"You see?" Daveen asked.

"I understand now," Kesley said. "They had to try to kill me. I was a menace—an Immortal who wasn't a Duke, and whose children could breed true!"

He stared at his hands as if they were covered with suddenly alien flesh. "I wasn't a Duke, was I?" He asked cautiously. Anything was possible now.

"No," Daveen told him. "You were never a Duke."

Kesley smiled, thinking now of the centuries stretching endlessly ahead. "A king without a kingdom, then. Well, there's plenty of time for me to find one. But you still haven't told me who I am, Daveen."


XIV

There was silence in the bare room for almost a minute. Idly, Daveen strummed his instrument; Kesley tensed, thinking another layer of his mind-block was to be stripped back, but Daveen was merely striking random notes.

"Well?" Kesley asked.

"The information you want is not mine to give."