Page 79 of The Enduring Universe
Her bones crackled. Her skin was on fire. In the crashing depths of her consciousness, Ahilya saw Tariya shatter into ribbons, she watched Viana explode into thorns, and—
Blankness.
Everything s l o w e d for a dangerous, horrifying instant. She knew she would soon be no more.
In desperation, Ahilya fled completely to the vriksh. The forest shook at her scrambling arrival. Iravan followed her, for in her panic she had left the door to his mind open. Ahilya tried to banish him,but it was too late. She couldn’t drop the Etherium—this was the only place she could fight back. Iravan glowed with the everpower, stalking her as she ran. Her fear gave her speed and purchase, and the vriksh read her intention, attacking Iravan with branches slashing at his silvery face.
A whiplashing root curled around his waist, holding him back for several seconds. Ahilya exerted her will, and the root tightened, wrapping him head to toe so only the silver blaze of his eyes was visible. A stutter of hope escaped her mouth. His fingers loosened on her throat. She had control here, and she had learned the ways of the architects—
Iravan obliterated the roots, destroying the memories easily with the power of the yakshas blazing in him. He had never been able to control the Etherium, but with the visions collapsing and reality wobbling, the playing field was level. Within the Etherium now, neither of them had the upper hand.
Still, Ahilya fought.
She ducked under a branch, hurling will and intent at him haphazardly. More roots curled, and she saw leaves obscuring Iravan’s vision for long seconds before he conjured a whirlwind to sweep them away. The ground rose to stop him, trapping his feet, but he converted it into flowers and marched forward, his aloof expression never changing. She fled, wishing to hide, and a whole copse appeared out of nowhere between them, branches and thorns impaling him, but Iravan sliced through them in another soundless explosion. Ahilya heard humanity scream, and within them the Virohi. Panic seized her. She could not win. He was too practiced. He was an architect—more than an architect. He anticipated every move, every deflection.
Tattoos blazed on his skin, and Iravan curled his right hand into a fist. Ahilya cried out, pain gutting her, spreading throughher limbs. She fell to the floor, but flipped immediately to her back, crawling away. He was almost there. Tears ran down her face. He looked nothing like her husband, with silver suffusing him, and in the dimness of the forest, he was a startling light, silver wings flowing from his shoulders in the form of massive falcon.
Iravan, she thought, desperately.Stop! This isn’t you. This isn’t you.
He reached for her, as she willed the tree to break him.
46
IRAVAN
Iravan fought to destroy himself.
The falcon was using the everpower—and he attempted to seize control, obliterate his own existence—but it was too powerful. It had created an army.
He saw himself from afar, trapped behind his eyes, watching as he desecrated Ahilya’s forest, chasing her, attacking her. In the underground caves beneath the new city, his hands trembled, all his willpower spent on ensuring his fingers did not crush Ahilya’s throat completely. When his fingers loosened, he felt a brief flash of victory. Ahilya raked in a breath—but it was all either of them could manage, frozen in this eternal moment of horror as they were, his body overpowering hers.
For hours, imprisoned in his thoughts, Iravan had tried to wrest control back from the falcon. He had tried to step away from Ahilya, he’d tried to slow his approach. He had begged her to leave, but each time he managed a sliver of control, the falcon took over. It used his mouth to speak, inflicting its will through his past lives. It sounded like him, so much that even Iravan did not know whohe was anymore. He had tried to reclaim his past selves, and shown Ahilya with the sculptures he had created in brief moments of lucidity that he loved her. It was the shoddiest of clues, but he had given in to the yaksha’s hate, and he could not attempt any more. He had subsumed the falcon, but it had won. He had chosen to fall into the falcon’s trap—not Nidhirv or any of his past lives, buthim.Now it was too late.
Ahilya whimpered in front of him.
He wept.
It had astonished him at first that the falcon’s plan was to traject Ahilya, a complex, complete being. Architect consciousnesses were broken, but complete beings stood against cosmic creatures, shielding the world from an earthrage.
Then Iravan had remembered. He’d used Ahilya’s consciousness to reform his, a blueprint to knit himself back with the falcon in that first act of unity. The falconknewAhilya because of it. Now with Ahilya a vessel for the cosmic creatures, the falcon knew exactly how to destroy her.
When she threw a branch at him he rejoiced, but the falcon swept it aside with the everpower. When she used roots to trap him, the falcon crushed them, even though Iravan wanted her to escape. He attempted to slow his feet, to gain enough control to be clumsy as he followed her, but the falcon hastened him.I’ve always been too weak, he thought.The Resonance always knew it.
Ahilya fell, scrambling back, and Iravan uttered a cry of horror. The falcon was upon her, landing lightly with his body.
His finger twitched, tightening around her throat.Destroy, the falcon whispered.The cosmic creatures. Destroy.
Reality distorted, the vriksh in the Etherium shrinking, behind it the mirrored chambers tilting, and the echoes of his grief and horror splintering around them.
In a final act of will Iravan snatched at the everpower, trying to seize it back from the falcon. He could tell from the brief flicker in her eyes that she saw him,him, not this mad creature who was killing her, but him.Please, he begged, asking her to save her and himself somehow.Please.
47
AHILYA
As his hands relaxed for an instant, Ahilya finally saw her husband.
He was on his back, only his eyes visible, as fingers and limbs held him down, each of his past lives crowding him, suffocating him. She saw the terrified whites of his eyes, the whimper as he tried to inhale, the pathetic scrabble of his fingers as men and women pummeled him, trying to take control over his body. Each of these people looked familiar, and Ahilya realized they were the very ones she’d seen in the carvings he’d created. Finally, she understood his message. Those carvings had been for her, to warn her, to beg her for help.
