Page 68 of The Enduring Universe
Vaguely, she was aware that the assembly hall had become even more chaotic after Iravan’s departure. The army of Ecstatics had left, the architects leaning on each other as they retreated, presumably to get more healing. Someone had alerted the sungineers, and orange-clad people hummed everywhere, talking to each other, rushing around carrying medprobes, seeking counsel from each other and Irshar’s own sungineers. Ahilya had caught a glimpse of a harried-looking Dhruv bursting into the hall, calling out orders, before he’d been swept away from her view. There were other citizens of Irshar here too, normal citizens who milled about, staring at the hall having never visited the Garden before. Several Ecstatic children who had been cleared away by Naila had returned. They were crying, leaning on their families arrived from the ashram. Ahilya caught a few adults quietly weeping too.
Kamala had come to see her only a few minutes ago. The nurse had led her away from the activity to a quiet corner, and checked Ahilya’s vitals. She’d given her a curious look, then left without comment. Ahilya supposed that was a good thing. What more could be happening to her, anyway? She had suffered the Virohi, suffered the vriksh, even suffered the Etherium. She answered Kamala’s cursory questions, then lapsed into silence.
Naila sat with her, making quiet sounds of frustration, her fingers entwined with beads, old ones of an airborne ashram. They did not look like rudra beads, so perhaps they belonged to another city. If Ahilya wanted to know, all she’d have to do was focus onNaila and the woman’s memory would come to her, but she was damned if she denied her that consent. Here in this moment, the Maze Architect was her only ally.
Naila hadn’t moved from her spot, keeping close to Ahilya ever since they’d claimed this corner of the Garden for themselves. Each time someone came to speak to Ahilya, she’d fended them off. Ahilya saw past Naila to the weeping people. An urge took her to rise and comfort them, to speak with them and allay any fear. For reasons she could not fathom, she felt responsible for this situation—and their grief and confusion bloomed in her mind as if the emotions were her own. She thought again of what Basav had told her, and the manner in which she’d seen into Irshar’s councilors’ minds.It’s beginning, she thought in a kind of distant horror.The Virohi are overwriting the others, and that’s why I can sense them so keenly.Her body shivered and a soft whimper escaped her.
“Try and rest, Ahilya-ve,” Naila murmured without looking up, still unentangling the knots on her beads. “There is only so much quiet they will allow you. Try to silence your worries.”
Her advice sounded similar to Chaiyya’s usual instruction before talking to the Virohi, but of course, Naila would know those basic practices. Perhaps she’d taught them once at Nakshar’s Academy.
Ahilya looked away, back to the shimmering ceiling, trying to obey.
In the forest of her Etherium, she hunted for Iravan. The vriksh had settled again, once more curling softly around her as she strode through the forest. Between her brows, she could sense her husband, but he felt fuzzy, as though he were a great distance away. His shields were back up, but in her mind’s eye she could still see his haunted face. She could hear his wretched sounds of despair. Darsh’s body fell over and over again, an image caught on loop. Try as she might, she could not rid herself of the image.
All of them knew the horror of what Iravan had done. Did they know whatshehad done? The afternoon was already blurry, shapes and shadows twisting and losing themselves in the caverns of her mind, but Ahilya knew one thing with certainty. She had found the Ecstatics of the Garden within the Etherium. She had pulled them to her as if she were a powerful magnet. Then she had controlled them—forced them to create a shield against Darsh, then commanded them to resist, to fight. She had imposed her desire onto them.
She had overwritten them.
She felt cold, and blindly she reached for the blanket Kamala had left for her. The ceiling. That was where she needed to focus.Look at it, she thought, trembling.Isn’t it fascinating. It is so fascinating.
It was no use. A horrible understanding was pouring into her. Airav had told her that she was the necessary obstacle between the Virohi and the rest of humanity.If you give in or give up, the Virohi will convert us to what they wish.But what did the Virohi wish except for form? And whose form were they most familiar with? Ahilya reached and gripped Naila’s hand without seeing. In the process of overwriting, the Virohi were blending the barrier of consciousness, giving Ahilya unfettered access to the others. They saw Ahilya as one of them. Perhaps she was the gateway they needed, to infiltrate the others. In controlling the Ecstatics during Iravan’s battle with Darsh, she’d simply given the cosmic creatures more access, accelerating the process of overwriting.
