Page 42 of The Enduring Universe (The Rages Trilogy #3)

AHILYA

Dhruv equipped her with sungineering devices.

They stood together facing the blank wall of rock. A few minutes ago, Dhruv’s assistant, Purva, had collapsed the solarchamber to shrink it further, in order to conserve sungineering power. Ahilya glanced behind her, and saw the other councilors retake their seats, their voices hushed as they pointed toward the images still pouring from the Garden’s drones. All of them were still in relative privacy, the solarchamber now a semi-circle closed by the rock wall.

Ahilya caught Naila’s eyes and smiled slightly, but Naila simply watched, worry in her eyes. She did not like the idea of Ahilya going alone in search of Iravan, but in the last few minutes, each of the councilors had tried to open the rock wall like Ahilya had. They had tried it with her, then alone, but none of it had worked. They had even tried to enter it after Ahilya opened it. Even that had been futile. The rock had simply closed, nearly taking their limbs with it.

No one was surprised. Iravan had coded this gate for one person alone, just as he had all that time ago when he’d first made Irshar in the skies. It had always been about the two of them. Dhruv had sent his probes forward but they’d returned nothing but fitful images of rock. Ahilya had no idea what she’d be met with, but all she felt was a giddy excitement, bordering on vertiginous. She was going to fall over a terrible precipice, and it would be a relief.

Dhruv tapped her shoulder, and asked her to turn. Ahilya tugged on the harness, trying not to disturb the delicate devices Dhruv had placed around it.

She tried to contain the sense of unreality breathing inside her skin. What was she doing? Was she really going to go to Iravan and turn over the Virohi? He would not fight the planetrage without that assurance, not now when she had the method to destroy the cosmic creatures. What would happen to her, and the rest of humanity when she excised the Virohi? The cosmic creatures were irrevocably tied to them all now. The other didn’t see it—they wouldn’t—but Ahilya could sense it in the Etherium. She wouldn’t have to snap a branch of the Virohi as much as set fire to the forest, burning each person and memory to satiate Iravan. Would he make her do it while he watched? Would he comfort her while she wept? The thought was such madness that Ahilya began hyperventilating.

She looked to the ceiling, which was still reshaping itself. She tried to anchor herself, but instead of seeing the Garden as it had become now, she saw a memory of thin trees waving in and out of her vision. She saw the trees of Nakshar, that had once grown in the outer maze of the ashram, during landing. Dhruv was placing sungineering devices—not just normal devices, but experimental ones—on her harness. She was leaving for a dangerous expedition. She could almost hear Oam flirting with her. She could hear Naila’s arrogant replies from the past. And Iravan—she could sense him too, a pull on her heart and behind her brows.

Her feelings for her husband now were no different from those during that fateful expedition. Then her turmoil had been caused by his seven months of absence. This time, it was because of something worse, but in her mind, had she not already said goodbye to him, both times? What was left for them? Now when she went to him, would they finally see each other? Would they finally reconcile? Is this what it would take for their marriage—an evolution of the species, and its erasure?

A soft sound of hysteria built in her throat.

“Just like old times,”

she muttered.

“Just like,”

Dhruv replied.

Ahilya jumped, turning her gaze to him. She had not expected him to speak. She had been talking to herself, a coping mechanism she had adopted ever since the formation of Irshar, though for the most part she’d done this in the conflicted privacy of her head. She stared at the sungineer, and he looked up from her harness. The words hung between them, of apology and explanation, but Dhruv cleared his throat, and Ahilya swallowed, and the both of them looked away, unable to say it.

Still, Ahilya felt a lessening of the weight on her shoulders.

Perhaps after all this time, and everything that had occurred, they did not need to say anything. Perhaps that had always been the substance of their friendship.

Dhruv stepped back, asked her curtly to spin again, then adjusted some of the devices on her harness, pulling a few strings taut. He had not explained what these devices would do, and she had not asked. She recognized the basic instruments of an expedition, a wrist compass, a headlamp, snap-shovels and machetes. The rest were clearly meant for the Garden’s solar lab to measure whatever it needed to.

