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162 had accompanied him reported) the great god himself con- firmed Alexander's divine parentage. Thus affirmed as truly the son of a god, me Egyptian priests proclaimed him a Divine Pharaoh. But instead of waiting to die and attain immortality in the Afterlife, Alexander set out to find the famed Waters of Life right away. His searches took him to subterranean places illed with magic and angels in the Sinai peninsula, then (on orders of a Winged Man) to Babylon. In the end, as the Delphic Oracle prophesied, he died famous but young. In his search for immortality Alexander, leaving his troops behind, went toward the Land of Darkness, to find there a mountain called Mushas. At the edge of the desert he left his ew trusted companions and proceeded alone. He saw and ollowed "a straight path that had no wail, and it had no high or low place in it." He walked therein twelve days and twelve nights, at which point "he perceived the radiance of an angel." As he drew nearer the radiance became "a flaming ire," and Alexander realized that he was at the "mountain rom which the whole world is surrounded." Speaking to Alexander from the flaming fire, the angel questioned him, "Who art thou, and for what reason art thou here, O mortal?" and wondered how Alexander had managed "to penetrate into this darkness, which no other mortal hath been able to do." Alexander explained that God himself had guided him and gave him strength to arrive at this place, "which is Paradise." But the angel told him that the Water of Life was somewhere else; "and whosoever drinketh there- from, if it be but a single drop, shall never die." To find the "Well of the Water of Life" Alexander needed a savant who knew such secrets, and after much searching such a man was found. Magical and miraculous adventures took place on their way. To be certain that the well is the right one, the two had with them a dead dried fish. One night, reaching a subterranean fountain, and while Alexander was sleeping, the guide tested the water and the fish came alive. Then he himself immersed in the waters, becoming thereby El Khidr—"The Evergreen"—the One Who Is_ Forever Young of Arab legends. In me morning Alexander rushed to the indicated place. It was "inlaid with sapphires and emeralds and jacinths." But there two birds with human features blocked DIVINE ENCOUNTERS