Page 135 of The Surviving Sky
Iravan nodded. Both arms in front of him, he began to shape the dust, connecting one to another almost in the manner of connecting constellation lines. Here, he was a real-life mote and the green sparkles were stars.
Structures started to form around them, arches and pillars and galleries along the perimeter. The copse transformed into an intricate hall. With each new form the green dust took, Iravan moved faster up the mountainous path of clarity in the Etherium.
He could feel it; understanding was imminent.
The tattoos on his skin grew more vivid. As though he had always known it, the markings of an architect suddenly made perfect sense.
When he had trajected all his life before, vines had grown on his skin because he had only trajected the possibilities of plants. With this trajection, he shifted pure possibility, and so his tattoos spiraled like dust coalescing. The subject of trajection determined the imprint on the architect. Why had they never considered that before? What did it mean for the winged tattoos, then? Had he been trajecting the falcon-yaksha somehow? But if the yakshas were architects, perhaps he was the onebeingtrajected? Perhaps he and the yaksha had trajected each othersimultaneously. What, then,wastrajection?
He jerked as a weight pulled at him.
Iravan glanced down at his waist where he’d felt the rope tug, then looked behind him to Ahilya. She supported herself against a pillar, staring beyond him to the vast complex he had created. Her eyes rose to the top, where a shimmering green ceiling grew in the shape of a dome.
On the mountainous path, Iravan sprinted now, rocks tumbling, shards of earth chipping as he reached ever closer to understanding. He shifted the dust, and the floor under Ahilya rippled, bringing her close to him again.
“How are you doing this?” she asked.
“Ecstasy—it’ssimilar in many ways to trajection,” he said, excitement rising in his voice. “But all ofthis—Ecstasyandtrajection—it’salways been a method midway between an idea and an action. It’s as though I were asking the dust a question and it created all of this to answer me. I’mcommunicatingwith it, Ahilya. In the ashrams, they have a simplistic understanding of what trajectionis—mereplant manipulation. But I suppose true trajection is more akin to communication. Through constellation lines, we suggest a form to the stars of the Moment, and the plants fulfill it in the ashram’s architecture. And that’s what I’m doing now.”
“If you can communicate with it, then you can change it,” she said. “We could save the ashrams. We could save ourselves.”
A jolt of excitement rushed through Iravan. “We’re very nearly there,” he said. “Hold on.”
He joined his hands, then broke the hold. A circular descending ramp unearthed itself by their feet, the dust settling. Iravan gripped Ahilya’s hand and led the way down. On the mountain path, he raced toward the peak, to his clarity and destination.
45
AHILYA
Ahilya followed Iravan down the earthy ramp. His hand felt warm in hers, too warm, like he was on fire. She thought abstractedly of his waking in this strange place. If it weren’t for the blue-green light that sparkled through the foliage, the architecture could have been Nakshar. If it weren’t for his unnatural warmth, Iravan could have beenherIravan.
She gripped him tighter.He’s still mine, she thought. This place had changed him, made him a part of itself in some insidious way, but hadn’t she changed too? Her senses seemed more alert yet somehow quiescent. The green dust swirled around her, and she took a deep breath, aware it was dissipating. Beyond its limits, the earthrage roared. The storm was coming for them, and her heart beat rapidly in sudden terror. Ahilya discerned at the edge of her awareness a building panic, but it was gone in a blink, almost like a memory of a significant dream, tucked behind the diminishing security of this place. She and Iravan climbed down the last section of the ramp, hand in hand. They gazed at where they had emerged, spellbound.
The staircase ended in a tunnel, its ceilings so low that the earthy top almost brushed Iravan’s head. The walls were too narrow to walk side-by-side anymore, and the light was dimmer. They waited at the foot of the staircase, letting their eyes adjust. Ahilya could almost make out something on the walls, moving,shifting…
Her eyes adjusted the instant her mind articulated the thought.
Carvings.
She exchanged a nervous look with Iravan, then preceded him into the tunnel.
Intricate carvings, all lines and spiral patterns, covered the tunnel walls, hewn directly into the rock. As Ahilya approached, the carvings shifted like displaced ink. Curiosity and wonder blossomed in the same part of her mind where panic fluttered. The lines and spirals on the rock undulated, reminding Ahilya of the holograms in the solar lab, reminding her of the book Iravan had given her. Pain grew at the thought of Dhruv and Nakshar, then receded to a corner, keeping company with her nervousness and panic.
“Areyoudoing this?” she whispered.
“I—Ithink so,” Iravan replied, just as softly.
“But you didn’t physically build this now.”
“I didn’t have to before, either. I’m still learning.I—Iasked for understanding right now, for a solution to what is happening to me. These carvings must be the dust’s answer.”
“But these images don’t make any sense.”
“I—Idon’t know what else to try.”
Ahilya gently disengaged from him. She reached her fingers forward tentatively.
The moment she touched the rock, the carvings began to resolve.
