Jhereg - Chapter Thirteen
Jan. 26th, 2023 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo I'm a little late with everything this week, but fortunately, Pangolin's taken up the slack and has made the community actually somewhat productive! Yay!
Last time, we saw a bit more of the "anti" part of the term "anti-hero". It wasn't pleasant, but it was pretty interesting food for thought.
I don't usually post the introductory chapter quotes, but I think this one is interesting: "The bite of the yendi can never be fully healed."
It's interesting in the context of Vlad's reaction to the events of the last chapter. He's trying not to think about it and failing entirely.
In fact—and here’s a funny thing, if you’re in the mood for a laugh—I had done forty-one assassinations at this point, and I had never been bothered by one. I mean, not a bit. But this time, when I actually hadn’t even hurt the bitch, it bothered me so much that for years afterward I’d wake up seeing her face. It could be that she laid some kind of curse on me, but I doubt it. It’s just that, oh, Hell. I don’t want to talk about it.
Vlad tortured someone. Psychologically, not physically, but it was still torture. That said, is it all that different from Steve McGarrett throwing a villain into a shark cage to freak him out? Is it different from Gibbs looming over someone whose spent hours in an interrogation room? I'm not saying this to make what Vlad did look okay, but rather to think about how much torture has been normalized in our culture.
Jhereg was written in 1983. We had a different set of shows and a different set of heroes on the air. Were they as prone to casual torture as we are? What does it say about our society that an assassin who has managed to kill forty-one people by the approximate age of twenty-three, in a dystopian society ruled by demented space elves whose greatest hobby is scheming and murder, feels guiltier about torture than most of the heroes on television nowadays?
Like I said, it's still food for thought.
And it's also proof that despite Vlad's general callous demeanor, he does feel things deeply. And it occurs to me that I've read about twelve of these books. I haven't caught up to the most recent, and I don't recall Vlad ever doing something similar again.
So anyway, Morrolan catches up to them. Fentor, the bodyguard who'd failed to save him, rushes over and drops to his knees. Vlad tells us that he thought he was going to get sick all over again, which is more proof of how not-over-it Vlad really is. Morrolan is understanding though, pouring wine and getting the story out of him.
So Fentor tells his story in more detail: he was lured by a message that warned of an upcoming attempt on Mellar's life. This leads to a rather amusing interplay between Morrolan and Vlad:
“He said the assassin was good enough to beat our security system.”
Morrolan looked at me and raised his eyebrow. I was in charge of security, he was saying, in his eloquent way. Could it be beaten?
“Anyone can be assassinated,” I told Morrolan, drily.
He allowed his lips to smile a bit, nodded, and returned his attention to Fentor.
Morrolan asks Fentor if he believed the hypothetical assassin would really restart the Jhereg/Dragon war. Fentor says he might. He figured he'd try to get a name. Morrolan asks if Fentor had thought to come for him, but Fentor, rather amusingly, admits that he knew Morrolan would never go along with an attempt at extortion. But it's Fentor's job to protect Morrolan's guests, so he wanted to see what he could learn.
It's a nice touch really, establishing the kind of man Morrolan is as a leader. We already have a sign that he doesn't need fawning subservience in the fact that he's got Vlad working for him, but it's more reinforcement of the idea.
Morrolan asks where the gold came from, Fentor brought his own. He still has it, which surprises Morrolan, but not Vlad. He knew they were dealing with "professionals". (Meaning assassins. Not thieves.)
So Morrolan accepts Fentor's reasoning, warns that there is not to be a repeat of this action, and restores him to full duty. He sends Fentor back to work and then:
“No doubt,” he said, “you are all hoping to hear what happened to me.”
“You guessed it,” I said.
I made that crack about not wanting fawning subservience before, but - and I know I've pointed this out, it is really interesting how they interact here. We saw a bit in the banter above. Vlad may be Morrolan's employee of sorts (though I think Vlad would see himself more as a contractor), while his other social status is in a form that's beneath the notice of House Dragons, but Vlad doesn't act like Fentor. Nor does he come across as defiant or posturing, as though he has something to prove.
This isn't a matter of Morrolan being magnanimous enough to treat a social inferior with the respect due his abilities. There is a genuine sense that these men are somehow on the same level, even though that should be impossible based on what we've learned of the setting. Morrolan treats Vlad the same way he treats Aliera or Sethra Lavode. And Vlad seems to feel it too. He's confident in a way that doesn't come across as fake or desperate.
(It makes me want to reread Taltos, book 4, or the chronologically earliest book in the series, to see how all of that came about.)
Anyway, Morrolan's story is quintessentially Dragonlord:
He shrugged. “I received a message, from the same individual who contacted Fentor, most likely. Fentor, he claimed, was being held. I was instructed,” he said the word as if it tasted bad, “to withdraw my protection of the Lord Mellar and remove him from my home. They told me that if I didn’t, they would kill Fentor. They threatened to use a Morganti blade on him if I made any attempt to rescue him.”
