Cherry Death Destiny Test: A Rucksack Universe Story: Rucksack Universe

By Anthony St. Clair

Leader first. Grandmother second.

In the heart of the world's largest mountain, a family in exile waits to see if one among them will fulfill a world-shaking destiny… or fall to an early death that dooms the world.

The Rucksack Universe series combines alternate history, speculative fiction, myth, adventure, globetrotting, and intrigue—all with well-poured pints of beer. Library Journal says Anthony St. Clair's storytelling has "universe building reminiscent of Terry Pratchett," and readers say they love the Rucksack Universe's unique combination of "quirk, wit, travel, and magic."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony St. Clair
• Release date: Jan 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781940119311

Anthony St. Clair

Anthony St. Clair creates compelling fiction and non-fiction for a curious world full of everyday discoveries, endeavors, and surprises. He is the author of the ongoing Rucksack Universe series; covers craft beer, food, business, and more for various publications; and is a copywriter and content manager for select clients. When not at his desk or in his kitchen in Oregon, Anthony is on an adventure with his wife, son, and daughter.

Book preview

Cherry Death Destiny Test

Cherry Death Destiny Test

A Rucksack Universe Story

Anthony St. Clair

Rucksack Press

Contents

1. The Tree in the Mountain

2. Final Moments

3. The Choice

4. The Second Test

5. The Unreturned Road

6. The Room Below

7. Fire in the Night

Thank You for Reading

Become a Wanderer

Also by Anthony St. Clair

Acknowledgments

Special Features

Sneak Peek

About the Author

All this life may be a dream, but even in dream we can find something true: The path to true purpose must pass through death.

---

—Guru Deep, Travels Through the Third Eye

1

The Tree in the Mountain

In the low light at the bottom of the broken hollow mountain, she held the shallow, brimless, brown earthen drinking bowl and waited. The cherry tree waited too. Her companion in life. Her accomplice in death. She was one of the few here, in the mountain they called the Heart of the World, but the tree was the only one of its kind to grow in this part of the world. Just like her, the tree longed for this day above all others, the day of midsummer, the day of longest life. The day of yes or no, such that they had not seen for centuries.

The others, the few dozens who had lived here for millennia with her and her husband, they knew what the day brought too. Normally their rich voices echoed off the mountain’s ceiling as they went about their daily labors and studies. Today, though, only she labored, and the unusual morning silence was so deep and strange that it had its own empty resonance.

She wished she could let herself sing. Their songs of the heart could lighten any fear. But that was also why she couldn’t sing. What was to come demanded that she accept the fear. She had to walk in its horrible fullness, not try to diminish the darkness that lay opposite the light. Once the light stopped growing and began to fade, it would be time for the breathless darkness, for the question whose answer she had already seen too many times to bear remembering.

For a moment she closed her brown-and-black eyes, feeling without sight for the heartbeat of the young man. Her grandson’s first labor was to climb the endless mountain outside. If he had not died yet, he should be nearly at the top of the mountain by now.

She sought, and sought. But as there was only silence inside, she did not find him.

It’s a big mountain, that’s all. So many places to seek—

Nothing.

She opened her eyes, and they trembled.

All for naught? Already?

Then she felt the thump. Strong and steady.

She smiled. Exhaled.

He continued.

So far.

She rested her golden-brown, smooth-but-worn hand on the trunk, its grayish-brown bark somehow still brighter than her own brilliant white robe. She hoped the tree would give her some of its steady patience. And maybe let her leave behind at least a little of her own fear. It would be a kind exchange, similar to how the mountain had let them in,