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Vlad's other friends, Aliera e'Kieron and Sethra Lavode, are more lax on the rules of hospitality and offer their help.

Vlad is forced to find a compromise between the interests of his House and his friend. Morrolan has invited Mellar to stay for seventeen days, but the Jhereg need the hit performed before that time. The last time a Jhereg assassinated a Dragonlord's houseguest, it resulted in a war between the two Houses that decimated both. However Morrolan holds fast to the Dragonlord traditions of hospitality, and will permit no harm to come to his guests for any reason. Vlad is a personal friend of Morrolan and has a standing invitation to Castle Black, which would make the assassination quite easy. Mellar has become the houseguest of the Dragonlord Morrolan e'Drien in his floating fortress, Castle Black.

Vlad accepts, despite the very short time limit. The contract is to kill another Jhereg crime lord, Mellar, who has absconded with a fortune from the Jhereg treasury.

One day he is approached by the Demon, an extremely powerful member of the Organization's ruling Council, and offered an assassination job with a staggeringly large reward. Despite being an Easterner in the Dragaeran city of Adrilankha, Vlad is a minor boss in the criminal activities of the Jhereg Organization. The novel opens with a brief history of Vlad Taltos and a description of how he acquired his jhereg familiar, Loiosh. Vlad Taltos, a mobster and assassin in the magical metropolis of Adrilankha, is given the largest contract of his career, but the job is even more complicated than he expects. The novel is named after House Jhereg, the Great House to which Vlad Taltos belongs. Marvel Comics adapted the story into a graphic novel titled Steven Brust's JHEREG in 1987. Ace later republished it in 1999 as part of the three-book omnibus, The Book of Jhereg. Jhereg is a fantasy novel by American writer Steven Brust, part of his Vlad Taltos series, originally published in 1983 by Ace Books.