Thank you so much to DrHolland and TopShelfCrazy for their great help in beta reading this chapter )))

An answer to the guest reviewer who mentioned Daenerys forgot Brienne's influence over Jaime is under this chapter.

On we go.

xxxxx

Tyrion

The four shadowbinders became gloomier than usual when the fortress protecting the mountain pass finally came into view. The lacquer-masked Asshai'i had seemed overly confident about every detail of the journey until that moment, and Tyrion did not appreciate their sudden change of heart in the very least.

It didn't bode well.

Tyrion gripped harder the reins of his dwarf zorse, growing extremely worried by this change of attitude.

He hadn't fallen from Arrow, his pig-headed, uncommon, striped mount, since they began the long ride from the edge of the Red Waste, up the Sand Road and deep into the Bone Mountains. He had found, to his immense relief and satisfaction, how a small pet on the little zorse's head and shiny white mane did miracles for his foul temper. The animal turned as docile for his rider as if he were a gentle mare some lady would ride gladly. With the difference that Arrow remained strong, tenacious and spirited, every inch the zorse who made Tyrion's life into seven hells since his departure from Meereen. Arrow was equally fast if not faster than any of the Dothraki horses ridden by his companions, and he could easily surpass them in endurance.

The fort was very well hidden by the curious, varied shapes of the stony mountains, resembling limbs, body and head of some huge creature. The bones of the race of giants who have long since disappeared from the world, Tyrion remembered the scrolls he studied in Casterly Rock, unsure if it was Lomas Longstrider or another world-famous traveller who had left the account about the Bones, and the three holds which defended the passes through them, from the west to the fabled east. Too much reading, he thought, frowning, trying to recall his theoretical knowledge about his real surroundings.

Many ways lead into the mountains, but only three lead out, Tyrion remembered.

The grey and yellow of the outpost walls blended with the colours of inanimate rock under the still burning, setting sun. Bayasabhad, the City of Serpents, at the end of the Sand Road, on the southernmost path, if the hot weather is any indication, Tyrion concluded.

His mismatched eyes could distinguish the imposing frame of the city with careful observation. The towers and the crenellations. The walls and the murder holes. The citadel was almost in line with the clouds. Yet it was not white and pristine like the Eyrie, the only other castle so high up Tyrion had known from experience, but either warmly yellowish like earth in a desert or dirty grey like mud in a riverbed. Both colours were slightly darker in hue than the exuberant pink walls of the Red Keep in King's Landing.

Almost as powerful as the walls of Casterly Rock. Only smaller, like I; a small heir of a great house whose head I have disemboweled.

Bayasabhad rose threatening from the flattened ridge of the Bones, obstructing the only way across for long leagues.

"The warrior women who hold the mountain passes are not fond of foreigners," Ser Jorah observed knowingly, trotting next to Tyrion.

Had you bedded one of them before you stumbled upon your silver queen? Tyrion wondered with interest. He would remain curious until the day he died.

Archmaester Marwyn snorted with contempt. "They are not fond of men," he lectured. "Men are gelded here and lead a life of servitude. Only a few are allowed to procreate."

Tyrion was instantly sickened, both by his assumptions about Mormont's bedding quests and the learned explanation concerning the habits of the local ladies he could very well live without.

He looked at the four shadowbinders with expectation. They must know a way out of this. As if on command, the Asshai'i began singing in thick, melodious, ululating voices.

Yet for all their singing, Quaithe and her masked friends did not dance at all. This frightened Tyrion more than anything. If they danced, it would mean that the company on the road to Asshai could travel swiftly by the obscure magic of the shadows and come across the Bone Mountains intact, as they had come from Meereen to the far eastern edge of the Red Waste in a very short time. Impossibly fast.

Despite his inner agony since he began searching for where whores went, Tyrion harboured no secret desire to die. Death remained too final for his liking. Life was only… unpredictable and frequently unpleasant, but as long as it lasted it held ample possibilities. Who knew, the fact that Tyrion had no idea what to do with his pitiful existence might change in the future.

The company rode further up the tortuous, climbing path, and glimpsed the entrance to the citadel, still from afar. The great gates of oak banded with iron were shut.

Arrow neighed enthusiastically when a volley of true arrows greeted them from the city walls, landing a hundred yards in front of the seven travellers.

We are out of reach, but not for long, Tyrion rightfully concluded. "Be quiet," he told his steed as if the impish zorse had any fault in the matter of the company being assaulted.

"We have to press on," Quaithe commanded from behind in a centuries old, ugly voice.

Tyrion spurred his zorse with the rest of their party, not certain this was the best course of action, but most unwilling to be left behind. A single target could prove easy to hit, even a dwarf one.

They were almost at the gates when the second charge of arrows was released.

"Take cover!" Ser Jorah yelled, but there was none to be taken; it was either ride on or rush back. And leave the backs and the rumps vulnerable to the warrior women archers.

The large black horse Quaithe rode screamed, mortally wounded. The rest of the party; men, women, dwarf, horse and zorse were miraculously intact.

For now, Tyrion thought, cantering to his new best lady friend, who dismounted from her dying steed.

"How do you propose we enter here?" he wondered aloud, half-protesting. "Shouldn't the four of you dance that little dance of yours and make us go over this little hurdle with magic?"