“Almost done,”

Dhruv said. He crouched, and tightened a rope around her waist with nimble fingers.

“Oh good,”

she replied.

“I can’t wait.”

They were silent for a time again, until Ahilya spoke again, her throat thick.

“I don’t think I can do this,”

she choked.

“It’s not supposed to be easy,”

Dhruv replied, remorseless.

“You are corrupted by the Virohi—of course you don’t want to kill them.”

“That doesn’t trouble you?”

“What would that achieve? One way or another, this is our only choice. Whether you like it or not, you have to do it.”

“I meant my corruption. You are taking it well.”

Dhruv uttered a soft, humorless laugh.

“Should I walk small around you too, little sister?”

he said, using an endearment he’d only ever used when they were young children.

“You look like Ahilya. You speak like Ahilya. From everything that I have ever known of you, you think like Ahilya.”

He glanced up at her.

“As far as I am concerned, you are Ahilya. For now, for me, it is enough.”

Unexpectedly, she felt tears in her eyes, and her cheeks tightened in trying to hold them back. Dhruv fell silent, continuing in his work.

“The councilors of Irshar told you about overwriting,”

she said at last.

“This corruption could happen to you too. Do you not fear that?”

Dhruv continued to tie knots, attaching and testing various instruments, but she saw the furrow on his forehead. Finally, he sat back on his haunches and stared up at her.

“When that happened,”

he said.

“when I became you temporarily, I thought I had lost myself. I couldn’t sense where I began, and where I ended, like my body was porous and my thoughts were covered with cotton.”

He lifted a hand and Ahilya saw it tremble.

“I am questioning everything now. Are all my actions my own? What about my thoughts, my judgements, my feelings? Who do those belong to? Who is pulling my strings?”

Dhruv shuddered and Ahilya’s heart sank. What had she expected? Dhruv feared his erasure. The complete breakdown of self. Is that not what she feared too—what she had with the Virohi before? Her kind had been completely left out of architect histories, and how was overwriting different from that? Something in her posture must have changed, for Dhruv’s head snapped up, as though he could hear the whispers of a thought she was too terrified to acknowledge.

“Is there something you’re not telling us?”

he asked quietly.

Almost, she spoke it aloud. Sooner or later they would all know. Her hand circled her wrist, fingering the heartpoison bracelet, feeling the miniscule thorns growing from it.

If she voiced the thought, it would become true. She would be poisoned. She could not risk it yet.

“It’s a hypothesis,”

she murmured.

“With the three visions, the habitat, everything returning to source, I wondered if this is where overwriting is headed.”

Dhruv frowned, standing up. He placed one more instrument on her armband, silent for so long that Ahilya thought he wouldn’t speak.

“You are not the only one to think this,”

he said at last.

“Sungineering supports this theory.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sungineering is not working on constellation lines, nor is it working on Ecstatic power. This technology from Nakshar has somehow tapped into something more fundamental, bypassing the need for the Moment or the Deepness. We discussed it in Irshar’s solar lab, you remember? Trying to find the substrate of trajection. Well, I think I’ve found it. I understand Irshar’s devices better.”

Despite everything, Ahilya’s mouth fell open.

“You mean the foundation of an architect’s desire, don’t you? Are you serious? Our devices are responding to pure architect will?”

“It is hardly surprising. Trajection and Ecstasy are manipulated forms of desire. You said so yourself back then.”

She had. Still Ahilya couldn’t believe that Dhruv had managed to find such an energy. It felt like sorcery.

“Is this the everpower then?”

she said, trying to understand.

“No. I don’t think so. Everpower is still an advanced manifestation of trajection. This is simpler.”

Dhruv scowled.

“In sungineering terms, we are returning to an understanding of an architect emitting a field of desire. We always thought our devices worked on either a trajection field or constellation lines, but this new energy proves that things are simpler than that. We are working on a combined will. Desire, in itself, captured and used, while each architect struggles with their survival bound to the rest of this community. Something like this energy would probably never manifest if allvision wasn’t occurring and overwriting didn’t happen. But it only started making itself as apparent after you embedded the Virohi in the tree. If we knew what it was back then, perhaps we’d have understood the dangers of overwriting instantly. It is becoming stronger every second, which means overwriting is becoming stronger. We are all headed to a convoluted mess of being. Even as we use sungineering, each device now is a warning. Much like what trajection has been.”

