Pyat Pree had been a blind fool, someone grasping for even though unaware of the immensity of the greater mysteries, of realities of the world only known by his betters.
Pyat Pree had been a blind fool who would have never risen beyond his pitiful station, not worthy of the grace, of the Knowledge of his betters.
Pyat Pree had been blind and could now finally see. Magic, how could it be so terrible? Magic, how could it be so mighty? Magic how incredible could you be?!
Pyat Pree had been blind and he wasn't no more. He would have probably been an apprentice warlock at best, too unqualified, too weak, too unworthy to stand at the side of those worthy of the title of strong.
He would have probably been blind all of his life and died due to his foolishness, due to his ignorance if the heavens themselves hadn't turned crimson and brought him understanding, insight.
Magic had been a dying art, something all had acknowledged. Only some of the most skilful, of the best magic users had kept their might like the Warlocks of Quarth and even then, it was one that was reduced.
Things had changed with the crimson sky, with the rebirth of the so-called great liberator, the so-called whore king of Astapor, a slave who rose from the dead with divine magic to break the good masters of Astapor.
Pyat Pree didn't believe or care about most of the rumours shared by the common rabble. He didn't believe most of the things said about the child sorcerer except for one thing, his might.
The world itself had felt the child's rebirth. Pyat Pree was sure that Everyone with some basic dredge of magic in their flesh had.
The great Warlocks had spoken of a red comet, of signs, of a royal figure draped and crowned In gold.
Pyatt Pree hadn't been the most learned amongst his brethren, hadn't been able to rise until the child brought back magic to the world.
All of sudden, spells that would have taken him before so much time to weave, so much shade of the evening to drink and so much blood came with almost insulting ease.
With only his will, he could create unbreakable illusions, twist the minds of men and animals for them to do his bidding just by wishing so and what was most wondrous was that he was sure that it wasn't even the bottom of what he was now capable of.
Pyat Pree had become stronger, stronger than any common man yet he was still amongst the weakest of his order because he hadn't been the only one to grow strong. Every magic user in the world probably had when the balance of the world shifted.
The undying ones, his masters had also been affected. They have been mighty with less magic in the world, their youth and vigour still kept but after Magic came back, they turned from powerful men to gods.
The rabble spoke of divine and nigh impossible feats from the child sorcerer but Pyatt knew his masters could equal if not surpass such prowesses if they had wanted to do so.
His masters, the undying ones had strengthened him, fed him with divine insight, strengthened him to enact their will and this is why he was now before Astapor under the constant thrum of the might of the godly child.
The warlock looked at the child who appeared from a tear in reality. Purple Valyrian eyes, mid-length waves of silver hair that stopped at the level of his shoulders and that framed his face, fair skin that seemed to never have been touched by the World, a face you would have expected to see on the most beautiful maiden. He remembered one of the surnames given to the child before him, Whore-king. It seemed the rumour about the child sorcerer from originally having been bred in Lys was not false.
More than that, just being in the vicinity child felt as if being near a sun made of pure magical power. Had he not taken his precautions, he would have been blinded or worse. He didn't even try to look at the child in the beyond, in the world of truth and darkness behind the material. Pyat had been taught that there were things worse than death.
The warlock bowed, a sign of respect and hopefully, one that would be taken as one of non-aggression against the child sorcerer.
The undying ones had tasked him with inviting the child to their order, to teach him how to use his might in a way to elevate not only him but the house of the undying to heights thought impossible. However, in case the child refused, things became hostile, his masters gave him the means to ensure he would not fail them.
"My name O great Liberator is Pyat Pree. I am here on behalf of my masters, the wise undying ones!" Respect and flattery always helped to soften the heart of even the hardest man
The child was looking at him, his terrible eyes seemingly peering through his soul, through the beyond and the Under. The child reminded him of his masters at this moment.
He continued speaking, ignoring the dread he could feel under those all-seeing eyes "The undying ones wish to invite you, to make you a member of the house of the undying! You will be sitting at the same table as the masters of my order, their equal!"
