The Surviving Sky, page 2
She cleared her throat and returned her attention to Naila. “Why was the design changed?”
“I told you. They’ve enforced higher limits—”
“Yes, but why?”
The Junior Architect tilted her head and studied her for a long second. Then she smiled.
“For architect reasons,” she said coolly. “Why does a historian care to go into the jungle?” she added, asking her own question. “Aren’t there detailed accounts of our histories in the libraries?”
Ahilya flinched. The questions were calculated insults.
Naila knew Ahilya was an archeologist, not a historian. She knew any histories of the world were her histories, architect histories. She knew why Ahilya explored the jungle—life had begun there, and Ahilya’s entire research was to find a way to return to it again, to find survival on land instead of in architect-dependent cities in the sky.
This was a deliberate attempt to bait her. Either that or Naila had learned nothing from the documents Ahilya had provided to prepare for the expedition. It was likely beneath the Junior Architect to take any instruction from a non-architect. Refusing to indulge either attempt to shame her, Ahilya snapped the telescope shut and dropped to her knees to place it back into her satchel.
If only they would tell her. Naila had mentioned the recent earthrage as a reason behind this new design, and based on that alone, Ahilya could have helped the architects, shared information about what she discovered, even studied something for them.
But she was a non-architect, a pretender. What use was an archeologist in a civilization that had only ever known flight? Ahilya had practically invented the term. They were not going to tell her anything. The Junior Architect was simply reminding her of her place.
Ahilya pushed aside her strain with an effort, closed her satchel, and rose to her feet. In the few seconds it had taken her to repack her instrument, the terrace had closed entirely, so that she and Naila stood face-to-face on a square of bark. Thorny bushes enveloped them from all sides, obscuring any view.
“So, where are Dhruv and Oam?” Ahilya asked, referring to the other two members of her team.
Naila tilted her head. “They’re in the temple. With the rest of the citizens.”
“Why? I told them to assemble here.”
“Iravan-ve. He insisted the temple was the safest place until Nakshar had fully landed.”
The respectful suffix attached to her husband as an architect, but never to Ahilya as an archeologist, grated on Ahilya. Her hand curled tightly around her satchel. Iravan had abandoned her for seven months, and now he thought to give orders to her team without her knowledge? All of her restrained irritation bubbled up, tightening her throat.
“And they listened?” she said. “Even Oam?”
“Oam tried to protest, saying you needed us here. And Dhruv—well, I don’t think Dhruv wanted to go toe-to-toe with a councilor.”
Oam was only as old as Naila. Iravan would have intimidated the boy with a glance. As for Dhruv—ever since his last few inventions had failed, the sungineer had become wary of disturbing the council. Ahilya’s closest friend he might be, but Dhruv wouldn’t openly oppose Senior Architect Iravan.
“I see,” she said.
“Iravan-ve requested you go to the temple, too. That’s why I’m here. I’m supposed to bring you there—”
“Bring me?”
“Escort you,” Naila said. “Request you. He didn’t demand it—”
“But he might as well have,” Ahilya completed, her teeth gritted.
Naila shook her head in furious protest. “No, no, not like that. It’s a matter of safety. No one should be out here.”
Ahilya remained rooted. The dome above was a mere handbreadth away now. Sharp-pointed leaves reached so low, they tickled her ears, but the instant they made contact with her skin, the pinpoints shed themselves. Instead, the stem budded softer leaves. Ahilya smelt the warm, sticky sap of regeneration.
If she didn’t move soon, she’d be entombed in a layer of foliage. Nakshar’s living architecture would sheathe her in her own personal wooden armor. That had been Ahilya’s plan, for her and her expeditionary team. Rage Iravan and his raging interference.
“I’m staying here,” she said, voice cool. “You can tell Iravan-ve that.”
Naila extended a robe-covered arm upward toward their cocoon. Her skin, like Ahilya’s and most natives of Nakshar, was terra-cotta brown. Naila’s veins, however, began to glow an iridescent green as she influenced the vegetation around them. A thousand tattooed vines and creepers grew on her arms underneath the translucent sleeves of her uniform’s robe. Some of the leaves touching Ahilya retracted.
