Page 18 of The Enduring Universe (The Rages Trilogy #3)
AHILYA
She was on her bed in the infirmary, Eskayra asleep next to her on a makeshift cot. Even in her half-aware sleep-befuddled state, Ahilya could hear Eskayra’s breathing. When she cracked her eyes open, she could discern the shape of Esk’s body in the darkness. Her friend had eschewed her home ever since Ahilya had been transferred here as a permanent patient after their return from the jungle. It felt like an imposition at first, but Ahilya was now glad for the company.
Ordinarily, the infirmary would have been quietly alive with the soft whirrs and beeps of sungineering devices. Ahilya would have been strapped into machines that would monitor her vitals constantly. With the Moment gone, however, only flickering candlelight gave any illumination, and all was still and silent. Ahilya closed her eyes, rolled her shoulders, and thought of what she had promised Iravan in return for fixing the Moment.
She had promised to give him the cosmic creatures. How was she to begin? Not too long ago, she was not allowed to speak to the cosmic creatures without the council’s explicit permission, but those instructions had been for when the Virohi were tied to the ashram. Unlike the city, the council did not control the core tree. Who did, then?
Tentatively, Ahilya focused between her brows.
A sharp pain overtook her, and her vision tilted, like falling headfirst into a mirrored pool. Her third vision still resembled a broken house, full of several chambers. The mirrored chambers where she had once spoken to the Virohi were shattered, and she retreated from that room. She imagined something else, a familiar landscape, and the third vision changed, opening not into the chamber of the core trees, but transforming her Etherium completely.
She dropped on all fours within a forest. It surrounded her in all directions—not the jungle she was accustomed to, but a verdant, watchful presence that whispered to her, tugging at her attention. The vriksh.
It was everywhere. At her command, the Etherium had coalesced into this one chamber, and the chamber was infinite.
Branches drooped down, whispering to her. Leaves curled, caressing her face. Roots writhed around her toes, cushioning, and moss grew everywhere, as if inviting her to breathe, to rest. Still on her knees, Ahilya nearly wept, her chest rising and falling in soft, unheard gasps.
What have we done? she thought. What have we done?
She could not believe it, how much she had missed this moving architecture, this life, this familiarity. Humanity had adapted, they’d had to, but she could not believe that the airborne ashrams were finished forever. For this brief moment, in this space of soft imaginings and remembered safety, she was home, and it was terrible that she had destroyed it for everyone. Never again would they experience the joy of shifting leaves, of morphing architecture, and grand views of their planet, all because of her insecurity and Iravan’s callousness, and their combined arrogance.
Leaves drifted down to her, soothing her face, each one touching her skin briefly. Memory flashed, of running with her sister, the both of them young girls. Hunching within Nakshar’s library beside a tower of books. Speaking with Naila on a curved, latticed balcony. The images lasted just for an instant before the leaves floated to the ground, but Ahilya understood. Each leaf was a memory that she had once fed the rudra tree. The vriksh was returning them to her in these glimpses.
She rose unsteadily to her feet. The forest glowed, scented with the sweetness of wet bark. The foliage stroked her cheeks, other images flashing behind her eyes too fast to catch. As she walked, more roots seeped into the earth, growing from the branches above. She could not see beyond the few feet in front of her, except for leaves and the glimmer of twilight, but she was surrounded by humanity and the memories of every one of the survivors. This was the amalgamation of all the lives remaining, desire that had fed itself back into the core trees through all of their civilization’s history. She breathed in the scent of the rudra, tears burning her eyes. The tree was doing this, of course. Presenting itself to her in the Etherium in this way, though outside in her first vision, it remained a towering immobile being.
Beyond, in the forest, other shapes moved. She heard someone weeping, a horrified, grieving sound that reminded her of a funereal dirge. The melody crept into her bones, making her shiver, and Ahilya’s heart responded with deep sorrow. When she touched her cheeks, they were damp with tears. She moved forward through the forest, her footsteps becoming faster, trying to reach the sound.
When she pushed aside a branch, she saw them.
