The Surviving Sky, page 42
“What kind of a political decision?”
“One that had to do with Ecstasy.” Iravan moved forward slowly and touched the rocky wall.
Instantly, the image focused on a single flying ashram.
Within it, the same man appeared, who had been trajecting into a core tree with other architects in the jungle before. He was short and familiar, though Ahilya could not say where the familiarity came from—the image was pure lines and angles, too abstract, only a hint of a man at all.
Iravan touched it and the man was replaced by a young girl.
The ashram changed too, becoming bigger, leafier.
Ahilya glanced at her husband, confused.
This time, Iravan led the march down the wall, drawing her along. The focus shifted from the ashrams to a single person. The young girl in the picture became a man, another man, then two women in succession, while the ashram grew and changed. It was as though this person were a fixed point, a hundred, no five hundred transformations, as civilization in flight grew around them—
And then the picture resolved, and there was no ambiguity.
It was a man again, a tall man, the shadows falling on him in such a way that Ahilya got the distinct impression that his skin was dark. He stood in the shade of a core tree, and a Disc revolved in the tree’s highest boughs. The man stared at something, patterns on his skin changing. She would have recognized his stance in a crowd of a million people.
Ahilya turned to Iravan. “This is you,” she said quietly.
“They’re all me,” he said, his voice hollow in the tunnel. “Each of those clear faces. We just saw my personal history. An architect from the very first time there were any architects at all, from the very first time there was trajection.”
Ahilya nodded slowly. Rebirth was a fact of life. Dead bodies nourished the ashram, became plant matter, which in turn became food that sustained and created citizens; and consciousness moved from one state to the next. No one truly remembered their past lives, but what did it matter? Iravan had been all those people before, but he was Iravan now. He was hers. The panic in her mind fluttered harder, like a trapped bird. She clasped both of his warm hands in hers, watching him carefully.
Iravan trajected, the patterns on his dark skin winding like spirals.
The dimness of the tunnel lifted.
Light blossomed on the entire wall this time.
And Ahilya saw—circling the tapestry of pictures—a falcon-yaksha soaring in the wall’s skies.
The yaksha’s wings grew with the passage of time, pain in its flight. It soared above Iravan’s past, above the other men and women he had been; it soared in an endless infinite loop, until—grown monstrous—it flapped right above the image of Iravan himself as he stood in what could only be Nakshar’s temple, staring after Ahilya as she left for her expedition.
She turned to her husband slowly, a chill in her heart. “What does this mean?”
Iravan touched the falcon-yaksha in the rock, tears in his eyes. “The Resonance. It was a call. A call I had been too blind to see, to feel. The falcon has been trajecting for years, for centuries, ever since it formed, ever since I formed. And in its trajection, it released an… an undying residue, a constant raga… the Resonance.”
“Nakshar’s Constant,” Ahilya said, understanding. “A raga that doesn’t dissipate. That releases each time an architect trajects, unique to the architect.”
“Yes,” Iravan said. “A unique call. A unique shade of blue. Nakshar’s Constant, Resonance, the Raga of Awakening. Call it what you will, but it is the same. Each architect releases it every time they traject, and it’s a call to a yaksha, their yaksha. And each yaksha releases it as well, except we have always been too afraid to hear our yaksha’s call.”
Ahilya’s heart thudded in her chest. “Iravan, Nakshar’s Constant emerges out of architects—not out of yakshas—”
“They’re architects too, Ahilya. You saw those carvings on the wall. The jungle creatures morphed into yakshas the same time as human beings snapped to become architects. Trajection must have developed in both species at the same time.”
“But—”
“This is why no one else could sense the Resonance. It was a unique call, emitted by the falcon for me. And I ignored it. I ignored it for so many lifetimes.” Iravan bowed his head, great breaths heaving his body.
Ahilya placed a hand on his back, her heart sinking in an unnamed terror. “Why would the yakshas and the architects be connected this way? You’re suggesting a relationship of lifetimes. Even if there had been a time when architects and yakshas had been symbiotic, that relationship wouldn’t last across such a period of destruction. Not between a particular human and yaksha. That would indicate a much deeper correlation, something beyond our wildest theories.”
Iravan’s shoulders shuddered. The light of trajection on his skin sparked brighter in anger. “There is a deeper correlation, and we knew it. The early architects—whoever I was back then—Askavetra and Mohini and the others—they—I—knew it. It’s why interaction with the yakshas was once forbidden—and so the jungle itself was forbidden. Eventually, we forgot about the yakshas altogether. All records were erased, along with records of the rebel groups.”
Ahilya’s stomach clenched. “Why forbid this knowledge of the yakshas? Why take the risk of flight simply to avoid the yakshas, when survival was at stake?”
“Because it was their survival that was at stake,” he said angrily. “Their way of life. Their trajection. Trajection itself was never meant to be. It was a mistaken resource. It was a false step in the dark.”