Ahilya watched his pinched mouth, the focus of his gaze.

“You haven’t told any of the others about this, have you?”

she asked.

Dhruv shook his head.

“Once you destroy the Virohi and overwriting ends, this power will come to an end as well. There is no point in agitating the others.”

“You are all right with that? Letting this incredibly useful energy die out?”

“Not all energy that can be used should be used,”

Dhruv replied darkly.

And Ahilya remembered how it was Dhruv who had first designed instruments to use Ecstasy. He had created the battery that had incapacitated Airav and weakened the Moment. He had evolved the battery into a bomb to finally shatter the Moment.

She and Iravan had always blamed themselves for using the technology, but Dhruv must surely have felt some level of responsibility. Suddenly, it became clear—his aversion of her, the breakdown of their relationship, the choices that she’d made that had led to his own. He blamed her for so much, but he blamed himself as well. She was the reminder of everything they’d planned together, that had led them both here. He had once encouraged her, and so she was his mistake. No wonder he couldn’t bear to look at her.

Whatever warmth she had felt earlier disappeared. Dhruv worked for a few more minutes, doing his final checks, then cinched an armband tighter, and stepped back in finality.

“You’re ready,”

he said, his voice carrying.

The murmurs of the other councilors behind them stopped. Chairs shifted, then people rose, flanking them, patting Ahilya’s shoulders, wishing her good luck. Naila gave her a swift hug.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

she asked. Ahilya gave her a half-shrug, and for an instant, it appeared that Naila wanted to say something more, but when Dhruv came forward again she reluctantly stepped back.

Ahilya turned to the sungineer.

“Any last advice for me?”

“Yes,”

he said gruffly.

“Remember he is your husband.”

The instruction took her aback. For Dhruv to say this, when he had opposed her marriage, when he’d never liked Iravan… She understood what he meant, of course. Iravan was still a man, still just a person. She could not forget that. Ahilya nodded curtly, then turned to face the blank wall. The others retreated, though Ahilya still sensed them hovering behind her. Eyes closed, she probed the confused tangle of roots in her mind. The rock face separated, opening up again in response to her desire. She held her breath and squeezed inside.

At first, the darkness was absolute, the little drones Dhruv had sent earlier too dim and far to reveal anything.

Then her vision adjusted.

She was in a small cave. No, not a cave. The beginnings of a tunnel. Behind her, the rock had already closed again in gnashing creaks. She was alone with the drones inside the earth, unable to see anything except the slight sprays of mud and glistening rock. Water ran somewhere, tinkling in her ears, and through the shifting light of her headlamp, Ahilya glimpsed hair-thin roots clinging to the wall face.

Her breath came out loud, echoing in her ears.

“Still with me?”

she asked aloud.

Static stuttered from the devices Dhruv had asked her to embed in her ears. A few garbled sounds, but then the drones hovered closer, perching on her shoulders, and—

“—hear you,”

Dhruv’s voice said, clearly.

“How does it look?”

Ahilya inhaled deeply.

“One step at a time,” she said.

She meant it both literally and otherwise. She only could see one step ahead by the light of the drones, but the path opened with each step she took too, in creaks and shifts of the earth. In a way, it was no different from her last jungle expedition, a nudge of a root in her mind here, a brush of a branch against her arm there. She was still the buffer between the complete overwriting of others and the Virohi. The sooner she found Iravan, the easier all of this would become. Provided, of course, he listened.

Garbled sounds came to Ahilya as someone else spoke.

“—safer—jungle—over—?”

“Yes, it is safer,”

Dhruv snapped.

“Perhaps you did not see the images of the planetrage?”

A pause, then exasperatedly.

“Of course, there can be a cave-in. I thought you understood that nothing and nowhere is safe anymore, but, look, she’s fine. Just talk to her yourself.”

His voice grew clearer.

