Danny North hated enigmatic answers. They smacked of trickery to him, and he didn’t want to try to outthink someone who was obviously much wiser and better informed than he.

Without answering, his thoughts became his answer.

I am not tricking you, said This One. I simply cannot choose for you. Nor can I tell you how to do what has never been done.

You can’t tell me … because you don’t know?

There is a law that keeps you here, once you come. If I make an exception to that law, it will not be to serve myself or to indulge some mortal’s whims. All the laws exist to protect and promote the happiness of all. If I give you a plan and send you back, then you will be acting as my tool in Mittlegard, and your acts will be my acts. I will not do that, because the good order of Duat and of all the worlds depends on my never doing that. You and all the others must be free to choose. I offer. I teach. But I do not manipulate. I do not force. I do not rule.

I think the world would be a better place if you did.

The worlds of men and women are free to obey me whenever they choose. Meanwhile, they’re also free to obey and disobey each other.

I am not free to disobey Set.

Then how are you here? He did not want you to come.

He ruled my body. It obeyed him, not me.

Your body never obeyed anyone but you.

Danny hated this thought the moment he grasped it; but he also knew that if This One said it, it had be true, even if only in a way that Danny did not understand.

In all the weeks that Set had ruled over his body, controlling his speech, his actions, was Danny North somehow doing what Set commanded?

Why didn’t my body do my will? Set blocked me every time.

Set blocked you. Not your body.

Danny tried to remember what it felt like, to attempt something and be blocked by Set. He would will his body to do something, like move an arm or say a word, and then he was blocked. Wasn’t that Set controlling his body?

No.

So it was Set between his will and his body. It was Set blocking his desires.

Still wrong, but less wrong.

It was Set telling him that he did not want what he had thought he wanted. It was Set contradicting him, and then Danny himself backed down.

Why did I do that? demanded Danny.

Why did you do that? answered This One.

I was afraid.

What were you afraid of?

Danny tried to remember. Tried to analyze it.

Then Pat spoke—or rather, had an idea and pushed it into the dialectic: You were afraid your body would not obey and so you countermanded your own command.