LABYRINTH of FACES

ABOVE THE SHADOW LANDS – ESSOS

Jorah felt Fate's temptation brush against his lips. Even with Drogon's wings flat, strong wind coursing under their leather and a clear night sky, it would take only a whim of fancy to send them tumbling toward death in the horrific landscape below. A scattering of porcelain on the rock. The Shadow Lands were something of a nightmare. While Daenerys lay against Drogon's scaled back Jorah sat rigid to the rush of air. The dragon's enormous spread covered most of the view but he could make out enough of the folded, smoking mess below between the steady flap of wings to track their progress.

From Asshai they'd headed North, clearing the storm and over the first peaks of erupting mountains. The Jade Sea lay to the left and the endless stretch of burned desolation to their right. Every now and then he saw a pit of lava boiling in the heart of a mountain. Dotted in the valleys between these savage things were dead cities. Their ghastly forms hung empty, forgotten. The silver queen was not curious. She laid her cheek against Drogon's smooth scales, gripped the spines on the softer edge of his neck and closed her eyes, sleeping soundly to the beat of the monster's heart.

Jorah could not sleep. Instead, he watched. He was curious about the things that lurked in The Shadow. He found it unnatural – these fallen civilisations. They were intertwined with his queen's future, of that he was sure. Jorah wedged his boots between two long horns to stop from sliding off. The ancient Valyrians built saddles for a reason. There was very little to hold onto. Every slight dip in the dragon's flight sent them sliding with alarming speed. Once or twice he'd reached for Daenerys, catching her before she could fall. It wasn't the dead cities that troubled Ser Jorah. It was the occasional cluster of light within them. There were things living there. Old things. Dangerous things.

He turned his attention to the sea. Its smooth, black surface reflected the moon and all its imperfections. No matter how far across the world they travelled, it was always the same moon. The same sky. The same gods, he suspected. Staring at the watery orb made him feel a fraction closer to home. He tried to imagine what it must be like at Bear Island. Cold, no doubt. Always fucking freezing. The waters around the cliffs would have frozen by now and the frosts rolled in from the bay. If there were storms they'd be shedding ice over the keep, turning the stone buildings white as if they were made of ice. The pines – well they were outposts of dark green, weighed down with soft, new snow. The bears and the birds, the children and the wolves – were curled up, safe away from winter. Jorah could smell the sweet smoke from the grand fire places which circled the elegant towering halls. There was a simple grace in that world.

"Sh... Daenerys..." he whispered, as she started to shift oddly in front of him. The queen was dreaming. He placed his hand on her back, trying to still her. A dragon was no place for dreams.

"Where are we going?" she asked, waking slightly at his touch.

"North, my queen."

"North?" she lifted her head, turning her pale eyes inquisitively on him. "Why North?"

Jorah laughed softly. "He is your dragon, khaleesi. He goes where you wish."

"Where he likes." She corrected. "What is North?"

"The old empire. Yi Ti. The first Empire of the Dawn. There is little there now – forests of traders, ancient temples of Eastern wisdom. They are the spiritual journeys for wealthy Westerosi with too much money and no sense. I cannot think what your dragon hopes to find there."

"There is not a lot we can do about it," she laid her head down. Her fingers played with the small, hard bumps of emerging horns. Drogon was exceedingly beautiful in his own threatening way. Since he had grown, the patterns in his scales had taken on intricate forms. In the moonlight they were the darkest hue of red. "What do you see?"

"Land, your Grace, over there to the West. Many hours away." It was a slither of white on the horizon. Probably a rise of limestone cliffs catching the light. "Ships, perhaps. Something is burning." Yin, as it fell to ashes. "What happened in the temple?"

Daenerys rubbed her thumb overa deformed scale. It had grown oddly around an injury. Her poor child. He bled for her and still came when she called. "A shadow binder discovered us while Quaithe was away. It knew I was there. Their magic. My magic. I think they are the same." Daenerys said nothing of the act itself or of the vicious force that broke into the room, threw her across it and dragged her away by her silver hair while he lay unconscious, trembling between life and death. Jorah never heard her screams. He must have been dead.