“Ahilya, tell her you’re fine.”

Ahilya walked on in the darkness. Instinct told her to turn to the right, and as she did another crack opened in the rock with a soft shower of dust. She squeezed through again, continuing her blind trek, until Naila’s voice spoke in her ear.

“Ahilya-ve?”

the woman asked.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,”

she said, trying not to cough as musty air crept up her nose and throat.

“It’s opening a path for me. I can breathe, though it’s stale.”

“See?”

Dhruv’s voice again, further away, and then.

“Oh rages, not you too. I thought you were in the new city.”

More static and crackling, then Naila’s voice was replaced by another familiar one.

“We keep missing each other,”

Eskayra said softly, clearly having taken the communication device from Naila.

“You’re back,”

Ahilya said, relieved.

“Are you safe?”

“Are you?”

Esk replied.

“No, don’t answer that—I know why you are doing this, and I know you are not safe. Ahilya, I—”

The amusement left Esk’s voice, and Ahilya imagined her trying to calm herself, and bite back any words that would make it worse now.

“The migration is happening swiftly,”

Eskayra said, deliberately changing the subject.

“I thought you’d want to know. The Ecstatics that he sent to the ashram have helped with convincing citizens of Irshar. Given that this lot actually cares for the citizens unlike the rogue ones he sent before, I suppose I should thank him for making my job easier. Maybe you can pass that onto him when you see him.”

Ahilya smiled in the darkness.

“You never say his name,”

she observed.

“It is not his name that matters to me,”

Esk replied.

“It is yours.”

The smile froze on her face. Ahilya paused, and her hand drifted to her earpiece. She imagined Esk’s features pinched in pain. The dewdrop face. The rosebud mouth. The kindness in her eyes. “Eskayra,”

she whispered.

“Please. Not right now.”

“I know,”

Esk returned.

“I’m not asking for anything. Just be careful.”

A soft rustling sound like the device was exchanging hands, then Eskayra’s voice again, this time further away, speaking to someone else.

“—suppose you did think this through—”

“—people—no faith—”

Dhruv replied irritably, his voice soft then louder. He’d finally taken back the sungineering device from Eskayra.

“As if I would send her to her death.”

Ahilya began walking again in the darkness.

“Wouldn’t you?”

she asked.

“No,”

he replied to her shortly.

“Not even my worst enemy. And certainly not you.”

It was more sentimental than he’d ever been, but Ahilya couldn’t help remembering the cave-in they’d survived when they’d been children, caught in Nakshar’s architecture before her Maze Architect parents could rescue them. If Dhruv was being so vocal about his feelings, then the thought of the planetrage scared him more than he had let on. Or maybe this was the overwriting already occurring, and Dhruv had taken a tiny step toward joining the hive mind. If so, did it mean that overwriting could mend broken things? Like her and Dhruv? Like her marriage with Iravan—or Iravan himself? It was a dangerous, seductive thought. She couldn’t follow it, especially after Eskayra’s near declaration.

The drones went suddenly dark, then dropped on her shoulders, attaching themselves to her harness. A dim light glowed everywhere, the same shimmery substance that had created a dome over Irshar. Not everdust, but a substance of the planet, morphed somehow through the everpower. Ahilya waved her hand through it, but it did not dissipate. It was like passing her hand through light, as the substance merely reformed around her moving fingers.

She emerged on top of a vast roughly-hewn ramp of rock, staring down into a chamber. Phosphorescence gleamed here and there, reminding her of Nakshar, and her heart skipped a beat. This was no natural cavern. This was Iravan’s doing.

She glanced behind, but the path had already closed.

“How far am I from you?” she said.

“Not very. In fact…”

Dhruv trailed off, and Ahilya imagined him checking something on the bio-nodes. She trod carefully, noticing the ground becoming firmer. “In fact,”

Dhruv said, again, surprise in his voice.

“you’re approaching—new city. Eskayra—miles above you, before—headed.”

Ahilya frowned.

“Already? It took us a long time to get there from Irshar.”

“The planet—changing, and paths are different—”

More static burst but she could still understand.