"Tell me, Warlock," the child couldn't have done more than whisper yet Pyat Pree heard it as sure as a man heard thunder split the heavens above "Why should I join you? Why should I join you when you reek of so much blood? Why should I join when as first contact, your order chose to surround my city?"
The voice of the boy was neutral, emotionless, like the calm before the storm. Now was the moment where negotiations would fall or not do so.
"The undying ones know of the goal of the great Liberator. They know that such a goal is one akin to fighting the world itself but with our help, with the might of my order allied to your strength, your goal will become more than a reality. We have spies in important places, knowledge capable of bettering you, a name that will ensure people would prefer bowing to your words instead of defying you."
"The help of the Warlock of Qarth, of an order that had been alive for more than a millennium. The offer you give is an enticing one but before I accept or reject your offer, tell me Pyat Pree of the house of the undying, how many slaves your masters owned and still own? Tell me Pyat Pree, how many slaves your order bled like pigs?"
"Many, Lord Aegor. I won't lie to you," the warlock acknowledged. There would be no point in lying. The child would have probably caught it "but at your acceptance, it would change. Things would be changing if you agreed!"
"Your words confined what I already suspected. Your masters are monsters of the highest order, monsters even worse than the good masters. I will break every shackle people like your masters held in this godforsaken!" There was a heaviness to the world of the child sorcerer, almost like a vow to a god. Aegor wasn't lying. He would either kill or fail against the undying ones.
"Allow me to tell the truth, Warlock, I will erase from the face of the Earth your masters, ground to dust your order until nothing remained, until no one remembered. I will make them pay for all their sins. Had your masters freed the slaves of Qarth, I would have maybe accepted but I see in your eyes Warlock, in your soul how you only want to use me, my magic, how your masters want to chain me. I won't compromise with slavers and even less with those as monstrous as your masters."
Such a shame. Such a shame! So much power in a child who knew nothing of the true workings of the world! The child didn't know what he had refused, how many would and had killed for a fraction of the offer he had been given.
There was nothing more to say, to exchange. Conflict was inevitable. 'Such a shame, such a waste' the warlock thought as he grabbed a flask in his robes.
He removed it from his waist and let it fall on the ground, its dark content seeping through the Earth before disappearing as if it had never been.
The child before him may have the might of a god but he was still a child, a foolish one. The whore king of Astapor may have the power of a deity but Pyat Pree had been prepared, taught by his masters. What was an infant god before the knowledge of the abyss itself?
scene*
The sky darkened, the light of the sun swallowed by something invisible, something dangerous, something I could feel deep in my bones, something that left an aftertaste of rot in my mouth.
I let my magic trickle into my eyes. I needed to see more than the material world around me if I didn't want to be surprised.
I was the one with an advantage. I was the one who should win with ease but even tales spoke of gods of old falling from mortal hands.
The sky changed to my sight as I used my magic and I looked at an abomination, one as big as a gladiator arena, one made of dark tendrils, of human faces screaming and begging, screaming in pain and begging for an escape. It had a body that seemed to be a mix of a spider straight from the depths of hell and a centipede.
Hundreds of voices screamed from its head, one in the shape of a semi-open cocoon full of dark liquids like a warped and monstrous chalice. It was a pandemonium, a chorus of the damned, of those who would never be able to reach salvation and it disgusted me.
Understanding, insight rushed through my brain, through my soul as I continued watching in disgust and horror at the abomination above.
Sacrifice and blood. Sacrifice and blood. This was the origin of the creature. This creature above me was one powered by souls and magic, bound to the will of Pyatt Pree.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" the warlock said to me, a smile etched on his face. He was talking to me the way you did with old friends as if he wasn't menacing my astapor, as if he wasn't trying to bring me low or worse, as if he didn't care at all of the crime against nature he had made and released into the world. "Those I encountered on my path to this pace were interesting enough that I thought it would only be a waste to not add them to this beautiful chrysalis."
Enough was enough!
I didn't need to guide my magic this time, to wrangle it in a desired shape. It was mine and knew how to mould itself without any input, following only my will.
An invisible blade of magic crossed the distance between him and me. I watched his magic react, morph to do something but it was useless.
