From: "Robert Borski" <rborski@coredcs.com>
Subject: (urth) Agia: Thief?
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 12:00:15 

raster having written: 

"But it occurs to me that your theory can still be salvaged.  If
Agia isn't trying to filch the Claw, then she must be after the
keys.  We know S. has the door keys; where else would he carry them
but his sabretache?  Agia doubtless assumes that he has the key to
Agilus's chains as well."

Actually, I like this notion rather well. And I don't think the coins
theory can be totally discounted either, since Agia takes the orichalk Sev
tosses her.

Re Agia as the Claw's thief. I've already stated I find this difficult to
accept, and wonder what mantis or other proponents of the Agia-as-thief
theory make of the following scene in SWORD. Sev wants the Claw back from
the cacogens, and Barbatus asks, "If it is yours, where did you get it?"
Sev lays his Agia theory on him, but Barbatus seems almost incensed by
this. "All this is speculation. You did not see this jewel upon the altar,
nor did you feel the woman's hand when she gave it to you, if in fact she
did. _Where did you get it?_" (p. 271, and these are Wolfe's italics, not
mine.)

Baldander's answer to the same question--'I got it from the drawer in a
table'--also does not seem to satisfy Barbatus, and not much later
Famulimus says to Sev, as they're walking to their timeship, "Though you
did not now pass our test..."

It seems to me that passing "the test" somehow involves correctly answering
the question, "Where did you get it?" What think you?

Re: EMPIRES OF FOLIAGE AND FLOWERS. I have a copy of the non-deluxe edition
I'll let go for $175.00. It is a nice book, but perhaps too much so--I'm
afraid to handle it, fearing fingerprints or drool may soil it.

Robert Borski 

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/