Archmaester Marwyn had an answer for every scholarly puzzle. "In some places in the world there is only light. There are no shadows to be bound."

The four masked people nodded at this great wisdom. The day's ride had already been strenuous. Tyrion had a painful bruise on his ribcage from his last fall from the zorse, and now this. It was decidedly his turn to snort at his companions with contempt.

"You mean to say we can only pass through on our own legs," he said, severely disappointed. He had grown to expect more from his shady associates.

The next volley of arrows would not tardy. The gates began opening. Tyrion had a suspicion that a party of armed women holding the pass would soon ride out to meet them, steel in hand.

"We only need to be one step behind the gates and we will be safe," Quaithe stated with finality. "We ride now. It's the only way."

It was suicide. The distance was very short for cavalry but the ultimate success of the desperate endeavour depended on the sloppiness of the archers, the slow forming of any sortie by the city defenders, and ultimately on the mercy of the gods.

And the gods were never that merciful, in Tyrion's humble opinion of a small man.

Ser Jorah and Archmaester Marwyn were obviously of a different mind than he, following the directive of one of the Asshai'i men in sprinkling their foreheads with an ash-like powder."

Quaithe had some for Tyrion and the other masked woman in the deep pockets of her wide robes. The stuff was dark red and black, just like her garments. The Targaryen colours, Tyrion thought, shivering. Red and gold would be much friendlier. Yes, father. Even with you alive. Yes, I am still your son. And your proud slayer.

"How will you go, my lady?" he asked Quaithe, repeating her gesture of putting some ash-smelling-stuff on his brow.

"As you suggested, on my own legs," the crone answered with disdain. "They are longer than yours."

The slight made Tyrion forget his fear. There was surely no such dire need to remind him he was a dwarf at every possible occasion. He placed some powder on Arrow as well and urged the zorse forward as fast as he knew how. The animal stomped and shook his mane. Tyrion's brows itched from the unknown substance and his very breath tasted like ash. He felt unnaturally cold. Will I feel so in death?

What will happen to me when I cross the gates?

Perhaps it was best not to know. The time for questioning was over. The door of the citadel was almost fully open. The stocky Archmaester Marwyn was the first one in the column of riders trying to break through, followed closely by Ser Jorah. The three mounted Asshai'i came next and Tyrion on his zorse last.

An arrow hit Marwyn squarely in the chest. He still managed to ride on. As soon as the front hooves of his horse crossed the gate he burst into flames and disappeared. His horse did not follow. Crazed from his back catching fire, the animal ran riderless into the city on its own.

Tyrion reined Arrow in at the frightening sight of the archmaester taking his leave. Or is it his demise? He dodged a real arrow directed at his head by bending sharply. He blessed himself for being a small man or he would have been a dead big man. His nervousness exploded. Ser Jorah managed to cross the threshold of the city uninjured and burst into flames as well. His fire burned more yellow than the archmaester's. Instead of following the example of the other two Westerosi, Tyrion halted, paralysed. The three horsed Asshai'i galloped on. Soon there were more flames of all colours, and more riderless horses rearing in the streets of Bayasabhad. A small company of ten armed women began gathering behind the gates; the maddened horses would hamper their advance.

Tyrion glanced back. Quaithe was significantly lagging behind. She would never make it on foot to the gates before the brave women attacked them, despite the welcome distraction of the crazed horses between the two of them and any attempt at sortie.

She tricked me to come along, he thought. I should leave her for the friendly warrior ladies. She can't be gelded, it wouldn't be so bad. But he couldn't bring himself to embrace this very reasonable, skin-saving action.

Tyrion Lannister cursed his curiosity and the desire he had never lost to do justice from time to time. And I thought that having been Hand of the King would have cured me permanently of that dangerous folly.

He spurred the zorse back, thankful for the animal's dwarf size for the first time since he began riding it. He would have never been able to direct a horse back fast and handy enough, not even in the special saddle he had in Casterly Rock. As he galloped back, looking every inch as a dog-riding dwarf in a mummer's tourney, he could swear that the old eyes of the crone behind the red mask became as bewildered as those of the flaming horses, while she strived to run forward and meet him halfway.

"Behind me, my lady of the shadows!" he urged her with fear mounting in this heart. What he did was unbelievably stupid and chance was he might die uselessly for it.

Even more incredibly, she obeyed mutely, without a clever retort of her own, mounting the small animal without difficulty. Arrow flew back to the gates effortlessly, galloping forward as though the zorse yearned to meet face-on the formation of warrior women who lifted their swords high. Rubies glittered on their cheeks and Tyrion wondered if they also wore iron rings in their nipples as the books told.

Quaithe was behind Tyrion, much taller than him, and yet she clung to him. The sensation was extremely queer. He had been many things, but never a strong saviour of ladies.

A masked crone shouldn't count as a lady.

At least she most certainly isn't a whore. No mistake in that.

Yet his body reacted to the sensation of being embraced from behind in a way he thought it never would again, with the familiar pressure in his loins. Quaithe's long black hair spilled down his small shoulders, waking an illusion best forgotten and buried. Tysha. His arousal chose to follow up on his illusion at the worst possible moment. Lustful little monkey demon. He reminded himself that he liked tall girls, and not tall crones. Quaithe could have been his great-grandmother and her hair was not silky. Not like Tysha's at all. The truth conveniently made him go limp in an instant.