Pyat Pree may be a mage but I was an archmage. For a moment nothing happened after my blade went through his flesh, the next moment, his torso slid from his lower half, blood erupting upwards like a jet.
"This is just the beginning," I promised to the other warlocks who stood silently, seemingly bothered by what happened to their leader. I had listened enough to their words. I had been merciful enough.
I made a cutting motion with a palm, fulfilling my promise as they fell into pieces, unnatural blood, one too blue almost indigo, too vivid, staining the Earth.
I turned toward the thing in the sky, a thing I realized was growing stronger with each second but how?
I had killed the warlocks. It shouldn't be growing stronger. My eyes followed invisible thin threads connecting the beast to something, to my barrier.
It was feeding on the magic of my barrier. It was a leech! Pyat Pree had called it a Chrysalis which meant that it was evolving! I needed to act now before things got to a point where possible collateral damage would be a certainty.
I pointed a finger at the beast "I'm sorry," I whispered to the thing that was an amalgam of suffering souls, sorry to a thing that should have never come to life.
An orb made of pure magic appeared at the tip of my finger. I continued feeding it more magic but instead of letting it expand, I didn't. No instead, I let it keep its shape, reinforcing it, condensing it, making it deeper, wilder, crueller.
It shone like a microstar, banishing the darkness brought by the monster above. I just needed to let it go and soar.
A voice stopped me "You're right," A voice that shouldn't be anymore. Something locked on the orb trying to wrangle it from my control.
Pyat Pree was before me, no sign of blood on his form, whole as if moments ago, I hadn't cut him in half.
"This is just the beginning," the warlock said as he smiled, blackened teeth, blue lips tearing his face in two with how wide he was smiling and wild eyes that seemed to be not cognizant of the world around.
My eyes peered through his flesh, through his magic trying to discern how he had survived. 'Something was wrong,' I thought while frowning.
My magic had allowed me to see in a brief instant the makeup of his body. I wasn't a doctor, probably knew less about it than a Boy Scout but I could still that something was wrong.
There were no traces of the attack I had inflicted on him. No signs that the flesh had knit back together, no traces of my magic.
I changed my target, pointing the orb of wanton destruction in his direction "Cero," I whispered before the ball of magic rushed with savagery toward him almost as if alive, hungry for the flesh of the warlock.
The sphere left a gaping hole in his flesh continuing through dunes of sand and Earth before flickering and exploding, tearing through the heavens, some of the limbs of the creature in a dark pillar of red. Now, I just needed to wait if this had been a fluke or if there was a trick I didn't understand yet.
The world lost meaning and something screamed. It was dark and haunting, dark and pitiful, dark and afraid.
My vision blurred as I found myself covered from head to toe with chunks of Earth and sand. Only my false infinity stopped it from really touching me and making things more awkward than they needed to be.
There was something I had wished to test when I had launched the Cero at the warlock and not the beast above.
My instincts were screaming at me that the true threat wasn't the beast above but the warlock below.
A blue dagger cut through the Earth and ground around me almost like butter, rushing toward my left eye. It was fast, unnaturally so.
Honestly, it was something I would have most likely not been able to dodge or block without my magic.
This was one of the weaknesses I had discovered. I was technically a glass cannon, capable of making things even the white walker would probably look at me and tell me to chill.
The problem was that my magic wasn't always active. It needed to be launched by me like the motor of a car and the problem was that it was possible if someone was fast enough, if I wasn't prepared enough, they could be able to hurt me.
In Astapor, limitless wasn't always active, my magic not always strengthening my flesh and honestly, it needed to change but what I meant by all of this was that I was vulnerable when I didn't actively use my magic.
The dagger stopped centimetres away from my eye. I looked at the warlock holding it still grinning.
"Did you really think it would be this easy to get rid of me?" he told me.
"You really are a little abomination aren't you," I said to the warlock as my eyes observed his body healing, mending until there were no traces of the gap I had left in his body.
"You're not truly here, aren't you?" I asked the man even though I already knew the answer to this question.
"It's such a shame you refused our invite, my lord," the warlock spoke and for a moment, he looked almost human "We could have done incredible things. We would have all raised to a height, one you wouldn't even be able to imagine so much more easily. We would have been gods."
