A Beggar’s Kingdom

“I’m tired of your mocking nonsense.”

“No, no, you’re fine,” Devi said. “Get going. When noon comes, and the blue shaft opens, just send in the backpack by itself to find her. Because there will be room for only one of you. But the bag’s got everything, so it should go.”

“Why can’t I throw the backpack in and then jump after it?”

“I don’t know why you can’t. But as I recall from your story, last time you got stuck. What happens if the backpack gets stuck, and you can’t get to it?”

“Why are you always such a downer? It’s no to everything.”

“I’m the only one in your life who said yes to you about the most important thing,” Devi said, “and here you are whining that I haven’t said yes to enough other things? No to the backpack, Julian. Yes to eternal life.”

“If I can’t bring a backpack, can I bring a friend?” a defeated Julian asked. He would convince Ashton to go with him. He wasn’t ready to part with his friend.

“I don’t know. Does he love her?”

“No, but …” Julian mulled. “Maybe I can be like Nightcrawler. Anything that touches me goes with me.”

“You don’t impress me with your comic-book knowledge,” Devi said. “I don’t know who Nightcrawler is. What if there’s time for only one of you to jump in? You get left behind in this world, and your friend’s stuck in the Cave of Despair without you?”

“I’ll go first, then.”

“And abandon him trapped in a cave without you? Nice.”

But isn’t that what Julian was about to do, abandon Ashton, without a word, without a goodbye? Guilt pinched him inside, made his body twist. “Cave of Despair? I thought you said Q’an Doh meant Cave of Hope?”

“Despair and hope is almost the same word in your language and my language and any language,” Devi said. “In French, hope is l’espoir and despair is désespoir. Literally means the loss of hope. In Italian hope is di speranza. And despair is di disperazione. In Vietnamese one is hy vong and the other is tuyet vong. With hope, without hope. It all depends on your inclination. Which way are you inclined today, Julian Cruz?”

Julian admitted that today, on the brink of another leap through time, despite the remorse over Ashton, he was inclined to hope. “In English, hope and despair are separate words.”

Devi tasted his homemade kimchi, shrugged, and added to it some more sugar and vinegar. “The English borrowed the word despair from the French, who borrowed it from Latin, in which it means down from hope.”

“What about the Russians? You have no idea about them, do you?”

“What do you mean?” Devi said calmly. “In Russian, despair is otchayanyie. And chai is another word for hope. All from the same source, Julian, despite your scorn.”

Julian sat and watched Devi’s back as the compact sturdy man continued to adjust the seasonings on his spicy cabbage. Julian had grown to love kimchi. “What does the name of the cave actually mean?”

“Q’an Doh,” Devi replied, “means Red Faith.”

Julian wanted to bring a zip line—a cable line, two anchors, and a pulley—strong enough to hold a man.

Devi groaned for five minutes, head in hands, chanting oms and lordhavemercies, before he replied. “The anchor hook must be thrown over the precipice. Can you throw that far, and catch it on something that won’t break apart when you put your two hundred pounds on it?”

“Calm down, I’m one seventy.” He had gained thirty of his grief-lost pounds back.

“Okay, light heavyweight,” Devi said. “Keep up the nonstop eating before you grab that pulley. You won’t beat the cave. It’ll be a death slide.”

“You don’t know everything,” Julian said irritably.

“I liked you better last year when you were a babe in the woods, desperate and ignorant. Now you’re still desperate, but unfortunately you know just enough to kill yourself.”

“Last year I was freezing and unprepared, thanks to you!”

“So bring the zip line if you’re so smart,” Devi said. “What are you asking me for? Bring a sleeping bag. An easy-to-set-up nylon tent. I’d also recommend a bowl and some cutlery. You said they didn’t have forks in Elizabethan England. So BYOF—bring your own fork.”

Silently, they appraised each other.

“Listen to me.” Devi put down his cleaver and his cabbage. “I know what you’re doing. In a way, it’s admirable. But don’t you understand that you must rediscover what you’re made of when you go back in? The way you must discover her anew. You don’t know who she is or where she’ll be. You don’t know if you still want her. You don’t know if you believe. Nothing else will help you but the blind flight of faith before the moongate. If you make it across, you’ll know you’re ready. That is how you’ll know you’re a servant not just of the dead and the living, but also of yourself. Will a pole vault help you with that? Will a zip line? Will a contraption of carabiners and hooks and sliding cables bring you closer to what you must be, Julian Cruz?”

Julian’s shoulders slumped. “You’ve been to the gym with me. You’ve seen me jump. No matter how fast I run and leap, I can’t clear ten feet.”

“And yet somehow,” Devi said, “without knowing how depressingly limited you are, you still managed to fly.”

The little man was so exasperating.

A pared-down Julian brought a headlamp, replacement batteries, replacement bulbs and three (count them, three) waterproof flashlights, all Industrial Light and Magic bright. He had a shoemaker braid the soft rawhide rope of his necklace tightly around the rolled-up red beret. Now her beret was a coiled leather collar at the back of his neck, under his ponytail. The crystal hung at his chest. Julian didn’t want to worry about losing either of them again.

“Do you have any advice for me, wise man?” It was midnight, the day before the equinox.

“Did you say goodbye to your friend?”

Julian’s body tightened before he spoke. “No. But we spent all Sunday together. We had a good day. Do you have his cell number?”

The cook shook his head. “You worry about all the wrong things, as always.” Conflict wrestled on Devi’s inscrutable face. “Count your days,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“Why do you always ask me to repeat the simplest things? Count your days, Julian.”

“Why?”

“You wanted advice? There it is. Take it. Or leave it.”

“Why?”

“You’re such a procrastinator. Go get some sleep.”

Julian was procrastinating. He was remembering being alone in the cave.

“Go catch that tiger, Wart,” Devi said, his voice full of gruff affection. “In the first part of your adventure, you had to find out if you could pull the sword out of the stone. You found out you could. In the second part, hopefully you’ll meet your queen of light and dark—and also learn the meaning of your lifelong friendship with the Ill-Made Knight.”

“What about my last act?”

“Ah, in the last act, you might discover what power you have and what power you don’t. What a valuable lesson that would be. After doing what he thinks is impossible, man remembers his limitations.”

“Who in their right mind would want that,” Julian muttered. “I hope you’re right, and Gertrude Stein is wrong.”

“That wisecracking old Gertrude,” said the cook. “All right, let’s have it. What did she say?”