Hunt at The Well Of Eternity

Chapter 25

Two weeks later, in the Hunt Foundation brownstone, Michael called Gabriel and Cierra into his office from the library adjacent to it. Cierra had spent quite a few hours in the library since arriving in New York, poring through all the relevant volumes of history and archaeology the foundation possessed.

The days following the battle had seen more tragedy, as the years inevitably caught up to the oldest survivors of Cuchatlán, no matter how much water they drank from the Well. The younger members of the lost city’s population were still alive, but most now wore the look of octogenarians.

The general and Mariella had been laid to rest side by side on a small hill overlooking the valley. Cierra had led the survivors in a prayer while Gabriel stood to one side and watched.

The other dead had been buried as well, with headstones for the residents of Cuchatlán and unmarked graves for Esparza’s men. Podnemovitch was one Gabriel had been particularly glad to see the last of. They’d found the big Russian floating face down; he must have hit his head and been knocked unconscious the second time he fell. The waters of the Well of Eternity might once have held the secret of eternal life, but Podnemovitch had drowned just fine in them.

Leaving Cuchatlán had not been easy. It had required Gabriel to make two dangerous climbs on the sheer rock face of the gorge, one down and one up, the latter with the severed end of the rope bridge strapped to his shoulders. Fortunately the natives had supplied plenty of climbing gear—nothing modern or high-tech, but Gabriel preferred it that way. And the difficult climbs had been as good a way as any for Gabriel to focus his attention on something other than recent events. He didn’t especially want to think about the ordeal Mariella had gone through, or the traumas Cierra had suffered, or the deaths of so many innocents, or the loss of a man unique in history like General Fargo. Not to mention the loss of the Fountain of Youth—the Well of Eternity, what ever.

Instead, he concentrated on the climbs. He was an experienced climber, but the Blade of the Gods would have challenged the best. He took it slow on the way down and slower still on the way back up, resting overnight at the bottom in between. The entire remaining population of the valley was waiting for him when he slowly, carefully put one hand, then the other, over the edge of the gorge. They helped pull him up, secured the bridge, lashed it with new ropes to the anchor posts. They tested it carefully several times with mules before any people dared to cross, and when it held up, they declared it sound. Cierra was a little nervous, but Gabriel walked behind her all the way, one hand at her waist.

An uncomfortable trek of a day and a half brought them to Esparza’s trucks, one of which Gabriel was able to hotwire. From there to the nearest village was a day’s drive, and from there a rickety bus took them to Villahermosa. A public phone had made it possible for Gabriel to call Michael and the foundation’s jet was there nine hours later.

Now, as Michael placed a manila envelope on the desk in front of him, he said to Gabriel and Cierra, “I’ve got the final report on those water samples you brought back.”

“And?” Gabriel said.

“And there’s nothing out of the ordinary about them.” He fished out page after page, turned them so Gabriel and Cierra could read them. Not that they could understand the details—they weren’t chemists. But the conclusions were clear enough. The scientists had run every test they could think of and concluded that what Gabriel and Cierra had brought back from the Well of Eternity was plain water. Clean, drinkable; no parasites or impurities; no unusual minerals or trace elements. It was clean enough that you could bottle it and sell it, and who knows, maybe you could make a buck or two doing so—some companies had done nicely peddling water from the world’s remote rain forests. But there was nothing whatsoever about the water that would produce any unsual effect.

“I guess whatever mineral deposit gave the water its power must have finally been exhausted,” Cierra said.

“If it ever existed,” Gabriel said.

“What, now you don’t believe?”

“I believe that was General Fargo; I believe he lived a century and more. We’ll never know if it was the water that did it. Maybe it was something else down there.”

“Well, what ever it was is gone now,” Cierra said.

“If only Fargo had decided to reach out to us sooner,” Gabriel said, “maybe we could have done something—”

“Or maybe someone like Esparza would have gotten control of it. You don’t know. Things could have turned out a lot worse.”

“And on that note,” Michael said. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a small brown bottle with a cork stopper in it. “Here’s the last of the samples you brought back,” he said. He held it out to Gabriel. “The scientists didn’t need it. The others were enough.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“I thought you might want it,” Michael said.

“You just said it’s an ordinary bottle of water. You can get one like it at any corner grocery store.”

“Pour it out if you like,” Michael said. “I just figured it should be your choice.”

Grinning, Gabriel took the bottle and pulled the cork. “Or maybe we should pass it around and each take a little swig? Just in case? Nothing like a little eternal youth to spark up an evening.”

Cierra shook her head. “No, thank you. I don’t want anything more to do with the Well of Eternity.”

“Michael?”

“Thanks, but no,” Michael said.

Gabriel took a deep breath. “Well, then…bottoms up.” He lifted the bottle to his mouth.

He stopped before it touched his lips, though, and sat there like that for a heartbeat before lowering it. “Hell with it,” he said with a shake of his head. “If living and dying is good enough for the rest of mankind, I guess it’s good enough for me, too.”

He walked across to the potted ficus that stood in the corner of Michael’s office and emptied the bottle into the soil at its base.

“Now,” he said as he tossed the bottle back to his brother, “if you’ll both come with me, I know a place where they serve some single malt scotch that’ll make you feel like you’ll live forever.”

Gabriel led Michael and Cierra out of the office, closing the door behind them. The ficus was cast into shadow as the door swung shut.

Its leaves had never looked hardier or more resilient.