Page 105 of The Enduring Universe
“That awareness,” Ahilya said, choking. “What was it?”
Iravan turned to her, and there was fresh awe and shock in his eyes. “I—I don’t know. Did it feel like… What did it feel like to you?”
She tried to remember. The unspeakable, gargantuan awareness, so full of power that power itself was a small word for it, crushing her, surrounding her, then mirroring her.
“It felt like a great eye,” she whispered. “Indifferent, immense, terrifying and benevolent, all at once. I felt every inch of myself, every pore, but more than that.” It was hard to explain, even to him. The definition of who she was had expanded, beyond Cohesion into the whole universe. She felt it inside her, an unbearable emptiness that felt so very full too.
“I was everything,” she said, at last.
“Yes,” he said.
“Did you feel it too?”
“Yes,” he said again. “Yes.”
They fell into silence, each of them lost to their thoughts. Iravan’s fingers skated over hers, and she gripped them tightly. Perhaps he was feeling the same thing she was. How was one to recover from such an experience? She stared into the sky, mirroring him, rain falling on her, and for an instant she saw beyond the reaches of the planet into a kaleidoscope of stars, the rhythms of the universe moving to the cadence of a personal, echoing, everlasting song. Ahilya wanted to speak, to shift the mood, but she felt caught in the moment. She wanted to tear apart from it, but she was too absorbed. A profound sense of immensity enveloped her, cushioning her, and she knew that she would never be the same again.
When Iravan spoke, it was a comfort.
His voice was husky, as if it was only supreme will that wrenched the words from him. “What happened to the Virohi?” he rasped. “I saw them, and…”
“They’re free,” she said, knowing it only when she spoke it. The words came easier now that she’d begun. The immense presencedrifted away, though she knew she could be absorbed by it if she only allowed herself to.
“I don’t understand how,” she continued, “but the Virohi became one with that awareness. They saw their true form.”
“And with them, so did we,” he murmured. “So did we.”
She nodded. “I—I did not know that we could become something like that.”
She felt for the awareness, and it was a comfort to know that she could wrap herself in it.We are so much more than we’ve ever known, she thought.Why did we forget this? Why did we never seek to know this?Tears gushed down her face, and she wiped them away, her breath catching. She had always sought an expansion of her identity in hoping to become like the architects. She’d seen the familiarity of the Virohi, found them to resonate with her. She had never imagined this.
“That immensity…” she said. “We saw—we became—the universe.”
“Yes.”
“And the Virohi allowed me to see the universe in this way?” Ahilya asked, grasping for understanding.
Iravan nodded slowly. “In a way, you allowed each other. It couldn’t have happened without you. You were right about the Virohi. You said they were attracted to the Moment, and the Moment has ever been a universe. The Virohi were cosmic creatures, their consciousness as large as a universe too, and it was no coincidence they found form in the Moment, to split within it to become architects and yakshas. They have been seeking that form, a thing that is not truly a form at all, so massive and all-consuming that it is everywhere and everything. They destroyed each Moment of other planets, always seeking, never finding. When they finally found it, they showed it to you. For you have been a part of them ever since you gave them your identity.”
“Then this vision of the universe was their gift to me in return?”
“No more or less than your understanding of them was your gift to them,” Iravan said, smiling a little. “The Virohi evolved because of you, because you saw them as one of you. You gave them your form, your memories, and you saw them as worthy of protection from the very beginning. You alone could have done something like this, because of the kind of person you are. On their own, the Virohi were on a doomed mission. Sooner or later, they would have destroyed the whole universe, thousands of planets, all because they would have been unable to find their universal form. Sooner or later, they would have devolved into their worst versions. But with you… You stopped them and freed them by embracing them.”
Iravan’s voice was quiet, but still the immensity of what he was saying terrified her. Ahilya’s thoughts buzzed. He was not speaking of the Virohi alone. He was speaking of himself, and the redemption she had given both him and the cosmic creatures. She had helped the Virohi when no one would—helpedIravanwhen no one would—but Cohesion had helpedher.Without the others, she would have been able to do nothing—she could see that now, for all of the journey she had taken to get here. How close they had all come to disintegrating.
So many steps and missteps, she thought. She was grateful she did not know the immensity of her responsibility in the beginning. Her fingers curled around the heartpoison bracelet still on her wrist, and it came apart in her hands, crumbling into ash. Her mission fulfilled, her vow complete. To release the Virohi, and to give them to Iravan, share them with him in a way.
“If the Virohi gave me this access to the universe,” she said haltingly, “then how did you experience it too? You were disconnected from the Virohi. You were never part of Cohesion. But I felt you too.”
“I came to it from a different path,” he said softly. “I think a partof me always wanted erasure. I just did not understand the kind of erasure I sought. I thought erasure meant a meaninglessness of life, no significance and value to anything we did. As an architect, I wished freedom from the hold everything had over me, my past, my future, all the expectations I’ve lived with, my own and those of others. But that was never the erasure I truly sought. I sought this—the ability to be nothing, while being everything all at once.”
He fell into silence. Ahilya had promised the council of Irshar she would bring Iravan erasure, but she hadn’t known the truth of that promise. She recalled what Basav had told her about Ecstatics and their capital desire.It is about fulfilling a need. Until it is fulfilled, the Ecstatic Architect can never be free.
And that freedom—in the end, that is the only thing an Ecstatic needs.
They knew, she thought.The architects of the old knew.Perhaps Basav had forgotten what that freedom meant, or maybe he hadn’t known, but the early architects did.
Iravan seemed to be following the same thought.
