FIVE FORTS – YI TI
Screams sank into the acrid walls, curling within Dragonstone's endless tunnels. The palace was a twisted mess of festered stone, formed in anger and tailored as a prison for the fires beneath. They raged below, coughing and twitching, shaking ravens from their perches, boiling water in vast sink holes scattered on the island. Breaches of salt from storm-whipped waves drove them to war, hissing and spitting at the sky.
A trail of smoke faltered before an arch of stone, open to the sea it dipped – roving the black glass tiles, caressing what flame left bare. Waves threatened the moon. Watchmen paced the stony sliver above the tide. Red dragons danced from flag poles, battered by a Summer wind. They darkened at another cry, tearing apart the evening.
A blonde-haired knight, all in gold, swayed against his post – leaning toward the mewling. A larger man took his arm, shaking his head as the knight tried to pull away.
"It is the queen..." Jaime Lannister insisted. Screaming. The shatter of a goblet against the wall. A table, crushed. Curtains torn and a body thrown against them. "We have a duty to protect her."
Ser Jon Darry, a large man with an honourable face, stepped between the young Kingsguard and the door. "Indeed, it is so but not from him." He was not unmoved, flinching at another howl.
Jaime's eyes became the sea. From the water, a shredded curtain struggled out from the clutches of stone, flapping limply against the rock. Hours later, Queen Rhaella appeared on the sill, whispering prayers to the night. Her silver hair was stained with tears. Hands cupped the smallest curve where another child grew. Destined to die or born to rule? It would be kinder to throw it in the dark waters, let the Drowned God take the malformed thing under its waves to the city where dead things slept, undisturbed by men and their bloodied swords.
The Mad King and his ship sailed toward the sinking moon, accompanied by a dozen lights bobbing beside. A knock at the door. The soft groan of wood. 'My Lady...' A Kingsguard slipped through the room. He held a goblet of sweet wine to her lips. Queen Rhaella turned her head, seeking the moon and the depths of the waves.
Daenerys held her throat, choking at the vile burn of wine that wasn't there. She was lying on filthy rugs, covered in hungry layers of scented smoke that pressed down on her face. Witches whispered. Wind jostled bone chandeliers. Her eyes rolled, unable to hold onto the world. Tears slid. Dreams washed over each other, crashing against her as if she were the shore and her bones the rock. They consumed the smoke, the flames and the filthy voices on the air.
Cold eyes. Ice locked in flesh. They shifted between shadows. Gone. A city laid along a peaceful harbour. Dense forests at its back, a wall drawn at the water's edge and a keep, rearing up like the bow of a warship or a mad king's crown. It glistened, pink against the rising sun. Daenerys strolled barefoot along the wall toward the Red Keep. The stone trembled. Thunder shook the air. Green flared before the sun's curve vanished.
Bu Gai watched as the silver dragon reached toward nothing, hands quivering – fingers outstretched. Dreamers were rare, bartered through the kingdom for the wisdom they stole from the gods own crib. Many emperors had sent men in search of dragon dreamers, raiding the outposts of Lys and Volantis. This pale girl dipped deeper into man's fate than any before her. Bu Gai threw another handful of herbs into the fire. Their smoke thickened in the room. The witches recited old words and then –
"Alass 'ul sia!" Daenerys pleaded desperately in her dream.
Those words were not hers. They were Yitish. I beg of you! Words from his lips on his last day in the palace.
Blue eyes crept closer. Flesh, pulled away from the bone. Filth dripped on marble floors. Daenerys felt a wretched breath upon her face. Her back hit a window ledge. Behind, a drop into Yin's harbour where half the city spilled onto the boats only to be struck down and slaughtered on their decks. 'Alass 'ul sia!' she whispered again, holding her hands in front of her face. The creature struck, slashing a crude blade from one side of her stomach to the other. Daenerys fell, cupping her slaughtered form. She lay in a red pool. Screams again. Amongst them were her mother's cries. Smoke. Witches...
Daenerys woke.
The tent was empty except for the two emperors, Bu Gai and Pol Qo who sat on small stools in front of her. They stared as she propped her aching body up. Sweat dried on her skin – a final tear rolled across her cheek. She coughed the poisoned air from her lungs, grasping for a bladder of water passed by Pol Qo. She drank, ignoring the shake in her hands. I should not have seen that she thought. The gods would punish her for such a trespass.
