(pgs?) Anyway, on pages 84 and 85 of the Ace edition of _Yendi_, Vlad dismisses the idea of having sent The Dagger and The Sword after Laris - the fee would have cleaned him out and if they failed he'd be screwed. But in _TPG_ Fayaavik insists on returning his fee, saying that only employees are paid to make attempts (end of Chapter 20). Note that Cawti and Norathar return their fee to Laris (having in some sense survived the work.) I think the problem with hiring a top-notch assassin for Vlad would be more that they would work on their time-scale, and he wouldn't have the funds to defend himself in the meantime. Otoh, you'd think he could just shut down for a while, as I think he does in _Phoenix_. Came across the above while looking for Kragar info - as far as I can tell there's only the Lyorn lass he's seduced for info. Someone should start a Kragar faq.