Asshai By The Shadow

ASSHAI

The Ash River was a construct of filth. Bodies drifted under the surface. The green luminescence of the water brought their tortured features alive. Those with eyes stared mutely, ferried with the tide. Beneath the corpses moved the blind, reptilian cousins of dragons, scratching at the bedrock as they propelled themselves, stomachs first against the sharp rocks. Their blood mixed with the water, poisoning it.

Jorah covered his face with the cloth hood to keep the stench from suffocating him. Quaithe led him along the water's edge and over an ungainly stone bridged to the other side of the city. The river widened as they neared the harbour and its impassive black waters. Where they met, eerie swirls of green washed out toward the East, fading. The ships that Jorah longed for sat in the harbour, lashed to jetties tilting awkwardly toward surface. He stumbled on stray pumice which constantly collected in the streets, kept to the edges by the shuffle of feet. Ash fell around them, tumbling like snow. Jorah lifted his head to look upon the anguished sky.

Quaithe brought him to an ancient building. Its entrance formed a gaping mouth with a hundred dragonglass teeth, melted and polished into curved nightmares that dangled overhead. At first Jorah thought that it was made in the image of a dragon but on the edges of the building he noticed fins instead of wings and a fish tail curl across the city street and fuse into the its neighbour.

They climbed the steps and passed into the building's throat.

"What is this place?" Jorah murmured against her ear.

"The safest place for you," Quaithe replied. "Do as I say if you want to survive."

"Safe? I have no interest. Where is Dae-"

"Speak that name again and I shall throw you into the sea..." Quaithe was afraid. Even beneath the mask her eyes faltered. It was not safe to speak of dragons or kings. "Trust..." she implored him, taking his hand. "This, you must learn."

The building was an empty shell except for a small congregation of old women, hunched over buckets, cleaning the glass floors. Their mouths were sewn closed and their eyes milked over. "You intend to leave me here?" Jorah stepped after Quaithe, when she turned from him. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Stay." Quaithe was firm, raising her hand to him as though he were some captured animal. "Do not leave these walls. I will return with your queen. The runes on your skin make you hard to track but the whole city can smell you and they will come. You have spent too long in the company of dragons."

"I intend to help."

"Help by staying here. I cannot protect you both."

Jorah was left to the company of the blind women. If they were aware of his presence they paid him no attention. They kept to the glass floors, washing them lovingly. He wandered through the small building. It was different to the other place. There was no malice in the air or filthy words whispered in corners. Instead it reminded him of the unknown monuments in the North, stuck out of the hillsides built by fuck-knows-what. Those were silent. Calm. Northern men travelled for weeks simply to sit at their feet and listen to the past.

He knelt in front of a wall of glass. Behind, flames flickered but they were far away and fragile, their magic nearly quelled by time. Jorah closed his eyes. Something soft touched the ground beside him. One of the old woman had laid a book before him. She carried a candle, for his benefit not hers.

"Forgive me, I do not understand," he uttered uselessly. She forced the candle into his hand and then left to clean the floor with the others.

Jorah laid his hand on the book's cover. What had once been leather now hardened to stone. There were jewels embedded in the surface but Asshai and all its filth had sucked the life from them leaving only colourless stones weakly glinting in the candlelight. He set the brass candle holder on the floor. It clashed with the stone, echoing off the walls in warning. Jorah paused but the women were deaf.

Carefully, he unlatched the steel clasps holding the cover closed and opened the book. It creaked with age, fraying at every edge. Jorah was gentle, slowly lowering the cover to the floor. Flipping by a few cursory blank pages, Jorah came upon its first words and found that he could not read them. Instead of letters, pictures spelled out phrases. He'd seen similar text on the trade ships from Yi Ti but this was older still. He continued on, page after page. Whatever secrets the book held, Jorah could not decipher them.

