>anybody fully understand how Vlad got them out of the >paths? Also, the vial of "god blood" that Kiera gave >to Vlad, was that actually blood, or was it, rather, >just an artifact from their world that would >facilitate his witchcraft. Also, how did that spell >work? I couldn't figure it out. The vial was actually the blood of a god, just as Kiera claimed. Vlad and Aliera had already been given leave to go. Morollan more or less gave himself a witchcraft-based IV of the stuff. According to Verra, the Paths cannot hold a god. Whatever it is about the Paths that drains the soul of a Dragaeran, it is ineffective against the Gods because of something about their blood. Aliera has "god's blood" by virtue of being the offspring of Verra. She could safely leave whenever she wanted to. (Sleeping there was apparently still a bad idea though.) Vlad had been given a dispensation. It's possible (though unlikely) that the Paths can't hold an Easterner either. The Gods, however, could easily hold such a foolish Easterner until he fell asleep and died as a result. Either way, Vlad isn't likely to go back for a second trip. Morollan became infused with the blood of a god and the magical forces that fence in the Paths either didn't recognize him as being mortal or were unable to get a grip on his soul thanks to the protection of the blood. (I'd assume the protection was temporary and that Morollan is also unlikely to engage in a return trip the Paths.) As for how Vlad's spell worked, the answer depends on what you're really asking. What he did in scientific terms was to create a wormhole and pull something through it. Easterner witchcraft is all about building up a reserve of your personal psychic energy and then unleashing it to produce a change of some kind in the universe around you. Sorcery is left-brain; logical, precise, quantitative. Witchcraft is right-brain; creative, emotional, improvisational. Because of that, Easterner witchcraft resembles "real world" magic that relies on the "law of similarities". That is, the symbol IS the object. Vlad also uses a lot of what we would call "self-hynosis" techniques to achieve the proper state of mind for spell-casting. Vlad essentially creates a symbol for "here" and a symbol for "there", draws a symbolic connection between them and, when he's achieved what he deems to be the proper psychic state, coerces the universe into making the connection real. Essentially, what you see is Vlad "winging it". He's creating an effect from scratch and, additionally, an effect that has probably never been done before. Therefore, he doesn't have a set formula for going about it. Instead, he puts himself into a receptive state of mind, visualizes his goal,and lets his subconcious give him hints as to what to do. Each of the components of the spell is a symbol that, used properly, helps him to build up the proper amount of psychic power and direct it in the proper direction to achieve his goal. If you asked him afterwards why he did certain things, he'd just say "It felt right." Another witch repeating the experiment might use a different rune or might use an implement other than an enchanted dagger or might do everything entirely different. The components are only important to the extent that they facilitate the ability of the witch to control his power and exert his will in order to bring about the desired result. The final result is an emotional catharsis and physical lassitude (which Vlad says he'd compare to sexual climax if it wasn't already an over-used metaphor) and the witch either succeeds or fails. Failure tending to result in various Bad Things up to and including madness and death if the forces being manipulated generated a strong enough backlash. That's a long answer to a short question, so hopefully you found the answer you wanted in there somewhere. *heh* While Vlad has obviously never visited an amusement park, I'd compare a witchcraft spell to a ride on Splash Mountain. You board the ride from a set starting point, you arrange your packages in a way that they'll hopefully be with you when you finish, you start down the flume, noticing certain that you've never noticed before and missing other things that you've noticed often, going up and down and building up the excitement until you come into sight of the final rise, at which point you know there's no possible way of getting out of the log no matter how frightening the final drop is and you anticpate and anticipate and hang on for dear life and then you're SCREAMING DOWN THE FINAL FLUME and *SPLASH!* and you have the final minute or so of just floating gently on the return stream and you feel that great sense of both exhilaration and relief before you realize you lost your sunglasses in the ride. ;-P