Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) (36 page)

Over for Amma
.

Jigme poured all his energy, all his soul into his legs.
Run,
he thought.
Run like you’ve never run before.

His tired legs carried him down the alley toward the red door. Behind him, closer now, the people ran too.

Jigme ran faster, the child’s limp limbs bouncing.
So heavy,
he thought. But there was the red door.
Soon we’ll be inside and this will be over.

No it won’t,
he thought.
Someone will see me take the boy inside. They’ll know it was me. Everyone here hates me and Mum. They’ll kill us. Plus, if we’re surrounded, we’ll have no way to get the boy to the temple.

With a cry Jigme stumbled and fell to one knee. He tottered under the child’s weight, about to fall. His knee hit a stone, and pain blazed through his body.

People were getting closer.

Jigme stared at the door, thought of Amma inside. “Get up,” he said. “Get up.”

With every inch his knee threatened to buckle. The child nearly pulled him over, but Jigme fought back. Trembling, he stood up again.

His fingers were made of broken glass as his hands squeezed tight around the child. His knee swelled. But the voices were close now, too close. Jigme ignored the pain and began to run again. He limped slightly from his knee, but he ran past the red door. Above the alley, the clouds were thicker and blacker. A fog swarmed down.

He smiled at the cries from the crowd—even more so at the absence of the sound of their footsteps.
They were next to the red door,
he thought,
but she is safe. No one has seen my face. They do not know it is me. And none will pass into this part of the alley.

Jigme ran. Despite the thick fog, he trusted his footsteps, knew that nothing would obstruct him. He ran down the alley, between the statues, and into the temple.

The warmth inside made Jigme realize how cool it had been outside. The Smiling Fire beamed. Something in his grin seemed almost proud.

Jigme set down the child, who was still unconscious.

“Soon you can return,” the Smiling Fire said. “Tomorrow I will do as I promised. Sleep now, child, then return to her. And then, Jigme, the time at last will have come for you to bring your mother to me.”

Jigme smiled as he sank down against a black wall.
I’ve done it,
he thought.
It’s over. Amma will be healed.

He ignored the sounds and drifted into sleep. There was no burning or screaming. He would endure just one last nightmare before waking into a brilliant new day.

I
N THE WEAK LIGHT
of the foggy, just-dawned morning, the blood on Jay’s shin shone with a strange brightness.

“Walking around the boats is easier than walking through them,” Rucksack said. “Though you’ve made our choice easy. We’ll take this one.”

Jay rubbed his shin through the tear in his thin cargo pants. “Why?”

“It knows you now.” Rucksack pointed at the bright red smear on the faded brown-and-black metal of the long, shallow boat. “A boat that knows your blood will take you anywhere safely.”

“You say that like you’re being serious.”

“There wasn’t exactly a luxury charter service when I first went to Ireland,” Rucksack replied. “I got to the boat in a bit o’ a hurry. Already had blood coming out aplenty, so I left a bit on the hull as I got aboard. Lots o’ boats left that day, and we were halfway there when a terrible storm blew up around us. Our boat was the only one that made it.”

“I don’t see how we’re going much of anywhere today,” Jay said. “This fog is so thick I can hardly see in front of me.”

Rucksack was quiet for a moment. “Just feck it,” he said finally. “We need to be off.”

At the river’s edge, the fog embraced Rucksack, as if he had slipped into another world, but his voice rang clear and strong. To Jay, it sounded like Rucksack could have ordered the Indian subcontinent to plow into Asia and create the Himalayas.

“You know who I am and why I’m here,” Rucksack said to the fog. “Now enough with the buggerin’ theatricals. Clear off.”

Slowly at first and then in a hurry, the fog thinned and cleared. Jay’s skin warmed in the dawn light.

“Did you really just do that?” Jay asked.

“It would’ve cleared eventually,” Rucksack replied. “But we don’t have time for eventually. There’s a lot you need to know, and we need to get away to do this properly.”

