The Watchtower

violence. “Immortality is like an alp in perpetual sunshine, a summit to which all of us alchemists aspire. Unfortunately I have not been able to personally reach it, no matter the numbers, incantations, geometries, séances, and charms I have tried, and you will note the mix of methods I cite. But I have not failed for lack of trying.” The force of Dee’s personality was such, Will noted, that he seemed to brag when speaking about failure as much as when referring to success. Then Dee’s expression turned wistful.
    “Alas,” he went on, in barely more than a whisper, “in such immortal research, I have recently happened to learn by accident the year of my physical death. Sixteen oh eight, a year even a novice like you can count to meaningfully. So I don’t have forever to work on this intractable problem. Sadly, as you’ve no doubt inferred, I have little to offer you, lad. But innate kindness compels me to query you . How have you wandered into such an interest, which usually arises in the aging, not in reckless youth?”
    Will had not planned to convey this information unless absolutely necessary, but he reflected now on how unrealistic a hope anonymity had been.
    “Sir, I have had the strange fortune to fall in love with a woman who is of the fey and immortal. Tragically, she can’t or won’t give me the means to transform myself so we can be together forever. I have decided to seek my remedy elsewhere. Without a solution I will go mad!”
    Dee retracted slowly to his previous posture, somewhat like a serpent uncoiling back to being at rest. Or a new striking position. Will shook his head, trying to clear the webwork of unnatural impressions from his eyes.
    “Who is the woman?” Dee asked sharply.
    “I’d prefer not to say.” Will rose from his chair, nerves on guard against a sudden lunge by Dee. “Now that I’ve learned my quest is futile, I’ll—”
    “Halt!” Dee commanded. Once again, something in his voice made Will do so. “I said I have sought it in vain, young man. I said nothing of someone else’s quest being futile. All lives and all circumstances are different. I have no way dismissed your entreaty. But we are helpless without a name. The fey are rare now in England, at this late day. I know of only a couple of possible candidates, and they merely rumored. And I cannot make a mundane person immortal, any more than a pigeon, or the wind. I need context, circumstance. Provide that, Will Hughes, and perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope. We’ll see.…” Dee made an attempt at a smile, one so suffused with calculation that it made Will shrink back.
    But he asked himself what choice he had except to go along with this conniver. Still, he had a dread of mentioning Marguerite by name that he neither understood nor seemed able to conquer. So he started to turn away again, trembling.
    “I must go, sir. I—” But glancing back just once, Will froze, as the look the sorcerer (irrespective of his claims to logic) speared him with was as terrible yet magnetic a look as he’d ever beheld.
    Dee screamed, in a way that filled Will’s mind and veins until he couldn’t breathe, “What is her name, foul maggot?”
    Will gasped for breath and thought he felt his body beginning to decay as if he’d just been murdered, maybe by the knife-edge of the scimitar moon above, he thought feverishly. He felt his body start to turn liquid, then ashen, then foul as a sewer. This sensation forced him to his knees, and he lay full out on the floor as if in imitation of a rancid corpse. He couldn’t help it. Capitulation. The word popped into his thoughts as if a hot sword point inserted there. Only capitulation could bring relief, stop the death spiral. Whatever was left of his reason knew it was all a spell. But this conjurer’s horror, writhed of worm and stench, was too much.
    “Marguerite D’Arques,” he whispered, still lying stretched out on the cold and grimy floor.
    Then he managed his body back up and into the chair, quivering with a suppressed sob he would not let escape his lips, lest Dee obtain such satisfaction. Will sat in the chair with the self-esteem of a worm. Maybe the king of worms, he thought despondently, maybe the Charlemagne of worms. But still a worm.
    “Oh, that’s the name,” Dee said simply, with a calm that infuriated Will. “In that case, all is not lost. No. A simple plan may do. But before I reveal it, let me confess my surprise. I’m not up on the latest