Jose Marquez wrote: > FelixEisen at aol.com wrote: >> >> Believe it or not, I got the impression that Vlad was, well ... barely >> tolerable as a sorcerer, passingly competent as a witch, and pretty >> good as a fencer -- but he clearly wasn't anywhere near the level of >> skill with the latter two as his grandfather. I also got the >> impression that Vlad was too, > > I would argue that Vlad is more than competent as a witch. Teleporting > the blood of a goddess from his apartment to the Paths of the Dead is, > in my opinion, an extraordinary feat; the resulting spell is one that > should put him on par with his grandfather. Agreed. Add to that his ability to successfully cast a modified spell originally designed to summon(?) a familiar *DURING* a swordfight in which he was doing a passable (albeit slowly failing) job of holding at bay a significantly superior opponent. Further consider: Noish-Pa told Vlad in _Jhereg_ that he could teach him nothing else of witchcraft, and to increase his abilities as a witch, Vlad would need to get a familiar. If we consider Noish-Pa to be an accomplished witch of great skill who has taught Vlad everything he can (and we take it as fact that Vlad has actually *learned* all that Noish-Pa has taught him of witchcraft), then I think it's fair to say that Vlad is an accomplished witch. -Rick