Jhereg - An Introduction and Prologue
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i_read_whatI mentioned before, I think, that my preference when it comes to both reading and reviewing long series is to go in publication order. It just works best, in my opinion, when you can jump in with an author and watch their talents and the concept of their universe develop naturally.
Most of the time, this isn't too arduous or confusing. Some series, like the Drizzt books, might go back for an origin story, but once you're past that point, smooth out into something vaguely chronological. Other series, like L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s Recluse novels or C. J. Cherryh's Alliance-Union, will just take place anywhere in the timeline, but each book (or subseries) tends to involve brand new characters and events, so there's no need to keep track of what did, or did not, come before.
But then there's Vlad fucking Taltos. This guy stars in a series that is, by this point in time, fifteen books long. Not counting the Alexandre Dumas parody prequel novels or Brokedown Palace. And none of these fucking books are in any kind of comprehensible order.
Actually, that's not true. There IS a fairly distinct narrative timeline going on, if you go through Jhereg-Teckla-Phoenix-Athyra-Orca-Issola...
The PROBLEM is that Jhereg is book 1 in the series, Teckla is book 3, Phoenix, Athyra and Orca are actually 5, 6 and 7, but book 11 (Jhegaala) actually takes place in between Phoenix and Athyra...
That's not even getting into how Dragon (book 8) takes place both before and after Yendi (book 2). Or Tiassa (book 13) has segments that take place at three different points of the timeline. Trying to read this series in chronological order is like trying to sort Highlander episodes by the date of their flashbacks. It's just not doable. (Though it might be hilarious to try.)
The thing is, IF you read this series in publication order, it does make sense. Book 2 takes place before Book 1, but it expands on something mentioned in that book, and thematically leads into Book 3. Vlad's character development is surprisingly consistent. Vlad in the early parts of Tiassa reads like the Vlad in Jhereg. And so on and so forth. It's quite elegant!
It's also really fucking hard to explain to anyone who hasn't read the series. And completely irrelevant for the moment, because I haven't signed on to review the entire series (...yet). I'm only reviewing the first one. Jhereg. Which came out in 1983, the year I was born.
So I probably should discuss what I remember of this series. It's fantasy, with a very involved, developed setting. But definitely more Leiber than Tolkien in tone. In style, it actually reminds me more of the Dresden Files or the Vampire Files. Though where Jack is a white knight with a dark side, and Harry often feels like his author is aiming for Jack but doesn't always hit exactly, Vlad is more of a work in progress. Dude's an assassin, after all. And a bit of a dick. I remember liking him though.
So here we are, at a prologue, where Vlad poetically muses about the similarity between the feel of a breeze and a knife blade on the back of the neck. This probably represents some kind of recurring bit of imagery through the book (I feel like I remember Brust likes that kind of thing). Mostly though, it's a segue into a childhood flashback.
In the flashback, Vlad is eleven years old and working at the restaurant owned by his father. And we get establishing bits about the setting here:
The table in the corner was a deuce. One male, one female. Both Dragaeran, of course. For some reason, humans rarely came into our place; perhaps because we were human too, and they didn’t want the stigma, or something. My father himself always avoided doing business with other “Easterners.”
There are two races: Dragaeran and "Easterner". The former are not human. There's a social divide. Actually, a funny little setting bit that we'll see later is that Dragaerans refer to themselves as "humans" and refer to Easterners as something else entirely. But that's for later.
I will say, from the perspective of a human reader, the Easterners are a lot closer to what I recognize as human. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
Anyway, Vlad's clearing a table, offended by the fact that there is no tip, when something happens:
I turned as one member of the threesome let his head fall into his plate of lyorn leg with red peppers. My father had let me make the sauce for it that time, and, crazily, my first thought was to wonder if I’d built it wrong.
The other two stood up smoothly, seemingly not the least bit worried about their friend. They began moving toward the door, and I realized that they were planning to leave without paying. I looked for my father, but he was in back.
Little Vlad initially thinks they're skipping out on the bill, when he notices a dagger sticking out of the dead guy's throat. Vlad, wisely, decides not to ask them for money. That said, one of the assassins decides to be a dick and menace a little kid. Vlad feels a knife blade against the back of his neck and:
Then I heard a soft, almost silky voice in my ear. “You didn’t see a thing,” it said. “Got that?” If I had had as much experience then as I do now, I would have known that I was in no real danger—if he’d had any intention of killing me he would have done so already. But I didn’t, and so I shook. I felt I should nod, but couldn’t manage.
This doesn't go unnoticed though, as a Dragaeran girl comes over from another table to offer a shaking Vlad some reassurance. Vlad's father comes out at this time too, sees the dead guy, and goes off to be sick. Baby Vlad is ashamed for him, because baby Vlad is a bit of a dick.