Basav’s voice mocked her in her memory,Do the right thing, Ahilya-ve.She had been trying to, but she had committed as gross a violation as Iravan had. What he had done with Darsh was visible, but her manipulation? She felt ashamed of its secrecy, as if she had done something dirty in saving the Ecstatics. Had Iravan felt similarly? Had he struggled with these feelings too, in tryingto do something he felt was right? In a strange way, Ahilya finally understood her husband, now when she did not know where he was.
Naila squeezed her fingers and gave her a gentle nudge. Ahilya glanced to where the architect gestured. The Senior Sungineer of the Garden marched toward them, a grim look in his eyes.
Dhruv stopped a few feet away and glared at Ahilya. “We need to ask you something. Come with me.”
He was looming. He knew how much Ahilya hated that. She turned back to study the ceiling instead of meeting his gaze. “You don’t need me for everything,” she muttered.
“It turns out we do for—”
“For fuck’s sake,” Ahilya said quietly. “Do something yourselves, the lot of you.”
From the corner of her eyes, she saw Dhruv raise his brows. A spasm of guilt rushed through Ahilya. She was not fending him off just to be difficult. She was afraid she couldn’t trust herself right now. What if she inadvertently tried to overwrite them again? Yet she knew they couldn’t do several things without her. To refuse their summons was another aggression, throwing their helplessness in their faces. She stood up, sighing. Naila rose beside her, and Dhruv glanced between the two of them, then shrugged. He began to walk away, expecting them to follow.
Naila grinned. “You’ve become a bit too patient lately,” she said softly. “I like seeing you angry, again. It feels like you.”
The statement was meant to reassure Ahilya, a reminder that Naila was still here, that she’d been there at the start of this calamity and chosen to see Ahilya through all her different evolutions. But it was Ahilya’s anger that had set them all on this path. Her rage and Iravan’s arrogance. Silently, she followed Dhruv down a leafy pathway, and around a corner within the courtyard of the assembly chamber.
She staggered to a stop, her jaw falling open.
The main courtyard still resembled the one Iravan had created so long ago, with meandering narrow roads bordered with flower-lined bushes and hidden alcoves. This was where Iravan had created his throne room, the same place where she had come to make her demands and where he had conducted his class of Ecstatics before the battle with Darsh. The cave mouth leading to Irshar had been an opening in the rock—but now—now—Ahilya clutched at Naila to keep her balance.
It was not the hills of no man’s land she saw in front of her, separating the Garden from Irshar.
She saw Irshar.
The cave mouth simply opened into what looked like a wall of the infirmary, where a few feet from her the nurses of the city bustled about going in and out of patient rooms as always. Was she imagining it? But no, Dhruv was striding straight into the cave mouth, entering Irshar, and as she followed, she saw dust swirling everywhere reshaping the architecture.
Ahilya wanted to ask Dhruv what had occurred, but there was hostility in every line of his posture. She knew he had come to her against his wont. She, Dhruv and Naila passed chamber upon chamber in silence, stepping over the roots of the vriksh that had expanded into the Garden—if this place could be called the Garden anymore. Ahilya tried to make sense of it—this merging that was occurring so silently, but she couldn’t fathom it. Was this because of the battle with Darsh? She had noticed this dust before Darsh had exploded with light.
They came upon a chamber full of black-clad Ecstatics. Several lay on the floor, while others watched over them, the nurses of Irshar administering medicines. The Ecstatics all seemed comatose, and Ahilya saw their glassy eyes, their mouths hanging open. A shiverwent through her. Dhruv made an impatient sound in his throat, and Naila tugged her gently. Ahilya followed them around a corner and outside the infirmary.
The rest of Irshar had not escaped this strange transformation. Ordinarily, the infirmary would lead into the main quadrangle with the vriksh. Now, though the vriksh remained, the plaza was heavy with blooms of jasmine from Iravan’s assembly hall. More pieces of the Garden were scattered everywhere—the dense solar lab caught between two residences of Irshar, and Iravan’s massive tower sprouting out of a nameless courtyard, surrounded by low lying buildings of the ashram.
Dhruv disappeared behind a large ixora bush, and Ahilya and Naila followed. Naila uttered a low, awed whistle through her teeth as they entered a chamber made almost entirely of bio-nodes, those massive sungineering devices which resembled solarnotes. The outside of these bio-nodes resembled pale frosted glass, but as Ahilya took a vacant seat, she saw images flicker all around her on the true screens of the devices. This was not a solar lab. It was something else—a solarchamber.