I grabbed his hand almost kindly. The undying ones had in cannon if I remembered things well tried to drain the life force of Daenerys. They probably would have succeeded if not for her dragons.
If the undying ones could take the life force of others. What stopped them now that magic was back to do more? What stopped them more than taking what wasn't theirs from using what they took in other ways?
I had originally thought that Pyat Pree was just one of the many warlocks I was facing but all this time, it had only been him. The magic of the warlocks had been too similar and it hadn't been because they all followed the same school of magic but because all this time, it had been the same person.
The warlocks of Quarth were respected and feared. It would be less than a formality for them to acquire human beings, especially in a city where slavery was legal.
Pyat Pree would just have to feed on the essence of those people and use their corpses after like puppets. Weren't the faceless men able to take the face of others?
I'm sure the methods were probably different but there was proof that changing the appearance of a body was more than possible.
There were no points in fighting the corpse before me. The warlocks had been feared and respected for thousands of years. No organization lasted as long without any competency except if it was very lucky.
If you were a sorcerer older than a millennium wanting to face someone way out of your league, would you do it directly? No, it was only logical to use subterfuges, to use as much as tricks as possible.
"Tell me Pyat Pree, you who is nothing but a slave to cruelty and power so much beyond your station. What is a god to a nonbeliever?" Flames erupted from my palms, spreading through his body faster than a man could think.
"What is the point of doing this? You already know I'm not really here," the burning corpse before me asked.
Flesh had smouldered, breaking from the inside due to the heat, rivulets of dark blue ichor falling from the flesh before being consumed and fuelling my bonfire. The eyes were gone, having popped out of their orifices.
The corpse looked like a creature straight from hell yet it was still talking to me as if nothing was wrong.
"You all truly are arrogant. Did you truly think you not being here would stop me?" I asked him before I felt a grin split my face as I caught him.
fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Skinchangers had rules to respect to not be warped by their mystical gifts. They shouldn't eat, fuck or even die while in the body of an animal they warged into.
There were probably a lot of things I didn't understand but what I knew was that the body could affect the soul like inhabiting this body had shown me.
Pyat Pree wasn't really there but his consciousness was in another body, a body helpless before me.
I grabbed the burning skull and looked into its empty sockets. I looked deeper beyond the flesh, beyond the material world until I saw him.
He tried to flee, to retreat, his instincts probably warning him. Unfortunately for him, "I see you Pyat," I told him before I grasped at my magical core and followed after him, leaving the material plane reappearing standing on an oozy black ocean. Never-ending night darkness welcomed me, a dark realm made of wood with veins of blue pumping something like grotesque veins.
Screams of anguish formed a symphony all around me. Only one light, A blue light shone in this false world above. I looked toward it and saw a heart, a giant black heart with veins of indigo.
Pyat Pree was standing in front of me, his calm gone looking finally scared for the first time since our encounter"How?" the warlock asked me in shock.
There was a reverb in his voice as if he wasn't the only one talking. His form was also different from the one I had seen in the material world.
Writhing blue Gnarled Hands had dug into his eyes and the back of his head. His robes were not dark blue but a shade of true darkness, one I knew could never normally exist in the material world.
Blue anguished faces bulged from under his skin as if trying to escape fruitlessly. "How are you here, you who never partook to the communion?"
"You know," I told him as I walked toward him. As if finally realizing that I was an intruder, tree branches rushed at me trying to pierce through me.
They stopped, my infinity impossible to breach by them. I look at them before stepping forward. They buckled and broke.
Screams rang and The realm shook as if I had directly hurt it. That was interesting. "You made only one error," I said to the man as I continued advancing toward him.
"Do you know what it is?" I asked him.
The warlock didn't try to answer, launching instead toward me a wave of something. Only my infinity acting up as if I had been attacked informed me of it.
He tried again, his palms pointed toward me. "You're really rude you know," I told him. "Don't you know the polite thing to do when asked a question is to answer?"
"Cleave," I whispered
I pushed down the grin I could feel wanting to etch itself on my face as his two hands fell, cleanly cut from the rest of his body.