We get a description of the girl though, which gives us some more setting info in the process:
Girl? I really couldn’t judge her age at all, but, being Dragaeran, she could be anywhere from a hundred to a thousand years old. Her clothing was black and gray, which I knew meant she was of House Jhereg. Her companion, who was now approaching us, was also a Jhereg. The three who had been at the other table were of the same House. Nothing of any significance there; it was mostly Jhereg, or an occasional Teckla (each Dragaeran House bears the name of one of our native creatures), who came into our restaurant.
So now you start to see why I tend to think the Easterners are a bit more accurate when they call themselves "humans". Dragaerans are basically the setting's equivalent of dickhead elves. They have Houses, named after animals, that have a social significance. They're also like seven feet tall. That's not been mentioned yet, but it will be, so I'm throwing it in now.
The girl's name is Kiera. She gives him a smile, rejoins her companion, pays her bill and leaves. Tiny Vlad vows not to forget her. He also doesn't forget the feeling of a knife blade on his neck.
--
The next part of the epilogue jumps ahead five years. Vlad is sixteen years old and has, for some reason, ventured out into the jungles west of the city of Adrilankha, where he lives. We get some more setting info:
I looked up, but there was no break in the overcast that blankets the Dragaeran Empire. My grandfather had told me that there was no such orange-red sky above his Eastern homeland. He’d said that one could see stars at night, and I had seen them through his eyes. He could open his mind to me, and did, often. It was part of his method for teaching witchcraft; a method that brought me, at age sixteen, to the jungles.
So we can extrapolate: Vlad lives in the Dragaeran Empire, which probably explains both the assassin being a dick to a little kid, and why Kiera's kindness had been so significant. For some reason, the sky is red and stars aren't visible. But Vlad's seen them, because witchcraft is a thing and includes psychic connection.
Witchcraft is why Vlad is here, actually. But it's not HOW he's here. He actually got here by teleportation.
There was a good touch of irony there, too, I realized—using a Dragaeran sorcery to bring me to where I could take the next step in learning witchcraft. I hitched the pack on my back, and stepped into a clearing.
There are two types of magic (so far) in this universe, and we're going to learn more about the distinctions, because Vlad implicitly practices both. The witchcraft seems more important to him though.
It certainly seems very involved, as we watch Vlad find a clearing and lay out a brazier, coals, a single black candle, a stick of incense, a dead teckla, and a few dried leaves. We're told that the leaves are from a plant that's sacred to certain Eastern religions, and he crumbles them into a powder, before sprinkling it in a circle around the clearing.
We're not sure yet what a teckla is, but it's presumably small enough to be easily transported. (Other animals that were mentioned as possible jungle hazards include "lyorn" and wild "dzur". And dragons.)
Witchcraft seems very ritualized:
I returned to the middle. I sat there for a time and went through the ritual of relaxing each muscle of my body, until I was almost in a trance. With my body relaxed, my mind had no choice but to follow. When I was ready, I placed the coals in the brazier, slowly, one at a time. I held each one for a moment, feeling its shape and texture, letting the soot rub off on my palms. With witchcraft, everything can be a ritual. Even before the actual enchantment begins, the preparations should be made properly. Of course, one can always just cast one’s mind out, concentrating on the desired result, and hope. The odds of success that way aren’t very good. Somehow, when done the right way, witchcraft is so much more satisfying than sorcery.
When the coals were in the brazier and placed just so, I put the incense among them. Taking the candle, I stared long and hard at the wick, willing it to burn. I could, certainly, have used a flint, or even sorcery, to start it, but doing it this way helped put me into the proper frame of mind.
The mention of sorcery is interesting here. This part of the narrative is about witchcraft, but we can draw some inferences about sorcery in the contrast. The impression I get is that sorcery is more utilitarian, in contrast to the more ritual and spiritual approach of witchcraft. But they're not racially exclusive. Vlad practices both.
One of the things I find really interesting is that, so far, the book's avoided a large info dump about the setting, even though the first person narrative gives Brust a ready-made excuse for one. Instead, the setting is being established gradually, with a lot coming through by implication rather than being stated directly. Even before the second prologue told us that Vlad lives in the Dragaeran Empire, there was a distinct feeling that Easterners were socially inferior in the first prologue.
Anyway, Vlad is proud of the fact that it doesn't take long to light the candle, and it doesn't wear him out either. His skills are improving.
So more ritual: Vlad uses the candle to light the coals, wills the coals to burn well, and meditates until ready to cast his spell.
I stared deep into the coals and, timing my breathing, I spoke the chant—very slowly, as I had been taught. As I said each word, I cast it, sending it out into the jungle as far and as clearly as I could. It was an old spell, my grandfather had said, and had been used in the East for thousands of years, unchanged.
I agonized over each word, each syllable, exploring it, letting my tongue and mouth linger over and taste each of the sounds, and willing my brain to full understanding of each of the thoughts I was sending. As each word left me, it was imprinted on my consciousness and seemed to be a living thing itself.
The last sounds died out very slowly in the jungle night, taking a piece of me with them.
So what is Vlad ACTUALLY doing?
I believe it was only a few minutes later that I heard the flapping of wings near me. I opened my eyes and saw a jhereg at the edge of the clearing, near the dead teckla, looking at me.
