Page 69 of The Enduring Universe
The others stopped murmuring when she entered. A small rectangular wooden table had been brought into this solarchamber, and Dhruv sat at one of the heads of it, leaving space for Ahilya at the other. Chaiyya, Airav, Basav and Kiana were all present as main councilors from Irshar, sitting on one side of Ahilya, where Naila took the only remaining seat. On the other side were representatives from the Garden. Two Ecstatics, Pranav and Trisha, and one other woman, her smile not quite reaching her eyes, who introduced herself as Dhruv’s lead sungineer, Purva. Ahilya studied them all.
“I don’t know where he is,” she said before they could ask. “I can’t sense him.”
Dhruv scowled at her from the other side. “Iravan, what hehas done—what has happened to the Ecstatics, and now what is occurring all over—” He cut off, visibly trying to keep himself under control.
Ahilya was surprised at this subtle castigation of her husband, but it made sense. With Iravan gone, Dhruv was in command of the Garden, and she read his nervousness. His hands shook as he removed his glasses and polished them on the edge of his kurta. He was as ill-equipped to be the lead councilor as she had been. How far the both of them had come from their days of secret machinations to gain a council seat.
“Whathashappened to the Ecstatics?” she asked. “I saw them in there…”
“We don’t know,” Pranav replied. “But we can guess. None of us are able to traject anymore.”
Ahilya had never spoken to Pranav before, but she knew he was one of Iravan’s top Ecstatics, once a Maze Architect of Nakshar, and a man who had both been imprisoned by the council she had been on, yet someone who had escaped excision because of everything she had done to protect him. He knew who she was, of course. Yet in his guarded gaze, she saw nothing but indifference, and it was almost comforting to feel as if she did not matter to him, that she was just another citizen. For a fleeting second Ahilya was grateful.
“Only the Ecstatics?” she asked. “The rest of you can traject?”
Naila shook her head. “No, Ahilya-ve, we can’t either. But the rest of us haven’t been able to traject since the Moment broke.”
Chaiyya nodded, and Ahilya paused. Of course. She’d known that. In everything she’d learned since the Moment breaking, she had forgotten that the primary purpose of the universe was so architects could traject.
Pranav waved a hand toward the infirmary. “Either way, now theEcstatics have joined those ranks, because the Deepness is damaged too. And it’s hitting us worse than it did ordinary architects. Reyla says this is why Darsh lost control. He was trying to work in a realm that was changing as he trajected.”
Ahilya thought of the glassy-eyed stare of the Ecstatics. Maya flashed in her eyes—the Ecstatic Architect she’d seen ages ago in Nakshar’s sanctum, when Iravan had told her about the truth of Ecstasy. The ones she’d seen in Irshar’s infirmary resembled Maya so fully. She shivered, remembering her control of them in her Etherium.
“You seem fine,” she ventured, staring at Pranav.
“For now. But I don’t think I, or any of the other in the Garden, will be exempt from this too long.”
“You think this is Iravan’s doing?”
Pranav studied her. “Maybe? But I think not. The Deepness isn’t the Deepness anymore. It seems to be folding around itself much like in a deathmaze. And your architects cannot fully sense the shattered Moment either, though that is to be expected.”
“The three visions are collapsing,” Chaiyya said. “We think it is an effect of the Moment breaking. If Iravan is right, and all the realms are the same in some way, then the breaking of one was sure to have a massive consequence on the others. It is a wonder it has taken this long.”
Ahilya felt nauseated. Another calamity to add to her and Iravan’s list of transgressions. She did not need to ask why the collapse of the three visions was occurring now, she already knew it. Darsh had begun to unite with his yaksha, and unity by her experience brought about great change, both physical and metaphysical. Darsh’s unity with his yaksha had triggered the collapse, perhaps tipping an already wobbly rock off balance straight into the chasm of confusion.
Naila’s skin lit up as if to test it, but she quickly darkened. When she spoke, she was breathless as if she’d run a mile, and her eyes were wide. “This… this collapse of the three visions,” she breathed. “Is this the evervision?”
Pranav shook his head. “No. The evervision is a matter of perspective. Iravan-ve could always see the Moment, the Deepness, and his Etherium as separate things but he could also see them as the same, a switch that only he could do. The evervision is afforded to him, and only to him, because of his power. But this—” He waved his hand. “This is really happening. We have been calling it allvision.” Pranav shrugged. “There is a difference, even if it is a philosophical one.”
“It is more than a philosophical one,” Naila said, her voice troubled. “Becauseisit actually real?” Her glance flicked to Ahilya, mildly apologetic, before turning to the others. “Maybe it is a corruption of the Virohi. Maybe wethinkthis allvision exists because the Virohi are corrupting us.”
“The corruption is not helping,” Airav said. “But Iravan shattered the Moment. The Moment affects consciousness, so it breaking changes our experience of reality. Yet what happens in the Moment renders outside of it too. Destroying it essentially unmoored reality. Subjective perception and objective reality are both broken now. We are headed toward a collapse of everything, matter, language, meaning, even thought.”
“We’re fucked, in short,” Dhruv said. “From every side.”
A silence echoed after those words. Ahilya studied her hands on her lap. They were trembling, but she watched it happen from afar, Dhruv’s words rippling through her.
“We cannot lose hope,” Airav said, breaking the quiet. “This decay of reality—this dissolution—is occurring fast, but we are still here. We can still hold meaningful conversation, we can still experience ashared reality, such as it is. Things are returning to their source, but both Irshar and the Garden were created of the original habitat. Our societies split into two, but the building blocks of these two places were the same. They were both made of everdust, though of course Irshar eventually encompassed the Virohi and the vriksh too. Now…” Airav spun a finger to indicate the pictures on the bio-nodes. “It appears that it is all coming back to what it once was—the original habitat. The city is trying to balance itself, which means we have hope of balancing ourselves too. Eskayra has already begun the migration to the new city for those citizens who are willing.”
“What?” Ahilya asked, her head snapping up. “When nightfall approaches?”
“Time is not a luxury we have,” Dhruv said. “Dissolution is already occurring, and it is likely to become faster. Sungineering is compromised with the loss of the Deepness. We are working this on the new energy from Irshar.”
He gestured toward the chamber, and Kiana nodded and placed a torch on the table. Purple sungineering light bounced off the bio-nodes, until Kiana turned it off.
If sungineering was unreliable and Ecstasy was dead, then humanity had reached the end of the line. Food, medicine, light, all of it was now on its last rations, reality itself forfeit. To send survivors out to the new city, scattering them when everyone needed to stay together, was so preposterous that Ahilya’s voice shook with emotion.
“If this is true,” she said, “then all the more reason to stay here in Irshar, or the Garden, or whatever this habitat is now. How do we even know if the new city is safe? We could be sending the citizens to more doom. You could be sending Eskayra to her death.”
