The Surviving Sky, page 9
“I don’t like it,” he said again.
“Iravan, it’s harmless. I’ve worked with it before, remember?”
“No, not that,” he muttered, and swallowed. “Not only that. The trajection. The jungle. All of it. We shouldn’t be here. We should be back in the ashram.”
She touched his elbow lightly. “Exactly what are you afraid of?”
His gaze when it met hers was uncertain. “I don’t know. It’s instinct.”
Ahilya had heard this before, too. The jungle always made architects nervous, but she had expected better from Iravan. She glanced at him and then back at the yaksha. As angry as she was with him, he was the most competent man she knew. Could she afford to dismiss him? We don’t have much time, Dhruv said in her mind. If we don’t do this, we can wave our professions goodbye.
Ahilya sighed, tugged at her harness, and pointed up at the yaksha, looming above them. “I need to get up there.”
Her husband stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then the patterns of his tattoos changed. Plants grew over Ahilya, up her legs and her thighs. They tightened their grip, clasping her waist, curling around her harness. She began to rise. Her view twisted from Iravan’s face to the foliage. Thick green leaves blocked her; branches slapped against arms that protected her head. Sticky sap dripped on her neck.
Then she emerged clear of the growing canopy.
She blinked, gray filling her vision. She was level with the yaksha’s knee, then its shoulder, and finally its left tusk. The spiral stopped, and she hung there, suspended, feeling the plants grip her tighter. In front of her, the gigantic tusk shone a dull yellow. Curled around it—exactly where she had left it five years before—a tracker glinted gently.
Ahilya reached out and cut the fibers. The tracker dropped into her palm, heavy and familiar. Grinning, she attached it to her necklace, where the receiver and transmitter clicked together into a bulky pendant. She delved inside her satchel until she held the replacement tracker, and carefully attached it where the first one had been.
Oam called out her name, and Ahilya twisted her head to see him spiraling on the other side of the yaksha in his own tornado of foliage. The apprentice grinned, his expression exhilarated. He let out a soft whoop.
She grinned back. “Can you believe this? I never thought I’d see this creature again.”
Oam watched her, his eyes wide. “You’re incredible, you are.”
Ahilya laughed, pulled out her skin-density scanner, and watched the readings. The percentages are no different from a human’s, she thought, as though already writing in her solarnote. But with true comparison, this can disprove the prevailing theory of yaksha survival, which relies on their sizes. She replaced the scanner back in her bag—it would continue calculating as she took other readings—and turned to look down. Iravan had trajected a clear view for himself. He waited there, pacing back and forth, his eyes disturbed, a crease forming on his forehead.
“Higher,” she called out. “I need some pupil readings and I need to scope its hearing.”
He nodded, his golden headlamp and blue-green trajecting light bobbing. The vortex carried her upward, past the nubby fold from where the tusk grew, until she was at level with an eye. She saw herself reflected, life-size but warped.
Ahilya gasped.
There was a strange pattern glinting in the yaksha’s eye, almost like it had developed more rings around the iris. Ahilya gripped her retinoscope. Powered by Iravan’s trajection, the slim pen-sized machine buzzed in her hands. She waved it like a beacon in front of the pupil. The yaksha didn’t blink.
“Ahilya,” Iravan called out from below. “Something isn’t right. I think I know why the jungle feels odd. Why it’s fighting my trajection.”
She glanced down but he had moved several feet away. Only his dim blue-green light was visible, moving in small circles through the weeds. Ahilya replaced the retinoscope with the eye refractor. She gripped the refractor and repeated the motion, waving it for several moments.
“These are the same species we use to test safety…” Iravan called out. “But why aren’t they…” He trailed off, but the tension in his voice was palpable.
Ahilya stopped what she was doing and gazed down at him, frowning. “What do you mean—” she began, but then the spiral holding her dropped a few feet, knocking the breath out of her.
Her heart thumped loudly. She gripped the edge of the foliage spiral. Gasping, she looked down. She could see Iravan now, crouched among the weeds, far from her. His eyes were wide with horror.