We watched each other for a while, and then it tentatively moved up and took a small bite from my offering.
It was of average size, if female; a bit large, if male. If my spell had worked, it would be female. Its wing span was about the distance from my shoulder to my wrist, and it was a bit less than that from its snakelike head to the tip of its tail. The forked tongue flicked out over the rodent, tasting each piece before ripping off a small chunk, chewing, and swallowing. It ate very slowly, watching me watching it.
Calling something. More specifically, he was calling a female jhereg with a nest of eggs, who wouldn't be offended by his request for one. This is riskier than it sounds, as jheregs have a venomous bite.
The jhereg is sentient and is able to respond to Vlad's request. It's, again, very ritualized, which Vlad himself notes:
“What,” she asked, “do you offer it?”
“I offer it long life,” I answered. “And fresh, red meat without struggle, and I offer it my friendship.”
The animal considered this for a while, then said, “And what will you ask of it?”
“I will ask for aid in my endeavors, such as are in its power. I will ask for its wisdom, and I will ask for its friendship.”
Full disclosure, blogging like this has made me hate italicized communication. It's a pain in the ass to type the tags in. But that said, I appreciate the quotation marks. Stylistically speaking.
Anyway, the jhereg studies him, and we get something interesting here:
She stood before me and looked closely into my eyes. It was odd to see intelligence in small, beady snake eyes, and to have nearly human-level communication with an animal whose brain was no larger than the first joint of my finger. It seemed, somehow, unnatural—which it was, but I didn’t find that out for quite some time.
One thing you get used to in this series is the prevalence of noodle incidents. Jhereg starts in media res, essentially, with regard to the whole series. There are three books that take place before it. And apparently, per wikipedia, the sixteenth book will ALSO take place before Jhereg. There are even more books afterward, and the conceit is that Vlad is telling us this after the fact.
So this reference might well be something to do with this book. OR something to do with any number of other books. (I think actually this IS covered in this book though.)
This gets Vlad to think about his father, and we finally get something resembling an actual info dump:
I wondered what my father would say, if he were alive to say anything. He wouldn’t approve, of course. Witchcraft was too “Eastern” for him, and he was too involved in trying to be a Dragaeran.
My father died when I was fourteen. I never knew my mother, but my father would occasionally mutter something about the “witch” he had married. Shortly before his death, he squandered everything he had earned in forty years of running a restaurant in an effort to become even more Dragaeran—he bought a title. Thus we became citizens, and found ourselves linked to the Imperial Orb. The link allowed us to use sorcery, a practice which my father encouraged. He found a sorceress from the Left Hand of the Jhereg who was willing to teach me, and he forbade me to practice witchcraft. Then he found a swordmaster who agreed to teach me Dragaeran-style swordsmanship. My father forbade me to study Eastern fencing.
But my grandfather was still around. One day I explained to him that, even when I was full-grown, I would be too short and too weak to be effective as a swordsman the way I was being taught, and that sorcery didn’t interest me. He never offered a word of criticism about my father, but he began teaching me fencing and witchcraft.
So here we go. Some actual setting information, as well as some familial information. Easterners are an underclass, but apparently can buy their way into Dragaeran society. Sorcery is performed via a link to the "Imperial Orb", which is restricted to members of Dragaeran society, but not the Dragaeran race.
And Vlad has his own little balancing act going on:
When my father died, he was pleased that I was a skilled enough sorcerer to teleport myself; he didn’t know that teleports made me physically ill. He didn’t know how often I would use witchcraft to cover up the bruises left by Dragaeran punks, who would catch me alone and let me know what they thought of Easterners with pretensions. And he most certainly never knew that Kiera had been teaching me how to move quietly, how to walk through a crowd as if I weren’t there. I would use these skills, too. I’d go out at night with a large stick, and I’d find one of my tormentors alone, and leave him with a few broken bones.
I don’t know. Perhaps if I’d worked a little harder at sorcery I’d have been good enough to save my father. I just don’t know.
Aw. Poor kid.
But hey, apparently he's maintained a relationship with Kiera! And there's something really interesting about the dueling influences here. Respectable Dragaeran society vs. Easterner secrets vs. a Dragaeran teaching Vlad sneaky tricks.
Vlad tells us that it's been easier to find time to learn fencing and witchcraft, and he's gotten good enough that his grandfather has told him that he can't teach him anymore. This is the next step.
And indeed, the jhereg comes back with an egg and some cryptic foreshadowing:
“Thank you, mother,” I thought to her. “May your life be long, your food plentiful, and your children many.”
“And you,” she said, “long life and good hunting.”
“I am not a hunter,” I told her.
“You will be,” she said. And then she turned from me, spread her wings, and flew out from the clearing.
So Vlad has an egg, and a responsibility to protect it. We're told that he almost crushes it twice: once when he'd gotten into fights with some jerks from "the House of the Orca", and the second, while trying to carry a box of spices against his chest. (He's keeping the egg in his jerkin there.)
