Page 77 of The Enduring Universe
Ahilya thought of all the architects she knew—not just the Ecstatics, but others like Naila, Chaiyya, her nephew Arth who had shown capabilities. She had to stop him, but she didn’t know how.
Her eyes darted around, watching one yaksha after another shatter in sparks of silver. A part of her wondered why the yakshas were allowing this, but she already knew the answer. For centuries, the yakshas had been passive creatures, leaving humanity alone, though with each trajection they had called to their architect. Yet sentience occurred through spontaneous will. Even the falcon-yaksha had forgotten itself, and had only found who it was the closer it had come to uniting with Iravan. These other yakshas would not have that autonomy. The falcon had evolved itself, seeking—and now it sought to take over the others.
“You’re not doing this for them,” she said, turning back to Iravan. “You’re doing this for yourself. You want this power—the falcon wants their power. Why?”
Iravan smiled. “You want my help with the planetrage, do you not?” When she nodded, his smile grew cold. “Have you come to give the Virohi to me then?”
His tone sent a chill through Ahilya’s spine. She took a step back.
“Fighting the planetrage will kill me,” Iravan said, walking toward her, as she continued to back away. “But I have already embraced death. What do I have to fear from it? I have sieved and sifted through my memories to find what will occur to me after my death, and the truth is that I will return to becoming a Virohi after this final life. If I never fulfil my capital desire, then I am lost forever, but even if I complete it, I am condemned to become them. So you see, I am not afraid to die, Ahilya. Only to turn into these creatures.”
“You did not try to understand them,” Ahilya replied. “You feared them too much. You still do.”
“And you don’t?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “That is telling.”
“They—they’ve evolved, Iravan. After being a part of Irshar. Especially after being a part of me, and now in the core tree—”
“Ah, the core tree.” He stopped, and earth rippled in the cave, mud shaping into tangles of roots. Ahilya, still backing away, tripped, but Iravan did not seem to notice. He was staring at the earth-made roots as if seeing the vriksh in Irshar. Within her Etherium, where she had invited him, he looked around them at the fall of memories that cascaded over his face. His features were growing cold, dispassionate.
“Your Etherium is a forest now,” he said wonderingly. “For me, the third vision was always so confused, but you found stability and solidity there. You owned your third vision in a way I never could.”
It had taken Ahilya a long time to understand her Etherium, since she and Iravan had stopped that first earthrage together in the habitat. She had only been able to view Iravan within it, both their third visions connected in a unique way, but after the vriksh had absorbed the cosmic creatures, after she herself had opened the door to the vriksh in her mind, possibilities had tied her to the rest of humanity.
“The core tree gives me the stability to hold the image of my third vision,” she said. “I’ve always controlled the vriksh’s permissions—”
“And so you found control of your Etherium too, in amazing ways.” Iravan nodded. “But your control of the third vision did not start with the vriksh. Only cemented with it. Regardless,” he said, shrugging. “I did not thank you for protecting the Ecstatics from Darsh, for protecting them from the collapse of the three visions.”
Ahilya jerked. “You know about the collapse?”
Iravan waved a hand, and she saw it waving both in the Etherium and within the cave, a dual vision that made her eyes hurt. She blinked, trying to hold onto the reality in the cave.
“It was imminent,” he said. “After what happened to the Moment, such a collapse was inevitable. I did not understand it when I was battling Darsh, but I’ve had time to think about it all now. The visions are all melting into each other, and one would think it would give me greater power—I, who am a creature of all the three visions. I, who have mastered them more than anyone else. Yet all my everpower, all my knowledge, all my wisdom, and control of this space still eludes me. For so long I wondered why is it that you could control it in a way that even I could not? Why has the Etherium been always beyond me?”
“You said it was a place of guidance,” Ahilya said.
“A window to the world outside of you, but a mirror into oneself too. In some ways the same as the Moment and the Deepness, but the Moment has always been an architect’s reality, and the Deepness an Ecstatic’s. Yet everyone has access to their personal Etherium, architect or non-architect. It is a mirror to consciousness, doing what it does best. Reflecting.”
That’s why she had seen the Virohi as herself, giving both her and the cosmic creatures an identity they had needed for their communion. Her Etherium manifested as mirrors too, except shehad converted that into a forest, so her mind could freely walk within the consciousness of the tree. She had controlled it, to find peace, to find herself.
“I—I see,” she said.
“Do you?” Iravan replied, shaking his head. “Do you really see how special you are? Because that’s the thing about mirrors. Only a sufficiently strong being can look into one to see and accept who they are. I was never that strong. My fury and desire for control got in the way, and all I ever received was guidance. But you? You have always been stronger, and so you were given control, not just to see who you were but to evolve yourself, to choose to become what you could. You—you have always been amazing.” Iravan laughed, and the sound echoed in the cavern and the forest. “How far you have come, my love, from an unknown archeologist.”
There was admiration in his voice, but it was laced with poison. “What are you getting at?” Ahilya asked.
Iravan tilted his head. “You have been keeping secrets, haven’t you?”
Ahilya’s eyes grew wide. How could he know? She hadn’t dared to think about it, keeping it a secret from herself. Her fingers came up to clutch her heartpoison bracelet. He tracked the movement, his mouth thinning.
“Iravan,” she said. “Please. Listen—”
He uttered atsking sound, so unlike him that she couldn’t understand it. This was her husband, but his mannerisms were changing from second to second. The lift of his lips, the tilt of his chin, the way he crinkled his eyes and smiled. They were movements of his body, fluid and familiar, but they were not-him too. She had seen something like this before—back when the Virohi had looked like her in the mirrored chambers. Who was he? Where was he?
Iravan chuckled, and the sound shook her, echoing in the cavern,filtering into the Etherium so the man in there laughed too. “You could not keep secrets from me even if you wanted to,” he said softly. “I am a part of the vriksh too, my memories a part of it just like any other citizen’s. I sense your purpose inside it. If the others had some familiarity with the Etherium, they would be able to see it too. I might not be as strong as you in that place, but I understand it more than most.”
Ahilya continued to retreat, hands open in front of her, her mind racing. She thought that she should run, but how far would she get with everpower at his disposal? He could simply churn the rock to trap her. He could encase her in a wall if he wished. He had not allowed her to come to him out of sentiment. Suddenly she knew why she was the only one who had been let in here. Why Iravan had summoned her far from everyone.
“For so long I have wondered why you would stand in my way,” he said. “Why you would not let me kill the cosmic creatures.”
