Page 74 of The Enduring Universe
Ahilya began walking again in the darkness. “Wouldn’t you?” she asked.
“No,” he replied to her shortly. “Not even my worst enemy. And certainly not you.”
It was more sentimental than he’d ever been, but Ahilya couldn’t help remembering the cave-in they’d survived when they’d been children, caught in Nakshar’s architecture before her Maze Architect parents could rescue them. If Dhruv was being so vocal about his feelings, then the thought of the planetrage scared him more than he had let on. Or maybe this was the overwriting already occurring, and Dhruv had taken a tiny step toward joining the hive mind. If so, did it mean that overwriting could mend broken things? Like her and Dhruv? Like her marriage with Iravan—or Iravan himself? It was a dangerous, seductive thought. She couldn’t follow it, especially after Eskayra’s near declaration.
The drones went suddenly dark, then dropped on her shoulders, attaching themselves to her harness. A dim light glowed everywhere, the same shimmery substance that had created a dome over Irshar. Not everdust, but a substance of the planet, morphed somehowthrough the everpower. Ahilya waved her hand through it, but it did not dissipate. It was like passing her hand through light, as the substance merely reformed around her moving fingers.
She emerged on top of a vast roughly-hewn ramp of rock, staring down into a chamber. Phosphorescence gleamed here and there, reminding her of Nakshar, and her heart skipped a beat. This was no natural cavern. This was Iravan’s doing.
She glanced behind, but the path had already closed. “How far am I from you?” she said.
“Not very. In fact…” Dhruv trailed off, and Ahilya imagined him checking something on the bio-nodes. She trod carefully, noticing the ground becoming firmer. “In fact,” Dhruv said, again, surprise in his voice, “you’re approaching—new city. Eskayra—miles above you, before—headed.”
Ahilya frowned. “Already? It took us a long time to get there from Irshar.”
“The planet—changing, and paths are different—” More static burst but she could still understand. “Eskayra—evacuating faster—see?”
Ahilya began to climb down the ramp, her body growing cold. She was reminded of the time she had descended into a similar cavern in the habitat, Iravan’s hand clutched in hers. Then the two of them had found carvings on rock, recalling the true story of Ecstasy. And now…
She reached the bottom of the ramp, and stared. Carvings were hewn everywhere again, this time on freestanding slabs of wall so she felt like she were walking through a rocky life-size maze. The drones kept her company, but enough light was pouring from the pictures embedded in these walls. Images of people blinked at her, a young woman petting a tiger-yaksha, then another man, laughing with his friends while planting seeds into soil. More and more onevery rock wall, images of men and women and children, living their lives, singing, playing, dancing, each of them an architect trajecting either in an airborne ashram or one that had been in the jungle. Ahilya felt chilled, watching this eerie deja-vu. Not a museum, but a mausoleum, rippling with an alien familiarity, full of regrets and shame.
“What—this?” Dhruv whispered in her ear.
“Iravan’s lives,” she replied, swallowing. “His past selves, all of them shaped by the everpower.”
The further in she walked, the clearer the carvings became. Perhaps Dhruv understood that she was too overcome to speak. He did not ask her anymore questions, though she could hear the sound of his breath in her ear.
She recognized Mohini with her two spouses, watching the children of the ashram play. She recognized Agni, out in the jungle, carrying a bow on their back. Scenes upon scenes of love that she’d never heard Iravan speak of when describing his past lives to her. Why had he made this now? Had he finally seen the error of his capital desire?
Ahilya stopped in front of a wall where the phosphorescence gleamed brightest. These carvings depicted one man’s story. Short, dark-skinned, his features rounded but his body sunken in…
“Nidhirv,” she said. “This is from his time.”
Nidhirv stood next to a man who could only be his husband, Vishwam. This past life had haunted Iravan most of all, and she could see his reverence in this sculpture. Vishwam’s face was carved with love, each plane of his cheek smoothened. Nidhirv stood with him, his head on his husband’s shoulder. The two men tended their house. They hunted in the jungle. They made love.
“You need—moving,” Dhruv said, more static interfering with his words. “—planetrage—help—”
He was not wrong, but it took effort to peel away from the wall dedicated to this one life. Ahilya reached the end of the mural, no wiser as to why Iravan had chosen to mark this life alone. Her fingers flickered over Nidhirv’s face.Who are you? she thought. Nidhirv looked nothing like Iravan, but in those expressions of love and domesticity, she discerned a deep longing that felt like her husband.
Dhruv cleared his throat meaningfully, and she turned away from the mural, hurrying along the chamber again. Other walls flashed by, each displaying more lives, but none had the same depth to them as Nidhirv’s. The archeologist part of her itched to examine them more closely, to find answers to questions she didn’t know, but she had been sent here for another reason.
She found him finally at the very center of this vast cave, seated on a short staircase that led to nowhere. The thing could have belonged to the Garden’s assembly hall, if it were not in this strange city of murals and ghosts.
Iravan did not move when she approached, but he had seen her come, of course. His Etherium was still too shadowy for her to tell, but he knew her tread.
He did not acknowledge her.
His head remained bent.
In his arms, he held what could only be a body, sheathed in plain jute cloth. Where had he acquired the cloth? Ahilya did not truly care. She knew her mind was asking inane questions to distract from his face.
She sat down next to him, slowly. His stillness scared her. His expression was too calm. Iravan’s silvery light bathed them in its radiance, but the invisible darkness leaching from him provided its counterpoint, as though he were made of marble too. This was the man who was going to help them? He seemed so lost.
The rock floor in front of Iravan began to rise. Roots grew fromit, curling around the sheathed body on his lap. Rock opened to reveal mud, and tendrils of roots carried the body toward the earth in a final, gentle embrace. A choked sound escaped Ahilya. She watched as slowly Darsh sank into the ground.
When the ground was smooth again, she turned to Iravan.
He had been watching her.
