Yendi - Introduction and Chapter One
Jun. 29th, 2025 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i_read_whatSo a while back, I was soliciting recommendations for my next book choice and Yendi came up!
Yendi is the second book in the Vlad Taltos series, however it actually takes place BEFORE the first book, Jhereg. I'd mentioned in my introduction to that book that the publication order of the series is interesting idiosyncratic that way.
It does make sense though. If you look at the closest thing to a narrative throughline for the series, the third book, Teckla, takes place not long after Jhereg, and if I recall correctly, a very big part of that book is about the complicated relationship between Vlad and his wife, Cawti.
Yendi, therefore, is the story of how Vlad met his wife. And also a glimpse at an (even) younger Vlad navigating Dragaeran politics as an Easterner. It probably works best to look at it as a big flashback in the overall story. But a fun one, if I'm remembering correctly.
So we actually start with an introduction that's really more of a teaser than anything else. It's a nice intro to Vlad's conversation style, but also not particularly notable.
Besides, Chapter One starts off pretty monologuey in its own right. It's also about onions.
No, seriously:
Kragar says that life is like an onion, but he doesn’t mean the same thing by it that I do.
He talks about peeling it, and how you can go deeper and deeper, until finally you get to the center and nothing is there. I suppose there’s truth in that, but in the years when my father ran a restaurant, I never peeled an onion, I chopped them; Kragar’s analogy doesn’t do much for me.
When I say that life is like an onion, I mean this: if you don’t do anything with it, it goes rotten. So far, that’s no different from other vegetables. But when an onion goes bad, it can do it from either the inside, or the outside. So sometimes you get one that looks good, but the core is rotten. Other times, you can see a bad spot on it, but if you cut that out, the rest is fine. Tastes sharp, but that’s what you paid for, isn’t it?
Onions.
Vlad goes on to talk about some of the Dragaeran houses. It's a nice little peek into Dragaeran culture, though I suspect there'd be exceptions.
Anyway, per Vlad, Dzurlords see themselves as chefs who cut the rotten parts out of onions - but can't tell good spots from bad. Dragonlords are good at finding bad spots, but are just as likely to throw away the whole barrel. A Hawklord will find the spot, watch you cook it, watch you eat it, and then nod when you spit it out. Sadly, Vlad stops there. Too bad, I'd actually enjoy a blog post about how each house deals with a rotten onion.
Vlad does finish by saying that in House Jhereg, they don't care about bad spots. They're just there to sell onions. That is, until Vlad is paid to remove said bad spot. He is basically a fantasy mafia assassin after all.
(He's also probably all of 20 here, it's worth noting. Our boy started young.)
We finally switch from monologue to plot, as Vlad is visiting his friend, Morrolan. Vlad, of course, doesn't use the word, but I remember the levels to which Vlad went to try to accomplish an assassination without negatively impacting Morrolan's honor in Jhereg, so I think "friend" is fair.
We're reminded that basically Morrolan's keep is a giant party, and Vlad has a standing invitation because he's essentially a "security consultant". That said, he still gets a lot of shit muttered at him because he's in House Jhereg, an Easterner (bog standard fantasy human vs. fantasy elf types) and has a flying lizard on his shoulder.
Loiosh remains adorable. I want a jhereg familiar. I have a cat though, which is probably the same thing.
Vlad greets Morrolan and Aliera (another character we remember from Jhereg), and makes snide narrative comments about how Dragaerans don't understand wine. It's basically small talk and they go their separate ways, while Vlad muses to himself that he'd like to get laid.
Loiosh is unimpressed, and to be fair, this is before he gets his own girlfriend. He points out that Vlad owns four brothels. Vlad's decided he's not really into visiting brothels though, NOT because of the ethical issues involved with being a fantasy mafia man, but well:
“I’ve decided I don’t like visiting brothels.”
“Eh? Why not?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“All right. Put it this way: sex with Dragaerans feels more than half like bestiality, anyway. With whores, it feels like paying the . . . whatever.”
“Go on, boss. Finish the sentence. Now I’m curious.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Egads, dude.
So yeah, earlier Vlad was kind of a misogynistic asshole. Racist, too, though I do think that gets complicated when we remember that Dragaerans are the top of the society, and Easterners are a very oppressed underclass. Vlad's own position is considerably better than most of his fellows, due to special circumstances not available to most, and even then, he's basically cracked his way into the dregs of society.
Except for a few very powerful friends of course. (Eventually we'll see how that happened. Eventually.)
