The Surviving Sky, page 45
Behind them, the falcon ruffled its feathers. One wing lifted slightly, and Ahilya glimpsed a gigantic black eye, unringed. She thought she detected grudging gratitude from the bird. She glanced back at Iravan and only felt awe and humility from him.
Tears burned in her throat. He was making this difficult. Of course he was.
“What else did you see?” she whispered.
His gaze locked on to hers. “Your reality. Ahilya, you’re… pregnant.”
She made no reply to that. Iravan’s grip tightened on her hand, almost painful.
“You knew this,” he breathed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Would you have left the copse and made the choices you did?”
“So you forced the choice on me by keeping me ignorant?” A growl laced his words. “Ahilya, it was not your decision to make alone! You don’t know what that vortex did to you. You don’t know—”
“We ended the earthrage. I saved you. You said this yourself.”
Iravan trembled in anger. She snaked her other arm around her belly, remembering all the arguments the two of them had so long before, remembering how he had lived with that fear as an architect; the decision that she could take about any child they had, alone, without his participation.
Perhaps he was thinking of the same thing, for his grip loosened and he took another deep breath to calm himself. “I can never go back to Nakshar. Not like this. Not yet.”
“Then the ashram survived,” she said. She had seen it in the… Etherium, of course, but until Iravan nodded, she hadn’t known how much she had been waiting for his confirmation.
He watched her a long moment, his eyes growing brighter.
She could feel it coming, the moment of inevitability.
“You’re leaving me,” he said quietly. “You’re saying goodbye.”
“I’m trying very hard not to,” she said, uttering a humorless laugh. He didn’t smile, so she looked back into his eyes. She thought of Dhruv and Tariya and Arth and Kush, and the things she had made Airav do. Iravan against the world. That was the choice she had made. She needed to answer for it. “There are others who need me now,” she said. “To whom I owe explanations. I’ve… done what I could for you.”
“I want you,” Iravan said. “Isn’t that better than need?”
“Yes,” she said sadly. “It is. It really is.”
They sat in silence, fingers still entangled. Behind them, the yaksha rumbled softly and shook its feathers. An explosion of jasmines covered the walls, running like a wave from one end of the garden to another. The scent was intoxicating; and she breathed it in, its fresh, sultry heat. He was doing this, of course. Perhaps he didn’t know he was.
“You were the best of them,” Iravan said abruptly. “Of all the lives and all the many partners I’ve had—you made completion possible.” He stared straight ahead past the garden that filled with jasmines. “Our civilization is embedded with the need for material bonds. It’s passed down to us as the greatest wisdom, because architects weren’t supposed to be Ecstatic. I lived a hundred, a thousand lives with that wisdom, but I couldn’t have found the falcon in any of those. In no other life did I have someone who pushed me to find myself like you did. You…” He turned to her then, his blue-green eyes gazing into her. “You made me possible. And I will never stop owing you for that.”
Tears trickled down Ahilya’s cheeks. It was more than she could bear. Her heart pounded in her chest. She stood up before she could change her mind.
The yaksha ruffled its wings and stretched, sudden shade falling on Iravan and Ahilya. The creature’s wings extended high above her. Individual feathers shone like mercury.
Iravan stood up slowly. His jaw clenched, but she knew it was not in anger. He was holding back tears. He walked over to the front, and the giant falcon gazed down at him with its glittering black eyes. Her husband stared back with his ethereal blue-green ones; the yaksha yarped, an imperious and haughty lift to its beak, but as Iravan raised a hand, the yaksha bent its sharp beak and let Iravan stroke it.
Iravan strode back to Ahilya. He knelt, making a step with his hands.
Ahilya walked forward, placed a hand on his shoulder, and he boosted her up so she sat astride the falcon. The yaksha rustled under her, and she breathed deeply. The creature felt alien, its glistening feathers cool under her skin. It smelled of earth and smoke, truly a creature of the jungle.
Iravan vaulted over behind her, and the scent of firemint overpowered Ahilya.
