Jhereg - Chapter Fourteen
Feb. 7th, 2023 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo last time, there was a lot of talking, while friends sadly declared their cross purposes. Vlad needs to kill Mellar, or the Jhereg will, causing a war. But if Vlad does kill Mellar, it will cause the same war. It's a conundrum.
So the chapter starts with Vlad and his wife. We get to hear a little bit about Vlad's apartment:
Our apartment was a small, second-story number, which had two virtues: it was well-lit and it had a large kitchen. There is one way to tell an apartment owned by a member of the Jhereg from any other kind of apartment: the lack of spells to prevent or detect burglary. Why? Simple. No common thief is going to lighten the apartment of a member of the organization except by mistake. If a mistake like that happens, I will have everything back within two days, guaranteed. Kragar may have to arrange for a few broken bones to do it, but it will get done. The only other kind of burglar there is, is someone like Kiera; someone specifically commissioned to get into my place and get something. If this happens, there just isn’t any kind of defense I could put up that would matter a teckla’s squawk. Keep Kiera out? Ha!
Vlad and Cawti discuss the job. Vlad's problem is that whenever he tries to brainstorm, he keeps thinking about the consequences. Cawti finds it hard to believe that the Demon would deliberately start a Dragon-Jhereg war, but Vlad gets it. He thinks that if Mellar gets away with his crime, it will lead to many others trying to take down the House.
And well, technically, the Demon had found a way to get rid of Mellar without a war: killing Morrolan. Though honestly, I doubt that would have worked in the long run. Aliera's no idiot, and eventually she'd have put together what happened and why. And if Morrolan's death was temporary, HE would have discovered what happened soon enough.
Cawti agrees that killing Mellar is necessary. She's still willing to consider working around Morrolan, but Vlad points out that her own former assassination partner is a Dragon (Norathar) and asks how she'd feel if Mellar had been holed up with her. Cawti agrees that Norathar wouldn't understand any more than Morrolan does, and she wouldn't want to put her in that position. So they're stuck.
They have to get Mellar to leave. They can trick him, but they can't use magic overtly against him, as that's like an attack. Cawti is perplexed by the difference: why is it okay to use regular trickery, like a fake note, but not magic? Vlad isn't sure himself, but thinks it is because non-magical trickery would give Mellar a choice, the way magic wouldn't.
Vlad wonders what the legendary Mario would do. Cawti just laughs. He'd take all the time in the world, the organization WOULD wait for him.
So what would Cawti and Norathar have done? She's not sure. Morrolan isn't as close a friend, or at least hadn't been, when they'd been active. They'd probably have just used a spell to force Mellar to leave.
Vlad wonders what Mellar would do. He'd been a pretty good assassin himself. But they can't exactly invite him over and ask. This does get Vlad thinking that something doesn't make sense: Mellar has bodyguards, but they were slow and useless during the assassination attempt. And yet, Mellar hasn't fired them for their failure to act.
Kragar ends up digging up more of Mellar's backstory: His mother had been a Dragon-Dzur "halfbreed" and ended up a sex-worker. His father was a Jhereg assassin. Both died during the fall of the city of Dragaera. After the Empire was destroyed, Mellar, whose original name was Leareth, tried to enter both of his mother's houses and been rejected. Far, far later, he'd succeed in making his way into Dzur.
It was very tricky to find the information. Mellar had apparently managed to bribe a Lyorn record keeper into removing him from records. Kragar, with the help of a new Lyorn paramour, found one that he'd missed.
More backstory: Mellar never officially became a Jhereg, but did contract work for them. He studied the sword under a legendary master (apparently said Master's wife had been ill from a plague during the Interregnum, and Mellar had found a witch to cure them - something that resonates with Vlad as his own father died from a similar plague much later, and his rejection of his own culture meant that he never had a witch cure him, even though both Vlad and his grandfather were themselves witches.)
Mellar's tricky though, apparently, he'd arranged for the witch to GIVE the swordsman's wife the plague to begin with. And Vlad and Kragar both realize the timing: he'd planned this out BEFORE he'd applied to House Dragon or Dzur the first time.
The Interregnum was four hundred years ago. So Mellar has been planning something for that long.
They discuss the bodyguard issue and then muse about how, no matter what happens, Mellar's pretty much dead. He's just bringing down two Houses with him. And that's when Vlad realizes what Mellar is doing.
