Sunday August 1st, 1999
Several questions were posted this week about the cast of the Conclave series. Most were about possible appearances of Erik, Roo, Dash or Jimmy, and what happens to the Serpentwar heroes after Shards of a Broken Crown. Ray posted a few different messages about the topic:
I am not going to follow Dash and James. You will catch glimpses of James in the Conclave of Shadows series, but I don't know about Dash. But we pick up maybe 30 years after the end of Shards, with Patrick on the thone.
There is no need in the new books to make any reference to Roo, Erik, Luis, etc. given who they were and where they were. It would be as false as having a character left over from a novel set in Los Angeles, showing up 30 years later and at some pont having him say, 'You know, I used to know these guys out in L.A.,' and then having him drone on to fill in background and history. As those characters have no bearing on the current story it would be false.
Feel free to make up your own ending for Roo, Luis, and Erik's lives. Stick them into the 'happily ever after,' category.
You know how governments are: Roo got some of his money back, but I believe I had him reflecting on that at one point in Shards, that he'd never get back half of what he had put in. I think he also recognized the hand of Duke James somewhere in his success, so he didn't feel as if he was cheated somehow. He probably also realized late in life that the game was what was important to him, the earning the money as opposed to having it.