She gripped feathers with both her hands, and he closed his own over hers. His legs wrapped around hers, the breathing ragged in his chest—
The yaksha uttered a scream. It strode toward the opening in the wall. Trees separated in front of them, through Ecstatic trajection. The bird opened its wings, and—
It launched itself into the air.
Ahilya gasped and laughter escaped her. Iravan laughed too, a roar of surprised delight, and the flight pushed her back into him; they cleared the trees and ascended into the blue sky. Land fell away as the falcon climbed higher, its wings beating twice before it began to glide. The sungineering locket around her neck began to chime. Iravan’s locket pressed into her shoulder, both the halves signaling to each other, using the power of Ecstasy.
Wind rushed at her, making her eyes water. The jungle below was a vision of green and brown, dust still ballooning as the last waves of the earthrage settled. A single oasis of calm lay amidst the green—the epicenter of their feat, the habitat. Dust balloons radiated out from it, and Ahilya thought abstractedly of how she had thought to study these very patterns so long before, standing on Nakshar’s terrace. There was still so much left to understand about those cataclysms, a study like she could never have imagined even existed.
Eventually, a shape became visible in the sky.
Clouds obscured it, but there was no mistaking the giant hovering oblong structure. Nakshar.
Iravan didn’t make straight for it. Instead, he nudged the yaksha to glide around the city. Nakshar whipped in and out of clouds, in front of them and then to their left. The ashram was ellipsoidal on one side, and—Ahilya gasped—attached to another flat city on the other. Ashrams traded with each other all the time, but she had never seen anything like this before. Reikshar had evidently come to Nakshar’s rescue.
They drew closer. The patterns on Iravan’s arms changed, and leaves grew around them, extended from the ashram. The falcon moved in a haze of cover. Ahilya couldn’t see anything except snatches of bark and sky. Moisture pricked her face. Tears.
The falcon landed with a gentle thump. Iravan trajected, and the leaf cover lessened. Ahilya flung one leg around so she was sitting sideways on the falcon. She stared at her husband, and he stared back. The blue-green light had leached out of Iravan’s eyes. He looked like he always had, his salt-and-pepper hair slightly too long, his almost-black eyes drawn in sorrow. Ahilya wanted to say something; there was so much to clarify, so much she wanted him to understand, that this was not in punishment, it was in necessity.
Iravan’s mouth turned slightly up. He understood. Of course he did.
He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, in a whisper of a kiss.
“Perhaps this is not goodbye,” she murmured.
“You are my family,” Iravan growled. “And you carry the possibility of my child. It is never goodbye.”
Then his hands encircled her waist, and he lifted her up and lowered her down to the ground that rose to gather her. Ahilya stepped back, away from the falcon.
The bird flapped its wings, once, twice—
Iravan raised a hand in farewell—
And then they were gone.
For a long time, Ahilya remained standing on the strip of green Iravan had trajected. She couldn’t see him or the falcon, but her hand clasped the sungineering locket hard. Only when the locket went cold and silent did Ahilya turn away from the open sky and begin walking towards the city proper.
There were questions, of course.
The citizens of Reikshar didn’t recognize her, but that was hardly surprising. Nakshar had merged with the other ashram, and people from Reikshar had welcomed the citizens of Nakshar as their own. Someone brought her back to the temple, and there was a flurry of activity while Ahilya sat silently in front of the rudra tree sapling, waiting for a councilor and what they had in mind for her actions with Airav. She had been gone less than a week, she learned; they thought that her attempt at finding Iravan had failed, that she had hovered in her orb for a few days and returned. Some people stared at her, muttered about her recklessness, about her heroism. Ahilya waited, not bothering to correct them, her hands curled around her satchel.
It was Chaiyya who finally came to her. The Senior Architect trajected, and healbranch grew around Ahilya, wrapping her arms and legs. For long minutes, Chaiyya examined her. Then she sat back in bemusement, no doubt wondering how Ahilya’s wounds had healed if her clothes looked so ragged.