“So naturally,” I said, “you went charging right in there.”
“Naturally,” he agreed, ignoring my sarcasm. “I kept him talking long enough to trace where he was, put up my standard protection spells, and teleported in.”
But see what I mean about equals? Vlad asks if Fentor was alive at the time, he had been, though unconscious. Morrolan then details the murder, admitting that it was well done. He hadn't had time to fight back.
It's Vlad's turn to share how he figured out there was trouble. We saw this before, but it's a short enough bit that it doesn't feel repetitious. And we see the barriers that make this particular relationship work:
Morrolan looked at me hard. “And who,” he asked, “is this person, who came up with this marvelous scheme?”
I matched his stare, and shook my head. “No,” I said. “That information I can’t give even you.”
He looked at me a moment longer, then shrugged. “Well, my thanks, in any case.”
“You know what the real irony is?” I said.
“What?”
“I’ve been trying to come up with some way to prevent another Dragon-Jhereg war myself, and when one drops right into my lap, I chuck it out.”
Morrolan won't unbend to let Vlad kill Mellar in Castle Black. Vlad won't give up the Demon, or the interests of House Jhereg. They understand each other. Morrolan is skeptical that anyone would risk a war, but Vlad is not. Which makes him realize that this isn't over.
Vlad contacts Fentor and orders a check on the secured areas. He starts thinking quickly about how he'd get past the security system, ignoring a puzzled Morrolan and Aliera. He knows sorcery wouldn't work, not when Morrolan can detect it. Witchcraft has similar problems. But guards could be killed, replaced or bribed. Some quick questioning of Fentor reveals that there is a new guard working today.
So Vlad goes running off, Loiosh flying ahead, Morrolan following. Only to find an unconcerned Mellar, standing over a beheaded "guard". A real guard has a dripping sword. Loiosh had helped distract the attacker, so the guard could make a kill. (Loiosh and Vlad banter about someone finally appreciating Loiosh.)
The beheaded guard did have a Morganti dagger, showing he meant business.
They head back, leaving Mellar behind, discussing Mellar's bodyguard. Morrolan found it interesting, because when he came, he'd had no bodyguards. The bodyguards then are not on the guest list, and fair game.
Morrolan's surprised that the Jhereg would risk another war, and in the process lets slip that there were actually TWO Dragon-Jhereg wars, not one. The second happened very close to the Interregnum, though, when Aliera's own father had been planning a coup against the "decadent Phoenix" Emperor (the adjective means something in this context). Things went to hell after that.
Talk gets a bit heavy here.
“And now,” I said, “it’s going to start up again.”
Morrolan nodded at this. We were all silent for a time, then Morrolan said quietly, “And if that happens, Vlad, which side will you be on?”
I looked away.
“You know,” he continued, “that I’d be one of House Jhereg’s first targets.”
“I know,” I said. “I also know that you’d be in the front lines trying to waste the organization. As would Aliera, for that matter. And, by the way, I’d be one of the first ones the Dragons went after.”
He nodded. “Do you think you could convince the Jhereg to let this one go?”
I shook my head. “I’m not an Issola, Morrolan, and I don’t have that sharp a tooth. And, to tell you the truth, I’m not all that sure that I’d do it if I could. I’ve heard all the reasons why Mellar has to go, and they’re hard to argue with.”
“I see. Perhaps you could convince them to wait. As you know, he’ll only be staying here a few more days.”
“No way, Morrolan. It can’t be done.”
He nodded. We sat there in silence for a time; then I said, “I don’t suppose there is any way, just this once, that you could let us have him? All you have to do is kick him out, you know. I hadn’t intended to even ask, but . . . ”
Aliera looked up, intent for a moment.
“Sorry, Vlad. No.”
Aliera is disappointed by Morrolan's answer. Even Dragons can have different priorities. Morrolan also warns/reminds the others that if anything does happen to Mellar in the house, he won't rest until he finds the cause, and won't hold back, even if it's Vlad. And if it is Vlad, or another Jhereg, Morrolan will declare war.
I probably could have just summarized the whole conversation, but I really like it as a demonstration of a genuine friendship between people with very different priorities and goals.
And it makes me wonder about the tiny bit that Aliera told us about their past lives. Dolivar, somehow, betrayed their brother. Vlad is a callous, murderous anti-hero, but we've seen how far he was willing to go to keep Morrolan out of a difficult situation, even before the civil war factor came up. And even avoiding said civil war isn't enough for Vlad to go directly against his friend. If Dolivar was anything like Vlad, then whatever caused him to turn on his brother must have been a really big deal.
