Page 23 of The Enduring Universe (The Rages Trilogy #3)

AHILYA

It’s a workable city,”

Eskayra said grudgingly.

“We’re still checking to see if the foundation is strong, but initial reports suggest we could move the citizens there as soon as tomorrow if we needed to.”

“There is no need to rush,”

Airav said.

“Conduct your assessments. Irshar can still hold us until you’re ready. Isn’t that right, Ahilya-ve?”

Ahilya nodded.

“I don’t feel anything from the Virohi, if that’s what you’re asking. They will no longer interfere.”

Eskayra grunted, and made a small notation on the map in front of her.

The three of them were in the builders’ chambers within the assembly hall—a narrow, wide room littered with books and rolls of parchment that functioned often as a makeshift library for the council’s needs. A few doors down were the council chambers, and the solar lab, where much of the debris had been cleared. Here, in the builders’ chambers, evidence of the ashram’s upheaval still remained. Boulders the size of Ahilya’s head stood as silent sentinels in one corner. Green stone chipped off the walls, flaking every now and then. Roots slithered everywhere, though several had been axed and tamed. The floor slanted, so Airav had to navigate carefully as he wheeled himself out of the chamber. No matter his words about patience, Ahilya could see that living in Irshar was a terrible adjustment for him.

Eskayra began to fold up the maps she had laid on the table, and Ahilya picked one up to help her. It was an accounting of the jungle that Eskayra had done using Dhruv’s drones. The Garden had sent aid as promised, and its Senior Sungineer had spent the last few weeks in Irshar more than he had in his home.

Between the Garden’s and Irshar’s resources, all the streets had been cleared, and the roots of the core tree pushed back to create wider pathways more accessible to the general populace. Sungineering devices were given to all of Irshar, from streetlamps and glowglobes, to medprobes and heat shields. Even now, Dhruv was likely hunched over some diagram or another within the council chambers where Airav was headed. Kiana and Chaiyya already waited there to discuss the logistics of distribution.

Ahilya had not dared to join them. What could she contribute there? At least here she could help Eskayra with her knowledge of the jungle and archeology.

“For a council that was so intent on finding new cities only a few weeks ago, this lot does not want to move that quickly,”

Eskayra observed.

“Airav wants to prepare the citizens,”

Ahilya murmured.

“Now that we’ve begun to take stock, we are finally returning to some sense of normalcy. To uproot everyone again without great need would be irresponsible. Who knows, only a few might wish to leave Irshar. Here and in the new city—we might rebuild civilization on more than site.”

Eskayra grunted again, but did not disagree. The citizens of the landed ashrams were used to adaptation, with lulls and flights dictating the frequency and shape of their homes. Yet something had changed ever since Irshar had become the last ashram of humanity. The grounding in the jungle had created a desire for stillness, and even the damage to Irshar from Iravan’s war could not contend with that.

For months, the citizens had begun taking ownership of their lives, finding different purposes and occupations than they’d been allowed in an airborne ashram. They’d found a chance to think of themselves as people with control, beyond architect measures, for the first time presented with a world where the architecture did not change, and architects were not superior.

In a strange way, Ahilya had achieved what she’d set out to do—and now with the vriksh holding the Virohi, the citizens had gained more freedom. They didn’t need even Ahilya anymore to stabilize their structures. The council made gentle suggestions about the new city, but Ahilya had heard rumors of mistrust, and a part of her could not blame the citizens. These were people, many of them from Nakshar, who had lived during the Conclave in architecture that had denied them space, livelihood, occupation, and health. Of course, they did not trust the council.

Besides, the new city was built with an Ecstatic’s power. Iravan’s architects spoke each day to the citizens, spreading word of his benevolence and agenda, but skepticism regarding the Garden still lingered. People had refused the invitation to live in the Garden. They were not going to forgive Ecstasy so soon—not when Ecstatics had abandoned them and behaved like their enemy for months. The new city was as terrifying to them as Iravan, and gifts from the Garden were circumspect. It was why the council distributed sungineering equipment carefully, requesting Dhruv to build his inventions here in Irshar instead of transporting them from the Garden.

