Page 37 of The Enduring Universe
“It took hundreds of years because of architect arrogance,” Dhruv snapped. “And the only reason sungineering was allowed to exist was because it helped architects—an effect that has lingered into our time.”
Chaiyya relapsed into silence, though her eyes did not leave Dhruv. Airav’s face was expressionless, but Ahilya saw him shake his head very slightly toward Chaiyya.
Kiana cleared her throat. “In order for sungineering to progress,” she said, “sungineers had to appease architects. I think we can all agree to that much, no matter the cause of it. When sungineering was given credence, it occurred because of an accident—a famous one in sungineering circles, where we tapped into trajection as a power. That accident birthed modern sungineering. We took the architects’ understanding of trajection as our own. Architects were sacrosanct, each one important above any other life. So sungineering accepted that as a wisdom, and as a limitation. Architects had their mystical understanding of what trajection was, but sungineers translated the importance of an architect into a field. When an architect trajected, they emitted a field of trajection. Every sungineering device in the past, from a tiny glowglobe to the largest heat shields, all contained a key part—the transformer which took an architect’s raw and scattered trajection field and converted it into usable energy. We use that technology now… or well, we had been, until all this happened. And for a long time, sungineering acceptedarchitects’ understanding of trajection as a field, centered around each sacrosanct architect.”
“But everything changed with the invention of the deathdevices,” Dhruv said, taking up the explanation again. “Things like deathboxes and deathcages were created so that Ecstatics wouldn’t simply be killed, they could be severed from their power. Architects were still sacrosanct, but sungineering’s understanding of trajection evolved with these devices. Think of how a deathchamber works. Deathdevices cut off active trajection. But why does architecture not simply fall apart or detach from that of the main ashram, if we carve the Moment out?”
“Because constellation lines still hold,” Naila said. “Each time we used those devices in an airborne ashram, we patrolled the lines, and rebuilt them when they frayed.”
Dhruv nodded approvingly at Naila. “You can see why sungineering evolved to dismiss the importance of individual architects, no matter what architects themselves preached. We learned through the deathdevices that the energy we were capturing was not from an architect’s unique field. It was from the act of creating constellation lines—or in the case of Ecstasy, of trajecting Ecstatically into the Moment. Sungineering cuts out when architects stop creating constellation lines, even if the ashram stays afloat through pre-constructed lines. This is why when a deathcage rises, though architecture remains stable, sungineering cannot work, not unless new lines are created and maintained and an architect is actively trajecting. Our understanding and manipulation of this changed everything.”
Everyone fell silent. The whirrs and clicks from the expedition’s equipment hummed into whispers before dying. They stood there, all of them trying to understand the implications of what Dhruv said.
Ahilya was not surprised. She knew most of this from her research as an archeologist. To an untrained eye, the effect was the same. Field or constellation lines, sungineering worked the way it always had—on trajection. And architects were revered like they always had been—society’s most significant class.
Yet politically, the change was immense. With an evolved understanding of trajection, and architects’ role in it, individual architects no longer emanated absolute power. The change in society was undoubtedly slow, spanning centuries, but gradually, the work became more important, as opposed to individual superhumans. Architect Discs came into being, becoming more popular in every ashram—focused on a unified vision. Non-architects were allowed to marry architects, their desire used to augment an architect’s trajection. Council structures changed, rules for shift-duty were created, and ultimately, sungineers and architects worked together to keep an ashram afloat, protected from the earthrages. All ashrams—even the most conservative ones like Katresh and the Seven Northern Sisters—understood that, united, their nations had far more power than any one individual.
Until Iravan and Ahilya arrived, to bring humanity to its worst phase yet, dependent not just on individuals, but on two individuals. Two unstable, unreliable, mistaken individuals who didn’t know their own minds let alone that of the people they served.
A great panic seized Ahilya. She was close to hyperventilating. Without thinking, she extricated herself from Iravan, chanting the things she had been taught by her nurses in the infirmary.My name is Ahilya. I am a complete being. I am an archeologist. There are people in Irshar who will take charge when I cannot. I am not alone. I am not alone.
Iravan didn’t respond, but her movement away from him broke the others out of their contemplation. They gazed up from thedevices to Ahilya, as she walked away from her husband and closer to Irshar’s council.
“The theory of a trajection field,” Kiana said quietly, bringing them all back, “was discredited. But if this is working now…” She waved a hand toward the purple sungineering devices, and all of them stared. “Maybe architects are emitting a field.”
