Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel)

by Anthony St. Clair

  “Where will the boat take him?” Jade asked. “What will happen when he meets with the Ganges and goes toward Kolkata?”

  “Oh, that’s not where he’s going,” Rucksack replied. “He’ll take the course o’ the real Agamuskara River. That flows north into the Himalayas. Jay gave his life so all life may live. In honor o’ that sacrifice, Jay will be laid to rest in the Heart o’ the World. It’s a long journey, but that boat will get him there just fine.”

  They fell silent. All watched the boat grow smaller and smaller on the massive river. When at last they could see the boat no more, people said a final thanks, a final farewell, and began to wander away. The mountain faded and was gone.

  “It’s time for me to go with them,” Ammar said, nodding toward the people. “We have much to do, and I owe a man a boat.”

  “Do you fear them?” Jade asked. “Or how they will react to you?”

  “Jigme would have feared them. He had much bitterness growing in his heart,” Ammar said. “That bitterness and fear died with Jigme. I do not fear. It is said that even the Lord Brahma, god of all creation, has red skin. I am not Brahma, but I am here to create, to build, to help. I will live through my works and my love. That will see us through.”

  Ammar left them and walked toward his people.

  Jade and Rucksack stood by the river and stared at each other.

  “I’ll stay a while longer,” Rucksack said. “Show Ammar the ropes. Besides, I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

  Jade shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she replied. “You’ve done what you needed to do in Agamuskara. I’d say you’re wanted elsewhere. A second chance is a new start, after all.”

  “Second chances,” Rucksack said, a trace of sadness, almost bitterness, in his voice.

  “Yes.” Jade grinned as she stared at a spot just above Rucksack’s head.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Enlighten me, goddess, if you don’t mind.”

  “Second chances,” Jade said. “For me, for Ammar… and for you too.”

  She stared at the spot again. It was still short and thin, but there was no doubt: a silvery, intertwined tendril of decision and destiny flowed out of Rucksack like a creek that could become a river.

  “You said that helping Jay could restore you to the path of your destiny,” Jade said. “It did, Rucksack. You’re connected to the world again. You are on your path once more.”

  A shock came over the anywhere face. “Guess I’ll always owe him a pint,” Rucksack finally said. “I’d hoped… I’ve tried for so long…”

  “He believed in you,” Jade said. “And so do I. Whatever you’re here to do, Faddah Rucksack, it’s going to be magnificent. I know it will be. Because like me, you’ll always carry him in your heart. Some part of everything you do will be to remember him, to keep him alive in some small way.”

  Rucksack smiled but had no words to reply. They stood there for a while, watching the river, thinking of the little boat and of the peaceful smile on Jay’s face.

  Then, without a word, Jade and Rucksack walked away from each other, heading in opposite directions.

  There were still roads to travel. There were still journeys to begin. There would always be another journey on the road—the endless, boundless road.

  You could never see all of it or know where you were going, but you could always choose your way.

  The road forever, Jade saw, wandering forward and never looking back.

  Forever the road.

  IV

  BEHIND THE BAR, the comment book lay open to a blank page, reminding Jade of the guestbook she had kept in the pub at the Everest Base Camp. It wasn’t the same, though. The Rum Doodle in Kathmandu, Nepal, had no hostel. It was just a bar and restaurant—though a damn good one, if the way they pulled a pint of Galway Pradesh Stout was any indication.

  That old guestbook stuck in Jade’s mind. She remembered watching Jay scrawl his name in it the day they first met.

  Such distinct handwriting, she thought. I’d still know it anywhere.

  After a year of wandering according to destiny and decision throughout India and Southeast Asia, she had followed the silver-and-gold tendrils to Nepal this time, the closest she had ever been to the Himalayas.

  A year to the day, she thought. A year since I became a goddess.

  A year since Jay died saving the world from the Smiling Fire.

  Jade pulled herself out of memory and back to the present. Why am I here tonight? she thought, but the tendrils gave her no answer yet. Maybe I should have gone to Agamuskara instead of Kathmandu. Word is a man named Ammar is doing amazing work cleaning and rebuilding the city, and there’s a new pub and hostel that’s the talk of India and the globetrotter’s grapevine…

  The traveler came back from the toilet, sat next to Jade at the bar, and took a long draw from his own fresh pint of GPS.

  Someone’s life is going to change tonight, Jade thought. But I don’t think it’s his. His path seems certain already.

  So, why am I talking with him?

  Not that the traveler wasn’t fun conversation. They swapped stories of the road, the world, of Jay. No matter where she’d gone, travelers and soon-to-be-travelers always loved hearing about Jay, the world’s greatest globetrotter. She didn’t have the heart to tell any of them that Jay was dead. His exploits, his adventures—though, Jade thought, perhaps I’m adding some Rucksack-worthy embellishments nowadays—inspired all the more whenever the listener left believing Jay was out there somewhere, living the world, blazing a trail of myth and legend wherever he roamed.