"How did you survive?" Daenerys asked in Valyrian, nodding at Bu Gai. She could still feel the blade in her gut.
Bu Gai lifted his silk tunic, revealing the horrific scar that cut deep across his torso. "I did not," he replied. It festered at once edge blackening along the stitches. "The witches did what they could but I will..."
"You will become one of them..." Daenerys finished for him. "I have seen it."
The emperor found himself staring into the flames. His end was writ. The souls of his ancestors were coming for him, certain as the dawn. Pol Qo would absorb his people and rule, bringing an end to the Azure empire and its promise of peace. His heirs were dead. Yin was dead. Pol Qo could rule the sands, warden of the ashes.
"It does not end here," Daenerys interrupted his thoughts. "Not for either of you. There is a way back from the edge but be warned, you'll wade through blood. Neither of you will be emperor after the dawn but your people will survive. Your empire will survive. When the game is done you'll not be a fading light in the evening. The East will rise again. I've seen the harbour fill with ships, Yin brim with traders. Cities rise out of the forest and others, built from sand, conquer the dunes. It will be your names they scratch into stone. A legacy is the most anyone can hope for when the gods are done with their games."
This was translated to Pol Qo who whispered back to Bu Gai. "He asks, what happens if we stay?"
"Everybody dies. The dead are walking from one corner of the map to the next. If Yitish corpses don't find you, others will." Her choice of words alarmed them. There was already talk amongst the masses of the coming night and the pale ghosts of children's nightmares. 'Others' they'd been called – frozen creatures from death's vault. Ghostgrass strangled the mountains, burning stars tainted the sky, plague ravaged the capital and dragons returned to the world. "Tell no one what I saw here – certainly not my knight. Fate is a fickle creature – we must whisper or she'll blow away."
Jorah dipped his torch, kissing hers until fire erupted. They held them toward the black fort and the chasm where a door once stood. It had been eaten away by impossible volumes of time.
"Forgive me, Your Grace," said Jorah, standing beside his queen. The camp of Yitish swayed behind them, transfixed by the foreigners approaching one of the forbidden towers. "Why are we doing this?"
"It was a request," Daenerys replied, leading. It would be a lie to pretend that the building did not threaten her. Every brick clawed at their flames while grooves in the stone spoke of past doom. "Pol Qo has pledged himself to me if I will enter the fort. He thinks that if the gods let me live, then I am their tool. If I die – he will do as he pleases."
"What's wrong with Bu Gai?" The other emperor appeared deeply concerned, tilting his head as the pair edged closer to the door.
"If we die, he has announced his intention to uliis – kill himself with a ceremonial blade as a way of renouncing his rule and preserving the peace."
"I leave you alone in a tent for a few hours and you've got emperors falling on their swords..." Jorah muttered, mostly in amusement but partly concern. Chaos had taken Daenerys as a lover. "If we are going to do this, we best hurry. Drogon is not fond of the horselords minding him. Pol Qo may not honour your deal if some of his best men end up on a roast." Jorah stopped again they reached the doorway. It was a simple rectangle cut into the side of the building but it dwarfed their two figures.
"Worried?" Daenerys asked, slightly in front.
"I am not worried. Are you worried?"
Daenerys lofted her eyebrow, pressing forward into the darkness.
The innards of the black fort were as barren as its outer walls. Its fittings had rotted away leaving scraps of iron rusted on the floor, mostly turned to powder. The floor itself was enormous, sweeping out in all directions. "A mustering area for troops," Jorah said, pacing around the expanse. "Horses were chained to the wall over there." He could tell by the stone troughs. "And there, an armoury – or what's left of it."
Daenerys moved towards the steps spiralling up through the centre toward the next level. "What do you think it was built for?"
"I saw more of them, stretching North. If they really were built by the empire it was probably for defence against another civilisation in the East. It may be a collection of cannibals and cursed men now but there used to be sprawling, wealthy cities all though the desert. No one really knows how old the Yi Ti empire is. These could have been here a lot longer than we imagine. Where are you going?"
"Upstairs."
"Is that wise?"
"You said it yourself, there is nothing here. We're attempting to convince a superstitious ruler that I'm touched by the gods. If I run straight back out it's hardly much of an impression." The will of men frightened Daenerys, not the shit they left behind.