Jay took some rupees from his wallet and tucked the money under a rock at the spot where the boat had been sitting. He stared at the bills, counting in his mind, and then added a few more. “That should more than make up for any temporary distress,” he said, going to the side opposite Rucksack. The murky waters of the Agamuskara wet their ankles as they pushed the small boat into the river.

“I’m glad you’re better,” Rucksack said as he settled in, facing downriver and taking up the oars. Jay stared at the city and set his daypack on the floor of the boat, between his knees.

Rucksack nodded at the pack, but Jay shook his head. “No change in the dia ubh,” he said. “Gray and lifeless as ever.”

Soon they were making a brisk pace with the current. The river’s cool, wet morning air filled Jay’s lungs and soul. “I feel like a new man today,” he said.

“Up for a wee hike?”

“Where are we going?” Jay asked. “And remember, you promised me straight answers.”

“I did at that, didn’t I?” Rucksack grinned. “Right, then. In return, though, I expect you’ll have enough o’ an open mind to accept them. We’re going to a wee place I know. Can’t get there by car. It’d take too long to walk. Hence the boat. Technically, this place is at the city’s northwestern outskirts, but you’d think you were in the middle o’ nowhere. It’s greener, cooler, with a bit o’ small forest and a hill.”

“I saw a hill when I first entered the city,” Jay said. “It was off in the west.”

“That’s the one,” Rucksack said. “I used to go there as a boy. The top o’ the hill is as calm as a pub at dawn. No staring eyes, no listening ears. Just you and me and the world. I’ll tell you all I can there.”

Jay nodded and glanced down at his red t-shirt. An image of the Buddha faced forward while sitting on a small boat and holding a paddle. Above it, in large black letters, were the words, “life is but a dream.” The wooden plank where he sat was hard against Jay’s arse. He shifted around, trying to get comfortable. The boat swayed.

“Take a bit o’ care,” Rucksack said. “You don’t want to fall in.”

“No kidding. Amazes me how dirty this holy river is. Still surprises me how often dirtier means holier.”
 

“Any eejit can dress himself fine and talk about being divine,” Rucksack replied.

“Sounds like Guru Deep and those orange suits of his.”

“A perfect example.” Rucksack snorted. He rowed faster. “If you want to see holy, really holy, you show me someone who’s half in to his last breath, covered in ash and shite, and still shines through all o’ that with a light that makes the world worth keeping on. That’s a trick I don’t think Guru bloody Deep could pull. But it’s all I know o’ holy, and it’s all I know to be worth a damn.” Rucksack eased off the oars. “Sorry. Something got my wind up. No, the main reason I want you to be careful is a river like the Agamuskara is a tricky one. A lad like you falls in, who knows where you’ll wind up.”

“Well, after the river hits the Ganges to the east,” Jay answered, “you’d eventually reach Kolkata and then the Indian Ocean.”

“Physically, sure, that’s how the river flows.”

“Let me guess,” Jay said with a laugh. “There’s an invisible river that flows in a different direction.”

“Right,” Rucksack said. “In one direction. And here I thought I was going to tell you something you didn’t know. The eastern flow is only a physical manifestation of the river. The real Agamuskara, the river behind the river, flows north, up into the Himalayas.”

“I could point out that rivers don’t flow uphill,” Jay said, “but I’ve seen too many weird things over the years, especially since I’ve been here.” He shook his head. “I know what you’re saying shouldn’t be possible, but I also know it’s not possible; it’s actual.”

“It’s a weird one, I’ll grant you that. It’s not the only one either. Other rivers have both their physical course and their actual course. If you followed the Agamuskara’s real course, you’d arrive at a place, way deep, called the Heart o’ the World. Ever hear o’ it?”

“In stories,” Jay replied. “It’s the sort of thing you hear in a hostel common room after everyone’s had a bit beyond their fill of guitar tunes and cheap red wine. People say the Heart of the World’s some sort of Himalayan utopia, where everything is perfect and everyone is happy.”

