The soldier leaned back against the cool rock wall, still trying to catch his breath. He’d been going all day. “Hey,” his employer barked from behind him. “You. Back to work.”
The man sighed, got back to his feet, and braced himself against the drill handles. “Yes, sir,” he said, and pushed. The drill tore uncaringly into the rock, smashing centuries-old walls to bits and sending juddering cracks all through. The soldier paused as something caught his eye. Was that… “Sir, I think we may be through.”
He stopped the drill. The dust and dirt settled. Flanked by two more guards, the executive in the iron-gray suit picked his way gingerly forwards. Sure enough, he could see past the broken wall into an open chamber. He walked cautiously inside.
As he expected, the only thing the chamber contained was a single mirror, perfectly ordinary in appearance, placed on its own pedestal in the center of the room. The flashlights his guards held shone dully in its dust-covered glass. The old man took out an elegantly monogrammed handkerchief and, almost lovingly, cleaned the dust away. Then he cleared his throat. The one thing his meticulous research had not been clear on was how to begin.
“Ah,” he began, “Hello?”
The mirror flashed. Shadows snapped away in the blaze of light, and even the old man winced. It was as if the sun of the outside spring day had risen anew in the chamber walls.
“Hello, August Wilmore Farthington, the Tenth,” said an odd voice, tinny and echoing. “I am the Mirror of Magic. I see all. I know all. Ask me what you have come to ask.”
A few of the soldiers tried to stifle snickers; they hadn’t known their boss’s middle name was Wilmore. Ignoring or not hearing, the old man asked. “I know through my research that there is a way to achieve eternal life in this world. I mean… I know about the Fountain of Youth. Don’t bother denying it, I know. What I don’t know is where it is. Tell me that.”
“Ah,” the Mirror said. “And what do you plan to do with it when you find it?”
He was taken aback. “Well, I … I should’ve thought that went without saying.”
“Not necessarily,” said the Mirror. “When you say you want eternal life, do you mean life as you are now, or eternal youth? If the latter, what age? Do you wish to live as an eternal infant, forever being held and changed and fed, but with the mind you have now, unable to communicate your thoughts or your commands? Would you rather live as a young man, forever at your prime, but knowing that anyone you might befriend or fall in love with will inevitably go the way of all mortals and so you will outlast them, alone until the end of Time?
“I’ll have them drink too!” the man shouted.
“What if they refuse?” the Mirror said coldly. “Have you thought of how many you would force this gift of yours upon, and how you would keep it secret if you do? You would require further drinks from the Fountain in order to maintain your life, but what would you do if the word gets out and someone else takes it from you? What then?”
“Well, I… I…” he trailed off. For the first time in a long while, his knowledge and his resources were unavailing. He didn’t know.
“You were not meant for it,” the Mirror said, its voice holding no trace of emotion. “I cannot answer you.”
The old man reached for the gun his guard carried, his thought perhaps to threaten or even shoot the Mirror; later on he wasn’t clear about that. What he did know was that quite suddenly the light in the chamber vanished. The soldiers had turned off their flashlights, thinking they wouldn’t need them since the Mirror was lighting up the place just fine.
Except just then it wasn’t. The guards clicked their flashlights, but to their surprise, nothing happened. Not a one worked. Even the drill didn’t work.
“I don’t suppose,” the old man said, his voice taut with a lifetime of bitterness, “Any of you lunkheads remember the way out?”
This story, as often on Fridays, was inspired by the below prompt from
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That was great! I enjoyed how you explored the question of how one might use the Fountain of Youth. What if the Fountain was not meant to be drunk, nor bathed in, but one must be willing to lose one’s life by drowning in the pool in order to gain external life? In that way it would be a literal baptism in which the old life is forfeit to gain the new.
Thank you for sharing your work!
This is GRIPPING MICHAEL. FANTASTIC. I love how you worked in the prompts!