Page 143 of The Surviving Sky
You will become broken too, Iravan thought, anguish in his heart. He gathered his constellation lines to him, hunting for grooves in the stars to embed them.
That is your arrogance, Iravan replied.It was our arrogance, too.
He rammed his constellation lines into the stars, even as the being behind the earthrage pushed. His lines shattered again, before he had truly begun.
Iravan gasped, nausea rising. The Resonance dulled, its silvery flaps slower. The Moment was not its true place; the universe constricted the Resonance. The falcon belonged in the Deepness, for Ecstasy was its natural state. To be here, assistinghim—thefalcon-yaksha was weakening, forced into a cage where its powers were limited. They could not do this forever.
Stop, Iravan thought desperately at the rift.You will forget yourselves. You do not know the pain.
, the being said,
Please—
Iravan had no more warning.
The being attacked.
One instant, the Etherium was showing him what he must do to end the earthrage; the next, it reflected his own consciousness. A small maze of stars which were Iravan’s own possibilities, connected through constellation lines that his choices had wrought.
Iravan stopped in the Moment, shock arresting him.
In his third vision, the Etherium flickered, and he saw that the being was right.
He was broken.
Theywere broken.
His own consciousness and that of the falcon-yaksha consumed theEtherium—butthere were no complete mazes here, no clean lines.
Instead, the constellation lines were weak. Iravan had built those with his choices through several unknown lifetimes, throughincompletion.
He had a second’s glimpse of the cosmic being enter his own consciousness,and—
The reality of Iravan’s own existence unraveled as the cosmic creature attacked him with the might of the earthrage. Stars winked out in his consciousness.
In his second vision, Iravan hovered as a dust mote in the Moment, paralyzed in shock. In his first vision, he floated in the vortex, eyes glassy, mouth open in slow horror. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t do anything.
The being ripped him apart.
Iravan’s mind
EXPLODED
Scattered images came to him
the rudra tree
Nakshar
the scent of sandalwood
The being crashed through the lines, unraveling his connections.
Possibilities collapsed from his future
