> One of the things that might be an inconsistency in the tales of > Dragaera is that Vlad (and Cawti) appear to be familiar with > Paarfi's works, despite the fact that /The Phoenix Guards/ seems > to have been published 80 or 90 years after Vlad's current time. Comments on this theory aside (which appears reasonable), I can confirm that Vlad and Kiera both are familiar with TPG: "...Just let me drink a cup of this poison." "Poison? I thought you liked klava." "She's out of honey," [Vlad] said, practically snarling. "Be back in a minute," I said. By the time the klama was done, I was back with a crock of honey, and Vlad said, "You must be sure to permit me to be cut into pieces for you sometime." "Been reading Paarfi again?" _ORCA_, pg 142 (Ace Fantasy paperback ed) I suppose, however, that Paarfi may have used this idiom in an unknown work available in the middle of the third century of Zerika's reign, later re-using it in TPG, a theory independent (though not quite to elegant) as the one mentioned above. Peter / Yaga