Page 72 of The Surviving Sky
The window overlooking the playground shuttered into stony bark. The walls, ceiling, and floor hardened. Leaves, phosphorescence, and delicate jasmines disappeared along with the tiny glowglobes; the alcove became armor-like. Iravan was plunged into immediate gloom. He jumped to his feet in fright.
His mind raced. A dozen thoughts chased each other.
This was spiralweed. It wasn’t allowed in the ashram. A single leaf could destroy Nakshar. Sabotage? Same as the Resonance? What could he do? He wasn’t supposed to traject. Trajection would worsen the situation. Spiralweedgorgedon trajection. It first attacked where the power was weakest. That’s why the sungineering lights had disappeared. The next would be the rudrabea—
Iravan gasped. He reached to tap at his bracelets to alert the Disc, but a thin vein had whipped out of the bubbling mass to wrap around his arms before he could move. More cords darted out, binding his legs, his feet, climbing up his chest, strangling his neck.
He choked, his eyes bulging. The spiralweed lifted him clean off the floor. His body arched, the cords pulling him back.
His panicked eyes darted around the alcove. The spiralweed had grown monstrous, its thick tentacles writhing all over the alcove’s walls and ceiling. It would break through the alcove’s paltry defense in seconds.The children, Iravan thought in horror.The children in the library. In the Moment, the stars were surely winking out. Destroyed forever like he had destroyed the magnaroot. Why weren’t the Maze Architects doing anything? Whatcouldthey do?
Choking, he flexed his forearms and twitched his fingers, trying to tap on a rudra bead bracelet or his citizen ring, but the vine only tightened and jerked him back, throttling him. No one heard his muffled cry of agony.
One by one, thin tentacles reached underneath his kurta to his rudra beads, snapping the bracelets and necklaces and ring. Black beads fell to the floor, snatched up by the weed.
No, he thought, tears in his eyes, whether for the beads, the ashram, or his life, he couldn’t say.
The spiralweed smashed against the alcove’s cage. He watched, unable to scream, unable to thrash. This was how he’d die, then, paralyzed because of indecision, failing to protect the ashram, estranged from Ahilya. Screams of hysterical laughter echoed in his head.
His vision started to blur.
Iravan began to grow woozy.
It wasn’t even that painful anymore.
He drifted and remembered.
The feel of Ahilya’s skin, her eyes, her smile, her touch. Their wedding day, as he placed a flower garland around her neck; overcome with emotion as he kissed her; the feeling of rightness as he vowed to traverse together with her or not at all. His delight at receiving his rudra beads, each bead a promise. His fathers and mother, alive in Yeikshar, so proud when he was picked for a transfer, an honor for one from his native ashram. On and on they came, and he thought in wonderment,Look at that. Life does flash before death. His mind roared in laughter.
Still the memories came. Iravan a toddler, stumbling as he ran. Iravan kicking in the womb asleep, unborn. Iravan a woman in the jungle, screaming for her friends to take cover as another earthrage hit. Iravan, a man again, shorter and lighter-skinned, making ashrams fly for the first time in history. On and on, the lives he’d lived.
He was a boy. He was a woman. He was a father, a sister, a mother. He was born, he lived, he died. Each time the ability to traject manifested itself, sometimes used, sometimes untrained. He died in an earthrage, he died in strange ashrams, he died surrounded by family; each time, he died unlearned, alone. He loved freely, looking for completion. He lived a thousand lives, more, many more. At the end of all, he failed, his separation a chasm, becausehe—they?—hadmade an irrevocable mistake. Lives rushed through him, and inbetween—
***
He floated, surrounded by the silvery-molten mirrors of the Resonance.
Ever present, it engulfed him, reflecting all his births, all his deaths.
Ever patient, it waited; each time, he returned.
Eons passed in the winged echo.
He didn’t reach, and the Resonance didn’t either, yet both came closer with every life.
***
When they touched, it was in homecoming.
Their vision opened;see, they thought, and he saw
himself in the library alcove, trapped in frozen animation, rudra beads crumbling, spiralweed grabbing splinters
Nakshar, a flat city in the sky, innocent of its doom, existing in ignorance
the earthrage below, annihilating everything, unseen, misjudged, unwatched
and beyond