“Eskayra—evacuating faster—see?”

Ahilya began to climb down the ramp, her body growing cold. She was reminded of the time she had descended into a similar cavern in the habitat, Iravan’s hand clutched in hers. Then the two of them had found carvings on rock, recalling the true story of Ecstasy. And now…

She reached the bottom of the ramp, and stared. Carvings were hewn everywhere again, this time on freestanding slabs of wall so she felt like she were walking through a rocky life-size maze. The drones kept her company, but enough light was pouring from the pictures embedded in these walls. Images of people blinked at her, a young woman petting a tiger-yaksha, then another man, laughing with his friends while planting seeds into soil. More and more on every rock wall, images of men and women and children, living their lives, singing, playing, dancing, each of them an architect trajecting either in an airborne ashram or one that had been in the jungle. Ahilya felt chilled, watching this eerie deja-vu. Not a museum, but a mausoleum, rippling with an alien familiarity, full of regrets and shame.

“What—this?”

Dhruv whispered in her ear.

“Iravan’s lives,”

she replied, swallowing.

“His past selves, all of them shaped by the everpower.”

The further in she walked, the clearer the carvings became. Perhaps Dhruv understood that she was too overcome to speak. He did not ask her anymore questions, though she could hear the sound of his breath in her ear.

She recognized Mohini with her two spouses, watching the children of the ashram play. She recognized Agni, out in the jungle, carrying a bow on their back. Scenes upon scenes of love that she’d never heard Iravan speak of when describing his past lives to her. Why had he made this now? Had he finally seen the error of his capital desire?

Ahilya stopped in front of a wall where the phosphorescence gleamed brightest. These carvings depicted one man’s story. Short, dark-skinned, his features rounded but his body sunken in…

“Nidhirv,”

she said.

“This is from his time.”

Nidhirv stood next to a man who could only be his husband, Vishwam. This past life had haunted Iravan most of all, and she could see his reverence in this sculpture. Vishwam’s face was carved with love, each plane of his cheek smoothened. Nidhirv stood with him, his head on his husband’s shoulder. The two men tended their house. They hunted in the jungle. They made love.

“You need—moving,”

Dhruv said, more static interfering with his words.

“—planetrage—help—”

He was not wrong, but it took effort to peel away from the wall dedicated to this one life. Ahilya reached the end of the mural, no wiser as to why Iravan had chosen to mark this life alone. Her fingers flickered over Nidhirv’s face. Who are you? she thought. Nidhirv looked nothing like Iravan, but in those expressions of love and domesticity, she discerned a deep longing that felt like her husband.

Dhruv cleared his throat meaningfully, and she turned away from the mural, hurrying along the chamber again. Other walls flashed by, each displaying more lives, but none had the same depth to them as Nidhirv’s. The archeologist part of her itched to examine them more closely, to find answers to questions she didn’t know, but she had been sent here for another reason.

She found him finally at the very center of this vast cave, seated on a short staircase that led to nowhere. The thing could have belonged to the Garden’s assembly hall, if it were not in this strange city of murals and ghosts.

Iravan did not move when she approached, but he had seen her come, of course. His Etherium was still too shadowy for her to tell, but he knew her tread.

He did not acknowledge her.

His head remained bent.

In his arms, he held what could only be a body, sheathed in plain jute cloth. Where had he acquired the cloth? Ahilya did not truly care. She knew her mind was asking inane questions to distract from his face.

She sat down next to him, slowly. His stillness scared her. His expression was too calm. Iravan’s silvery light bathed them in its radiance, but the invisible darkness leaching from him provided its counterpoint, as though he were made of marble too. This was the man who was going to help them? He seemed so lost.

The rock floor in front of Iravan began to rise. Roots grew from it, curling around the sheathed body on his lap. Rock opened to reveal mud, and tendrils of roots carried the body toward the earth in a final, gentle embrace. A choked sound escaped Ahilya. She watched as slowly Darsh sank into the ground.

When the ground was smooth again, she turned to Iravan.

He had been watching her.

“Ahilya,”

he said, too quietly.

“Why is it always the children who die?”