Scott Schultz wrote on Tue, 25 Jan 2005 14:01:25 -0800 >Hehe. Continuing the soap opera theme of the day: >[Somewhen in the Paths of the Dead] >Kieron: I can't BELIEVE she gave my sword away after I warned her not to! >I'm going out there to teach her a lesson she won't soon forget! >Verra: Without the orb or a divine transfusion, the only way you're getting >out of here is as a vampire. Unless, of course, you finally get >reincarnated. Hi, I felt Cawti needed a very good reason to keep the secret. I was so hoping the reason wasn't going to turn out that the secret had Kieron's soul. But these recent threads and a little rereading of Phoenix, Lesson 17... If Cawti *KNEW* when Vlad leaves... Vlad says "'First you tell me--are you coming back to me?' She didn't look away, as I'd expected. Instead she studied me carefully, as one studies a stranger whose mood and meaning one is trying to read from his face. She didn't say anything, which I think was an answer." The Book of Taltos, Phoenix, Lesson 17, page 384. She had a very good reason. She knew Vlad. She knew what he had just gone through in Teckla and Phoenix to save her. She's standing there looking at Vlad and wanting to tell him. But if she tells him, he won't leave. She knows he won't last long if he stays around. She is trying to save him by not telling him. On Kieron leaving the Paths: Aliera talking to Kieron: "'You may escort us out of the Paths, to make up for your lack of courtesy.' He started to smile, stopped. He said, 'I do not choose to leave again. I have done--' 'Nothing for two hundred thousand years. Isn't that long enough?' The Book of Taltos, Taltos, Chapter 15, page 151. Again? Could Aliera be right and Kieron could just escort them out of the Paths? Verra talking about Morrolan: "It is the nature of this place. The living are simply unable to return. Perhaps he can become undead, and leave that way. There are those who have managed this. I believe you know Sethra Lavode, for instance." The Book of Taltos, Taltos, Chapter 15, page 155. Sethra came to the Paths alive and left undead. Kieron is a shade. There just might be another way for Kieron to leave the Paths besides reincarnation. A baby would not have done much good against Those We Do Not Name. Of course, time does run differently in the Paths. >From the Paths of the Dead. "I meant help of a more practical kind. Those We Do Not Name may become active the instant this Phoenix emerges with the Orb, if, indeed, she does so." ... "Verra said, 'We could send them Kieron the Conqueror. His shade has been been here longer than any other, and I know he would like nothing better than to go forth and engage in battle once more.'" The Paths of the Dead, Chapter the Eighteenth, paperback, page 183. Bye. Linda G.