Page 28 of The Surviving Sky
They thought in horror of what they were doing, what they were becoming. But the horror was fleeting.
Veins ripped apart, leaves decaying into mulch, and the dispersion of precious, precious seeds. Dimly, they thought they had become the magnaroot for a purpose. But there was no other purpose except survival. Survival of their kind; for them, it meant death.
They smiled through bloody teeth. The consciousness of the jungle assaulted them. It rose under the earth like a crescendo, waves upon waves of destruction. A million screams erupted in their mind, faces warped in fright, rushing toward them, hungry eyes, regretful mouths.
They knew how they had been able to fight themselves so deftly.
The star wasn’t just their state of being. It was the possibility of the jungle, the possibility of life. Each frozen star, each discrete state was an illusion. When an architect trajected, he only created images to comprehend and navigate the universe, but the Moment was not a motionless reality. It was a furious storm.
I am he, they realized.I am an architect. Iravan. For an instant, his Two Visions separated. They glimpsed him roaring in agony, Ahilya and Oam watching horrified, but then all was as it should be, and they were the magnaroot again.
Holding the line, merged irrevocably, they watched the Moment hurtle to them. It wasn’t the existence of a single plant. It was the pause of the jungle, of the entire planet. The immensity ofit…They felt it in every slap of a branch, in every tear of the bark. They were the jungle. And the jungle was poised toward one possibility, aimed at a single intent: annihilation.
They sobbed softly.
Embedded in the Moment, they could see what would happen. His right arm would be ripped off, head smashed in, and they’d be aware of his own death in horrified eternity. They could feel his panic and terror from the future, from far away.
Let it be over soon, he thought.
The Resonance flickered, silvery molten.
It flashed like mercury behind their eyes, and they jerked and reached for it.
The Moment winked out.
An eternal fall.
Then blindness.
***
Recognition.
He smelled flesh burning; it was his own. He was descending.We did it, he thought. And then, immediately,This was a mistake.
It was too late now. He had separated.
A call, like the rhythms of his own heart.
Drifting away to eternal loneliness.
Birth.
***
There was screaming, but it seemed far away.
His Two Visions separated, but not in the simultaneous way of trajection. Instead, his visions expanded, enhanced into something greater.
A terrifying sensitivity overwhelmed him. Iravansawfor the first time in his life. The magnaroot was a speck, and suddenly its desire to self-destruct was laughable in his power.
He reached into the Moment with precision and crushed the magnaroot star. The nest fell limp, ready to obey.
Why had it been so difficult before?
A part of him knew the horror of what he had done, the unreality, its implications. Then the horror disappeared. He was a mountain and these tiny consciousnesses were insignificant.
Iravan stopped screaming.
