Page 71 of The Enduring Universe
Half-descended into madness, he tried to traject into the body. He had all this everpower. He could use it. Air eddied in front of him, and he forced some of it into the boy’s lungs.Breathe, he commanded.Breathe, and live, and forgive me.
The body spasmed, unnaturally so, and he knew that though he could do many miraculous things, this one he could not. Consciousness had already left Darsh, and even everpower could not achieve the impossible.
He clutched Darsh’s body and howled. Images chased each other in his broken mind—of Oam who had been so frightened, and Viana whose skin had erupted with bones, and Bharavi who had screamed his name.Death has become such an easy answer for you, Ahilya had said, and he grieved because she was right. He had loved this boy, and thought of him as his own, but fatherhood had always been denied to him. This was inevitable. Perhaps in giving Darsh his affection, he had brought about the boy’s demise.
The questions seeped out of Iravan. A horrible clarity grew in him. Still clutching Darsh, he pushed the everpower into the rock around him, shrinking the space, enclosing himself in a silent tomb. Roots grew from the rock, wrapping around him so he couldn’t breathe. Slowly, methodically, Iravan sought to destroy himself,because now he could see how he had brought all this about. He turned the everpower into his body—
Something knocked him away, and he looked up blearily. The three visions were not three anymore, they were amalgamated, and in his deranged mind he saw the falcon-yaksha fly to him like a creature of legend.
It was small enough to perch onto his shoulder, a thing made of light, and though he could feel its weight, Iravan knew the falcon was not really there—but what was real anymore? The falcon’s crooning was like a song of seduction, and in that moment, Iravan saw how everything he had done had been at the falcon’s bidding. He had never wanted war with the Virohi. He had never wanted to destroy. Ahilya had asked him what his capital desire was really worth, whether making amends really was the same as destroying the Virohi, and he thought,You have corrupted me, as the falcon chirruped on his shoulder.
Iravan’s hand shot out to clasp the bird’s neck, but the falcon only laughed, dissipating to reform around him—mirrored a thousand times, a million times. The creature became massive within Iravan’s eyes, and he felt its rage and corrosive hate bleed into him. In the folded space of the amalgamated three visions, the falcon’s wings wrapped around him. His Etherium blinked in and out—a sludge of reality—and his past lives surrounded them, their eyes glinting silver. Each of those past lives had a tiny bird perched on their shoulders.
Help me, Iravan thought desperately—but Nidhirv, Mohini, Askavetra, Bhaskar, and behind them a thousand other lives, all crowded him. His vision condensed to a single chamber of darkness, silvery lights surrounding him as the past lives stalked him. He discerned the coldness in their gazes. He retreated blindly, stumbling and tripping, rock cutting him. Too late, he understood. He hadlet the falcon in too deep—allowed it to infiltrate and infect his past. His past lives were its minions now, their desires corrupted as he once had been.
They loomed in his vision, their skins glowing iridescent blue, then silvery, as if they were fighting the falcon’s control too. Iravan saw the moment when the falcon took over. Nidhirv’s face twisted into a cold smile. Askavetra’s mouth went slack, while Agni howled in feral laughter. Their bodies grew bigger, and they reached down, their hands overlaid atop each other, resembling silvery wingtips as they strangled Iravan.
He struggled, weeping, as the falcon’s intent poured into him. He saw Ahilya within his Etherium, a shadowy haze, and knew that she was coming for him.No, he thought frantically.No. Stay away.
He couldn’t breathe. The falcon gleamed, and—he didn’t even see it coming—he couldn’t tell how—
His visions vibrated like a dewdrop in the wind, then a great distance opened up between him and his thoughts. He viewed his body moving from afar. The way it trajected the everpower, earth and mud swirling in front of him, the immense constructions being made with purpose. His body half-flew, half-strode through a labyrinth as above him rock shot up thousands of feet. Stairs grew, and beyond it a familiar city full of spires and towers appeared, a gift he had once thought to make.
