“It means that Set can only possess one person at a time. And most of the Sutahites are so weak that they cannot possess even one person—they have to join together, two or five or ten or more, in order to get control. They drive their victim mad with a chaos of voices, and even when his ka has retreated deep into the mind, and the wanderers have control, they can hardly agree among themselves. No one of them is master. We think the man is mad, because his behavior is not guided by a single will.”

Wad-who-was had seen this, and now he thought he understood. “Set himself, this great Dragon, can rule over a person by himself, needing no allies.”

“He and the mightiest of the Sutahites. We call these devils by many names, but we don’t know if any of them is the true name of the Master Sutahite. We only know that only a fool calls upon one of the great ones, for they can take possession far more easily when they are called. The fool who summons one believes that he is the master over the Sutahite, but he is deceived; it is the Sutahite who rules.”

“So the pentagons they draw—”

“Decorations only,” said Kawab. “They have no power, these fools who call themselves wizards and necromancers. The power that you Mithermages have, those are real. But when a Master Sutahite has power over a man, then the Master calls many lesser Sutahites. They obey him then, and gain great power from their obedience to a Master who rules a human body. They can easily influence the minds of many other people, so they think that the one possessed by the Master is a great wizard with mighty powers. All illusion.”

“So they are not as powerful as we think they are,” said Wad-who-was.

“I said ‘when a Master Sutahite has power over a man.’ But when he has power over a Mithermage, then the mage will do his bidding, and his powers belong to the Sutahite who rules him.”

“Until a gatemage comes and drives out the possessor,” said Wad-who-was.

“Which works with every Sutahite, but not with Set himself, or so your story tells me. For if he has the power to resist you, there is no gatemage among all your kind who can drive him out.”

“But as long as he rules a mage, he has that mage’s power,” said Wad-who-was.