[Dragaera] alternative solutions to Jhereg?

[Philip Hart]

On Fri, 15 Jun 2012, Jerry Friedman wrote:

>> From: Jon Lincicum <lincicum at comcast.net>

>> While that would avoid the Dragon-Jhereg War that Mellar wanted to see, 
>> it does still leave Mellar escaping the justice of The Organization. 
>> (And is the very reason Mellar hired bodyguards to protect him from any 
>> non-Jhereg assassins while at Castle Black--something Vlad exploits 
>> later.
>
> Mellar's reason is that if the Dragons don't believe he was killed by a 
> Jhereg, there will be no Dragon-Jhereg War.

Note that Mellar buys some time with the bodyguards.  With them it takes 
Vlad quite a while (and even a bit of luck) to understand what's going on.


> In fact, the Demon's best plan might be to keep letting people think 
> that Mellar's death was a personal matter.


As in the Sethra-makes-a-loan/Aliera-goes-dowsing (first typed "sousing" 
by mistake) scenario, you're right.  For that matter, is it known outside 
the Council that Mellar has the money?  I'm almost sure the Demon says 
explicitly the reputational harm is what matters - so another option would 
have been to simply pick a patsy, kill him, and say that he robbed the 
treasury but the funds are being rounded up (in the above scenario you say 
"were never stolen" etc.) from his accomplices (more patsies).  Heck, say 
it was Kiera, have her morganti'd in public, then round up Mellar after 
17-n days and extract the relevant info.  Kiera's secret pupil Kiera the 
Younger shows up a little later.  Mellar can talk while he's waiting to be 
collected but who at a Castle Black party cares what a Jhereg says?

One downside is the chance that Mellar figures out some way to use the 
extra time.  Maybe he pays the Left Hand 9 large to take down Castle 
Black, or gives the money to the Serioli.  Vlad's solution is built 
around surprise, and that is a good reason to prefer it.

Incidentally, I don't think anyone has mentioned _Isle of the Dead_ here 
in a while.  It's even out of print.  Anyway I should reread it - I seem 
to recall the alien race in the novel is an influence on Draegera and 
their view of revenge is reflected in _Jhereg_.