The One leaned his elbows on the immense desk, joining the hands as if in prayer, brought his fingers to mouth and closed his eyes, in a gesture of deep meditation.

Death lit a cigarette, although she knew how much that vice bothered him.

"I can't," said the One, shaking his head slightly.

"You can't even afford to lose any more detachments, Lord," replied Death.

The One stood up and, with his gaze fixed on the ground, began to walk the perimeter of the room, amidst swirls of smoke that lost consistency as he passed. He looked like a defendant awaiting trial.

"Just once, Lord, I don't think that's too much to ask," insisted Death, with the confidence of someone who had the upper hand.

In reality, the One would have needed only a snap of his fingers and a little pyrotechnic divine fire to impose his will on his creature, but democracy and sharing were two cornerstones of his thought.

"We would be forced to reweave the Plot."

"Grannies are quick to knit," she replied, with a hubris even she didn't think to have. "Besides, it's not so different from what we do whenever men are the ones who interfere with Destiny."

"It is different..."

"To what extent?"

Actually, it wasn't that different, but the One felt some discomfort in admitting it. Perhaps because implicitly it was like acknowledging that there was more humanity in Death than he himself had anticipated.

"And have you thought about who to use it with yet?" he said, trying to change tactics.

"I'm considering a few options..."

"A few? And by what criteria will you favor one to condemn the others?"

"Time is running out, Lord, I don't think it's worth wasting it on games."

"Time is relative."

"Lately even death," she replied, puffing out circles of smoke with perfect geometry.

The One went back behind the desk and sank his hands into the softness of the chair. He had the look of someone who finds himself without an alternative, but he didn't want to give in.

"Why?"

"Because...what, Lord?"

"Why are you demanding this?"

Death thought she guessed her creator's doubts. "It's not for power, if that's what you fear."

"I do not fear it."

"Then what do you fear?"

The One looked at Death in the empty orbs, so incredibly expressive.

"I'm afraid you might like it."

*

Plelius Cheering leaned his back against the wall and caught his breath. The guard had lost track of him several blocks before, but he had kept running, driven mostly by fear. He remembered some legends that told of dark clerics able to awaken the dead, but were stories of ancient times and anyway were dead who came back to life, not alive who refused to die.

What spell could have befallen two such different people? His brilliant mind quickly began to generate a few theories, and to prove one he pulled the spare stiletto out of his boot and approached a drunk who was snoring in the back of an inn. He plunged the blade into his throat and not a single drop of blood came out of the wound. The man merely gurgled an insult, then turned on the opposite side.

Seized by mad intuition, Plelius plunged that same blade into his liver. The pain was excruciating, rising from his side to electrocute his brain like the sting of a thousand wasps. But when that horrible sensation of cerebral nausea subsided, he could verify that only a slight trickle of blood bathed his wound, in reality little more than a scratch.

The initial euphoria for the incredible discovery was immediately suffocated by a much more materialistic realization; if they had really all become immortal, how would he survive?

He slumped down on the pavement and stabbed the drunk two or three more times, while he tried to collect his thoughts. The man swatted him away like a fly.

He then decided to tackle the problem as he always does when there seems to be no way out: he entered the inn and ordered a pint of beer.

"What's up, man? You look like someone who has seen death in the face," addressed him the innkeeper, who by contract was obliged to encourage the outbursts of the patrons .

"I wish. But starting tonight, death is no longer of this world."

The innkeeper stared at him with blank eyes; he hadn't understood a word, but he had done his part. He merely shrugged and served him the order.

"What do you mean?" deepened instead the man seated at his side.

He was a funny guy, heavily cross-eyed and with a ragged and tattered look that gave his face the appearance of a wrinkled rag.

"I mean that we're unemployed as of today," replied Plelius, deciding he was a gravedigger.

"Impossible! And why?" replied that one, with a murderous grin.

Plelius drained his beer in one breath. "Because we are all immortal as of tonight."

"All?" the other didn't hold back a gasp.

"All."

"Explain yourself," she insisted, ordering him a second pint.

When Plelius recovered from his hangover, several hours later, he found himself in a cramped circular room. It seemed like the basement of a tower, as there were no windows or loopholes. He tried to sort through his memories; had he been arrested? The fact that he was chained to the walls might actually confirm it.

There was also that gravedigger at the inn, who might have been a gendarme. But he was reciting some strange litany. Was he a priest?

He tried to ask, but a dizziness seized him.

Immediately afterwards the man cursed furiously. "I knew it, a wasted spell!" He slammed the door.

Only then Plelius saw the other prisoner chained up next to him; an old man, perhaps over a hundred years old, already dead.

Also on his right was someone, a hooded figure, grimly holding onto a long scythe.

Plelius' gaze bounced confusedly a few more times from the corpse of the only prisoner to the figure in the shadows, passing by his own hands now free of chains, but vague as mist.

"You..." he stammered finally.

Death nodded.

"Me?" he asked, pointing to the old man's body.

Death nodded again.

"But you weren't..."

"A little vacation," she confirmed, showing him the light.