Page 97 of The Enduring Universe
You did this, the falcon said, and Iravan saw Nidhirv’s silver eyes pouring with tears.You brought death, because of your love. Disgust poured into his mind, gushing from the falcon, and though Iravan knew the falcon was guilting him now deliberately, he found that he had no defense.
We didn’t know, he thought desperately.We didn’t know.
But he could not deny the truth. The path that Nidhirv had taken—thathehad taken—had led their whole society into devastation. Bharavi’s death, all the excisions, all the earthrages, the utter annihilation of the planet, all of it laid at his feet.
The falcon sensed his despair. It fed on his vulnerability.Look at what you did, it whispered.
Nidhirv disappeared, and in his place, the false-Iravan appeared again, looming over him.
See, the falcon mocked, using his voice.As I see.
The projection put a foot on Iravan’s chest, and pushed. He was swept away, again—
***
Back in Nakshar. He saw himself, a Senior Architect, and next to him sat another architect. Manav, at a time when they had both been councilors. They had never been close, but Iravan had always felt respect and kinship with his colleague. They had worked together as equals. He laughed with Manav as Airav made a dry comment—but then the vision changed, and days passed, and Iravan watched himself marching into Vishwam’s—no, Manav’s home. He watched as he excised Manav within the deathcage. Each life was distinct and unique, even if tethered to its past lives or those yet to be born—he knew this—but all he could see was Manav—Manav who had once beenVishwam—while the man shook and quivered, reduced to nothing with his alienation from Nakshar’s core tree.
No, Iravan thought horrified, in some corner of his brain.
Yet the vision moved forward inexorably, uncaring of his shock. Iravan saw the focus on his own face as he let down the glass of Manav’s deathcage to perform the complex trajection of excision. Manav tried to fight, his body blazing blue-green, but Iravan—assisted by the rudra-tree—was too powerful. The ashram divorced from Manav, recognizing him as an outsider, a danger, an other. Grass grew around Manav, directed by the rudra-tree, and Manav screamed as the foliage attacked him. In Iravan’s eyes, the man merged with Bharavi, and he saw himself killing the both of them within a deathcage.
Do you see?the falcon whispered.This is what you did. To the man who loved you.
No, no, no, Iravan thought, backing away into the darkness, but the image of Manav’s excision played repeatedly in front of his eyes. He was trapped in this nightmare, unable to deny the truth.The other vision the falcon had shown him was punishing, but he knew in his heart that it was the falcon’s corruption.
But this—
This had beenhim.
He had destroyed Manav.
His capital desire had been to seek vengeance against the cosmic creatures. But Manav—united with one of his yakshas—had sought to protect Iravan. That is why he had not fought his excision. If Manav had once been Vishwam, and if Vishwam’s greatest desire had once been to love Nidhirv, then Manav and his yaksha had no choice in rescuing Iravan from the falcon. He could see now why he had felt such affinity for Manav’s incorporeal yaksha. What were yakshas if not manifestations of deep desire? Without Vishwam, Iravan would have been erased.
And Iravan had excised him.
Each decision had been catastrophic. To deny his yaksha as Nidhirv, in order to stay with Vishwam… And then, to excise Vishwam-as-Manav once Nidhirv had become Iravan…
Iravan’s shoulders shuddered with a heavy weight. He screamed in denial and grief and fury.
The vision vanished, and he was back in the glittering maze of the Moment within the central chamber. All around him, the panes reflected Manav’s excision, but in the time he had been trapped here with his nightmares, other projections had arrived.
Nidhirv pulled away from Iravan, Bhaskar stood next to him. Agni, and Askavetra, and Mohini, and Jeevan—all of them surrounding him.
Iravan cowered between them as they loomed. They looked like his past lives, but superimposed behind them was the falcon-yaksha, its wings spread wide. There was no escape.
Give up, the falcon said.I am the better, the stronger, the wiser of the both of us.
Give up, the projections echoed.
Iravan shook his head. He tried to stand, to flee.
The projections rushed him.
61
COHESION
The pause was eternal.