Vlad deals with this by learning diplomacy. As evident by the tone of his narration, it's not something that comes easy. But he learns how to be polite to a Dragaeran insulting him. (Sometimes I think it was that, more than anything else, which trained me to be successful later on.).
He also sells his father's restaurant. He has a few job prospects (his grandfather offers him a half stake in his witchcraft business, while Kiera apparently is willing to teach him her profession), but hasn't decided yet. He does however buy a sword: a light rapier. He tends the egg.
We jump ahead two months. Vlad's doing some gambling at a table, when someone falls into him - as a result of being pushed, almost causing the egg to be crushed. He retaliates violently, knocking the guy out with his chair. Then he gets forcibly escorted out - with a blade to the neck, to continue the imagery. Vlad knows better than to try to explain. As we're told, when there is a problem and an Easterner is involved, there's no question about who's at fault.
Not sure you really needed to hit a dude with a chair though. That did kind of contribute.
Unfortunately, Vlad ends up having to leave a lot of money behind. And he realizes that he's only got two real talents: witchcraft and beating up Dragaerans. There's not much call for either.
Worse, when he takes his egg out for reassurance. It's cracked.
It was then and there, at the age of sixteen, that I learned the meaning of anger. A sheet of white fire flashed through me, as I remembered the face of the Dragaeran who had pushed the other into me, killing my egg. I learned that I was capable of murder. I intended to seek out that bastard, and I was going to kill him. There was no question in my mind that he was a dead man. I stood up and headed for the door, still holding the egg—
—And stopped again.
Something was wrong. I had a feeling, which I couldn’t pin down, that was getting through the barrier of my anger. What was it? I looked down at the egg, and suddenly understood in a burst of relief.
It WAS an accident. But I'm not sure I'd take it any better if someone hurt my cat. So yeah. Anyway, Vlad realizes that the feeling in his mind is a growing psionic link. The baby jhereg is still alive!
In fact, it's hatching!
I felt along the link, and identified the emotion I was getting from it: determination. Just raw, blind purpose. I had never been in contact with such singleness of aim. It was startling that a thing that small could produce such high-powered emotion.
I stepped away from it, I suppose from some unreasoning desire to “give it air,” and watched. There was an almost inaudible “tap, tap,” and the crack widened. Then, suddenly, the egg split apart, and this ugly little reptile was lying amid broken shell fragments. Its wings were tightly drawn up against it, and its eyes were closed. The wings were no larger than my thumb.
Awwww.
So Vlad picks it up, gets bitten (thankfully baby jhereg bites are too weak to be a big deal), and gets a telepathic message:
“Mamma?” he said.
Right. Mamma. I thought that over for a while, then tried to send a message back.
“No, Daddy,” I told him.
“Mamma,” he agreed.
Vlad accepts his impugned masculinity and realizes he has no idea what to feed his new baby jhereg. Because he's a flipping moron. I mean, seriously dude? REALLY? All that deliberation and planning?
There's maybe something funny about the way this is worded though:
All the time I’d been carrying him, I’d known that he was going to hatch someday, but it had never really sunk in that there was actually going to be a real, live jhereg there.
It might just be the "carrying" language, but I feel like a lot of mothers might recognize that emotion. Vlad can't breastfeed though.
He does get some milk for the little thing. He also finds some leftover "hawk wing". I'm not sure if that's a fantasy equivalent of chicken wings or not. The baby eats happily though, and falls asleep.
And the next day, Vlad gets a visitor. We get a cultural note when we're told that someone came to his door and "clapped". Apparently they do that instead of knocking. It turns out to be the dude who'd kicked him out of the gambling den the day before.
Vlad's curious, so he invites him in. The dude is Nielar And he's here to apologize to Vlad for misjudging the situation (something that bowls Vlad over), and is inclined to offer him a job. It's essentially as a bouncer/debt collector.
Vlad notes that he's not very imposing looking, compared to seven feet tall Dragaerans. But as it turns out, he's got a reference. Kiera, apparently, had dropped a good word for him. And the pay is really good: four Imperials a week, plus half of ten percent of collected debt. (He'll be working with a partner. Someone named Kragar. Kragar is fine with working with an Easterner.)
So Vlad has a job now. And a jhereg, now named Loiosh, who continues to call him "Mamma." And when he stumbled into his actual line of work, Loiosh is even able to help. Apparently flying lizards are a common sight in the city, and Loiosh blends right in. The prologue ends by telling us that Vlad has, as time went on, grown in skill, status, friends and experiences. And like Loiosh's mother predicted...he's become a hunter.
As prologues go, it's pretty good. And a really good lesson in how to set up a setting without resorting to paragraphs upon paragraphs of introductory material. I'm still not entirely sure how that worked. Maybe it's just that the tropes are so clearly defined that they fill themselves in. Either way, I'm looking forward to chapter one.
Most of the time, this isn't too arduous or confusing. Some series, like the Drizzt books, might go back for an origin story, but once you're past that point, smooth out into something vaguely chronological. Other series, like L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s Recluse novels or C. J. Cherryh's Alliance-Union, will just take place anywhere in the timeline, but each book (or subseries) tends to involve brand new characters and events, so there's no need to keep track of what did, or did not, come before.