"I had a maester when I was young. A peculiar man sent by the citadel as is our custom in noble houses. Most maesters deplore magic. They deny its existence or suggest that it is a force that has faded from the world. This man thought differently. When my father was not looking – which was often, your Grace – he'd tell me stories about The Wall and the Children of the forest. Times before history began. We spent the Springs searching crypts along Bear Island for traces of this history. He even showed me how to pray to the bleeding tree on the cliffs and place my hands upon its bark." He mimicked the action, lifting his hands against the wind. They glistened with fading glyphs. "He said that some Northern lords can hear whispers in the wood. I did not have the gift or the gods had nothing to say to me."

"There is a weirwood on Bear Island?"

Jorah nodded, lowering his hands. He rested one on an awkward spine surging out of the dragon next to his leg. "Of course. An old one. They are more common in the North. Ours is wild. Grown through the cliffs and into the caves that watch the bay. Its thousand roots drink of the frozen water. I'll always remember its red leaves washing up on the shore. The dogs used to pick them from the tide line and play, tearing them apart. Red snow."

"Why do the maesters deny magic?" she asked.

Jorah was quiet for a moment. "Magic brought chaos to the realm." Jorah felt his lip curl in a fond smile. "I wonder what became of him – the maester. Probably dead."

"Do you believe in my magic, Ser Jorah?"

His silence was her answer.

It started again.

Jorah's heart missed a few beats. The uncomfortable rhythm turned his breath shallow. The strange markings on his skin began to burn. Suddenly, the vision of the moon rippled unnaturally. Its enormous, pale orb shook and was torn free. It lifted out of the East and curved through the sky, falling towards the Southern horizon. It vanished. Darkness reigned. A cataclysmic impact lit up the world as if a second sun, soaked in blood, was rising.

It is not real. Jorah clamped a hand over his face, forcing himself to focus. The sky reformed. The moon hung as it should, cold and silent over the water. His heart slowed. He was seeing things again. Jorah held both his hands in front of him, watching them shake. The poison lived in his blood and always would.

"You are quiet." Daenerys murmured, falling toward sleep.

"I am always quiet. Those are the ways of the North."

"Liar..." her whisper rustled against the dragon's scales.

BEAR ISLAND 254 AC

Jeor's boat lifted, sliding along the fresh ice which crowded the harbour. His boots were the first to make shore as he dragged the boat up the black-stone beach, past the burning corpses. So many. They lay with arrows, axes and broken swords as their shrouds, quickly vanishing in the heavy snow. Most were fishermen, tangled in their own nets. Others were children, caught in the fur robes of their dead parents. Some lived, hiding in every shadow as their Lord returned. Jeor saw them. He lifted a finger to his lips, telling them to stay out of sight. They did – sinking away to nothing.

Shock passed between the men as they disembarked to find their families massacred by a Wilding raiding party, not long fled. Jeor headed directly for the keep. It brooded over the modest settlement, reaching above the nearby forest of pine as though it were part of the tortured bursts of rock that formed the island. Many Wildlings lay among the dead. Those that had not quite finished with the world were shown their exit. Jeor helped, bloodying his sword.

"My Lord – wait. My Lord!" One of his men rushed across the treacherous ground, slick with moss and ice to catch up to his Lord. He could not reach him. Mormont moved like a whisper on the winter wind, disappearing into the howling mouth Bear Island keep.

The wind ululated after him. Corpse guards slouched against the entrance. They were barely cubs, yet to grow into their square northern jaws and large hands. Smouldering pine cones rolled over the floor with blusters of wind. Jeor reached out and pushed off the stone door frame, clearing the mangled bodies. Smoke rolled down the spiralling stairs, moving as mist lifting off the unnamed mountains across the water. His wife's handmaidens were collected in the living area on the ground floor – stripped, raped and murdered. Women he had played with as a child himself had been reduced to cuts of meat. Thenns – at the wrong end of the Wall. He tore his eyes away and screamed his wife's name. His voice rang of the stone like the hammer of the citadel's bell.

"My Lord!" His man entered the keep as Jeor took the first steps.

