>> Just a wild thought - perhaps she was captured by the Lunars
>> and they either didn't realise who she was or they referred
>> the matter up the command line and she escaped before they
>> decided what to do with her.
>
>I'm sorry, but I just don't believe the Lunars could be that incompetent at
>this stage. Didn't recognise her? She's got a crystal embedded in her skull.
>A little bit obvious? Captured and then escaped, maybe (she seems to make a
>habit of it), but that can't have introduced much a delay.
Never underestimate the incompetancy of a bureaucracy. A junior officer in some out of the way place sends a message claiming to have captured Kallyr Starbrow and asking for instructions. The general's aide, newly arrived from the Heartlands, goes "Who? some chieftain's floozy no doubt." puts it into the pile of things to mention when the general's got some spare time and promptly forgets about it. Several weeks later the junior officer sends a message to say that rebels have freed the prisoner and all hell breaks loose.
Several months would require an extraordinary string of co-incidences but while the Empire has couriers and moonboats for high level communications the average company commander will not expect a reply to any message earlier than the time it takes someone to walk there and back. Which in the backwoods of Sartar is likely to be measured in weeks rather than days.
>> True, it doesn't seem very heroic just running out of time.
>> Perhaps the Lunars should interfere and delay or break the quest.
>> By this time Tatius has a lot of magicians and there aren't many
>> ideas for what they're all doing.
>
>Only works if they realise what she's up to, but it's an interesting
>possibility.
Why? Disrupting your enemy's plans even when you don't precisely know what they are is a standard military tactic. And HQing involves a lot of people with conflicting objectives trying to swing the quest in their favour. I would think any quest by either side is going to get a serious amount of opposition from the other.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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