Mellar

From the Lyorn Records of the Dragaeran Empire

Member of the Jhereg Council who ran off with 9 million gold. This caused The Demon to hire Vlad Taltos to assassinate him. (Jhereg)

His real name was Leareth.

[edit] Detailed History

Mellar was born as a crossbreed, with bloodlines from the Dragon, Dzur and Jhereg houses. Because of the stigma the empire puts on crossbreeds, Mellar was a virtual outcast, looked down upon by everyone.

To get his revenge, he came up with a plan to humiliate all three houses that had contributed to his heritage, and beat each of them at their own strengths, to add insult to injury. The first stage of his plan was to defeat seventeen Dzurlords in combat to become a member of the House of Dzur. After two years, he gave up his Dzur titles and joined the house of the Jhereg. This caused a huge scandal in the house of Dzur, who were insulted that one of their members would give up their rank and title to join the Jhereg (the Jhereg being severly looked down upon by most other houses, except for the Teckla).

As a member of the Jhereg, Mellar rose quickly through the ranks, and in ten years managed to take out Terion (although Terion was apparently not permanently killed), and occupy his place on the Jhereg Council. At the time of Jhereg, Mellar had just absconded with 9 million gold in council operating funds, effectively crippling a large portion of the Jhereg activities. Far more important, however, was the risk to the Jhereg reputation. It is not impossible to steal from the Jhereg; the house's power is rooted in the absolute assurance that it is impossible to survive to enjoy it.

With two houses taken care of and money in hand, the third part of his plan was to start another Dragon-Jhereg War, using the legendary pride of the Dragonlords as the trigger. He made his way to Castle Black. Years before he had stolen a book from Morrolan's library, and with this book, he made his way to the castle with the promise of returning the 'found' book to Morrolan. As a token of his generosity, Morrolan offered Mellar an invitation to stay within Castle Black for seventeen days, as Morrolan's guest.

Once in Castle Black, Mellar knew that Morrolan would not allow him to be harmed. All guests in Castle Black have protection as per an oath taken by Morrolan, and anyone—even an entire House—who violates that protection is subject to Morrolan's wrath. Mellar also knew that the Jhereg could not countenance the impression that there was any force in the world that could thwart their vengeance; to be publicly unpunished for even seventeen days would be an unacceptable show of weakness—therefore the Jhereg would have to attack him while he remained under Morrolan's protection, which would inevitably start a crippling war between the two Houses.

Vlad managed to defeat Mellar's plan and avert the war by goading him into attacking Aliera with a morganti dagger. This deceived Mellar into believing he had killed her, violating his status as a guest, and forced him to flee Castle Black and Morrolan's protection. Once Mellar had fled, Vlad managed to fight well enough to keep him busy and eventually (with the help of Rocza) kill him before Mellar could return to Castle Black.