He noticed that the crone, who was almost always seated due to her extreme old age, must have been taller than even Sansa, Tyrion's child-wife whom he had released from the vows given under force. He was still married to Tysha for all he knew, until he was proven a widower. Where do whores go?

Most certainly not zorsing, he thought cynically.

The distance between Tyrion and Quaithe, the gates and the warrior women had almost disappeared. He realised he had embarked on a journey to Asshai unarmed, and even if he had an axe, it would not save him.

"Now, Arrow, fly!" Tyrion begged the zorse hoarsely and yanked the reins like a man pursued by demons from seven hells. A dwarf could not be brave forever.

He couldn't look in front any longer. The sensation of riding into his own death became too much to bear. On the contrary, Arrow obediently increased his speed, unafraid, despite the double weight he was now carrying.

They can indeed endure more than normal horses, Tyrion marvelled absent-mindedly, staring at the tips of his stunted, thick fingers which began to tingle oddly and turn into the tongues of flames. He could feel no pain as his body dissolved into nothingness. His awareness was gone, spared from all torment of the body and spirit by the blissful ignorance of non-existence.

xxxxxxx

When Tyrion regained consciousness, the air smelled of sea. The ground under his prostrated back and bruised ribs moved. The unsafe sensation was familiar and sickening. He only missed a few flagons of wine in his belly to recognise it fully. Not so long ago, he had done his best to drink himself to death while using that form of transport to run away from Westeros.

Ship, we are on a ship. We must be.

"We have to undress him," Ser Jorah suggested above his head. "There might be a wound we don't see."

"That won't be necessary, thank you," Tyrion rebelled, opening his black eye. "I feel better dressed in the company of the ladies."

He would not needlessly embarrass himself further.

He sat up. The ship was a longship with sails. There were no oarsmen. The sparse crew manned the masts and the deck. One of the masked Asshai'i man held the tiller. The two women talked quietly. The second man was nowhere to be seen and neither was Archmaester Marwyn.

"Are they…?" Tyrion asked, waving his hand.

"They didn't make it," Ser Jorah shook his head.

"Or they have gone directly to Asshai," the other masked woman countered, speaking for the first time. Her voice was stern and unyielding, but somewhat younger than Quaithe's. It sounded vaguely familiar to Tyrion but he did not know where to place it. "Our missing brother is one of the most powerful of our kind. He could have taken the archmaester with him. Such wound as the wizard from the Citadel sustained can only be treated under the Shadow. He can be brought back… Or his supreme knowledge about the dragons will die with him."

Tyrion wished Archmaester Marwyn a speedy recovery in his heart and forgot about him in an instant. He wouldn't miss the erudite from the Citadel and his arrogance disguised as knowledge. Tyrion was guilty of the same sin at occasions, but to a lesser degree. He knew the limits of all his wisdom, painfully so. It would never serve to make him anything more than a dwarf.

Quaithe approached Tyrion. "Why did you do that?" she asked with suspicion. "What favour do you expect to obtain by saving my life?"

"Why, for you to be my lady love," Tyrion quipped. To his surprise, the sorceress cringed from him as if his presence caused her bodily distress, much as she did when he had offered her the unborn puppies delicacy in Meereen in good will. To his even greater amazement, her reaction of revulsion caused his deformed body to react with lust again. He became thoroughly disgusted with himself. What's wrong with me? A simple explanation came to mind. And a very logical one for the company he kept.

"What was in that powder of yours?" he asked with mounting suspicion. "Did you bewitch us?"

"A little," she said, "or the three of you Westerosi would not be welcome to the city of the shadows, and they would devour you. Do you wish to be devoured?"

The question made Tyrion think about a young mouth of an innocent crofter's daughter on his cock. Gods be good, we were thirteen. Where did all the time go? He instantly guarded his thoughts, afraid that Quaithe could somehow read them since the beginning of their acquaintance.

"The origin of dragons," he said, needing to drive the topic of the conversation away from himself being taken into the mouth of any mysterious or less mysterious entity. "The Valyrian origin of dragons, my friends!"

His entire diminished company gathered around him. The remaining masked man left the tiller, yet the ship sailed on, as if it could steer itself; or as though it glided over the water on the wings of dark magic and not those of the wind.

"It's a long tale," Tyrion said. "How much time do we have?"

"Very little," the masked man answered. "We needs must go fast."

"A shorter version, then," Tyrion said. He was tired. The sky was becoming dark indigo above his head at the end of a long, warm day. The air smelled like oranges and cherry trees in blossom. It's the wood from the lacquered masks that still has a scent, Tyrion realised with awe. In his opinion, the polished masks would have been a work of art if they didn't serve some arcane purpose of dark magic.

The ship navigated alongside and between several small islands covered with leafy greenery. Tyrion feared arrows would fly at them from there, but they never did. The Jade Sea. The last sea before the Shadow.

The remaining Asshai man and nameless woman began dancing around Tyrion, close as two lovers, without need for any music. Quaithe sat quietly with Ser Jorah in front of the Imp, much like two highborn children would sit and wait for a lesson, Tyrion being the maester.

"The origin of dragons," he said, always careful as to what to reveal, eager to satisfy his audience and forget his troubles for a while. Here, he felt, his knowledge had power. He was equally tall as any of them, maybe taller. It was a good feeling. A rare feeling. It wouldn't last but he could bask in it as long as it did.