He frowned when he found sheets of leather mixed with the parchment. He opened to the middle and there, across one piece of thin, tanned hide, was a map of the world. He lifted his gaze to the room, almost expecting to be set up on by the gods themselves for witnessing such a thing. It was like no map he, or anyone else, had ever seen. He recognised Westeros, even the tiny dot of his home floating in the bay but down, at the Southern end of the continent, Dorne curved up and latched onto Essos. Valyria was a mess of mountain ranges with one thin ridge running far south where it met Sothoryos, dividing the Summer and Sunset seas. In the North, The Thousand Islands were replaced by a beautiful, dense forest of pines through which sprawled a city as large as Great Moraq. It was protected from The Shivering Sea by the tallest ranges in the world. All of this was unremarkable compared to the regions of the world forgotten by time...

They lived, died, warred and loved in a tiny corner. The true South dwarfed the known world. A circular sea boiled at its centre ringed by cities no man could reach except on the back of a dragon. Then there was the North. Gods. To think he had lived his life on the edge of this... He was a drop of blood, balanced on a blade. They knew nothing.


TEMPLE OF THE PALE LION - ASSHAI

The roaring green fire vanished. Daenerys tumbled from the temple wall and smashed onto the floor, shattering part of it. Dazed, she felt warm blood dripping from her forehead. Her hands slid over the glass, pushing herself away from the surface. Without the fire, the room was pitch. All she knew was the cold ground beneath her hands and the dribble of blood.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Scratch.

A match was struck.

Light erupted in a tiny ball. It was lowered to a wick that caught. The woman calling herself Quaithe re-lit the candles on the floor. Calmly, whomever it was, blew out the match.

"Who are you?" Daenerys asked, sitting. The tatters of her clothes barely kept together. "How long have I been here?" No answer. "Where is Quaithe?" Could it speak?

Blood flooded her eye, blinding her. Daenerys wiped it away furiously. Her last vision was burned into her mind. The magic of the wall had gone too far. What she had seen the gods had not intended. She'd felt it... The moment her mind had reached into the roots held captive in the glass and taken. Now she knew. The truth changed everything and nothing. Her skin felt cold. Daenerys crawled back to lay against the wall. A morbid laugh touched her lips as she watched the shadow creature linger in the half light.

"You are afraid of me..." she realised. "That is wise. Those who do not fear me usually die screaming."

A match. Fire. Smoke.

"Glamouring..." Daenerys pointed to the woman that wore Quaithe's face. "That's what I've heard this called. It – ripples..." she made her hand waver with her words. "You are shadows and I am fire."

The deep cut on her forehead stung and leaked a fresh sweep of blood across her face. Daenerys let it fall until she too wore a mask. Slowly, she used the wall to return to her feet. The figure between her and the door dropped the box of matches.

"I am going to leave now," Daenerys informed the stranger. When she took her first step toward the door, the shadow binder lifted her arms and with them, the candles at their feet spread into a low wall of fire restless. Daenerys laughed. Pyromancers had no business threatening her. She stepped into the flame and let them lick at her clothes. They burned away. The silver queen did nothing, basking like the bastard sea creatures on the fire rocks at the bottom of the harbour. Suddenly she reached forward, grabbing hold of the pyromancer's robes. The surprised woman let out a cry as she was pulled into the flames. They caught alight, twisting and burning in Daenerys grasp. When they were dead Daenerys let them fall then stepped over them, out of the flames wearing nothing but blood.


Quaithe heard the screams first. A flaming body threw themselves out of the temple doors. In a writhing panic, it flailed toward the black cliff where the building perched and fell from the edge. The fire burned brighter as it approached the Ash River. Quaithe turned away as the waters took them. Another emerged – then another followed by a crowd of hooded figures. They poured out of temple, scattering into the darkness.

No...

She took the narrow path, entering the temple from the malformed cliff. Inside it was a shrine to terror. There were voices ricocheting off the walls, desperate spells and wails of death. Of all the murderous things to call Asshai home, Quaithe had never witnessed such terror inside its walls.

