Page 22 of The Enduring Universe (The Rages Trilogy #3)

IRAVAN

He landed gracelessly in the central courtyard, his legs unsteady.

Next to him, Manav stumbled, and Iravan shot out a hand to steady him.

Ignoring the greetings of the other Ecstatics, who were milling about in the courtyard, Iravan approached an elevator hidden behind a wall of curling leaves.

He trajected and the bark opened to let him and Manav in.

Silently, they rode the elevator high up the tower.

There, alone except for someone who could not harm him, Iravan thunked his head on the bark, breathing heavily.

The Etherium cycled within the evervision, and he saw Askavetra bump her husband’s arm.

Agni grinned as they reached out to sweep their lover’s hair behind an ear.

The flashes came faster, but Iravan heard the voices of these people too, in sharp counterpoint to the images.

A single message breathed in concert.

Destroy.

Their eyes flashed silver before turning back to their original shade.

I’m going mad, he thought.

It was not possible to contain so much conflicting information within oneself.

His head was a cloud of meaningless noise, chattering away incessantly.

How could one make any sense of anything? How could one live? I contain lives, Iravan thought, smiling darkly.

And they are all insane.

The elevator came to a stop.

Manav had been silent all this while, and Iravan grasped his elbow, and stepped off, gathering his purpose to him like a cloak.

They marched through together, Iravan escorting the man to his chambers.

This floor lay still, though lights from glowglobes blinked here and there, merged with gleaming blue-green phosphorescence.

Iravan had designed it using only Nakshar’s plants.

The waving, leafy pothos, the bark railings engraved with carvings, the soft chimes that were reminiscent of the landing raga.

Iravan had made these decisions deliberately.

The chamber smelled like ice-roses, enough to make him light-headed.

He wound their way past a small fountain edged with stone, taking care to slow down so Manav would not feel his agitation.

Iravan tried to still his turbulent emotions, hoping to feel the peace that he had created for Manav.

In this chamber it was easy to forget that they had all landed in an alien jungle not long ago.

Iravan had talked to the Maze Architects of Nakshar to recall this, but this floor resembled the very same luxurious house that had once belonged to Manav, when he was a Senior Architect of Nakshar.

Iravan could feel the ghost of his own footsteps echo.

In his mind’s eye, he watched as he, along with Bharavi and Chaiyya and Airav, marched down the same paths, cornering Manav before taking him to the Examination of Ecstasy.

It was the only excision he’d ever done, and it would haunt him for the rest of his days.

In a way, this chamber was an attempt at a reparation he could never perform.

Manav’s condition was a direct reminder of what came from living by the dictates of ashram society.

Tariya was welcome to her anger and grief, but didn’t Manav prove the sheer number of atrocities that were committed in the name of peace once? Atrocities Iravan had been complicit in, without his knowledge? The Garden was not perfect, but at least excision was completely outlawed.

That was because of him.

He had to keep faith in himself.

He and Manav reached a small courtyard open to the skies.

Ice blue roses littered the floor, and Iravan trajected two benches facing each other.

He helped Manav down onto one, then took his place on the other, facing him.

Silently, Iravan withdrew a small notebook from his pocket, filled with Bharavi’s tight writing.

Every now and then he came here to speak to Manav, to ensure his welfare, to remember Bharavi—and each time was different.

Sometimes Manav spoke in halting words, other times he hummed without tune.

Iravan could tell that today Manav would stay silent.

After the events in Irshar, it was only to be expected.

Somewhere, Manav’s mind must have registered everything that had happened.

Had he heard his name being spoken in the solar lab? It was amazing that the sungineers in Irshar had found another energy source, one so similar to what Manav had done after being excised.

“You knew,”

Iravan said softly.

“You knew about the everpower, didn’t you?”

Predictably, the man did not respond.

Iravan opened the book to a familiar page, with creases borne out of constant use. He did not need to read the words. Two roads in sleep, he thought, but his tongue skipped to the last few lines of Manav’s poem.

“We continue to live,”

he quoted softly.

“In undying separate illusions. The everspace. That’s what this means, doesn’t it?”

He had excised Manav nearly six years ago now, but when a few months ago the man had twice come to his rescue during the fight with the falcon, Iravan had concluded Manav had multiple yaksha counterparts.

