you, Jade,” she said. “My name is Kailash.”

  “That’s a wonderful name,” Jade replied. “Like in Tibet, right? Mount Kailash, the holy mountain?”

  She smiled. “You know much, Jade. Yes, like the holy mountain. The world mountain, some say. The mountain that moves, that travels the world and tells of things to come, of dreams that are to be real.”

  “I thought that was Mount Meru. Besides, isn’t that a myth?”

  “Some would say a myth is only a truth that is not a fact,” the woman replied. “Many say that Kailash and Meru are the same mountain, one rooted in Tibet, the other a manifestation that moves throughout the world, in dreams, visions, and plain sight.”

  “And you are named for it. What do you believe, Kailash?”

  Kailash smiled. “I believe that the mountain Kailash sits in Tibet, far away yet close as a dream. Yet since I cannot see it myself, I cannot truly know it is there. So I must believe. But I know that the mountain moves.”

  “I wonder what it has to tell us.”

  “Until it speaks, the mountain is silent.”

  The women looked at each other, saying nothing.

  Jade went back to the bar, put in the food order, and then brought it over when it was ready, but Kailash only smiled and nothing. The crowd grew. As Jade served and listened, influenced and directed, she still kept an eye on Kailash, alone at her table. Despite seven glasses of water, Jade noticed, not once had Kailash gotten up to pee. She just read her sheet of paper over and over.

  Until Rucksack came in. Jade saw that Kailash kept staring at him.

  Jay came down and Jade sent him over to where Rucksack was sitting. The next time Jade glanced at Kailash’s table, Rucksack and Jay were looking at the woman. Soon, Kailash was on her way out the door.

  I have much to tell Rucksack, Jade thought in her room, her mind drifting back to his letter and the matching envelope that Kailash had left behind. A pang of guilt passed through her. Maybe I shouldn’t have acted as if I knew nothing.

  No, she thought. There’s much that he’d better start telling me, if he wants me to be more forthcoming too.

  The guilt passed.

  Something about the woman seemed ancient, the pub told her—older than the city, older than India. She is who she seems, the pub said, and she is not who she seems.

  That’s not much help, Jade thought.

  When she opened her eyes for a moment, the weariness was nearly overwhelming. The pub’s extra intensity had been more fatiguing than usual. After the long day, she needed to get off her feet. Jade sat at her desk next to the bed, ignoring the absence of photos and keepsakes, extra things that would have needed dusting. Her shelves held only files, notes, manuals from her training and from Guru Deep’s The Bartender.

  Jade closed her eyes again and listened to the pub’s recollection of the evening.

  If the Everest Base Camp were a person, then Rucksack had made the pub merely uneasy, as if it had a touch of vertigo. In comparison, the two loud men had made it violently ill.

  From the moment they came through the door, Jade noticed them but saw no need to pay them much attention. Their cockiness said they already knew the world. They knew where they were going when they got there, and their place in the world was wherever they were. Rarely did such people need any help from a Jake or Jade.

  But they did need beer. It fueled their big laughs, which rang off the walls no matter how full the pub got. Their laughter deepened the lines around their eyes, though their faces told her they seemed just on the edge of early middle age. Light shone like hazy halos off of their clean-shaven heads and the thick, squarish glasses they both wore. They looked like they could be from anywhere, but Jade suspected they were from India, perhaps even nearby. Their blue button-down shirts reminded Jade of the blue statues all around the city. Some say there are more gods than people in Agamuskara, Jade thought.

  As the pub filled, Jade noticed that people kept tripping or stumbling around the two men’s table, though no one ever actually hit the floor. Sometimes they righted themselves. Sometimes, like with Jay, one of the men caught an arm or helped them regain their footing.

  This has to stop, Jade thought. She added a dash of Purple #8 to a fresh pitcher of Deep’s Special Lager. As Jade set the pitcher on their table, her feet remained steady and never thought once of betraying her.

  “Where are you lads in from?” she asked.

  “We lose track!” said one of the men in a thick bubbling accent. He laughed loudly and reached across the table to slap his friend on the shoulder. The other man laughed too.

  “New Delhi. Varanasi. Everest. Zhangmu. Kathmandu,” the second man said.

  “You get around.”

  Their heads bobbed. “We do as we must for what we will,” the second man said. “That is the life of those who work for the Office of World Light and Foreign Visitors.”

  “The office of what?” Jade asked. “That sounds government. Is this a surprise inspection?”

  “It is!” the first man said.

  Surprise indeed shot through Jade. They’d just been inspected a month ago, and as always had passed. “What are you inspecting this time?”

