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i_read_what2025-07-12 11:37 pm
kalinara) wrote in i_read_what2025-07-12 11:37 pm
Yendi - Chapter Two
So last time, we got to meet slightly younger Vlad Taltos. He's a bit of a misogynistic git, to be honest, but the advantage of a prequel is that we can have confidence that he's going to improve.
Admittedly, this might be denial, but I already have to deal with fucking Elbereth and Magpie in my other books. Let me delude myself into thinking I'll have ONE book where I don't want to throttle a lead character.
So chapter two immediately cheers me up by giving me something I so dearly love: a timeframe!
Basically, Vlad is telling us how, when he started working for the organization three years before, it was as muscle for a guy named Nielar. Per Jhereg, Vlad started to work for Nielar when he was sixteen years old (around the time that he'd gotten his familiar, Loiosh), which means that Yendi!Vlad is nineteen years old.
So we continue with some backstory about Nielar's boss, a dude named "Welok the Blade". Welok ended up being Vlad's boss, but there was some intrigue and eventually he vanished to be replaced by a guy with the canonically unpronounceable name of "Tagichatn".
Tagichatn apparently didn't like Easterners and was pretty much a dick boss. And that's around the time that Laris, the dude that's apparently encroaching on Vlad's territory broke away. Vlad tells us that Tagichatn committed suicide (by stabbing himself in the left eye - Vlad's favorite assassination method, I must remind us) not long after that.
Vlad, we're told, reunites with Kragar (who'd worked with him when they worked for Nielar) after that point and recruits him to help with his newly inherited territory. He also recruited another enforcer, named Melestev, to be personal secretary and bodyguard.
So yeah, this chapter is all about how Vlad took control of his current territory. He marks off Tagichatn's territory on a map, marks off a smaller territory, goes to his boss's boss, volunteers to take the smaller territory (which is the amount he thinks he can handle) and suggests that the rest could go to the boss's underlings outside. It's pretty ballsy and the boss basically says if he can keep it, it's his.
We also get an idea of what the territory actually entails:
I went back to the office, looked over the books, and discovered that we were almost broke. I had about five hundred personally, which can keep a family eating and living comfortably for maybe a year. What I now controlled were four brothels; two gambling halls; two moneylending operations; and one cleaner, or fence, or dealer-in-stolen-merchandise. There were no button-men. (A funny term, that: sometimes it means full-time enforcer on the payroll, and sometimes it means sublieutenant. I usually mean the latter.) I did, however, have six enforcers working full time. I also knew several enforcers who worked free-lance.
I visited each of my businesses and made them the same offer: I put a purse with fifty gold in it on the table and said, “I’m your new boss. This is a bonus, or a good-bye gift. Take your pick. If you take it as a bonus and try to mess with me, make a list of your mourn-singers, because you’ll need them.”
Apparently the businesses all stayed. Vlad then does a bit of a power play with a brothel owner that intimidates the rest of the businesses into reporting in properly.
I know nothing about how the real world mob organizations run, but this seems plausible to me at least. And pretty soon, even after paying Kragar and his boss (whose name is Toronnan, by the way) he's got a fair bit of money.
He also ends up buying a small narcotics and psychedelics business to give him a cover for his lifestyle. It's a bit of a funny bit of world building that on Dragaera, the drug-dealing is the legitimate side of business.
We get a hint of Vlad's own childhood backstory as he notes the neighborhood is popular among young toughs from the House of Orca. And when Vlad was a kid, he was bullied by "whisker-cutting" guys, many of whom are from Orca. So Vlad's pretty happy to instruct his enforcers to keep the twerps in line and also developing a reputation for having a territory that's very safe after dark.
Until now, things have been going pretty well.
--
So now Vlad's got to deal with this Laris dude. He sends Kragar to get information, and Kragar delivers. Apparently Laris started out as a debt collector in Dragaera City - that tells us a fair bit right there, since Dragaera City was the biggest city in the Empire before Adron's Disaster and the Interregnum. Then he turned up later in Adrilankha, selling Jhereg titles to Easterners.
Vlad wonders aloud if he might have been the one to sell his father his title, but Kragar wasn't able to find out. Anyway, he started working for Welok fifty years ago. He hasn't had any major setbacks or been in charge of a mob war.
Well, maybe. It does sound like he's got some relevant experience when he was working with Welok - at least Kragar thinks there's something fishy about the whole thing. Which means there's definitely going to be a plot twist.
Oh, we also get a fun note about the assassin Mario. He got namedropped in Jhereg as being like the best assassin in the word. Apparently he's NOT an Easterner, though he has an Eastern name. (Which would explain how he could have assassinated the Emperor four hundred years ago and still be around. Heh.)
Anyway, this comes up because of a dude named Ishtvan (another Dragaeran with an Eastern name) who once worked for Laris. I don't remember enough of the book to know if he'll be relevant.
But anyway, Vlad wants to arrange a sit down with Laris, at a restaurant that Laris owns. But with some enforcers as protection. (Loiosh is a bit offended, because Vlad has him. It's very cute.)
--
We shift scenes a bit and Vlad introduces us to one of his long time enforcers, a dude called "N'aal the Healer." We get the backstory:
He got the name first, the story goes, when he was sent to collect on a late payment from a Chreotha noble. He and his partner went to the guy’s flat and clapped at the door. They asked for the money, and the guy snorted and said, “For what?”
N’aal came up with a hammer. “I’m a healer,” he said. “I see you got a whole head. I can heal that for you.” The Chreotha got the message, and N’aal got the gold. His partner spread the story around and the name stuck.
It's a very mob-esque backstory. We also get a good jump-scare from Kragar and a meeting scheduled with two other dudes for protection: a Varg and Temek. They're very thug like. But not hostile.
