On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > --- Philip Hart <philiph at slac.stanford.edu> wrote: > > > ambition. SKZB may know someone like Vlad (perhaps from shaving). > > Shaving? I meant, from looking in the mirror. > Well, I still had trouble with Mellar's plan. And it seems that > someone should be able to find Vlad with witchcraft or sorcery or > the kind of combination he and Cawti and Daymar use to find Mellar. > Make him a "homing" amulet or something. Or use the method at the > end of _Orca_. Vlad comments somewhere that the Jhereg would find it humiliating to go to a witch. Note that V may have a countercharm. Note also that one of Verra's aspects might be helping to shield him. As far as the trick with Daymar is concerned, this might require Daymar. And perhaps witches wouldn't like helping the Jhereg go after Vlad. The _Orca_ method requires contact with Loiosh - sort of a Catch-22, also a limitation on the use of witchcraft. I can imagine that V cleaned up all traces of his DNA at the end of _Phoenix_. > One of these days I'm going to post what Vlad *really* should have > done in _Jhereg_. But it might be reasonable that he missed it, > considering the pressure of events. Why wait? The list is going to be swamped with _TEoDM_ talk soon... > > Put the damn rock in a different room. Use a concealment not subject to > > Spellbreaker. > > Then Morrolan and Aliera track the flow of sorcerous energy starting > from the amorphia stream, or Aliera uses Pathfinder, or they wander > into the storage room with Verra and she says, "Kyrancteur!" (I kind > of like that last one.) Why is one of these better than another? Your elaboration requires some minimal intelligence from M/A for once and makes the J a bit more believable. Maybe Vlad could have used some of that interpersonal intelligence to figure out the viewpoint to find the stone. For that matter, he might have communed with the stone - he says it might be sentient... > Sethra, yes, but have Morrolan and Aliera been thwarting them at all? Sethra says GW-wielders are important, I believe S. > > I think Vlad is altered in _I_, as opposed to growing. Ok, he has > > learned some things - things he might have been expected to know > > before the novel. > > I think having a little more consideration for others counts as > growing. But does he have that? Before the Issola injection? > Steven keeps saying he likes Vlad, so I doubt Vlad will alter out > of recognition. I'm just saying that in future we're going to be asking the Necromancer's question a lot - Is that you, or is it Teldra talking?