  “Your beer!” the first man said with another laugh. “And it passes twice. Pim, have you ever had such a fine a pint as what is poured at the Everest Base Camp?”

  The one called Pim filled their glasses from the fresh pitcher. “No, Mim. They pass! First Class. Highest Muster. Grade A. Prime Premium Select!”

  “If you’re wanting to put one of those fancy stickers on the door,” Jade said, “I hope it’s a bit shorter than all t
hat.”

  “Fear not Ms. Jade, we would never want to cover up your ‘As Seen in Guru Deep’s Third Eye’ sticker,” Mim said. “That itself is most more select than what we humble officers of the Office of World Light and Foreign Visitors can offer.”

  “Since we have passed such muster with you lads,” Jade said, “may I ask a favor?”

  “What might that be, Jade of the Finest Pour?”

  “I don’t know how you’re doing it, but stop tripping my customers.”

  Pim shrugged and pointed to a patch of floor. “Slippery floor is unkind to feet. People come to find themselves, only to find themselves on their backsides if not for us to steady them once more.”

  Jade’s gaze hardened. “I don’t know who you are, but I didn’t pour my first beer yesterday. No one has ever tripped around this pub like anyone near your table tonight. Whoever you are, whatever your deal is, leave my customers alone. Anyone else stumbles, and I won’t care if you work for Shiva. I’ll personally boot you out into the middle of the nearest steaming pile of divinity.”

  Mim and Pim raised their beer glasses. “Of course, Miss Jade,” they said in unison.

  Oy, she thought. It’s like Rucksack and The Management had a lovechild.

  The men sipped their beer, and she started toward the bar.

  At least they’ll calm down.

  “Oh no,” said a flat, unaccented voice.

  Jade turned to see Pim, shaking his head. He poured his beer back into the pitcher.

  Mim’s head bobbed. “Oh no indeed, my dear Pim.” His accent had also disappeared, and he emptied his glass into the pitcher too.

  “Is there a problem, gentlemen?”

  “Oh Jade oh Jade,” Mim said. “We thought you knew.”

  “That’s a fresh keg of Deep’s Special Lager. Knew what?”

  “Oh yes,” Pim said. “The beer is fresh as can be. But something is off.” His gaze tightened on Jade’s. “Something that should not be there.”

  “I’ll be happy to get you a fresh pitcher.”

  “Thank you for on-the-house, Miss Jade.”

  “Who said anything about on-the-house?”

  “Thanking you now for in-advance,” Mim said. “The Office of World Light and Foreign Visitors does not require anything, shall we say, additional. Nor would it do you any good to exhaust your precious stores.”

  Jade stared at the two men. I could tell them to leave, and never come back, she thought. I could tell The Management I need help. I could chance adding—

  “Please pass our compliments to your Management,” Pim said. “The service is unparalleled, the servers are attentive, and the served are content.”

  “We know that you do not know, and that is okay. We of the Office of World Light and Foreign Visitors need none of the additional services provided by the noble Jakes and Jades,” Mim said.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Jade replied.

  “You don’t know much of late, we know,” Pim said. “Even when you don’t know what is under your feet, you have a path.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Who are you?”

  Jade stared hard. The men’s helixes waved like snakes, but not in any way that she could construe as menacing. If anything, it was as if their helixes were… laughing. Laughing at her and at everyone around them. Laughing as if they were telling the punchline to the greatest joke of the universe—and knew that no one else got it.

  Then Mim and Pim began laughing out loud. “We will make sure that no one else loses their feet tonight, Jade Agamuskara Bluegold,” Mim said. “In return, we request only that our beer be… itself.”

  They know my full name, Jade thought. She took a step back. There’s nothing I can do about this. Could The Management even do anything?

  Resigned, she said, “Your terms are acceptable.”

  Mim and Pim smiled.

  “I’ll even give you the free pitcher. I’m just that nice a Jade.” She returned to the bar with the influenced pitcher and soon set down a fresh one. After she had taken care of some waiting customers, Jade tried to work out what had happened. These men know about me, the Jakes and Jades, and even The Management. What could that mean? Why are they here? What is their real purpose?

  A soft pthump made her turn.

  Two in one day? she thought. You’d think it was my birthday. Have The Management been observing? Will they explain who these guys really are?

  But when she opened the directive, all she got was four words:

  The tricksters are allowed.

  Jade looked up. Mim and Pim saluted with raised glasses. People walked by, but if they were unsteady, Jade knew it was due only to a good night’s drinking. The Management said the men were okay. Jade didn’t like it, but customers were waiting.

  She got back to work.

