[Dragaera] Jenoine, Humans, Gods-To-Be, Amorphia, Great Weapons, Barrett, and Various Combinations Thereof

[Scott Schultz]

I may well be wrong, but I've had the feeling all these years that, while he 
has a lot of the background laid out in his mind, Steve tends to make up a 
lot of stuff as he goes along. The business with Dolivar's soul was 
originally meant as a kind of irony, IMO. In _Jhereg_, Aliera implies that 
Dolivar's soul never went to the Halls. In a kind of metaphysical rebellion, 
he reincarnated as an Easterner instead.

Steve has said on at least one occasion that Aliera doesn't know nearly as 
much as she likes to think she does. ;-)

Since _Jhereg_, a lot of the backstory has grown and evolved, and the 
metaphysics behind the Empire have been developed and made more transparent. 
Sort of. It also has come to light that Vlad, and probably  the people he 
associates with, given that several are movers and shakers, has a destiny. 
It's also come to light that Verra seems to have a plan; at least, I think 
you'd find many readers who have that impression even if you had a hard time 
pinning down the specifics of it.

It's my gut feeling at this point that Dolivar's soul did, in fact, end up 
in the Halls of Judgement. Whether it got there by passing the Paths or it 
was plucked from the Plane of Waiting Souls or it was kidnapped by Verra is 
a bit moot. The fact is, that a soul that is perfectly suited to wielding 
Godslayer has defied convention and ended up in the body of a short-lived 
Easterner, who is under Verra's control (at least she has his loyalty up to 
a point) and who has, in fact, come into possession of Godslayer.

My theory on this is that Verra singled out Dolivar. Sethra tells Vlad that 
she feels that she, Dolivar, and Aliera-that-was may have all been marked 
out by the Gods for some grand purpose even back then at the beginnings of 
the Empire. If Vlad ever overcomes his compunction against learning about 
his past lives (put there by Verra, perhaps?) I'm guessing that he's going 
to find out that he's had only one past life - Dolivar. She "put his soul in 
a box", figuratively, and made sure that it did NOT reincarnate until she 
needed it, and then made sure that, against natural law, it incarnated into 
a being who would live just long enough to do the job she needs to have 
done.

Verra may not even know what that purpose may be. She just "knows" in the 
same way that she "knew" that she should give a vial of her blood to Vlad. 
Hence her caution and mistrust of Vlad since he came into possession of Lady 
Teldra. She has great affection for him, but as long as he has the power to 
terminate her, she doesn't trust him farther than she can throw him. She put 
the soul in him; she knows what it's capable of. I expect that she would 
kill him without compunction once his purpose is served. (In a world where 
reincarnation is an established fact, death isn't nearly as awful a 
punishment, metaphysically speaking, as it might be otherwise.)