Chapter Eighteen: Magic both Cruel and Weird
It was named 'Wing-Eater'.
It was ancient, older than most of the Freehold.
Its proud dragon bone grip had once been held in the hand of Aen, the Harpy bane.
Its pommel was encrusted with the looted pendent of the high priestess of the harpy who he himself strangled after he had claimed his right. The proud leaf-shaped blade harkened back to the proud legions and lords that saw Ghis fall to ruin in the birthing roars of the Freehold.
She struggled to keep herself from losing the contents of her stomach from the horror of what she was witnessing.
"Do not look away," Her master commanded quietly. "It is a difficult thing but it is owed to our predecessors to not shy away."
She forced herself to look keep her eyes on the ritual. Their place in the open gallery allowed her a clear view of the site.
Beside her Qelos grunted as an extension of her own disdain.
It gave her some comfort that her master's own dragon was uncharacteristically tense, the muscles taut beneath the silver-yellow scales of the great beast.
The arena was a forge after a fashion, even if perverse in its way.
Galleries like their own ringed the arena. Notables from across the Freehold gathered atop each, no one, not even the judge who had decided upon this punishment nor the senators who pushed for it, wished to be here and even from afar she could all but hear their muttered hymns while casting glances at her master.
She imagined that they were not hard to notice, where the nobles wore garish robes ornamented with all manners of metals, gems, furs and textiles, Gaema and her Master wore no more than the austere symbols of their order. Simple white sheaths beneath grey robes so severe that they seemed in contrast with their surroundings.
Where Gaema might have worn the teeth of great beasts, supple skins or a gown framed in metal latticework, she wore only an undyed torc of iron steel around her neck as her sole ornament.
Her master wore a torc much like her own beneath his hood, matched to the bands of smokey metal which hugged his arms and the hammer which hung from his torc.
They looked at her master with the same fear that made their mounts shy away from the great bulk of her master's dragon.
But they had no choice, they were required.
It was required from all involved to make attendance lest the gods punish their cowardice, the Lesser Crime might well become one of the Greater if they failed to appear.
More cynically she knew the censure, visible pleasure would warrant from the rivals of the guilty. The fear would help dull their arrogance.
Gaema frowned and looked away from them, it was cowardice in its own way to focus on them rather than the Lesser Crime.
Wing-Eater lay upon the central anvil as slaves prepared the site, they worked without a single word or sound. They sweated from the lava flows the ringed the titanic stone arena and separated it from the galleries.
Chained to the pillars before the arena was the perpetrator, the patriarch of a branch of Great House Gelion. He starred ahead of him with an expression that better suited to a corpse.
She could understand, he might well have thought that it would be better to bea corpse.
And he would have been right.
At least he was not fool enough to speak.
The silence and slowness of the ritual was part of the punishment after all, both for the punished and for all involved for the necessary heresy of what they did.
The ritual began in silence as well. With the slaves making their way out of the arena to cleanse themselves, even a slave was allowed the mercy of cleansing themselves of a Lesser Crime.
Next came the master-smith, the smith chosen from amongst the finest workers of common metals. He walked confidently onto the stage, every step taken with purpose and with an expression of determination.
It took restraint on her part not to whisper the order for Qelos to bathe the man in fire for having accepted the task, even if she knew full well that he was merely a part of the task.
Behind him trailed slaves bred precisely for the task. A man and a woman bred to embody the beauty of lost Ghiscar. Their nakedness ornamented with nothing save for the ivory paint scrolled across their dusky skin, artisans had likely labored over the entire night to prepare the elaborate tapestries which the were inscrolled across the slave-flesh.
They did not hesitate but rather walked towards the site with the eager pace of those who had known their purpose since the day they had been born. She found their excitement unsightly in the extreme, a servility which might have better suited another of the Fourteen. Her god favored the loyal and the devout slave but the broken and mindless were poor iron better suited to beds than sacred ritual.
As the smith took up his tools she found her stomach quivering in deeper revulsion.
From his stand the judge repeated the crime of the guilty and the punishment that would befall his family.
Only treason was worthy of such a fate. Only words traded in shadow to the foul children of the rivers, only the blood of freemen given unwillingly.
Only that could warrant the Lesser Sin.
The destruction of Valyrian Steel.
She sucked in a breath as the hilt was separated from the blade. Trying to force down the vitriol as she realized that it had already begun, in no other way could it have been separated.
She wanted to scream as everything she had been taught stirred in her. She wanted to bare her teeth and take the heads of those filthy heretics.
Ignorance was the Dark Shaped Face of the Sun God. But her master was a firm believer in its opposite face.
He had told her so that she might see.
The charge was false, the 'treason' was playing the game of politics foolishly.
This was no Lesser Sin in truth, it was a Greater Sin.
Yet it was not the place of the Orders to command, they served through the priests by the same laws that bound them to gods.