Jorah may not have been afraid of the fort but there was certainly something about it that he did not like. It didn't make sense for one. That was what dug at him the most. He had not shared his suspicions but the structures were touched by ice, built against a vanished wall that must have stretched at least as far as its Northern counterpart. Combined with the ice-weapons in the cave deep in the South, Jorah could only surmise that Winter had once gripped the land, swallowing most of the world – worse than the recent Long Night. This had all happened, many times before. The realms of men had a short memory but stone remembered.
"Jorah..."
He climbed the stairs, three at a time – drawing his ice sword, brandishing the torch in the other. "My queen?" he asked, pausing on the next level, searching the darkness for her. Her flame was nearby, dimly reflected off a nearby wall. "What is it?" Daenerys stepped back so that he could see the markings scratched into the stone. "Runes?" he breathed, shuffling closer. "But these are only found in the far North. There are some in the caves of Bear Island – others in the Winterfell crypt. Rangers claim to have found them beyond the Wall."
"The First Men came from somewhere," Daenerys turned away from the runes, taking half the light with her. "I have seen things that you cannot imagine in my dreams," she whispered, her voice creeping through the empty room. "I've looked into the eyes of the dead and heard their stories."
Jorah lingered by the scratchings on the wall. Everything he thought he knew was being torn apart. The flame started to tremble. At first he thought it was something in the air but then he released it was his hands. The poison in his blood raged, bubbling and thrashing in his veins. Alarmed, he backed away from the runes and the magic in their unreadable words.
"I walked along a wall of ice," Daenerys continued, "and watched a watery sun rise in the East." She stopped and turned to her knight. "I stood here."
"Future or past?" Jorah breathed, moving closer. He tried to stop his hands from shaking but they would not. The darkness seemed to encroach, the flame weaken.
"Both..."
Dragon song spilled in through the fort windows. Drogon was below, paws to the wall, standing on his back legs with his head up. His wings had unfurled, wrapping around the surface. The horselords minding him fled, racing back into the safety of the crowd. Awe rippled through the people. Dragons were magical creatures and here it was, singing to its mother.
Jorah's torch clattered to the stone. The room dimmed as it rolled away, tumbling toward one of the windows.
"Are you all right?" Daenerys asked, following as he gave chase.
"Yes, Your Grace," he replied, retrieving it. "Of course."
The markings on his skin darkened in the flame. Daenerys felt them, mimicked in her flesh. What she had done could never be undone. His fate belonged to Winter and hers to the flames.
Daenerys emerged as a god. Bu Gai and Pol Qo crossed the sand. Both knelt in front of her, bowing their heads. It was nothing like the overbearing love of the Meereenese, knotted around Daenerys in a sea of praise. These emperors bowed to Daenerys as though she were the harbinger of the Doom. As they stood, the emperors faced off, grabbed each other's forearms and embraced. Then, they split away and almost immediately the camp started to divide.
"What have you asked them to do?" Jorah watched a city of people spring to life.
"You'll have to trust me, Jorah the Andal..." The queen replied.
BEAR ISLAND
271 AC
Dacey Mormont took to the snow as a captain to the waves. It was deeper than when they had set out, topped up by passing flurries that caught on the jagged, narrow mountains of Bear Island. They had come around the Northern edge, outside the forest where they had a view of the frozen shore beyond the bay and further still, the unnamed ranges. Ships knocked together in the harbour, flying Blackwood banners. A few gulls picked at the fingers of black rock protruding from the water nearby. It was a deadly, unforgiving but infinitely beautiful vista.
Jorah paused at the sight, taking a moment to warm his face in the sudden sun breaking through the clouds. His peace was brutally ended by a face full of snow.
"Dacey!" he growled, wiping his face. Guilty amounts of snow clung to her gloves.
"You're a dreamer," she accused. "Getting lost in things."
He moved to exact revenge, bundling up a paw full of powdered snow, shaping it into an orb. She was already ducking as he tossed it, missing her by miles. He suffered through her laughter but was worth it for her smile. The halls were dull without them.
"Dacey..." Fear struck Jorah, binding his limbs.
"What?" she asked. "Afraid I'll hit you again, little king?" Her grin was wicked, another lump of snow in her hands.