Quaithe rounded a corner and fell to her knees. The silver Targaryen queen had set the wooden lion on fire. The Weirwood burned, transforming the monument into a roaring vision of hell. Daenerys turned, silhouetted by her destruction. The flames clawed out of the roof while the smoke sank, swirling and folding, chasing everyone away until it was only Quaithe and Daenerys.

"Come with me," Quaithe whispered, holding out her hands to her kin. It was the first vision she'd seen when the dreaming began – a white lion aflame.

Daenerys was unmoved. Tears mixed with blood. "You do not understand what I saw."

Quaithe lifted her outstretched hands to hush her. "Those visions were for you and you alone."

"Everything I thought I knew is a lie."

Quaithe nodded. "I know. The world is a lie."

Daenerys thought about sinking back into the flames. Of curling up at the edge of the world leaving the realm to squabble over its scraps. She imagined her dragons, free and left to roam the forests and oceans. They were safer there, in the wilderness without their mother.

"He waits for you."

"Who?" Daenerys let one of the flames curl around her wrist.

"Who do you think?" Quaithe replied, standing as the smoke thickened. She could barely breathe and the heat from the fire made the mask over her face painfully hot. She was terrified of the flames, shaking so hard she nearly fell. All she could see in them were the burning figures of her nightmares – the collapsing ceiling of the palace and the un-hatched dragon eggs buried in the rubble, mocking her. "The Mormont prince," she added. "You promised him, do you remember?"

Daenerys closed her eyes. She remembered. Her blood etched into his skin. Quaithe whispering while the black candles burned red. A sudden gasp of life. Then a scream. She remembered.


Quaithe wrapped the queen in a sorcerer's robe, found flung aside in the corridor. It was the colour of bloodstone and swallowed her figure, dragging over the floor as they emerged from the temple. The mountains raged, spewing rivers of fire down their flanks. A storm approached from the West and in the middle they would meet, brawling over Asshai.

"Where is everybody?" Daenerys asked.

"Afraid," Quaithe replied. "Though that will not last long. You have to leave while you can." She handed Daenerys a small, black horn wrapped with Valyrian steel bindings. "Blow on it, like this," she showed the Queen. "If it still works, it will call your dragon to you."

Daenerys did as she was shown but the horn only let out a faint rasp of air. When Daenerys frowned, Quaithe interrupted.

"We cannot hear the call of the dragons," she assured her.


Before long, one of the old women snatched the book away from Jorah. When he tried to beg for more time, he was hit across the face by a mop. He felt like a cub and so he sat silently while the book was taken back into the darkness leaving him only the candle.

He dragged his sleeve up. The strange characters etched into his skin were fading. He brushed his thumb over them, more curious than angry. The last thing he remembered was falling into the ash on the mountain. Failure. That had been his last thought.

Footsteps.

He'd know them anywhere. The sound of his queen was part of his soul. He knew her at a walk, run or storm.

"Khaleesi!" Jorah took the candle and moved toward the sound of her approach. He found her near the entrance with a glimpse of the city behind through the mouth of the building. Quaithe trailed, trying to warn him of something but Jorah only saw the Silver Queen. He knelt at once out of respect, her subject always.

Daenerys knocked the candle from his hands, sending it rolling across the floor. Her weight fell into his arms, almost knocking him over. She did not say anything so neither did he. Instead Jorah wrapped his arms around Daenerys and let her lay against his chest. She was a tangle of blood and smoke. It was matted through her beautiful hair which he allowed himself to touch only once, gently.

Quaithe drew closer to the pair as the candle died in a puddle of wax. "Come with me," she whispered.

Jorah asked, "Where are we going?" as the queen shuffled deeper into his arms.

"The roof. There's a dragon coming," she answered his silent question. "We do not have long. The city is re-grouping. They will come for her."

The buildings of Asshai did not have conventional roofs nor did they have have steps leading up to them. Quaithe led them up a perilous assortment of volcanic protrusions and tailored spines Jorah assumed to be the back of some monster. It was a parallel to Yeen where the buildings had life of their own. Whomever their creators were, they had been obsessed with capturing the likeness of these demonic souls.

