Chapter Text
Aaru rushes into his head, filling his brain with so much information at once that Kaveh presses his hands to his ears. He forgets how to breathe, the muscles in his windpipe and throat collapse without air passing through them.
A guttural rasp claws out of his throat, followed by a series of dry coughs. The blue interface flickers in front of his eyes.
Kaveh had never enjoyed linking his mind with the Akasha System, even when it had been required of every Akademiya student. The wealth of information had always overloaded his mind, branching paths offering too many choices. Taking the unpopular approach of speaking out against the Akademiya’s over-reliance on Akasha terminals prior to his graduation hadn’t earned Kaveh many friends, but it had eased his mind. Another example, Alhaitham had cited during one of their earlier arguments at Lambad’s, of how Kaveh had stuck to his principles to the detriment of his career.
Aaru is so much worse.
Tendrils of knowledge unfurl just out of his reach. Budding flowers emerge at his periphery, tantalizing him with the promise of architecture previously lost to humanity, even to the desert tribes now inhabiting the ruined husks slowly eroding with each passing sandstorm. Puzzle mechanisms and gravity-defying buildings swim through his mind as endless hallways of neatly-arranged doors, each one holding an equally alluring artistic construct.
He exhales, slowly and deliberately.
On the dais below, Alhaitham is waiting for him.
Sand shifts underneath Kaveh’s heels, scraping the bottom of his sandals. He crosses one leg over the other as he stands. Of useful methods to stop himself from fidgeting it’s at the bottom of his internal list, but currently he can’t lock his hands behind his back or sit on them and use the mechanism’s interface at the same time.
He taps at a series of lists at the centre of the obelisk. Ignoring the persuasive cries of more interesting subjects — the Goddess of Flowers’ personal garden design, her language of flowers, obsolete mechanisms for designing windows — he sends the entire table of contents to Alhaitham. His sandals chafe against the sand as he taps his foot, waiting for Alhaitham’s translation.
After all of this is over, when he has the time and money, he’ll ask Lord Sangemah Bay if she can recommend a good metal supplier for a buckle to craft a new pair of sandals. Fortunately, like any Kshahrewar researcher, he already has several textiles acquaintances on Treasures Street.
Kaveh looks through the archaic wall of text glowing blue in front of his face and past the sandstone platform.
His eyes easily find Alhaitham.
Sunlight filters in through the ruined ceiling, turning Alhaitham’s grey hair silver. It drags Alhaitham out of his slumped posture, book centimetres away from his face, into the brightness of the desert sun. Eyes narrowing in concentration, Alhaitham’s gaze flits from side-to-side as he rapidly translates a language that Kavah hasn’t seen since their failed joint research project years ago. His lips curl up past their usual sardonic smirk into a genuine smile as he reads and taps his cheek in thought.
Moving his hand down the stone pillar, Alhaitham looks almost delighted as a small, pyramid-shaped construct appears in the palm of his hand. Kaveh had told him to expect it, but his face lights up when it happens and Kaveh can’t help but lean forward as well, fingertips tangling in Alhaitham’s free hand.
Suddenly, Kaveh sees a different Alhaitham, the rare appearance of a passionate Haravatat scholar when he looks at or talks about something he truly cares about. It’s as if Alhaitham’s expression of wonder is illuminated by his own excitement and not the glowing construct in his hand.
Kaveh hasn’t seen anything more beautiful than Alhaitham working on something he loves.
A small squeeze of Alhaitham’s hand in his brings Kaveh back to himself.
He clears his throat. “Are you ready?” he asks Alhaitham. “This should be the last one. When we put this into place, the entire tomb will likely transform into something different.”
“‘Ultimately, the language of architecture guides the informed inhabitant and the visitor alike,’” Alhaitham quotes from an old Kshahrewar research text. Kaveh had shoved it into Alhaitham’s hands at the beginning of their project and ordered him to read it. “‘A purposeful and unintentional guidepost, architecture is a reflection of the values of the society that created it.’”
Breathing a soft sigh, Kaveh squeezes Alhaitham’s hand and brings it up to his lips for a soft kiss. Alhaitham’s fingers are smooth, without the calluses that litter Kaveh’s own hands from construction work. He places his scarf back over his face to protect it from the swirling sand around them and nods at Alhaitham.