We get the usual Vlad Taltos noodle incident when Vlad tells his familiar to "go to Deathgate" and Loiosh notes they did that once. (As with most Taltos noodle incidents, we can read THAT in a later book.)
Vlad's gross contemplation ends up interrupted by telepathic contact from the aforementioned Kragar, who has some news relating to fantasy mob work. Someone's opened up a gambling joint in Vlad's territory - it looks professional and the interloper has protection - one of whom is an assassin.
Vlad's not really on board with this and starts making plans for a gracious exit. He goes to find Morolan and Aliera, who are casually speaking with a Dragaeran named "the Sorceress in Green". She's an Athyran, which probably matters, but I don't have the House traits memorized anymore.
The meeting goes well.
“Vlad,” said Morrolan, “this is the Sorceress in Green. Sorceress, this is Baronet Vladimir Taltos.”
She nodded, almost imperceptibly. I bowed with a deep flourish, dragging the back of my hand over the floor, bringing it up over my head, and saying, “Gentle lady, I am every bit as charmed to meet you as you are to meet me.”
She sniffed and looked away.
Aliera’s eyes were twinkling.
Morrolan looked troubled, then shrugged.
I do like that we get hints of how Vlad's friendship with Morrolan and Aliera actually works, despite Vlad's vocal dislike for Dragaerans. Aliera seems pretty amused at the idea of Vlad taking on the Sorceress, while Morrolan's discomfort might well be about the racism directed at his friend - or just not wanting a scene at his party.
Then again, from what we know of Morrolan, he likes scenes in general. Also, I kind of regret not rereading Jhereg for this, because I don't actually remember if Morrolan's backstory has come up yet. I THINK it did: (namely that Morrolan is a Dragaeran raised by Easterners), but I might have spoiled you instead. Sorry.
It's also maybe worth noting that, for all of Vlad's very vocal dislike of Dragaerans in general, pretty much all of his friends are Dragaerans. He doesn't actually seem to have much involvement with other Easterners at all.
Anyway, Vlad and the Sorceress exchange a few barbs - which annoys Morrolan, and then Vlad makes his leave.
--
We get a scene shift and a bit of monologue about the differences between Dragaerans and Easterners:
Do you know what the single biggest difference between a Dragaeran and an Easterner is? It isn’t that they are so much taller and stronger than we are; I’m living proof that size and strength aren’t that important. It isn’t that they live two or three thousand years compared to our fifty or sixty; in the crowd I hang around with, no one expects to die of old age anyway. It isn’t even that they have a natural link with the Imperial Orb that allows them to use sorcery; Easterners (such as my late, unlamented father) can buy titles in the House of the Jhereg, or swear fealty to some noble, move out to the countryside and become a Teckla—thereby becoming citizens and getting the link.
No, the biggest difference that I’ve found is this: a Dragaeran can teleport without feeling sick to his stomach afterwards.
It is a bit of an infodump, but I always appreciate the art of masking an infodump into someone's random bitching.
But we do get the gist: Dragaerans are bigger, stronger, live longer, have a link to the Orb and are automatic citizens with access to all levels of society.
They also don't get sick from teleporting. Vlad also notes that while he can do the spell himself, he's "not very good" and thus uses Morrolan's employees instead.
So it's time to see Vlad on the job. We get a glimpse of his office and get to meet his staff. Sort of:
My offices at this time were on Copper Lane, in back of a small gambling operation, which was in back of a psychedelic herb shop. My offices consisted of three rooms. One was a screening room, where Melestav, my receptionist-bodyguard, sat. To his right was Kragar’s office and the files, and behind Melestav was my actual office. Kragar had a small desk and one hard wooden chair—there wasn’t room for anything else. The screening room had four chairs that were almost comfortable. My desk was a bit bigger than Kragar’s, smaller than Melestav’s, and had a well-padded swivel chair facing the door. Next to the door were two comfortable chairs, one of which would be occupied by Kragar when he showed up.
I told Melestav to let Kragar know I was in and sat down at my desk to wait.
“Uh, boss?”
“Oh.” I sighed as I realized that, once again, Kragar had sneaked in without my seeing him. He claims that he doesn’t do it on purpose—that he’s just naturally sneaky.
Kragar's sudden appearances are my favorite running joke in the series. If you ever run a World of Darkness game and want to troll a player with five dots of Arcane, give him Kragar's problems.
(It's worth remembering, from Jhereg, that Kragar used to be a member of the dramatic honorable warrior house. Being nondescript and overlooked is a very bad trait for that.)