The thought made Ahilya sad. Once she and Iravan had campaigned for the right of Ecstatics to live as equals. They had thought to create a world where earthrages could be controlled, and airborne ashrams and newer ones in the jungle comprised of the Ecstatics could live in harmony—a vision of equity for all kinds of people, no matter where they lived. Now hostilities still ran rampant between the two nations, despite everything people knew. In some ways, moving to the new city, which had Iravan stamped all over it, would be just as bad as the Garden. Perhaps the citizens had the right measure of it.

“We need to make the city ours before we ask them to move,”

Ahilya said.

“Some way to show them that it is not Iravan’s, nor the council’s. This close to the Garden, and under the thumb of the councilors…”

Eskayra’s lips lifted in a small smile.

“I’m trying my hardest, my dear. That man’s design is sound, I will agree, but in true architect fashion he seems to have thought of total safety without providing any space for people to spend their days. The citizens here have learned to rely on themselves. We cannot take that away from them, and my builders are making accommodations for their way of life.”

It would be a compelling argument for Eskayra to make, perhaps more than any other rationale of safety.

The citizens had always lived one earthrage away from danger. That was the nature of their lives in an airborne city. Lack of safety was a known variable. It was control they’d been denied, unable to choose their leaders or their professions when survival was at risk. Now, with the end of the earthrages, Umang was a citizen scientist, part of Eskayra’s crew. Reniya and Vihanan maintained roads, a job which had once been the province of architects. Tariya had begun a nursery within the infirmary, caregiving for the children who had been orphaned in the Conclave’s tumultuous crash. Laksiya, who had once been a Senior Sungineer of Nakshar, had evidently taken up chronicling the experiences of the survivors in a book she intended for history.

Changes were already occurring in ways of life, architects and non-architects reversing their roles. If Eskayra changed the structures of the city to account for this, the new city might be met with excitement not skepticism.

“If we migrate everyone to the new city,”

Eskayra said.

“will that make it easier for you to do what you need to do?”

Ahilya’s job was to extract the Virohi. What difference did it make if the citizens lived in this new city or in Irshar? She had set herself an impossible task. For days now, she had tried to commune with the Virohi, yet she had lost her chance by losing her nerve; she should have talked to them on that first night in the infirmary. Then, she had seen them as a dark, huddled mass that looked like herself. Now, no matter how she searched, she could not see them. They were still there in the vriksh, she knew. Every now and then, their weeping echoed in the Etherium. But they were hiding from her, their swarm flying to all corners, diffusing, as if they knew of her promise to commit genocide. She could not hide her intention from them. They were too closely intertwined. The heartpoison bracelet Iravan had made tightened around her wrist.

Eskayra touched her hand lightly, and Ahilya met her gaze.

“He has been in the city, too,”

the Senior Builder said.

“He has seen what I’m doing.”

Ahilya looked at her sharply.

“Did you speak with him?”

“Only to exchange notes. He has some thoughts about what could make things more useful for the citizens.”

Eskayra shrugged.

“I would be a fool not to listen to his perspective. He did build the city, after all.”

It was an unsettling thought—Iravan and Eskayra speaking with each other, without Ahilya. Did they ever acknowledge their history with her, or their present? What did they make of each other? Ahilya knew Eskayra’s opinion of Iravan, but did Iravan know of Esk’s proposition to Ahilya? She imagined it, the two of them speaking to each other in forced and polite tones, ensuring only to touch on relevant business at hand. She thought of Eskayra in her mud-stained clothes, and Iravan in his pristine black, silver tattoos running over his skin. The image was so bizarre—a mix of her past and future intertwined, that Ahilya shook her head to dispel it.

“You did not mention this to Airav,” she said.

“There would hardly be anything to report,”

Eskayra said, making a face.

“I do not see that man often, but there’s a reason he made the city in that location. At first, I thought it was because he noticed our expedition equipment there, but he has been around the jungle surrounding the city. He’s looking for something.”

The yakshas, Ahilya thought.

Dhruv had already let slip that Iravan was away from the Garden for long days. It had made the Senior Sungineer irritable, the administration of the Garden and all communication with Irshar left up to him. He had done the best he could, but Ahilya had heard him complain to Pranav how much of it would be futile if Iravan came in and declared those decisions pointless, changing them on a whim. Ahilya knew how that must have irked Dhruv, but she had not said anything. The days they had confided in each other had long since passed, and she was not interested in playing political games of the council anymore, desiring to create a rift between the Garden’s two leaders.