“Iravan—trajection developed as a defense against the earthrages—”
Blue unfurled like an angry flame deep within his black eyes. “You saw these cave pictures, Ahilya. That little girl was spinning complex mazes that even a Senior Architect doesn’t have the capability for now. A small group of architects once embedded a core tree with permissions, and now we need whole Discs of Maze Architects just to fly an ashram. We aren’t capable of that kind of trajection because trajection hasn’t just been getting harder for the last few months; it has always been getting harder, since its inception. We always assumed we lost a few tricks, but the truth is that within trajection lives the seed of its own decay.”
Ahilya’s heart hammered in her throat. She could sense it, the moment of inevitable painful understanding, imminent upon them.
“If we weren’t meant to be trajectors,” she asked, “then why did we develop the ability? Why did we evolve to have it?”
“There can only be one reason,” Iravan said, his hand curling into a fist. “We evolved to have trajection so we may find Ecstasy. Just like the yakshas naturally did. They never trajected, Ahilya—they always supertrajected. Trajection was meant to be a path toward Ecstasy. That little girl we saw—I was her, but because I never reached Ecstasy, trajection became harder through all my lifetimes, like pressure building. I guarantee that every architect who has felt trajection getting harder ignored Ecstasy in their own past lives. And the ones who found Ecstasy finally—well, we excised them, didn’t we?”
Ahilya stared at him, unable to speak. The horror of what he was saying sank into her. Tears filled her eyes.
Iravan slammed his fist against the wall. “This is why, no matter what we try, architects have always been in danger of Ecstasy. That’s why the rules of trajection are so arbitrary. Because Ecstasy was always our final destination. Ecstasy was meant to be our true state. But we excised ourselves when we got too close.”
Ahilya’s mind reeled. All the architects that had ever been excised, all those lives that had been sacrificed—
She saw Maiya again, sitting on her chair, drool dripping down her mouth.
She saw Bharavi, strangled by the spiralweed.
And she saw Iravan, begging her to take him back, promising to be whoever she wanted him to be.
Her voice trembled when she spoke. “Ecstasy is unbridled power. Why would the architects deny themselves that power by limiting themselves? Especially if they knew all this?”
“Because Ecstasy changes you,” Iravan said, staring at the wall. “Bharavi tried to tell me. She said she would destroy everything we’d built; she said there would be no going back. Perhaps she landed the ashram because she meant to unite with her own yaksha. She asked me what I’d lost, and she meant my yaksha—perhaps she had been hoping for me to say it. She told me to follow my own moral intuition, and she was right. When you climb the path to clarity, everything becomes clear—including your greatest shame.”
The glowing light of Ecstasy reached his eyes, like fire igniting. He stood there, his shoulders heaving, tears falling down his face. Ahilya stroked his back, tears trickling down her face as well. She wished she had never left the copse with its glimmering dust.
“What knowledge could be so terrible,” she whispered, “that architects would choose excision over it? That they would deny themselves the true power of Ecstasy? Deny themselves a deeper connection with their own yaksha?”
Iravan engulfed her hand in his once again, the heat from him enveloping her—
“Let’s find out,” he said grimly, and trajected.
The tunnel exploded in silence.
Ahilya gasped, startled, as the rock disintegrated around her into soft green dust, filling her vision. She didn’t know how long—it was a deep breath—
The dust sparkled, then vanished.
They were submerged in deep darkness, the first true darkness of this strange habitat. Iravan’s light muted to a twilight glow. Ahilya blinked and squinted. She could make out shapes in the yawning shadows. Grass crunched underneath her feet.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“I brought us to clarity,” he said quietly.
“Where are we?”
He didn’t answer, but his hand tightened over hers in assurance.
“Iravan, this darkness…” Ahilya said, swallowing. “You could make light.”
She felt more than saw his head shake. “It’s best not to disturb them, I think.”
Ahilya frowned, not understanding. Her sight adjusted to Iravan’s dim light, and shadows grew, like great hills around them—
They were not alone.
Eyes glinted out of the darkness, monstrous great eyes, yellow and green and red.
Yakshas.
Ahilya’s mouth went dry. Her heart pounded so hard against her chest, she thought it might rupture.
Iravan strode forward into the dark, sensing his own path.
Ahilya kept close to him, trembling against her wont, as snarls filled the darkness. She had ventured out to study yakshas before, but this—to know they were truly architects, trajectors of the highest kind—complex beings—She couldn’t stop shaking. Something breathed by her ear, a heavy presence. Once, she saw a tusk, with what looked like a sungineering tracker attached to it; another time, a jagged set of teeth.
Ahilya gripped Iravan’s bicep, and he put his arm around her but carried on, oblivious to the snarls that filled the dark. She imagined them walking through an endless cavern full of gigantic sleeping yakshas, although she could see nothing but the grass under her, illuminated one step at a time. The path sloped up; they began climbing. Ahilya kept her eyes in front of her. She focused on Iravan’s touch, tried not to bolt as much as her body told her to—
Iravan stopped.
His light grew a touch brighter.
They’d reached a flat mound of grass. Silver glinted, and then a rustling came to Ahilya. Wings unfurled, then shook out, and Iravan grew brighter. Ahilya squinted. Less than twenty feet away, perched on a rocky outcrop—
The gigantic falcon-yaksha.
Despite being prepared for it, the creature’s size took Ahilya aback.
