Ron Goulart - The Curse of the Obelisk

80 RON GOULART
Baron Groll paused to breathe in and out. "I must inform you, Herr Challenge, that you are not
putting me in a receptive mood to grant any favors," he told Harry. "I am informed you wish to
make a—"
"You'll have to forgive us," said Harry. "It's just that I've got this rejuvenation drug on my
mind. Naturally, I'm going to be doubly aware of the sad effects of aging on a once handsome and
vital—"
"Rejuvenation?" said the baron. "I was told some lunatic wanted my lovely new obelisk in
exchange for a young woman. By the way, she is beautiful?"
Jennie began. "Plain as a—"
"Belphoebe Stowe is quite a handsome woman," said Harry, nudging Jennie. "And she'd be
eternally grateful to any man who—"
"Might we return to this talk of rejuvenation?"
Harry rested his backside against the marble railing that guarded the terrace. "I'm going to
confide an enormously important secret in you, baron," he said. "Inside your obelisk, hidden for
centuries, is a supply of tana."
"Of what?"
"It's a powerful drug," explained the reporter. "Anwar Zaytoon used the stuff and he lived to be
nine hundred."
"Nine hundred? But that's imposs—"
"And up until the very end he didn't look a day over sixty."
"Fifty," suggested Harry.
"Fifty," amended Jennie. "That's right. Zaytoon was nine hundred, yet he appeared to be
younger than you."
The baron stroked his beard, gazing thoughtfully out at the green woodlands surrounding his
chateau. "You are certain this drug is concealed in my obelisk?"
"It is," Harry assured him. "As the owner of the obelisk, anything inside it is yours."
"I could look even younger," he inquired, "and never die?"
"That's the idea," said Jennie. "Harry knows exactly where the stuff is and how to get it out
without damaging the obelisk much at all."
"Can have my crew here within the hour," Harry said.
Baron Groll asked, "What do you want in return?"
"The loan of the obelisk."
"Loan? As I understand it this decadent mystic wants it for good and all."
"We'll take the obelisk apart, extract the cache of tana, put it back together and borrow it for
about a day."
"Merely borrow?"