The Lord of Bear Island could not be stopped. Without the fires it was cold as death. Jeor could see his breath in front of him, hitting him in the face over and over as he circled towards the top of the keep where he'd left his wife and heir.

He found the door and its barricade in several pieces, hacked apart with axes. Another of his wife's ladies lay over it. For the first time he paused, hesitant to enter the silent room. He could see a slither of it from the door – its window, snow spilling in and smoke shifting restlessly on the floor. It was so quiet.

"My Lord – please. I beg you..." his man caught up and reached for his arm, offering to go in first.

Jeor shook him off.

Wildlings littered the room inside. His wife, ever the warrior, had murdered them all including the flame-haired one who had dealt the final blow. That corpse lay beside her with one limb in the fire, burned away and a bastard sword firmly embedded in his neck.

She was beautiful, laid over the rug. Her billowing cloak, that he'd spent many nights curled against, covered her. Only her arm stretched out toward the door, clawing at the rug. Her blue eyes were open as if waiting for him to return. Jeor could not bare to approach... Instead, he moved over to the crib expecting to find the corpse of his child either frozen or slain. Wildlings spared no one.

The crib was empty.

Jeor spun around, dropping his sword. "Where is he?" he asked of his man, who had tears sliding down his face and into his thick, winter beard. "Where is my son!" Jeor demanded. His man shook his head, gripped by shock.

The clatter of the Valyrian steel on stone woke the child hiding in his dead mother's robes. The infant let out a startled cry, wriggling helplessly.

Both men turned to the Lady's corpse. Jeor fell to his knees and with shaking hands, folded back the fur. Beneath, he found Jorah – warm and pink, screaming at the light. Jeor gathered Jorah up in his arms, letting the tiny thing clutch onto his armour.

THE NARROW SEA

"Is that what happened?"

"So the story goes," Tyrion replied. He and Missandei were sat against the door with one of her embroidered shawls draped over them. They had been there for hours, watching the moon, listening to the rain – talking about nothing. At some point the conversation had drifted to Ser Jorah Mormont. Tyrion recanted the famous story of his birth, best he could remember it. "Actually," he added, "with Margaery Tyrell marrying my nephew, that makes Mormont the king's uncle by marriage."

"And your – brother?"

He scrunched his face up. Tyrion had consumed too much wine for complex royal family trees. "I – guess. I'd not really thought about it. Neither has he, I imagine. If he even knows. He's been away from Westeros for many years. Don't say anything," he begged Missandei. "My face is ruined enough. Being related to a Lannister is not a Northern ambition."

"He left that life behind him."

"I believe he did." Tyrion agreed. "An odd man by any measure. Packed up and left. Followed his heart straight into ground."

Missandei was not certain why she and the dwarf were marooned on the floor of her cabin. Neither of them were ready to face the crew or Varys. In truth, she would rather stand before her old master than the Spider. Missandei did not care for the way he looked at her. He was threatening. Silent. She did not speak his language. The storm was a blessing. It gave everyone an excuse to hide. "The queen forgave him."

Tyrion caught her eye. She had used an unusual tone. "You do not think she should have? He saved her life. Many times."

"A thief may protect his gold – that does not make him an honest man."

"Wise," Tyrion complimented. "I spent a lot of time with Mormont."

"When he kidnapped you..."

"I am not certain it was a successful kidnapping. Let's call it – travelling. He barely spoke but when he did it was of his queen. Mormont has more devotion than sense. It will get him killed one day. If you're going to reproach the old fool for something let it be his brooding manner or lack of conversation." He'd actually managed to make Missandei smile again. "Talking is my talent, if only I could muster such eloquence in Valyrian. Despite your best efforts I am a poor student. It's not Mormont that troubles you, is it?"

She lowered her gaze. The rain beat harder against the window leaking through the wood, carving a passage into her cabin. "It is dangerous for a queen to-"

"Love?" Tyrion offered. "It's dangerous for anyone. Better she love a loyal knight she can never have than a rival ruler who intends to overthrow her crown. He is a simple man. That's a gift, believe me. In King's Landing you can spend a year figuring out what someone wants and by then they've changed their mind. Those are dangerous men and we will meet plenty of them. Mormonts are exactly as their name suggests – large, strong and direct. Daenerys is his raison d'être..."

