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Take it from me: if you arrive at a friend's house and the first thing you see is a guy who either is dead, or does a great job pretending to be, it's not a good sign. It means trouble, with a capital T and then some. Thus, when I arrived at Daymar's house one not especially sunny afternoon, my good mood vanished quicker than a teckla at the sighting of a dzur.
Of course, the fact that the next thing I spotted after the dead guy was Morrolan, sheathing Blackwand with the satisfied expression of a man who knows he's just rid his country of another worthless idiot didn't improve matters anything, although it did reassure me that I didn't need to worry about Daymar's safety ... much. Daymar was, after all, Daymar. It wasn't wholly inconceivable that he'd done something to upset Morrolan. On the other hand, I knew what Daymar looked like, and the dead guy didn't even come close. He looked like an Orca - which meant he probably also wasn't one of the servants.
For most of the household-chores, Daymar uses spells, rather than hiring actual people. A spell, after all, once set, is free, while people need to be paid each and every week. Daymar isn't poor, as far as I know, but he's no Morrolan either. Besides, what's the use of figuring out how to wash the dishes by magic, if you're just going to let someone else do it? The one thing Daymar does have servants for is, predictably, cooking.
Most Dragaerans couldn't cook a decent meal if their lives depended on it, but Orca are especially bad at it - I suppose it's because they're used to be at sea, and eat raw fish with stale bread. Or maybe they're just too dumb to realize the difference between 'well-done' and 'burnt'. Whichever it is, an Orca in the kitchen is not going to work. Daymar employs a Teckla - who claims to have known 'the Mica with the barstool', whomever that might have been - and an Easterner, who got into a spot of trouble at the place where he worked before, and owed me money. The Easterner doesn't talk much, but if he did talk, he wouldn't say anything about having once worked at Valabar's, before he was fired for having mistaken sugar for salt and vice versa, on a bad day. He's not that dumb, and he's nearly paid off all the interest on his loan, so I'm glad I brought him to Daymar's attention.
Anyway, to get back to my story: there was a dead Orca on the ground left of me, and a happy Dragonlord with a Great Weapon not yet wholly sheathed in front of me. My day was definitely looking up - I wondered if I might sneak off and pretend I'd forgotten I was supposed to drop by today.
"Maybe you should say something to let him know it's you, boss," Loiosh suggested. "You know how Dragons get when they've just killed someone."
"Vlad," Morrolan said, as I was about to tell Loiosh we were getting out of here and would come back later, when the servants - or rather, the cleaning spells - had had a chance to get rid of the evidence. I mean, it was all very well for Morrolan to go around killing Orcas and such, but he was a Dragonlord. As a Jhereg, I could get into real trouble if the Empire decided to investigate this particular Orca's death.
If it'd been another Dragon, or even a Dzur or Hawk, Morrolan might have revivified the guy, regardless of why he'd killed him in the first place, but with an Orca, there was no chance of that. Morrolan's opinion of Orca is remarkably similar to mine, if for completely different reasons, I'm sure.
"Hey," I said. "Having fun, I see." I couldn't imagine an Orca to be much of a challenge for someone like Morrolan, but in spite of all their talk about honor, Dragons are perfectly happy to kill anyone who comes at them with a sword, no matter the difference in skill. In fact, they'll even let you borrow one of their own weapons, should you happen to lack one. Nice, huh? I'm sure it feels much better to get killed by someone so utterly noble and honorable as a Dragon.
"The fun part seems to be mostly over," Morrolan replied, finally sheathing Blackwand completely. He nodded a polite greeting at Loiosh, who nodded back. "You are too late."
"Was it only the one guy?" I asked, reasonably sure that the answer was 'no', but not about to get into a discussion with a Dragon about his definition of 'fun', and how it was different from mine.
Morrolan seemed to need to think about that for a moment. "Yes, so I see your point. Of course, I could have revivified him in order to fairly share the pleasure of killing him, but it seems a shame to waste magic on such a trivial matter." And here there were people saying Jhereg were cold-hearted bastards. Seriously, if I could get away with half the things a Dragon can get away with under the guise of 'defending his honor', my life would be a lot less complicated.
"I wonder what he wanted." I frowned. An Orca trying to sneak into the house of a Hawk? Well, maybe, but if that Hawk was Daymar? Not bloody likely. Orcas were dumb, only not the kind of stupid that made Dzur and Dragons pick fights for the fun of it - if this one had tried to take on Morrolan, he had to have had a reason for it. "Or who sent him."