For a moment, it seemed the warlock didn't realize what had just happened before he looked at where there had been hands and now there weren't and he screamed. The warlock screamed in pain. The warlock screamed in fear.
Blood didn't seep from the wounds or at least regular blood but something did. It was of a blue so dark it looked black. More than that, from the thing came screams.
Souls, those were souls I was seeing, trying to escape from the vessel where they had been trapped.
Pyat Pree fell on his knees "No, no! What have you done?! What have you done?! Not now! Not like that!"
I stopped before the kneeling warlock "I am usually all against such sights but you look almost good with how much anguished you are. You still didn't try to answer my question but I guess I shouldn't have expected much from a warlock."
"I want you to listen to me," I said to Pyat Pree while looking at the abomination in the shape of a heart above me, while looking beyond and gazing at the undying ones themselves "Your first and only error had been to think you could best me, that you were my equal. I made myself a promise when I freed Astapor. I would break all the chains monsters like you, like the good masters held over people."
I blinked and I wasn't in the immaterial realm anymore. I was back to the material plane. Had they kicked me out?!
I chuckled. No, they wouldn't have been able not after everything I had learned just by being in that realm. The Warlocks had taught me even if they were probably unaware of that fact. They had chosen to flee. What they did was akin to unplugging the cable of the game because they were losing.
The burnt corpse that had been Puppeted by Pyat Pree fell in pieces before crumbling unnaturally and leaving nothing, not even dust behind.
I could feel the magic of the warlock disappearing, my barrier indicating that the man was gone.
Everything that happened could have been called a bad dream, an illusion from the mind if not for the abomination above that was still growing and now covering the sky of Astapor, cracks littering its body.
Did the undying ones really think it would be the end, that I would allow them to be unscathed, not held responsible for their actions?
Did the undying ones really think I could forgive them when my magic made me hear the agony and the screams of human lives suffering in a way they shouldn't have after death?
Did the undying ones really think they could escape me? Did they truly think they would be able to avoid retaliation?
I pushed my magic out of my body, letting it take the shape of a violet lance. I sank into the shadows reappearing above the head of the monster, the beast made of suffering human souls, my spear angled just above its head "I promise that I will make them pay," I said to the wailing beast.
Limbs rushed toward me from all directions with the intent to crush or maybe worse. I plunged the spear downward into what looked like its skull. I almost swore I heard a thank you before The thing blew up raining an ocean of dark matter and liquids under us.
A wave from my hand made the tree I had created grow and cover all of Astapor. The last thing I needed was for the people of my city to mutate into monsters or something like that.
The tree would absorb the dark substance making sure that none of it would be able to affect one of my citizens and that would allow me to study a little more the sorcery of the undying ones.
I had won, made the plan of the undying ones fail. I had sent back fleeing Pyat Pree yet it felt too easy, not enough. There were barely any consequences to their actions and I wanted them to pay for endangering my people, I wanted them to pay for thinking they could use me, subdue me, make me one of their slaves. I had seen through the eyes of Pyatt Pree. I had seen his memories. I had seen the horrors of the undying ones. I wanted them to pay for their crimes against nature.
The warlocks of Qarth, the undying ones, did they truly think they could escape away from me without consequences?
My feet touched the ground as I allowed gravity to put me down. I could feel the presence of Greyworm approaching. I waited, not letting my spear disappear. I wasn't done yet.
"My lord," I heard the unsullied say behind me. "We dealt with the threats."
"Anyone hurt?" I asked him.
"Maybe one of us would have been if we weren't unsullied my lord," he answered me. I could almost feel pride in his voice. At least, there was one good thing about all of this. He was more and more human and less the puppet he had been moulded to be by the good masters.
"Good." I would have to find a way to congratulate the unsullied after. They more than deserved it but there was something that needed to be done before. I turned toward the man "Greyworm, tell me, in which direction is Qarth?"
The man had been trained as a commander which meant more than knowing how to fight, he had been educated in the geography of this world, something he was way more familiar with than me due to the fact that the original Aegor had been an illiterate slave and I was foreign to this reality.
He pointed a finger toward our left, at the horizon, toward the east. The man didn't ask me why answering directly "They are located on the southern coast of Essos, on the straits linking the Summer Sea to the Jade Sea."
