Some unsystematic comments on The Paths of the Dead: In Chapter 3, Skinter (aka Ka^na, but I'll go with Sethra [see below]) is talking to his cousin Habil (interestingly close to "habile"), who looks very much like his sister, a point Paarfi stresses (I wonder if there was innuendo about the two of them which Paarfi is preemptively shutting down - perhaps she survives the coming volumes, or they have children who are quick to take offense.) Habil tells him they must expand or collapse; Skinter mentions Adron's Disaster while "looking around nervously." It's interesting that Paarfi describes a Dragonlord as doing something nervously. On first reading I didn't really get what I think is the import of this line, which is that many buildings before the Interregnum were architecturally unsound and were propped up or at least maintained by magic. Presumably rebuilding one's home from scratch at regular 500 year intervals would be annoying. Another point from this conversation - Habil says the Empire managed with just one soldier per 1k peasants. This is useful in estimating the population of the Empire. Ro"aanac (with the diaresis or perhaps umlaut on the "o", not the first "a", interestingly) reminded me of a name somewhere LotR - maybe in the Hobbit, where there's a raven called Roac, but surely this is random. On rereading Pel's letter on his encounter with Sethra, which I praised in December, I find that his description is more accurate than I had at first thought. In particular, he writes "She went so far as to insist, using language that was unmistakable, that she questioned even Your Majesty's right to the duchy of Ka^na." This refers to Sethra's calling him "Skinter", his pre-Interregnum title. Note also that Sethra uses "well" three times in five brief addresses to Pel. I'm tempted to do a line-by-line expansion of the conversation but it seems sufficiently clear. Perhaps others in this list will find as I do some poignancy along with the humor in this passage - Sethra allows Pel an impatient sliver of an opportunity to plead his case by using the interrogative in "is our business concluded?" while Pel expresses both his regret that they are to be enemies and his respect for her in "To my regret, madam". In the letter itself I found it interesting that Pel writes "The Enchantress intends to oppose us" and not "oppose you". I think this is extremely familiar on a linguistic level (it should be "oppose Your Majesty and me" if anything) as well as conceptually, conflating Pel and Skinter. I suspect the translator is unfamiliar with courtly language conventions or Paarfi is telling us something about the depth of Pel's ambition. Does someone understand why the Necromancer, who comes from an entirely different world (the World of Seven Doors [see Chapter 18, and by the way are we getting some indicating of seven as a mystic number? In _Athyra_ Savn browses The Book of Seven Wizards if I remember correctly.]) shows up in a Dragaeran body? And are the gods responsible for other worlds? Pel's conversation with Khaavren in Chapter 13 is rather perplexing, in particular the bit where Pel looks at Daro to find her looking puzzled. I thought at first K was exaggerating his decrepitude in order to throw P off so he (K) could investigate in peace later. But surely P is too subtle to be misled, and anyway he just looks at D to confirm K is acting oddly. Aerich has some of Athos's inertia - he can't be bothered to go visit K, absent for such a long time? I commented on Chapter 19's interesting discussion about the Disaster in another thread. - Philip