So we do get an idea of why this new gambling joint is a bad thing, because the location "Malak Circle" is only about a block and a half from Vlad's office. Which maybe gives us some perspective on Yendi!Vlad's level of power - it seems like it's a very small territory.
We also get to see one of the funnier notes of the setting:
The door opened at once. The guy who stood there was dressed in black and gray for House Jhereg, and had a broadsword strapped to his side. He was damn near seven and a half feet tall and broader than is usual for a Dragaeran. He loooked down at me and said, “Sorry, Whiskers. Humans only,” and shut the door. Dragaerans often seem confused about who the “humans” are.
Being called “Whiskers” didn’t bother me—I’d deliberately grown a mustache because Dragaerans can’t. But to be shut out of a game that shouldn’t even be here without my permission displeased me immensely.
So yeah, there's a thing throughout the series where both Dragaerans and Easterners consider themselves "human" and the other group something else - elves for Dragaerans and dwarves for Easterners.
I feel like the elf and dwarf thing was a bit of an attempt to be anti-D&D? I'm not sure it ever really comes up except for some side note. Mostly because while Dragaerans do have obvious traits that resemble fantasy elves, the same isn't really true for Easterners - they do tend to be built shorter and sturdier than Dragaerans, but there are plenty of slim Easterners, the facial hair is optional, there is no real connection to underground or mining, and so on.
So yeah, the name doesn't really suit.
(The origin of the Dragaerans and Easterners does start to come up in some of the later books in the series, but it's not really relevant yet. It is kind of neat though, and I'll share if you're curious.)
Anyway, since the door is bound with sorcery, and since Vlad happens to have a nifty sorcery-interrupting chain (how he got that? Another book will tell us. :-D) he's able to push his way in. The bouncer, sadly, gets six inches of steel in his ribcage.
Eh, this is a series with resurrection. He'll be fine. If someone's willing to pay the fees for him... (Vlad also tells us that contrary to popular myth, the guy will probably be alive for an hour, but in shock and not really able to help himself. Oops.)
So there's some mobster territorialism here, and eventually, the employees spill on who the "manager" is - a dude named Laris.
--
Later, Vlad and Kragar discuss Laris. He's a neighbor and has twice the territory Vlad has. He seems inclined to expand, and Vlad, who's only had his own territory for half a year is definitely not ready for a mob war.
The chapter ends with them realizing they'll need to do some information gathering.
Yendi is the second book in the Vlad Taltos series, however it actually takes place BEFORE the first book, Jhereg. I'd mentioned in my introduction to that book that the publication order of the series is interesting idiosyncratic that way.
It does make sense though. If you look at the closest thing to a narrative throughline for the series, the third book, Teckla, takes place not long after Jhereg, and if I recall correctly, a very big part of that book is about the complicated relationship between Vlad and his wife, Cawti.
Yendi, therefore, is the story of how Vlad met his wife. And also a glimpse at an (even) younger Vlad navigating Dragaeran politics as an Easterner. It probably works best to look at it as a big flashback in the overall story. But a fun one, if I'm remembering correctly.
So we actually start with an introduction that's really more of a teaser than anything else. It's a nice intro to Vlad's conversation style, but also not particularly notable.
Besides, Chapter One starts off pretty monologuey in its own right. It's also about onions.
No, seriously:
Kragar says that life is like an onion, but he doesn’t mean the same thing by it that I do.
He talks about peeling it, and how you can go deeper and deeper, until finally you get to the center and nothing is there. I suppose there’s truth in that, but in the years when my father ran a restaurant, I never peeled an onion, I chopped them; Kragar’s analogy doesn’t do much for me.
When I say that life is like an onion, I mean this: if you don’t do anything with it, it goes rotten. So far, that’s no different from other vegetables. But when an onion goes bad, it can do it from either the inside, or the outside. So sometimes you get one that looks good, but the core is rotten. Other times, you can see a bad spot on it, but if you cut that out, the rest is fine. Tastes sharp, but that’s what you paid for, isn’t it?
Onions.
Vlad goes on to talk about some of the Dragaeran houses. It's a nice little peek into Dragaeran culture, though I suspect there'd be exceptions.
Anyway, per Vlad, Dzurlords see themselves as chefs who cut the rotten parts out of onions - but can't tell good spots from bad. Dragonlords are good at finding bad spots, but are just as likely to throw away the whole barrel. A Hawklord will find the spot, watch you cook it, watch you eat it, and then nod when you spit it out. Sadly, Vlad stops there. Too bad, I'd actually enjoy a blog post about how each house deals with a rotten onion.