Ahilya broke the silence. “You survived. When I left, you’d said Nakshar had only days.”
The Senior Architect nodded tiredly. “Reikshar came to us a few hours ago, but we survived the days before that because of… well, because of you.”
Ahilya drew back, surprised.
“The battery you forced us to use,” Chaiyya said. “Its counterpart here generated enough power to sustain the ashram until Reikshar made it to us.”
“Airav,” Ahilya asked. “How is he?”
Chaiyya pressed a hand to her waist. She had days perhaps until her delivery. “Airav hasn’t trajected since then. There are costs to the battery, though we don’t yet know if his situation is temporary. He’s conscious but hasn’t yet been able to enter the Moment. I’m trying to heal him.”
“I’m sorry,” Ahilya said softly.
“I know.” Chaiyya didn’t look angry, only weary. “And I should tell you—news of Airav’s condition has spread. People already knew we were working on the battery and especially now that we used it—well, the Maze Architects know of what happened to Airav.”
Ahilya stared at her. “You told everyone?”
“We had to. The Maze Architects had already noticed his absence. They did not see him in the Moment or on the Disc, and we had to make a statement to them to assuage their fears. We have told them that they needn’t fear the sungineering battery—that yakshas can traject Ecstatically and we intend to use that for our purpose. Without that assurance, they will fear the use of a battery for their own enslavement—”
“I understand the dangers—”
“Then you should understand your role in it,” Chaiyya said. “They may come to you, Maze Architects and Junior Architects, seeking to know more. You are the expert on yakshas, and your involvement in the battery is now well known. Ahilya, I know you and the council have had their differences—”
“I won’t say anything that will make matters worse, Chaiyya. You have my word.”
Chaiyya nodded, then hesitated.
“There’s more?” Ahilya urged.
“What you did. Forcing us to make the choice… the flight all alone to look for Iravan…”
“I accept my punishment. I wouldn’t change my actions.”
“No—you misunderstand. Iravan is gone, Bharavi is gone, and Airav can’t traject anymore. That leaves Kiana, Laksiya, and I in the council.”
Ahilya waited, unsure of where the Senior Architect was going.
“I’m offering you a position as Nakshar’s councilor,” Chaiyya said heavily.
Shocked, Ahilya stared at the woman, for a sign of a trap or manipulation, but Chaiyya only looked tired.
“I’m not an architect,” Ahilya said, at last. “Nor a sungineer.”
“No, you’re an archeologist. We’ve accepted Iravan’s nomination. Your assistance during the investigation, the information you shared about the yakshas, and frankly, your daring… Perhaps these are what we need now. The others all agreed. Do you accept?”
For a heartbeat, Ahilya remained speechless. Here it was, everything she had worked for from the very beginning, the opportunity to make a real difference to the society of Nakshar. Yet there was more to this than Chaiyya was saying. “Dhruv invented the battery,” Ahilya said slowly. “Did Kiana not nominate him?”
“Senior Sungineer Kiana made no nomination of her own. Instead, she seconded Iravan’s nomination of you.” Chaiyya took a deep breath loaded with meaning. “I cannot fault her reasoning,” she added softly. “Dhruv’s battery destroys an architect, but your information might help the architects. You know the secret of excision already, you know what an architect sacrifices, you were married to a Senior Architect. None of the other candidates came close to any of these qualities. They were out of the running long before, and we decided unanimously, once Kiana seconded your position.”
Ahilya studied the woman. It wasn’t a fair decision, she knew. At the heart of it, they had decided based on who was the better choice for the architects.
And yet there was more there. What Chaiyya said now—the logic behind choosing Ahilya—it was the public reason, no doubt. Another sungineer on the council—especially one who had created the battery—would only create more fear for the architects who were questioning their own safety in light of this new invention.
But why not select a Maze Architect, then? Why choose someone like Ahilya who had a history of antagonism toward the trajectors? The council always had more architects than non-architects—Iravan had told her it was necessary. Yet with herself, Laksiya, and Kiana on it, that critical number would be switched. Why would Chaiyya take this step, knowing what the implications of such an imbalance would be?
