I recently reread "Teckla" for the first time since it originally came out (I freely admit it is my least favorite of Mr. Brust's works), and I found that it was quite a different book than I remembered. I though the book was advocating "Vlad good, Kelly bad", but upon rereading, I think I got it backwards. If this was obvious to everyone else, well, it wouldn't be the first time... Kelly is portrayed as a fairly unoffensive character. The worst thing he does is chew out Cawti (well, unless you disagree with his entire ideology, which I do). The suprising thing I noticed on rereading was that Vlad appears, at times, to be reduced to nothing but a Socratic foil: Kelly states a belief, and Vlad reacts in a manner that, BY COMPARISON, makes Kelly's beliefs appear reasonable (or at least more level-headed). If you hadn't noticed, reread the parts of "Teckla" that involve Vlad and Kelly talking to one another. Kelly states a moral principle, and Vlad responds by... threatening him... saying something sarcastic and off-point, or just plain dumb. Compare and contrast his offer of gold to Sethra in "Taltos"... now _there_ was a brilliant, to-the-point use of sarcasm. I guess the whole Cawti thing had Vlad's wit distracted... Incidentaly, Vlad's line to Sethra in "Taltos" is my 2nd favorite line in all of Brust's books... my favorite being Morrolan's response to Paarfi's--I mean, Fentor's--reluctance to get to the point in "The Lord of Castle Black", page 196 of the hardcover: 'Morrolan groaned softly, clenched and unclenched his fist, then said, very carefully...' I swear to you, I was groaning and clenching and unclenching my hand as I read that very line... Bryan ...wait, that's NOT what I meant!