They looked like her, a dark shape that was half-silhouette half-shadow. Their body hunched like hers would have, the outlines fuzzy. The Virohi sobbed, the simulation of their face in their hands, and a chill dread climbed Ahilya. The Virohi-creature’s body was covered with dark holes, each so deep that it made her dizzy to look at them. There was a wrongness to this creature. She had promised Iravan she would turn the Virohi over to him, but she had not thought finding them would be so easy. She had hoped for more time, yet here they were, wrapped within the tree, reminding her of what she was to do to them.
She could not walk any further. A part of her wondered if she should try to extract them now somehow, but the thought was tinged with horror. She was not prepared to seize them. To exterminate them, no matter the heartpoison bracelet around her wrist. She wanted to speak to them, give them the kindness they so clearly needed. But their shape revolted her, so much like the worst version of herself, and she was disgusted with herself for balking, for being so weak and shallow now. Their shape fuzzed again, as if they were a swarm of black bees instead of one single shadow, and the weeping intensified.
Alert and unsettled, Ahilya tried to remember. The events were confused in her head—it had all happened so fast—but as far as she could make it, she had released the cosmic creatures from Irshar, the Virohi had clustered around the vriksh, and then—
The Moment had shattered.
They’d gone insane then. Why? Why had the Moment’s breaking affected them so? In that there was the key to understanding them. She knew it in her gut.
She took a step forward, stretching out a hand.
The hive-creature looked up. Hate, grief, terror, sadness—all the emotions she’d gifted to the Virohi—warped the creature’s face. It screamed, a high-pitched sound that made the hair rise on her neck. The hive burst, billions of black bees rushing past her in a swirl, leaving her alone again.
Ahilya clutched a branch, breathing hard. Memories of some citizen cascaded over her, like wind on the surface of a pool, but she held onto herself. She would have to fulfill her promise—or find a way not to—but not yet. Not yet.
She continued moving. The forest grew thicker, and more shapes became apparent. She thought she saw Dhruv, and Chaiyya, and men and women whose names she did not know, a hundred silhouettes, a thousand. Their shapes were indistinct, and they appeared not human at all, just wisps of shadow, yet a familiarity ached in her as though those shadows were simply doorways.
The cosmic creatures were physical shapes here, trapped as they were in the tree. The leaves growing from the trees were memories of humanity.
But these others shadows and shapes… could she talk to them? Were they real? She was in the infirmary and was only present here through her Etherium. The vriksh had become her third vision, but the vriksh had always belonged to all of the citizens. Each person’s Etherium was unique to their consciousness, and consciousnesses were connected. The architects had seen such connection in the Moment, but perhaps for non-architects, the Etherium was where the third visions connected. Perhaps all of these were doors into everyone else’s mind, and the house of Etherium that she was used to was not just her house, but that of everyone else’s.
There was only one way to test this theory. Only one person’s consciousness she had ever been able to peer into.
If she saw him, she did not know what she would do. He had acted so indifferent in the Garden when she had come with her demands. So proud, and hostile, and othered. Still, she parted the leaves in front of her, and in the manner of stepping from one chamber to another, opened her connection to Iravan.
She saw him laying back on a carved bed, the collar of his shirt splayed open, moon-like eyes staring up at nothing, silver tattoos winking restlessly on his dark skin.
Her heart wrenched, and Ahilya thought of when he had brought her to an airborne Irshar. While she had been recovering from her miscarriage, Iravan had stayed with her, tending to her, cleaning her, loving her. Tears burned in her eyes. After all this time and in all the ways they had changed, he could still remind her of the man he had once been. She reached out a hand unthinkingly, making to touch him.
Iravan blinked, and his eyes widened as he became aware of her.
Then he was in front of her, his Etherium merged with hers. He was a shadow within the trees approaching her, parting the leaves. He was coming to her, with his questions and demands. Coming to her, with that look on his face, as if half-lost half-in-love. He would ask her about the Virohi again. He would demand she turn them over. She would not be able to lie or prevaricate this time. Here in this space, she would have no defense, her heart laid bare.
She would have to admit that she had seen the Virohi, that she could assist him with genocide.
Startled, Ahilya opened her eyes. She banished the Etherium.