The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

you lived upon the earth?” the immortal demanded.
    But the hook-handed man remained silent as the vimana hummed through clear blue skies. Then, just as Dee was beginning to suspect he would get no answer, the man spoke, and his voice was unbearably sad. “Magician: I have lived upon this earth for ten thousand years. And I have spent perhaps ten times that walking the Shadowrealms. Even I do not know my true age anymore.”
    “Then you are Elder? . . . Great Elder? . . . Archon? You’re not an Earthlord. Are you an Ancient, perhaps?”
    “No. None of those,” Marethyu said. “I am human. A little more than a normal human, a lot less, too. But human born and bred.”
    The vimana’s engine whined down and the craft dipped.
    “Who is your master?”
    “I have no master. I serve myself.”
    “Then who made you immortal?” Dee asked, growing only more confused.
    “Why, I suppose you did, in a manner of speaking, Dr. Dee,” Marethyu laughed.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You will. Patience, Doctor, patience. All will be revealed in time.”
    “I do not have much time left. Osiris saw to that.”
    The vimana dipped lower, its engine slowing to a dull buzz.
    “Where are we going?” Dee asked.
    “I’m taking you to meet someone. He’s been waiting for you for a long time.”
    “You knew I was coming?”
    “Doctor, I have always known you were coming here. I have followed your progress from the moment of your birth.”
    Dee was tired; a leaden exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him, but he knew that if he closed his eyes, he would probably never open them again. He found the strength to ask, “Why?”
    “Because you had a role to play. In my long life, I have discovered that there are no coincidences. There is a pattern. The trick is to see the pattern, but that ability is a gift—a curse, perhaps—that is given to few.”
    “And you can see this pattern?”
    “It is my curse.”
    The vimana suddenly settled on the ground. The top of the craft slid back, and Dee shivered as a wash of chill, damp air flowed over him. Even with his faded hearing, he could make out the roar of the sea, nearby breakers foaming and crashing. He saw Marethyu’s arms reach down for him and feebly brushed them away.
    “Wait a minute . . .,” he protested.
    “As you so rightly pointed out: we do not have much time.”
    Dee reached up and caught Marethyu’s arm. “I cannot feel your aura.”
    “I don’t have one.”
    “Everyone has an aura,” Dee murmured, confusion once again coming over him.
    “Everyone
living
,” the man answered.
    “You are dead?”
    “I am Death.”
    “But you have powers?”
    “Yes, vast powers.”
    “Could you restore my youth?”
    There was a silence, and with his short sight, Dee could just about discern Marethyu watching him. “I could,” he said eventually. “But I will not.”
    Dee couldn’t understand why this man would rescue him, yet leave him to die. “Why not?”
    “Call it consequences, or maybe justice. You are not a nice man, Dr. Dee, and you should pay something for your terrible crimes. What I will do however, is restore a little of your strength and allow you your dignity.” Marethyu put his hand on top of the doctor’s head and pushed.
    A shock, like pins and needles, rippled through Dee. He felt heat bloom in the pit of his stomach. It flowed up, across his chest and down into his arms, while simultaneously surging through his thighs, along his calves and into his feet. He immediately felt stronger.
    “And my sight,” he pleaded. “Give me back my sight and hearing.”
    “Greedy, Doctor, greedy. Always and ever your failing . . .”
    “You’ve brought me to this wondrous place, the most amazing city in the history of Earth. And yet I cannot see or hear it. If you have followed my life, you know that I have always been driven by a thirst for knowledge, by an insatiable curiosity. Please. Let me see this place, so that I may remember it for whatever time is left to me.”
    Marethyu leaned forward and rested his index and little fingers against Dee’s eyes, pressing lightly. Dee felt a single moment of pain—an intense stab through his skull—and then Death lifted his hand and Dee opened his eyes. The shadows were gone and everything was in sharp focus. He could see. He looked up at Marethyu. The bottom half of the figure’s face was wrapped in a thick scarf, above which a pair of bright blue eyes regarded the Magician with something like