But then there's Vlad fucking Taltos. This guy stars in a series that is, by this point in time, fifteen books long. Not counting the Alexandre Dumas parody prequel novels or Brokedown Palace. And none of these fucking books are in any kind of comprehensible order.
Actually, that's not true. There IS a fairly distinct narrative timeline going on, if you go through Jhereg-Teckla-Phoenix-Athyra-Orca-Issola...
The PROBLEM is that Jhereg is book 1 in the series, Teckla is book 3, Phoenix, Athyra and Orca are actually 5, 6 and 7, but book 11 (Jhegaala) actually takes place in between Phoenix and Athyra...
That's not even getting into how Dragon (book 8) takes place both before and after Yendi (book 2). Or Tiassa (book 13) has segments that take place at three different points of the timeline. Trying to read this series in chronological order is like trying to sort Highlander episodes by the date of their flashbacks. It's just not doable. (Though it might be hilarious to try.)
The thing is, IF you read this series in publication order, it does make sense. Book 2 takes place before Book 1, but it expands on something mentioned in that book, and thematically leads into Book 3. Vlad's character development is surprisingly consistent. Vlad in the early parts of Tiassa reads like the Vlad in Jhereg. And so on and so forth. It's quite elegant!
It's also really fucking hard to explain to anyone who hasn't read the series. And completely irrelevant for the moment, because I haven't signed on to review the entire series (...yet). I'm only reviewing the first one. Jhereg. Which came out in 1983, the year I was born.
So I probably should discuss what I remember of this series. It's fantasy, with a very involved, developed setting. But definitely more Leiber than Tolkien in tone. In style, it actually reminds me more of the Dresden Files or the Vampire Files. Though where Jack is a white knight with a dark side, and Harry often feels like his author is aiming for Jack but doesn't always hit exactly, Vlad is more of a work in progress. Dude's an assassin, after all. And a bit of a dick. I remember liking him though.
So here we are, at a prologue, where Vlad poetically muses about the similarity between the feel of a breeze and a knife blade on the back of the neck. This probably represents some kind of recurring bit of imagery through the book (I feel like I remember Brust likes that kind of thing). Mostly though, it's a segue into a childhood flashback.
In the flashback, Vlad is eleven years old and working at the restaurant owned by his father. And we get establishing bits about the setting here:
The table in the corner was a deuce. One male, one female. Both Dragaeran, of course. For some reason, humans rarely came into our place; perhaps because we were human too, and they didn’t want the stigma, or something. My father himself always avoided doing business with other “Easterners.”
There are two races: Dragaeran and "Easterner". The former are not human. There's a social divide. Actually, a funny little setting bit that we'll see later is that Dragaerans refer to themselves as "humans" and refer to Easterners as something else entirely. But that's for later.
I will say, from the perspective of a human reader, the Easterners are a lot closer to what I recognize as human. But I'm getting ahead of the story.
Anyway, Vlad's clearing a table, offended by the fact that there is no tip, when something happens:
I turned as one member of the threesome let his head fall into his plate of lyorn leg with red peppers. My father had let me make the sauce for it that time, and, crazily, my first thought was to wonder if I’d built it wrong.
The other two stood up smoothly, seemingly not the least bit worried about their friend. They began moving toward the door, and I realized that they were planning to leave without paying. I looked for my father, but he was in back.
Little Vlad initially thinks they're skipping out on the bill, when he notices a dagger sticking out of the dead guy's throat. Vlad, wisely, decides not to ask them for money. That said, one of the assassins decides to be a dick and menace a little kid. Vlad feels a knife blade against the back of his neck and:
Then I heard a soft, almost silky voice in my ear. “You didn’t see a thing,” it said. “Got that?” If I had had as much experience then as I do now, I would have known that I was in no real danger—if he’d had any intention of killing me he would have done so already. But I didn’t, and so I shook. I felt I should nod, but couldn’t manage.
This doesn't go unnoticed though, as a Dragaeran girl comes over from another table to offer a shaking Vlad some reassurance. Vlad's father comes out at this time too, sees the dead guy, and goes off to be sick. Baby Vlad is ashamed for him, because baby Vlad is a bit of a dick.
We get a description of the girl though, which gives us some more setting info in the process:
Girl? I really couldn’t judge her age at all, but, being Dragaeran, she could be anywhere from a hundred to a thousand years old. Her clothing was black and gray, which I knew meant she was of House Jhereg. Her companion, who was now approaching us, was also a Jhereg. The three who had been at the other table were of the same House. Nothing of any significance there; it was mostly Jhereg, or an occasional Teckla (each Dragaeran House bears the name of one of our native creatures), who came into our restaurant.
So now you start to see why I tend to think the Easterners are a bit more accurate when they call themselves "humans". Dragaerans are basically the setting's equivalent of dickhead elves. They have Houses, named after animals, that have a social significance. They're also like seven feet tall. That's not been mentioned yet, but it will be, so I'm throwing it in now.
