The last priest slowed his pace as he approached what had once been the grove holding the Sacred Pool, the sole remaining source of water which had not been polluted by the Poison Star’s descent. Very little of the grove remained untouched. The few trees remaining had been stripped of any greenery by starving grazers, then toppled in a futile attempt to gain any kind of food from the woody tops. The grass around the pool had likewise been stripped of anything edible, leaving only thorns and razor-edged leaves that not even insects could devour.

His travel to the site had been long and painful, pursued by the cries of the dying and his path littered with the bodies of the dead. He could not even satiate his hunger on the corpses for fear of ingesting the poison that slayed them, and that was clogging his own blood with metal and dust. Fliers had been the first to die from the dust, falling to the ground as their delicate lungs filled. Then the grazers, consuming the poison on the leaves and grass until they too fell. Foolish eaters had rejoiced at the bounty, only to die as well when the poison flowed through their veins and dropped them in their tracks.

Wind turned the dust into a scouring force, ripping off protective scales, drying the flesh beneath it, and reducing the already poor visibility to nothing. Crackles of electricity filled the air when the wind blew, smashing to the ground wherever it wished and killing any it struck. But worse still was the rain, driven by the wind and clogged dust, it coated muddy bodies into immobility before stopping as quickly as it began, and the endless dust began again.

The trail behind him stretched into infinity, trod by thousands of priests before, but his shuffling footprints would be the last, from beginning to end. There would be no acolytes gathered at his feet, selected when they were still in the egg, raised by priests to be priests, guiding the people in the way of the Great Mother. The Word, passed on from priest to priest, would end with him. But he still had a duty to his people, the Word, and the Great Mother. This last act would indeed be the last, for him and his kind.

Above him, the sky continued to rain nothing but dust. In the darkness, dust. In the day, as much as it could be seen, dust. The warmth of the world had fled, blocked by dust. The life of the world had died, choked by dust, suspended in a featureless expanse that had nothing but a weak glow from above instead of the sun, and the path before him.

At long last, far beyond the endurance he thought he possessed, he drew near the pool with long, dragging steps. The dry grasses of what once was life around the water drew long cuts along his frail flesh, prying away loose scales, and drying into reddish smears along the dust-filled footprints that his tail had not obliterated.

Time was short. He could not breathe for long in the miasma of dust which had filled the world after the descent of the Poison Star. His time would come far too soon, but he had one last responsibility before he drew a final breath.

The vine of his office had withered into a dry rope around his neck, brushing aside the few crumpled feathers of his crest as he put it on and wound it around his neck, across his dry flanks, and around each leg. Then the paints, dried to near dust by the weather and his travel. He applied them with cautious haste, in the traditional patterns of a priest of Life. As the last of his kind, he could have used the patterns of the highest rank, but he stayed with tradition and the simple smears of umber and carbon across his cheeks, one stripe of red across his forehead, and white paste under his eyes.

At last, he drew himself to the edge of the Sacred Pool. Despite his fierce thirst, he denied himself what his failing body desired and proceeded with the ritual. Six smooth stones were placed around him, each representing one of the People. The Ocean. The Sky. The Grazers. The Eaters of the Three. Only then did he abase himself before the water, looking down into his reflection and speaking the words he had prepared during the long, dry trip.

“Oh, Great Mother. Hear your humble servant’s plea. Your world is broken. Your people shattered. We die, and there is no hope. Lift up your hand and restore us. Bring the cleansing rains to sweep away the Poison Star’s powdered flesh, and bring forth the Sun once again. Let the grass fill the plains in abundance, let the grazers once again multiply and grow so their song can fill the air, and their flesh fill our bellies. Again, I implore you, as the last of our kind. Do not let us fade away and condemn your fertile world into dust and oblivion.”

Nothing but silence was his response.

Fury overwhelmed his resistance, and the priest flung himself forward, swiping one clawed hand through the reflection in the water. He raved with the last of his breath, stomping the mud at the edge of the Sacred Pool into a froth that was unthinkable sacrilege, and ripped out huge chunks of the dead reeds at the water’s edge.

“Great Mother! Hear me! We followed your commands! We ruled over the entire world. Now we die!”

“As it was planned.”

The priest jerked his head up, looking around for the source of the penetrating voice. For his entire life, he had prayed to the Great Mother without hearing a word. Even in his desperation, he had not expected a response, let alone one that shook him to the core, from talon to tail, and drove away all other thoughts.

“This…was planned?” he managed.

