Jhegaala

Vlad's marriage has just fallen apart, and the Jhereg, the criminal organization he has crossed, wants him dead. He decides to lie low among relatives in Fenario, far from home. He knows only that the family name is Merss and that they live in Burz, a town built around papermaking.

Burz seems tolerable at first, apart from the stench of the paper mill. The longer Vlad stays, the odder the place becomes. Nobody will tell him where his relatives live, and when he says the name Merss, people hear it as a threat.

The town is missing things a Fenarian town should have. There is no witches' coven anywhere. The Guild, which ought to protect local craftsmen and traders, is an oppressive and all-powerful body that admits no tradesman.

Then something terrible happens in Burz. Vlad has no organization behind him here, and Draegara is far away. He has to investigate the matter himself, among a people he has never understood: his own.