Read Online Forever the Road (A Rucksack Universe Fantasy Novel) by Anthony St. Clair - Free Book Online Page A

weighed him down more than the pack and the fatigue. When she’d first come outside, three pints on her tray, one look had washed away every bump, bruise, exhaustion, and hardship of the day. Of the last three days. Of the last five years. Both calmness and excitement had settled over Jay, as his gaze caught her blue-and-gold eyes. Now, their second encounter bewildered him. The air had all but crackled between them. And the brush of their hands? His skin still tingled. This day has been strange in so many ways, he thought, but maybe it will make more sense once I’ve slept. He trudged up the steps, trying to put Jade, Jigme, Rucksack, everything out of his mind.
    When he got to the door of the dorm room, Jay listened a moment before opening it. Loud arguments, loud hangovers, loud attacks of food poisoning, louder sex, and some particularly loud masturbation had all taught him never to open a hostel dorm door quickly.
    Not so much as a snore. Maybe my luck is changing.
    Jay opened the door and sighed. Not that he’d expected better. Cheap hostels were always packed, and most backpackers felt lucky to be able to lie on their backs. Still, Jay had hoped to be able to turn over in his bed and not bang his shoulder on the bunk above him. Judging by the number of made beds to big packs and general let’s-spread-out-a-bit clutter, the dorm was only half-full.
    Thank goodness it’s not full-on tourist season.
    Inside the room, Jay counted two rows each of three sets of bunk beds. There was bed space for twelve. The door opened at the long end of the room, and the beds stretched off toward a short wall at the other end, with a doorway cut into it. Backpacks, clothes, and various effects of six travelers covered beds, walls, and floors, but their travelers were nowhere to be seen. They were probably out seeing the fire temples, buying silk, noshing on street foods, and wandering the streets of Agamuskara. They’d be checking out the locals, talking with the locals, and maybe, for a moment in their hearts, feeling like they were locals. Good for them , Jay thought. At least for now I can get some quiet sleep.
    Right across from the door, the first row of beds had an empty bottom bunk in the middle. Dogs pee to claim territory. Backpackers just set down their stuff.
    The air didn’t smell too rank or stale—a good sign that no one was terribly unkempt, habitually hung over, or regretting eating that dodgy curry last night. However, he would understand if his dorm-mates were all crazy. The green of the cinderblock walls was mint gone wrong, neon past its prime, a bucket of paint rejected by a prison. Stark shadows scrabbled around the walls, making them foreboding and slightly psychedelic. Three bare bulbs hung from the ceiling like travelers who’d stayed in the room too long. Yellow light dribbled like an incontinent cow.
    In the middle of the far wall, a thin door opened to the lone loo, and Jay’s bladder pulled him toward it. The budget for building materials must have run low, Jay thought as he groped for a light.
    In the dim glow from the dorm room he could make out the squat toilet, a concrete pad with a rough oval hole cut in it, surrounded by what looked like a dirt floor. After spending so many years on the road, Jay didn’t think twice about squat toilets, though he still shuddered at the memory of the toilet at the other base camp, its stalagmite of frozen poo rising from the hole.
    Then he realized why this toilet bothered him. This is the third story of the building, Jay thought. So how is the floor dirt?
    Waving his hand high and in front of him, he finally caught the thin string of the light’s pull cord. The heavy light of the bare bulb must have been carefully calibrated to look exactly like urine.  
    Jay looked down. Roaches glared back at him, but they ran from his feet as Jay stepped forward.
    As he released the stout and water from the day, a roach crawled up onto the rim of the toilet hole. Something