So, she gritted her teeth and watched as one slave was given the grip while the pommel and guard were handed to the other. With careful stride they walked to the accused and presented him with the pieces for a moment before continuing past him and throwing them into the fiery furnace of the streams.
Buried bone to beg for mercy for what is 'needed'.
She could only imagine the shame of seeing the descendants of your foes participate in the desecration of the defining treasure of one's family.
They waited patiently as the blade was lowered into the arena's furnace to heat it sufficiently for the breaking to begin.
The slaves embraced as lovers above the blade, rutting amidst the fire and smoke before slitting their own throats at the moment of climax and feeding the blade their lifeblood.
"Curious is it not child?" Her master said stiffly as the hammer began to come down, Gaema risked a glance at him, to see that ancient mouth pressed into a thin line. His crimson eyes burning with rage beneath the safety of his hood. "That our steel dies the same way it is born?"
She moistened her lips before answering, "It is not the same."
"True," Her master commented, the muscles of his cheeks straining and the knuckles of his crossed arms white. "Sacrifice of another and perversion rather than love, a rite to the inverted Face. The wards have to be undone before it may break. However temporarily."
Her eyes shot towards her master, "Did you-"
"Do not look away child," His words were like a whip, a flash of teeth more like fangs.
She obeyed, and he continued not long after.
"One of our order did it yes but such is decided by lot and done in secrecy," he seemed sad. "The shame of destroying the work one of our own is a burden to be shared by the Order as a whole. The shadowed Face of Crafting is Breaking."
She nodded and did not ask further.
Metal and Sand.
Crafting and Breaking.
Refinement and Pollution.
The Six Faces which surrounded the core of her god.
The six Faces of Meraxes.
So she remained silent.
Not out of fear, she simply did not want to know more. Some things she would rather not know more of until it was needed.
She wondered what her name had been. How would she have felt to see the work she sacrificed for be destroyed by rashness and idiocy?
The broken fragments that remained of Wing-Eater were lain before the now weeping man.
In a century his family would be allowed to hire some petty smith to rework it as was the custom.
Some had the steel worked into petty trinkets and circlets to better dismiss the shames of the past, others tried to forge them into new blades to sell to foreigners.
She wondered if foreign gold was worth the shame.
…
Second Day of the Fourth Month, 113 AC.
I was not big on nightmares as a general rule of thumb.
Less so on human sacrifice.
Even less so of weird rituals which involved even more disturbing spins on an already horrific idea.
I wiped the sweat off my brow as I hauled myself out of my bed and headed to my desk, I needed to write all of it down, revolted or not.
The process of sharpening my quill and preparing the ink was useful in its own way to shake off the last of the sleep and get my thoughts in order.
Human sacrifice was needed to rework Valyrian Steel, which was not too surprising in retrospect.
I would wager that the whole 'specially bred slaves' thing was just Valyria being Valyria since I doubted Tobho Mott had those on hand.
More interesting were the wards of some sort which protected the steel from conventional damage and which needed to be weakened for the steel to be reworked.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the roof.
"Magic, huh?" I sighed. "Well that's neat."
It did not exactly take a mental giant to figure out that magic was involved in making the weapons, but I had not expected something as overt as flat out wards. I had expected some incredibly contrived ritual with questionable results, not overt maguc… not that those things were mutually exclusive mind you.
Well on the bright side that still does not necessarily mean that human sacrifice is needed to make the steel… ya right, as if reality is suddenly going to let go of its hateboner for me.
Most troubling of all was the mention of gods, I glanced at the book I had been reading last night.
"Theology, huh?" I sighed again. "That's neat too, I guess."
I looked over my notes one last time before letting out a breath and pulling myself up from my seat and stretching.
I needed to start my day, I could think of magical crap later.
Which was my conclusion until I walked to my door.
I pulled open the door prepared to go ask someone to prepare my morning bath but instead ran into a robed man sleeping next to the wall outside my chamber.
The man was short, spindly and frankly looked like he was short a few weeks of sleep given how peacefully he was snoring.
"Excuse me?" I asked with confusion.
Snore.
Clearing my throat, I tried again, "Excuse me?"
That did not seem to garner any greater response.
I tapped my foot for a moment before giving up and fetching my wooden sword.
Poke, poke.
"Huh?" the old man stirred and looked around before sleepily looking up at me with half-lidded eyes, after a moment they shot wide open.
He scrambled to feet with the dozens clanking chain links, a maester then.
"My prince!" He said eagerly as he tried to straighten his robe to make himself seem presentable before doing a hasty bow. "It is a pleasure to make you acquaintance!"
"…huh?" I was not expecting that. "Umm… hi?"
"Oh, my manners!" The man had entirely too much energy for a man clearly in his late sixties at the very least from his wrinkles and grey-white hair. "Archmaester Arrel at your service!"
