Page 18 of The Enduring Universe
AHILYA
What was the Etherium? Ahilya had never truly understood.
Iravan had once explained it as a place of guidance, a third vision where he had seen probabilities of the future convert into true possibility. To Iravan, it had looked like a maze, a mountain-path, and a way to see behind the falcon-yaksha’s eyes. He had seen events occurring far from him, and looked into his past by focusing within it. As Iravan changed, so did the imagery of the Etherium, evolving at the pace he evolved. He had tried—desperately and failingly—to explain it and fit it into his world vision.
Ahilya had always thought of it like a many-chambered house.
She was familiar with only two chambers—one where her vision merged with Iravan’s, and another where she met with the cosmic creatures. One had been created out of an explosion of her desire with Iravan’s, and the other with her acquiescence to let the Virohi take her. She had not understood the Etherium, but she had relied on it to understand her changing world.
Yet now all the chambers of the Etherium, even those that were unknown, were out of control, and she ran through a crumblingedifice, all meaning crashing around her. She slipped and fell, and shards of mirrors scraped her as she righted herself and moved over uneven ground.
Something beckoned to her, the leaves of a core tree within a chamber she recognized.
Ahilya lurched and grabbed a passing branch. She skidded to a halt—and there she was, in the chamber where she had once spoken and understood the rudra-tree’s command.
Awe filled her, momentarily eclipsing her terror. Memory rushed into her of a time when she had returned to Nakshar after Iravan had transformed the Conclave into a many-spoked wheel. Back then, she had communicated with Nakshar’s rudra-tree to return the architects their permissions by channeling her desire into the core tree. When the Conclave had crashed to the jungle, Nakshar’s rudra had merged with all the core trees to become the vriksh. The vriksh had always anchored her communication with the Virohi, and it bloomed now in the chamber. Ahilya found herself touching its great trunk, staring up at the foliage, only to see a sky full of stars peeking between moving leaves. The Etherium still wobbled, but she held on to the tree, planting her feet.
If it was an explosion of her desire that gave her control over her connection with Iravan, and the mirrored chambers to speak to the Virohi, then could such desire help her commune with the vriksh too? After all, she held all the tree’s permissions. She tried to ask the tree to help her again, and as if sensing this, the writhing of the cosmic creatures stilled. The rumbling of the earthrage shivered, pausing for a brief instant. The Virohi watched her, reading her intent.
Ahilya’s heart leapt in hope.Return, she thought to the cosmic creatures, inviting them back into Irshar.Return.
The cosmic creatures pulled at her, hovering around the tree,feeling her call them. Iravan snarled, yanking them toward him. He could see what she was attempting, and she felt his attack as if it was on her body and mind. She felt his fury with her.
Ahilya did what she had always done. She anchored herself in the tree, rooting herself to become immovable, and desired for the cosmic creatures to bind themselves back into the ashram. They filled her mind, swirling toward the vriksh. Above, the universe spun with a million stars.Hold, she thought to herself, as Iravan attempted to pull the cosmic creatures from her grasp.Hold.
9
IRAVAN
Iravan circled the expansive city of Irshar, noting each crevice from where the Virohi seeped.
A thousand links whipped out of him like arrows as he drew on the combined power of all the Ecstatics. He flew through the Moment, converting pure Ecstasy into hair-thin constellation lines. He leapt between the stars of the Virohi, tying the lines to each other, drinking in the power coursing through him.
His trajection manifested like the most intricate web. When he had trajected plants in the past, he had always felt their life. Now the instant the trajection rendered toward the cosmic creatures, their voices filled his head, , they screamed, and his rage spiked, sweat coating his skin. The falcon within him snarled in response.
His constellation linesburstwith power.
The Ecstatics cried out. They strained within the Deepness, their power filling Iravan, coursing through his veins, turning his skin translucent. Iravan tugged at the trajection lines. He could see Ahilya trying to anchor the Virohi and return them to Irshar, butIravan pulled them toward him by trajecting their stars within the Moment, and they collected out of the architecture in a swarm, swept up in his storm. Their howls echoed in his ears, but he paid them no mind.
The Virohi gathered to him, forced to obey his will. Within Irshar, their snaky foggy forms shuddered, paused, and shuddered again.
The creatures had destroyed Nakshar, weakened the very universe. They had infiltrated the Moment and ruined it. They were going to eradicate life.
He woulderasethem.
With all the power of the Ecstatics tethering him, Iravan roared as he pulled the Virohi to the tunnel of the Conduit. His plan hinged on taking them through the Moment and obliterating them with the bomb within the Deepness. Inch by inch, the Virohi seeped into the Conduit, their shrieking loud in his ears, and Iravan cried out a command to Dhruv, to begin the extermination.
Dhruv obeyed, and a blinding flash that lasted an eternity reverberated in Iravan’s eyes, filling the evervision. The first of the explosions launched, and he sensed Ahilya’s panic, but a wave of jubilation rose in him. It was working.
He beat his wings, and form by snaky form the Virohi were yanked from the Conduit into the Deepness where they did not belong, explosions attacking them as soon as they arrived in the velvety darkness. It was a manifestation of his imagination, he knew, but Iravan saw the scaly bodies of the cosmic creatures squeezing through the tunnel of the Conduit, only to be met with destruction. He saw massive black holes erupting across their bodies, breaking them down. He saw their alien mouths open in an endless scream, viscous blood oozing out. Their skins burned in a cleansing fire, and he thought grimly,Yes. Destroy.
Sweat broke out over Iravan. Tears blurred his eyes.
Irshar trembled in the jungle, shaking like a leaf in a storm. Dhruv shouted over the communication bead, but Iravan could not hear beyond the roar of the falcon. The Moment shuddered and dust motes within it whizzed around in confusion and anxiety. All trajecting architects could see his actions. They could feel the effects even if they could not understand what he was doing.
The yearning burned in him, pressure from a thousand lifetimes. The Ecstatics swayed in exertion. Irshar cracked underneath him, a whole section of rooftops exploding into powder as the cosmic creatures leached out of the architecture toward him. Their destruction was rendering in the first vision even as they burned in the Deepness; Iravan saw their snaky, misty forms distort like a fabric rent with holes, as they fluttered toward him.
The effort from the tethered Ecstatics pierced his ears. Dhruv’s hologram flickered over his wrist, and the Virohi screamed , as he pulled them into the explosion, puncturing their consciousness repeatedly, breaking them apart as they hovered over the ashram.
