Dragon (Vlad Taltos) Read Online Free Page A

seems unlikely to be a Jhereg behind it.”
    “No, Vlad, it will be a Dragon. That’s the problem.”
    Well, he was a Dragon; he should know. No, he wasn’t a Dragon, he was a Jhereg, but he should still know. He had once been a Dragon, which meant—what?
    I studied Kragar. I knew him better than I knew anyone I didn’t know at all. We’d worked together as enforcers when I first entered the Jhereg, and we’d been working together ever since. He was the only Dragaeran I didn’t hate, except maybe Kiera. Come to think of it, I didn’t understand her, either.
    Kragar was courageous, and timid, warmhearted, and vicious, and easygoing, and dedicated, and friendly, and utterly ruthless; as well as having the strange ability, or shortcoming, to blend into the woodwork so completely one could be staring right at him without realizing he was there.
    I couldn’t remember a single idea of mine that he hadn’t thrown cold water on, nor a single one that he hadn’t backed me on to the hilt—literally, in some cases.
    “What is it?” he said.
    “I was ruminating.”
    “Shouldn’t you do that in private?”
    “Oh, is someone here?”
    “You’re a riot, Vlad.”
    “In any case,” I said, picking up the conversation from where it was lying in the middle of the floor, “there’s a lot of money in it.”
    Kragar made a sound I won’t attempt to describe. I could sense Loiosh holding back several remarks. It seems I surround myself with people who think I’m an idiot, which probably says something deep and profound about me.
    “So,” I said, “who do we put on it?”
    “I don’t know. We should probably go over there ourselves and look things over.”
    “I was afraid you’d say that.”
    He gave me a puzzled glance that went away quickly. There are matters on which Dragaerans and humans will never understand one another, and soul-killing weapons are, evidently, one of those. I mean, they hate them as much as or more than we do; but Dragaerans don’t usually have the sort of overwhelming dread that such weapons inspire in a human. I don’t know why that is.
    “How do we get there?”
    “I’ll hire a coach.”
    Baritt had lived in a square, grey stone building on the outskirts of Adrilankha, in the hills to the west. He probably called it a castle. I could call my tunic a chair if I wanted to. It had three stories, a large front door, a couple of servants’ entrances, a few glass windows, and a sharply sloped roof. His estate struck me as too rocky, and the soil too sandy, to be good for much. There was peasant activity, but not a great deal. There were a pair of guards in front of the main door, in the livery of the House of the Dragon. As Kragar and I approached, I saw one was wearing
the same emblem that Morrolan’s people sported; the other had a badge I didn’t recognize.
    I rehearsed the conversation I was about to have with them. I won’t share it with you because the actual conversation disrupted my plans.
    “Baronet Taltos?” said the one wearing Morrolan’s badge.
    I nodded.
    “Please enter.”
    Trust me: The conversation I’d been prepared for would have been much more fun to relate. But there was compensation. The guard said, “Wait—who is he?” noticing Kragar for the first time.
    “My associate,” I said, keeping my chuckle on the inside.
    “Very well,” he said.
    I glanced at the other guard, who was busy being expressionless. I wondered who he worked for.
    Kragar and I passed within.
    Rarely upon crossing a threshold have I been struck by such a sensation of entering a different world—I mean it felt as if between one step and another I had left Dragaera and entered a place at least as foreign as my Eastern ancestral homeland. The first surprise was that, after passing by the stone entryway of the stone house, you reached a foyer that was full of blown glass—vases, candelabra, empty decanters, and other glasswork were displayed on dark wooden pedestals or in cabinets. The