The Eternal World

by Christopher Farnsworth

  “Perhaps we can arrange for you to be murdered, Antonio,” Simon said as he took his seat. “Would that satisfy you?”

  “What? Who? Who was murdered?”

  The voice came from a speakerphone placed at the seat next to Antonio and hooked into the room’s hard line for the occasion. Carlos had not appeared in person at a meeting in nearly twenty years. He moved constantly, from stronghold to stronghold throughout Latin America. Simon honestly had no idea where he was right now.

  Simon held back a sigh of frustration. The line was capable of carrying an ocean of data. A phone call was a mere trickle compared to that. It was Carlos’s hearing—or his attention—that was the problem.

  “I was making a joke,” Simon said. “We’re all here now, Carlos.”

  “We need to talk,” Max said. “Antonio has some disturbing news. And we need to discuss the Robinton decision—”

  Simon gave him a hard look. There were rules. Protocol had to be observed.

  “My apologies,” he said.

  Simon nodded.

  “Calling this meeting to order,” Max said. He opened a beautifully bound leather journal on the table in front of him. “Simón de Oliveras y Seixas, presiding. Also present, Maximillian de Cortez y Anquilles, Sebastian de Hernandez y Quinto, Pedro de Alvarez y Fonseca, Antonio de Ortega Montez, and Carlos Gaspar de Valenzuela.”

  Simon stood and took the pitcher from its place. He filled his own glass first, then carefully filled the others’, with movements like a surgeon’s in their precision. He did not spill a drop.

  They all stood. Each man raised his glass solemnly. The water inside appeared completely ordinary—save, perhaps, the slightest blue tinge. But that could have been a trick of the light.

  “El agua es vida,” Simon said.

  “The water is life,” the others repeated.

  They all drank, draining their glasses.

  It was a maintenance dose, nothing more. Still, they all shuddered slightly, as if downing eighty-proof vodka.

  They waited in silence for a moment.

  The moment was shattered by Carlos. “What happened? Did we lose the feed again?”

  This time, Simon had to restrain himself from laughing. He couldn’t help it. He was in a good mood today.

  “You didn’t lose the feed, Carlos. Are you drinking with us?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Carlos snapped. “As much as you’ll send me, anyway.”

  Simon doubted that. Carlos sounded peevish and irritable. Old. He’d have to send someone to check on him in person.

  He sat in his chair again. The others took their seats as well.

  “First,” he said. “Any old business?”

  Max’s patience, however, was at an end. “There’s always old business. Too much of it. You need to listen to Antonio.”

  Simon nodded. The mark of a good leader was allowing his subordinates some leeway. He turned in his chair. “Antonio, what has Max so upset on such a fine day?”

  “Shako.”

  The word. The name. Two syllables. And such a terrible weight they carried, Simon thought. He could feel it, coming down over the entire room. For a moment, it felt as if they were in a tomb together, not safe but trapped.

  “What about her?” he said as carefully as he could.

  “She tried to kill Aznar two weeks ago,” Antonio said.

  “Good,” Simon said. “He should have died a long time ago.”

  The others did not take that well. They expected shock or outrage. Or at least an attempt to feign concern. They scowled at him, their dissatisfaction plain.

  Antonio was the only one to say it out loud, however. With the difference in their appearances, he looked like an uncle scolding an unruly nephew. “That is not right,” he said. “Whatever you think of him—”

  “He is a pig and a rapist and a murderer,” Simon cut in.

  “Whatever you think of him,” Antonio continued, not hearing Simon or not caring, “he was one of us. We owe him some loyalty.”

  “We owe him nothing. Aznar lost his place at this table a long time ago,” Simon said. “The worms can have him, if they don’t gag on his flesh.”

  “She found him,” Carlos interrupted, over the speaker. “However distasteful you thought he was, we should worry about that. She’s getting closer to all of us.”

  “She already knows where to find us,” Peter said. “The only one in hiding is you, Carlos.”

  “That seems like a wise decision now, doesn’t it?” Carlos shot back.

  Antonio would not be deterred. He stabbed a finger at Simon. “We should have eliminated her as a threat long ago and taken her supply of the Water, wherever she hides it.”

  Simon rubbed his eyes. “You’re a genius, Antonio.”

  That derailed his growing outrage. “What?”

  “Find her and kill her. And take her supply of the Water as well. My God. What a strategy. What a plan. You must play chess. Why didn’t I think of that? It’s as brilliant as it is simple.”

  Antonio scowled. “Mock me all you want—”

  “Oh, I will, thank you. You know we have tried.” He pointed at all of the men around the table. “All of you know we have tried. We have tracked her every time she has appeared. We have followed her. We have sent our best men. And we have never seen them again. It’s not that we cannot find her; we cannot even find the bodies. Tell me, what would you do differently? What would you have me do, Antonio? What is your plan, aside from find her and kill her?”

  Silence around the table. Antonio looked away. The other men would not meet his eyes, either.

  “We could always go back to the original source,” Antonio said, much quieter now.

