The Last Immortal : Book One of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

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  Shortly after the incident at the dome, Beren brought me to his office to express his further gratitude. Afterward, I met in a lengthy session with his council to discuss my suggestions concerning how they might best use the designs I had presented to build new dwellings for their overcrowded people. Beren seized upon this and praised me profusely as a noble benefactor while trying, in feigned, deploring tones, to convince me of Tiasenne’s callous neglect of “the poor civilians of Orian”.

  About halfway through my scheduled visit, Leader Beren took me on a tour across Orian for fifteen long Orian days. It was at the Northeastern Notos Ridge, an ancient chain of extinct volcanoes, that I felt a dark mood descend over the shuttle. The bitter taste of ashes hung over us, and the rugged faces of the tall, reddish mountains seemed to glare with hostile intent down at our little shuttle.

  With the planned time of my stay nearly over, Leader Beren, his advisors, and I visited the agricultural dome again. The samplings had grown, and the cool air inside the dome tasted sweet with the scent of lush vegetation.

  Most of the other cities and small communities that I had seen on Orian had been able to survive at a subsistence level, but Nayin had been entirely dependent upon Tiasennian food shipments which they traded for rich ores and minerals found in abundance around the capital. But now the food grown under this dome would go to the miserable, half-dead wretches living in Nayin. I hoped it would, anyway.

  Now, perhaps, those forced to labor in the mines would not have to toil so hard for their daily rations, and new buildings soon to begin construction would give a new luxury of space.

  My last night on Orian seemed to last forever. I had grown unbearably anxious to leave. But after living on Orian, I had come to realize just how fortunate the Tiasennians were. This understanding made me more than sorry for the Orians, especially for the children whose lives held no promise.

  But I could see no reason that it had to stay this way. I would not forget their plight! The struggle within me had been reawakened. I had to believe that it was possible to change their future. All I needed was time, and there was no hurry.

  The wind whistled feverishly loud outside the window, battering the glass with brutal energy. A song seemed to ride on the wind, or just in my mind. The melody came from my childhood. Like the Selesta itself, the song originated near the region of Lake Firien, a great lake so vast it was more like an ocean.

  The wind died, and the song ended. Without warning, thin vessels in my head began to constrict in my head shrinking like iron bands snuffing out all thought, all sentiment. The pain, the agony of the immortality metamorphosis, had returned. For the first time in more than twenty thousand years, the pain was back. And there was nothing but pain. In that moment, I forgot entirely who I was. Where I was.

  I would have screamed for it to stop, but it was too sudden, and too crippling to make a sound.

  A sharp pain spread like a burning fire in my mind, a burning through every little vessel and tissue, until the entire world was spinning, spinning under the pressure of it; for a moment, I was lost in an agonizing delirium.

  Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the pain was gone.