Vlad does finish by saying that in House Jhereg, they don't care about bad spots. They're just there to sell onions. That is, until Vlad is paid to remove said bad spot. He is basically a fantasy mafia assassin after all.
(He's also probably all of 20 here, it's worth noting. Our boy started young.)
We finally switch from monologue to plot, as Vlad is visiting his friend, Morrolan. Vlad, of course, doesn't use the word, but I remember the levels to which Vlad went to try to accomplish an assassination without negatively impacting Morrolan's honor in Jhereg, so I think "friend" is fair.
We're reminded that basically Morrolan's keep is a giant party, and Vlad has a standing invitation because he's essentially a "security consultant". That said, he still gets a lot of shit muttered at him because he's in House Jhereg, an Easterner (bog standard fantasy human vs. fantasy elf types) and has a flying lizard on his shoulder.
Loiosh remains adorable. I want a jhereg familiar. I have a cat though, which is probably the same thing.
Vlad greets Morrolan and Aliera (another character we remember from Jhereg), and makes snide narrative comments about how Dragaerans don't understand wine. It's basically small talk and they go their separate ways, while Vlad muses to himself that he'd like to get laid.
Loiosh is unimpressed, and to be fair, this is before he gets his own girlfriend. He points out that Vlad owns four brothels. Vlad's decided he's not really into visiting brothels though, NOT because of the ethical issues involved with being a fantasy mafia man, but well:
“I’ve decided I don’t like visiting brothels.”
“Eh? Why not?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“All right. Put it this way: sex with Dragaerans feels more than half like bestiality, anyway. With whores, it feels like paying the . . . whatever.”
“Go on, boss. Finish the sentence. Now I’m curious.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Egads, dude.
So yeah, earlier Vlad was kind of a misogynistic asshole. Racist, too, though I do think that gets complicated when we remember that Dragaerans are the top of the society, and Easterners are a very oppressed underclass. Vlad's own position is considerably better than most of his fellows, due to special circumstances not available to most, and even then, he's basically cracked his way into the dregs of society.
Except for a few very powerful friends of course. (Eventually we'll see how that happened. Eventually.)
We get the usual Vlad Taltos noodle incident when Vlad tells his familiar to "go to Deathgate" and Loiosh notes they did that once. (As with most Taltos noodle incidents, we can read THAT in a later book.)
Vlad's gross contemplation ends up interrupted by telepathic contact from the aforementioned Kragar, who has some news relating to fantasy mob work. Someone's opened up a gambling joint in Vlad's territory - it looks professional and the interloper has protection - one of whom is an assassin.
Vlad's not really on board with this and starts making plans for a gracious exit. He goes to find Morolan and Aliera, who are casually speaking with a Dragaeran named "the Sorceress in Green". She's an Athyran, which probably matters, but I don't have the House traits memorized anymore.
The meeting goes well.
“Vlad,” said Morrolan, “this is the Sorceress in Green. Sorceress, this is Baronet Vladimir Taltos.”
She nodded, almost imperceptibly. I bowed with a deep flourish, dragging the back of my hand over the floor, bringing it up over my head, and saying, “Gentle lady, I am every bit as charmed to meet you as you are to meet me.”
She sniffed and looked away.
Aliera’s eyes were twinkling.
Morrolan looked troubled, then shrugged.
I do like that we get hints of how Vlad's friendship with Morrolan and Aliera actually works, despite Vlad's vocal dislike for Dragaerans. Aliera seems pretty amused at the idea of Vlad taking on the Sorceress, while Morrolan's discomfort might well be about the racism directed at his friend - or just not wanting a scene at his party.
Then again, from what we know of Morrolan, he likes scenes in general. Also, I kind of regret not rereading Jhereg for this, because I don't actually remember if Morrolan's backstory has come up yet. I THINK it did: (namely that Morrolan is a Dragaeran raised by Easterners), but I might have spoiled you instead. Sorry.
It's also maybe worth noting that, for all of Vlad's very vocal dislike of Dragaerans in general, pretty much all of his friends are Dragaerans. He doesn't actually seem to have much involvement with other Easterners at all.
Anyway, Vlad and the Sorceress exchange a few barbs - which annoys Morrolan, and then Vlad makes his leave.
