At 01:54 PM 8/19/2003 -0400, Alexx S Kay wrote: > > > > Warning: There Be Spoilers Ahead > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . > > . >Hasn't Steve mentioned that this story extends past Vlad's time? That >would let him kill off characters late in the book, but still have them >around for Vlad to interact with. It would even be consistent with Dumas; >while Dumas discusses D'Artagnan's death, it happens many years after the >primary action of the book has concluded. Hmmm... I thought I had seen something which implied that the next book would be dealing with events that took place during the first year of Zerika's reign. OTOH, you did remind me that D'Artagnan's death does take place in an epilogue that takes place well after the other events. Given that Brust could still do both things, have the next book cover another year or so in the main story, then have an epilogue that takes place many years later (after Vlad's time), wherein a number of the characters are killed off. We'll have to wait 8 months to find out. > > My wild (and unsupported by textev) theory is that Piro will now end up as > > the Demon of the Jhereg. It's hard to reconcile with some of the things > > Vlad has said about the Demon, but not impossible, > ><skeptical frown> Checking my timeline, Vlad makes two references to the >Demon's age, which each place him as at least 300 years older than Piro. >There's also the claim that he took a seat on the Jhereg Council "just >after" the Interregnum, which would have to be an awfully fast series of >promotions from "entry-level highwayman". To defend this wild theory, let me just say that Vlad could be a poor judge of someone's age and the life of a bandit (and emotional pain caused by his new choices) may cause Piro to look older than he really is. "Just after" is a difficult phrase, although we know that elves have a different sense of time from humans, but perhaps the rebuilding Jhereg council would see some benefit to quickly advancing the son of the Captain of the Phoenix Guards. OTOH, your skepticism is not without merit, I doubt it myself. It was just a fun idea that occurred to me. We speculate endlessly on who Mario might be, but I haven't heard much discussion about the Demon. Charley Sumner charles_sumner at harvard.edu "Let's not jump to any conclusions." "I didn't jump. I took a tiny step, and there conclusions were." Buffy the Vampire Slayer - "Phases"