Anyway, the chapter ends with both Morrolan and Vlad knowing where the other stands. There is shoulder gripping and mutual "I'm sorry about this" sentiments. But that doesn't fix the dilemma.
Last time, we saw a bit more of the "anti" part of the term "anti-hero". It wasn't pleasant, but it was pretty interesting food for thought.
I don't usually post the introductory chapter quotes, but I think this one is interesting: "The bite of the yendi can never be fully healed."
It's interesting in the context of Vlad's reaction to the events of the last chapter. He's trying not to think about it and failing entirely.
In fact—and here’s a funny thing, if you’re in the mood for a laugh—I had done forty-one assassinations at this point, and I had never been bothered by one. I mean, not a bit. But this time, when I actually hadn’t even hurt the bitch, it bothered me so much that for years afterward I’d wake up seeing her face. It could be that she laid some kind of curse on me, but I doubt it. It’s just that, oh, Hell. I don’t want to talk about it.
Vlad tortured someone. Psychologically, not physically, but it was still torture. That said, is it all that different from Steve McGarrett throwing a villain into a shark cage to freak him out? Is it different from Gibbs looming over someone whose spent hours in an interrogation room? I'm not saying this to make what Vlad did look okay, but rather to think about how much torture has been normalized in our culture.
Jhereg was written in 1983. We had a different set of shows and a different set of heroes on the air. Were they as prone to casual torture as we are? What does it say about our society that an assassin who has managed to kill forty-one people by the approximate age of twenty-three, in a dystopian society ruled by demented space elves whose greatest hobby is scheming and murder, feels guiltier about torture than most of the heroes on television nowadays?
Like I said, it's still food for thought.
And it's also proof that despite Vlad's general callous demeanor, he does feel things deeply. And it occurs to me that I've read about twelve of these books. I haven't caught up to the most recent, and I don't recall Vlad ever doing something similar again.
So anyway, Morrolan catches up to them. Fentor, the bodyguard who'd failed to save him, rushes over and drops to his knees. Vlad tells us that he thought he was going to get sick all over again, which is more proof of how not-over-it Vlad really is. Morrolan is understanding though, pouring wine and getting the story out of him.
So Fentor tells his story in more detail: he was lured by a message that warned of an upcoming attempt on Mellar's life. This leads to a rather amusing interplay between Morrolan and Vlad:
“He said the assassin was good enough to beat our security system.”
Morrolan looked at me and raised his eyebrow. I was in charge of security, he was saying, in his eloquent way. Could it be beaten?
“Anyone can be assassinated,” I told Morrolan, drily.
He allowed his lips to smile a bit, nodded, and returned his attention to Fentor.
Morrolan asks Fentor if he believed the hypothetical assassin would really restart the Jhereg/Dragon war. Fentor says he might. He figured he'd try to get a name. Morrolan asks if Fentor had thought to come for him, but Fentor, rather amusingly, admits that he knew Morrolan would never go along with an attempt at extortion. But it's Fentor's job to protect Morrolan's guests, so he wanted to see what he could learn.
It's a nice touch really, establishing the kind of man Morrolan is as a leader. We already have a sign that he doesn't need fawning subservience in the fact that he's got Vlad working for him, but it's more reinforcement of the idea.
Morrolan asks where the gold came from, Fentor brought his own. He still has it, which surprises Morrolan, but not Vlad. He knew they were dealing with "professionals". (Meaning assassins. Not thieves.)
So Morrolan accepts Fentor's reasoning, warns that there is not to be a repeat of this action, and restores him to full duty. He sends Fentor back to work and then:
“No doubt,” he said, “you are all hoping to hear what happened to me.”
“You guessed it,” I said.
I made that crack about not wanting fawning subservience before, but - and I know I've pointed this out, it is really interesting how they interact here. We saw a bit in the banter above. Vlad may be Morrolan's employee of sorts (though I think Vlad would see himself more as a contractor), while his other social status is in a form that's beneath the notice of House Dragons, but Vlad doesn't act like Fentor. Nor does he come across as defiant or posturing, as though he has something to prove.
This isn't a matter of Morrolan being magnanimous enough to treat a social inferior with the respect due his abilities. There is a genuine sense that these men are somehow on the same level, even though that should be impossible based on what we've learned of the setting. Morrolan treats Vlad the same way he treats Aliera or Sethra Lavode. And Vlad seems to feel it too. He's confident in a way that doesn't come across as fake or desperate.
(It makes me want to reread Taltos, book 4, or the chronologically earliest book in the series, to see how all of that came about.)
Anyway, Morrolan's story is quintessentially Dragonlord:
He shrugged. “I received a message, from the same individual who contacted Fentor, most likely. Fentor, he claimed, was being held. I was instructed,” he said the word as if it tasted bad, “to withdraw my protection of the Lord Mellar and remove him from my home. They told me that if I didn’t, they would kill Fentor. They threatened to use a Morganti blade on him if I made any attempt to rescue him.”