The girl's name is Kiera. She gives him a smile, rejoins her companion, pays her bill and leaves. Tiny Vlad vows not to forget her. He also doesn't forget the feeling of a knife blade on his neck.
--
The next part of the epilogue jumps ahead five years. Vlad is sixteen years old and has, for some reason, ventured out into the jungles west of the city of Adrilankha, where he lives. We get some more setting info:
I looked up, but there was no break in the overcast that blankets the Dragaeran Empire. My grandfather had told me that there was no such orange-red sky above his Eastern homeland. He’d said that one could see stars at night, and I had seen them through his eyes. He could open his mind to me, and did, often. It was part of his method for teaching witchcraft; a method that brought me, at age sixteen, to the jungles.
So we can extrapolate: Vlad lives in the Dragaeran Empire, which probably explains both the assassin being a dick to a little kid, and why Kiera's kindness had been so significant. For some reason, the sky is red and stars aren't visible. But Vlad's seen them, because witchcraft is a thing and includes psychic connection.
Witchcraft is why Vlad is here, actually. But it's not HOW he's here. He actually got here by teleportation.
There was a good touch of irony there, too, I realized—using a Dragaeran sorcery to bring me to where I could take the next step in learning witchcraft. I hitched the pack on my back, and stepped into a clearing.
There are two types of magic (so far) in this universe, and we're going to learn more about the distinctions, because Vlad implicitly practices both. The witchcraft seems more important to him though.
It certainly seems very involved, as we watch Vlad find a clearing and lay out a brazier, coals, a single black candle, a stick of incense, a dead teckla, and a few dried leaves. We're told that the leaves are from a plant that's sacred to certain Eastern religions, and he crumbles them into a powder, before sprinkling it in a circle around the clearing.
We're not sure yet what a teckla is, but it's presumably small enough to be easily transported. (Other animals that were mentioned as possible jungle hazards include "lyorn" and wild "dzur". And dragons.)
Witchcraft seems very ritualized:
I returned to the middle. I sat there for a time and went through the ritual of relaxing each muscle of my body, until I was almost in a trance. With my body relaxed, my mind had no choice but to follow. When I was ready, I placed the coals in the brazier, slowly, one at a time. I held each one for a moment, feeling its shape and texture, letting the soot rub off on my palms. With witchcraft, everything can be a ritual. Even before the actual enchantment begins, the preparations should be made properly. Of course, one can always just cast one’s mind out, concentrating on the desired result, and hope. The odds of success that way aren’t very good. Somehow, when done the right way, witchcraft is so much more satisfying than sorcery.
When the coals were in the brazier and placed just so, I put the incense among them. Taking the candle, I stared long and hard at the wick, willing it to burn. I could, certainly, have used a flint, or even sorcery, to start it, but doing it this way helped put me into the proper frame of mind.
The mention of sorcery is interesting here. This part of the narrative is about witchcraft, but we can draw some inferences about sorcery in the contrast. The impression I get is that sorcery is more utilitarian, in contrast to the more ritual and spiritual approach of witchcraft. But they're not racially exclusive. Vlad practices both.
One of the things I find really interesting is that, so far, the book's avoided a large info dump about the setting, even though the first person narrative gives Brust a ready-made excuse for one. Instead, the setting is being established gradually, with a lot coming through by implication rather than being stated directly. Even before the second prologue told us that Vlad lives in the Dragaeran Empire, there was a distinct feeling that Easterners were socially inferior in the first prologue.
Anyway, Vlad is proud of the fact that it doesn't take long to light the candle, and it doesn't wear him out either. His skills are improving.
So more ritual: Vlad uses the candle to light the coals, wills the coals to burn well, and meditates until ready to cast his spell.
I stared deep into the coals and, timing my breathing, I spoke the chant—very slowly, as I had been taught. As I said each word, I cast it, sending it out into the jungle as far and as clearly as I could. It was an old spell, my grandfather had said, and had been used in the East for thousands of years, unchanged.
I agonized over each word, each syllable, exploring it, letting my tongue and mouth linger over and taste each of the sounds, and willing my brain to full understanding of each of the thoughts I was sending. As each word left me, it was imprinted on my consciousness and seemed to be a living thing itself.
The last sounds died out very slowly in the jungle night, taking a piece of me with them.
So what is Vlad ACTUALLY doing?
I believe it was only a few minutes later that I heard the flapping of wings near me. I opened my eyes and saw a jhereg at the edge of the clearing, near the dead teckla, looking at me.
We watched each other for a while, and then it tentatively moved up and took a small bite from my offering.
It was of average size, if female; a bit large, if male. If my spell had worked, it would be female. Its wing span was about the distance from my shoulder to my wrist, and it was a bit less than that from its snakelike head to the tip of its tail. The forked tongue flicked out over the rodent, tasting each piece before ripping off a small chunk, chewing, and swallowing. It ate very slowly, watching me watching it.