  “The original source? Not this again. It’s gone. I know—believe me, I know—how much you want to believe that it’s still there, buried somewhere. But that is a dream. We lost it long ago, and we will never get it back. You know we’ve tried. You know we have attempted to purchase the land, to buy our way into the good graces of the Seminoles. It has never worked. They remember us. She makes sure of that.”

  “Simon,” Max said, his voice pitched to soothe, “we are not questioning your efforts. We know how hard you have worked. We have been there, all of us. But perhaps there is someplace else, some other source that we’ve missed.”

  “Max, we have looked all over the planet. We have only found the one source. You know this.”

  Max said, “Then perhaps this is a good time for you to tell the others about—”

  Something occurred to Simon. He raised a hand for Max to be silent. “How did you know?” he asked Antonio.

  “How did I know what?” Antonio said.

  “How did you know that she tried to kill Aznar? How would you even know he was still alive?”

  There was a long silence.

  Carlos, over the speaker, sounded mocking: “This is a terrible connection today.”

  “Shut up,” Simon said. “Answer the question, Antonio.”

  Antonio shrugged. “It only makes sense. If any of us goes missing or dies, it has to be her. She’s the only one capable of doing it.”

  Simon ignored the challenge in Antonio’s voice. “No,” he said. “As far as any of us were aware, Aznar died in Serbia in 1993. Now, how do you know any different?”

  Antonio slumped in his chair, all fight gone out of him. “He has been in contact with me. I’ve sent him money, when he asked. Arranged travel and sanctuary when he needed it,” Antonio said. He regained a little of his dignity. “Like it or not, we are brothers. We are the only ones in the world who understand each other. That forgives all manner of sins. You remembered that once. You never should have turned your back on Juan.”

  Outwardly, Simon’s face was as blank as an empty slate. Inside, however, he felt a quickly building rage. But he wouldn’t a
llow himself to show any loss of self-control. It was how he ruled.

  “And what else?”

  “What?”

  “What else have you sent him?”

  Antonio went pale. “Nothing.”

  “You’ve been sending him the Water.”

  Panic made Antonio’s face go white. “Simon, I would never do that. I barely have enough for myself. You see to that. You all know that! We have too little as it is!” He looked around the table for support. No one would meet his eyes.

  “This is why you’ve aged,” Simon said. “You have been dividing your allowance. Sharing it with him. How else would Aznar even be alive? You know what happens without the Water. How is he still breathing?”

  Antonio was sweating now, squirming in his seat. “It is not me. I swear.”

  “Yes,” Simon said. “You swear. You swore an oath. Over and over, I’ve heard you swear. But you broke it when you helped him.”

  Simon stood up. Every man at the table held his breath. They could even hear Carlos do the same, over the phone. He walked around the table and stood over Antonio.

  “You have forgotten the rules,” Simon said.

  Antonio refused to look up at him.

  “Let me remind you, then. We agreed to forsake family and children. We are not bound to this world, and we have no heirs. This Council is our only family. We do not make the mistake of looking to our offspring for immortality. Until we have perfected this world, we do not lower ourselves to become common men. We have to be able to see beyond our immediate futures. We have to be able to make the sacrifices beyond the requirements of blood, kinship, family, tribe, and race. In return, we received—you received—the greatest gift any man could ever know. And you have betrayed us.”

  Antonio looked like a whipped dog, mean and ready to bite. He seemed to curl into himself as he spoke. “Aznar is one of us, Simon,” he said. “We do not always get to choose our family. But only a coward deserts them.”

  Simon picked up the glass in front of Antonio.

  “I see,” he said. “So you chose to share your Water with him. Perhaps you can make do with less, then. Perhaps you don’t need any more at all.”

  Then he smashed the glass onto the surface of the table, shattering the heavy crystal.

  The other men froze in pure horror.

  “You are over five hundred years old, Antonio,” Simon said. “Without the Water, how long do you think you’ll last?”

  Only Carlos, thousands of miles away over the phone line, protested. “Simon,” he said. “Antonio made a mistake. You cannot—”

  “Does this seem like the time to tell me what I can and cannot do, Carlos?” Simon asked, his voice dangerously soft.

  The phone line went quiet again.

  “Anyone else?”

  No one in the room would look at him. Or Antonio.

  When Antonio spoke, his voice was close to breaking. “No. Simon. Please. I apologize.”

  “Shut up,” Simon said again. “All I want to hear from you is the latest location of Aznar, and where you’ve been sending his shipments. Max will make arrangements to deal with him and clean up this mess.”

  “Yes, Simon.” Antonio said. “Aznar is in Juárez.”

  “Of course he is,” Simon said, barking a short, unamused laugh. “Of course. Wherever you find corpses, you will find a maggot.”

  Max wrote the information down on a separate piece of paper—this sorry affair was not going in the beautiful notebook. “I will handle it, Simon,” he said.

  “Good. Antonio, you will not receive another drop of the Water—”

  Antonio looked stricken.

  “—until I have decided you have fully repented for your stupidity. You’re going to age, Antonio. It will not be pleasant. I hope you retain enough of your wits to remember why you are being punished.”

