Downpour(II:2) The Lost Explorer

 2. The Lost Explorer

     Paul Mansen sat down at the table across from him. He looked exactly the same as he had on the last episode before his disappearance. The same cheesy hat that he had worn all those years was still perched upon his head, and the same tight-cropped brown hair poked out from beneath it. Nick felt as though he was staring at a ghost.

     “So, it’s been a while since your ‘disappearance’,” said Nick. It had been five years to be exact. Paul Mansen’s last special had been a journey through the Amazon. One night, their boat had lost reception with the other members of the crew and was never seen again.

     Paul leaned across the table as if he were going to say something very important, and then punched Nick in the face.

     He saw stars. Probably should have seen that coming. He had been punched a great many times, but from Mansen of all people, it was an appropriate reaction. The hatred that had caused them to feud for so many years did not appear to have diminished in the slightest.  

     Lopsang merely sat back and watched. He too had seen Nick punched enough times to know that for one reason or another, he probably deserved it. In fact, there had been a few times where he had been the one to do the punching. It brought a smile to his face to watch Nick be put in his place.

     “That was for my brother,” said Mansen, calmly, and wiped his hand on a napkin to remove Nick’s blood. “Lucky for you I can’t commit murder within the city limits, and over the years I have made my peace.”

     “That didn’t feel very peaceful,” muttered Nick, checking to see if his nose was broken. His fingers touched swollen flesh, and blood dripped onto them, but everything felt like it was still in the right place. Small victories, he thought, and took a drink.

     “I may be peaceful, but I can assure you, his soul, wherever it is, would have wanted to see you punched.” Mansen sat back in his chair, calm. “Back to the topic at hand I suppose. Yes, it has been quite a while since I ‘disappeared’. I imagine that you thought I was dead.”

     “Well I was hoping for it.”

     “Ok, Nick,” said Lopsang, giving him a look that told him not to be rude. “You wanted to know about El Dorado, so I brought you a man who can explain it all. If you’d rather hash up old feuds, then I think our time would be better spent in one of the fighting pits.”

     Nick had been to a few fighting pits before, and never come out of them for the better. Even if it was a city of gold, he bet that the sports were still stained with red. “Alright, fine.” It brought him great pain to capitulate so easily, but from a certain perspective, he understood why it was that Mansen hated him. “I’m sorry about your brother Paul.” Nick wanted to say that he was a good man, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

     “No you’re not,” said Mansen, “and honestly, neither am I. He put a black mark on our profession, and was killed by his own hubris. I warned him about it many times, but that History Channel program just got to his head.”

     Like National Geographic is so much better, thought Nick, but held his tongue. Smoke rings blew up from the river below, holding their shape for a remarkably long time before disappearing into nothingness. Boats continued to pass below them, and Nick felt that he could do nothing to break the uncomfortable silence. “So what is this place?” he asked, feeling awkward.

     “This, is one of the hardest cities to find in the world,” Paul said with grandeur that reminded Nick of his old television programs. “It is the lost city of gold that explorers have been trying for years to find, and has a very good secret as to how it stays so hidden.” He paused, and Nick took the bait.

     “Alright, what makes it so hard to find?” He could not help but feel like a child in the middle of a school lesson and resented it.

     “It’s constantly moving.” Mansen walked his fingers across the table as if he were talking to a five-year-old. “El Dorado, is under the influence of some strange physical phenomenon that allows it to shift its location throughout the Amazon rainforest, seemingly at random.”

     “Some might call that magic,” said Nick.

     “Well, I suppose it is a sort of magic if you want to look at it simply, but either way, it’s quite astonishing. From interviewing the local folk around here, I have found that they were all very near death when they happened upon the temple entrance.” He looked Nick up and down. “Looking at you, I would say about the same.”

     Nick nodded and muttered “Damned Yacumama.”

     “You encountered the Yacumama?” Mansen’s voice grew quite excited. “That must have been some sight.”

     “Well, I’m the only one who’s still here to talk about it, but let’s try and keep on topic here. So, the city only appears to those who are in mortal peril.”

     Mansen looked disappointed, but continued anyway. “Well yes, but as you will have noticed, plenty of people are in mortal peril in the jungle on a daily basis, and there’s no city to be found. The only sensible thing that I’ve been able to understand is that the city has a set population. It only allows new people to come in once someone has left.”

     “So whenever someone dies, the city lets another take their place?”

     “Well not exactly.” Mansen’s eyes glittered with the gold around them, and Nick could not help but be transfixed. “You will have noticed that I have not aged much since my disappearance.”

     He’s not about to try and spin me this, is he? Nick looked around. The odd clothing, the conquistadors; it makes sense, but there’s no way. Confronted with the impossible, Nick responded with sarcasm, as he always had. “Finding the city of gold wasn’t enough for you, was it? Had to find the Fountain of Youth too.” Nick rolled his eyes as if he didn’t believe it, but saying it out loud made so much sense.

     “Well, not the fountain of youth per say, but a place where one can live well beyond their natural years. Again, talking with the locals, I think that there is a sort of time stasis here.”

     Nick had begun to get lost, and felt that he needed another drink. His least favorite part of all Mansen’s programs had been the need to try and explain everything with science. Nick did not believe in any higher power, but he did believe in things that made no rational sense by the conventional laws of physics. Having visited another plane once to meet with a goddess, he felt that he was somewhat experienced on the subject.

     Mansen continued to babble about the various physics involved in the city’s existence, and Nick continued to ignore him.

Cutting off a particularly long line of inquiry into the behavior of dark matter, Nick said: “So time stops inside the city limits, and no one ages as a result?”

“Well I’d say that’s a bit of an over-simplification, but,”

Nick cut him off again. “What happens if we leave?”

Mansen stumbled a bit. “Well, I’m not exactly sure. The odds of someone leaving and coming back are astronomical. They would have to be in mortal peril at the exact time another person was trying to leave.”

“Alright, so it hasn’t happened. For all we know, when we’re stepping back out that door, we get vaporized into dust.” Nick was enjoying spoiling the mystical nature of the city for Mansen a bit. Having survived death and found a place to drink, Nick was perfectly content to resume poking holes in the logic of others.

“I guess, I had never thought of that. The city has a strict policy on mortal violence, and so I just assumed that there would be nothing in place to stop people from leaving. Really, for the most part, El Dorado is a peaceful place.”

Peaceful except for getting punched in bars, thought Nick, feeling the throbbing in his nose once more.  “Mostly,” thought Nick, already beginning to see the city as more of a barrier than a safe haven. “Well, being that this is a place of peace, I don’t suppose they’ve got any place to purchase arms?”

“Nick, we just got here,” said Lopsang. “Can you not just revel in the fact that we are sitting in one of the greatest mysteries of mankind for even a minute?”

     “Lopsang, you’re a demi-god, you’re one of the greatest mysteries of mankind. This city is a neat parlor trick at best.” Knowing the general rules of temples, Nick assumed that they would not be able to take any of the gold with them, and thus saw it as nothing more than useless ornament.

     “A demi-god?” asked Mansen, looking at Lopsang, shocked.

     “Don’t worry about it,” said Nick, his mind still on how they could get find weapons and get out of the city alive. “Back to what I was saying. Is there any place we can buy weapons here?”

     “Of course there is,” said Mansen. “How can a culture evolve without wanting to kill everything else in its path?” He said it with heavy sarcasm and disgust. “I would hardly call it the main attraction in a city that is literally built brick by brick from gold, but they’ve got a couple of markets in the seedier parts of town.”

     “It’s settled then,” said Nick with joy. He finished his drink in one gulp and clapped his hands together. “We’re going to the seedier parts of the city!”