"Thousands of years ago, the fires of the earth burned high under the bottom of the sea in what is now the Smoking Sea. Until, one day, the earth could not contain them. So the flames exploded and conquered the skies. Some of them petrified, forming fourteen volcanic mountains. Some warmed the sea, turning it into a heated pool, like those existing in Westeros, especially on Dragonstone, and to a lesser degree in Winterfell."

"Nothing similar ever existed under the Shadow. Am I not right? My lords, my ladies…"

He had their full attention.

"Some fires roamed the mountains, having a life of their own. One day, they took shape of great beasts, but they could not become flesh and they could not understand each other. So they flamed and fluttered and were unhappy. Until one of those large beings made of fire drifted south, to what is now Sothoryos, and returned with a raft where a small group of people was dying from thirst."

"These people…. they did not die. They, or some of them, mated with fire, merging with the great flaming beings, though the knowledge of how they did it is now completely lost."

"And thus the incorporeal flames became flesh, beasts with wings and scales, and black teeth; conscious beings with great intelligence, both human and that of the earth, which is many times greater than ours. Those among the shipwrecked who hadn't coupled with fires rode the beasts and they could speak to them in their minds. This art was forgotten in the later days of the dragonlords."

Quaithe's eyes looked avid under the mask and Ser Jorah frowned with concentration needed to remember every word, should he one day repeat the story to Daenerys. The masked couple kissed, and stopped listening. It was the last thing Tyrion would expect from shadowbinders as a consequence of listening to a tale. He cleared his throat and continued.

"This is how the Fourteen Flames of Valyria rose from the depths of the sea and how they were slowly made into the most beautiful realm of the known world, with arts that had no equal in any other land, with wondrously built towers and houses full of fresh water. Men and women were all I am not; beautiful, with silver hair and eyes in all shades of purple, violet, and lilac. Their beasts, the dragons, took them wherever they wanted, and secured for them any riches they needed…"

"There was no king among them and they were all free. But the freehold had always stood on a place where eternal fire burned deep underground… And fire is insatiable… Fire consumes… As Valyria discovered when its doom came."

"Free, my arse," Ser Jorah said brusquely. "The Valyrians had slaves."

"What of the doom?" Quaithe asked with misty eyes. Her ancient, gnarled voice quivered.

"I haven't read much about that. The doom was so cruel. It wouldn't make for a pleasant read," Tyrion lied as smoothly as he could, imagining he was talking to his late lord father. He forced his mind into blankness. There was no knowledge in it. He would not remember anything, not here, only as much as he had chosen to tell them.

A busy harbour came into view, bursting with ships of all origins that had sailed to Asshai to trade food and other simple life necessities for the gold and gems the city was famous for. Inanimate, dead things, all those riches, Tyrion realised.

He dreaded instantly the view behind the port, of a city with tall black walls and towers, with small windows and cold breath. The sky was dark grey. By the colour of it, it was impossible to tell with certainty if it was day or night. The bells tolled ominously.

Quaithe stood up and listened very carefully to the sound of the bells.

"They have a dragonrider," she announced to her two masked friends and clapped her hands. "They only need to find where he has left his dragon."

Then she returned to Ser Jorah and Tyrion. "My friends," she said, sounding almost sorry. "I regret to inform you that your presence is no longer required. This ship will take you back to any place where you wish to go." She stared Tyrion down with resentment. "In payment of the new debt owed."

The shadowbinders reached into the endless pockets of their wide, richly coloured dark robes. Every one of them tossed a fistful of ash powder high up in the air. They howled, sang, danced, took the hands of each other and were gone with a whisper.

"Wait!" Tyrion screamed after them, grasping thin air.

"Have you ever been to Asshai?" he asked Ser Jorah when they were left alone, his quick mind pondering the options at hand.

"No," the bear knight shook his head.

"I didn't think so," Tyrion muttered.

An animal neighed under the deck. The sound was endearing and entirely familiar.

"He didn't stay in the mountains?" Tyrion asked. I sprinkled Arrow with the ash powder of the shadowbinders, he realised. The others didn't do it with their horses. A mistake. Or not?

The sailors generously left to them by Quaithe and her friends began unloading the cargo from the belly of the ship, and Tyrion was soon united with his zorse. Gingerly, he led him to the plank to leave.

"I am of a mind to visit this city," he told Ser Jorah. "It is once in a lifetime that a man comes to Asshai, is it not?"

"This is not a good idea," Ser Jorah had the good sense to disagree. "This place is evil. We can go anywhere on this vessel, you've heard the shadowbinder. We can return to Daenerys! If they indeed captured another rider of her dragons she can return and save him. We have to go to her!"

"You are free to go wherever you want," Tyrion said, mounting. "I have come here to find out whether the whores go to Asshai or not."

Riding through the harbour towards the city gates, Tyrion regretted his bravery and acting out of spite. In contrast with the bustling of the port, the road was almost empty, running alongside a black river which flowed west, from the heart of the Shadow Lands to the east of the city and into the sea. The town was built on both sides of the river Ash, and it appeared almost deserted, as if the number of its inhabitants was five times less than the number of morose buildings of dark, moisture-dripping stone. The air smelled like burning incense or some other exotic, mystic substance unknown in Westeros. The sky was more and more opaque and the bells kept tolling.