…why was an Archmaester sleeping outside my door?
"Greetings Archmaester," I rested my face in my hand, it is far too early for this. "May I ask what you are doing outside of my chambers?"
"Oh?" The old man scratched his chin momentarily, "Ah yes! I was hoping to speak with you!"
I blinked once, then twice.
"And that resulted in you sleeping outside my door how?" Am I still asleep?
"Well you see, I was unable to make it through the feasting yesterday!" This guy needs a mute button. "So, I followed with the next reasonable course of action and decided to be your first visitor today!"
I worked my jaw for a moment and then pinched myself. Huh, I am still awake it would seem.
"And how exactly did you secure permission to do this?" I was rather shocked that Lymon would allow the old man to sleep unattended outside my door.
"Permission?" The old man tilted his head in confusion before bringing up a hand the stroke his enormous white goatee, which hung down like a goat's beard. "Permission."
I was seriously concerned by the way in which he was sounding the word out. It took a good minute before he snapped his fingers in realization.
"Ah yes! Permission!" He smiled in triumph before blinking rapidly, "I knew I had forgotten something!"
Is my jaw hanging? It felt like it is hanging.
"Then how on earth did you make it past the guards?!" If an old man can make it through the guards, I was seriously concerned about my safety.
"Is the yelling necessary?" The old man groaned as he covered his ears. "I am quite old I will have you know! If you are referring to the young men at the bottom of the hall, I did not sneak by them! They were busy conversing about some maiden or other, I did not wish to distract them! Young love is best left to its own devices! Why I once-"
"That. is. not. the. point!" One does not simply sneak past the guards.
Oh great, now I am quoting Boromir! As if I did not have enough death flags!
"Well that is hardly my fault!" The old man said indignantly. "Now, I wanted to ask you about your book!"
"I'm sorry, I am still getting past the intruder who was sleeping outside my door!" Pinch, twitch, pinch. I take it all back, give me some more of that Valyria.
"WHY ARE WE YELLING?" the old Archmaester yelled back (and I was beginning to doubt both his credentials and his existence).
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself, it was too early in the morning for a meltdown.
The old man smiled triumphantly, "Ah good! You are calm, now if could dicu-"
At that moment I heard a distant 'HALT!' before the old man vanished from in front of me after he was tackled by a giant white mass which reminded me suspiciously of Ebermen.
I stepped back into my room and closed the door.
What a strange dream.
I pinched myself again and still did not wake up.
"That's concerning."
…
"I should have predicted this," Lord Lymon Hightower said dryly as we sat in the only one of his solars large enough to accommodate all of us. Aside from looking like he would much rather still be in bed, the Lord of the Cthulutower still looked more collected than most of the room as he calmly sipped from the tea that one of his servants had brought him.
Well aside from Clearsky.
Said giant lizard had finally roused herself after sleeping from the mayham of the morning and was still on the verge of napping right next to me. To be perfectly fair, I myself was still skeptical as if to those events had actually happened.
I could hear Ebermen's disgruntled breathing behind me which probably matched his 'it is too early for this shit' expression.
I could not fault the man, not that many people tackled seniors first thing in the morning. My other guards were worse for wear since my governess had worked them half-to-death preparing my apartments (I had obviously ordered that Nessa be left sleeping in her chamber lest she murder a senior citizen).
Said senior was seated across from me along with the two maesters who served as his (probably beleaguered) assistants.
"I would not say that such a turn of events could be predicted Lord Lymon," I felt pretty annoyed. I would probably look more intimidating if Sky had not decided that resting her head on my own gave her the best view of the tableau while she faded in and out of sleep.
"Actually, my prince it was, to a degree," the Lord of the Tower sipped his tea again. "The Archmaester has been petitioning to be the first to speak with you since word of your impending arrival spread. I did not expect him to be so impatient I will admit."
"I asked! Twice!" The old and presumably senile man stated indignantly. "I rarely do that!"
"He is not wrong," Lymon admitted sedately while sipping his tea.
"I am never wrong! Just in the process of being correct!" The Archmaester shot back at the lord of the Hightower. "You were sharper when I taught you! Ruling is too unhealthy!
How on earth is this guy alive? He was speaking to the lord who could literally has his organization by the balls.
"As you may have noticed, Archmaester Arrel is a bit," The Lord sipped again. "Eccentric."
Was he this deliberate yesterday? Well I guess he was not holding the medieval equivalent of a press conference right now, that might make a difference. In private Lord Lymon seemed mellow to the point of seeming utterly unfazed in his highbacked chair.
"Eccentric?" The old man said in outrage. Which fizzled out near instantly as his brows knit in thought. "Yes, Eccentric! That is the right word."