Calling something. More specifically, he was calling a female jhereg with a nest of eggs, who wouldn't be offended by his request for one. This is riskier than it sounds, as jheregs have a venomous bite.
The jhereg is sentient and is able to respond to Vlad's request. It's, again, very ritualized, which Vlad himself notes:
“What,” she asked, “do you offer it?”
“I offer it long life,” I answered. “And fresh, red meat without struggle, and I offer it my friendship.”
The animal considered this for a while, then said, “And what will you ask of it?”
“I will ask for aid in my endeavors, such as are in its power. I will ask for its wisdom, and I will ask for its friendship.”
Full disclosure, blogging like this has made me hate italicized communication. It's a pain in the ass to type the tags in. But that said, I appreciate the quotation marks. Stylistically speaking.
Anyway, the jhereg studies him, and we get something interesting here:
She stood before me and looked closely into my eyes. It was odd to see intelligence in small, beady snake eyes, and to have nearly human-level communication with an animal whose brain was no larger than the first joint of my finger. It seemed, somehow, unnatural—which it was, but I didn’t find that out for quite some time.
One thing you get used to in this series is the prevalence of noodle incidents. Jhereg starts in media res, essentially, with regard to the whole series. There are three books that take place before it. And apparently, per wikipedia, the sixteenth book will ALSO take place before Jhereg. There are even more books afterward, and the conceit is that Vlad is telling us this after the fact.
So this reference might well be something to do with this book. OR something to do with any number of other books. (I think actually this IS covered in this book though.)
This gets Vlad to think about his father, and we finally get something resembling an actual info dump:
I wondered what my father would say, if he were alive to say anything. He wouldn’t approve, of course. Witchcraft was too “Eastern” for him, and he was too involved in trying to be a Dragaeran.
My father died when I was fourteen. I never knew my mother, but my father would occasionally mutter something about the “witch” he had married. Shortly before his death, he squandered everything he had earned in forty years of running a restaurant in an effort to become even more Dragaeran—he bought a title. Thus we became citizens, and found ourselves linked to the Imperial Orb. The link allowed us to use sorcery, a practice which my father encouraged. He found a sorceress from the Left Hand of the Jhereg who was willing to teach me, and he forbade me to practice witchcraft. Then he found a swordmaster who agreed to teach me Dragaeran-style swordsmanship. My father forbade me to study Eastern fencing.
But my grandfather was still around. One day I explained to him that, even when I was full-grown, I would be too short and too weak to be effective as a swordsman the way I was being taught, and that sorcery didn’t interest me. He never offered a word of criticism about my father, but he began teaching me fencing and witchcraft.
So here we go. Some actual setting information, as well as some familial information. Easterners are an underclass, but apparently can buy their way into Dragaeran society. Sorcery is performed via a link to the "Imperial Orb", which is restricted to members of Dragaeran society, but not the Dragaeran race.
And Vlad has his own little balancing act going on:
When my father died, he was pleased that I was a skilled enough sorcerer to teleport myself; he didn’t know that teleports made me physically ill. He didn’t know how often I would use witchcraft to cover up the bruises left by Dragaeran punks, who would catch me alone and let me know what they thought of Easterners with pretensions. And he most certainly never knew that Kiera had been teaching me how to move quietly, how to walk through a crowd as if I weren’t there. I would use these skills, too. I’d go out at night with a large stick, and I’d find one of my tormentors alone, and leave him with a few broken bones.
I don’t know. Perhaps if I’d worked a little harder at sorcery I’d have been good enough to save my father. I just don’t know.
Aw. Poor kid.
But hey, apparently he's maintained a relationship with Kiera! And there's something really interesting about the dueling influences here. Respectable Dragaeran society vs. Easterner secrets vs. a Dragaeran teaching Vlad sneaky tricks.
Vlad tells us that it's been easier to find time to learn fencing and witchcraft, and he's gotten good enough that his grandfather has told him that he can't teach him anymore. This is the next step.
And indeed, the jhereg comes back with an egg and some cryptic foreshadowing:
“Thank you, mother,” I thought to her. “May your life be long, your food plentiful, and your children many.”
“And you,” she said, “long life and good hunting.”
“I am not a hunter,” I told her.
“You will be,” she said. And then she turned from me, spread her wings, and flew out from the clearing.
So Vlad has an egg, and a responsibility to protect it. We're told that he almost crushes it twice: once when he'd gotten into fights with some jerks from "the House of the Orca", and the second, while trying to carry a box of spices against his chest. (He's keeping the egg in his jerkin there.)
Vlad deals with this by learning diplomacy. As evident by the tone of his narration, it's not something that comes easy. But he learns how to be polite to a Dragaeran insulting him. (Sometimes I think it was that, more than anything else, which trained me to be successful later on.).
He also sells his father's restaurant. He has a few job prospects (his grandfather offers him a half stake in his witchcraft business, while Kiera apparently is willing to teach him her profession), but hasn't decided yet. He does however buy a sword: a light rapier. He tends the egg.
