Page 90 of The Enduring Universe
You weren’t always like this, Iravan thought to his past.You made choices of love before.He watched Nidhirv, Askavetra, Bhaskar and the others in his third vision, but the third vision was slipping with the collapse of reality. His past lives crowded him, reading his intent.
Iravan took a deep breath. If he was to fix the Moment, he would have to begin with himself.
As an architect, that was essential—his will needed to be pure and unshakeable. His past lives still lived within him, driven by the falcon-yaksha. If he did not combat their resistance first, whatever he wished to do could be undone by his own self. A slip while he tried to pry one consciousness apart from another, a small flicker of his fingers while he teased apart the fragments… These mistakes could ruin everything. What he intended needed the precision of a surgeon, and he had one chance, and one alone. Iravan could not afford to give control to any of his past lives in those instants of reckoning.
Besides, he’d already told Ahilya he needed to neutralize the falcon. It was too powerful with the subsumed power of all the other yakshas. It battled inside him, roaring to take control, attempting to grip the everpower with steely talons as he clutched it with his crumbling fingernails.
Wrapped in the everpower, Iravan began projecting his past outward like he’d done before. Dust rippled around him in the atmosphere, space debris and vapor misting and coalescing. Figures appeared in front of him, the faded forms of Mohini, Askavetra, Bhaskar, Agni, and then Nidhirv. If he could only break the falcon’s control of them then he could ensure the falcon would not interfere.
The yaksha anticipated him snatching at the projections. Though Iravan knew it would occur, a grunt escaped him.
Stars in front of him blinked, rearranging themselves into a gateway, and beyond it a massive, labyrinthine maze that extended above and below him as if it were a sungineering hologram. Awe filled Iravan because he knew this maze was his consciousness. It glittered like glass, walls rising in front of him, rippling with memory. Standing within the Moment, he stared at a million collected panes, iridescent and colorful images rushing across the glass surfaces, each image showing him a version of himself.
A smile twisted his lips. He had seen his consciousness as a maze before. This was an invitation, an acceptance of the falcon to finally find the victor between them. Only one of them would emerge; only one would hold the reins of this consciousness they both shared.We come to it again, he thought. How many times had he done this? First with the Resonance, then with the falcon-proper, and now this. Of course, he had not won by subsuming the falcon-yaksha, he could see that now. This time, he had arrived at their last battle.
He sensed the falcon’s laughter, and for a brief instant Iravan felt a deep affection for the creature. For thousands of years they had circled each other. This was a battle so long coming. What would the yaksha unleash on him that he had not already endured?
There was no way forward but one.
Iravan entered the maze.
53
AHILYA
The noise swept over her, horrifying her and making her scream, until she realized it came from her. Even so, she could not stop—she was the noise, and the cacophony filled her mind, the worst memories unmooring her. A collective vision of the Conclave falling to the jungle. Bodies tumbling everywhere, ripped away—and within the mass of combined consciousness, an absence like a tearing of her limbs. Panic filled her throat, and the screaming stopped just for an instant becauseshe could not get the sounds out—
***
Silence.
***
Then a ringing sound, shrill and continuous.
***
Her movements were slow… wooden. She couldn’t remember where she was. Who she was.
***
She stood in a forest. Her bare toes grazed the soil. Wet earth squelched under her feet. The shrill sound echoed from all directions. Something was rushing through the forest with the force of a storm. A dark mass blinked in the distance, hurtling toward her. She squinted, trying to understand it. Leaves cascaded from the trees, scraping off branches, and roots withered into dust, so that suddenly she stood on an empty plain. All around her, the forest was depleting, leaves that had fallen only seconds ago now rising higher and higher. They became a wall, a wave, rearing upon itself, and suddenly she realized—this was what that black mass was. A hurricane of leaves that had been rushing toward her, that was now upon her—but no, not leaves.
Faces. The leaf-wave contained a thousand faces, all twisted in agony,pain, pain, pain.
She backed away, stumbling, horrified. The screams from those faces came to her, and she recognized their voices—her sister, her friends, her family.
Ahilya turned and ran, but there was no escape from this. The wave rose higher, leaves swirling within it, its crash over her imminent. The wave rushed her, but she snatched at herself desperately—
***
Splashing water.
She was in a small, deep pool.
She was in Nakshar. In some corner of her mind, she knew this was a memory. That her mind was constructing sense in a slipping landscape of meaning. She blinked again, wiping her nose with her wet hands, and saw her legs underwater.
Next to her, Tariya appeared, spitting water, her eyes terrified. Tariya looked no older than ten, her hair sticking to her face andneck, her big eyes wide. “What do we do?” she gasped. “What do we do?”
