Like many others, I am looking forward to a resolution of the problem between Vlad and the Jhereg, preferably before “The Last Contract.” Here are my thoughts.

We know that there is not enough money in the Dragaon Treasury (or anywhere) to buy off the Jhereg. We also know that they are not afraid of any House, even a House at the top of the Cycle (like the House of Dragon in “Jhereg”). They are not even particularly afraid to take on the Empire, given what happened in “Iorich”. The Tekla and Easterners at the bottom are too disorganized and weak, and the Gods at the top just want the Cycle to keep turning, and besides do not get directly involved in the Houses (as per Verra). What does that leave?

What if a rouge God decided to simply and completely end the Jhereg? How would they stand up to that threat, given that the Lords of Judgement are often known to act slowly and after the fact? Who are they going to call, if not Vlad and God Slayer?

What about those other tribes, the ones that existed early on but did not make the cut to be one of seventeen? What if this God, or even simply all of the Houses, decided to replace the disreputable and mixed-matched House of Jhereg with this other house? There would still be seventeen houses so the cycle should go on, and no one would perhaps miss them.

Or, what if the Serioli finally decide to act, and start taking over the minds of the Jhereg leadership (perhaps through the Morganti swords they carry) in order to use them to destroy both themselves and the Empire together? Yes, I know that this has been done several times in Star Trek and elsewhere, but it can still make a good story.

Would any of these lead to a resolution of the impasse between Vlad and the Jhereg? And to my first question, would Vlad – as he is now – act to save the Jhereg if losing the House of Jhereg was the only cost.

On a side note, I was reading a parody site about “Lost”, where someone claimed that some blogger had decided early on that the island simply represented purgatory, and since that had been the actual plan of the writers, the writers instead wrote a tangled, confusing, and often contradictory story line just to avoid that blogger’s reveal. In the case of this web log and the Dreamcafe, I am comforted that whatever we may come up with, Steve will always come up with something even more clever and with more unexpected twists and implications. And thus the fun continues!

Since things are kind of quiet, I would like to pose two questions I have been think about.

Here is my first question: “Does Vlad still consider himself part of the House of Jhereg”?

Let me state the question in another way. Vlad defied the Jhereg in “Phoenix” because Cawti was in danger, and again in “Iorich” because Aliera was in danger. If neither had been involved, would Vlad still have acted against his house in those two cases? Specific to “Iorich”, if Aliera or was not endangered by the Jhereg/Orca deal, would Vlad have thought that “this will make my house money, so it is good”, and let things be?

As a side note, it seems that the Jhereg still think of him as a member, even though they want him dead in the worst possible way (Morganti). I observe that (a) the Demon himself was willing to take a Jhereg meeting with Vlad (in “Dzur”), and make a Jhereg deal, and (b) they have not revoked his title as far as I have read. Vlad at least does not have to worry about becoming a peasant, since thanks to Zerika he has his “Count of Szurke” to fall back on.

My own feeling is that if Cawti was not involved, Vlad would not have really care about the Jhereg actions in South Adrilanka, in part because he had is life ordered with the status quo, and in part his feeling that little would ever change for the Easterners whether he acted or not.

However, I feel that he may have acted in second case, even if his direct friends were not involved. We learned in both “Orca” and “Athyra” that Vlad will go out of his way for protecting the powerless, whether the simple citizens in Northport or the Teckla villagers of Smallcliff. Also, Vlad was seemingly developed a sympathy – or at least an understand of the value – of the Empire it its role of protecting the people from the Houses, so he might have stepped in to help Zerika, though perhaps at a distance instead of from inside the city itself

This leads to the next question: if the House Of Jhereg was in mortal danger, would Vlad be relieved, or would he step in to help (if properly asked of course)?

P.142 (Steve, were you having a fire sale on the letter “a”?)
para. 5: and you have a good [a] memory
para. 6: an expression that was [a] hard to decipher

(Which doesn’t affect the fact that I love the scenes with Vlad Norathar. They touch me in a way nothing else has in the books so far… as they do Vlad.)

p.149, para.1, last line: to d[e]vine ==> divine

And one more that reminds me of, I don’t remember which book it was in, but some proofreader capitalized *every* damn occurrence of “jhereg”, and maybe other House animals as well:

para. 6 from bottom: “May I touch the [J]hereg?”

And one that might or might not be a typo or wrong word: p.145, para. 5 from bottom:
the mus[k]y smell of ancient furniture
??=> musty

Mark A. Mandel, proprietor, Cracks and Shards
http://www.cracksandshards.com
a Steven Brust fan website
aka Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody

I keep going back and filling the inside front and back cover with notes, and just saved a whole load of these comments (including the typo notes– now I’ll know not to bother you with those).

Tchrist@140: You reason like a Yendi.

Interrogating a Dragonlord is obviously as irritating to execute as it’s transcript is enjoyable to read. Well done. Aliera’s answers are as keen as Pathfinder.

It’s perfect and I read it several times to myself, then several times to my friends, all of whom enjoyed it as well.

Thank you so much, for being you.

chy: Heh heh heh

I knew there was a reason that line jumped out at me, but I was too excited to be following Vlad around to stop and ponder it.

(And sorry if that’s not the exact line; I’m not actually patient enough to flip through and find it—until I’m able to sit down and read the whole thing again.)