“Please, that is really not wise.” The condescension had left Naila. “I know this design. It’s ellipsoidal, like a sunflower seed. We’re in the outermost shell. This is where the greatest impact will be. That’s why everyone was asked—requested—to the temple, to Nakshar’s core. You received the instruction through your citizen ring too, didn’t you? I know you did.”
Ahilya rubbed a thumb over her single rudra bead. “It flashed and rang a few hours ago. But I know the city will provide an alternative.”
“At great cost. The architects in the temple will have to divert unnecessary trajection to keep you safe here. You’re risking the reliability of the entire construction. Nakshar could crash into the jungle instead of landing safely.” Naila jingled the rudra beads on her wrists as though to emphasize the burden of her responsibility.
Her words and actions were typical architect manipulation, but Ahilya had spent more than a decade married to a Senior Architect. “Is that really true, Naila?” she asked quietly. “Because I asked the temple about this. I was told I could wait here.”
“That was before Iravan-ve altered the landing design. Your old permissions don’t apply anymore.”
Ahilya clutched her satchel. Of course. She should have guessed Iravan had been behind the design’s change. Still, she could not help the abrupt anger and shock throbbing under her skin.
Iravan knew why it was important she leave right away. Without the data from the expedition, Ahilya could forget about being nominated to the council. But, of course, he had never fully thought her capable of being a councilor. Was that why he had done this? Because of the vacant council seat? Iravan was on the council but he had his own plan for the vacancy. One that involved Naila.
She studied the Junior Architect, the suddenly nervous gestures, the newly feigned concern, the barely veiled contempt. Naila had sounded logical with her warnings about safety, but there was more there, an undercurrent of unbending dogma lacing her words. Architects were so used to the world submitting to them, they could never see how terrible it was that civilization was designed to be architect-dependent in the first place.
Ahilya wouldn’t have begrudged it so much right at this very instant if it weren’t for everything else with Iravan. The beginnings of a headache formed behind her eyes, at the thought of giving in now, acquiescing to his silent call for obedience. His attempt at maneuvering her was so feeble, it was almost insulting. She felt suddenly tired, outrageously defeated.
“You should go,” she said. “Go be safe.”
“I can’t abandon a citizen to potential danger,” Naila said, her voice incensed. “If I leave you, it’ll go on my record as endangering Nakshar. I’m a Junior Architect. I can’t afford transgressions.”
“Nice try,” Ahilya shot back. “I know you’re well on your way to becoming a Senior Architect one day. Wasn’t that the real reason Iravan gave you a key to accompany my expedition? To add the jungle to your field of experiences so he can nominate you to the council? I hardly think he’ll hold you accountable for my stubbornness.”
True to her profession, Naila switched tactics at once. “Well, then, consider. I can’t disobey a Senior Architect. If you don’t come with me, Iravan-ve will question me. Perhaps even forbid me from accompanying the expedition altogether. And then where will you be? No architect, no expedition, remember?”
Ahilya stared at her. “They teach you how to influence people as an architect, too?”
Naila smiled, a tightness to her mouth. “No, we gather that on our own. Can’t maneuver anything beyond a plant, but I suppose the principles of trajection remain the same.”
Against her will, Ahilya felt a strange morbid amusement. It was almost impressive, how skilled Naila was. None of the other Junior Architects the council had provided to her for previous expeditions had displayed such an effective change of strategy so quickly. No wonder Iravan had picked her to be his protégée. In Naila’s quick-thinking and casual arrogance, Ahilya detected glimmers of Iravan’s own personality. She sighed and clutched her satchel close to her. Her nod was curt.
“Hold on,” Naila murmured. She closed her eyes and opened her palms in front of her. Her veins flared again, the iridescence making Ahilya’s eyes water. A dozen dizzying patterns of vines formed and died on the architect’s skin.
For a long moment, they remained motionless.