“‘The Language of Sumeru Architecture.’ You remember.”
Alhaitham scoffs and releases Kaveh’s hand. “Of course I do. We reread it last week.”
Stale hot air fills Kaveh’s lungs. A sigh drains out of him into the suffocating tomb along with the memory, leaving his body wilting in the heat. “I think that should just about do it,” he calls out.
“It meets the requirements of the contingency plans,” Alhaitham replies. Any trace of joy that had flickered across his features, transporting Kaveh to a different time and place entirely, has vanished. “We should be good.”
Kaveh nods and jumps off of the platform, gliding until he lands to the side of the reflecting pool. His sandals skitter through a small pile of sand beside Alhaitham’s feet. “I have to say,” he begins, more to cover up the indignity and gracelessness of his landing before Alhaitham unleashes an expected and cutting remark, “it's the strangest feeling, this cross between reality and the intangible.”
Unlike the Akasha System, which had given Kaveh a headache more than anything else, necessitating trips to the House of Daena to research old schematics and constructs by hand to avoid pain and the growing over reliance on the system that Kaveh had seen developing in this classmates, Aaru had felt completely beyond his intellectual capacity. Had he decided to open any of the figurative doors that had appeared in his mind, Kaveh is certain he would have instantly been lost to the system and their project.
“It’s like drifting between life and death, or in and out of a dream,” he continues, flexing his fingers in the air. The metal fastenings on his gloves release a bright chiming sound. “Using my own hands to manipulate illusions that are forever out of reach. Chasing dreams in the most literal sense. Definitely a novel experience.”
Closing his eyes, Kaveh imagines walking through an ornately-decorated hallway. The patterned carpet is soft underneath his bare feet. In front of him, the answers to every question he’s ever asked and the ones he’s not thought to ask yet cry out, begging to be read. Every possibility in his life is laid out before him. “What happens if my spirit just…” he swallows, “floats away?”
“That won't happen.”
Alhaitham’s dry response wraps around his ankles where he’d been about to float up through Aaru’s Shut towards the cloudless sky and yanks him back to reality.
Opening his eyes slowly, Kaveh looks down. His worn sandals are planted firmly on large sandstone tiles. Next to them, Alhaitham’s metal-tipped boots gleam, dust and sand drifting down towards them both in a ray of sunlight.
“That won't happen,” said not with steely resolve, but in Alhaitham’s usual impassive tone.
That won’t happen, Kaveh’s brain helpfully fills in, because Alhaitham is here.
Kaveh’s shoulders rise closer to his ears. He bristles, gripping Mehrak’s handle until his knuckles turn white and the toolbox mechanism lets out the mechanical equivalent of a yelp. “Sorry,” Kaveh whispers, releasing it immediately. His anger drifts away with Mehrak. Pushing past the initial and automatic fury that Alhaitham’s comments always inspire, Kaveh rubs at his arms, trying to rid himself of a rising discomfort turning the surface of his skin into pimpled red vulture flesh like there’s a sudden chill in the air.
Beneath Alhaitham’s smug cadence, there’s deep-seated trust.
“The most capable minds in their respective fields are here before you,” Alhaitham had told three of the Seven Pillars of Deshret, a statement that Kaveh now realizes not only includes himself, but placed particular emphasis on the two of them as the project’s leaders.
Kaveh had been enraged by how Alhaitham had put himself on a pedestal without realizing how Alhaitham had placed Kaveh right there beside him. Or slightly below him — this is still Alhaitham, after all — but in the same breath and as the only other person who would be interacting with Aaru’s obelisks directly.
Kaveh opens his mouth, says nothing, and promptly closes it with a loud click of his jaw.
“Anyway, I wouldn't celebrate just yet if I were you,” Alhaitham says, raising an eyebrow but mercifully choosing not to needle Kaveh about his unexpected silence at this point in time. “There's likely to be a phase two of this project.”
“Alright,” Kaveh hears himself say, head still spinning from Aaru and Alhaitham’s conviction. “I'd better keep my wits about me, then.”