We jump ahead two months. Vlad's doing some gambling at a table, when someone falls into him - as a result of being pushed, almost causing the egg to be crushed. He retaliates violently, knocking the guy out with his chair. Then he gets forcibly escorted out - with a blade to the neck, to continue the imagery. Vlad knows better than to try to explain. As we're told, when there is a problem and an Easterner is involved, there's no question about who's at fault.
Not sure you really needed to hit a dude with a chair though. That did kind of contribute.
Unfortunately, Vlad ends up having to leave a lot of money behind. And he realizes that he's only got two real talents: witchcraft and beating up Dragaerans. There's not much call for either.
Worse, when he takes his egg out for reassurance. It's cracked.
It was then and there, at the age of sixteen, that I learned the meaning of anger. A sheet of white fire flashed through me, as I remembered the face of the Dragaeran who had pushed the other into me, killing my egg. I learned that I was capable of murder. I intended to seek out that bastard, and I was going to kill him. There was no question in my mind that he was a dead man. I stood up and headed for the door, still holding the egg—
—And stopped again.
Something was wrong. I had a feeling, which I couldn’t pin down, that was getting through the barrier of my anger. What was it? I looked down at the egg, and suddenly understood in a burst of relief.
It WAS an accident. But I'm not sure I'd take it any better if someone hurt my cat. So yeah. Anyway, Vlad realizes that the feeling in his mind is a growing psionic link. The baby jhereg is still alive!
In fact, it's hatching!
I felt along the link, and identified the emotion I was getting from it: determination. Just raw, blind purpose. I had never been in contact with such singleness of aim. It was startling that a thing that small could produce such high-powered emotion.
I stepped away from it, I suppose from some unreasoning desire to “give it air,” and watched. There was an almost inaudible “tap, tap,” and the crack widened. Then, suddenly, the egg split apart, and this ugly little reptile was lying amid broken shell fragments. Its wings were tightly drawn up against it, and its eyes were closed. The wings were no larger than my thumb.
Awwww.
So Vlad picks it up, gets bitten (thankfully baby jhereg bites are too weak to be a big deal), and gets a telepathic message:
“Mamma?” he said.
Right. Mamma. I thought that over for a while, then tried to send a message back.
“No, Daddy,” I told him.
“Mamma,” he agreed.
Vlad accepts his impugned masculinity and realizes he has no idea what to feed his new baby jhereg. Because he's a flipping moron. I mean, seriously dude? REALLY? All that deliberation and planning?
There's maybe something funny about the way this is worded though:
All the time I’d been carrying him, I’d known that he was going to hatch someday, but it had never really sunk in that there was actually going to be a real, live jhereg there.
It might just be the "carrying" language, but I feel like a lot of mothers might recognize that emotion. Vlad can't breastfeed though.
He does get some milk for the little thing. He also finds some leftover "hawk wing". I'm not sure if that's a fantasy equivalent of chicken wings or not. The baby eats happily though, and falls asleep.
And the next day, Vlad gets a visitor. We get a cultural note when we're told that someone came to his door and "clapped". Apparently they do that instead of knocking. It turns out to be the dude who'd kicked him out of the gambling den the day before.
Vlad's curious, so he invites him in. The dude is Nielar And he's here to apologize to Vlad for misjudging the situation (something that bowls Vlad over), and is inclined to offer him a job. It's essentially as a bouncer/debt collector.
Vlad notes that he's not very imposing looking, compared to seven feet tall Dragaerans. But as it turns out, he's got a reference. Kiera, apparently, had dropped a good word for him. And the pay is really good: four Imperials a week, plus half of ten percent of collected debt. (He'll be working with a partner. Someone named Kragar. Kragar is fine with working with an Easterner.)
So Vlad has a job now. And a jhereg, now named Loiosh, who continues to call him "Mamma." And when he stumbled into his actual line of work, Loiosh is even able to help. Apparently flying lizards are a common sight in the city, and Loiosh blends right in. The prologue ends by telling us that Vlad has, as time went on, grown in skill, status, friends and experiences. And like Loiosh's mother predicted...he's become a hunter.
As prologues go, it's pretty good. And a really good lesson in how to set up a setting without resorting to paragraphs upon paragraphs of introductory material. I'm still not entirely sure how that worked. Maybe it's just that the tropes are so clearly defined that they fill themselves in. Either way, I'm looking forward to chapter one.
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Date: 2022-10-09 12:33 pm (UTC)You could use the rich text editor and do bold and italics there, I guess. If that helps.
Also, another series! You're really productive.
I've been reading for quite some while here, and maybe I'll review here too one day.
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Date: 2022-10-09 02:51 pm (UTC)And thank you! If you do decide to review here, that'd be pretty cool!
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Date: 2022-10-09 02:58 pm (UTC)Thanks! I should certainly have enough stuff to review.
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Date: 2022-10-09 03:04 pm (UTC)I posted a few rules here: https://i-read-what.dreamwidth.org/475.html. Hopefully nothing too arduous. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.