And then the spiral collapsed under her, leaves and branches splitting in an explosion.
It seemed to Ahilya she was falling very slowly. She had plenty of time to observe Oam drop alongside her, his face terrified. She had time to note she was screaming. She had time to note Iravan cast his arms wide, time to see the green ground rushing up.
Then, through a shower of leaves and bark, Ahilya crashed onto something soft and bubbly. Her vision swam. Her left elbow twinged.
She arose slowly. She had landed on slippery moss.
Iravan stood several feet away, still blazing like a torch in the dimness of the jungle. His teeth were gritted in a snarl. His eyes bulged. He was waving his arms, but the movement seemed sluggish.
Oam had landed on his own pillow of moss. Ahilya stumbled to her knees, sliding on the moss, fury taking over her fear.
“What in bloody rages—” she began, but Iravan cut her off, his voice tight.
“Lost control.”
“Are you fucking joking—”
“We need to leave,” he snapped. “Both of you. Come to me now.”
“What? We aren’t leaving yet; we came here on a mission!”
“Bloody rages, Ahilya,” Iravan said, turning toward her, still surrounded by the tall weeds. “You have to come back to me now. I’m doing all I can to contain this already.” He jerked his head at the weeds. Each blade was rapidly growing several other needles, almost like arrowheads. “Look. This is magnaroot. The same species in the temple that tells us when we can’t land. When there’s danger, it’s not limp. It’s thorny. Look at it.”
She stared back. What did he mean? Nakshar had landed, and she had set all precautions before going into the jungle.
Then the ground trembled through the moss. It reverberated like a thrum in her heart. Her eyes widened, her mouth still half-open.
Earthrage.
Oam moaned, a pitiful sound. He tried to get to his feet, the wet sounds of slipping and sliding.
“Impossible,” Ahilya said, even as she started to crawl off the moss. “The alarm from Nakshar, it should have—”
Another tremor, this time louder and deeper, rumbled through the forest floor. The elephant-yaksha roared, the sound deafening this close. Her ears rang, the yaksha reared its head, thundered toward Ahilya, she screamed and scrambled back, slipping, the creature barely missing the moss she was on. She felt the wind of its passage as it disappeared into the trees. Stumbling, she stood up, brushed her clothes instinctively. Her hand came up empty against her thigh. She blinked, not understanding, looking down at her hand.
Her satchel was missing.
Ahilya stared at her empty hand, as the tremor subsided.
“Ahilya, rage it, back to me, now.”
“I’ve lost my bag,” she yelled back. She rolled off the moss, her eyes searching, spinning on her feet, kicking at brush and creepers; where was it, where was it?
“We don’t have time. The earthrage is coming; those were the first tremors.”
“It has all of Dhruv’s sungineering equipment!” she screamed. “All the data I just collected. I can’t leave it.”
“I see it, I see it,” Oam yelled. He changed direction and sprinted to where the yaksha had been. He swept the satchel into his hands and over his shoulders, and dashed back toward Iravan.
The jungle roiled.
Ahilya lost her footing. Her vision blurred.
“Ahilya, BACK HERE, NOW.”
Ahilya glanced down, to where bark had trapped her legs. She struggled but it didn’t give.
Her eyes went to her husband. Iravan was a vision of blue-green. He had trajected an orb of branches around him and Oam, but they were nearly fifty feet away. Tears blurred her vision. The jungle snapped and heaved.
She could see then that she would never make it. They would die there because of her. She had promised Oam she’d protect him, but she’d failed as an expedition leader. Their voices came to her from far away, but all she could hear was Tariya disdaining her choices. Her sister had been right. This was what she’d wrought. Her fault.
“Go,” she whispered.
“Get up,” Iravan snarled. “Get up.”
“Iravan, go. Please, just take him and go.”
“Ahilya, come on,” Oam shrilled. “Use your machete. Come on!”
Her hands trembling, Ahilya groped for the machete she had hung on her harness. She began hacking at the bark. It had slowed its growth; from the corner of her eye she saw Iravan extend a fist toward her. He was controlling the bark’s growth, but the distraction cost him. A gigantic branch slammed like a spear into the nest. Oam shrieked, cowering, but the nest held.