Vlad's explanation contains some really interesting speculation about the relationship between Dragaeran and House that isn't all that relevant here but may be to future books:
“What does genetics have to do with it?”
“Everything. That’s when I should have realized it; when Aliera told me what it really meant to be of a certain House. Don’t you see, Kragar? But no, you wouldn’t. You’re a Jhereg, and you—we—don’t look at things that way. But it’s true. You can’t deny your House, if you’re a Dragaeran. Look at yourself, Kragar. To save my life, you had to disobey my orders. That isn’t a Jhereg thing to do at all—the only time a Jhereg will disobey orders is when he’s planning to kill his boss. But a Dragon, Kragar, a Dragon will sometimes find that the only way to fulfill his commander’s wishes is to violate his commands, and do what has to be done, and risk a court-martial if he has to.
“That was the Dragon in you that did it, despite your opinion of the Dragons. To a Dragaeran, his House controls everything. The way he lives, his goals, his skills, his strengths, his weaknesses. There is nothing, but nothing that has more influence on a Dragaeran than his House. Than the House he was born into, no matter how he was raised.
“It’s different with humans, perhaps, but . . . I should have seen it. Damn! I should have seen it. A hundred things pointed to it.”
“For the love of the Empire, Vlad! What?”
“Kragar,” I said, settling down a bit, “think for a minute. This guy isn’t just a Jhereg, he’s also got the bloodlust of a Dragon, and the heroism of a Dzur.”
It's worth noting that "heroism" when it comes to a Dzur means something like facing down impossible odds, and going for it, regardless of whether you yourself live or die.
Vlad starts speculating outloud. There's no information about Mellar's father's death. But he was a Jhereg assassin who died during the Interregnum. At around the same time as the second Dragon-Jhereg war happened. Vlad suspects that Mellar's father may have BEEN the assassin who killed the Jhereg that had sheltered with a Dragonlord and caused that second war.
Mellar then is looking for revenge against the two Houses that caused his father's death. (With some extra humiliation for the third House that also rejected him.) He's not a desperate man who got in over his head and inadvertently caused a potential civil war. The war was the whole point, all along. He wants House Dragon and House Jhereg to destroy each other.
And with that realization, the chapter ends.
So the chapter starts with Vlad and his wife. We get to hear a little bit about Vlad's apartment:
Our apartment was a small, second-story number, which had two virtues: it was well-lit and it had a large kitchen. There is one way to tell an apartment owned by a member of the Jhereg from any other kind of apartment: the lack of spells to prevent or detect burglary. Why? Simple. No common thief is going to lighten the apartment of a member of the organization except by mistake. If a mistake like that happens, I will have everything back within two days, guaranteed. Kragar may have to arrange for a few broken bones to do it, but it will get done. The only other kind of burglar there is, is someone like Kiera; someone specifically commissioned to get into my place and get something. If this happens, there just isn’t any kind of defense I could put up that would matter a teckla’s squawk. Keep Kiera out? Ha!
Vlad and Cawti discuss the job. Vlad's problem is that whenever he tries to brainstorm, he keeps thinking about the consequences. Cawti finds it hard to believe that the Demon would deliberately start a Dragon-Jhereg war, but Vlad gets it. He thinks that if Mellar gets away with his crime, it will lead to many others trying to take down the House.
And well, technically, the Demon had found a way to get rid of Mellar without a war: killing Morrolan. Though honestly, I doubt that would have worked in the long run. Aliera's no idiot, and eventually she'd have put together what happened and why. And if Morrolan's death was temporary, HE would have discovered what happened soon enough.
Cawti agrees that killing Mellar is necessary. She's still willing to consider working around Morrolan, but Vlad points out that her own former assassination partner is a Dragon (Norathar) and asks how she'd feel if Mellar had been holed up with her. Cawti agrees that Norathar wouldn't understand any more than Morrolan does, and she wouldn't want to put her in that position. So they're stuck.
They have to get Mellar to leave. They can trick him, but they can't use magic overtly against him, as that's like an attack. Cawti is perplexed by the difference: why is it okay to use regular trickery, like a fake note, but not magic? Vlad isn't sure himself, but thinks it is because non-magical trickery would give Mellar a choice, the way magic wouldn't.
