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

by Anne Spackman

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  Some days he could almost forget what he was doing. Usually they were days he spent alone surveying the horizon and the high grey ceiling of the sky from his apartments on the top floor of the building. Ah, how the wind came rushing up the valley to meet him dead in the face.

  And then a simple-minded cadet would come to interrupt his peace to report news of some kind or another, to bring him dinner, or to ask him if he required anything. Trifles! On such occasions, he was at least reminded of what he was waiting for, why he kept his forces instigating these mindless little random attacks across Tiasenne, but he couldn’t help but break a disdainful frown at being disturbed by such simpletons, not unless they had some real news to report.

  Now watch him scurry for cover, he thought, regarding the latest messenger. There he goes. Clatter. And there goes the door. Spineless beast, he sighed in disgust.

  He really hated to frown, but it was becoming a permanent part of his facial structure, as natural to him as breathing.

  He wanted to smile, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had.

  Tears were in his eyes before he even noticed them. Could he still do that? He hardly ever felt pain enough to succumb to tears he had once considered weak and womanish until he understood their bitter taste himself; the last time he had felt such despair had been a brief two days for some reason nearly fifteen years before.

  Or was this sudden attack some unbidden pang of regret? he wondered. Perhaps. If left alone long enough, some of the normal side of him would return.

  I’m not crazy, he thought again. I never asked to become the creature that I am now.

  By this point it was the beginning of the end. Very soon he would submerge into the hellish depths of his mind, the murky depths of thought beneath clarity and reasoning where his anger resided; this part of his mind now also held the memories of countless other lives, alien memories that conspired with those of his own former life to torment him. Why had she not warned him of the dangers of telepathy? He wondered resentfully. He was no longer one man in his soul, but plagued by the minds of those he had probed with telepathy.

  And why wouldn’t she help him save his people from certain death and oblivion? he wondered. Why had she left him alone? Especially after what she had done to him! Why had she bothered to save his life at all—he wondered.

  Of course, he had known other women since her, and he knew he could easily glut his mind and senses as easily as his body with sensations of unending pleasure—but it had all become an illusion, an illusion his mind would never allow him to care for, an illusion that disgusted him. He wanted Alessia now more than ever, to punish her and hurt her if he could.

  It didn’t matter how many other lives he had to ruin in order for him to obtain what he wanted. When he remembered his purpose, he would attack. It could very well prove to be the catalyst that changed her mind and made her come back to his side. Though time which had no more power over him could not heal him, it had granted him patience in the last few years. Yes, he was patient. What was a hundred years to an immortal but the merest blink of an eye?

  Sargon was now resolved to quit his chambers for the Orian Command Center. It would be at least a year before he needed sleep or felt any desire to return to his chambers or the vista. He needed no more inspiration. His mind was wholly his own again.

  If she wouldn’t come to him, then he would find her. He would make her face what she had done. He would scare her out of hiding.

  Let his officers run from him; he would not move from his position at the balcony for days if he felt so inclined. Let them suffer a stare of his if they disturbed him. For whatever he did, they would follow his instructions. They revered him, knew that if anyone could, he would save their world. Each one truly believed that the happy ending was coming.

  As if their dreams, wishes, and fantasies had any real influence over reality.