“They are the same, the same,” murmured Kawab. “What do you think John the Revelator was talking about in the Apocalypse? War in heaven—that was the battle in the world of Duat, which Michael won, which Osiris won, it was the same war. Set was cast down to the Earth, the great Dragon, Satan, the devil, Baal, Bel, the Enemy. Only fools think that truth disappears when the boundaries of belief are crossed. Set is the enemy, the slayer of Osiris, the possessor of souls. His followers are weak, pathetic creatures. You can drive them out with your gatemagery, you can trick them, frighten them. They have no power except what people give them. But Set and a very few of his disciples, they are the most terrible manmages ever to live—or not-live—here upon the Earth.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Wad had answered him. “What is Duat? Who is Michael or Osiris or whatever you call him? What was the war? And who is this Set, this great Dragon, this Satan?”

Over and over this memory played through Wad’s mind, starting over whenever Danny North lost the thread of it back in the Egyptian desert on Mittlegard. Again and again Wad heard himself ask and ask and ask and yet for hours there was no answer. Danny North could never get him to the answer.

This much consciousness of the present moment Wad retained: He reached to his own gates, the ones he had put under Danny’s power, and he calmed them. Slowed them. Kept them tied to the memory. He tied them to his own inself, not taking back control of them, but giving them cleaner, clearer access to himself, to his memory. And through them, he was able to calm and soothe Danny North himself. Stop him from losing the thread of the memory. Help him hold to it, follow it, allow it to reach fruition.

Finally the voice of Kawab went on, the soft voice, the urgent voice. “We are all creatures from another world.”

Yes, from Westil, thought Wad-who-was, his old self there in the desert.

“Not from the world you call Westil or Mitherholm, and not from the world you call Mittlegard or Middle Earth. Where do you think that name comes from? Terra stands in the middle, between two worlds. The world of the mages who call themselves gods, and the world of all souls, Duat, where every human comes from.”

“How can I come from there, if I don’t remember it?” said Wad-who-was.