Seed

Lavanya pierced the black, swirling waters with her oar, dragging it through the foam, her torso searing with the pain of a thousand coals. Only she knows the path to the last seed, the elders prophesied, for without her, all of humanity shall perish.

The ancient wisdom of this path was said to be passed divinely—mothers could not pass it to their daughters, nor fathers to their sons. Instead, three traveling hermits—the Vashwanah—visited each home that welcomed a new child, whispering in tongues to a swaddled newborn, waiting for some glimmer in the eyes, some tone in their cries, to confirm the rebirth of The Knowing One.

Yet, when Lavanya was born, the Vashwanah took her for a regular infant, and named no one in her palmisphere as The Knowing One. The Vashwanah traveled beyond the reaches of the coastal palmispheres to the desert palmispheres, the mountainous redwoodespheres, the tropical broadleafespheres, the temperate oakispheres, and even far north to the rumored, dwarfed willowespheres of the tundra, but The Knowing One was not found. These trees giving life to the last of humanity were struggling themselves, the earth cooling and stunting their growth, the radioactive debris of a long-ago nuclear war slowly sinking deeper into the soil.

Millennia ago, humans had created a seed bank deep in the tundra, locked away from the forces that ravaged all earthly flora and fauna for their own greed. The keepers worked together to maintain the bank and its secrecy, passing codes only to those who swore fealty to the seeds. When warring nations, against the advice of experts and the hope of their people, released the atomic bombs, it was thought that the seed keepers would be safe, locked with the secrets to recovering the beauty and food of the earth somewhere deep, dark, and cold. And indeed, the keepers remained there for some time, until the warring nations realized they were running out of food, and started to seek the treasures that lay in the arctic tundra.

Yet the keepers refused to the call of the warring nations, fearful they would ravage the stores for only themselves as they did the rest of the earth. People wondered how long the keepers could stay in the vault, for surely they too were limited in their food and water, hidden beneath impenetrable steel and rock in the frozen tundra. Eventually, it was not the keepers that emerged, but a collection of gifts: one seed per nation’s biome, and instructions for each seed. These seeds were gigantic, for from each seed would rise a towering tree, which could provide oxygen to sustain all within the biome, and over time birth more trees. And so the survivors endured, their trees and biospheres slowly growing over the decades, centuries, and millennia hence, and not a word from the keepers of the seed vault since.

But the Earth had started to grow cold, and though the biospheres provided warmth, food, and refuge from the radiation, they could not shield their inhabitants from what lurked within the ground. Whispers spread from person to person, sphere to sphere, that one with knowledge of the seed vault would be born, one who could carve through the arctic permafrost and lay bare the steel, revealing the seeds whose trees concocted, within their roots, an elixir to combat the creeping freeze.

Thus appeared the self-appointed Vashwanah, claiming to be descendants of the sisters and brothers of the seed vault’s keepers, who paraded through each newborn’s dwelling, declaring whether an infant who had not yet begun babbling could redirect the course of humanity. The first infant they chose had been one of their own, and once the infant grew strong, it was sent up to the arctic, whereupon a collection of seeds was indeed sent to all the nations. The seeds grew sturdy trees for a few decades, though none as mighty or towering as the first seed or its ilk. But, with time, they too grew weak, and The Knowing One, First Embarker, was neither seen nor heard from since their departure.

Still, dropped in the arctic tundra with neither map nor guide, The Knowing One’s existence was accepted by all, and the Vashwanah were entrusted with finding The Knowing One in each generation hence. And for the next few centuries, Second, Third, Fourth, and other Embarkers left, all considered to be reincarnations of The Knowing One, and all sent back seeds which lasted only their lifespans. Some parents grew fearful of the Vashwanah, as birthing The Knowing One meant an early, permanent goodbye to the child they so cherished, others sought the pride that came with the reincarnation that provided a temporary salve for humanity.

Lavanya’s parents were amongst the former, and prayed night and day that their child would not be taken from them. They could not be sure of the Vashwanah’s criteria, but rumors abounded by the time the Vashwanah arrived in their palmisphere. They slipped into infant Lavanya’s milk a sedative, so she would be asleep by the time the Vashwanah arrived on their doorstep. Though they tried to wake her, Lavanya showed no interest in the serpentine whispers of the three elders, and having many other newborns to assess, they left.

As the previous Embarker’s trees began to wither, another family claimed their son was The Knowing One, and with little time to spare, the son was sent to the tundra. However, no seeds arrived, and the people grew irate. By this time, Lavanya had shown great promise as a botanist and adventurer, making short excursions outside of her palmisphere to study the flora and fauna, documenting how the millennia of cold, starvation, and radiation had changed them, experimenting on the seeds available in her palmisphere. The Vashwanah heard of her studies and immediately sought her out, staring deep into her eyes as they spoke in tongues. When they saw a sparkle, they proclaimed, “The Knowing One has appeared again! Only she knows the path to the last seed, for without her, all of humanity shall perish!”

