Page 130 of The Surviving Sky
But nothing happenedfor…she did not know how long. Time was meaningless here. It could have been minutes or days or years. Iravan did not wake, and the copse did not change. She tried her sungineering devices, but they didn’t work. She tried to rouse him, but when she pulled his eyelids open, his pupils were rolled back. Whatever this sleep was, it was not natural. She ate most of her food, though she wasn’t hungry; she drank all of her water, though thirst didn’t trouble her. In restless desperation, shewatchedthe sentient grass, but when she looked too closely, it merely waved in and out of its light-shifting form, becoming nothing more than the sparkling green dust.
That green dust was everywhere.
The dust was related to Ecstatic trajection somehow, she knew. The architecture had chosen to present itself to her as acopse—thevery copse she and Iravan had once foughtin—mostlikely to provide her with familiarity. It was anticipating her, of course. Somehow, it had tapped into her memory and desire. It must have a system like Nakshar’s archival designs, something like the rudratree—butany thought of Nakshar weighed Ahilya down with guilt.You’re perfect for each other, Dhruv said; and Tariya stared at her,You’re leaving me too. Ahilya buried her head in her hands, shaking while the memories consumed her.
She spoke her regrets out loud, to her husband.
Once or twice, she cried.
But Iravan did not wake.
And Ahilya did not sleep.
She had tried, but her body didn’t seem to need it. Instead, she was left with her doomed mind in a unique state of torture.
Once, driven by restlessness, she unwound the rope that Dhruv had given her. She tied one end to Iravan’s waist and the other to her own. Then, kissing Iravan’s lips, she set out into the green dust. She wandered for a thousand steps, until she asked for a way out. Then the dust dissipated.
Beyond it, the unearthly face screamed, snapping and attacking.
It was the earthrage, ubiquitous and pervasive.
Ahilya stumbled back, tripping over her own feet. Flecks of dust flew at her; a thousand branches ground together like bones gnashing. Her stomach seized and wind pulled her hair in all directions. She gripped her rope and tugged herself back until she was surrounded by the green dust again.
“There’s no way out,” she reported to Iravan. “As long as we’re in this dust, we’re safe, but beyond there is only death, there is only the earthrage, no matter what direction I go in.”
Iravan remained still, breathing his slow breaths. He was warm to the touch, much warmer than he had been when she’d first found him, almost as warm as her own skin. She studied him, the angles of his dark, handsome face, the way his thick salt-and-pepper hair fell over his forehead. She caressed his cheek and it was smooth under herfingers—
“Why don’t you need a shave?” she asked him. “And why don’t I need food or water or sleep?”
His chest rose in a deep inhale. The day she had discovered him, she had not noticed his breathing or felt his warmth, but now it seemed that his chest rose and fell in time with her own. Either her body had adapted somehow to this place or his condition had changed.
“I think the dust is trajectingus,” she said, answering her own question. “I think it’s somehow manipulating my senses, trajecting our very bodies.”
It made sense to her. She had been hurt in her orb’s crash, but there were no signs of injury. Her bark cast had broken of its own accord, disappeared into dust, and Ahilya could use her arm again. Iravan must have been hurt too, but his body was unscarred except for the dark welts he had gained in the expedition so many weeks before. Those had become a part of him since their escape from the jungle. There didn’t seem to be an escape now. Had there been an escape for Nakshar? Were Tariya and the boys and Dhruv alive?
“I tried again,” she told Iravan. “To look for a way out. But a hundred steps in, the earthrage appeared again. I think time stands still in this copse, my love, but the earthrage is inches away, outside the dust. I don’t think the dust can fight it for very long. I don’t think we have more time. I haven’t seen a single yaksha. Perhaps they sense this place is deteriorating. Perhaps it’s time for us to leave too.”
Iravan exhaled, unmoving. His dark skin glowed faintly blue-green. Ahilya watched him, unsurprised. He had always been bathed in the light of trajection since she had found him there in the copse. Her sight had merely adjusted to it now.
“Some of Airav’s rudra beads broke today,” she said one time. Necklaces had shattered, the black beads falling to the ground. Ahilya had searched for them but had found none in the strange grass. “I think it’s a sign. Something terrible has happened to the rudra tree. To Nakshar. Something I am to blame for.”
She had condemned them all to death with her decision.You would hold the entire ashram hostage?She had killed Dhruv and Tariya, Kush and Arth. She had killed herself and her child, all the citizens of Nakshar.
“If you were really here,” Ahilya said, stroking Iravan’s hair, “you would tell me I should have stayed back. I’d argue, and we’d fight, but in the dark, you’d tell me you wanted me to be safe, and I’d tell you the same. And you’d shake your head and say there could never be a victor between us, and I would tell you that none of it was ever really a game.”
Iravan’s eyes flickered behind closed lids.
He slept his deep sleep.
“I wonder if this is how we’ll die,” she said, softly, touching his lips. “You wereright—ourcivilization could never live here. If we did, would we even be humans anymore? Perhaps the architecture creates us just as much as we create it. Andthis—wehave had no part in this, surely. This habitat is dying. I only walked fifty steps before I saw the earthrage today.”
Iravan’s fingers curled and moved a fraction.
She watched as he breathed deeply again.
Her guilt had replaced her heart, beating against her chest. She stroked his cheek, ran her hands through his hair.
“We’ve made so many mistakes. But you must know how much I love you. You must see how bad we are for each other. Who else would be here but the two of us? This was always our destiny. We were always each other’s completion, each other’s ruin.”