"He wants to bed her," Missandei added flatly, as if it were a slight to his character.

For someone so well travelled in the world, he found her ignorance of human nature amusing. "Most every man that sees our queen wants the same thing," he pointed out. "There are brothels from Qarth to Skagos with pale-haired whores in Dothraki robes. Or the semblance of Dothraki robes... The man has a great deal of faults but I'll forgive him that."

"You want to bed her as well!"

"Perhaps. I wouldn't!" he quickly assured her. "She's a beautiful woman. Very unusual. The only person on this boat that I'm certain has no interest is Varys."

"What about the Unsullied?"

"You don't need a cock to want something."

"And what does your friend Varys want?"

"My friend?" Tyrion wished he had more wine but considering Illyrio's men poisoned most of it, he'd decided to teetotal. "Peace. He says that he works for the good of the realm and I believe him."

"The realm of Westeros," Missandei clarified.

"Well, there is not a lot that can be done for Essos. It is a vast place with ancient problems. Blood and violence bring it to heel. Look to the Dothraki. Our queen will find Westeros a very different beast. The last Targaryen was murdered with good cause. Daenerys must be careful. A bonfire and raging words are not the answer."

"Is this why Ser Jorah broods?"

"No. He's from the North. That's what they do. Stoic types. Too much ice in their veins."

CITADEL – OLD TOWN

Gilly's torch flared against a stray current of air. The depths of the Hightower reminded her of the nameless forests beyond the Wall. In place of trees she found dwarfed columns, barely matching her height. They held up the ceiling as if they were grown to do so. The closer Gilly held the flame to the surface of the stone, the more light it drank in, consuming the warmth.

As she wandered the voices of the other guests faded away. With every turn the structure expanded, branching out into another cluster of hallways and low rooms impossible to make out in the dark. Rats startled, scampering off. She looked through the flame at what lay ahead. Another set of steps led her deeper. More of the same. Columns. Tunnels. Rats. Was this death? A maze of shadows?

A man.

Gilly gasped. The torch slammed into the floor sending a shower of embers over his feet. The old man knelt slowly. His clothes creaked around him, as worn as their master. White hair fell in waves around his face, smooth and elegant with the memory of nobility. His skin was cracked and soft though his features had once been handsome.

"Easy to lose your way, down here." The man offered Gilly her torch. "The labyrinth is designed to ensnare the curious."

"I – beg your pardon – sir." Gilly replied as Sam had taught, dipping her head in a bow. Flattery always. "I was..."

He lifted the torch to her face. Gilly shied away from the light. "Very young," he commented, "but you have old eyes."

Slowly she reached for the torch, taking it from him. He allowed it, lingering inside the circle of light it cut in the darkness. "Do you know where you are, girl?"

"The Hightower," said Gilly. "The man on the boat explained."

"Ah yes, the boats..." The old man set his hands behind his back, turning in offer to walk with her. Instead of heading back towards the entrance, the man led her further into the tunnels. "They come every day, full to the crack with travellers after a spectacle. Instead they find a lonely tower in the bay with a history no one remembers. And a view. Mostly they come for the view."

"It's different," Gilly touched the black stone wall beside them as they walked. "This bit of the tower. It reminds me of-"

"Of what?" he prompted, when she stopped.

"The Wall, in the North."

"You are a long way from home, my dear, though you may be correct. Legend has that it was built by the same Stark. Bran the Builder. You do not know of the Starks? I assumed you were from the North." His suspicion flickered.

"I ran from home when I was small. There isn't much of anything I know about the North. Saw the Wall though. I'll always remember it. Great big thing. Impossible."

"I should have liked to see the Wall before the end. Here." The old man stopped. A wall at the back of the room was littered with shallow holes as if enormous bees had been at it. "May I?" he took the torch and held it in one of the depressions. The stone had been shaped into the shadow of a face. There were dozens of them. "This tower has been used by many over the centuries for what, who could say? There are dragon bones in the Southern crypt and a pile of obsidian to your waist beneath. A spring wells up in the centre of the rock with tiny, glowing worms I have never seen anywhere else but the waters kill those that drink. It is surrounded by fragments of many who tried."

