The Wanderer
Chapter 6: Alas for the bright cup!
"Read the cards."
"My Khal, you know -"
"Read the cards," Drogo repeated firmly.
"The cards are tricky! Their message is not always clear," Miiqa argued, though she began to remove the stack from its pouch. Drogo only stared at her, unmoved by her appeal. He would not tell her a third time.
The day was warmer than usual, the heat seeping in through the sandsilk walls of the Khal's tent and surrounding the two. The Khaleesi was away as she was the day before, choosing rather to walk through the khalasar with her handmaids than spend the long hours in the stuffy makeshift shelter. Miiqa, too, wished she was outside, where the breeze could reach her moist skin and her Khal was not staring at her with hard, dark eyes.
She would read the cards, but Drogo would not listen. She read the fire the day passed, showing him what it showed her, but he paid it no heed. He would not accept it unless fate was in his favor, but the prophetess knew that the cards would not give him what he sought.
Miiqa shuffled the stack between her hands and then placed four of the cards on the rug side by side. The painted pictures were all but faded, confessing their antiquity. Indeed, the cards had been in the woman's family for generations, her own mother teaching her how to wield them.
"What does it mean?" Drogo asked, looking at the images. Miiqa, too, stared at the quartet of cards - the Silver Chalice, the Mother, the Poison Water, the Meadow - and then began to speak.
"Behold the Silver Chalice,
The vessel in which life is contained.
Alas for the bright cup!
While she stays, nothing else shall remain.
After the loss and after the birth,
Fear death by earth."
The man said nothing in response, so Miiqa continued. She pulled four more cards from the top of the stack and placed them ontop of the ones from before: the Khal, the Lover, the Ouroboros, the Westward Wind.
"Behold the Horse Lord,
The lover with a smothered heart.
Alas for the bravery of men!
For eras must end for others to start.
Sacrifice is a burden he shall bear.
Fear death by air."
The prophetess gazed up at Drogo. His face was hard as a bronze shield, unwavering and illegible. "Do you want me to carry on?" she asked, but the Khal still said nothing. He only gave her a short nod, so she drew four more cards: the Eye of All Sight, the Dreamer, the Nightshadows, the Flame.
"Behold the Eye of All Sight,
The dreamer with the blood of the ancient.
Alas for those who seek the dawn!
The first to see the sun is her punishment.
When stuck in the shadows, thick as mire,
Fear death by fire."
Miiqa did not pause this time, but drew the last set of cards with shaking hands and set them down: the Stallion, the Crown, the Sun, the Current.
"Behold the great Stallion,
The glorious hero when all is done.
Alas for the Khal, ruler of Kings!
The wanderer of every land under the sun.
Those opposed are bound for slaughter.
Fear death by water."
-X-x-X-
The land in front of them was black and burnt. Only ash and embers covered the plain where grass once grew; grass as tall as any man and every shade of color known to the human eye. Miiqa could picture it well in her mind, she could imagine the blades rippling like smooth waves in the wind, bowing to its power as the khalasar rode through it. But now there was nothing. All was black. And burnt.
The pair had traveled well into the day to reach the scorched steppe and the prophetess was exhausted. She had stopped to sleep once since her journey began, and that time was fitful - cluttered with dreams and surrounded by nightshadows. She longed for rest but would not admit to the man that she was weary.
"You think me fool enough to believe your story?" Rhaego asked once they had stopped.
"It is not my story," Miiqa told him as she dismounted from her horse. "It is yours."
The prophetess knelt down in the cinders and scooped handfuls of ash into an empty glass container from her bureau. She closed it tight when it was filled and once again stood, looking out into the horizon where black land met blue sky and she could not help but think that her world seemed bruised. The woman took a deep breath and the charred air filled her lungs, scratching at her throat so that she laid her fingers softly against the hollow between her collarbone.
Miiqa turned back to the man and caught him staring out into the same distance. "It is a hard thing to believe," she said, "that you are destined for a life greater than the one you are already living."
Rhaego stayed perched high above the woman on his stallion. His heavy brow shaded the radiance of his eyes, casting a shadow that grazed his cheekbones. He was solemn. Contemplative. On the cusp of accepting the impossible.
"You are saying I was born not but days ago?" he asked, looking down at the prophetess. "Already a man?"
She heard the masked sorrow in his voice and, for the first time, considered the curse of Rhaego's half life. Magic was wondrous, and fantastic, and miraculous, but it was also harsh and terrible. How cruel it was to give a man a bisected life, never able to be finished because of where it began. And how callous to expect so much from such a man.
"Yes," she replied. "You were forged from fire. If you do not believe me, then believe your eyes. There is no trace of any tents, nor bedrolls, nor bodies, nor caravans." She held on to the glass jar tighter. "Only ash. And you suppose you were the one left behind? Along with your horse?"
Rhaego's jaw clenched, but he said no words in return. The man took one last glance at the black stretch of earth, then back behind him at the tall grassland. He clutched the reigns of his horse, his fingers restless on the leather straps, until he finally turned his stallion to depart.
"If you leave," Miiqa called out to him, "your mother's pain was for nothing. Your father's death was for nothing." The man stopped, but did not turn back. "He knew his fate. He knew he had to die for you to live, and he accepted it. Do not let his death be in vain."
-X-x-X-
They had set up camp at the edge of the steppe, raising the one tent that Miiqa had brought and building a fire to chase away the evening chill. They sat across from each other, the blaze glowing between them, and Rhaego watched in astonishment as the flame took on the shape of two horses. They reared and frolicked with each other, the ignited beasts dancing in the night air.
"My eyes grow weary," Miiqa said as she stood and it was once again a normal fire.
"Wait," Rhaego called before she could enter the tent and he removed the Hrakkar pelt from across his saddle and handed it to the woman. Tentatively, she took it, then held the soft fur close to her chest as he spoke once again. "The night is cold," he said. "And you need all the sleep you can get before we reach Vaes Dothrak."
The woman nodded her head and entered the tent. She laid the fur down on her bedroll, then peered out a slit to the man outside. Rhaego had retrieved the sword and was clutching it in his hands. At first, he merely held it, admiring the dark valyrian blade and jade band that encircled the black leather grip. Then, he swiftly cut the sword through the air, making Miiqa jump in surprise. He gripped it tight in one hand as he would an arakh, kicking up ash as he moved just beyond the grassland. His long braid swung behind him as he fluidly sliced the night sky once again and Miiqa smiled.
How fierce he looked as he wielded the weapon. How graceful as he moved with the stars above his head. The prophetess could only imagine him riding into battle, his king's sword in one hand and khal's arakh in the other, an abundance of bells in his hair, the harbingers of his coming, as his enemies run away in fear.