“I won’t make it,” she rasped as the earth bucked underneath her. “Go, please; you have to go. Protect him. Just go.”
“NO!” Iravan bellowed. “Get up, rage you.”
The bark snapped. Ahilya kicked and jerked, shards piercing her skin. She crawled out and pushed through the churning wind, against the dust and the jungle. Iravan extended both fists toward her. He was blazing so brightly that Oam’s eyes were shut against his light. The nest creaked, became smaller.
Ahead of Ahilya, a path opened, one step at a time. She swiped her knife with one hand, cutting and slashing at roots that grabbed her, at the vines that flew at her face. She was almost at the orb.
Then Oam reached his arm out. He hauled her in and she slammed into him. The two of them sprawled, limbs entangled, and the nest tightened. The ground shook, and this time the tremor was audible, a roar from deep within the earth.
The nest bucked high in the air. Ahilya flew, slammed against Oam, their heads knocking together, blinding pain, landed hard. Iravan, standing steady in the center of the nest, arms extended, yelled, “Brace.”
A tree trunk filled Ahilya’s vision through the gaps in the nest. It slammed against them, once, twice, thrice. Oam was screaming, she was screaming, and then.
Silence.
The nest floated down gently, back to the forest floor.
Ahilya’s terror was reflected in Oam’s eyes. The jungle had stilled. Every plant, every root, unmoving, as though dead.
Oam’s breathing reverberated around them, panicked and shallow. “I… Is that it?”
“No,” Iravan replied. “It’s just beginning.”
“N-Nakshar?” Ahilya gasped. “Is it still there? Are they still here?” She rubbed her citizen ring, but it was quiet, though her sungineering locket still chimed softly.
“I don’t know,” Iravan said. “But we have to believe they waited. It’s our only chance.” The trajecting light on his skin brightened. “Hold on. I’m going to roll us out of here.”
Ahilya grabbed the branches and squeezed her eyes shut.
8
IRAVAN
Nothing happened. The magnaroot nest didn’t move. It didn’t roll away.
Iravan was suspended in a nightmare. The stillness was more chilling than anything he had experienced.
In his split vision, his constellation lines thrashed like snakes, refusing to lock in to the magnaroot. Iravan held on, bearing the weight of his existence on the star. It fought back, and for a second the force of their opposing desires made the nest thrum with agitation. Ahilya gasped, and Oam yelped, and then they were all screaming. Iravan’s teeth burned; his bones shook through his skin. A stabbing pain reverberated through his arms and chest. The magnaroot whipped and fought, live-wire, red-hot pain, more alive than any plant he had ever trajected.
Iravan released a few constellation lines. The magnaroot nest shook one last time, then stilled, content to be shaped like a nest for now but to do little else.
“What was that?” Oam gasped.
Iravan’s breath came out in short gasps. Trajection in the wild jungle was known to be harder than in a tame ashram, but he had never felt such opposition to his guidance before. It was as though the magnaroot were more than just a plant, like it had the sentient consciousness of a complex being.
Outside, trees began to shudder and wave.
Another tremor shook the nest. It rose jerkily into the air. Ahilya and Oam shrieked. Iravan’s stomach lurched. They crashed into a massive tree trunk and bounced, vision skewed, upside down, bile rising, and then a gentle roll. The nest landed far from where it had been.
Hold on, Iravan tried to say, but he couldn’t form the words. A bone-deep exhaustion weighed him down, but he flew through the Moment, frantically examining and discarding possibilities, even as the other two righted themselves. Should he release the magnaroot and search for teak or ironwood? No, too late; there was no time to look. Should he dissolve the nest and create armor? No, any armor would be crushed as soon as the first wave of the earthrage hit. His heart sank.
“What are you doing?” Oam squeaked. “Why are we just waiting here?”
