[Dragaera] Some speculation about The Silver Tiassa -- SPOILERS

[Alexx Kay]

> Y
> A
> D
> D
> A
> -
> Y
> A
> D
> D
> A
> -
> Y
> A
> D
> D
> A
> -
> Y
> A
> D
> D
> A
> -
>
> Vlad owns the tiassa during the time period when he is on the rise within
> the Organization. It's been noted in the past that he rose through the
> ranks
> quicker than almost anybody else ever has, even taking his short lifespan
> into account. He lived or died several times on both his intuition and his
> ability to concoct a plot during that time. How much of his success is, in
> fact, due to the influence of the silver tiassa in helping him make the
> kinds of connections, mental and social, that made him successful? When he
> comes up with the teleport spell that pulls the vial of a god's blood
> across
> the dimensions from one world to another, a feat never before accomplished
> by a witch to his knowledge, are we seeing the influence of the silver
> tiassa?

Only if the tiassa's can have effects outside of the temporal span of its
ownership.  Vlad gains the tiassa after the main storyline of _Dragon_,
and gives it up well before _Jhereg_.  So the witchcraft teleportation,
and his out-thinking of Mellar, both happened when he wasn't in possession
of it.  So he only had it during _Yendi_, bits of _Tiassa_ itself, and
possibly the frame sequence of _Dragon_.

(If I were Brust, I would have made that placement quite deliberate, in
order not to cheapen Vlad's accomplishments in all the earlier books.)

Alexx

"Please don't take the world-sterilizing stellar flare
 which follows in the wrong spirit."  -- James Nicoll