  Or maybe I still have trouble telling myself he’s gone, Jade thought.

  The traveler set down his pint. “I come here every chance I get,” he said in an accent that reminded her of Scotland. “Most inspiring place in the world.”

  Jade sat up. She’d come to Rum Doodle in a hurry, no time to learn anything about it other than where it was. There were no notes or instructions like there had been back when she was Jade the bartender instead of Jade the goddess.

  Now she listened to the world, and listening brought her to her road. The road followed her heart, and it always took her where she needed to go.

  “What’s so inspiring about it?” she asked. I’m still following the path, she thought, but I wish it would get around to telling me where in blazes I’m going this time.

  He pointed at the walls. “See all those photos, all those signatures?”

  She looked around the bar. Photographs hung here and there on the walls, which were tan and yellow like old parchment. Most of the pictures showed a similar scene: women and men in thick coats, gloves, boots, and goggles, their faces tired but exuberant. Where there weren’t photographs, names and numbers were scrawled everywhere she looked.

  “Some of this stuff is just the mark of people who happened in for a drink or a meal just so they could say they had written on the wall of the Rum Doodle.” The traveler smiled. “But the best stuff? Story goes it started with Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary, when they became the first climbers confirmed to get to the top of Everest and back down again. Since then, after summiting Mt. Everest—and making it back down alive, of course—a climber usually comes to Kathmandu. One of the first places they go is the Rum Doodle, and they sign the wall with their name and summit date.”

  “Have you gone to the top?” Jade asked.

  “Not yet,” he replied, pausing to take another swig of his pint. “But I’m working on it. Training hard. In a year or two I’ll be ready to give it a go.”

  “How long does it take to climb Everest?”

  “Weeks,” he replied. “A lot of it is waiting, making sure your body is adjusting to the different altitudes. It’s not a technically hard mountain to climb, but it’s high enough and cold enough to be plenty hell on the body and mind. And you could still spend all that time getting to the top, only to be within yards of the summit
and have to come down again. Well, that or die trying. Personally, I prefer staying alive.”

  “Weeks,” Jade said. “Quite a feat. What would you say if I told you I knew someone who once went up—and down—Mount Everest in one night?”

  The traveler laughed. “I’d say sure, and tomorrow there’ll be free beer too.”

  “Not possible, huh?”

  He shook his head. “Not in the slightest.”

  “But if it were, it’d make a great story, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh, it’d be bloody legendary,” the traveler said. “But the rest of us will just have to work for it.”

  They each took a swig of stout. “Let me show you my favorite stretch of wall,” he said.

  Jade and the traveler carried their pints from the bar to a back corner of the restaurant.

  “I’m not a religious man,” the traveler said. “But you could say I’ve made a pilgrimage here.”

  Jade wondered if her companion was the one who had hung the small blue-and-white Scottish flag over the signatures.

  “I like to call it Little Scotland,” he said. “It’s all the Scots who’ve summited Everest. Not a bad list, aye?”

  Jade nodded, following the tendrils. Feeling the way destiny and decision were aligning, she touched his shoulder. “Your name will be here someday,” she said, looking from the wall to him then back to the wall.

  Surrounding Little Scotland were more names, more dates, people from all over the world. Jade read the signatures, one by one, line by line, until she got to a name that made her gasp.

  She hardly noticed when her glass shattered on the floor.

  Jade ran to the bar. The bartenders had no recollection of the person who had signed that name, and there was no Jake or Jade stationed at the Rum Doodle.

  She dashed down the stairs, knocked open the door, and ran outside.

  Right into Faddah Rucksack.

  “Jade!” he said, staggering back but jumping forward just as fast. “Thank goodness.”

  “What are you doing here?” she replied.

  “I had to find you.” Rucksack took a letter from his pocket. “You got one too, right?”

  “Sorry. Been on the road a lot. And last time there were letters to you, Rucksack,” she said, “a certain pair of jokesters were behind it.”

  “They’re not the reason I’m here, Jade.” He stared deep into her eyes. “I’d stake my destiny on it.”

  “Jay came here after that night at Everest, right?” she asked as she led him into the Rum Doodle, ignoring the unasked questions from the traveler as they walked by.

  “No,” Rucksack said. “He went straight to Agamuskara. Jay had never been to Kathmandu.”

  Again she followed the tendrils. Whose life is getting changed tonight? she thought.

  At the wall in the back corner of the restaurant, she pointed. The date corresponded to all she knew. Beneath it, scrawled in black handwriting she’d recognize anywhere, she read the signature again:

  Jay

  “I know, Jade. I know.” Rucksack took a deep breath. “It’s why I had to find you,” he said. “Jay’s boat arrived at the Heart of the World.”

  “And?”

  Rucksack looked at the wall. Then he looked at Jade.

