The Wanderer
Chapter 5: Where are the revels in the hall?
Miiqa stood in front of the wooden tower, holding the glass jar of graveworms that she had collected from the floor of the Khaleesi's tent, and when Aggo had asked her why, she merely waved him off. No other needed to know that the contents of the jar was the last of the prince. But Mirri Maz Duur saw, and laughed. "What you are attempting to do is dangerous," the maegi said, as she was tied to a stake in the middle of Drogo's funeral pyre. "You are but a child. You haven't the capacity for great magic."
Miiqa ignored her words.
The night air around them was thick with fragrance as oil was poured over the pyre, soaking the cushions and silks and logs. Drogo laid atop the upper most platform, his body saturated and glistening with the thick fluid. The Khaleesi's three dragon eggs were placed around him, black and green and gold and all hard as stone. The slayed stallion was placed beneath the platform, along with the warriors that had fallen when the khalasar split.
"This is insanity," Mirri said. She, too, was covered in oil, her hair and clothes dripping with it. "And you shall not hear me scream."
"It is not your screams I want," Daenerys told her, "only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life."
The maegi made no reply. Twice that day, her words had been used against her. The woman closed her eyes and moved her lips in a silent prayer. Daenerys turned from her and took the torch from Jhogo's hands, setting fire to the logs herself. The flames caught quickly and spread. The wood crackled and splintered. Mirri Maz Duur began to chant a shrill song, her voice rising over the sound of burning brush in words that no other understood. Her song grew louder as the flames licked at her flesh, and her chants changed to agonizing screams that pierced the sky.
The smoke grew thick around them, and the Dothraki backed away. Miiqa herself turned from the fire, lest the flame charm her and hold her and show her things that she did not wish to see. She could hear the flames as they called to her, but nothing would be divined that night. She would not read the cruel fire that burned her Khal.
The prophetess turned back to the pyre with closed eyes and blindly tossed the jar into the flames. The heat would shatter the delicate glass. The graveworms would burn. And the maegi's death would pay for life.
"Do not mourn for Rhaego," Ser Jorah whispered as he stood beside Miiqa, watching the fire. "It was once said that with the birth of a new Targaryen, the gods would toss a silver coin to decide whether the child would be great... or mad." The prophetess stared silently at the mailed warrior. His pale eyes confessed his fatigue. "It is a misfortunate fate, but I fear that he would have been born into madness."
The curling smoke turned to black shadows that danced in the night sky, covering the stars until only one shone - a sanguine comet, blazing bright red; it's long tail streaking the darkness with blood.
Miiqa silently slipped away and readied her mount, a lean black mare given to her on her tenth name day. She had few valuables, all which were contained in a small wooden bureau - ampoules and amphoras and jars and vials, and as always, she carried her leather pouch at her hip.
Her own tent was a luxury that could not be sustained, so she bundled up one that was abandoned, along with her bedroll and other provisions for the journey. When her horse was laden with it all, she ascended the mare and rode away from the exhausted would follow the path of the bloodstar; not to where it was going but from whence it came. She would ride hard all night, and sleep during the day, avoiding the threats that lingered on the Dothraki sea.
-X-x-X-
"Shieraki gori ha yeraan!" Miiqa called, and her words echoed back to her. The stars are charging for you! "Rhaego! Rhaego! Watch the stars!" but no one answered.
Torches covered the walls, setting the roofless hall aglow and drowning out the light of the stars above, but the chamber was abandoned. Dust covered the wooden tables, colorless spiderwebs gathered in the corners of the room, and a wrinkled, one-eyed crone stepped out from the shadows. With shaking limbs she approached the prophetess, her weight supported by a gnarled, wooden cane. This was the woman who had spoken for Rhaego, naming him the Stallion Who Will Mount the World when he was still in the Khaleesi's womb.
"Where are the revels in the hall?" Miiqa called to her. "Where have the people gone?"
Slowly, the woman walked closer, her single black eye moist and reflecting the light. "Bring the stallion here," she said when she finally made it to the younger woman. "You will find it filled for your purpose."
"I have no purpose," Miiqa told her, but the crone only smiled a toothless grin.
