--- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: [spoiler space -- for _Orca _ -- left intact] [of _Taltos_:] > My take is that Sethra can't be seen to leave Dzur > mountain; its neccessary for people to believe > she's still there. That prevents her from leading > a siege, but not from disguising herself and > visiting a bar. I tend to agree; or, possibly, as someone else suggested, that she couldn't leave for long. > Of course, I think that whole book was just a scheme > by Sethra (or Verra) to put M&A in Vlad's debt. > Surely Morrolan was competent enough to lead such a > siege were that a viable option. Either Verra or Sethra could have laid a plan of that sort for the raid on Loraan's keep. (And Vlad found Spellbreaker then, which we know after _Issola_ to have been an event of cosmic significance.) But I don't think Sethra would have deliberately engineered events to send Vlad to the Paths of the Dead, unless, possibly, all of the talk about Vlad being unable to return if he fell asleep was a bluff. It was cut too close; it's similar to Morrolan's comment in _Yendi_ that if he'd been standing closer to Norathar than Aliera was when they teleported in, he would have taken her soul with Blackwand. I don't think Sethra would have risked that. Verra, on the other hand, might have. And Verra might also have counted on her ability to get Vlad out of the Paths by one means or another -- it was Devera who kept him awake, wasn't it? Can anyone make sense of Kiera's subsequent comment, in _Orca_ I think it was, that Verra had said it was important for Vlad to have the vial (consistent with the theory above); and Verra herself didn't know why (very difficult to explain)? A flat lie (by Verra, or Kiera)? Or could it be something stranger? -- Greg __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day http://shopping.yahoo.com