"Dacey..." he whispered, begging her to do the same. "Behind you. It's -" Jorah didn't know what it was. Something was crawling out of the forest, nudging frozen pines apart, knocking avalanches of snow from their bowers – sending ravens into flight.
Dacey turned slowly, hearing the crack of wood on the air. Her eyes widened as a tree fell from the forest and smashed into the clearing. She ducked, scampering toward Jorah, taking his arm. "Move!" she hissed, dragging the prince across the snow. Whatever was about to break into the clearing, they were not prepared for it.
Their boots skidded over the path, nearly toppling them a dozen times. After the last shatter of wood, the world fell quiet behind them. For a few minutes they did nothing but run, scampering toward the forest where they could use the trees as cover. Silence was dreadful. Jorah could stand it no longer, risking a glance over his shoulder as they ran.
The creature's jaws were nearly on them. Jorah shoved Dacey to the ground, falling on top of her as the ice spider's pincers took a vicious swipe at their necks. The size of a bear, with eight jointed legs and bristles covering its body like poisoned daggers, the creature overshot, running straight over them. On the ground, Dacey and Jorah lifted their heads to see the ice spider skidding across the snow, surprised at its prey suddenly vanishing.
There was no time to scream or speak. They were on their feet, racing in the opposite direction away from the monstrous thing. There was nowhere to go. It was faster than they were and the next outcrop of forest lingered several hundred metres through open snow. Cliffs walled them in on the right with nothing but a sheer drop into the bay.
"It's coming back around!" Jorah, slower than Dacey, could hear the soft crunch of snow beneath its tarsal claws. It stabbed the ice, finding purchase where they couldn't, tapping at the snow with a morbid clicking that would haunt Jorah for decades. "Dacey!"
She saw it when he did – the narrowing edge of land between the pathway and the cliff. There, perched on the edge, twisted around the brutal shore was the Weirwood with its flaming crown. If they could make it down the tangle of roots into the cave, there was a chance the spider couldn't follow.
They turned from the path as the spider's black fangs unsheathed. The fangs struck the snow, spilling venom harmlessly into the ice. Outside the path, the powder was up to their waste. They forced their way through it, swinging their arms violently to propel themselves. Jorah kept his eyes on the ghostly wood in front, willing himself to make it. He remembered climbing the tree in the Spring, when he and Dacey were much smaller. It had been dangerous and foolish but very small children are immune to fear. Now, as the waves of the bay ravaged the rocks below, Jorah was suddenly very aware of the drop only metres away, concealed by deadly planks of unsupported ice.
Dacey was first. Reaching the tree she used the roots to haul herself out of the powder. Even the wood was covered in ice, making their idea for escape impossibly perilous.
"Jorah – we can't!" She shouted, struggling to hold onto the tree as the wind kicked up.
Jorah was right behind her, crawling onto the base of the tree. The ice spider, blind like its smaller cousins, felt the ground, listening for the slightest disturbance in the snow. They were hunters, moving within the frozen forests of the unnamed lands. This one had slept too long. It was the size of a bear, engorged from a diet of bats and seagulls. Its webs lined an inaccessible network of caves left sealed for thousands of years. Now it was out, stretching its segmented legs. Its exoskeleton was tight, rubbing against a fresh layer of shell forming underneath.
The pair wrapped their arms around the slippery roots of the tree and leaned over, peering down at the sapphire water. The cold deepened its colour while the snow contrasted the burned rocks beneath. Weirwood roots dangled off the cliff. Most were like hair but some were as thick as Jorah's leg. They needed the ones in between – roots that they could twist them around their arms.
The ice spider could feel them moving, or hear their voices on the air. Whatever it was, the creature was drawn towards them – slower this time with its upper body lifted. Its fangs were black, curved and dripping onto the snow as it scuttled forward. He could hear the bristles on its legs rubbing together, rustling.
The Weirwood shed scarlet leaves over them as they took hold of what they could and started over the edge of the cliff. Jorah went first. His stomach dropped as the roots took his weight. The rock at his feet crumbled away, vanishing in the water below. There was nothing but the tree, its bleeding face caught in a scream and the distant crash of waves.
"Hurry up!" Dacey hissed at him, swinging one of her legs over the edge. She was coming over fast, grasping handfuls of roots, backing away from the approaching ice spider whose front legs had found the tree. Venom dripped onto the bark, smoking on the wood.