Gilly observed the man carefully. He was old but strong. His tunic was silver. The warm cape tied across his shoulders was the colour of fresh cut pine. She became aware that she was alone in the tunnels with him. "Thank you, for showing." Gilly withdrew the last fragments of coin Sam had given her. She opened her hand to him, offering it. "It is all I have for your trouble."

The old man stared at the three coins in her shaking palm. "Who sent you?" he hissed, stepping away from her. Anger rose in his eyes. His voice lifted with the tone of his previous youth. "Who sent you?!" The man demanded.

"I – don't?" Gilly looked down at the coins in her hand. "I did not mean to offend."

"I always knew that someone would come but I did not expect the coward to hire out my killer. An infant girl no less. The world has no duty or honour left!"

"Killer? You mistake me."

He reached into her hand and held up the Braavosi coin, turning it against the firelight. "Valar morghulis. Valar dohaeris. Leyton Hightower shall do neither." A dagger appeared in his hand, withdrawn from the folds of his robes. "Who?" he asked again.

Gilly backed toward the darkness, away from the blade. "Please sir. The coin was payment to my husband for work done with the maesters. We've come from The Wall to study in the citadel. Please."

The frightened child lifted both her hands. There was nothing of her but bone and a simple dress. Faceless men killed fast yet he was still alive. "What could a couple of Northern brats wish to learn in the citadel?"

"My husband studies to be maester to Lord Commander Snow. He sent us here."

"Maesters and men of The Watch have no wives." He raised the dagger to her.

"I know. He's not supposed to have me. Please... I have a son." The man pinned her against the strange, greasy stone. "Please. Sir. Please..." Gilly felt the sharp edge against her throat. Her vein throbbed at the blade. It was cold, like ice on her skin. "Please..."

Leyton Hightower considered the girl. "Which maester?" he asked.

"Marwyn. He agreed to take us."

There was a long pause before Leyton withdrew his sword. He tossed the coin into the air, catching it easily. "Trust that cunt to have one of these. Probably snatched it from the dead fingers of an assassin. Gave it to you as a joke, I expect." He offered the coin back to Gilly. "You be careful flashing this thing around. It'll get you killed."

Gilly held the offending item to her chest. She was of a mind to toss it into the sea.

"I apologise," he held out his hand, which she took.

"Is this your tower?" He nodded and Gilly continued. "It's damaged. At the front. Some of the walls have collapsed into the sea."

"Dragons," Leyton replied. "Their fire returned the rock to its natural form. There's nothing like it, they say, the breath of a dragon. There'll be trouble now they've returned to the world. You didn't know? Three of the beasts hatched and their whore of a mother marauds around Essos turning cities to rubble. She's coming to avenge her father's throne and when she does there will be war. Safest place for you is the North. You should return there. Raise a few sons in the snow. Keep wild horses. Live quietly."

"The North is not safe," Gilly replied. "That's why the Lord Commander sent us here."

ABOVE THE SHADOW LANDS – ESSOS

Jorah shrugged out of the long robe and laid it over the queen. She was shaking, sound asleep as the night wore on. The moon was high, pretending to be a star. Jorah did not mind the cold air against his skin.

Drogon was singing. It was a soft baritone – a mix of chirps and undulating rumbles. The dragon's efforts had been humours when it was small, hopping around in the Red Waste with a drizzle of smoke, now they were beautiful.

"Steady on..." Jorah insisted, as Drogon turned into the wind. No wonder the Targaryens had conquered the world. They could cross it in a heartbeat. It was smaller from up here. The boundaries between villages insignificant. Even the seas became lakes and the mountains a crease in the parchment.

At first Jorah had thought the land on the right was covered in ice. Realising that was impossible he looked again and realised that it was ghost grass. Endless miles of it. Drogon was curving his flight, sinking gradually toward it.

"Khaleesi – wake up..." he squeezed her shoulder gently.