Page 59 of The Enduring Universe (The Rages Trilogy #3)

IRAVAN

He did not find the falcon within the circular chamber.

Surrounded by blinking mirror-shards stood a familiar man. Nidhirv looked like a wraith, short and dark-skinned, his body bent slightly. His eyes glittered silver like all the other projections, and an echo of wings sprung from his shoulders in a mirage. Still, Iravan paused, surprised.

This is who you send? he thought. Of all the lives he’d lived, he’d become most familiar with Nidhirv, but Iravan had left his capital desire behind and with it any need to learn any secrets from the man. Why would the falcon think this man would affect him the most, delivering the killing blow?

Iravan held the miniscule blade of everpower tight in his hand. The blade was so small now, it was a mere sliver, and he knew he would not be able to use it against whatever Nidhirv unleashed on him, not if he wished to repair the Moment with it afterward.

He’d lost his axe somewhere in the manic run within the maze, escaping from the feral projections, but now, with Nidhirv’s familiarity, a morbid curiosity froze him. Half-horrified, half-fascinated, unable to do anything but endure what was coming, Iravan watched as the projection blazed forward, carried on silver wings—

* * *

Nidhirv blinked.

Next to him, Vishwam was still talking to the council chair, a formidable wrinkled-face woman called Oma who always made Nidhirv feel like a child, no matter that he was nearly fifty now. Nidhirv tried to pay attention. To school his features into supporting Vishwam, knowing what Vishwam was asking. After all, his husband had practiced this very speech with him before. Yet Nidhirv couldn’t help the feeling of disassociation creeping through him. He was here, but had something happened in the last few minutes that he’d missed? These episodes of disconnection had grown more frequent, along with the pain in his chest. It was why he and Vishwam were here, petitioning Oma to change the rules surrounding the birthing ceremony.

“—is indeed sacred,”

Vishwam was saying. He sat on the grass next to Nidhirv, his hand stroking Nidhirv’s knee, though his attention was on the council chair. Above, a lush banyan whispered in the wind, giving them shade.

“Think about it, Oma. The Virohi are The Ones Who Are Ourselves. They exist in an unknown place, and we call them our precursors, but what do we truly know about them? We bring them into birth—”

Oma frowned, holding up a hand.

“It is not our business to know who they are,”

she said.

“It is enough that they give us the power, and that we seek our yakshas to complete the circle of death and life.”

“It is this circle of death and life I want to preserve,”

Vishwam said earnestly, his eyes glittering.

“Would you not want to find Aditi in another life yourself? Would you not want to marry her again, and protect her? I know your love is strong.”

“Aditi is my life,”

Oma replied.

“But that is not how the cycle of rebirth works.”

She cast a glance at Nidhirv, who stared back at her, trying not to blush.

“Is this what this is about? Nidhirv, your sickness? And your grief, Vishwam, at losing him?”

“That is not what we’re discussing,”

Vishwam said, but Oma’s eyes were full of sadness, directed at Nidhirv. She had seen through their subterfuge so easily. What was the point of denying it?

“How bad is it, my friend?”

she asked softly.

“It is bad,”

he whispered.

“Every day it is worse. More painful. I do not have many days left.”

“Do not say that,”

Vishwam said angrily, but Oma only shook her head in sorrow.

“I am sorry,”

she said, sighing.

“I truly am. You have had too little time with each other, but the other ashrams and elders would not agree. You are asking to change the very fabric of the ashrams, to have a choice regarding uniting with your yakshas. But this is not a choice an architect can have.”

“We—”

“No, Vishwam. Denying yourself completion will set the ashrams on an irrevocable path. You do not know what you are seeking.”

“We are seeking time with each other. Not just in this life, but every other.”

Vishwam’s hand tightened on Nidhirv’s.

“We will find each other, in every life—”

“You think you will be lovers in every life?”

Oma said.

“Even if you are reborn in the same era, there is no guarantee. Your life—the future life—will make its choices. You could be born years apart. You could be born in different ashrams. You could be unknown to each other, or perhaps parent and child, perhaps colleagues. What will you do then? Break every bond of society?”

“Of course not,”

Vishwam replied.

“Love comes in different forms, and we know better than to expect we will be lovers always. But if we had guarantee of finding something as sacred as we have now, wouldn’t that be its own adherence to our culture?”

“No,”

Oma said.

“It would not.”

She stood up, fury in her movements. Her piercing gaze ran over them.

“What you are contemplating is beyond horrific,”

she said, her voice tigh.

“Unity, balance, and return, these are things that dictate our society. Not this evil idea you have of reaching beyond your life. Not this desire to set yourself above everything we know. Your love for each other cannot supersede the greater path of a consciousness returning to itself. It must not—otherwise everything we have done to bring the precursors into this world will be a crime against them, meant for our own selfish need for power. It would be a crime against us and our halves that await us in the jungle. Abandon this path, Vishwam, and enjoy the time you and Nidhirv have with each other in this life. I will expect you to retire to the jungle when your time comes to seek your yaksha.”

The two watched her leave. Vishwam’s hand was clasped around Nidhirv’s so tight that it hurt, but Nidhirv did not say anything. He had known this would be the outcome. He had warned his husband.

Vishwam turned to him, scowling, as though hearing this thought.

“Don’t you start that again.”

Nidhirv smiled tiredly.

“I did not say anything.”

“You did not need to.”

Vishwam brought Nidhirv’s hand to his mouth, in half-prayer half-promise.

“There has to be a way. There has to.”

Nidhirv pulled his husband into an embrace, smelling his skin, and told himself this was enough. That Oma was right, and this one life was a gift. But as Vishwam leaned forward to capture his mouth, terror flew through him, for his inevitable end, to be separated from his husband, to never find him again.

* * *

And within the glittering maze, Iravan recoiled in shock.

The implications tumbled in his mind like debris in an earthrage. He could almost taste his husband from a lifetime ago.

It began with them, he thought in disbelief. Unity with a yaksha had been built into Nidhirv’s culture, but Vishwam had suggested a deviation—one that had ultimately led to the outlawing of Ecstasy and the repression of yakshas in the generations to come. One that had led to the oppression of the non-architects, the rise of earthrages, the total destruction of the planet, and eventually the rise of airborne ashrams. Nidhirv had neglected the falcon, creating Iravan’s life. All because he had been sick, and Vishwam had wanted more time with him.

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—that he had 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 been Vishwam—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 been him.

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.