Iravan tried again. In his first vision, he saw himself as Oam and Ahilya did, feet dug into the crisscross of the nest, fists gripping branches, head bent in exhaustion. His skin glowed blindingly as trajection tattoos articulated themselves in complex fractals.
In his second vision, he approached the magnaroot star, wielding his constellation lines like a hundred whips, hunting for an opening to latch them.
The star anticipated him before he could decide his move. It expanded in his second vision, crashing into his mind, leaving him no time even to gasp.
His Two Visions merged.
At that instant, Iravan felt true terror.
His skin began to crack and bleed. Spines grew on his back, in his neck, through his eyes. He opened his mouth, but only dust blew out, tiny gray-white seedlings rushing out of him. His gums rotted, spikes under his nails, twigs yanking his hair, and he thought, Yes, good, rip, bleed, die, seed, survive. He recognized a tiny battering interference—his own—as his trajecting dust mote tried to stop from ripping his plant self apart. He smiled through bloody teeth and pressed the pain deeper into himself. The agony was beautiful; he wept in its rapture—
Iravan blinked.
He wrenched himself free, tearing through the grip of the magnaroot. He scrambled away from the star in panic.
The visions separated, but Iravan continued to retreat through the Moment, whimpering, terrified. Dangerous, dangerous to have the Two Visions merge. An architect could lose himself and wither away, never to return into his own body. He emptied his stomach on the nest’s floor. His trajection light faded.
The nest began to dissolve.
Thorns crumbled over their heads into dust, then a branch cracked and popped in shards. Ahilya whimpered, eyes frantic, as she watched their slim defense breaking.
“What is he doing?” Oam shrieked. “Is he crazy?”
Ahilya stared at him, hair disheveled, blood trickling down her forehead, beautiful and terrified. Her hands trembled as she tried to physically hold the nest together, as though anything she could do would make a difference.
Desperately, Iravan leaped back toward the magnaroot star. With no time for subtlety, he jammed his constellation lines, hundreds of them, into the star’s depths in an inartistic, inelegant command. The nest stopped dissolving. It thrummed in fury again. The constellation lines reared up, vibrating in his grip. The wrath of the magnaroot was almost too powerful. He was going to be sucked into it again, visions merging; he couldn’t let that happen—
Abruptly, the nest stilled.
Iravan’s heart soared, a brief moment of victory.
Too late he saw a boulder sail through the air toward them, a wrecking ball.
Desperately, Iravan flung up a hand, clawing his constellation lines to grip the outer filaments of the nest. He jammed the branches of the nest into each other, splintering the magnaroot, knitting it through itself.
The boulder crashed into the nest. They hurtled on the forest floor, tumbling, bodies crashing into him, but the orb held, rages, it held.
How had the magnaroot known the boulder would fly toward them? It was a plant, it wasn’t a dust mote, it shouldn’t have seen the possibilities—but there was no time.
Iravan steadied himself in the Moment, generating one constellation line after another, tying them to the nest, using as much of the magnaroot’s desire to splinter itself as he could. Intent on destroying itself, the magnaroot leaped to obey him this time. Shoots ruptured into each other. The nest’s crust became a crisscross of branches. It became tighter, denser, and a surge of hope, of triumph, shot through Iravan. He’d done it; he had found a way.
In the next instant, soft white seeds flew out of the fractures, filling the air.
The bright light from his body diffused, and now they were all coughing, wheezing, choking, even as they were flung around. Ahilya’s eyes bulged, her hand on throat, and he knew he was killing her, he was killing all of them.
NO, he screamed soundlessly.
Through his trajection he could feel the magnaroot’s ecstasy at the release.
There had to be a way out to safety. There had to be!
Iravan flailed around in the Moment, hunting, cursing. He tried it all again, trajecting constellation lines into the star to stop the plant from rupturing itself, but the nest thrummed and flung itself into the air. He changed the pattern to force the nest into stillness, but the magnaroot waited until a boulder or a tree trunk rammed into it, shaking them. He attacked it, using its own desire against it, but the nest filled with tiny white seedlings, choking them, and Ahilya was becoming purple. Again, and again, and again.