“Amazing the wisdom that gets passed along as legend,” Rucksack said. “Then again, myth is the best camouflage for the real. Heart o’ the World exists, Jay. It’s where Mum’s from. And when the time came for me to join the world, it’s where I was born.”

“If it’s so perfect, why did Kailash leave?”

“She was among the first with a true wanderlust.” Rucksack smiled with a wistful look in his eyes. “Mum wanted to see the world. She soon learned that the world is not the Heart. In time, I think Mum came to understand that she could not change the world as it was, so she decided to become part o’ the world as it could be. There’s more, o’ course. Much o’ it I hardly understand. She was going to explain.” His voice trailed off.

“But then she was gone.”

“Aye.”

The men said nothing else. Jay watched the city thin out, the buildings getting smaller and sparser as Rucksack rowed. Soon there was no city to see, only small white, squat blocks set back a few meters from the water. Past those, only trees and grasses covered the riverbanks. Yet Jay could sense that somehow they were still in Agamuskara.

The boat bumped against the shore. On the far side of a patch of forest, the lone hill rose high in the morning air. The men hauled the boat out of the water and stowed it against a tree. After a few moments of silent staring, Rucksack smiled. “Right, that’ll stay put. Off we go.”

If there was a path, Jay couldn’t see it but Rucksack clearly could. The weariness of his anywhere face faded with every step over the hard ground, with every breath of the clear air, fresh and moist from the river and the trees growing all around.
It isn’t a forest like home,
Jay thought, recalling the vast woods of the US Northwest, oceans of green stretching beyond what the eye could see. Jay wondered how much of Agamuskara’s forest now existed only in the city’s buildings.

The morning sun wove green and gold through the leaves of the trees, landing warm and alive on Jay’s skin. The silence enfolded him, soothing and relaxing his body and mind.

They were deep in the trees when Jay finally understood why they had come here.

There’s no one else here,
Jay thought.
Seems like the first time in years I’ve been somewhere that hasn’t been packed with people. But now I’m out in the middle of nowhere.

The path soon sloped upward and narrowed. As the trees thinned, Jay saw they were going up the hill. It rose sharp and steep out of the ground, more like a mossy potato standing on end than some gently sloping wave in the earth.

Rucksack looked back at him, saying nothing, but the question in his eyes was clear enough. Jay answered by returning his stare.
Yes, I’m up for it,
Jay thought.
I’m up for anything.

Depending on which part of the world they faced as they wound counter-clockwise up the narrow path, they could see the forest, Agamuskara the river, Agamuskara the city, or the plains that rolled off toward the north.
I’m only separated from all that scenery by not jumbling my feet,
Jay thought, questioning his bravado. But he continued following Rucksack, trying not to fall behind.

The walk had been quiet. Neither man spoke, preferring instead to look out from the hill or down at his feet. The air was still again, warmer as the sun rose higher. The exertion made Jay sweat harder and harder as they climbed the high hill.
We’ve got to be over five hundred feet up by now,
Jay thought as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with a bandanna. As usual, Rucksack seemed dry as a desert.

In shadows on the shady side of the hill, a sound almost like giggling brought a slight coolness, as if the temperature had lowered a degree or two. Near knee level, a thin stream of water trickled out of the earth, making the path damp and muddy.

Rucksack slipped.

His gloved left hand shot out, but the withered hand couldn’t grab onto anything. Losing balance, Rucksack’s legs went out from under him as he spun around. Empty air waited to catch him.

Jay shot forward.

Reached out quickly and desperately, Jay grabbed his friend and pulled him away from the edge. They slammed into the side of the hill, the earth damp in Jay’s face for a moment. The impact made Jay bounce backward. His feet left the ground. The empty air beckoned again.

Great,
he thought.
Is it my turn now?

Rucksack’s arm came up. Both men pressed each other into the damp earth, breathing hard.

“Thank you,” Rucksack said.

“Friends don’t let friends fall off hills,” Jay replied.