He recognized the trap. He fought to free himself.
The falcon tightened its talons—Nidhirv, Bhaskar, and all the others, pressed down, their knees over his chest and arms, pinning him while he struggled—
Iravan shrank.
43
AHILYA
Dhruv equipped her with sungineering devices.
They stood together facing the blank wall of rock. A few minutes ago, Dhruv’s assistant, Purva, had collapsed the solarchamber to shrink it further, in order to conserve sungineering power. Ahilya glanced behind her, and saw the other councilors retake their seats, their voices hushed as they pointed toward the images still pouring from the Garden’s drones. All of them were still in relative privacy, the solarchamber now a semi-circle closed by the rock wall.
Ahilya caught Naila’s eyes and smiled slightly, but Naila simply watched, worry in her eyes. She did not like the idea of Ahilya going alone in search of Iravan, but in the last few minutes, each of the councilors had tried to open the rock wall like Ahilya had. They had tried it with her, then alone, but none of it had worked. They had even tried to enter it after Ahilya opened it. Even that had been futile. The rock had simply closed, nearly taking their limbs with it.
No one was surprised. Iravan had coded this gate for one person alone, just as he had all that time ago when he’d first made Irsharin the skies. It had always been about the two of them. Dhruv had sent his probes forward but they’d returned nothing but fitful images of rock. Ahilya had no idea what she’d be met with, but all she felt was a giddy excitement, bordering on vertiginous. She was going to fall over a terrible precipice, and it would be a relief.
Dhruv tapped her shoulder, and asked her to turn. Ahilya tugged on the harness, trying not to disturb the delicate devices Dhruv had placed around it.
She tried to contain the sense of unreality breathing inside her skin. What was she doing? Was she really going to go to Iravan and turn over the Virohi? He would not fight the planetrage without that assurance, not now when she had the method to destroy the cosmic creatures. What would happen to her, and the rest of humanity when she excised the Virohi? The cosmic creatures were irrevocably tied to them all now. The other didn’t see it—they wouldn’t—but Ahilya could sense it in the Etherium. She wouldn’t have to snap a branch of the Virohi as much as set fire to the forest, burning each person and memory to satiate Iravan. Would he make her do it while he watched? Would he comfort her while she wept? The thought was such madness that Ahilya began hyperventilating.
She looked to the ceiling, which was still reshaping itself. She tried to anchor herself, but instead of seeing the Garden as it had become now, she saw a memory of thin trees waving in and out of her vision. She saw the trees of Nakshar, that had once grown in the outer maze of the ashram, during landing. Dhruv was placing sungineering devices—not just normal devices, but experimental ones—on her harness. She was leaving for a dangerous expedition. She could almost hear Oam flirting with her. She could hear Naila’s arrogant replies from the past. And Iravan—she could sense him too, a pull on her heart and behind her brows.
Her feelings for her husband now were no different from thoseduring that fateful expedition. Then her turmoil had been caused by his seven months of absence. This time, it was because of something worse, but in her mind, had she not already said goodbye to him, both times? What was left for them? Now when she went to him, would they finally see each other? Would they finally reconcile? Is this what it would take for their marriage—an evolution of the species, and its erasure?
A soft sound of hysteria built in her throat. “Just like old times,” she muttered.
“Just like,” Dhruv replied.
Ahilya jumped, turning her gaze to him. She had not expected him to speak. She had been talking to herself, a coping mechanism she had adopted ever since the formation of Irshar, though for the most part she’d done this in the conflicted privacy of her head. She stared at the sungineer, and he looked up from her harness. The words hung between them, of apology and explanation, but Dhruv cleared his throat, and Ahilya swallowed, and the both of them looked away, unable to say it.
Still, Ahilya felt a lessening of the weight on her shoulders.
Perhaps after all this time, and everything that had occurred, they did not need to say anything. Perhaps that had always been the substance of their friendship.
