I Read What?!

Last time, Vlad met with Kiera and did some planning with Kragar. He also namedropped his wife, which I still find an interesting plot development. Usually this style of protagonist is single, and busy leering at the femme fatale.



So the chapter starts with Vlad receiving the payment from the Demon, which means he's now committed to the job of assassinating this Mellar fellow.

Then he gets a delivery from Kiera: an envelope of Mellar's hair, from his pillow. This means that Vlad can start his tracking spell. And it also means we get to meet Vlad's wife, in the form of a psionic conversation between the two of them:

“Yes, Vlad?”

“Are you busy, sweetheart?”

“Not really. Just practicing a little knife-throwing.”

“Hey! I wish you wouldn’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because you can already beat me seven out of ten times.”

“I’m going for eight out of ten. You’ve been getting uppity lately. What’s up? Do you have some ‘work’ for me?”

“No such luck. Drop on by and I’ll tell you about it.”

They seem to have a pretty good dynamic. I enjoy the playful subversion of the husband protesting about his wife practicing with knives, because she's already better than him at it.

We also get to see Vlad's "lab", which is in the basement of his office behind a locked door. (Vlad makes a point of telling us that locks aren't very effective at keeping people out, but they essentially act like a sign that says "Private".)

It was a smallish room, with a low table in the exact center and several mounted lamps along the wall. I kindled these. In a corner of the room was a small chest. The middle of the table held a brazier, with a few unburned coals in it. I dumped these out and got more from the chest.

I focused, briefly, on one of the candles and was rewarded by a flame. I used it to light the others, then put out the lamps.

So Vlad starts making his witchcraft preparations. As noted before, I find the contrast between the utilitarian Dragaeran sorcery and the spiritual, deliberate witchcraft interesting. We also meet Cawti in the flesh:

Soon Cawti arrived and greeted me with a sunshine smile. She was an Easterner, a small, pretty woman with dzur-black hair and fluid, graceful movements. If she’d been a Dragaeran, she might have been born into the House of the Issola, and taught them all something about “courtliness.” And something about “surprise,” as well.

Her hands were small, but strong, and could produce knives out of nowhere. Her eyes burned—sometimes with the impish delight of a mischievous child, sometimes with the cold passion of a professional killer, sometimes with the rage of a Dragonlord going into battle.

Cawti was one of the deadliest assassins I had ever met. She and her partner, then a defrocked Dragonlord, had made one of the most sought-after teams of killers in the Jhereg, going under the somewhat melodramatic names of “The Sword and the Dagger.” I had deemed it a high honor when an enemy of mine had considered me worth the expense of hiring the team to take me out. I’d been quite surprised when I woke up afterwards and found that they hadn’t managed to make it permanent. For that, thank Kragar’s alertness, Morrolan’s speed and fighting ability, and Aliera’s rather exceptional skill in healing and revivification.

Some couples fall in love and end up trying to kill each other. We’d done it the other way around.

1) The story of how Vlad and Cawti got together is in the second book in the series, "Yendi".

2) I also enjoy seeing a man gush about his wife. It makes me smile. The "Issola" by the way are a house of Dragaerans known for diplomacy and etiquette.

3) I've said it before but Vlad namedropping makes me laugh every time. He should start saying "my good friend" when he talks about these people.

Anyway, Vlad called Cawti to help because she's also a competent witch, though not quite as skilled as Vlad is. I rather like that in this couple, the woman is the stronger assassin while the man is the better witch.

So eventually, Loiosh interrupts as it's time to contact Daymar. Daymar, we're told, is so strong that Vlad can actually hear his voice when they communicate. Daymar makes his entrance:

I ordered our teleport protections taken down for a few seconds. Daymar appeared in front of me—floating, cross-legged, about three feet off the floor. I rolled my eyes; Cawti shook her head sadly. Loiosh hissed. Daymar shrugged, and stretched his legs down; stood up.

“You left off the thunderclap and the lightning flash,” I told him.

“Should I try again?”

“Never mind.”

I'd judge, but if I were capable of that, I totally would.