“My dear,”

Eskayra said softly.

“Have you given anymore thought to what I said?”

Ahilya studied the woman, the brightness of her eyes, the steady, stable, secure gaze. Once, Iravan had looked like that.

She shook her head.

“You don’t really want to marry me, Esk. You know you don’t.”

“I wanted to before I left Nakshar all those years ago,”

Eskayra said quietly.

“But you left,”

Ahilya said before she could take it back. Eskayra’s face fell, and she hurried to shrug a shoulder.

“I don’t blame you—that’s not what I mean. Only that perhaps it was for the best.”

She could not explain it, but despite everything that had happened, Ahilya could not bring herself to imagine a life where she had never met Iravan. Who she was now was tied so irrevocably to him. With Eskayra, Ahilya had been one person alone. With Iravan, she had become more—evolving herself as Iravan changed and evolved through his experiences. The Ahilya she was today—damaged, experienced, capable of compassion even to the Virohi—was because of him. Would she have outgrown her hostility of the architects, become a councilor, communed with creatures of the universe, all without him in her life? Iravan was tied to her, and he had shaped her as much as she had shaped him. They had grown around each other like two tree trunks, their roots so entangled, their canopy so enmeshed, that neither would ever really be able to separate from the other.

Her thoughts must have shown on her face. Eskayra tipped her chin up.

“You are free of the Virohi now,”

she said.

“You could be free of the past too. In the new city, we can build something new together.”

Could they? After everything Ahilya had given to the Virohi and to the ashrams? After everything she had given to Iravan? What was left of her, now?

“I will never be free of my past,”

she said softly. A wan smile crept on her face.

“I am an archeologist. The past is my home.”

Eskayra did not return her smile.

“You still want to save him, don’t you? Save him from himself?”

“Is that so wrong?”

“No,”

Esk replied sadly.

“It is not. You are still married, after all. But I wish you could see that you are already worthy. I think you wish to save the Virohi not because you see them as yourself, but because you see them as him. If that is true, you should think of the reasons behind what you want to do closely.”

Her words were so surprising that Ahilya was rendered momentarily speechless. Deep down, she had always known that she and Iravan needed each other—that one without the other would collapse into the worst rendition of themselves. In those early days of Irshar’s formation within the jungle, Ahilya had spoken to the Virohi because no one else could—but in so many ways, that was how it was with Iravan too. No one could get through to him the way she could. Eskayra had seen what no one else had; in trying to understand and save the Virohi, Ahilya was still seeking to understand him. In communicating with them, she was attempting to communicate with him. Was this a fool’s errand? She and Iravan had balanced each other all their married lives, but look where that had brought everyone.

Iravan’s seven-month absence back in Nakshar, the man he’d chosen to become, the convoluted reasoning behind his capital desire… Eskayra was saying enough was enough. That Ahilya deserved better. But what of Ahilya’s responsibility in all this? She’d had a part to play in the man Iravan was now. That is what a marriage meant. In some ways, she would not have been this Ahilya and he would not be this Iravan if it weren’t for the other. Eskayra would have her be finished with him, but was that possible at all?

If the Virohi were destroyed like everyone wished, and if Iravan’s mind and conscience survived the annihilation, and even if Ahilya regained her former confidence, could matters simply return to the way they had been? Could she finish with him, this man who had owned her like she owned him? Neither of them had said goodbye, despite it all. And now when they could see each other with a thought, when they could communicate in a way they never had before within the Etherium… What would be the point of goodbye anymore? They could not escape each other. They were knotted, heart and rhythm, more than either of them understood.

Eskayra sensed her somber mood, and did not push. She simply sighed.

“Did you find anything more?”

she asked, gesturing to the maps in Ahilya’s hand.

Ahilya shrugged a limp shoulder. Her mind was still full of everything Esk said, but she allowed the attempt to change the subject.

“The books don’t tell us much,”

she said.

“I have tried.”