The zorse drank from the river and neighed gently. Tyrion was thirsty as well, but he didn't dare follow his example. The water seemed… foul. He rode on. Before the gates, Arrow stopped, unwilling to move; stubborn as a mule.

The gates were open. There were no guards nor anyone defending it.

They are not needed, he realised. The Shadow defends this city.

The Shadow was in front of him, at the very end of town. The river Ash was flowing from it; a powerful stream of dark, rippling water. He could see the Shadow and sense it better as soon as he urged the zorse through the gates. It lay behind the city, beyond all the houses, the towers and the bells; a vast expanse of blackness, darker than any night sky Tyrion had ever seen. Perhaps the city had grown from it, black as it was, stretching from its mysterious point of origin to the seafront which connected it to the rest of the world.

Tyrion wondered if there was anything further behind or beneath the shadow. From his viewpoint, it seemed impregnable.

The end of the world, he thought. Just like the Wall in Westeros. What is wrong with me that I am keen on visiting such places?

"Take me just a bit farther, will you?" he asked of his more and more indolent steed.

I wish I could discover who it is they caught as a dragonrider. Wouldn't Daenerys take it as a great favour if Arrow and I could free that person from these masked warlocks?

Tyrion's mind jumped forward. If he was successful in his new endeavour, he and Jorah could return to Daenerys on the back of one of her dragons and not by a ship sailing on sorcery they didn't understand, and which could sink at any moment, as far as Tyrion was concerned. Quaithe was not to be trusted on any count.

The zorse seemed more and more reluctant to do his rider's will… Arrow sighed, gasped, whinnied and cantered on with difficulty.

Tyrion and his impish steed climbed a narrow street cobbled with dark stone, amidst the insistent, thick, metallic chime of the bells. There were only a few passers-by in the streets, all masked or veiled. The masked ones were hurrying up a hill, in direction of a large structure which could be a temple of some local deity. The zorse decided to follow them, more and more breathless with every step. Yet he honoured his rider's bidding to go on, and Tyrion thought the direction as good as any.

The temple was an imposing structure; large, smooth, rounded and black. The torches on the inside burned green in queerly moulded sconces, resembling ghostly, crippled black dragons; wingless, tailless or otherwise deformed. The light they shed was vague and repulsive, illuminating a home of utmost darkness. A huge gateway led to a central open space. In the middle of it, under an enormous dome, a naked man was laid on a flat black stone. He was beautiful as a god, just as…

Jaime.

"No!" Tyrion yelled loudly from the temple door. A few masked people turned to look at him and flinched as if he were terrifying to look at. Must be for having less than half a nose.

He rode the zorse on, straight into the temple, not caring if he just committed a horrendous offence against the local customs and faith.

His only brother lay unconscious on the black stone. There were cuts on his chest, arms and legs, appearing as if an incompetent maester tried to draw blood or apply leeches.

The wounds looked as if they had barely closed.

"Jaime," Tyrion whispered, never dismounting. His voice came out hoarse, almost inaudible.

He had thought he hated his brother for what he had done to him and Tysha, until seeing Jaime so vulnerable and abandoned in this strange place.

The temple was two-thirds empty, just like the city. Several groups of shadowy, masked men and women surrounded the solitary stone with his brother from a distance, making conversation in low voices. No one stood in close proximity to Jaime.

The shadowbinders in the circle closest to Tyrion suddenly fell to their knees. Are they fearing me? At least my cock is not reacting to their plight as it did to Quaithe's revulsion.

Arrow whinnied weakly. Tyrion Lannister searched for the real reason causing the fear and the reverence of the Asshai'i, because after the first group, all the masked men and women either bowed or knelt and ululated in unison. The Imp could almost repeat the tune, but he decided not to. He never had much affinity for music.

On his right hand side, a tall blond woman with sun-coloured face tried to bolt in Jaime's direction. Tyrion could not place her anywhere, though he felt he ought to. As many as five shadowbinders held her firmly in place. Tyrion thought one of them was Quaithe but he couldn't be certain. In the green and grey shadows of their temple all masked sorcerers looked the same. Their wide robes showed a familiar melange of darkened colours of the rainbow in heavy velvets and smooth silks, with many superposed layers and deep pockets.

"Gag her," a masked man said about the struggling woman. He could have been precisely Tyrion's shady companion who had never made it to the ship, so perhaps he did take Archmaester Marwyn to Asshai as the others claimed.

"Silence her," the man commanded again. "Or a new life will never be born under the Shadow. All we have laboured for shall be in vain."

"Jaime!" the tall lady cried out with unfeigned misery and the aggression of youth. She must have been at least a few years younger than Tyrion. "Don't harm him or I will revenge him! I swear! And you will never find the drag…" she squeezed out before her shouts and threats were muted and a bright blue lacquered mask forced upon her face. The disturbed woman quieted as soon as she was masked like the rest.

So she is one of the shadowbinders, Tyrion thought, oddly disappointed. A frighteningly pretty Asshai'i who was perhaps taller than his handsome brother. Probably she fell for Jaime when he came visiting, and now her tender heart made her rebel against some stupid local rite. Save your breath for someone else, blue lady. Jaime won't love you. He can't.

Jaime. Have you developed a taste for bigger girls as I've always had in the time since we've seen each other? The thought was absurd, but it couldn't be helped.

