>AFB, but Vlad said something similar to "my soul would have gone to feed a >sentience in six inches of steel" in Jhereg (I think). It's the sort of >line that sticks with you. Maybe "feed" is being used metaphorically >there, but I got the impression from other bits in other books that >they're actually eating the souls. I remember that -- I really got the impression that it was metaphorical, in the sames sense that we talk about feeding wood to a fire. Of course, this is blurred by the fact that MWs, unlike fire, actually do appear to have some level of sentience, making them more akin to living beings, but I don't get the impression that they have metabolisms. We don't see them, for instance, excreting anything after they've consumed a soul, nor do they appear to have anything like respiration, growth, or reproduction. As such, pending any evidence for a metabolism (which is the whole reason that living organisms feed upon other things), I don't think that an MW "eating" a soul is really like it *eating* a soul. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus