"Gods, as a rule, are an ambitious sort – always chasing power. No different from the average politician, in that respect."
Divinity (an admittedly nebulous term, encompassing everything from the personified spirit of an unusually large rock or something to an eldritch Old One with cosmic dominion) entails infinity – some measure of resistance, if not outright immunity, from the ravages of time and entropy, and constraints of physics and biology; a god's might and authority, both absolute and relative, is a function of how much infinity their being could sustain.
I myself – at the risk of conceit – even before recent … endowments, ranked firmly at the upper end of the spectrum, at least as far as terrestrial deities went.
"And just like a politician might tend a herd of sycophants, gods empower their worshipers. Mortals are fragile, after all, squishy and short-lived." I rolled my eyes. "Breathe on one wrong, porcelain bloody dolls they are, and suddenly the walls are a lovely shade of cranberry. Straight from the box, they're practically worthless, so trying to squeeze some value out of them takes a little investment."
Perched at the edge of a sunlounger, Ed nibbled at his bottom lip, and slowly, cagily, gestured for me to continue.
"I like to call it patronage. You know, the wealthy, influential patron and the lowly, desperate client. The client gets a nibble of the metaphorical pie, while the patron gets a lackey to kiss his ring." I snorted, rolling a hand to the side. "Shine his shoes and scrub his toilets." Then, smirking like a jackass, in my best Marlon Brando: "Come to him on the day of his daughter's wedding."
A good half of it flew right over his head, but a faint nod told me that he more or less caught the gist.
Plopping my legs up onto an ottoman, I tapped a finger against my eyeball, irises sparkling gold, then pointed towards Ed's matching set. "When I pumped you full of my grace, my power, you became my client, and I your patron. Normally, this sort of thing requires a formal covenant, but your untimely demise opened a few doors."
I was no stranger to such arrangements; back in the Lands Between, any random dickhead could wander into a church and receive the God-Queen's blessing, so long as he was of the right sort (human and human-adjacent, mainly – trolls and misbegotten and other 'bestial' untouchables, if not outright exterminated, were instead graciously permitted to wallow at society's fringes).
That, and of all her untold millennia of memories – love and hate, life and death, victory and tragedy – the original carved deepest into her heart the moment when, huddling in an alleyway, draped in filthy sackcloth, her frostbitten fingers first clutched a mote of shimmering light – the day a half-starved orphan, by the grace of the Greater Will, emerged resplendent as the glittering monarch of an epoch of order and gold.
"I'm sure you've felt it." I leaned in for dramatic effect. "The fire pounding through your veins, lightning pulsing through your bones. New strength, new sensations, new understanding – like the scales have fallen from your eyes."
A pause.
"You're more than human, now." I shrugged. "Not like that's a high bar. You can still die, of course, but you won't stay dead for long. Age, disease, injury … temporary inconveniences." I leaned back. "Aren't you lucky?"
Ed already knew, on some level, that he'd transcended his mortality – you don't just wake up hale and hearty after a mob rips you to pieces – but now he'd actual confirmation; he blinked, brow furrowed, then, elbows resting on his knees, took a deep breath and buried his face in his hands.
I lounged around for a couple minutes, observing the coral twilight sky, the soft breeze rustling through the trees, the squirrels and rabbits foraging through the snow – some may delight in the Arcadian idyll, but I've always found it dreadfully boring – until I rose to my feet and sauntered deeper into our tent, over marble tiles and velvet rugs, past couches and cabinets and credenzas, towards a fully-stocked drink cart.
Hey, if you're gonna enchant a tent, why not go the whole nine yards?
Pouring myself a Cabernet (or at least the closest approximation I could conjure), then flumping back into my knockoff oversized Eames chair – never has anachronism been so comfortable – I hummed under my breath as I swirled the glass and took a whole mouthful.
Bitter and spicy – a bit heavy, but passable.
I guzzled down the rest of the glass, then floated the bottle over to refill it.
Lacking the requisite biological structures, I wasn't directly affected by liquor. Rather, my conscious will had to partake in a sort of deliberate psychosomatics, and, with the aid of magic, impose some close approximation of drunkenness.
Before all this, I was never a drinker – hell, you might've even called me a teetotaler – but life, as they say, is change, and my time as Her Majesty opened my eyes to drink's sublime utility, and its wonderful way of easing tensions, distracting from misfortunes, and blunting those feelings best left buried.
How did Flashman put it?
Oh, yes.
'If you've got money in the bank, and drink in the house, what more do you want?'
I'm not an alcoholic, you're just projecting.
"What's the cost?"
Eyebrow raised, I met Ed's rigid, stilted, bloodshot glower.
Seems that breaking down into a blubbering mess, though undoubtedly cathartic, didn't really strike him as helpful, nor did retreating into unconsciousness. He was confused, frustrated, and absolutely terrified, but knew that giving in to these emotions never got anybody anywhere – or at least anywhere good – so he grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and forced himself to remain calm, The sea of churning emotion was shrouded by tranquility, his worry and grief and rage suppressed for the sake of practicality, and his mind's horrified screams mellowed to something of a low roar.
This was less of a padlock, and more of a strategically placed bit of Scotch tape – a stopgap if ever was one – but it got the job done, and his building panic yielded to a purposeful, if fragile, composure.
"Well, the mortal gets power, the god gets the mortal. Thought I laid that out pretty clearly." I took a sip, swishing it around before swallowing. "Body, mind, soul – at the end of the day, I quite literally own you, to pester and puppet as I please."
Alliterations are awesome, and also amazing.
His eyes somehow widened even further, while his skin paled to an even sicker shade of white.