More than only listening to his words, I looked into his eyes, read into his mind. I turned in the direction he was pointing at. It would have to be enough.
Blood was a powerful thing. It was an acknowledged fact in this reality. Blood in the hands of a sorcerer could be the origin of terrible things.
A gap opened into the sky in one of the branches at my command, litres of the dark blood of the thing I had slayed falling toward me.
I launched my lance upward toward the falling dark ichor. My Lance didn't destroy it, didn't evaporate it. No, instead, it consumed it, coating itself in its malevolent ichor until there were none left.
Blood was powerful and could be the source of terrible things. The weapon fell back in my grasp, different, almost alive, wrathful and hungry to be satiated.
It had changed, looking now less like an energy construct and more like a cursed weapon created in the chasm of the underworld with its now dark colour and the barbs and skulls adorning it.
I cocked back my arm perfectly, experiences that weren't mine, that I had gleaned through the eyes of others guiding me to perfection.
I looked at the spear, at the weapon that would make them pay. This weapon was one of suffering and promised destruction, was one deserving of a name. "Themis," I named it, Themis after the goddess of divine justice, daughter of the primordial sky and Earth "Strike down the heretics who dared to use human lives as nothing but currency," before I threw it toward the horizon, my magic guiding it, empowering with each moment it was away from me. The undying ones had dared attack my city. It was only right that I do the same.
scene*
"Pyat Pree failed," a shadow hissed.
"Something that was expected," another said. "The goal had never been to win but to evaluate the threat."
"It's such a waste. If Pyat Pree had been able to make the child bleed, our plans would been advanced so much more quickly."
"We have waited for thousands of years for a miracle, to regain our might. What are months if not a few years against what we already faced?"
The shadows looked at the city of Qarth, one that had always been theirs but that they had truly taken control of after the resurgence of magic.
It was such a shame that this city, they had nurtured, made theirs for thousands of years would soon be gone.
It was only a question of time they knew. What they had done, their actions would necessarily result in retaliation.
Even if they hadn't provoked the godling, this is what would have happened. It was known throughout most of the East that the child hated slavery.
One of the shadows smiled. A god in this age, in the material plane, so long after the fall of the bloodstone emperor and the Amethyst empress, so long after the fall of the lion of the night. Indeed, it was a wondrous age. Indeed, they had made the good choice. They had survived and now were thriving beyond their wildest dreams.
An ominous feeling wiped the smirk on the face of the undying one. The warlocks of Qarth looked in shock and amazement at the heavens.
They could feel it coming, true merciless death. It was too early!
"We should have expected it!" one of the undying ones spoke, hatred and something more bubbling under his voice. "When did gods wait to bathe the world with their wrath?"
"It is a good thing we made preparations to go to the under if needed. Even then, It would make things more difficult."
The dark clouds covering Qarth, the ones they have summoned through their might parted, a black sun falling from the above.
The black star clashed against the walls of Qarth, walls they had reinforced through old sorceries, through blood and sacrifices, through souls and pierced through it with a sound akin to thunder, continuing on a path of destruction toward the house of the undying, toward them.
Reality broke around the Warlocks, more malleable as they invoked their magic and descended toward the under. Microseconds after, there were no more traces of the house of the undying, only overheated Earth having turned lava and destruction.
Yes, the undying ones thought as they continued to fall in the Under 'Terrible was the wrath of the gods but even more, was the men who would dare try to raise above gods of old and new.'
When I began writing this story, one of my goal was to explore the mystical side of palnetos that is honestly most of the time ignored except when it comes to the dragons or the white walkers and even then, things aren't always right. Aegor's ressurection could be said to be akin to Gojo's birth. He broke the balance and brought back magic, in a more abundant way than Daenerys did in canon and by that sped up the recovery of all the horror that were weakened or sleeping. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. If it's the case tell me what you liked and if it is not the case, tell me what you didn't like. Comments help into motivating me and making the story better.
PS: I got two more chapters in advance disposable for less than 5 dollars on my p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / Eileen715. Don't hesitate to visit if you want to read more or simply support me.