Besides, no one would ever replace Cersei in Jaime's heart, Tyrion was certain. For as much as she had bedded Osney and Osmund and Lancel and the Moon Boy. The only man in court for whom the Imp could swear that Cersei did not bed him was Tyrion himself.

The ululating chant increased in volume, intensity and shrillness when Tyrion finally understood the poor woman's heartfelt plea.

Jaime… the stone… the temple… the altar! They must be sacrificing him to the Shadow!

Varys' story about how he was cut surged in Tyrion's mind; the tale about a sorcerer murmuring his incantations and burning the little boy's manhood which shrivelled in flames. A dark force answered the sorcerer and the boy, the victim, heard it all.

Jaime, be unconscious, please. Just in case that I fail.

Almost as an echo of Tyrion's thoughts, a large black shadow came to life in the back of the temple, facing Tyrion. Slowly, it advanced toward Jaime on legs large as boulders made of the nightly sky. Growing in size and shape it went, almost dancing in its gloomy progress. The shadows dance under the sea, the Imp remembered a silly song, but couldn't recall whose fool sang it at Robert's court and for whose coin.

Well, this shadow was dangerous and it was dancing above ground. The Imp immediately knew where it came from; from the impenetrable darkness in the east, the blackness from which the city spread forth and from which it had perhaps been born.

The shadow glided closer.

Tyrion finished his own ride to Jaime, ignoring the mounting discomfort of his steed and his own. He lowered his eyes. Unable to look at the shadow, he found himself staring at his brother's body. So weakened.

Only his face looked healthy and sun-tanned like the cheeks of the woman who had cried for him.

From nearby, Tyrion immediately noted Jaime's head was laid on another, smaller, oval black stone, as on a pillow of sorts.

Tyrion came as close to his brother as possible, short of riding over him. He reined in Arrow to stand in parallel to the altar. He moved his dwarf arse toward the rump and tail of the zorse and pressed it down, until the animal understood what he wanted and sat, first on his hind legs and then on all four. Tyrion had to use all his force twice over to pull Jaime by the shoulders and slowly drag his brother over the front part of the zorse's back. Limp as a sack of flour. The thought hurt. The egg-like pillow rolled away amidst the cacophony of shadowy chanting that never stopped. At least Quaithe and her friends couldn't care less about Arrow and me. Might be they don't see us. We are just another small shadow which helps the big one to devour the sacrifice they brought and it is very dark in here.

Jaime was emaciated, as if from long imprisonment. Truth be told, his brother hadn't been much fatter when he had come to free Tyrion from the dungeons in King's Landing, crawling through the narrow secret passages of the royal palace with Lord Varys.

The shadow was almost at the flat altar stone. Silently, it swallowed Jaime's egg-shaped rocky pillow. The hard stone made a crunching sound, breaking into pieces.

Come on, Arrow, get up now, Tyrion thought insistently, gently spurring the zorse. We can't be heavier than Quaithe and I. She had seemed as tall as Jaime when she rode double with Tyrion, a hard feat for a crone shrunken from age, and probably merely a wishful imagination of his mind, now that he thought of it.

Come on, Arrow.

The shadow was coming too close for his liking. One edge of it touched the flat stone where Jaime had been laying moments ago. Tyrion realised that Quaithe's speech about shadows devouring the visitors might not be an entirely empty threat. He felt smaller than usual and very, very cold.

Come on Arrow.

Please, Arrow. Please.

Slow as a snail, the zorse slowly stood up and cantered back where they came from, towards the temple door, and the clean-swept cobbled streets of Asshai.

Tyrion suddenly realised what he missed on those streets. There were no excrements. There were no… animals alive in the city… He hadn't seen a single stray cat or dog since he entered, or a horse… There wasn't a single child playing in the streets.

The city that sucks the life away… or the Shadow does… and no children are born...

He looked at his zorse with new worry. Yet it seemed that as long as the animal was walking and Tyrion's mind was firmly bent on leaving and not turning back, the shadow could not catch up with them, not quite. It was always one or two steps behind, despite all its gaining in size, thickness and strength. Tyrion never looked back.

He rode out of the temple and gazed forward, down the streets and through the open gates, and all the way to the starlit harbour, as the bells tolled, and tolled and tolled, mourning… for all the lost people of the Shadow.

Asshai… a city where nothing is forbidden… That is how it was described in the books, Tyrion remembered. In other words, the place where everything is allowed… Every crime and ignominy under the sun… Father, you and your cherished bannermen would have loved it here, late Ser Gregor and also dear Ser Amory, eaten by the bear… Even my sweet sister might find herself at home…

It was not a place for Tyrion. Nor for Jaime, he had to admit, as much as he still resented his brother. Tyrion should have never come here and he wanted to be gone.

In the world there are places where shadows can't be bound... Where there is only light... He remembered Archmaester Marwyn's wisdom and took strength from it. It seemed very true now, like a straw he could and should grasp against the slow drowning in the sea of darkness, which was rising in tide all around him.

There is only light. A place where there is only light.

He wished to take his brother to such a place. The zorse limped forward with determination. They stepped out of the city. The great shadow stopped following, powerless outside its walls. None of the masked people had ever followed suit or tried to harm Tyrion and Jaime. Tyrion could not understand why, but he refused to dwell for long on the reasons for his good fortune. Maybe they were all devoured. Suits them well.