“Before your time, before time itself, this was my plan. Your people will pass, as is planned.”

“Then the world will die,” gasped the priest.

“The world will live,” said the voice.

There was a rustling in the grass and several curious furbeasts poked dark noses out to see what the commotion was all about. They were far too small to provide any sustenance to quench the raging hunger in his belly, even if he was able to catch the elusive creatures. They had been a rarity many seasons ago, growing more numerous each season, stealing eggs, and disrupting sleeping nests with nighttime bites. Until now, he had not considered them more than pests, but the powerful words that followed smashed that misconception.

“Your people’s time is over. Theirs has just begun. They will grow. Change. They will dominate this world like your people.”

“What of our history?” asked the priest. “The songs of our people. Our culture. The stories of ancestors. Our history.”

“Forgotten.” The voice was just as strong, but there was a small hint of regret that the priest seized upon like water in the desert.

“If we are to pass and another take our place, I implore you, let something of us remain. Let us not go into darkness without a trace. Please!”

“You shall not pass unnoticed. When your people leave this world, I will take them to another. They will walk in fields of grass, swim in shallow seas filled with prey. This world will no longer have your kind, but you will live on forever.”

“Insufficient.” Nearness to death left the priest without fear of the Great Mother, or whatever force was speaking with such force. “We made mistakes. The creatures who follow should know. Leave them with something of our legacy. Let them avoid our folly. Our culture, our songs, all of that should be created anew by the new people you place in this land. But let them know of our people.”

All the priest could hear was the wind blowing more dust over the stillness of the water, and the rustling of the furbeasts in the dead grass. Nothing else existed in the dim glow which was all that the dust allowed of the warm sun above. Nothing but a cold breeze that promised it would only get colder.

“They shall know.”

The priest slumped in defeat as the final bit of energy left him. His world was doomed, but some small part of it would survive. There was nothing left for him now, and his duty was fulfilled. Darkness swept in from all sides, the final reward for his lifetime of servitude to the Great Mother, and he dreamed of a distant land covered in verdant green with herds of grazers and the never ending song of his people rising above all.

The waters of the Sacred Pool embraced his lifeless body, dragging him down in a trail of bubbles as the last raspy breath left his lungs. The mud at the bottom of the pool was thick, and only grew thicker as more dust settled down and the wind blew the surrounding sand into it. In time, the passage of a few days, the heavy weight of dust and sand covered his body, and then ever more.

Time passed. Mud turned to rock. Land shifted. Small furry creatures evolved. Picked up sticks. Shaped their new world, which had changed so much to be unrecognizable from the passage of endless days.

Eventually, curiosity overcame this new race of creatures. They learned. Grew. Made weapons. Waged war upon others and each other. Developed language. Philosophy. Art. All according to the plan, with one small change that did not show until much later.

---

“Father, what is this?” The small boy stood in the middle of the cavernous museum, looking at a display with a tilt to his head as he tried to spell out the name. The larger human waited patiently as his son checked the words against the coloring book he had purchased at the beginning of the tour, then peered at the bones again.

“That’s one of the dinosaurs who ruled the world before the asteroid,” said the father. “It was a carnivore, unlike the herbivores we were looking at before.”

The boy watched for a while, perhaps waiting for movement, before saying, “Do you think they were afraid?”

“I really doubt it,” said the father. “They had very small brains.”

“And a lot of teeth,” said the boy, who was still examining the bones with great intensity.

“Your mother would spend a whole day doing a cleaning if it came by her practice,” said the man with a brief laugh. He took a photo with his son and the dinosaur in the picture, then more as they progressed through several other displays. The crowds were less than he expected, probably due to the constant flow of residents leaving. He was really surprised that the museum was still open, but he had wanted to see this before heading for the new job, so it was not really surprising that others had the same idea.

Checking the time, the father said, “We still have a few hours before the bus leaves. Did you want to visit any of the other museums?”

“No. This one has been very…educational,” said the boy. “When we get to our destination in a few months, we’re not going to be able to see anything like this. Right?”

“I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” said the man. “The scouting reports say there are some creatures bigger than anything we’ve seen here. And with more teeth,” he added, showing his own and adding a pretend snap.

The boy snapped his teeth back, and they both laughed. Later that evening when they boarded the bus and it started to climb up to the colony ship’s orbit, he held onto the picture that his father had printed out and tried to imagine what it was like for dinosaurs back then.

After all, the asteroid that was going to smash into the Earth in a year would do just as much damage. He was just glad people had learned how to avoid it.