Page 104 of The Enduring Universe
AHILYA
She knew her eyes were closed, but somehow she could still see.
She knew she had eyes. That was a good sign.
Ahilya floated within her body, but her body was everywhere. She felt the hard ground under her back, grass tickling her ears, a soft breeze lifting her hair up from her forehead. She felt other things too—the tread of her foot over a broken stone. The sensation of her roots planted deep into the soil. The movements of plates underneath the earth, and the striations of water somewhere. The boundaries of her mind extended to the whole planet, and the effect was calming and disorienting. It was as if she were one of Dhruv’s drones, capable of seeing it all yet focusing and magnifying on one thing at a time, to see it in completion. She knew if she opened her eyes this sensation would come to a standstill. This was the last time she would feel this—the certainty permeated her. She savored her existence in this haze fully.The moment before birth, she thought.This is what it must feel like.
When she was ready, she finally opened her eyes.
At first, she was confused. She was staring into the sky, but allshe saw was a floating miasma of orange, gray, and blue. This was another shard of broken reality. The nightmare had not ended. She felt a great fear rake over her
Then, the miasma shifted and she glimpsed a rising dawn. She realized she was looking at clouds. Gray clouds, not stormy but cleansing. A soft rain began to pour and she inhaled the scent of petrichor, breathing deeply withherlungs, feelingherchest rise and fall. She had been everything and everyone, but there was a personal, sacred pleasure in acknowledging her body now, the one she had lived within all her life.
Slowly, she pushed herself up to her elbows. She was on a hill near a plain of grass, but not too far from her the earth had been ripped by massive craters. Streams of water trickled into the holes, making deep wells that cascaded into clear ponds. Humongous rocks the size of mountains lay everywhere, veined with tree roots. As she watched, grass covered them rapidly. The rocks grew smaller, until they were reabsorbed by the earth, making the landscape level. She felt the lilting, cascading flow of movement underneath her, the rock still settling into the soil.
The jungle had completely retreated from where she sat. She watched it retreat further, far from her plain of grass—finally becoming a separate entity. She thought she could hear an ocean somewhere.An ocean, she thought wonderingly. As an archeologist, she’d always assumed oceans existed well below the surface of the planet, for how else would a jungle thrive without water. Yet it was astonishing to think that they could now see those oceans. That they were likely surrounded by them, the whole planet turned inside out and self-correcting into something more inhabitable. Reality was mending, the principle of physical laws reasserting. She had woken to a new world, and much of the landscape was different. She would have to begin anew, trying to understand its climate.
Flowers erupted around her, and Ahilya touched a wild daffodil in a wondrous haze. There were no bees here yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time. Life had survived; it was obvious because she was here, living. Life they’d brought back from the skies on landing, and one that would free itself in this new world. Around her hill more buds poked out of the ground, so that soon she was surrounded by a field of white flowers. Ahilya inhaled, breathing in the rain and the unseen ocean. Her eyes burned with tears of catharsis.
Beyond this startling beauty, the last city of humanity arose.
Irshar, the Garden, whatever they chose to call this dwelling, was far from where she sat, but Ahilya could still see massive spires rising, and pieces of rubble strewn across the city. People moved along the streets, looking like small dots, but Ahilya sharpened her perception so they loomed in front of her, crying with sorrow and joy, a woman hugging another, others already beginning rescue efforts for those trapped by the wreckage. The city was a broken mess of roots and branches, and a group of citizens were ripping apart a tree-cage, helping others out from the boughs. Several citizens appeared unhurt, though dust and earth caked everyone’s faces. A massive tree rose from the city still in remembrance of the vriksh and Cohesion. Its trunk was marred down the middle, as if lightning had struck it. As Ahilya watched, the tree started to wither. The edges of it grew blurry. Slowly, slowly, dust cascaded from it. This last core tree had done all it could. Now it rested, and Ahilya felt its relief and joy inside her as if it were her own.
She dropped her sharpened perception. It made her breathless to hold it too long. She stared at the city, a hunger in her. There was a synchronicity of movement within it, which seemed so familiar. As if all the people within were working in tandem, with no need to speak. As if they could read each other’s thoughts and knew theirintents as well as they knew themselves. Instinctively she knew it was a lingering effect of Cohesion. If she wanted, perhaps she could reach their awareness, and join it. But she remained apart for now, merely watching.
She wondered how she had come to be here, all alone on this plain. She had been a part of the tree, hadn’t she? Reality had melted. Who or what had righted it?
She couldn’t remember, and she let the questions die. She simply sat there, feeling at peace, feeling the drizzle. The rain was light, just enough to melt into her clothes and skin, refreshing her, and she reveled in the silence. Whatever was occurring with the synchronicity felt natural. Her third vision seemed to have faded away. For that too, Ahilya was grateful.
Eventually she became aware that she was not alone. Ahilya turned her head and saw, not a few feet away, another body lying spreadeagled on his back.
Iravan stared up at the sky, tears leaking from the sides of his face. His breathing was slow and he didn’t make a move toward her, though one hand was outstretched in her direction, as if only minutes ago they had been touching each other. His other palm lay loosely curled. Something shone inside it, like the tiniest, most precious pearl. He did not seem to notice her, and she took her time, not seeking his attention, but merely content to study him.
He looked… changed. Pieces of him were familiar, taken from different times in his life, as if reality had been unable to decide which one was really Iravan. He was just as handsome as ever, his dark skin the same almost-black. His hair was no longer silvery though—instead, his salt-and-pepper locks had returned, except a shock of bright gray fell across his forehead as if to declare to everyone that he was not the man from Nakshar, but someone else, someone evolved. His clothes were the black of an Ecstatic, but theywere riddled with the slashes of the brightest white. Reality had solidified him into this image, his choices and coercion coexisting. Ahilya did not know what it meant for his future.
He turned slowly toward her, and she saw then that his eyes were black again. The silver was gone, but when she looked deeper, she thought she could see sparks of gray still lurking inside. His fingers twitched toward her, and slowly he sat up. Ahilya extended her hand. She touched him, and loosely he stroked her palm.
“Are you all right?” she asked softly
“No,” he said. Then after a long time, after a deep, shaky breath. “Yes. Yes. Are you?”
She could not form the words, but he seemed to understand. Iravan nodded, and his eyes returned to the sky. Tears still fell down his face, but either he did not notice them or he did not care to wipe them.
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
“Is it over?” he finally whispered.
“It’s over,” she confirmed.
“Then we survived.”
She looked back to the city, where more people released others from the remains of the battle. “Many of us, yes. Did reality?”
It was a foolish question perhaps, but Ahilya had experienced too much to not ask it.
“I—I think so,” he said. “Do you remember much?”
Wisps of memories floated across her mind. The ferocity of the planetrage. The unity of Cohesion. The utter reality-shattering presence of dissolution that made her chest heave with wrongness. And then, beyond it, a terrifying, massive, utterly inhuman sentience.
