Page 65 of The Enduring Universe
Iravan’s eyes widened, in late recognition that his plan had failed. All he saw were thick black cords intertwining between theEcstatics as Darsh trajected them to gain more and more power. Blue-green light blasted out of the boy like the rays of a sun, and Iravan shielded his eyes, momentarily blinded.
Rocks fell, dust entering his throat, choking him, and he fell to his knees. Around them the Garden fell apart.
37
AHILYA
Agraveyard surrounded her.
Ahilya stood immobilized, staring at the thick black cords weaving between all the Ecstatics. Whatever was happening was taking them all over, one by one. The nurses, Shayla and Bipesh, hovered a few inches in the air, their heads thrown back, their eyes glassy. Their bodies were limp like everyone else’s. Some Ecstatics fell, writhing on the floor, others spasmed where they stood. Some tried to run, but the intricate black cords caught them, and all of them led to Darsh.
The boy was little more than a ball of blue light, facing Iravan as her husband fell to his knees. The ground shook, rocks cascading from the walls in a thunderous rumble. Water gushed somewhere, and the slim trees in the assembly hall whiplashed. She tried to move, but her feet were locked in place. She saw earth climbing up her shins, hardening into rock. Whatever change was occurring in the Garden, it was keeping her from interfering, perhaps for her own safety. Horror seized her as she saw more black-clad Ecstatics rise and fall with bone-crunching sounds, somecrumpling inwards as though the blood and flesh were being sucked out of them.
Naila was locked to her knees too. The Maze Architect had returned to her when more and more Ecstatics had begun falling. She whimpered now, her eyes widening. Her hand seized Ahilya’s. They stood there, helpless and immobile, watching the horrible destruction of the Garden.
Through the black weaving of Darsh’s trajection, Ahilya’s gaze caught on Iravan. The ground he and Darsh stood on was beginning to rise like a pillar. Reyla darted forward as the platform became a giant tower, rising with the three of them atop it, and leaving the rest of the Ecstatics behind. The girl had lit up with the light of trajection. Soon, the three architects were lost to view behind ricochetting light. Still, the other Ecstatics writhed, crumpling on the floor, their bodies popping in bone-crunching sounds, their skin becoming liquid and oozing over the ground.
Naila closed her eyes tightly, retching. Ahilya simply watched this happen from behind her own horror. She felt numb. She felt frozen. How long until whatever was happening to the Ecstatics reached the architects of Irshar? Ahilya could not tell. Naila was not an Ecstatic, but all architects were connected—all of humanity was, especially now when there was only one core tree. Whatever was happening to these Ecstatics could occur to Irshar’s architects. To all of them, whether complete beings or not.
Within the forest of her Etherium, Ahilya saw memories flash with a leaf-fall. A fleeting glimpse of a mother screaming while she held her child. A pale, sparkling face, shining with embarrassed pride. A stuttering young woman as she shyly proposed. The leaves rained down in a cascade, a hundred memories, then a thousand, each memory leaching from the Ecstatics who were writhing in front of her.
She tried to breathe. She tried to think.
She was meant to do something.
There was a reason the vriksh was showing her this.
But was it the vriksh at all? Perhaps it was the Virohi overwriting the tree. How deep had the bonds formed between the cosmic creatures and the core tree—and where did her influence end? Who was really making a decision, and for what purpose? For all she knew, anything she did now would result in further catastrophe, overwriting all of them.
Perhaps she should simply remain still. Wait for this to pass. But one way or another, she was party to this, witnessing this, forced to feel the pain of the Ecstatics bleed into her.Call the Virohi to you, Basav said from before.Convince them to stay with you, close enough to feel them. Then sever them from the vriksh.Basav had meant for her to collect the cosmic creatures. But what if she could use something similar on these Ecstatics?
Ahilya forced herself to see these people lying around her. Their faces morphed, but she tried to remember all the names she knew. Shayla, Bipesh, Ravi, Jyaishna, and so many others who she had come to know through their work in Irshar in the last few weeks. In the forest of her Etherium, shapes grew behind the leaves. Other Etheriums connected to the vriksh. She had never been able to influence anyone else’s Etherium except for Iravan’s—but that had been before the Virohi were embedded within the tree. What if, through the overwriting, something else had become possible? What if more doors had opened to her in the Etherium, each one leading to the consciousness of a different person?
The third vision was mutable. Iravan had seen his as several things. And the vriksh had always responded to her emotion. She had been confused when the thorns impaled her before, terrified, unknowing of what was happening or why. Her fear and theVirohi’s had turned the vriksh’s memories into pain. But that had occured when the Virohi had been escaping the planetrage.
There was no planetrage now.
The Virohi were quiescent.
What if she embraced those memories instead of fighting them?
Heart thudding, Ahilya touched one of the leaves, folding it within her hand. Images overtook her vision, of one of the architects laughing within their airborne ashram—but before the memory could impale her Ahilya forced her will on the leaf and turned it into a soft grass. As if that were signal, the forest of fallen leaves changed, and she was submerged in a pool of soft grass, swimming within the architects’ memories.
Triumph surged in Ahilya. Her hand riffled over the grass, and more memories of the core tree flashed through her. She had changed the image successfully, but how much control did she have here? These memories were but lives of the people, each blade of grass connected to a consciousness. Could she influence their consciousness? Could she protect them?
Ahilya stood in the center of a vast grassland surrounded by Ecstatics. She stood in the assembly chamber, black-clad architects warping around her.
A risky plan formed in her head.
38
IRAVAN
Aparoxysm of coughing overtook him.Slow down, he tried to say, but the dust was too thick. His chest hurt with the effort of breathing. Darsh stood in front of him, staring down at him. Had he seen? Had he understood what Iravan was attempting to do? Dark cords banded themselves around Darsh’s chest, connecting to the Ecstatics in the assembly hall. Darsh clenched his fist, and Ecstatics collapsed. Their limbs broke. Their skins sloughed off. They did not heal.
Waves of blackness enveloped Darsh like mist. The boy was barely visible to Iravan, though still only a few feet away from him, feeding off the power of the others. A few minutes ago, he had stopped shooting his ray of light in the Deepness. He simply stood there, surrounded by vapor, a glint of coldness in his eyes.
Shock hurtled through Iravan to note that Darsh had stopped trajecting. He had never seen Ecstasy like this. True, he had destroyed Viana accidentally, but he had actually trajected into the Moment. He had not simply desired her death. Trajection worked in extradimensional realms, and one had to manipulate the Momentfrom the Deepness to affect change in reality. Darsh had somehow bypassed this basic tenet. Almost as if…
