“Because we are tied to the body. Ka and ba, both parts of the soul, what you call inself and outself—they are tied to the body, to this hairless ape, this featherless biped, this tribe-dwelling louse-picker, and in that moment all access to the ancient memory is lost. Yet you remain yourself, for all the decisions of the body are made in the ka, the bonded mind, the inself, and the body has no choice but to obey. New memories are made, by ape and ka and ba together, a new self, a whole soul. It is why we were sent to Mittlegard, to get this body, to learn to control it.”

Then Wad-who-was asked the question that immediately occurred to Wad-that-is, lying unconscious in the meadow on Westil: “In what part does the magery lie? Is it of the body or the inself-and-outself?”

“Both,” answered Kawab. “It is the body that gives shape to the powers inherent in the ka and ba. Because the ka is rooted in the body, the ba is free to roam and act out the will of the self. Because of the abilities inherited from your parents’ bodies, your ka and ba expressed their powers as gatemagery; your ba is divided into ten thousand parts, more than the ba of any other man I have seen, a ba like grains of sand. Because of this, you can make ten thousand gates, or a thousand Great Gates. Because of this, you have the power to eat the gates of any other living mage, for you can take their gates into yourself and overwhelm them. But without this body, you are a ka and ba like any other.”

“And without my ka and ba?” asked Wad-who-was.

“Then the body is only a tool-making monkey,” said Kawab. “The natural man. A beast with lips that make words, but no mind to understand the deep meaning of anything.”

It was clear to Wad-who-was, and so it became clear again to Wad-that-is.

Now Kawab could explain who it was that Wad-who-was had failed to drive from the body of the beastmage he had tried to save.

“In the world where every ka-and-ba was born, there was a war. Set was the evil one, and he persuaded many to follow him. But they lost the war and were cast out of Duat, down to Earth, through a gate that only worked in one direction.”

“But you say we are all cast down to Earth from Duat,” said Wad-who-was.

“We are not cast anywhere,” said Kawab. “We are born, one by one, created as body-and-ka, with a ba to do their bidding. The ka joined deeply to the ape. We are born. This did not happen to Set and his followers, the Sutahites, the ones you call Belmages. They cannot become part of the ape, as we have.”