“So when he possesses somebody, you have to kill the person he possessed?” asked Veevee. “That seems really final.”
“It doesn’t even work,” said Danny. “The Belmage isn’t dead. You can’t kill the ka or the ba. They don’t die. I mean, the ones truly attached to human bodies die, but that only means they’re cut loose from the body. The ka and ba are still alive. That’s why we can still hold on to the gates of these mages who’ve been dead for a thousand years. They’re severed from a ka that’s still alive … somewhere. But the Belmage-he didn’t really have a body, so he’s not changed by the death of the body. He just goes on to another.”
“You’re saying that these Belmages are the only ones who reincarnate.”
“I don’t know, that’s not the way they discussed it. I don’t know what happens to regular people who die in the regular way. This is a memory so I couldn’t exactly ask questions,” said Danny. “And here’s the thing. The Belmages were really bad at this at first. They aren’t manmages. They aren’t any kind of mage. So they don’t have powers the way we do. What they have is a lot of practice. They’ve been diving into people, getting whatever control they can, for ten thousand years. Even Loki hasn’t lived that long. So the smartest, the best of them-the Belmage. The Enemy. The great Dragon. That one is the most powerful, the one that has acquired the greatest skill. He’s learned ways of getting inside people that are far more powerful than any of the other castoffs.”
“So what Loki realized,” said Hermia.
“What made him close the gates,” said Veevee.
“Was the realization that the Dragon had finally figured out how to attach himself so firmly to a person that he could ride him through a gate.”
“Oh my,” said Veevee.
“Think about it. The presence of a Belmage inside you, being possessed-that’s a disease. Isn’t it? Passing through a gate should cast him off.”
“But people holding hands with other people can take them through a gate,” said Hermia.
“Holding hands. Two people with their own bodies. But this extra, this rider, this possessor, he gets cast out. What do you think Jesus was? Healing people, casting out devils.”
“Oh, you’re saying he was a Gatefather?” asked Veevee.
“This isn’t from the hermit, we’re away from what Loki learned, the hermit wasn’t going to say anything that denied the divinity of Jesus. Let’s get back to what Loki knew. He realized that the Belmages were learning how to attach to people in such a way that they could go through gates. I think that’s what’s really going on with that passage from the Library of Congress. That Belmage had taken possession of a gatemage. The Loki of that time didn’t realize what was going on. He thought that the gatemage he saw in the body was his enemy. But it was the Belmage inside him. So when the Loki of that ancient time fought the Belmage, he actually killed the poor sap of a Gatefather that the Belmage had possessed. The Belmage himself never left this world. He couldn’t actually pass through a gate. He could use the power of the Gatefather he was controlling to make gates, but he couldn’t go through them. And sending him through one threw him out of the body.”
“This isn’t what you remember from Loki,” said Hermia.
“No, sorry, no, it just makes sense now, that’s all. And I don’t remember-I mean, I didn’t find out why Loki knew that the Belmage of his time was getting ready to go through gates. The Dragon was probably riding a Gatefather at the time, so Loki ate all that Gatefather’s gates-not killing him. That made the Gatefather useless to the Dragon. He’d leave him then, see? Because he was powerless. But he would just have found another gatemage. Or he would have gotten into anybody and then gone through a Great Gate and magnified his power and so-”
“So Loki ate all the gates, and kept eating them,” said Hermia. “Until we brilliantly came along and made a Great Gate after all.”
“And put a Wild Gate out in the world,” said Danny. “I have so totally screwed up.”
“No, Loki screwed up,” said Veevee. “He should have realized that someday there’d come along a Gatefather who was even more powerful than he is, and he’d eat his gates. He had to know it.”
“Maybe that’s why he woke up from the tree he was living in, because he knew I existed.” Danny stopped himself. “More speculation, more guessing. What we know is this. Loki realized he had to close all the gates to keep the Dragon and his followers, these loose kas and bas, from taking over everything.”
“I’m still not getting it,” said Veevee. “So they can use gates.”
“I get it,” said Hermia. “As long as using a gate stripped them out of you, all you had to do to cast a devil out of somebody was to pass him through a gate. But if they can stay, then nothing casts them out except death itself. Whoever they take over is possessed till they die. And the Dragon or his devils, they don’t die when the human dies, they just find another powerful mage to possess. Human life is ruled by these guys forever.”
“Human life is over,” said Danny. “Only the Belmages have a life. Everybody else is forced to be their puppets. To be spectators in their own lives.”
“So all these years that Loki has prevented Great Gates,” said Veevee, “these Belmages have been possessing people, and because there were no gates, nobody could get rid of them.”
“True,” said Danny. “That’s why it’s all about the Great Gates. When Loki did it, Westil was still free of the Belmages. They had never been able to make the passage-till then. So Loki kept Westil completely free of the Belmages. And even here, he kept all the mages weak by preventing their passage between worlds. So the Belmages could never get control of any real power. For all we know, they’ve been leaving mages like us alone, and concentrating on the people who actually run this world.”
“Stalin, not Odin,” said Veevee.
“Hitler, not Jupiter,” said Hermia.
“But now imagine Hitler with the power of a Tempester or a Tidefather or a Stonefather-one who’s passed through a Great Gate. Because just supposing Hitler was really a Belmage possessing this Austrian painter dude, then Hitler didn’t really die in that bunker in Berlin in 1945. The poor sap he was riding died. But the Dragon just cut himself loose and went in search of somebody else.”
“So maybe we’re fighting all the monsters of history here,” said Veevee.
“No, Loki was fighting them,” said Danny. “And I just wrecked everything. I just lost him his war.”
“Nothing’s lost yet,” said Veevee.
“And there’s also this,” said Hermia. “I think it’s all merde.”
Danny looked at her blankly. “What are you talking about? You think I got the memories wrong?”
“I think you probably got them exactly right,” said Hermia. “But just because one ancient man said it to another ancient man-and let’s remember, one was a crazy Christian hermit living in a cave, and the other was Loki, for heaven’s sake-just because they believe it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“But just because you don’t believe it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“Look at how you got all this information,” said Hermia. “You put yourself into a hallucinogenic trance. You were sitting there in the Egyptian sun, baking, not drinking, not eating, not moving, just locked in place, having hallucinations while conversing with-whom? Why, crazy Loki’s outself! Do you see how absolutely unreliable this is?”
“No, I don’t,” said Danny. “Loki’s a smart guy.”
“Being smart and being a loon aren’t mutually exclusive,” said Hermia. “You’re smart and you’re a complete loon.”