  Jade opened her eyes and was back in her room. The pub shared her questions and her concerns, as well as her begrudging acceptance. The pub also confirmed what Rucksack had said earlier: Mim and Pim had caused the tap to break so that she and Rucksack wouldn’t see them vanish. But the pub saw.

  And the pub saw more.

  The men weren’t human. At least not in the way that Jade both was and was not human anymore. Like the woman Kailash, the men seemed to be what could only be described as ancient, though their faces were like an older brother’s. But what brought them to the pub—and again, like Kailash, on the same day that Jay arrived?

  Not just Jay, Jade thought, her weary mind trying hard to focus on him. Jay and whatever is in his backpack.

  The pub felt its presence but did not know what it was. She only knew that it was both new and ancient. Over and over, the pub called to her. It said the same thing, but she did not understand.

  I’m too tired, she thought. Maybe it will make sense once I’ve had a chance to rest.

  She undressed and lay down. Weariness washed over her. Tomorrow, she would not have to work in the pub, but this would be no day off in the sit-and-relax sense. There was Rucksack to counsel with. There were tricksters to allow. There were mysteries to understand.

  As Jade faded into sleep, the pub continued repeating itself. For a moment, her barely conscious mind understood.

  Usually, she could perceive only faint feelings from objects and places, even one as powerful and soaked in humanity as the Everest Base Camp. But now, just as she fell fully into sleep, she understood what the pub was trying to tell her.

  The pub seemed to be saying, “He carries dangerous, he carries doom. He carries dangerous, he carries doom.”

  But sleep claimed her, and Jade stopped listening. The pub cried on.

  IN THE DREAM the full moon rose over the slope of the world’s tallest mountain. As he talked with the moon, he rose high over the camp, over the Himalayas, and up the slopes of Everest itself, which was called “Qomolangma” in the Tibetan: mother of the universe, mother of the earth.

  Wind whipped at the rocks and flags, but somehow its cutting chill did not reach him. The moon seemed so close he could almost touch its face. Instead of the wind blowing, he heard a soft mellifluous voice. Then cold, gray, pale air hung in the frosty morning.

  He stood on a little hill looking toward the mountain. His hand was out, palm up, as if waiting for something.

  A voice, a familiar voice, someone from his tent, said, “What happened to your clothes?”

  shr-shr-shr-Shr-Shr-Shr-SHR-SHR-SHR—

  The rustling was louder than an alarm clock. It pulled Jay out of the dream and into his hangover. The fog in his mind had broken into a pounding storm, though when he looked out the window, a soft dawn waited.

  Rucksack said stout helps people see clearly, Jay thought as he staggered toward the loo. The strange night at the mountain made sense now, at least. It must have been an onset of altitude sickness.

  The only cure was to get to lower elevation as quickly as possible. That’s why I fled to the dorm tent, packed up, and hopped a ride down the mountain, he thought. I just need
ed to get to lower elevation so I didn’t die. That’s all. Nothing on the mountain told me to go to India, to the city with the white alley. I needed a change of scene anyway, and India’s heat and franticness seemed like just the thing after the high-altitude chill and quiet of Tibet.

  Jay turned on the light in the toilet. In the harsh light from the bare bulb, no roaches menaced. The booze had done its work well, though the air still reeked of yesterday’s spicy meals, the sharp tang of Indian rotgut, and a distinct metallic undercurrent that must be the scent of molten roach legs. The combined odor sent a quake through his innards and bent Jay over the hole in the floor, stout and more threatening to come rushing up.

  But at least no roaches were glaring at him eye to eyes.

  After a few minutes, Jay’s stomach decided to stay in place. Shaking, he stood up and saw the tap on the wall to the right. A hot shower was just the thing.

  But I guess I’ll settle for lukewarm, he thought as the tepid-cool trickle drizzled over him. Still, the dust and grit of the last few days sloughed off. His stout-choked pores opened. His clumsy movements became less floppy. Soon, the water didn’t feel like a hammer smacking his forehead.

  Back in the dorm room, the other beds were full of lumps. If anyone had heard the racket of the thing in his backpack, they didn’t wake up. Fellow travelers snored and farted. A boozy fugue hovered over the room like smog. Jay envied them a little. There’d be no more sleep for him, hangover be damned.

  Then again, there was a city to see.

  Besides, Jay thought, this isn’t the worst hangover I’ve had. It’s up there. But it’s no reason to spend the day in bed.

  For a moment, his mind flashed back to Austria. He and his dorm mates had staggered back to the room after a night of Vienna lager, boasting grand plans to wander the city the next day. They’d read Austria Through The Third Eye. They would walk long circuits and sup in inns, the way the great composer Ludwig van Beethoven had done. However, the guidebook said nothing about how to wander while suffering a skull-rupturing hangover.