No, this had something to do with the citizens, something Ahilya wasn’t being told.
She tore her gaze away from Chaiyya and studied the temple, how citizens still lingered by the pillars and walls, how several stared at her, speaking behind their palms. Ahilya was used to whispers about her, but now in their faces she discerned not contempt but admiration, even awe.
Nakshar had come close to its own destruction, only days past. Dhruv had told Ahilya that the council had chosen to inform the citizens about the attempts at a battery. They had done it, under duress, so the combined fears of the non-architects did not work against the trajection of the Disc and plummet the already-fragile ashram into the earthrage. But had the citizens awoken to their own importance, their own status, because of it? Ahilya’s absence had not gone unnoticed. Perhaps people had talked—and by strongarming the council, she had set a precedent.
The councilors needed her now. They needed a citizen to side with them—someone who was neither a sungineer nor an architect but still somehow associated with both—yet it was not this alone. Matters were only going to become more fragile in the ashram, with the invention of the battery and the awakening of the non-architects. Chaiyya was looking for a scapegoat to sacrifice, for when things went awry. Ahilya had forced Airav to use a battery; she had smuggled in the spiralweed; she had put Iravan first before the lives of any of the citizens. If she slipped now, she would become the whipping girl for all the citizen groups: architects, non-architects, sungineers.
Her eyes widened as the truth of this hit her. She stared at Chaiyya and for the first time saw not a simple maternal woman but a keen politician who had undoubtedly thought of every angle before offering Ahilya the councilorship.
“Do you accept?” Chaiyya asked again, meeting her gaze.
Ahilya thought of the implications of those words, the burdens she had to carry, the future she would build. She thought of the traps and the machinations, her hostilities with the council, and the manner in which Iravan had lost himself within this very role.
“I accept,” she breathed.
Chaiyya arose ponderously. “Good. You’ll take your vows at our first meeting as soon as we land. We haven’t formally announced it yet, but the earthrage has ended—the sungineers of Reikshar and Nakshar have both confirmed so. It will be a few hours before the citizen rings begin chiming, but when they do, I will expect you at the temple again. See to your sister in the infirmary if you need to, and I’ll send Maze Architect Naila to escort you back here when it’s time.” Chaiyya paused, her gaze piercing. “Brace yourself, Ahilya,” she added softly. “Being a councilor isn’t easy.”
She gestured, and Ahilya stood up, her mind reeling with the path she had set herself on. Her feet took her not farther into the temple toward the new infirmary but back out into Reikshar. There would be apologies and explanations to make—to both Tariya and to Dhruv—but her thoughts were too chaotic; Ahilya had to think it over, the consequences of telling people everything she had learnt in the caves, about the true nature of Ecstasy or the architects’ connection with the yakshas. She had to calculate her timing, her new position.
Past the congregated citizens of both the ashrams, Ahilya finally found herself alone on a terrace bordering Nakshar with Reikshar. The citizen rings had not begun chiming yet, but she could see the change in the architecture already, the manner in which both the ashrams had decided to merge into a single unit to mimic the model Iravan had designed so long before to conserve trajection energy.
If it weren’t for the scent of pine and cedar that Reikshar favored over Nakshar’s leafier varieties, she would not have known she was in another ashram. If it weren’t for the underlying melody, one she recognized as the landing raga susurrating through the foliage, slightly off-key from what she was used to, she would not have known this wasn’t truly home.
The hedge had grown waist-high, sharp brambles poking out from it as it extended higher into a dome. Ahilya’s wrists felt heavy with Airav’s rudra bead bracelets—and a stray wondrous thought came to her—she would soon have her own beads, her due now as a councilor.
She didn’t tap the bracelets to change the bush’s permissions. Instead, she stared at the bobbing shape she had spotted from one of the pathways. Her fingers toyed with the telescope in her ragged satchel. Her throat grew heavy with the tracker locket, reminding her of the choice she had made in returning to Nakshar, the choice she had left behind.