“Well?” Ahilya said. “Are we going?”
“We are going,” Naila said, cracking open an eye. “We’re descending. Can’t you tell?”
Ahilya blinked.
Their little nest looked no different. The canopy was still touching their heads, thorns on all sides, no wind of passage. Were they falling downward toward the city’s core? Or was Naila changing the plants around them, outside of their nest? Perhaps the nest wasn’t passing through a tunnel; it was destroying and reconstructing itself, using the plants of the city to undulate them through the architecture.
Ahilya’s head spun. Contrary to what she had said to the Junior Architect, she did know some things about trajection. The power was inborn; it could not be learned. Even though under ordinary circumstances, Ahilya could ask the city’s plants to react to her desires, that was a charity provided by the architects who allowed their energy to flow through the foliage for the citizens to use. Ahilya had no true control. Only architects could directly influence a plant’s consciousness, forcing it to change form.
Yet for Naila to do it this way, in such an invisible manner…
Either the Junior Architect was more skilled than Ahilya had credited her with, or the architects had learned new tricks in the time since Ahilya and Iravan had held a proper conversation.
“How are you doing this—” she began.
The nest jerked. Ahilya’s knees buckled.
“Sorry,” Naila panted, steadying her. “Rougher than I intended. Trajecting is harder outside the temple, this close to the landing.”
“I suppose you could have brought me with you without waiting for my permission, and I wouldn’t have known,” Ahilya said reluctantly.
Naila threw her another amused look. “Architects aren’t tyrants. This way.”
Her fingers twitched, a waving gesture. The leaves in front of them separated to reveal a small courtyard. They stepped through and new bark closed behind them.
In the distance, vast tree trunks collapsed as though crushed by a giant hand. Foliage folded into itself, then tightened into stony bark. What had once been apartment complexes in trees—schools and playgrounds and homes—all changed as Nakshar coiled in on itself. When Ahilya glanced behind, bark chased her footsteps. Small florets became hard seeds. Supple ferns developed rough calluses. Needles and cones grew where a moment earlier there had been languorous sprays. The courtyard morphed in front of her eyes.
She had no idea where she was. Nakshar’s architecture was called a maze for a reason. Even in ordinary flight, everything except for the city’s fixed landmarks grew and changed. A path was provided for citizens by the trajection coursing through the plants—except Ahilya no longer had any influence over the architecture. She hurried after Naila’s blue-green light. It was one thing to be cocooned on a terrace that would become the best entry point to the jungle; entirely another to be encased within an unknown layer of the city. Sweat coated her upper lip at the thought of how little power she had.
She had lost measure of how much distance they’d covered when they reached another wall and Naila’s iridescence flared again. The wooden wall transformed into a doorway. They stepped into a narrow, shadowy passageway. Bark closed behind them.
Naila slowed, her breath releasing in a huff. The Junior Architect grinned and gestured for Ahilya to precede her.
First came the scent: the rich, heady smell of moist earth. Then the lilting sounds of excitement and laughter. Tiny sungineering glowglobes, like stars trapped in plants, emerged from the foliage to guide Ahilya’s way as she strode farther in. Ahilya squinted as her eyes adjusted to the swelling brightness.
A narrow archway beckoned at the end of the passageway, from where tiny white buds hung down in curtains. Ahilya’s breath caught in her throat. Jasmine was her favorite. Could that be Iravan’s doing somehow? But no, not after the way they had left things the last time together, not if his punishing silence were any indication of his feelings. She was being foolish.
For a long moment, Ahilya hesitated, staring at the jasmine. Her heart hammered in her chest; she recalled his expression, how he’d walked away from her, how angry he’d been. All the dread and outrage and confused love she had nursed for seven long months bubbled within her.
Ahilya took a deep breath, parted the fronds, and stepped into the light.