Now, Lavanya was stranded in The North Sea, her ship capsized, rowing through the intense cold in a small wooden lifeboat, with little energy left to spare. As she paused for a breath, she felt a rise in her belly as the sea collapsed beneath her. Looming behind her was a wave taller than two palm trees, surely what had spelled the end of the boy who came last. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath, the massive glass wall of black water and white foam crashing into her forlorn vessel, splintering it like a child’s toy, sending her into the deepest depths of the dark sea.

Lavanya awoke in a sandy cove, icicles frosting her lashes and brows. Each breath pierced her chest like a seagull’s cry, and her legs were bent unnaturally. She could barely feel her arms, but she dragged herself further up from the cove, in search of a dry spot away from the cold sea. Stretched before her were sandy plains, though not like the white beaches of her palmisphere. The grains of sand were larger, coarser, and darker, as though they had formed more recently. As Lavanya attempted to stand, black stars filled her vision, then swallowed her whole.

Lavanya awoke again, now to a strange medley of lavender, mugwort, rosemary, and thyme. She was lying in a bed of baby’s breath, her body bandaged in linen strips dipped in aloe and turmeric, the piercing pain in her chest gone.

“What did you see, child?” asked a raspy, leathered voice.

Lavanya struggled to turn her body, the bandages restricting her movement. Instead, she turned her head, and saw a stout woman in thick black linens with white whisps of hair, gently stirring the contents of a cauldron with deeply weathered hands. Though she bore ages of wisdom, her eyes were as sharp as a youth’s, and seemed to peer into Lavanya’s soul.

Though words first failed Lavanya, with sips of the wise woman’s brew, her voice found her again.

“I was in the sea, struck down by a giant wave. Then, I was in a cove, and there stretched only young, new sand for miles.”

The wise woman smiled. “You are The Knowing One. No sea struck you down and spared your life, nor did it deposit you on a beach. Rather, it is there you will find humanity’s salve.”

“Then why is my body in so much pain? I thought a gigantic wave nearly killed me.”

“Those were the radiation and the winds, my child, battering your body in the tundra. Those who are not blessed do not survive the ordeal, those who are, are gifted the vision of the seed.”

“That’s where the seed is? I thought it was inside a vault?”

The wise woman laughed, “You’re an amusing one, in this life! The vault was destroyed long ago, its seeds either scattered around the earth, or with us.”

“Why would they destroy the vault? We can’t survive without the seeds!”

“My child, the spirits said you were a botanist. When are those seeds from?”

“Seeds can be preserved over millennia! As long as growing conditions…oh…that Earth wasn’t irradiated, was it…”

“No, blessed one, those seeds were not meant for this Earth. We took what we could grow, and let The Mother take care of the rest. What you see in your vision are seeds that have not yet found a home, but have not yet been destroyed. Those can propagate.”

“If we’re not in the seed bank, but we are in the tundra…is this a dwarfed willowesphere?”

“Yes, my dear. The only one. It is not a large place, but we have cultivated all we need. You come to us once or twice a century, and over many centuries, we refined the treatments for your body when you come to us so damaged.”

The wise woman chuckled at Lavanya’s confusion, and let the realization settle in.

“But…so, I know you?”

The wise woman laughed again, “That is for me to know and for you to remember.”

She started to grate a purple root into the pot, one that Lavanya had never seen before.

“Whisp-o-willow, a new cultivar from old seeds out in the radiation. It will lighten you and fortify you for the journey ahead.”

“The journey to that desert cove by the black sea? Where did the others go, since they never come back?”

“You have found seeds on the sheer, slippery cliffsides of roaring waterfalls, within labyrinthine hollows of coral reefs shining every color, wrapped by poisonous vines in the deepest, darkest depths of a deadly rainforest…you have been, always, where no other human has ventured for millennia. But each journey has cost you, and even if we could revive you for the journey there, never have we revived you for the journey back.”

“You’re hoping the whisp-o-willow will change that?”

“So we hope.”

“And I bring back only one seed…you can make more, to send to all the biospheres of each nation?”

“That is correct, child. Even within our willowesphere, these dwarfed willows provide little food and respite in the arctic tundra, and we make our beds upon a wasteland. We have had no choice but to learn to propagate seeds ourselves.”

Lavanya heaved a deep sigh, the weight of the world dancing upon her shoulders.

“Rest now, sweet one, the perilous journey awaits you in each life...it has waited seven decades, what is seven days more?”

Lavanya nodded, and sipped the whisp-o-willow brew. She could feel her muscles, joints, and bones knitting themselves back together, and the baby’s breath seemed to make her float with every exhale. For now, her burden was lightening, and she started her sleep of seven suns and seven moons. The seed, after all, would wait.