I have been lurking till now, but am moved to reply to this. I agree and I add in evidence that she was apparently unaware what happened to Aliera's sole, which has now been captured by Grita, to many later regrets. So Sethra knows a lot, but not everything. On Mon, 23 Dec 2002, Andrew Lias wrote: > * * * * SPOILERS * * * * > > >Subject: > >In Which the Plot of "The Viscount of Adrilankha", > >Much in the Manner of a Lady Who Has Dared to Sport a > >Bold New Style, Is Discussed (which discussion > >contains information that may spoil certain surprises > >to the reader unfamiliar with the volume "Paths of the > >Dead"). > > This is a magnificent post and I only wish that I could follow it up in the > same style. Alas, my time is too constrained (which is, to say, that this > is not a constraint of wits, or so I would hope) to reply in kind. As such, > I must content our gentle readership with a brief note, indeed, barely a > sketch, against that day that I may frame a proper reply on the order of > five to six-thousand pages (though any amount of mere text must be > understood to be secondary to the quality of the words that they encypher; > as such I can only endeavor that this future response shall constain an > abundance of quality to match the quantity obtained even as I hope that this > very reply that I am composing on this Universal Turing Machine that I > pretend to call a Computer shall quality in excess of its brevity). > > That said, I have a hypothesis, although one that can neither, I believe, be > verified nor discounted at this present point. It is my suspicion that > Sethra did *not* ascertain the survival of the Orb until shortly before the > events depicted. Certainly, given that it resides in the very Halls of > Judgement and given that Sethra does not have free access to those self-same > Halls, and, certainly, given that ordinary sorcery no longer obtains, even a > one as powerful and perceptive as Sethra may have had to spend some small > amount of time determining that the Orb survived that grand and terrible > Cataclysm that we pretend to call The Interregnum, and then, once that > information was secured, calling forth her talents to discern its location. > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 3 months FREE*. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail&xAPID=42&PS=47575&PI=7324&DI=7474&SU= > http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg&HL=1216hotmailtaglines_smartspamprotection_3mf >