2
AHILYA
She emerged onto a crowded narrow balcony, its wooden railing visible beyond congregating bodies. Most citizens were standing, but interspersed were healbranch chairs, specially made for those who needed them. Behind Ahilya, the archway transformed into bark in a telltale creak. Naila had deposited her in a gallery full of familiar faces, but hardly anyone noticed Ahilya’s arrival. The Junior Architect had disappeared, likely to fulfill her role in the landing. Ahilya began to pick her way through the crowd, murmuring greetings to the families of other architects. Vihanan waved at her, a man with alluvial dark skin like Iravan’s, indigenous to the city of Yeikshar. Reniya smiled, her toddler clutching her saree with a chubby fist. The woman’s eyes ran down Ahilya’s clothing, then grew wide.
They were dressed in their finest kurtas and sarees, no doubt in anticipation of greeting their architect spouses who had been on shift in the temple. Ahilya’s attire, a harness over a kurta and tapered trousers, stuck out like a weed in a tulip field. With a headlamp perched over her hair, and a compass around her wrist instead of bangles, she was more suited to an expedition in the jungle than a long-awaited landing. Ahilya pasted a smile on her face, avoided their gazes, and wove her way through the crowd. Most of them had grown up in Nakshar with her, but over the years all had devolved into mere acquaintances. Her own fault, of course; her pursuits had made her an oddity. Ahilya swallowed her rising shame and averted her eyes to the rest of the temple, visible through the gaps in the bodies.
The temple was oval-shaped, with fifty balconies circling from the floor to the ceiling, each full of chattering citizens. At the very center rose the rudra tree. The trunk mushroomed as wide as twenty people standing shoulder to shoulder. Countless aerial roots, like slender branches, hung down to the floor. Iravan had often remarked on how Nakshar’s core tree was worth years of study, and for a moment, Ahilya agreed. Ethereal blue-green light flickered and gleamed in the top stories, making the tree appear mystical.
She squeezed through the crowd until she found her sister Tariya fidgeting on her chair, right by the gnarled railing of the gallery.
“Finally!” Tariya said. “Where have you been?”
Ahilya’s older sister was shorter than her and beautiful. Her raven-black hair tumbled down her shoulders in glossy curls. Her skin, though the same brown as Ahilya’s, seemed to glow. Her big kohl-lined eyes were shining with happiness. Tariya shifted restlessly on her seat, her baby asleep in her arms. “Here, hold him,” she said.
Ahilya found Arth thrust toward her. Her nephew’s weight was awkward; she squirmed, trying to ease the position, shifting her elbow, then her shoulders.
“I can take him,” a soft voice said. Tariya’s older son Kush edged through the press, gathered Arth, then returned to where the other children stood together in a rumble of noise.
Tariya called out a caution, then glanced up at Ahilya. “What took you?” she asked. “Can you believe it? The ashram is finally landing.” She straightened the pleats of her saree around her waist and readjusted the bindi on her forehead.
Nakshar, maze, city—there were many words to describe the airborne structure in which they lived, but none was as pretentious as ashram. The term meant a hermitage, but the architects had appropriated it to imply more—the city’s community, its people, a shared sense of purpose. Ahilya had once found it charming, but over the years it had become just another architect manipulation. She had stopped using the term altogether, her arguments with Tariya about it another point of difference between them. Yet Tariya looked so radiant this evening, her happiness rare and precious. Now was not the time to correct her.
“You look lovely as ever,” Ahilya said instead, smiling. “Bharavi won’t be able to keep her eyes off you.”
“She had better not. I’ve something in mind for the two of us to do every day, for as long as this lull lasts.” Tariya finished adjusting her saree and reached up to give Ahilya a hug but stopped as though only now noticing her. Her sister groaned, and unfastened Ahilya’s wrist-compass, uncaring of the fragility of the instrument. “Really, Ahilya. Does Iravan like you looking like this?”
Ahilya caught Tariya’s hands before she could do more damage. “I like me looking like this.”
“But don’t you know what landing means?”
“I finally get to go into the jungle for my expedition?”
“Your architect husband gets to be off duty. You get uninterrupted time with him. You don’t have to be stuck in the library anymore, studying something obscure—”