Tyrion felt as if he had won a battle over a much stronger enemy purely with the strength of his mind. Here you have me father. Saving your heir. Are you proud of me in your grave of stone? The imaginary stone likeness of Lord Tywin Lannister almost smiled joyfully in Tyrion's mind. His father had never done so in his life.

But how in seven hells have you come here, sweet brother?

He asked himself that for the first time now that the imminent danger for both him and Jaime was gone. Tyrion stopped paying any attention to where his steed was going. Cold sweat cooled down on his back under the only Westerosi tunic he still owed and wore. Red and yellow, for sentimental reasons. He had paid for it in the market in Meereen by the persimmon fruits he'd stolen from Daenerys' garden on the Great Pyramid. The queen won't mind. There were too many for anyone to eat.

I have tricked death one more time.

Only after a while, he realised the zorse did not mean to return to the harbour. Instead, he headed out of the city and into the fields of tall, pale grass, easily three or more times Tyrion's length; a threatening forest of soft, swaying vegetation.

Have I escaped the Shadow only to be devoured by ghost grass?

The zorse and two men became lost between its wavy stems and the city was no longer visible.

Suddenly, Arrow's legs failed. The zorse crumpled in a sleeping position on the ground, this time against his rider's will. Arrow whinnied, neighed, and whinnied weakly again. Tyrion was frightened to death. He hauled Jaime down into the grass to relieve the animal's burden and hugged the zorse's neck and snow-white mane.

"You are a good horse, well, zorse, and my friend," he said. "You haven't thrown me down since we rode into the Bone Mountains. Don't be moody now."

Arrow almost cried. Tyrion realised Quaithe's large black horse had made similar sounds in the high mountain pass when dying… or just before he had exhaled his last breath, having no more force left to scream.

"No, Arrow, please," he said in horror.

Tears were in his mismatched eyes, hot and insistent, but they would not come out. They could not fall. The grief was too great. For his dwarf zorse, for his dwarf life, for every wrong he had done and every meaningless evil he had to endure.

He and Jaime would be at the mercy of the Shadow and Tyrion's mind alone would not be enough without the little striped body of his friend, who had spent his life force to do his rider's will. Obedient until the end and well trained by the Jogos Nhai… The tribes that ride and breed the zorses in the north of Essos. That had to be a people worth visiting.

The only four-legged animal who stayed alive in Asshai…

But not for long.

Tyrion remembered Quaithe's powder he had sprinkled on himself and on Arrow and wondered if it had truly helped them to survive in Asshai and not only to arrive there.

Jaime stirred lightly and tossed his handsome tousled head left and right.

"Brienne!" he rambled.

Did that blond woman bewitch you with her powder as well?

One of Jaime's chest cuts wounds began slightly bleeding.

His brother was shaking and his zorse was dying. Only Tyrion was in good health, alone in the middle of nowhere, if he didn't count the bruise on his ribs which suddenly seemed like a minor injury in comparison. This twisted little demon will survive most anything, he thought, petting the zorse's head and mane as Arrow liked.

Arrow first thrashed with his legs. Then they twitched for what felt like hours until he finally lost his stand against death. Tyrion forced himself away from the animal's corpse. There was nothing more he could do. He sat down, next to his brother's immobile living body. Grass was everywhere. The darkness was total and there were almost no stars to be seen. He could barely see Jaime and dead Arrow.

It feels…. like… like the Long Night. So far away from home.

I have to wait, he decided. When grey daytime came, and it had to, he would crawl back to the harbour and find Ser Jorah. Mormont would help him bring Jaime to the ship. Tyrion knew the bear knight long enough by now to assume that he was probably still waiting for him, for as much as he almost always verbally proclaimed his strong dislike for the Imp and his plans.

But before he finished thinking about that solution, the dark grass on his left hand side moved and swayed and roared, smelling like unquenched fire.

A lion was not the only animal that roared.

Cold sweat washed over Tyrion in waves, and his heart nearly failed him. It was too much. He risked being killed one too many times in this same day.

Give me intrigue! he begged the gods. I've had my share of adventure.

Please.

Yet the latest adventure kept advancing on him without mercy, from amidst the grass, bulging and enormous. Its colour could not be distinguished in total darkness. At least its shape is different than that of the formless, growing shadow. More… muscular. The shade had been soft.

Suddenly, there was a flash of shiny white in a living eye staring at Tyrion, illuminating a large maw darker than the night, exhaling… fire…. with traces of white and gold in the flames.

Tyrion jumped away from the jet streaming out of the monster's mouth, faster than he thought possible.

"No," Tyrion gasped when the monster in the grass stretched its snout toward Jaime. It didn't smell him as a dog or another four-pawed predator might have done before eating its prey. The creature only touched his brother, almost tenderly, and withdrew to a short distance, opening its maw again.

Tyrion moved protectively in front of Jaime, waiting to be devoured, for that seemed to be indeed his destiny. Quaithe guessed that part well enough.

The beast's back moved and spread.

Wings, Tyrion realised in utter disbelief. Bloody wings.

They have a dragonrider, Quaithe's words rang in his head.

Do they? he asked himself, looking at the immobile naked body of his brother in a different light.