He’d concluded that Manav had united with one before his excision, which had made it possible for him to retain some measure of his trajection.

Did that mean his capital desire had manifested in some form too? What kind of capital desire would make Manav and his other yaksha save Iravan, of all people?

Did such consideration extend only to architects, or perhaps to Senior Architects? Senior Architects once were the most important people of an ashram, meant to inhabit all of an ashram’s potential.

Iravan knew how deeply those protocols were embedded into their culture.

Thousands and thousands of years had cemented this legacy of the ashrams.

It was not an unreasonable thought that Manav had inadvertently saved him because of a capital desire to serve the floating cities.

But the timing of it… If Manav had more than one yaksha, could it be that he had subsumed one already for his capital desire to manifest? Iravan’s own desire to make amends had bled into him only after the falcon had become a part of him.

It had formed during unity, then cemented in him after the falcon’s subsummation.

Before the subsummation, he had only wished to make reparations; but after that, the destruction of the Virohi had taken shape as his capital desire.

He could hear the falcon’s voice in his head, goading him into utter destruction.

If Manav had saved him because of his allegiance to the ashram structure, then Manav’s capital desire was in direct opposition to Iravan’s.

Iravan had been flirting with a vague idea of finding the man’s second yaksha and helping him unite with it—perhaps that would heal Manav now, and more importantly, give Iravan the support he needed in the Garden—but if this were true, then he could not take such a risk.

What if Iravan helped heal Manav, only for him to defy him? His capital desire pulled him inexorably foward—and his past lives railed in him to fulfill it soon—

Bhaskar, Agni, Askavetra, Nidhirv—always Nidhirv, who had chosen their material bonds, but now wished him divorced from his own.

Images cycled from one life to another within the Etherium, and Iravan waited until one arrived from Nidhirv’s life.

In that life lay a secret he needed to decode, and idly, he projected the memory outward.

Dust and earth churned in a soft breeze, creating the shape of the man.

Bark moved like arms and legs, and leaves flickered like eyes.

Nidhirv stood in front of them, a smile on his face.

Manav jerked up, his gaze widening and suddenly alert.

His mouth fell open, nearly childlike, and he watched as more earth rose to form Vishwam’s burly shape.

Vishwam put his arm around Nidhirv, who chuckled, his posture pleased but embarrassed—but before the memory could play out, Nidhirv froze.

He wavered as if being wrenched away, then straightened, a strange smile glinting cold.

Iravan grunted in frustration.

Still the same wavering, as if his past lives could not fully decide whether they wanted to love their material bonds or have him hate his.

Manav uttered a soft cry, hand to his mouth.

Like Darsh had been startled to see the projections before, the excised architect began shaking his head with a soft keening sound.

His hand extended to touch the projection—and Nidhirv’s cold smile disappeared, as he huddled into Vishwam again, before the smile flickered back into vengeance.

The Etherium cycled again, and Iravan allowed the projection to change into another past life—Askavetra, whose shape limned the grass and earth.

He watched her pad toward the jungle, tracking a tiger-yaksha.

Askavetra’s tall frame nuzzled the tiger-yaksha, her expression peaceful, before she flickered into standing ramrod straight, the chips in her eyes sharpening into silver.

The projection flashed—changed into Mohini, embracing her spouses—flicker—it changed again into cold silvery eyes.

What did this mean? What were these images trying to tell him? Why could they not decide? Or was this just an indication of his own undetermined mind?

Manav’s keening grew louder.

Iravan extended him a sidelong glance and sighed.

These projections were eerie, though he’d gotten used to them.

There was no use in punishing Manav and himself right now.

He ended both their agony and stood up.

It was clear his past lives were as torn as he was, speaking a message of vengeance before proclaiming the importance of material bonds.

For three months after the Virohi were embedded within Irshar, Iravan had remained steadfast, unwavering.

Something had occurred after that that was changing him. It had all started on the day of the Virohi’s bombing, and if he tracked his thoughts, he could see this change had come about because of Ahilya.

Going there today had been a mistake; he should have listened to his intuition that had kept him alienated from the ashram for the last few months.

He would not make this mistake again.

Iravan waved a hand and all the projections dissolved.

Manav still shuddered, though his cries became quieter.

With a last glance at the excised architect, Iravan left the chamber.