“Though they are not trajecting?” Naila asked skeptically. “Though they are not in the Moment, not making constellation lines?” She paused, then her gaze flipped to Manav, then darted between Ahilya, Iravan and Dhruv.
They were all thinking of the same thing. In Nakshar’s solar lab, only a few months ago, the excised architect Manav had done something similar too. Dhruv had found a weak Ecstatic signature emanating from Manav. But Manav had not been supertrajecting or displaying any tattoos, similar to whatever was powering this device now.
Ahilya looked at the excised architect, the way his eyes roved over the solar lab, fastening on nothing, the slight humming under his breath, the manner in which he clutched a blue ice rose. Manav’s excision had destroyed him, but he had fared better than most other excised architects. He was alive, with brief flashes of lucidity. Bharavi had worked with him, trying to understand Ecstasy for her own study. Manav had been Nakshar’s foremost expert on the power before her. Had his expertise extended in some way after his excision, enabling him to use Ecstasy beyond what was known possible? What would he tell them now if he could?
Dhruv turned to Iravan, a frown on his face. “When Manav did something similar, you said it was because he had a second yaksha.”
Iravan nodded slowly. “An entity related to Manav came to my rescue twice during my challenge with the falcon. I suspected it wasa second creature bound to him, an incorporeal one, though I once excised him from his other yaksha. Manav and the creature seemed to be working in concert, both of them supertrajecting to rescue me, but while the yaksha was in the Deepness, Manav himself was not. He was in the Conduit, seeking to join his second yaksha in the Deepness, sending out sporadic signals of Ecstasy toward it, perhaps from the time I excised him. That is why you detected an energy signature from him though he did not glow.”
“Isn’t glowing a necessary quality of trajection, though?” Naila murmured.
Iravan shrugged. “There are effects of trajection and Ecstasy on the body. This much has always been known. But the precise nature of the effect has always been a guess. We have always thought that trajecting gives us only blue-green tattoos, but my own skin radiates in silver, even if I act in the Deepness or the Moment instead of in the evervision. In Manav’s case, he was excised from one of his counterparts. Perhaps that had an effect too, his body continuing to be dark even though he was supertrajecting.”
“Supertrajecting while not in the Deepness, according to you,” Chaiyya said, frowning. “Is that possible?”
“The Deepness, Moment and the Conduit are inseparable if you know to look at them in that manner. It is simply a matter of perception. Separation is a quality of the Two Visions, it’s a learned phenomenon. Once you unlearn it, the realms are really the same. That is what the evervision is—the plane in which I operate.”
“You’re saying the Moment is not really destroyed,” Airav said, interrupting. “That we can unsee it if we only change our perception.”
“The Momentisdestroyed,” Iravan said flatly. “That is a fact. But just like you can see the Moment as its own thing from within it, and as part of something greater while outside of it—from the Deepnessor the evervision, for instance—you can see all the other realms as unique and different, while still belonging to a whole. Don’t fool yourself about the Moment’s viability though. No matter which vision I see it from, it has shattered. That remains unchallenged.”
“And you know all this for certain?” Kiana asked. “That more than one yaksha can exist for an architect?”
Iravan made a balancing motion with his hand. “How much certainty can one have about these things? We are all walking in the dark here. I stand by the explanation, however. It seems reasonable.”
“And what are yakshas, if I can ask?” Umang said, speaking for the first time, his voice diffident.
Iravan looked to Ahilya in deference. After all, she had been the expert on the creatures for a long time.
But unsure of her role, Ahilya remained silent, and Iravan sighed with a hint of long-sufferance at her unspoken mutiny against his wishes.
“Yakshas are split halves of a cosmic being,” he said. “Just like an architect. In their corporeal form, they are massive creatures, but in their incorporeal form…” He shrugged. “I would imagine they contain some similarity. The ability to supertraject. A sentience. A loss of memory. A familiarity of their architect halves. In their simplest forms, yakshas are beings of pure desire, without any true agenda or planning—simply seeking their architects as a fulfillment of their nature, like a river running downhill, compelled by gravity. The falcon-yaksha evolved enough to transform from a creature of pure desire into one with an agenda, but that took thousands of years, and it was a learned phenomenon for the falcon. Perhaps its desire to seek me was just that strong, that it evolved from being a passive creature into one with conscious purpose.”