So much had been destroyed in the crash. The truth was that there hardly were any records remaining. Laksiya was not the only one chronicling the history of humanity. Whatever remained was guarded zealously—Basav kept all the architect records with him, and Ahilya had endured his revulsion of her while he told her in stilted stories anything that could be of use to her in order to extract the Virohi. She had collated her own information, and talked to the sungineers of Irshar and of the Garden. She had gone toward the tree trunk many times hoping for an epiphany, and simply touched it, searching in her mind, whispering for the Virohi. It was absurd that her situation was no different than it had been before—trying to describe a whole field of study with little help. She should have found it a path well traveled, but all Ahilya felt was exhaustion.

Eskayra took Ahilya’s wrist in her hand, feeling the heartpoison bracelet there.

“You should not have insisted on this. It will only hurt you.”

Ahilya pulled away gently.

“What hurts me, will hurt him too,”

she said softly.

“That’s what I need him to see. I think he does.”

Eskayra’s brow crinkled. She didn’t understand—but Iravan had.

Ahilya had seen it on his face when she’d asked him to enforce the rules of their contract and make the bracelet. He was keeping his promise of sending resources to Irshar—he’d hardly needed such an enforcement. But she had asked for it because the both of them knew that he would rather destroy himself than hurt her.

Perhaps it meant that there was still a seed of affection for her inside him. He had told her explicitly after subsuming the falcon-yaksha that he wished to save her from the Virohi. Ahilya would have liked to believe that, but she knew Iravan could not have her harmed, not if he wanted his own Ecstatics to make amends.

They had played such a game all their lives, one of contesting wills. He would not give up his capital desire, but Ahilya had no urgent need to find the Virohi either.

She had vowed to share information with him if she found it, but she had not made any commitments as to when she would.

She would simply wait him out, wearing this heartpoison bracelet for her lifetime. Even her efforts now to find a way to destroy the cosmic creatures were simply to appease the council. Under the pretext of hunting for a way to end them, Ahilya secretly searched for a way to release the Virohi instead—that was the information she sought from Basav and her books. The longer it took for her to find a way to destroy them, the more compelled Iravan would become to release her of her vow—if for nothing, then because his own society would change.

By then, civilization would reform. She would erode him with her patience. His capital desire would remain unfulfilled—or, he would be forced to change it. Either way, Ahilya had already won.

She tucked the bracelet away out of sight. Eskayra watched her, then walked over to the far end of the chamber, rummaging among a few instruments. She returned with a small sungineering device the size of her palm, a thin glass wire jutting out from it.

“Do you know what this is?”

she asked.

Ahilya shook her head.

“No,”

Eskayra said, frowning.

“Why would they think to tell you when it was the sungineering devices you once used that brought about its invention?”

She unspooled the wire from the device.

“This is a seismometer. It checks the foundations and stability of the earth underneath. Maybe it can help you? If the Virohi are in the tree, and the tree is rooted into the planet, then studying the planet might teach you something of the creatures. The builders have been using it at the new city, but we don’t need it anymore.”

“Thank you,”

Ahilya said, surprised. She knew what it cost Eskayra, to give such a useful instrument away to her when she did not understand Ahilya’s true purpose. Ahilya would not use it for the Virohi, but the vriksh? It was the only place she received any peace anymore, and physical knowledge of the tree could reveal information about the forest of her Etherium too.

Eskayra gave her a small smile.

“I have to go to the new city again. I won’t be back for days, but maybe next time you can come with me?”

She leaned in and brushed her lips softly against Ahilya, and Ahilya froze, uncertain of whether to allow it, and what it would mean, now when her thoughts were still so full of her husband.

“Ahilya-ve?”

a voice spoke from the door.

They turned to see Kamala standing there. Ahilya took a step back, her face heating, but it was already too late. Kamala had seen this intimacy.

The nurse shrugged as though it was not important to her what she saw, but she tapped at her wrist.

“It’s time for your medicines,” she said.

Ahilya nodded. She could already feel the itch that would begin when they inserted the tubes into her veins.

“Think of a name,”

Eskayra said, as Ahilya followed Kamala out.

“The new city will need it. And maybe thinking of the possibilities will show you that the past need not own you, Ahilya.”