Jorah felt a foot on his shoulder – a brush of roots across his neck. From his left, a white leg curled around the trunk of the Weirwood. Red eyes, two layers of them, blinked back at Jorah. They were set on him, alive with hunger. The leg, with its tapered claw, reached toward his throat. Jorah wrested with the Weirwood roots, shuffling down the veil toward the cave beneath. He could feel his grip on them simultaneously too tight and slipping. Above, Dacey screamed as another leg dragged over her back, leaving a layer of white hairs stuck in her furs like needles. The spider followed them over the edge, clinging onto the tree with its back legs while the rest of its body canted forward.
The roots pulled away from the snow. Dacey fell a few feet, coming level with Jorah. She knocked against him, almost pushing him loose. A shower of snow hit them in the face and then the spider lurched forwards, striking. The fangs clashed against the rock between them. Jorah grasped wildly at the cliff face with his free hand, tearing some of it free. He threw it in the spider's face. It flinched – briefly, then struck again. They both let themselves slide uncontrollably down the roots, snapping many of them as they gripped and stopped. Now they hung above the entrance to the cave but it was set in from the cliff. If they let go they'd fall straight onto the rocks.
"Dacey – take my hand!" Dacey was stuck, her arm caught in a curved root. She hung above him, wrestling with the tree. "Look out!" Angered, the spider had come nearly all the way over the edge. Only its back legs, clung to the top of the cliff while the rest of it reached for Dacey, catching its front-most legs in her sweeping fur coat. Something caught and the spider started to drag her back up. Jorah grabbed her leg, pulling her down.
Panic mixed with adrenalin. Dacey fought against the creature, punching its leg with her bare hand. The hairs cut her hands as if they were glass. All she could see was the ice spider's blood-shot eyes and its fangs twitching, waiting to strike. Lost in those eyes, her own rolled back, giving way to two white orbs.
The ice spider froze. Startled – it swayed dangerously, scratching for a hold on the ice. Then it fell, tumbling off the cliff, barely missing them, before vanishing into the water below. Without the spider, Dacey fell as well, knocked free from the roots. Jorah screamed, still holding onto her ankle. Her weight in his hand pulled him down, ripping through the roots until they stopped, swinging wildly, Jorah with one hand on the Weirwood and Dacey dangling upside down by the leg.
She came too, murmuring something.
"Fucking gods of the Seven!" Dacey shrieked, struggling dumbly as she found her face staring down at the rocks.
"Stop moving!" Jorah replied in alarm, as the roots unwound.
Beneath them, the spider emerged from the waves. It crawled out onto the rocks, running its legs between the two smaller ones at the front, drying them off. Then it walked over the surface of the water, fleeing across the bay back toward the Lands of Always Winter.
"I'm going to swing you into the cave."
"You're going to what?" Dacey shouted, as she felt her body start to move. "No – Jorah! Jorah!"
Dacey swung far away from the cliff. A rush of wind hit her face. Weirwood leaves tumbled in the air around her. Another wave lurched up the wall of rock beneath. The cave lay ahead, gaping out of the wall. It came closer, rushing toward her. Dacey closed her eyes as Jorah let go. This is it. This is how I die.
Her body smashed onto the rocks inside the cave, rolling through gull carcasses. She landed on her back near the edge, staring at the perfect sky through the mouth of the cave. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, spoiled immediately by Jorah barrelling in after her. His shadow flailed in free-fall before landing in a mess.
They lay there for a time, quite unable to move. Finally it was Dacey that shoved him off and began picking spider hairs out of her furs. "I draw the line at whatever that was..." Dacey growled.
Jorah could still see the silver body of the spider racing into the distance. It barely touched the water, dancing on the surface. "How did you do it?" He asked, tearing his eyes away to look on her. "I saw what you did."
Dacey paused, one of the razor hairs between her fingers. It was a foot long and tapered like a ghostly quill. "Do what?"
"You know."
"I don't know," she replied honestly. "It happens sometimes. Mostly I think I'm dreaming."
"It wasn't a dream," Jorah assured her. "I heard the fisher-woman call it 'warging'. A rare talent..."
"Whatever it is, I'm not interested," she assured him. "It's horrible – being inside another mind, it's thoughts suffocating your own. I wanted to kill myself, sink fangs into the flesh and feast on our corpses. It's a curse, not a gift."
