Page 95 of The Enduring Universe
He hobbled through the maze faster, panic chasing him. The mirror walls were growing darker, and behind every corner lurked a shadow, a threat. He knew he could not win the fight with the other projections. His hold on the everpower was too shaky, gripping it with icy fingers that slipped and bled. Each time he’d pulled himself away from a memory, he’d used precious energy, and he was unable to fight on so many fronts—submerged in the memory they drowned him in, unable to prevent their physical attack, incapable of holding onto everpower while they tried to steal possibility. Precious minutes had already ticked by—an estimation of time his body made in this space where time itself had no meaning.
He turned into another corridor, and saw Agni.
Terror rose through him.
Agni’s eyes blazed, and Iravan turned and fled, knowing that of all his projections and past lives, this one was the most powerful, this one scared him the most. Behind him, he heard Agni’s feral laughter as they set chase, and Iravan half-floated, half-ran, losinghis orientation, only to careen into a silvery-eyed Bhaskar who appeared out of smoke and gripped his arms tight.
Iravan cried out in panic, attempting to swing the axe, but Bhaskar’s grip was too strong and the axe fell and vanished into nothing. A shimmer of light—Iravan tumbled into Bhaskar’s memory—but before it could hold him prisoner, he wrenched his body away and shot out of the man’s grasp to flee to another corridor of the maze.
He heard their voices, not just Agni and Bhaskar who were chasing him, but others too, Mohini and Isanya and Jeevan and countless others all the way back to the little girl who had been the first of them, whose name he didn’t even know. Their cackles filled the air, and he fled in the forest of mirrors, stopping short only to retreat when he heard one of them breathe in amusement, hiding behind a corner.
He did not know where in the maze he was, or what the projections would do to him, all of them together. All he knew was he would not survive their combined onslaught.
Iravan crept away, turning again then stopped.
Everything was silent here. The walls gleamed at him, no longer panes of mirror, but mere shards of blackness, curving endlessly. The corridor in front of him was tight, dense. He understood the architecture suddenly; the maze was radial. By sheer luck, he’d found himself closer to its center. Did that mean he was closer now to the falcon? Is that why the projections had disappeared?
He could no longer hear them. Perhaps they would appear when he least expected it. Each step was a trap, each glance of light a terror. But at least the falcon was a known entity. His past scared him more than that creature.
He moved forward, but his movements were stilted. He floated, but it was discordant, like a leaf that was being pulled this wayand that by a terrible wind. Iravan followed the curve of the maze and in the distance saw a circular chamber, so like the chamber in the Etherium that Ahilya spoke of that he paused. All the mirror shards changed to reflect the falcon-yaksha. The bird gliding in the sky, searching for him. The falcon colliding into Nakshar, right before it abducted him. Wrapping its wings around him to keep him safe while he and the bird plummeted from the sky after the first skyrage. On and on, from the time of separation when the falcon-yaksha had formed, becoming a gigantic creature, lost and alone—until the point of subsummation, when Iravan had shrunk it with his power.
What did it mean that it was only the falcon he had to face now? Had he evaded the projections once and for all? He was too panicked to feel relief at the thought.
Blinking hard, Iravan stumbled forward toward the mirrored chamber and his destiny.
59
COHESION
It was hurling massive branches at the planetrage, breaking the onslaught into chunks, when the world flashed, blinding Cohesion’s every sense.
Air shivered.
Sound ceased.
It happened for the merest instant, so tiny that if Cohesion were notCohesion, aware of every minuscule part of itself, it would have missed the flash. It continued to beat back the planetrage, creating a massive wall of branches nearly a thousand feet high against the tsunami attempting to sweep it away—but within its mind, a panic spread. The parts of it which had once been architects understood it first, and Cohesion watched understanding bloom in all of its other parts like light beaming. The flash was a lull. The battle was too easy. Cohesion had been winning, but it was never meant to be this simple. Earthrages had occurred before, and each time a lull had happened, it had only paved the way for something terribly ferocious to come on its heels.
It slung sharpened trunks like missiles into fiery rocks, disintegrating them, when the flash occurred again.
Fragments of the planetrage broke apart, then another flash, blinding Cohesion’s eyes. Within it, voices rose and fell, churning out their memories, Virohi, human, animal, tree, all delving within themselves for an explanation.
And a word appeared in Cohesion’s mind like the softest whisper.
Dissolution.
The planetrage flashed again, and in blind overwhelming panic, Cohesion pushed its intention to survive, but—
60
IRAVAN
He did not find the falcon within the circular chamber.
Surrounded by blinking mirror-shards stood a familiar man. Nidhirv looked like a wraith, short and dark-skinned, his body bent slightly. His eyes glittered silver like all the other projections, and an echo of wings sprung from his shoulders in a mirage. Still, Iravan paused, surprised.
This is who you send?he thought. Of all the lives he’d lived, he’d become most familiar with Nidhirv, but Iravan had left his capital desire behind and with it any need to learn any secrets from the man. Why would the falcon think this man would affect him the most, delivering the killing blow?
Iravan held the miniscule blade of everpower tight in his hand. The blade was so small now, it was a mere sliver, and he knew he would not be able to use it against whatever Nidhirv unleashed on him, not if he wished to repair the Moment with it afterward.