The chapter ends, with the enforcers going to set shit up (with Loiosh sent to make sure they do what they're going to do.)
Admittedly, this might be denial, but I already have to deal with fucking Elbereth and Magpie in my other books. Let me delude myself into thinking I'll have ONE book where I don't want to throttle a lead character.
So chapter two immediately cheers me up by giving me something I so dearly love: a timeframe!
Basically, Vlad is telling us how, when he started working for the organization three years before, it was as muscle for a guy named Nielar. Per Jhereg, Vlad started to work for Nielar when he was sixteen years old (around the time that he'd gotten his familiar, Loiosh), which means that Yendi!Vlad is nineteen years old.
So we continue with some backstory about Nielar's boss, a dude named "Welok the Blade". Welok ended up being Vlad's boss, but there was some intrigue and eventually he vanished to be replaced by a guy with the canonically unpronounceable name of "Tagichatn".
Tagichatn apparently didn't like Easterners and was pretty much a dick boss. And that's around the time that Laris, the dude that's apparently encroaching on Vlad's territory broke away. Vlad tells us that Tagichatn committed suicide (by stabbing himself in the left eye - Vlad's favorite assassination method, I must remind us) not long after that.
Vlad, we're told, reunites with Kragar (who'd worked with him when they worked for Nielar) after that point and recruits him to help with his newly inherited territory. He also recruited another enforcer, named Melestev, to be personal secretary and bodyguard.
So yeah, this chapter is all about how Vlad took control of his current territory. He marks off Tagichatn's territory on a map, marks off a smaller territory, goes to his boss's boss, volunteers to take the smaller territory (which is the amount he thinks he can handle) and suggests that the rest could go to the boss's underlings outside. It's pretty ballsy and the boss basically says if he can keep it, it's his.
We also get an idea of what the territory actually entails:
I went back to the office, looked over the books, and discovered that we were almost broke. I had about five hundred personally, which can keep a family eating and living comfortably for maybe a year. What I now controlled were four brothels; two gambling halls; two moneylending operations; and one cleaner, or fence, or dealer-in-stolen-merchandise. There were no button-men. (A funny term, that: sometimes it means full-time enforcer on the payroll, and sometimes it means sublieutenant. I usually mean the latter.) I did, however, have six enforcers working full time. I also knew several enforcers who worked free-lance.
I visited each of my businesses and made them the same offer: I put a purse with fifty gold in it on the table and said, “I’m your new boss. This is a bonus, or a good-bye gift. Take your pick. If you take it as a bonus and try to mess with me, make a list of your mourn-singers, because you’ll need them.”
Apparently the businesses all stayed. Vlad then does a bit of a power play with a brothel owner that intimidates the rest of the businesses into reporting in properly.
I know nothing about how the real world mob organizations run, but this seems plausible to me at least. And pretty soon, even after paying Kragar and his boss (whose name is Toronnan, by the way) he's got a fair bit of money.
He also ends up buying a small narcotics and psychedelics business to give him a cover for his lifestyle. It's a bit of a funny bit of world building that on Dragaera, the drug-dealing is the legitimate side of business.
We get a hint of Vlad's own childhood backstory as he notes the neighborhood is popular among young toughs from the House of Orca. And when Vlad was a kid, he was bullied by "whisker-cutting" guys, many of whom are from Orca. So Vlad's pretty happy to instruct his enforcers to keep the twerps in line and also developing a reputation for having a territory that's very safe after dark.
Until now, things have been going pretty well.
--
So now Vlad's got to deal with this Laris dude. He sends Kragar to get information, and Kragar delivers. Apparently Laris started out as a debt collector in Dragaera City - that tells us a fair bit right there, since Dragaera City was the biggest city in the Empire before Adron's Disaster and the Interregnum. Then he turned up later in Adrilankha, selling Jhereg titles to Easterners.
Vlad wonders aloud if he might have been the one to sell his father his title, but Kragar wasn't able to find out. Anyway, he started working for Welok fifty years ago. He hasn't had any major setbacks or been in charge of a mob war.
Well, maybe. It does sound like he's got some relevant experience when he was working with Welok - at least Kragar thinks there's something fishy about the whole thing. Which means there's definitely going to be a plot twist.
Oh, we also get a fun note about the assassin Mario. He got namedropped in Jhereg as being like the best assassin in the word. Apparently he's NOT an Easterner, though he has an Eastern name. (Which would explain how he could have assassinated the Emperor four hundred years ago and still be around. Heh.)
Anyway, this comes up because of a dude named Ishtvan (another Dragaeran with an Eastern name) who once worked for Laris. I don't remember enough of the book to know if he'll be relevant.
But anyway, Vlad wants to arrange a sit down with Laris, at a restaurant that Laris owns. But with some enforcers as protection. (Loiosh is a bit offended, because Vlad has him. It's very cute.)
--
We shift scenes a bit and Vlad introduces us to one of his long time enforcers, a dude called "N'aal the Healer." We get the backstory:
He got the name first, the story goes, when he was sent to collect on a late payment from a Chreotha noble. He and his partner went to the guy’s flat and clapped at the door. They asked for the money, and the guy snorted and said, “For what?”
N’aal came up with a hammer. “I’m a healer,” he said. “I see you got a whole head. I can heal that for you.” The Chreotha got the message, and N’aal got the gold. His partner spread the story around and the name stuck.
It's a very mob-esque backstory. We also get a good jump-scare from Kragar and a meeting scheduled with two other dudes for protection: a Varg and Temek. They're very thug like. But not hostile.
The chapter ends, with the enforcers going to set shit up (with Loiosh sent to make sure they do what they're going to do.)