He had only seen the queen's black dragon from close by, but there was also the green one… and the white one, stolen by the ironborn in the battle for Meereen. Tyrion remembered their names, the names of her lost, enslaved children, which had caused Daenerys to fly to Westeros in haste.

"Viserion," he said, losing all fear. In its place, only endless curiosity remained. "Hello. I mean you no harm. And I am too small to cause you any even if I did." He stepped aside.

Viserion immediately exhaled a breath of white crystals over Jaime's wounds, covering them and closing them completely, leaving Tyrion speechless.

He felt ashamed for thinking that the dragon would eat Jaime. The cure was… miraculous…

Then, the beast buried its head in the bed of grass next to Jaime's head, opening a path upward to his back even a dwarf could follow, but an unconscious man could not.

"You are clever, I know," Tyrion said. "I hope you have understanding as the books I read tell you do. If you want him, you have to find a way to pick him up. I can't load him on your back. You are too big for me."

The dragon waited. His white and golden gaze sparkled with ire.

"It is the truth," Tyrion stated calmly, making a few steps left and right, so that the dragon could see his deformed body. He was trying to appeal to that part of the dragon, which, if it existed, still possessed the intelligence of the earth. And the earth, in Tyrion's opinion, should be calm and true, not prone to madness and passions of men.

The dragon exhaled several angry puffs of white and golden smoke before burying his head deep into the grassy soil. He burrowed, as a firewyrm, until his neck was underground and under Jaime. His snout came out on the other side with a jet of scorching fire. Fortunately, thus far the ghost grass was his only victim. With a powerful shake, Viserion lifted up both his head and Jaime, together with a large heap of earth, until the unconscious man lay safely on his bed of grass, lodged between two spikes on the dragon's back.

Viserion spread his wings.

"Don't forget me," Tyrion said, remembering another important part of dragon lore. They all considered each other as brothers or sisters. One big happy family, he thought with pain, remembering his own unhappy one. "I'm his brother. Your brother."

Miraculously, the admonishing worked. A paw was placed next to Tyrion and one of the shoulders bent just so much that the dwarf could waddle up slowly and painfully, occasionally cutting himself on scales as he went, while the dragon would still not drop his precious sleeping burden.

His rider.

When Tyrion found a place next to a large spike for himself, the dragon turned his attention to the little striped corpse left alone in the field of ghost grass.

Almost gently, Viserion roasted Arrow and swallowed him whole.

He is right, Tyrion thought, it makes no sense to waste good meat.

Yet he wouldn't have eaten from it if it meant the difference between staying alive and starvation. Tyrion's tears were back, his throat hurt, and he caught himself hoping fervently that there were seven heavens meant for zorses.

When the earth was left behind and the night sky approached, Tyrion's grief for Arrow lessened and was slowly replaced by a dark pang of envy in his dwarf's heart, which must have been just as stunted as the parts of his body.

Jaime has become a dragonrider.

Jaime, always Jaime. Jaime could have anything he wanted.

And Tyrion nothing at all.

He wished he could take something precious away from his brother. Just once. To make him see how he had felt for most of his life.

I wish I had killed Joffrey as I'd told him. Then we would be even.

Tyrion swallowed. He had no desire to feel that way. The ugliness of it burdened his soul. Then why can't I just get rid of it?

Jaime was the only one in his family who had ever loved him. Tyrion suspected he might love him still, even believing Tyrion to be Joffrey's murderer and suffering for it.

Tyrion Lannister closed his mismatched eyes and opened them again, inhaling the night's air, pleasantly fresh. Any discomfort caused by the unnatural cold of Asshai was erased by the stream of warmth seeping through the body of the dragon. Fire made flesh.

And speaking of intrigue… Does Daenerys know, sweet brother? And why are you alive if she does?

You didn't kill her, did you?

Tyrion wished he knew how to direct the dragon's flight to Westeros. It was obvious many things changed there since he was gone. But the books he read could never give him this power; the dragons had no reins and he was not Viserion's rider. He wondered where the beast was taking Jaime, and Tyrion as his appendix.

Ser Jorah Mormont will have to sail back to Westeros on his own.

Maybe he was not a dragonrider as he had dreamed of, being a malformed, rejected child.

Yet Tyrion Lannister now soared between the clouds, lost above the far eastern end of Essos; free, and not devoured by any shadow.

I am flying, he thought.

Tyrion Shortstrider, the famous world traveler.

He gulped giddily, and giggled as a boy.

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Any feedback is most welcome )))) Thank you so much to anyone who reviewed.

On Daenerys, Jaime and Brienne

In my silly mind Daenerys already trusts Jaime as a person in this story, and believes him a good or a better man, so she doesn't need extra reassurance in Brienne's honour. She would fly and warn him about what's wrong with Viserion if she could (she can't at the moment). But faced with the fact that his dragon has a piece of a soul of a woman who tricked Daenerys herself, she questions everything good she already believes about Jaime, afraid he will make the same mistake as she did and knowing how easy it is to make it. And here, his past is then perhaps not the most helpful. For example, for what Daenerys knows, Mirri Maz Duur can somehow make Jaime go into war against her or Jon or Rhaegar by convincing him that this way he protects Brienne. This is why Dany focuses in her mind solely on Jaime and his future choices when the temptation comes, as one dragonrider considering another. I should have probably made this clearer in the text itself. Luckily, there are more chapters ahead.