Page 26 of The Surviving Sky
The bark snapped. Ahilya kicked and jerked, shards piercing her skin. She crawled out and pushed through the churning wind, against the dust and the jungle. Iravan extended both fists toward her. He was blazing so brightly that Oam’s eyes were shut against his light. The nest creaked, became smaller.
Ahead of Ahilya, a path opened, one step at a time. She swiped her knife with one hand, cutting and slashing at roots that grabbed her, at the vines that flew at her face. She was almost at the orb.
Then Oam reached his arm out. He hauled her in and she slammed into him. The two of them sprawled, limbs entangled, and the nest tightened. The ground shook, and this time the tremor was audible, a roar from deep within the earth.
The nest bucked high in the air. Ahilya flew, slammed against Oam, their heads knocking together, blinding pain, landed hard. Iravan, standing steady in the center of the nest, arms extended, yelled, “Brace.”
A tree trunk filled Ahilya’s vision through the gaps in the nest. It slammed against them, once, twice, thrice. Oam was screaming, she was screaming, and then.
Silence.
The nest floated down gently, back to the forest floor.
Ahilya’s terror was reflected in Oam’s eyes. The jungle had stilled. Every plant, every root, unmoving, as though dead.
Oam’s breathing reverberated around them, panicked and shallow.“I…Is that it?”
“No,” Iravan replied. “It’s just beginning.”
“N-Nakshar?” Ahilya gasped. “Is it still there? Are they still here?” She rubbed her citizen ring, but it was quiet, though her sungineering locket still chimed softly.
“I don’t know,” Iravan said. “But we have to believe they waited. It’s our only chance.” The trajecting light on his skin brightened. “Hold on. I’m going to roll us out of here.”
Ahilya grabbed the branches and squeezed her eyes shut.
8
IRAVAN
Nothing happened. The magnaroot nest didn’t move. It didn’t roll away.
Iravan was suspended in a nightmare. The stillness was more chilling than anything he had experienced.
In his split vision, his constellation lines thrashed like snakes, refusing to lock in to the magnaroot. Iravan held on, bearing the weight of his existence on the star. It fought back, and for a second the force of their opposing desires made the nestthrumwith agitation. Ahilya gasped, and Oam yelped, and then they were all screaming. Iravan’s teeth burned; his bones shook through his skin. A stabbing pain reverberated through his arms and chest. The magnaroot whipped and fought, live-wire, red-hot pain, more alive than any plant he had ever trajected.
Iravan released a few constellation lines. The magnaroot nest shook one last time, then stilled, content to be shaped like a nest for now but to do little else.
“What was that?” Oam gasped.
Iravan’s breath came out in short gasps. Trajection in the wild jungle was known to be harder than in a tame ashram, but he had never felt such opposition to his guidance before. It was as though the magnaroot were more than just a plant, like it had the sentient consciousness of a complex being.
Outside, trees began to shudder and wave.
Another tremor shook the nest. It rose jerkily into the air. Ahilya and Oam shrieked. Iravan’s stomach lurched. They crashed into a massive tree trunk and bounced, vision skewed, upside down, bile rising, and then a gentle roll. The nest landed far from where it had been.
Hold on, Iravan tried to say, but he couldn’t form the words. A bone-deep exhaustion weighed him down, but he flew through the Moment, frantically examining and discarding possibilities, even as the other two righted themselves. Should he release the magnaroot and search for teak or ironwood? No, too late; there was no time to look. Should he dissolve the nest and create armor? No, any armor would be crushed as soon as the first wave of the earthrage hit. His heart sank.
“What are you doing?” Oam squeaked. “Why are we just waiting here?”
Iravan tried again. In his first vision, he saw himself as Oam and Ahilya did, feet dug into the crisscross of the nest, fists gripping branches, head bent in exhaustion. His skin glowed blindingly as trajection tattoos articulated themselves in complex fractals.
In his second vision, he approached the magnaroot star, wielding his constellation lines like a hundred whips, hunting for an opening to latch them.
The star anticipated him before he could decide his move. It expanded in his second vision, crashing into his mind, leaving him no time even to gasp.
His Two Visions merged.
At that instant, Iravan felt true terror.