"Find the Stallion," replied the woman, "find your purpose." The ancient khaleesi began to walk again, past the prophetess, languidly making her way to the front of the room. Miiqa watched as she ascended the few stairs leading up to the dias. She took a seat amongst others that were empty and sat quietly. "Find the Stallion and bring him here."
-X-x-X-
Miiqa awoke briskly from her fever dream, wiping at the now cool sweat that lingered on her forehead. She peered from behind the flap of her small tent, and saw only tall grass in front of her, but above, the sky was taking on a lavender hue, the setting sun casting a red glow against the otherwise pale sky.
The night before had passed without incident, as well as the following day while she slept, and once again Miiqa was riding alone on the Dothraki sea. The bloodstar guided her way, blushing bright overhead. She wondered if she was heading in the right direction, if intuition only was enough for this task, when she spotted the head of a great red stallion beyond the grass.
She rode quickly and came to a halt at the outside of the pasture. The woman dismounted her horse, leaving her things still strapped to it, and walked slowly towards a man sitting on a dirty white fur. He silently stared at Miiqa as she fell to her knees in front of him and took his face in her hands. His hair was long, ink black, and braided. His thick brow furrowed into a look of curious interest. His violet eyes glowed bright, reflecting the darkness like a nocturnal hunter as he looked down at her.
There was no mistaking it; this was the man from her dream. This was Rhaego and the horse was Drogo's red - both of whom had died at the hands of the maegi.
"Khal Rhaego," the prophetess whispered. "I come humble before you."
"Khal, you say?" the man asked with a small laugh, and Miiqa hesitantly removed her hands from his heated flesh. "Where, then, is my khalasar? I have lost it." His voice was like a drum - deep, hearty, and resonating as it flowed through the warm night air.
"I will bring you to your khalasar," the prophetess told him, confident in her words and her task.
The man nodded his head, trying to decide whether or not he would humor the woman. "And are you my Khaleesi?" he asked with a smile. Miiqa caught his condescending tone and stood from the ground so that she was hovering above him. "Do you have a name?" he continued when she did not reply.
"I am not your Khaleesi," she said, but her knees quivered as she remembered her dream - their meeting in the crisp water in front of the Mother of Mountains. "I am Miiqa. I know - knew - your mother and father." Rhaego's smile faltered and the woman took a few steps backward toward her horse. "But I do have something for you," she continued. Miiqa led her mare to where Rhaego was sitting and retrieved the gift given to her by Daenerys. She laid it across her palms to present it to the man.
"What is this?" he asked.
"A sword."
He looked at the prophetess skeptically. "What need do I have for a sword?"
"A great one, Rhaego. To get us where we are going."
The man scoffed and continued to sharpen his own weapon - a crude wooden spear, dark at the end where blood had permeated through its pores. Miiqa pulled the sword slowly from its scabbard and held it up in front of her with both hands.
"It is a sword made for a king," she said, the last word in the tongue of the Seven Kingdoms, one of the few that she did know. "It is better than a wooden spear. Mailed warriors say it is better even than an arakh, which you do not seem to have."
Rhaego looked at the dark blade, then bitterly back at the weapon in his hands. "Everything was lost in the fire," he mumbled without looking at her.
"Fire?"
"Yes!" he snapped, now staring at her fiercely. "Fire." He turned his attention back to his work, and scraped at the tip of his spear roughly with a knife. "I awoke in the night," he said, a curl of wood falling on the fur. "In the middle of a burnt field." Another piece fell. "I remember nothing that had come before."
Miiqa took to one knee, placing the sword on the ground beside her. She put a soft hand under the man's chin and gently tilted his head up so that she could look into his lilac eyes. "When, Rhaego?"
He stopped sharpening his spear and stared at the woman. She looked tired, and travel weary, but her dark eyes still danced with the youthful promise of something - something...
Maybe she did have the answers that he did not; the story of a life that he had forgotten. Rhaego sighed and smoothed back a loose strand of hair from Miiqa's face, so that he may gaze at her unhindered. "Last night," he told her, "as the bloodstar passed through the sky."