“So naturally,” I said, “you went charging right in there.”
“Naturally,” he agreed, ignoring my sarcasm. “I kept him talking long enough to trace where he was, put up my standard protection spells, and teleported in.”
But see what I mean about equals? Vlad asks if Fentor was alive at the time, he had been, though unconscious. Morrolan then details the murder, admitting that it was well done. He hadn't had time to fight back.
It's Vlad's turn to share how he figured out there was trouble. We saw this before, but it's a short enough bit that it doesn't feel repetitious. And we see the barriers that make this particular relationship work:
Morrolan looked at me hard. “And who,” he asked, “is this person, who came up with this marvelous scheme?”
I matched his stare, and shook my head. “No,” I said. “That information I can’t give even you.”
He looked at me a moment longer, then shrugged. “Well, my thanks, in any case.”
“You know what the real irony is?” I said.
“What?”
“I’ve been trying to come up with some way to prevent another Dragon-Jhereg war myself, and when one drops right into my lap, I chuck it out.”
Morrolan won't unbend to let Vlad kill Mellar in Castle Black. Vlad won't give up the Demon, or the interests of House Jhereg. They understand each other. Morrolan is skeptical that anyone would risk a war, but Vlad is not. Which makes him realize that this isn't over.
Vlad contacts Fentor and orders a check on the secured areas. He starts thinking quickly about how he'd get past the security system, ignoring a puzzled Morrolan and Aliera. He knows sorcery wouldn't work, not when Morrolan can detect it. Witchcraft has similar problems. But guards could be killed, replaced or bribed. Some quick questioning of Fentor reveals that there is a new guard working today.
So Vlad goes running off, Loiosh flying ahead, Morrolan following. Only to find an unconcerned Mellar, standing over a beheaded "guard". A real guard has a dripping sword. Loiosh had helped distract the attacker, so the guard could make a kill. (Loiosh and Vlad banter about someone finally appreciating Loiosh.)
The beheaded guard did have a Morganti dagger, showing he meant business.
They head back, leaving Mellar behind, discussing Mellar's bodyguard. Morrolan found it interesting, because when he came, he'd had no bodyguards. The bodyguards then are not on the guest list, and fair game.
Morrolan's surprised that the Jhereg would risk another war, and in the process lets slip that there were actually TWO Dragon-Jhereg wars, not one. The second happened very close to the Interregnum, though, when Aliera's own father had been planning a coup against the "decadent Phoenix" Emperor (the adjective means something in this context). Things went to hell after that.
Talk gets a bit heavy here.
“And now,” I said, “it’s going to start up again.”
Morrolan nodded at this. We were all silent for a time, then Morrolan said quietly, “And if that happens, Vlad, which side will you be on?”
I looked away.
“You know,” he continued, “that I’d be one of House Jhereg’s first targets.”
“I know,” I said. “I also know that you’d be in the front lines trying to waste the organization. As would Aliera, for that matter. And, by the way, I’d be one of the first ones the Dragons went after.”
He nodded. “Do you think you could convince the Jhereg to let this one go?”
I shook my head. “I’m not an Issola, Morrolan, and I don’t have that sharp a tooth. And, to tell you the truth, I’m not all that sure that I’d do it if I could. I’ve heard all the reasons why Mellar has to go, and they’re hard to argue with.”
“I see. Perhaps you could convince them to wait. As you know, he’ll only be staying here a few more days.”
“No way, Morrolan. It can’t be done.”
He nodded. We sat there in silence for a time; then I said, “I don’t suppose there is any way, just this once, that you could let us have him? All you have to do is kick him out, you know. I hadn’t intended to even ask, but . . . ”
Aliera looked up, intent for a moment.
“Sorry, Vlad. No.”
Aliera is disappointed by Morrolan's answer. Even Dragons can have different priorities. Morrolan also warns/reminds the others that if anything does happen to Mellar in the house, he won't rest until he finds the cause, and won't hold back, even if it's Vlad. And if it is Vlad, or another Jhereg, Morrolan will declare war.
I probably could have just summarized the whole conversation, but I really like it as a demonstration of a genuine friendship between people with very different priorities and goals.
And it makes me wonder about the tiny bit that Aliera told us about their past lives. Dolivar, somehow, betrayed their brother. Vlad is a callous, murderous anti-hero, but we've seen how far he was willing to go to keep Morrolan out of a difficult situation, even before the civil war factor came up. And even avoiding said civil war isn't enough for Vlad to go directly against his friend. If Dolivar was anything like Vlad, then whatever caused him to turn on his brother must have been a really big deal.
Anyway, the chapter ends with both Morrolan and Vlad knowing where the other stands. There is shoulder gripping and mutual "I'm sorry about this" sentiments. But that doesn't fix the dilemma.