  “It was empty.”

  Thank you for reading!

  Please tell your friends about this story and review it.

  Reviews are the best way readers discover great new books, and I would truly appreciate it. Even a couple of sentences is a big help.

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  Also in the Rucksack Universe

  What happened before Forever the Road?

  The Martini of Destiny

  One drink changed everything.

  Influencing a man’s fate should have been another day behind the bar.

  Bartender Jake Hongkong has served The Management longer than any other Jake or Jade, but now he doubts his role influencing people’s destinies and decisions. Declan is directionless and scared when he comes to the pub, yet one drink is all it takes to give him the courage to make a life-altering decision. Deeply shaken by something he wasn’t meant to see, Jake doubts more than ever, and consequences ripple through destiny and the world. Soon one martini will forever alter lives and fates... especially Jake’s and Declan’s.

  “Just as all blood passes through the heart, all life, business and culture pass through Hong Kong. Since becoming an independent nation after The Blast, the city-state on China’s southeastern seaboard has become renown as The World’s Greatest City. It’s easy to see why. From the inspiring drinks in the pubs, to the otherworldly weirdness of the concrete mythological figures in the Aw Boon Haw Gardens, the wonders are endless. All travelers will find new delights to marvel them, and new stories to bring home as souvenirs. After all, as the old saying goes, ‘to tire of Hong Kong is to forget how to live the world.’”

  — Guru Deep, Hong Kong Through the Third Eye

  Learn more and buy from your favorite online bookstore:

  http://anthonystclair.com/martini

  Home Sweet Road

  As falls Ireland, so falls the world.

  An ordinary woman hides extraordinary secrets from two men who are not what they seem—but neither is she.

  Aisling’s grandmother was the most famous Awen of Ireland, but Aisling never knew that until she returned home from her travels, said her good-byes over the old protector’s grave, and learned from Jake Connemara that she was now Awen. No one has yet tried to steal the three relics under her protection, which combined are said to give the possessor the power to control the world. But when two strange backpackers arrive in Clifden, Aisling’s life and the fate of world rest on one moment.

  Tiran and Jay became friends the moment they started talking on the bus to Clifden, but when they meet Aisling, rivalry threatens that new friendship. Jake, bartender at The Salt and Crane, tells Aisling a long-lost, ancient, more powerful relic is rumored to have been stolen from The Blast Memorial—the same day Jay and Tiran were there.

  The time of Aisling’s test has come. If she fails, Ireland falls. And if Ireland falls, one of these men will bring the world to a terrible fate.

  “The hills of the Twelve Bens whisper long-lost secrets that pass through the town of Clifden and sail their dreams and messages across the Atlantic Ocean to the rest of the world. Located at Ireland’s western edge, Clifden is the unofficial capital of Connemara. A little over an hour’s drive from New Galway, on your way you’ll meander through scenic boglands, and you can visit The Blast Memorial in the ruins of Galway. An Irish legend speaks of great power and otherworldly beings in Clifden, but today’s globetrotter comes to hike the Twelve Bens and to enjoy the hospitality of the Eighth Wonder of the World Hostel. Be sure to visit The Salt and Crane for an Irish breakfast, the best pint of Galway Pradesh Stout west of Dublin, and the daily (and nightly) live music sessions.”

  — Guru Deep, Ireland Through the Third Eye

  Learn more and buy from your favorite online bookstore:

  http://anthonystclair.com/homesweetroad

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  To that spring morning in 2003,

  cycling on the bike path

  by the Willamette River in Eugene

  just as the sun was coming up.

  I pulled off quickly, sat on a tree stump,

  not caring if I was late to work.

  I had to write down the first thoughts

  that one day, over 10 years later,

  would grow up to be this story.

  Just as “it takes a village to raise a child,” it takes a truthful, loving, supportive community to write a book. Dozens of friends, colleagues, and relatives helped i
n some way or another with this Rucksack Universe novel. I am forever grateful for their help, expertise, and patience. If something in this book makes you go “whoa,” I wouldn’t be surprised if it came from their input. All errors and flaws are mine.

  Thank you…

  To my friends and family for believing not only that I could write, but that I could quit my old job and pay bills with the scribbling instead;

  To my publishing A-Team. This book is 236% better because of the suggestions and butt-saving catches from my Chief Reader, Beta Readers (Robin, Jeanette, Choya, Matilda, Bonnie, and Taylor), editor Scott Alexander Jones, and designer Bonnie Donaghy;

  To the world for giving not only life, but the capacity to experience, suffer, enjoy and grow;

  To all the travelers and locals I’ve encountered over the years. Yes, I was always taking notes;

  To the peculiar combination of circumstance, destiny, and decision that enabled me to travel to amazing places such as India, Tibet, Nepal, and Ireland. I am grateful beyond words for all I’ve learned and seen so far—and excited for what’s next;