<And yet, humans (of all sorts? One *knows* about Dragons) cherish the <right to have their bodies physically carried to Deathgate Falls and <sent over. One has even seen them swear "By my right to Deathgate . . ." <One would think, incidentally, that there is rather more traffic to and <from the falls than one sees in 'Yendi'. Unless the Easterner Taltos is <lying or omitting, he and Lord Morrolan met no-one but cat-centaurs on <that trip. They camped in the open. Yet, if funeral processions are <common, would there not be a road, possibly posting-houses? <Each House has a Book of the Paths of the Dead; Zerika studied that for <her House carefully before she made her attempt; and Lord Morrolan did <the same. In Dragon we see quite ordinary Dragon soldiers anointed for <Deathgate (even though for one poor fellow it makes no difference <whatsoever). I would like to point out that given that the vast majority people are Teckla. Teckla don't seem to be taken to deathgate falls (except maybe the political leaders during the reign of that house). Many of the other houses are made up of mostly craftsman and merchants. If you also consider the long life spans and low reproduction rate people worthy of deathgate wouldn't die all that often. It would seem that each House decides who is worthy of traveling to deathgate, in the house of the Dragon any soldier to die in battle would probably have this right along with the highest nobles. The majority of other people would not have this honor. An earth equivalent would be the death of celebrities. If we consider that a major celebrity dies every month or so, (along with 2 others at the same time for some reason). (You could argue that it happens more or less than that, but it's really not important.) The Dragaerian lifespan is about 30 times that of the human so it would be once every 30 months. Even if you argue that someone famous dies on a weekly basis given the equivalent lifespan it would be 30 times whatever your figure. So if there was no war I find it plausible that Vlad didn't meet anyone on his journey especially considering he didn't spend that much time at the falls and didn't make a return journey from there. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software