Vlad Taltos
7 total works
Vlad Taltos, short-statured, short-lived human in an Empire of tall, long-lived Dragaerans, has always had to keep his wits about him. Long ago, he made a place for himself as a captain of the Jhereg, the noble house that runs the rackets in the great imperial city of Adrilankha. But love, revolution, betrayal, and revenge ensued, and for years now Vlad has been a man on the run, struggling to stay a step ahead of the Jhereg who would kill him without hesitation. Now Vlad's back in Adrilankha. The rackets he used to run are now under the control of the mysterious "Left Hand of the Jhereg" -a secretive cabal of women who report to no man. His ex-wife needs his help. His old enemies aren't sure whether they want to kill him, or talk to him and then kill him. A goddess may be playing tricks with his memory. And the Great Weapon he's carrying seems to have plans of its own. Picking up directly where "Issola" left off, "Dzuris" is Vlad Taltos at his best-crackling, swashbuckling adventure fantasy with edge.
Fresh from the collapse of his marriage, and with the criminal Jhereg organization out to eliminate him, Vlad decides to hide out among his relatives in faraway Fenario. All he knows about them is that their family name is Merss and that they live in a papermaking industrial town called Burz.At first Burz isn't such a bad place, though the paper mill reeks to high heaven. But the longer he stays there, the stranger it becomes. No one will tell him where to find his relatives. Even stranger, when he mentions the name Merss, people think he's threatening them. The witches' coven that every Fenarian town and city should have is nowhere in evidence. And the Guild, which should be protecting the city's craftsmen and traders, is an oppressive, all-powerful organization, into which no tradesman would ever be admitted.Then a terrible thing happens. In its wake, far from Draegara, without his usual organization working for him, Vlad is going to have to do his sleuthing amidst an alien people: his own.
In 1998, Steven Brust's hugely popular "Vlad Taltos" fantasy adventure series, the previous volumes of which had all appeared as paperback originals, finally moved to hardcover with the publication of Dragon, which went on to be Brust's bestselling hardcover. Now Brust returns to the world of Vlad for a swashbuckling tale that sheds long-delayed light on the very fundamentals of Dragaera and its origins. Vlad Taltos, a sometimes assassin currently on the run from his former associates, is tracked down in his jungle hideout by a most improbable party: Lady Teldra, the infinitely charming chatelaine of Castle Black. Teldra has come to enlist Vlad's help. His friends Morrolan e'Drien and Aliera e'Kieron have vanished, and neither sorcery nor telepathy can find them. Vlad once rescued Morrolan and Aliera from the realm of the Gods. That was hard enough. But now it looks like Morrolan and Aliera are in the hands of the Jenoine: those inscrutable and immeasurably powerful beings who long ago were the makers of Dragaers and the masters of its gods.
House Jhereg, Dragaera's organized-crime syndicate, is still hunting Vlad Taltos. There's a big price on his head in Dragaera City. Then he hears disturbing news. Aliera - long time friend, sometime ally - has been arrested by the Empire on a charge of practicing elder sorcery, a capital crime. It doesn't make sense. Everybody knows Aliera's been dabbling in elder sorcery for ages. Why is the Empire down on her now? Why aren't her powerful friends - Morrolan, Sethra, the Empress Zerika - coming to her rescue? And more to the point, why has she utterly refused to do anything about her own defense? It would be idiotic of Vlad to jump into this situation. He's a former Jhereg who betrayed the House. He's an Easterner - small, weak, short-lived. He's being sought by the most remorseless killers in the world. Naturally, that's exactly why he's going to get completely involved...