"Daenerys?" his queen had paused. The oversized, red robes were spread out over the building. Latched to the rope belt around her waist was a small bone horn that he had never seen before. The dragon horn, he realised, as Quaithe had promised. Daenerys' hands were on the sculptured building and beneath them, the flicker of a flame had grown as if it were endemic to the stone. "You must not," he added, taking her hand from the rock.

Daenerys nodded and resumed the climb.


"Where will you go?" Daenerys asked, as Quaithe prepared to leave them tucked into an alcove, waiting for the dragon.

"A ship, your Grace," Quaithe bowed her head slightly. "I am done hiding from the world."

Jorah frowned. "I thought you said that there were no ships?"

"For you," she correct him. "There is a ship for me. Do not look so worried, Ser, our paths will cross again."

Jorah went to protest that he wasn't remotely worried when Daenerys took his hand to stop him. "Thank you," she said. "If it were not for your help I would be ash on a mountain. Go to your ship."

Behind her golden mask, Quaithe smiled. "Look..." she breathed, pointing to the sky. On the mournful horizon, a black dot approached. Quaithe lingered. She had never seen a dragon in the flesh. The image of one, riding the winds was something from her mother's stories. It made her nostalgic for a past she'd never seen and eager for a future she might.

Eventually she left and returned to the crumbling harbour.

"You're late," a sharp voice broke from the dark. Wreab was restless. His ship had its sails out and already the vessel was pulling against the ties, trying to escape the jetty. "Unrest is rising in the streets. Even the necromancers are out of their lairs. What happened in the temple?"

"Better that you don't know," Quaithe insisted, heading towards the boat with Wreab shuffling in her wake.

"Well, you've cost me half my fortune this night." Despite that, he held the ropes from her path as she boarded his boat. The men were waiting and with a nod, they started reeling lines. He was not calmed until a few dozen feet separated them from the wood. "The men think sorceresses are bad luck on board. I told them you were a scholar from Old Town hitching a ride home."

"As you like," she replied. Quaithe did not care. The waters were taking her home.


Drogon made his way toward them – a growing shadow in the Eastern sky. They waited out of sight in a small arch of black stone.

"Why do you stare?" Daenerys asked softly, catching her bear's eyes lingering on her face again. Half was red, half white and above, a crack in her flesh.

"You would understand if you could see," he replied.

She rolled her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder, partly to thwart his stare. He accepted the compromise. "Have you seen yourself lately?"

He held up his hands and their odd markings. "I have a suspicion," he replied. "Though I doubt mine will wash off as easily as yours will." A pause, then. "You should have left me on that mountain, Khaleesi. I was dead. Gone. Bargains should never be made with death."

"You were not dead," she assured him. "Nearly. I made no bargain, only a promise." Daenerys picked up his hand, cupping it in hers. She traced the patterns on his palm with her fingers. "And I'd do it again."

Jorah shook his head. "I am no one," he whispered.

"Oh I don't know about that," she challenged, keeping hold of his hand as her dragon approached. "At the present, you are my only subject."

He laughed softly until the soot in the air choked his lungs.


Drogon had grown. He circled the roof where his mother stood, buffeting them with the wind from his leather wings. The storm was on them. Cold rain beat against their faces.

"He's beautiful," Daenerys murmured, an honest smile on her lips as the dragon reached for the slipper surface with huge talons. His claws severed shards of rock and dug into whatever remained. His body lurched forward as he landed and his wings scraped over the odd formations of dragonglass. Drogon looked like another formation on the terrifying structure. The only tell was the way his head slowly turned. His red eyes settled on Daenerys.

Crack.

A pair of rivers cut across the sky, dividing it with a blinding light that flashed three times then vanished.

"Quickly now," Jorah insisted, helping her climb onto Drogon's back. The dragon bucked his head but otherwise waited with the patience of a Lord's horse while the pair of them settled. Then, with water streaming off his scales, Daenerys leaned down and said, 'Sōvegon...'

Drogon pushed off the roof and flew into the night.


END OF PART 1


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