"That said, you needn't worry overmuch for your autonomy." I swiveled my glass, nodding my head for emphasis. "Bodily, that is. I've tried the whole hive-mind thing, more of a hassle than it's worth."
My pride refuses to elaborate.
A dismissive handwave. "Nor do I want your prayers, or fealty, or whatever. Keep thumbing your nose at me, if that's what you feel."
It's not like I needed more worship – I'd long since outgrown that particular crutch, and even after everything, the denizens of the Lands Between still loved and feared the Queen Eternal, their praises and pleas and endless fucking litanies ever tingling my perception.
"Frankly, not having to babysit you anymore is payment enough."
With a shuddering breath, Ed swallowed. "Why not … bless" – he barely held himself back from spitting it – "the priest, too?"
Spinning a little in my chair, I bobbed my head at Thoros, rousing him from his vacant-eyed contemplation of our roaring campfire. "He's already got a patron." A shredded, flickering, barely conscious wreck of a patron, but a patron nonetheless. "It'd be poor form of me to butt in on another's claim."
More through some vague sense of social obligation than any genuine agreement, he lifted his beer mug and offered a tired grin, before returning his gaze to the flames.
I wonder what he saw in them.
Muddled prophecy, if I had to guess, with plenty of obtuse metaphor and symbolism.
Ed clenched his fists and pursed his lips. "And if I want it out?"
"What, from life?"
The kid might not have directly replied, but his silence was answer enough.
"I won't sit here and implore you to soldier on, or cry about how you've so much to live for." With a scoff, I crossed my free arm under my chest, and rested my other elbow atop the back of my hand. "I'm not a hack."
Another sip.
"But death?" I shook my head. "Wouldn't recommend it. Too final, too dull. Suffering or no, existence is far more interesting."
He frowned, and I gave him a smile I thought was kind.
"If you're really that insistent, though, just say the word, and I'll revoke my patronage – no skin off my teeth. Then you'll be free to hara-kiri to your heart's content."
For a moment, he seemed to seriously consider it.
"Or." I waggled a finger. "Or, roll up your sleeves and gird your loins, and you might just be able to force the issue. You'd be surprised how far resolve can take somebody." Peering upward at the sky, the corners of my mouth twitched in mocking amusement. "My own patron learned that the hard way."
I then gave him a look that, while not exactly solemn, did impart a certain gravity. "Everything can die, even if some are more … resilient than others. It's only a question of means."
Spite's as good a motivator as any – why not give him, I thought to myself, a definite goal to work towards?
V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V
"We sail the ocean blue!"
With all the time I'd spent on the water over the last few months, it only seemed appropriate – besides, I'd already belted through Mikado and Iolanthe.
My name was irrecoverable, my parent's faces increasingly blurry, but God forbid I forget Gilbert and Sullivan.
It was almost funny, in a cosmic sort of sense.
"And our saucy ship's a beauty!"
My companions liked my singing, at first, or at least Thoros did; he whistled along, bobbed his head and tapped his feet in his stirrups, trying to cajole a sullen Ed from his morose introspection. It was a capital way to pass the time, and squeeze some amusement out of our otherwise tedious ramble through the frozen wilderness.
Typhoon was just happy to be involved.
Of course, by the end of the first week, the others – from the way they sagged in their saddles and blearily rubbed their foreheads – had probably grown a little tired of opera, but far be it from me to buckle to public opinion, and deprive the world of the pleasure of my voice.
"We're sober men and true! And attentive to our duty!"
The hundred or so miles closest to the Wall were best described as semi-inhabited – relatively temperate, dotted with camps and villages and ringforts, the forest here was young, scrubby, regularly logged by Watchmen and wildlings. Beyond that, though, past Craster's Keep ('Craster's Thatched Barn' more like; and knowing the sort of dregs that infested the place, I saved myself the aggravation and unceremoniously burned it down as we rode by), across a branching tributary of the Milkwater, the flatwood matured into proper old-growth, and the pines grew tall and broad and black.
Shaded by the dense canopy, exposed roots snarled through mounds of sod and piles of decayed bark. Wolves stalked between the trees as bears nestled in their caves, and moose and elk hid among the thickets. The Watch refused to range this far, and save for a handful of scattered tribes and reclusive hermits, the natives gave the region a wide berth – bad juju, they said.
Suppose that's why this one wildling hunter – furs and ringmail, matted orange hair, left eye milky white – looked so stupefied when I gave him a wave, doffed my imaginary hat, and then continued deeper into the snowy forest.
"I thought so little, they rewarded me! By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!"
In a healthy spiritual ecosystem, magic just doesn't bum around stagnant. Instead, it pours and thrums and bubbles in currents; and these currents can, if one has the requisite aptitude and experience, be tracked. Westeros' magic might not have been healthy, but it did still flow, and of the remaining currents, the weirwood network was the single most cohesive and pronounced – enough so for me to catch its proverbial scent through the ambient rot.
The network, just like a river, had a source, a singular font from which all its energies flowed, and into which all the individual nodes' collected memories returned. As we ventured further north, closer towards this nexus, the magic hanging in the air thickened and cloyed, and the more feral the landscape became, winds howling and trees towering and wildlife retreating.
Finally, we reached the spot where the magic converged – a solitary hill thrusting through the earth, dotted with weirwoods and crusted with ice, a narrow cave halfway up reaching down into stygian darkness.
"He remains an Englishman!"
And on every single branch of every single tree perched hundreds, thousands of red-eyed crows; staring, judging, silent as a grave.
"He remains an E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-en! Gli~sh! MAAAAN!"
Bowing in my saddle and blowing kisses, I shot the assemblage a beaming smile.
"Long time no see, Lord Commander!"