Page 28 of The Enduring Universe
Shayla nodded and covered the bodies again.
“We have not communicated with the ashram yet,” Dhruv pointed out softly. “They will ask for aid. What is your decision regarding that?”
Iravan did not like this line of questioning. He knew he needed to send resources to Irshar—everything he did here in the Garden was to make amends to the complete beings of the ashram, and already so many had died there,
But he could feel the resistance the Ecstatics had to being answerable to the ashram they had escaped, especially when their own lay injured and dead. Iravan could not allow them to think that they were above the non-architects. If anything, he needed them to be subservient to the complete beings. He had not opened communication with the ashram before because he did not know how much the Virohi had infected the citizens through the architecture, but though that was no longer the concern, he had done nothing yet. Matters were shaky in the Garden. He had to find a politic way to help Irshar.
Without answering Dhruv, Iravan stepped away from the bodies and exited the medical ward, taking one of the many pathways that led around the Garden. Dhruv and some of the others followed him back to the main hall without a word.
Outside the ward, it was more obvious how the Garden had escaped the battle. Iravan had arrived to see that, apart from sungineering blinking out, the rest of the Garden functioned much like before, with hallways lined with plumeria-lined bushes and residences rising beyond the central courtyard. A massive central tower rose above the courtyard, standing on long tree-trunks and spearing into the sky. Iravan lived there alone, in his quarters on the topmost level away from the others, though one chamber in the tower was carved for Manav. From his vantage point earlier, he had seen the vriksh’s assault on the ashram, but the core treedid not encroach his space, though its canopy sheltered part of the Garden.
Perhaps the tree knew it was not welcome here. Unlike the ashram, the Garden had been built with Ecstasy, and Iravan had examined the shattered Moment, seen the stars of the Garden almost indecently untouched, while other possibilities crashed and crumbled. It was what he had been busy with, bolstering the Garden’s possibilities with everpower, while Dhruv undertook the Garden’s administration.
The Garden still bloomed, trees and hedges intact, and pathways crisscrossed like trails in a forest, some leading to the main attendance hall, others to the solar lab and the practice yard. It was a matter of time before those broke too, but for now, glowglobes glittered, hidden like stars among the foliage, whirrs and hums coming to him from behind dark passageways as sungineering began again, as if the calamity was but a small interruption.
Dhruv gestured at the glowglobes. “We’ll need to build more medprobes. Those were destroyed in the explosion. We will have to divert from other inventions to do so.”
Iravan nodded but did not comment. Sungineering was Dhruv’s affair, as the Garden’s Senior Sungineer. Everything related to the technology went through him, and Iravan did not need to know the details. It was enough that things worked. After the battle, Iravan thought he had broken sungineering—and had scared him more than anything else—but on his return, he put his reserve Ecstatics to work and the devices had begun again. Now, Ecstatic Architects were in the solar lab, powering the Garden in a delicate, devious trajection.
The sungineers had come a long way in the last three months. Much had been damaged in the Conclave’s crash to the jungle, and the Garden’s sungineers had built all this with the materials Iravanhad provided. Now the Garden flourished with the technology enough to rival any ashram of the sky.
He had been right to place his faith in them, in understanding that they were the future of humanity. Especially now with the Moment gone, the Momentgone—and a part of him gibbered in shock at that—with trajection effectively dead, there was no other way forward except sungineering. Everything in the Garden used Ecstatic energy, built on the model of an energex. It was something Irshar would never have.
Iravan picked up his pace, heading for the main hall.
Dhruv fell in beside him.
The sungineer’s voice dropped. “The battery is long gone. We do not have the materials to make another one. We could trade with Irshar, but I don’t know if their battery has survived.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Iravan said. “We will need to think of another way.”
His plan had been dependent on the Virohi’s unfamiliarity and distaste for the Deepness, and the bomb’s all-consuming power. He had searched for the Virohi’s stars and trained himself to lure them into the Deepness, and it had taken the better part of three months simply to make that plan. With the Virohi embedded in Irshar, Iravan had known it was only a matter of time before Ahilya’s will failed. But now that they were in the vriksh… he could not even see them in the broken universe. They were out of his reach completely.
