Wad had no idea what Danny North was seeing, hearing, experiencing. But to Wad it was all so clear and powerful that he could not escape from it. He lost all contact with the present moment. He could not see Ced or the ancient treemage who was teaching him. He could not feel the sun on his back or the grass in the meadow where he lay.

He could only see the old hermit Kawab, sitting in the mouth of his cave on the rocky plateau west of the Nile.

Wad knew him instantly, knew that he had sought this man for a year, once he discovered that he existed. Knew that he had come to him for guidance, for the answer to his question.

What was the question?

He heard himself in memory, explaining why he was there.

“She was possessed by a Belmage, and so I passed her through a gate, to drive the Belmage away,” Wad remembered explaining. “I knew enough to take her to a place far from him, so the Belmage didn’t dive right back into her and rule her again as if she were his clant. Only it didn’t work.”

Wad remembered now the terror of that realization. When he followed the Illyrian Clawsister he had just freed from possession, she laughed at him. “Fool,” she said. “Fool! You have no power over me.”

“What is this Belmage?” Wad remembered asking Kawab. “You are the last of the Enemies of Set; you are the only one who can tell me why my gate did not drive this one away.”

Kawab said nothing, did nothing. But a single tear streaked the thick dust on his face.

“What is it?” demanded Wad. “You know what this means, and it grieves you.”

“It was no Belmage,” said Kawab. “Not one of the Sutahites, the followers who were cast out of heaven with the Dragon. It was Set himself, the Dragon, the Enemy of all souls, and your story tells me that he has gained the power to hold onto a body beyond the power of any man to drive him out.”

“How do I fight him, then? How do I free this woman from him?”

“You can free her only by killing her,” said Kawab. “And yet it will not harm Set himself. He cannot be killed. He will simply find another man or woman to possess, to control. And none can heal her, none can drive him out. He is the devil of devils.”

“Don’t tell me the dogmas of Christians,” Wad insisted in that memory. “I came to you for the lore of the Enemies of Set.”