Man, if I am hallucinating then these must have been some potent mushrooms. I must remember to send some to Rhaenyra and claim that they are aphrodisiac for men, they will inevitably wind up in Cole's soup. Have to remember to recommend a far greater dosage.
"Quite," Lymon commented with a half-hearted shrug. "I assure you that he is quite not-harmless, brilliant as well if one cares for his field."
"His field?" I did not realize that insanity had its own link at the Citadel.
His assistants let out a deep sigh at the exact same moment as one pulled a rod and another a mask from their robes.
Both were a very familiar smoky grey metal.
I stared at the symbols of office blankly for a long moment.
Huh… that actually makes a lot of sense. Explains how he got past the guards potentially.
"He is the Archmaester of the Occult then?" I asked Lymon as I sank my face into my hand.
"I could have claimed the post for the Silver, Steel or the Bronze! I know more about healing and history than either of those fools! And am a better smith by fourteen halves! I could even go for iron and bloodstone!" He proclaimed proudly while disrespecting those of us that had no idea what half of those links represented.
And clearly you can be politically outmaneuvered by a toddler. I eyed the apparent master of the occult skeptically.
Lymon coughed and shot the older man a fond smile, "He is not in the wrong, my prince. What the gods spared in sense and tact they more than repaid with genius, not a single lady of our house has failed a delivery under his care."
I nodded, alright I am dealing with a crazy old man with entirely too much energy, potentially sorcerous knowledge and a truly random assortment of cross-disciplinary skills.
In short, a mad scientist.
When did this become my life?
On the bright side, I was fairly sure he did not want to kill me. Potentially. Maybe. I was not sure. Hopefully?
"As you say," I sighed and took a page from Ebermen's book. The amused sound I heard from beside me made it clear that it had not gone unnoticed. "That does not explain why he was so eager to see me as to sleep outside of my door."
"Ah yes!" Arral said as if remembering what this conversation was about. "I was hoping to discuss you book!"
Huh, I had sent the completed result of my little collaboration with Runciter, (regrettably) Daemon and (posthumously) Barth completed and sent off to the Citadel months ago. I honestly had not expected to hear that the manuscript to gain any traction.
"You read Runciter & Barth's Guide?" I asked brightly.
As annoyed and confused (and actually sort of hungry) as I was, I was more than a little flattered that someone had read my work.
"It was quite a fine work!" Arral said with equal enthusiasm. "The grammar was poor, the citations even worse and the writing was a calamity, but the content was exceptional! More importantly I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you wrote it!"
I was somewhere between embarrassed at the sheer reaming he gave my writing and sheepish at the credit.
I awkwardly went to scratch my head only to realize that Sky was perched atop it. She snorted a command for me to start scratching beneath her jaw.
I obeyed, obviously.
"You give me too much credit," I smiled.
"Well I would damned well know Barth's writing! Runciter's as well! I corresponded with both! I can also smell their ideas from Asshai! They were present but it was clear where your contributions began!" The man looked about to launch into an even deeper dive before Lymon coughed.
"As interesting as this all is," sip. "I would ask that you carry this conversation on some other time."
"Oh?" Arral asked. "But Lymon! I told you that this was a book worth reading! It only needs a few hundred corrections!"
Sip, "You know how I feel about poor grammar."
…You know I am starting to get why your son did not think of you as a very physical guy.
After we left his room I made an effort despite my best instincts to engage with the probably at least a little crazy Archmaester. I apparently needed magic of some description if I was going to get those juicy swords of plus +10,000 reputation (provided I did not need to do something cartoonishly evil to get them).
Besides the old lunatic was a pleasant change from the endless shitstorm that was my life.
"I should apologize," Ebermen noted as we walked along.
Well you did tackle a senior, a shady senior but still.
"Think nothing of it lad!" The old probably-a-sorcerer said with a shrug and a smile. "I have not felt such a rush in years! For a breath moment, I thought that I saw the Stranger himself! He was shorter than I imagined!"
Ebermen understandably did not know how to respond to that. "As you say."
"In any case," I interjected. "You said the Guide was to your interest. I take it that you are fond of Valyria then?"
Arral nodded enthusiastically. I was really not fazing him in the slightest, both of his assistents seemed pretty neutral as well, although I suspected being employed as they were, it would take Cthulu asking them to prom to faze them.
"They fascinates me greatly! Mostly because they were such a stubbornly secretive people! Practically all we know of them can be summarized in 'spikes and dragons and incest'!"
He was not wrong.
"And I take it that you would like to know more?" I hope you like nightmares then.
"Why of course! Secrets exist to be revealed!" From the way he looked up, smiled and nodded to himself I could tell that he planned to write that particular line down later.
"So, you truly believe that you can dredge up the forgotten secrets of Valyria," points for ambition.
The old man smiled even more brightly. "Why of course prince! As they say in my homeland, what is dead may never die!"
Wot.