* * * * SPOILERS * * * * > Maybe the speculative-minded could figure out who VN got his soul from... My brother has an idea about this; I believe I've shared it with you all before, but here it is again: Kieron. Why? It works like this: Kieron gave Aliera his sword in the Paths of the Dead in Taltos, and told her not to "give it to another or let it be taken from" her. If she does, he says "I'll come and take it." She promptly turns around and gives it to Sethra the Younger, who plans to invade the East with it. So where is Kieron? Perhaps he kept his word, and came back to get his sword. And, assuming he doesn't came back as the Undead, maybe he came back via reincarnation. But as who? "Kieron the Conquerer. Father of the Dragaeran Empire, elder of the proudest of lines of the House of the Dragon, hero of myth and legend, first of the great Dragaeran butchers of the Easterners" comes back to reclaim his sword from a Dragonlord anxious to use it in precisely the manner he himself once used it, reincarnated as an Easterner and son of the (soul)brother who betrayed him: VN. Bryan