Vlad wonders what the legendary Mario would do. Cawti just laughs. He'd take all the time in the world, the organization WOULD wait for him.
So what would Cawti and Norathar have done? She's not sure. Morrolan isn't as close a friend, or at least hadn't been, when they'd been active. They'd probably have just used a spell to force Mellar to leave.
Vlad wonders what Mellar would do. He'd been a pretty good assassin himself. But they can't exactly invite him over and ask. This does get Vlad thinking that something doesn't make sense: Mellar has bodyguards, but they were slow and useless during the assassination attempt. And yet, Mellar hasn't fired them for their failure to act.
Kragar ends up digging up more of Mellar's backstory: His mother had been a Dragon-Dzur "halfbreed" and ended up a sex-worker. His father was a Jhereg assassin. Both died during the fall of the city of Dragaera. After the Empire was destroyed, Mellar, whose original name was Leareth, tried to enter both of his mother's houses and been rejected. Far, far later, he'd succeed in making his way into Dzur.
It was very tricky to find the information. Mellar had apparently managed to bribe a Lyorn record keeper into removing him from records. Kragar, with the help of a new Lyorn paramour, found one that he'd missed.
More backstory: Mellar never officially became a Jhereg, but did contract work for them. He studied the sword under a legendary master (apparently said Master's wife had been ill from a plague during the Interregnum, and Mellar had found a witch to cure them - something that resonates with Vlad as his own father died from a similar plague much later, and his rejection of his own culture meant that he never had a witch cure him, even though both Vlad and his grandfather were themselves witches.)
Mellar's tricky though, apparently, he'd arranged for the witch to GIVE the swordsman's wife the plague to begin with. And Vlad and Kragar both realize the timing: he'd planned this out BEFORE he'd applied to House Dragon or Dzur the first time.
The Interregnum was four hundred years ago. So Mellar has been planning something for that long.
They discuss the bodyguard issue and then muse about how, no matter what happens, Mellar's pretty much dead. He's just bringing down two Houses with him. And that's when Vlad realizes what Mellar is doing.
Vlad's explanation contains some really interesting speculation about the relationship between Dragaeran and House that isn't all that relevant here but may be to future books:
“What does genetics have to do with it?”
“Everything. That’s when I should have realized it; when Aliera told me what it really meant to be of a certain House. Don’t you see, Kragar? But no, you wouldn’t. You’re a Jhereg, and you—we—don’t look at things that way. But it’s true. You can’t deny your House, if you’re a Dragaeran. Look at yourself, Kragar. To save my life, you had to disobey my orders. That isn’t a Jhereg thing to do at all—the only time a Jhereg will disobey orders is when he’s planning to kill his boss. But a Dragon, Kragar, a Dragon will sometimes find that the only way to fulfill his commander’s wishes is to violate his commands, and do what has to be done, and risk a court-martial if he has to.
“That was the Dragon in you that did it, despite your opinion of the Dragons. To a Dragaeran, his House controls everything. The way he lives, his goals, his skills, his strengths, his weaknesses. There is nothing, but nothing that has more influence on a Dragaeran than his House. Than the House he was born into, no matter how he was raised.
“It’s different with humans, perhaps, but . . . I should have seen it. Damn! I should have seen it. A hundred things pointed to it.”
“For the love of the Empire, Vlad! What?”
“Kragar,” I said, settling down a bit, “think for a minute. This guy isn’t just a Jhereg, he’s also got the bloodlust of a Dragon, and the heroism of a Dzur.”
It's worth noting that "heroism" when it comes to a Dzur means something like facing down impossible odds, and going for it, regardless of whether you yourself live or die.
Vlad starts speculating outloud. There's no information about Mellar's father's death. But he was a Jhereg assassin who died during the Interregnum. At around the same time as the second Dragon-Jhereg war happened. Vlad suspects that Mellar's father may have BEEN the assassin who killed the Jhereg that had sheltered with a Dragonlord and caused that second war.
Mellar then is looking for revenge against the two Houses that caused his father's death. (With some extra humiliation for the third House that also rejected him.) He's not a desperate man who got in over his head and inadvertently caused a potential civil war. The war was the whole point, all along. He wants House Dragon and House Jhereg to destroy each other.
And with that realization, the chapter ends.