Daymar had been helping me out with a few cases recently; nothing too serious or illegal, but it was possible someone had noticed and decided to send him a little warning. The timing bothered me though; if these guys had kept tabs on Daymar, why hadn't they waited until he was alone? Why send someone when Morrolan was around? And if they hadn't kept tabs, then why were they harassing Daymar? What were the chances of someone hiring a cheap thug to beat up Daymar a little, and then sending that thug in at just the moment when Daymar was having a Dragonlord over?
"Your puzzlement puzzles me," Morrolan said. "He is dead. To me, that is the end of the matter. I see no reason to discuss this further."
"Oh, Vlad, you are here already." There were bits of soot on Daymar's face and clothes. I wondered what he'd been doing, but decided it was probably better not to ask. He might actually tell me. "I'm - is that Korith?" He stared at the dead Orca, then at Morrolan, then at me. "He looks dead."
Strangely enough, I felt a little guilty, even if I hadn't done anything. Morrolan, naturally, didn't look the least bit uncomfortable.
"I would assume that he is. Most people are, after I've run them through with Blackwand." He stroked the hilt of the weapon in question and smiled. If I'd been Daymar, I would have left it at that. Daymar, apparently, was made of sterner stuff than the average Easterner.
"Why did you do that?" Now, before you get the wrong impression, I should add that Daymar didn't look particularly upset when he asked this. I think he was mostly curious, and a teensy bit unsettled, perhaps.
"He spoke of you in the most unflattering of terms," Morrolan replied, with a shrug. "As I am, at this moment, your guest, it seemed poor manners not to correct him."
"Oh." Daymar blinked, appearing to need a few seconds to think this over.
I took the opportunity to try and clear this mystery up. "Daymar, you actually know this guy?"
Daymar blinked again. "Of course I do. He's my neighbor."
You know, before this incident, I always used to wonder why Daymar lived where he did. It wasn't a poor neighborhood, true, but I thought he'd be able to afford better.
"He claimed you'd blown up his house," Morrolan said, his tone making it clear that he considered the accusation to be completely ridiculous. I guess that when you live in a floating castle, disgruntled neighbors aren't much of a problem. The Empire must have been a lot more peaceful when all Dragonlords lived in them, instead of just one.
"Several times," Daymar confirmed cheerfully. "I did offer to help him rebuild it though."
Morrolan stared at him. "Excuse me?"
"It was an accident," Daymar explained, a little impatiently. "After the first time it happened, I worked three weeks on a spell to recreate buildings, but when I asked if he'd like for me to use it, he refused." Daymar sounded hurt. I wondered how often he'd blown up this Korith's house while working on his building-spell.
"He also accused you of having cast a spell that made his house get overrun with mice," Morrolan said.
"It was the mice that bothered him the most?" Daymar cocked his head. "I'd have thought it would have been ... well, apparently not."
"He said you'd summoned a pink demon with floppy ears to make a ruin of his kitchen." Morrolan was beginning to sound slightly desperate. I bet he hated the idea of being honor-bound to revivify and then apologize to a mere Orca.
"The elephant? I'd asked for a small one." Daymar spread his hands, all wide-eyed innocence. "How was I to know elephants were that tall? Besides, I'd expected it to appear in my living-room."
If looks could have killed, I'd have needed to call on Aliera to come and revivify Daymar. As it was, Morrolan just glowered a lot, while Daymar fidgeted and Loiosh was snickering over the whole matter.
"Well, he could have been more polite in phrasing his complaints," Morrolan said at last, nodding once, as if to confirm to himself that a lack of good manners was, indeed, a perfectly legitimate reason to kill someone. "Don't you agree, Vlad?"
"Certainly," I said. I mean, hey, it was an Orca. He was bound to have done something to deserve it. Besides, I had a sneakng suspicion Morrolan might get annoyed with me if I hadn't agreed with him.
Daymar didn't seem entirely convinced. "I still think I should - "
"No," Morrolan said. He didn't say it threateningly, like he'd chop off Daymar's head if he pressed the issue, just matter-of-factly.
"But - " Daymar tried again.
"I think not," Morrolan said.
"Let's go inside and talk about what you've found out about that weird map Morrolan found in his library," I proposed. "Did you manage to decipher any of the symbols on it?"
"Oh yes." Daymar's expression brightened. "It's quite fascinating. You see," he turned to Morrolan, "I've found a reference in Lowbrook's Histories and it turns out that - "
I'll spare you the rest of their conversation, partially because I honestly don't remember all that much of it myself. What can I say: the history of the Empire has never interested me enough to spend a few years of my life studying it. I'm not some Dragaeran, who can afford to spend five years on a simple spell to produce drinkable tea out of thin air.
Maybe you feel sorry for Korith. Let me point out to you that he was an Orca. Moreover, he was an Orca who chose to tangle with Morrolan. In my opinion, with that kind of stupidity, he deserved what he got.