"Well?"

Kesley feinted with the stiletto and flicked it through the air past Miguel's head and into the center of the arms-bearing shield on the wall. The Duke, who had not so much as blinked, laughed heartily.

"A good man with a knife! A good man indeed." Serious again, he said, "But you could have killed me. Why didn't you?"

"Kill an Immortal?" Kesley replied listlessly. "I'd sooner try to harness a whirlwind. How could I possibly kill you?"

"By plunging the knife into my heart," Miguel said. "You obviously fail to understand the true nature of our immortality."

"Which is?"

"Cell regeneration. Gradual rebuilding and replacement of decayed cells. We remain as we are because the decays of age are counteracted as rapidly as they occur. There are no organic defects to plague us. This process, however, does not guard against a knife in the heart, or a slit throat, or a bullet in the back."

"And yet you gave the knife to me. Why?"

"I knew you wouldn't use it," Miguel said. "You short-lived ones are so terribly easy to understand. Only...."

The Duke's voice trailed off. "Only what?" Kesley prodded after a moment.

"Only nothing," Miguel said. He rose. "Come upstairs with me, young one, to my office. I am a slave to my duties ... more thoroughly enslaved than the basest serf on my lands."

Miguel touched a panel in the wall and it slid back, revealing what looked to Kesley like an adjoining room.

"My private elevator," Miguel explained. "Come."

The elevator rose silently. When it stopped, the door slid open and Kesley found himself in an even vaster room, almost completely lined with books on one wall from floor to ceiling. Another wall was bright with paintings; on a third, strange lights flickered on a wide board, and glowing above their multicolored glitter were eight rectangular gray screens.

Seeming to forget Kesley, Miguel strode across the room and seated himself in an imposing chair facing the screens. He covered the flashing red light with his palm. The upper-most of the screens became illuminated. Kesley gasped as the face of a man grew visible.

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