Page 98 of The Surviving Sky
“Excision,” he said heavily. “It doesn’t just cut an architect away from their trajection. It cuts away a part of their consciousness. We take away part oftheir…personality. Their life force. Whatever that ineffable part is that gives an architect their power. And that’s what happened to Maiya.”
Horrified, Ahilya watched him. “How can you do this?”
Iravan let out a harsh laugh. “What else is our choice? To let Ecstatic Architects run amok and destroy the ashram? Every Maze Architect knows the risk. They are sworn never to reveal it.”
He extended his wrist in front of him. A white bracelet glinted on his dark skin: a healbranch bracelet, appearing to be made of bone.
Ahilya blinked, recognizing it. Iravan had received the healbranch bracelet when he’d become a Maze Architect. Years back, when she had asked about it, his replies had been ambiguous; he’d muttered about rules a Maze Architect had to obey, and Ahilya hadn’t pressed. Eventually, in the presence of his many rudra beads, she’d forgotten the healbranch.
Iravan tugged the bracelet with a finger. Thorns grew from it, piercing deep into his wrist, bloodying him, poisoning him, but he didn’t wince.
Ahilya had the urge to tell him to stop, to speak no more lest he hurt himself further, but horror churned within her at what he had revealed, and she gazed up at him in disbelief. “Such a huge secret, Iravan?” she whispered. “You keep this from the families of the Maze Architects, too? From their husbands and wives?”
“Nearly all Maze Architects and their spouses know this.”
“I didn’t.”
“This information is sharedwhen…”Iravan trailed off and rubbed his face with his hands.
“When what?”
“When there’s a binding commitment between the two people as understood by the council.”
“And what is that binding commitment?”
Iravan turned his head to meet her eyes. “A child,” he said, softly.
The silence following those words was so heavy that Ahilya could barely breathe.
In her mind’s eye, she saw herself around the spouses of the Maze Architects, and how she alone had not known this awful truth; how she had always been an outsider, not because of her profession but because ofthis. Ahilya remembered her argument with Iravan, nearly eight months earlier, when he had tried to convince her to make a baby. It was the argument that had precipitated his punishing silence, that had pushed them down this path; it was one they’d had so many times. Ultimately, it had led them to this moment.
“How enlightened,” she said at last. “And what if an architect doesn’t want a child?”
“Then they have no business being an architect,” Iravan responded, and his voice grew harder. “If a family is something that an architect doesn’t want, they are at greater risk of Ecstasy than ever. They’d have no binding material bonds that could withstand the pressures of thisoccupation—thepressures of the split of Two Visions and of drifting in a space like the Moment. And that is not an acceptable situation.”
“So, you force people to bear children, even if they’re perfectly happy without them.”
“We thought we were happy, Ahilya,” he said, and his voice sounded hollow. “We thought we had a lot in common. Look at where we are now.”
“A child would not have solved our problems, Iravan.”
“Perhaps not,” he admitted, sighing. “Not our problems. But for an architect, a child creates an unshakeable material bond. Without that guarantee, without that safeguard, architects cannot progress. They must not.”
“Youdid.”
“With difficulty,” he said, shaking his head. “With being near-perfect in all other conditions, unable to make a mistake. Such a state hasbeen…unforgiving.”
Ahilya’s mind spun. She had always known arbitrary material conditions mattered to anarchitect—theywere the oldest architecttradition—yetfor Iravan to carry such a huge burden allalone—forher to not knowthis…She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Rage, resentment, and guilt coursed through her in equal measure. She felt a deep desire to walk away from this horrible revelation.
“It’s an imperfect situation,” Iravan said, after some time. “But it’s the only way we have. An architect needs to have material bonds, and that is understood as a family. A family with children.”
“If it’s so important, perhaps you should tell us without the child. Why wait?”
“Being married to an architectis…hard,” Iravan said, with a ghost of a smile. “Did you know there was a time when architects married only other architects? That’s a part of the secret archives. Many architects succumbed to Ecstasy together, but now every architect is encouraged to marry someone who can’t traject. And we wait until the people arepregnant—oruntil after they’ve begun adoptionproceedings—toshare such a secret. It’s to give their marriage a chance without the burden of such troubles.”
“So, it’s more manipulation.” Ahilya said softly. “You tell the spouses when they’re too far in so there won’t be any going back. You leave them no choice.”
Iravan’s mouth twisted, an ironic smile. “Thereisa choice. People still retain the right to terminate the fetus before consciousness appears. They still retain the right to abandon adoption if they change their mind. And thatdecision—that’sthe spouse’s alone. The architect gets no say in it. Do you know Reetha?”