We get a description of Daymar as well:

Daymar stood roughly 7 feet, 3 inches tall. He had the sharp, well-chiseled features of the House of the Hawk, although they were somewhat gentler, softer, than those of most Hawklords I’ve met. He was incredibly thin, looking almost transparent. It seemed that his eyes rarely focused, giving him the appearance of looking past whatever he was observing, or at something deep inside it. We had been friends since the time I had almost killed him for mind-probing one of my people. He’d done it out of curiosity, and I think he never understood why I objected.

One thing that may have already become apparent is that Dragaeran Houses aren't just a social construction. There are biological components too, and features associated with one over another. Daymar here is a Hawk. Kragar and Kiera have fewer notable traits, because they're Jhereg, and that, in and of itself, is a House indicator. (Jhereg being kind of a catch-all depository for renegades.) Cawti has hair "like a dzur". And so on.

I might have mentioned that before, but it's an interesting and somewhat relevant part of the world building, though maybe more in later books when we start to learn why the Houses/Cycle exists at all.

Vlad compares his two trades, and this is pretty interesting:

It was interesting, I reflected, how much a witchcraft spell resembles an assassination, as opposed to either of them being similar to sorcery. To use sorcery, all you do is reach out through your link to the Imperial Orb, grab some power, shape it, and throw it. With witchcraft, however, you have to plan carefully and precisely so that you don’t end up searching around for some implement you need, right at the moment of using it.

One notable advantage to both witchcraft and assassination is that you can work as a team. Vlad and Cawti are used to working together, and are able to link minds without physical contact. He feels his power "diminish and increase at the same time".

More ritual, which I am sharing because I think it is neat:

I laid a few leaves on the coals, which obliged by making the proper hissing sounds. They were large, broad leaves from the Heaken tree, which only grows out East. They had been prepared by being soaked in purified water for a number of hours, and by diverse enchantments. A large gout of steam-smoke rose up, and Cawti began chanting, low and almost inaudible. As the leaves began to blacken and burn, my left hand found the envelope and the hairs. I rolled them around on my fingertips for a moment. I felt things start to happen—the very first sign of a witchcraft spell starting to have any kind of effect is when certain senses begin to feel sharper. In this case, each hair felt distinct and unique to my fingertips, and I could almost make out tiny details on each one. I dropped them onto the burning leaves, as Cawti’s chanting became more intense, and I could almost pick out the words.

Things almost go very very badly when Daymar bursts in psionically and offers to help, by basically psychically supercharging Vlad. Fortunately Loiosh is able to help him channel it. Cawti helps too. Vlad does manage to think that if Daymar hurt Loiosh's mind, he'll kill him. Fair enough. This sort of thing is apparently why witches have familiars, and Vlad is pretty sure that Loiosh saved him here.

There's a cool cryptic bit that serves as kind of a preview reel/trailer for the entire series:

There is a cry of “charge” and five thousand Dragons come storming at the place the Eastern army is entrenched . . . Making love to Cawti that first time—the moment of entry, even more than the moment of release; I wonder if she plans to kill me before we’re finished, and I don’t really care . . . The Dzur hero, coming alone to Dzur mountain, sees Sethra Lavode stand up before him, Iceflame alive in her hand . . . A small girl-child with big brown eyes looks at me and smiles . . . The energy bolt, visible as a black wave, streaks toward me, and I swing Spellbreaker at it, wondering whether it will work . . . Aliera stands up before the shadow of Kieron the Conqueror, there in the midst of the Halls of Judgment, in the Paths of the Dead, beyond Deathsgate Falls . . . 

I recognize some of these references. They're all from books that hadn't been written yet. But they're consistent enough that I can still pinpoint a few of them.

The ritual goes on for a while, but eventually, Vlad manages to summon an image of someone who is "middle-aged" with features from the House of the Dzur. This gets transferred into a crystal so that Daymar will be able to do his tracking spell. Daymar thanks Vlad for the experience, having no idea that his "help" almost killed him. Vlad can't think of a way to tell him, so he just makes a note to be careful of doing witchcraft around Daymar in the future.

Daymar has figured out that this is in aid of an assassination, but doesn't seem to mind. He heads out. Cawti and Loiosh intend to sleep off their exhaustion, while Vlad has to go back to work. The chapter ends here.