  He glared at the others. “Are there any more matters of honor I should know about?”

  They all looked away quickly. But Sebastian cleared his throat.

  “What?”

  Sebastian would not meet his eyes. “Antonio was wrong. We all know that. But he is right that Shako is still a threat. Perhaps we should consider . . .”

  He left it hanging there.

  Simon refused to pick it up. “Consider what?”

  “Perhaps you should tell us where you have hidden our supply. In case she does finally kill you.”

  “No.” He said it flatly. This was not up for debate or a vote. This was the cornerstone of his empire. He would not ever give it up.

  He knew they had to ask, of course. It was the polite version of the desperation they’d all heard in Antonio’s voice. No matter how much was given to them, there was always that greed for more.

  Simon could not really blame them. He was guilty of that same greed himself.

  Max sighed heavily. He was the only one not impressed with the dramatics. “Now can we tell them?”

  Simon nodded. It would give them something to cheer after all the bad news.

  “Tell us what?” Sebastian asked.

  “We’ve hired David Robinton.”

  There were smiles. Not exactly the applause Simon had hoped for.

  “Well,” Sebastian said into the silence at the center of the room. “Let’s hope he succeeds.”

  “He will,” Simon said. “We’ve tried for years to duplicate the Water. This time, we have someone who will succeed. He is the one. I know it.”

  Again, there was no response.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Carlos finally said over the speaker.

  Simon frowned. Carlos spoke because he was a safe distance away. But he had no doubt they all thought the same thing.

  He knew it was only self-preservation—basic fear—that made them surly and suspicious. He’d been dealing with these men so long that he doubted anything they did would ever surprise him again. But he found their lack of faith disturbing.

  Max, embarrassed, tried to cover by going back to the agenda. “Moving on, then, we should probably discuss the next cash infusion from Carlos—”

  “I have had enough for today,” Simon said. “Get out. Go about your business.”

  Antonio almost ran out of the room. Peter and Sebastian hurried out, keeping a respectable distance from their disgraced colleague. Carlos hung up.

  Max stayed. As soon as the door to the room closed again, Max asked him, “What in the name of God is wrong with you, Simon?”

  Of all of the original Council, Simon had never once doubted Max’s loyalty. And only Max would speak to him like this.

  That didn’t mean Simon liked it. “Careful, Max,” he said.

  “Or you’ll cut me off as well?”

  “Antonio deserves it. I gave an order. After Berlin, Aznar was to be shunned. I will not be disobeyed.”

  “We are supposed to be equals, Simon. You treat us like servants, this is what you get. Antonio feared coming to you about Aznar, and so he has risked himself by dividing his supply.”

  “Let him. It hurts only him.”

  “No. It doesn’t. You heard the tone in Carlos’s voice. He thinks you’ll treat him the same way. And with our stock price taking the hit it has recently, we need Carlos’s revenue streams more than ever.”

  “When did you turn from a warrior into an accountant?”

  “Perhaps when you began spending money like a drunk in a whorehouse. Two million a year for Robinton? That money could be going to more exploration. Further searches for the Water.”

  “Where do you imagine we’ll find it? We’ve looked everywhere. There isn’t a tribe in the rainforest that we haven’t contacted or a cave in Siberia we haven’t surveyed. We had our source. And we lost it. If you’re so worried about money, empty one of the Cayman accounts.”

  “I have. And the
Swiss accounts. We need Carlos, and not just for his money. We all need each other. There are few enough of us, and every time we’ve tried to add to our ranks, it has been a disaster. If this Council cannot work together, you risk everything we are still working toward.”

  Simon said nothing.

  “And for what? A flea like Aznar? Since when did you get so squeamish? We’ve put more bodies in the ground than Aznar ever could, in a century of trying.”

  “We are nothing like Aznar.”

  Max scowled at him. “At least he did his butchering personally.”

  Simon slammed his fist down on the table. The sound reverberated in the perfectly quiet room.

  “Enough,” Simon said. He began walking toward the door, but Max stood in his way.

  “What is it, Max?” he asked.

  Max looked conflicted. But he plunged ahead. “What are you doing, Simon?”

  “What?”

  “You were the one who told me, ‘We cannot afford illusions about anything—least of all, ourselves.’ What are you really trying to do?”

  Simon sighed. This was growing tiresome.

  “My goals—our goals—are the same as they have always been. I am trying to save this miserable, fallen world from itself. I am trying to put the right people in the right positions of power. I am trying to save the greatest number of lives. I am doing everything I can to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number.”

  “I know the speech, Simon. I still believe in it. But I want to know if you do. I can accept you acting maliciously, or spitefully, even against one of us—but you cannot act stupidly. I will not allow you to hide your motivations.”

  “Oh, you won’t?” A superior little smile twisted Simon’s lips. “Thank God I have you here to guide me, Max.”

  Max ignored the sarcasm. “Why is Shako still alive, Simon?”

  That wiped the smile right off Simon’s face. “What?”