The bird towered over them like a great building. It ruffled its silvery-gray shoulders, then unfurled its majestic wings. The yaksha looked down at the two of them, its eyes glinting black, rings forming in the pupils.
Ahilya froze.
It was going to traject.
“Iravan,” she began in terror.
Light burst on Iravan’s skin, the patterns of spirals merging with delicate winged patterns.
The yaksha cried, a high, chilling sound.
On the short path toward the creature, a vortex of blinding blue-green light erupted from the grass. It shot into the sky, seemingly without beginning or end.
“Stay here,” Iravan said, and let go of her. He marched forward, his eyes on the bird. On the other side, the bird, a mere shadow in the dark, scuttled to the vortex of light as well.
“No,” Ahilya gasped, and lurched to follow him, but she was unable to move. Vines had grown from the floor, tying around her legs.
“It’ll be all right,” Iravan said. “It will be all right, my love.”
“Iravan, NO!”
Behind Ahilya, snarls broke out as her shouts and the vortex awoke the slumbering yakshas. Iravan and the falcon approached the swirling blue-green light.
Iravan fumbled at the rope around his waist that connected her to him. Ahilya groped inside her satchel. She grabbed her machete and slashed at the vines trapping her legs.
“Iravan, DON’T,” she shouted. “You don’t know what will happen!”
He had almost undone the knots; he was only a few feet away from the vortex.
“IRAVAN,” Ahilya screamed, slashing faster, but he ignored her and strode forward purposefully.
He was nearly at the vortex. He fumbled with the last knot; the tension of the rope released.
Ahilya snapped the last vine off, kicked its remains, and sprinted forward. She reached out a hand for his kurta to pull Iravan away. The falcon yarped, its eyes glinting—
Flames climbed Ahilya’s extended hand, burning from the inside—
She screamed in agony, lost her balance, and slammed into Iravan.
They tumbled together into the blue-green light.
46
IRAVAN
The instant Iravan saw the falcon perched on the rocky outcrop, the Resonance appeared in the Deepness.
It was the falcon-yaksha, of course, knowable in his second vision only through its raga. Perhaps to the falcon, Iravan appeared like an abstract version of Nakshar’s Constant. They hovered warily, as though they were seeing each other for the first time in Nakshar’s temple.
Iravan smiled and saw his own certainty reflected on the mirrored silvery surface of the Resonance. This was why the dust had brought them there. He had asked for clarity of himself, finally the right question, and the dust had opened up a path to the yakshas, to his yaksha.
His shoulders released their tension. His breath slowed. A great inevitability built within him, a sense of rightness deeper than any he had ever felt before. I’ve lost myself! he had screamed to Bharavi in Nakshar’s sanctum. I’ve found, she replied, acceptance.
This here, finally, would be acceptance.
Within the Deepness, Iravan generated his golden stream of light aimed into the Moment, and the Resonance mirrored him, generating its own silver jet; the both of them found each other’s stars, and they trajected simultaneously. A blinding vortex of blue-green light erupted from the grass and shot into the sky, created with their combined Ecstatic trajection of each other. The falcon-yaksha cried, flitting toward the vortex.
Iravan let go of Ahilya’s hand.
He scrambled to the mountain peak within the Etherium, almost at the top.
Dimly, he heard Ahilya’s voice as he strode forward. He thought he said, It will be all right, my love, but the thought was distracted. He undid the knots on the rope in his first vision, even as he reached ever closer to the peak in the Etherium. The Resonance fluttered in the Deepness, right next to him; and a silence built in the back of his mind, a presence; he knew it was the falcon-yaksha, living within a pocket of his own awareness; then—
Ahilya slammed into him—
The combined Ecstatic trajection of himself and the Resonance grew complete—
He pulled himself to the peak, surveyed the landscape—
And as all three visions coalesced into one, Iravan finally saw themselves in their true form.
47
IRAVAN
They were immortal once.
They had lived for millennia.
Consciousness had been a game, easy to manipulate.
They descended, took form, in the manner of a child playing with a new toy.
They separated and scattered their minds, in the manner of a river breaking its tributaries.
A beast, a plant, a mountain, an ocean; these were the same—a mere sheath to hold them, an affair with substance, before unity occurred as it always did.
A million million years with other immortals of their kind; that was their sublime existence.
Communication was thought, it was being.
They were so evolved that the very idea of language was primitive. They were so ancient that the very idea of death was amusing.
Tied to the planet, they had been created with the memory of their own death; they had shifted through little deaths, taken new forms. Complete with their immortal essence, they had always been themselves. What was time to such a being? It meant nothing.
And then they discerned…
Something within such meaningless time.
A moment of catastrophe when the dimension of their existence would disappear, when the planet would melt into the sun; a million short years, in what was a mere blink to them.
Terror spread. The terror of non-being, of in-existence.
This would not be death. This would be erasure.
It could not be changed; it could not be controlled. They had only ever controlled their own consciousness, after all.
A solution rippled through their kind, a radical answer.
Mutilating the earth would be the cost of survival, but it was a small price to pay; it would not be their payment. There would be no return from what they intended, but it would be a life, and life was always preferable to death.
