Page 136 of The Surviving Sky
Images of trees grew out of the lines, a garden, woods, then an entire jungle.
More lines settled into tiny human beings, a hundred thousand of them, heads, shoulders, eyes, a whole civilization growing in the jungle on the wall.
The pictures ran deeper into the dimly lit tunnel.
Exchanging another glance with Iravan, Ahilya began to follow. Behind her she heard his careful tread.
The light shifted on the carvings the deeper they went, as though the sun were rising and setting over and over again.It’s passage of time, Ahilya thought.That’s what the dust is trying to tell us. The people changed, more and more of them within the wall’s jungle. Babies were born, they grew older, they lived, they died. The jungle flourished, still and calm, almost unnaturally so, and animals within it cavorted and hunted. Ahilya recognized the shapes of the strange creatures, elephants and tigers and other such lost beings.
“I-Iravan,” she stuttered. “I think these pictures depict our history. The history of our civilization.”
Her husband’s eyes grew wide. He nodded mutely, illuminated by his own light, a mere step behind her.
“I think,” she said, as the people began to tame the jungle. “I think this was a time before trajection, before earthrages themselves. A time before yakshas at all. When our ancestors lived in the jungle, in ashrams that weren’t dependent on architects.”
Her heart raced in her chest. Her mind seemed unable to comprehend this. Therehadbeen a time before earthrages, then. She had been right all along. All the histories she had ever read had erased this era, but if the dust’s projection was true, then earthrages had been an unnatural phenomenon. What could have caused those storms? Surely, not the yakshas like she and Iravan had thought; there were no yakshas depicted. Ahilya moved forward faster, almost jogging in her haste, her hand on the wall.
She stopped as the images changed.
Under the miniature people within the pictures, the jungle suddenly roiled.
The people scrambled, ran, died. Trees and branches broke, impaling bodies, whipping heads away. Dust balloons blew over the earth, smashing into little huts.
“Here,” she whispered. “The first earthrage. But why did it begin? Whatcausedit?”
From one picture to the next, the jungle creatures changed, became monstrous. There seemed to be no transition; in one image, the creatures were their old selves; in the next, they were transformed. A tiger, but not a truetiger—insteada massive yaksha shaped like one, a purposefulness to its stance. An elephant, but not a true elephant, instead ayaksha—lookingso like the one she had tagged but for the intelligence on its face that was almost human. Rings glinted around the creatures’ eyes in an indication of Ecstatic trajection.
“They—evolvedfrom true jungle creatures,” Ahilya said softly. The light of realization shone bright in her head. “I think it was the earthrages that precipitated their change. But it wasn’tevolution—notin the slow way of evolving. Itwas…a spark. An instant transformation. Rages, I never believed that was possible. Then that picture in the book was right. It wasn’t a slow maturation. The architect histories are right about this.”
Iravan’s fingers scrabbled for hers. She squeezed his hand but didn’t stop moving.
“If these animals morphed into yakshas that could traject,” Ahilya murmured, “then it must be around the same time thatwelearned trajection.”
On the wall, the pictures confirmed her theory. Instead of being crushed by the trees, some people began to control the foliage, spinning blue-green webs of stars. Far away from the humans, the yakshas disappeared, hidden by the foliage, mere shapes in the background.
Iravan made a choking sound in his throat. “Our history. Our—my—true history. The first people to traject.”
“I think the earthragesgavehumans their trajection somehow,” Ahilya replied, recalling the discussion the both of them had with Dhruv and Naila so long ago around her kitchen table. “We talked about that inNakshar—thattrajection and the earthrages are inherently related. Maybe it was a balance in nature. The earthrages gave us their storms but also gave architects their powers.”
“Architects,” Iravan murmured. “And the yakshas.”
Ahilya nodded vaguely but kept moving. She stopped at another picture. One face stood out among the architects, a young girl, appearing no older than ten, as though the artist who was sculpting the rock had decided to pay attention to her face. The girl spun a hundred stars together, unleashed her constellation lines, and more foliage grew in the jungle. Around her, the shapes of non-architects cheered.
“This girl,” Ahilya said. “Iravan, hertrajection—”
“It’s too complex,” he breathed back. “I don’t think I could do it now.”
The girl appeared younger than most beginner architects. Yet thattrajection…In the moving pictures, Ahilya detected a complexity of patterns on the girl’s skin that she’d never seen on an architect.
Iravan nudged her and she moved along again. More architects appeared on the walls, their skins blue-green. Again, there was a single clear face, this time a man. Ahilya tightened her hold on Iravan as they hastened through the tunnel.
More walled ashrams grew on the walls. The jungle churned, more and more frequent, yet always a single face appeared clearest, sometimes a woman, sometimes a man, other times undefined. Light shifted, and Ahilya knew she was seeing another passage of time. The rages grew, and more architects appeared, spinning webs out of stars; more civilians, attending to matters of civilization within the ashrams.
Ahilya glanced at Iravan. “I think there is confirmation here of what we studied in Nakshar. For as long as there have been earthrages, they have been growing in length and frequency. A consistent pattern but not a linear one.”
He said nothing, just gripped her hand harder.
Ahilya turned back to the wall, keeping pace with the forming pictures. Her heart beat a tattoo in her chest. Somewhere, she knew she ought to be recording this experience for posterity, but the thought was distant; she could barely keep up with the wonder of this instant.