"Well, your curse saved us," Jorah shuffled closer, leaning back against the cave wall. She joined him, laying on his chest for a moment, needing something warm to hold onto.
"Don't say a fucking thing," Dacey grunted.
"Not a word," Jorah promised, allowing her to rest.
When they returned many hours late and filthy, his father put them both against a wall and shouted. He never struck them as it was not the Mormont way but he did make it abundantly clear that they'd be helping the villagers chop firewood for the rest of their natural lives. Neither of them told the old bear what they saw. It wasn't only that no one would believe them – this was their secret. They knew something about the world that others didn't. Later that night, when they were the last ones in the Great Hall, sat in front of the fire, Jorah finally told someone what he'd seen on the frozen shores.
FIVE FORTS – YI TI
Daenerys had been watching her knight for a while. He was ferrying gifts from the emperors up onto the dragon, tethering them into the new saddle for their journey North. Even now, with one foot on the holds near Drogon's stomach and his body stretched over the gentle curve, reaching into a satchel, she could see him shake.
A foaming wall of ravaged flesh. Barely human, they breached the Jade Gates and flung themselves on the screaming people of Yin. Ships cracked apart, smashed and ruined in the bay. Blood ran down the streets, painting flocks of gulls red.
"Stormborn?"
Daenerys turned to find Pol Qo readied for travel. His cone-shaped head was wrapped in silk, held together with jewelled pins. He bowed to her and then spoke perfect Valyrian despite his pretense.
"I will ride West, through the Bone Mountains and sack the smaller cities. As our number swells we'll cross the Red Waste at Lhazar."
"Avoid the cursed cities of Meereen and Yunkai," Daenerys added. "Slip by them as shadows into the Painted Mountains then take the Vaylrian roads into the Lands of the Long Summer and sack the demon city of Mantarys. Take their gold and their ships. Bu Gai has gifted you sailors. Use them to bring your hoard across the Sunset Sea. I will meet you at the spear on the broken arm, you understand?"
"You are crazy but if the gods have seen it, then it will be so."
"The curse that has besieged your lands will be lifted, with fire and blood." Daenerys looked upon the enormous gathering of people in the desert. "You have warred each other from the dawn age, now you are brothers and sisters again. Take out your grief on those that you find along the way."
"Bu Gai?"
"You'll see him before the end. He must go another way."
Bu Gai frowned at the slender man following close beside. His donkey pulled a cart full of ravens. They sat on their perches, silently swaying with the rock of the cart. The dragon queen had asked that he take care of the traveller – a survivor of Pol Qo's camp. He did not see the purpose in the man.
"A man thanks you for your kindness." The traveller from Lorath nodded respectfully when he noticed the emperor's eyes upon him.
Unable to understand, Bu Gai grunted and kicked his stallion. The horse picked up its pace, driving him toward the front of the caravan as they wandered forth into the Northern lands.
Drogon lifted off the sand, taking flight with Daenerys and Jorah strapped safely into the saddle. They were surrounded by cloth, wrapped up against the cold. It was night and the shadow of the fort quickly faded into blackness with the rest of the desert.
"Are you revisiting your dreams?" Jorah asked, when he caught Daenerys staring at the darkness. She'd said nothing for many hours, preferring to watch the moon slip away and the faintest blush of dawn grow on the horizon. Drogon was heading North, following the ridge of mountains.
"I saw my mother," Daenerys replied. "She was – lost. Did you know, Ser, what my father did to her?" Jorah was quiet. "Answer me."
He was forced to nod. "The king was not in his right mind, Your Grace."
"He beat her. Raped her. I listened to her screams." She turned to face the knight behind, her eyes glistening in the moonlight. "She wanted to drown me in the sea before I was born."
"Daenerys..." he reached up but she would not let him touch her.
"In the end I killed her. Rhaella died screaming. She was right to want me dead."
"It was not always so... The pressures of war and the collapse of the kingdom drove despair across your family. Things will be different when you sail into the Blackwater."
She'd felt the coarse stone of those walls against her skin. Heard the rush of water on the grates that protected the city from attack. Even now she could see the sky and her three dragons tumbling in the wind.
"I'll not sail," she corrected, looking back over the night. "I'll fly."