--
We get a scene shift and a bit of monologue about the differences between Dragaerans and Easterners:
Do you know what the single biggest difference between a Dragaeran and an Easterner is? It isn’t that they are so much taller and stronger than we are; I’m living proof that size and strength aren’t that important. It isn’t that they live two or three thousand years compared to our fifty or sixty; in the crowd I hang around with, no one expects to die of old age anyway. It isn’t even that they have a natural link with the Imperial Orb that allows them to use sorcery; Easterners (such as my late, unlamented father) can buy titles in the House of the Jhereg, or swear fealty to some noble, move out to the countryside and become a Teckla—thereby becoming citizens and getting the link.
No, the biggest difference that I’ve found is this: a Dragaeran can teleport without feeling sick to his stomach afterwards.
It is a bit of an infodump, but I always appreciate the art of masking an infodump into someone's random bitching.
But we do get the gist: Dragaerans are bigger, stronger, live longer, have a link to the Orb and are automatic citizens with access to all levels of society.
They also don't get sick from teleporting. Vlad also notes that while he can do the spell himself, he's "not very good" and thus uses Morrolan's employees instead.
So it's time to see Vlad on the job. We get a glimpse of his office and get to meet his staff. Sort of:
My offices at this time were on Copper Lane, in back of a small gambling operation, which was in back of a psychedelic herb shop. My offices consisted of three rooms. One was a screening room, where Melestav, my receptionist-bodyguard, sat. To his right was Kragar’s office and the files, and behind Melestav was my actual office. Kragar had a small desk and one hard wooden chair—there wasn’t room for anything else. The screening room had four chairs that were almost comfortable. My desk was a bit bigger than Kragar’s, smaller than Melestav’s, and had a well-padded swivel chair facing the door. Next to the door were two comfortable chairs, one of which would be occupied by Kragar when he showed up.
I told Melestav to let Kragar know I was in and sat down at my desk to wait.
“Uh, boss?”
“Oh.” I sighed as I realized that, once again, Kragar had sneaked in without my seeing him. He claims that he doesn’t do it on purpose—that he’s just naturally sneaky.
Kragar's sudden appearances are my favorite running joke in the series. If you ever run a World of Darkness game and want to troll a player with five dots of Arcane, give him Kragar's problems.
(It's worth remembering, from Jhereg, that Kragar used to be a member of the dramatic honorable warrior house. Being nondescript and overlooked is a very bad trait for that.)
So we do get an idea of why this new gambling joint is a bad thing, because the location "Malak Circle" is only about a block and a half from Vlad's office. Which maybe gives us some perspective on Yendi!Vlad's level of power - it seems like it's a very small territory.
We also get to see one of the funnier notes of the setting:
The door opened at once. The guy who stood there was dressed in black and gray for House Jhereg, and had a broadsword strapped to his side. He was damn near seven and a half feet tall and broader than is usual for a Dragaeran. He loooked down at me and said, “Sorry, Whiskers. Humans only,” and shut the door. Dragaerans often seem confused about who the “humans” are.
Being called “Whiskers” didn’t bother me—I’d deliberately grown a mustache because Dragaerans can’t. But to be shut out of a game that shouldn’t even be here without my permission displeased me immensely.
So yeah, there's a thing throughout the series where both Dragaerans and Easterners consider themselves "human" and the other group something else - elves for Dragaerans and dwarves for Easterners.
I feel like the elf and dwarf thing was a bit of an attempt to be anti-D&D? I'm not sure it ever really comes up except for some side note. Mostly because while Dragaerans do have obvious traits that resemble fantasy elves, the same isn't really true for Easterners - they do tend to be built shorter and sturdier than Dragaerans, but there are plenty of slim Easterners, the facial hair is optional, there is no real connection to underground or mining, and so on.
So yeah, the name doesn't really suit.
(The origin of the Dragaerans and Easterners does start to come up in some of the later books in the series, but it's not really relevant yet. It is kind of neat though, and I'll share if you're curious.)
Anyway, since the door is bound with sorcery, and since Vlad happens to have a nifty sorcery-interrupting chain (how he got that? Another book will tell us. :-D) he's able to push his way in. The bouncer, sadly, gets six inches of steel in his ribcage.
Eh, this is a series with resurrection. He'll be fine. If someone's willing to pay the fees for him... (Vlad also tells us that contrary to popular myth, the guy will probably be alive for an hour, but in shock and not really able to help himself. Oops.)
So there's some mobster territorialism here, and eventually, the employees spill on who the "manager" is - a dude named Laris.
--
Later, Vlad and Kragar discuss Laris. He's a neighbor and has twice the territory Vlad has. He seems inclined to expand, and Vlad, who's only had his own territory for half a year is definitely not ready for a mob war.
The chapter ends with them realizing they'll need to do some information gathering.