On Wed, 19 Oct 2005, Davdi Silverrock wrote: > One possibility is that Pathfinder was smoothing the way for Baritt so > as to manipulate events so that eventually it would come into Aliera's > possession - without Baritt knowing why he was so successful. Nice idea, though it would be surprising for Baritt not to notice - he comes across the sword, and all of a sudden it's oh what a beautiful morning. For that matter why stop at B, why not have P manipulating everybody? It's sort of like the hero in that first Xanth book whose talent is more or less to have everything go his way. > I am not sure that Pathfinder disguised itself, but I think it > reasonable to conclude that Baritt *didn't*. I mean, why would he? > If he really had Pathfinder, in its undisguised form, and was linked > to it, he would have no reason not to carry it around and show it off. Assuming he wasn't linked, the sword would be a serious temptation to anyone interested in either attempting a link or just having the thing. And by not advertising P he gets to wow the babes and mystify his enemies.