Only then did Wad go in search of the ancient treemage—now long dead, though this one who was training Ced was a disciple of a disciple of—who got a tree to let him inside its bark, to feed on its sap and keep both himself and the tree vibrant and alive forever.

Forever, that had been the plan.

But the tree expelled him. Or he unconsciously pulled himself out of the tree. Or both. And Wad had no idea why. The system had been working, and now it was broken.

It was broken because he—or the tree, or spacetime—knew that Wad had no power to resist or control Danny North, let alone steal from him.

It had to happen, Wad supposed. If there were two mages, one would be greater than the other; and, given time enough, you could find a third who was greater still. Powerful as Wad was, there was bound to come another, eventually, who was stronger than he was. One whose gates could not be eaten.

“Please talk to me,” Anonoei asked.

Whether it was because he was dying to talk to someone about all that he had just remembered, or whether she used her manmagery to cajole him or control him into telling, he told her all of it.

“You saved the world,” she said.

“And Danny North has it in his power to unsave it. Now there is an open gate, and if the Dragon—Set—can find someone, some mage, to ride through it, he’ll be here, along with as many wanderers as he can bring, and this world is lost.”

“I can see how you’d think that was a bad thing,” said Anonoei.

“You think it isn’t?” demanded Wad.

“I was being ironic,” said Anonoei. “It’s the worst thing that could happen. All the power of all the Mithermages, under the rule of a monster? I’m against that.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Ced and the treemage had listened to all of Wad’s account. But now the treemage said, “Time to return to work, Ced.”

“But after hearing all of this, how can I concentrate?” asked Ced.

“It is precisely at such times that you must have the power to concentrate. So now you’ll make a whirlwind small enough to use a single grain of sand to bore through a block of wood, a hole that is only one sandgrain in diameter.”

“Impossible,” said Ced.

“Two sandgrains, then,” said the treemage. “The single-grain tunnel will be tomorrow.”

They went back to work.

Anonoei had only one question for Wad. “These Sutahites, these Belmages. Are they manmages, then?”

“No,” said Wad.

“But they work in the same way. What my outself does, reaching into a person, persuading him—that’s what they do, only using their whole ka?”

“They can’t separate ka from ba, or so Kawab said.”

“Why can’t you just say yes or no?”