The tree would hold them far longer than the city could have, years upon years perhaps, outliving Ahilya. Iravan saw the way the tree expanded. He saw the roots plunging into the earth. The Virohi were safe, and he could not touch them. Could he perhaps train his Ecstatics in a way that their capital desires manifested as hate for the Virohi too? Perhaps they would find a way he could not.
It was a risky thought. He was already conditioning them to make amends, but if he changed that toward war, who knew how each architect would interpret it. War—despite the fact that he was pursuing it—would be disastrous if each Ecstatic desired it from the depths of their consciousness. Ahilya had told him about the bloodshed Ecstatics had once unleashed, when humanity had barely crawled back from the brink of extinction. Iravan had no memory of that time—perhaps his consciousness had been reborn after the war, his two lives falling on either side of the event, but he could well imagine it. With such hate, Ecstatics could break the world. There would be nothing remaining to make amends to.
The lack of answers frustrated him. Apart from not knowing a part of his own Ecstatic history, a part that could have helped him in his pursuit now in conditioning and taming the Ecstatics, it irked him that he did not know what happened to Ecstatics who had died in that war, their capital desires unfulfilled. Iravan had told Darsh that fulfilled Ecstatics, after achieving their capital desires, would return to the Virohi form in some way. What he hadn’t shared was how he feared unfulfilled Ecstatics returned to such a state too. In their last life, what else would happen to their consciousness? If this were true, he was doomed no matter what he did.I cannot go back to that, he thought.Never again to become something so filthy.All his knowledge, he could barely believe that he would still need to rely on obscure architect histories to tell him more.
Either that, he thought,or the skills of an archeologist.
Dhruv seemed to be following the same train of thought.
The sungineer’s voice dropped further. “Did you find any yakshas in the jungle?”
Iravan did not reply.
He had not looked this time. He had wasted his time building and destroying a home that he would never have with Ahilya.And if he found the yakshas—what then? In conditioning the Ecstatics, he was already skirting the edge of morality to ensure they did not damage Irshar. Iravan himself was a prisoner to his capital desire, and he had once been a Senior Architect, with a Senior Architect’s discipline. How would these children react when their capital desires manifested? War aside, it would be calamitous for the world if there were united Ecstatics running amok, each with their capital desire building for lifetimes, ready to be released without any rationale or control. A race of super beings beholden to no law, no power, no ethics… He shuddered, contemplating it. Such a reality could not be allowed to happen. He had to control it.
His strides grew longer, fueled by his nervous energy. Dhruv glanced at him but said nothing, matching his pace. Behind them, the others hurried too, a retinue of the most powerful Ecstatics.
They entered the main hall, and it flickered in front of Iravan’s eyes, to appear as it had been when he had first made it. He could almost reach out and touch the memory: Ahilya sitting next to him on the stairs where now there was a heavy highbacked chair with carved armrests; a tapestry of dark damaged jasmine leaves draped on the wall, walkways sluiced with water where now a courtyard served as an assembly place for the Garden.
The architecture was different from only a few months before, but the ghost of the original design still lingered under the modifications, ready to become apparent if only it were acknowledged. Where Ecstatics would have loitered, either discussing plans for the battle, or comparing methods for supertrajection, they were now busy with repairing the architecture. Iravan and his retinue walked past torn earth, and upturned grass, to the chair on the platform.
Eschewing the chair, which he reserved for more formal audiences, Iravan took a seat on the stairs, and the others joined him. Darsh picked at the grass by his feet, his face expressionless. Trisha andPranav exchanged one of their usual glances, laden with meaning and friendship. Reyla placed herself down serenely, saying nothing. Kamal, Nagesh, and Mukthi sat haphazardly around, taking seats where they could.
Dhruv alone chose to remain standing. The sungineer glanced at Manav, who had begun to wander, then raised his eyebrows at Iravan.
