Iván Rebollo wrote: > Philip Hart wrote: > >> On Tue, 2 Sep 2003, Steven Brust wrote: > > >> > > Philip Hart writes: > > >> > > On the subject, I would like to once again assert that >> Morrolan's taking >> > > Blackwand into the Paths, when he fully expects to be staying, >> is an >> > > annoying flaw in _Taltos_, which if anyone can explain away I'd be >> > > grateful. >> > >> > Just an oversight on my part. I completely forgot that, when going >> into >> > great danger, someone who owns a powerful artifact that might save >> his life >> > will naturally leave this artifact behind. What was I thinking? >> >> While it seems like setting myself up as Job to continue the argument, >> Morrolan, to quote someone I tend to agree with, "fully expects to be >> staying." The main use for Blackwand I can see would be to slay all the >> Gods and destroy the control system of the Paths so he could walk out >> alive. As it happens, he makes no use of Blackwand per se. > > > I think that even if M did not think that he would be able to come > back, he had a task to perform in the paths helping Vlad and therefore > it would be useful to bring it, i.e. to fight against several dead > dragonlords. Actually, if Morrolan had not gone along, Vlad would not have faced several of the things he did, including the Dragonlords. Because Morrolan went, they had to follow the path Morrolan had memorized. Sethra had a different path for Vlad that presumably would not have tests specific to the House of the Dragon. And it makes perfect sense for Blackwand to go along; it is a part of Morrolan, more or less. Even if he expects to be staying in the Paths, having Blackwand around might be handy (it might, against all expectations, help him leave the Paths by operating in some arcane manner). Hey, if Kieron got to keep his for around 100,000 years before handing it off to Aliera, keeping a sword around is certainly possible. If the gods need to return Blackwand to Dragaera proper, it would probably not be very difficult. And he probably wouldn't care if nobody else had a shot at wielding it, since it is linked to him in such a personal way that the thought would probably never occur to him. Jose -- Jose Marquez jhereg69 at earthlink.net