Interlude III
Part I
In a vast indoor chamber—gleaming with jewelled cups, statuettes of bronze and ivory, oaken-carved coats of arms and mirrors with gold filigree—a shivering boy huddles in an armchair much too big for him. The magnificent stained glass window is closed. It is not as warm as it should be.
His chamberlain enters. "Your great-uncle to see you, Dagon King."
"Send him in." The boy's voice is not shaking.
The man who strides through the door is half again as tall as the boy, garbed roughly in a sailor's vest and breeches dripping saltwater on the tapestries: a far cry from the boy's heavy, elaborate mantle. For all that, he is slim as a reed and handsome as a sunrise. One eye is covered with a patch; the other is a bright and friendly blue. "Nephew." His voice is grim. "I am sorry. I came as soon as I heard."
"What are we—" Dagon steadies himself. The next second he sounds more kingly. "What do you advise that we should do?"
"Dagon." Reproachful. "Come here." His uncle bounds over in two loping steps and sweeps him up in a hug.
His uncle's body, though wet from the salt spray, is warm and very strong. To his shame Dagon finds that he is weeping. He feels safe and protected, for the first time since—since—
"There, there," murmurs Uncle Euron, holding him close. "All will be well. You will see."
Dagon clutches his uncle's arms like a drowning man at a rope. "Oh, Uncle, help. Without Grandfather they're all being horrible. All the lords and captains are after me, testing me, looking for me, waiting for me to do something wrong, saying things about their taxes and their daughters. It is too much. There is so much, I don't know what to do."
"Be not afraid. You will be a strong king one day."
"But what if I am not?" Dagon bursts out. "I'm supposed to know what to do. I'm big; I have eleven namedays now, nearly twelve. I knew I was Grandfather's heir. Only, it was so unexpected that the red-rot took him. He seemed so strong…"
"You will be a great king when you are ready. You are young yet," Euron interrupts, assuring him. Dagon looks up to see a kindly smile. "It is no shame to be unready at eleven namedays. Your older kin will teach all that you have need of."
"But Uncle, I don't have my kin. The Reachmen killed Father on the Mander when he was going to Highgarden—"
"A tragedy. I am so sorry."
"—and Uncle Rodrik died to a Mallister halberd when he tried to capture Seagard—"
"A great loss," Euron replies solemnly. "We can be glad at least that he was avenged. The men of Seagard lie still in the charnel pit I threw them in."
"—and now the red-rot got Grandfather from his bad arm—"
"His wise leadership will be sorely missed. His loss at this hour is a curse upon our people."
"—and Uncle Aeron went… well, great-uncle, really… he went to the sea to hear the commands of the Drowned God, and that was a week ago and nobody has seen him since—"
"Well, these holy men are often eccentric," observes Euron. "You never know where they end up."
"—and Uncle Theon raided that little village on the Stony Shore and got some horrible sickness from a greenlander slut—"
"Terrible," says Euron, straight-faced.
"—and Uncle Victarion died in the Battle of the Shield Islands—"
"Truly, tragic. The Iron Islands will cry out for the loss of his wisdom."
"—so I don't have any other kin," Dagon finishes. "There are no more Greyjoys. Only Mother, Grandmother, Aunt Asha, me and you." He looks at his feet. "I should have learnt from Grandfather, but he needed more time, and Father… Father isn't… Father isn't here anymore…"
Euron wraps an arm around him. "I am so sorry for all you've lost," he tells Dagon. He must be good at staying strong and silent, Dagon thinks, because none of his sorrow shows on his face. "I swear I will teach you everything I know and I will help you rule the Iron Islands, until the day you have no more need of me."
"You will?" Dagon looks up through shining teary eyes.
"Of course," Euron smiles.
Euron the great raider, Euron the great captain, Euron the burner of Lannisport and reaper of the Arbour, Euron the victor of the Whispering Sound and the Dornish Shore and now the Shield Islands too, Euron the bane of the greenlands. And Dagon is to know everything he knows. Even now, in this hour of all hours, Dagon cannot deny the excitement.
"But you are so oft away," says Dagon. He is a bit wary. It sounds too good to be true.
"Oh yes." Euron kneels before him so that they are of a height and whispers in his ear. "Are you old enough to keep a secret?"
"Of course I can. I'm nearly twelve," Dagon announces.
"How very old you are," Uncle Euron says dryly. "Very well—but do make sure you tell no-one about this. A boy can grow to be a man or a tattle-tale, not both. Can I trust you?"
"You can trust me. On my soul, I swear it."
Euron favours him with a dazzling white-toothed smile. "So be it. Take a look at this."
He reaches into his breeches and withdraws something bright and sharp that catches the light.
"A mirror?"
"Not just any mirror," answers Euron. "I took it from the tomb of a lost king, of a realm and people long since forgotten in the mists of time, for the last of them died out five-thousand years before the Rhoynar began. It holds the soul of the previous king, his brother whom he usurped, trapped forever and ever. With that, it can… Well. Shall I tell you, or shall I show you?"
"Show me," says Dagon.
Uncle Euron laughs brightly. "Just like me!" With a jaunty wave, Euron jumps out the window.
Crash!
Glass shards fill the room. Some of them hit Dagon's bare hands; others embed themselves in the thick, heavy robe. The cold wind comes flooding in.
For an instant Dagon is too stunned to move. Then his guards and stewards come rushing in, attracted by the sound. "Dagon King! What—"
"Out," Dagon orders, remembering in spite of himself his uncle's words. A boy can grow to be a man or a tattle-tale, not both. He is not a child. He is worthy of his uncle's trust.
"But he—"
"I am not harmed. You can repair it in time. Go out," Dagon commands. He hopes his voice sounds steady, the same cool tone, certain of obedience, that Grandfather had.
His grandfather's chamberlain gives him a strange look, but they all obey. He is grateful for that at least.
When he hears their footsteps fade away in the distance, Dagon crosses to the jagged gap of fine stained glass where the window used to be. Hand over foot, a small dark shape is climbing swiftly down the bottom of the tower and towards the bare rocks, where nearby—perilously close—perches the Silence.
"Are you insane?" he shouts down.
"No."
The soft voice sounds close—too close. Right behind him.
Dagon whirls around. He notices he is standing in front of the table where Euron left the tiny sharp-edged mirror. It is trembling, juddering from side to side like a ship in a storm, and whistling some strange hideous noise so quiet you can only just hear it. Dagon is looking at it yet it does not show Dagon. What it does show changes every instant, blurring between an unfamiliar face—wide-eyed, thick-haired, pale, terrified—and a face he knows well: younger, clean-shaven, as perfect as a painter's dream, except the blue stain of the lips and the patch over one of the eyes.
"Let this be the first lesson," Euron declares, between the other face's short sharp shrieks. "Leave caution for cowards. Let them live their long, pointless lives. You never know how far you can go unless you leap."
"I will heed you," Dagon says, breathless. Below, the Silence is already tacking out to the open sea. The sail marked with the crow-crowned eye is blown to billowing by a fierce wind which somehow leaves all the other ships' sails as slack as before.
"That's the spirit!" And in an instant the deadly-serious voice is gone, as suddenly as it appeared. His warm, playful uncle is back again.
"Does this mean I can always speak with you?" asks Dagon, hopeful.
"It is never as simple as that, in the old ways. Power of this sort is not like a sword, which cuts the same depth every time. It is more like plunging your bleeding fist into the open sea. You may catch a delicious fish or the jaws of a shark; who can say? And there are times and places I have been or will be, where greater powers cloud the sight of this one. But sometimes, yes, it does."
It is as if a mountain has been lifted off his chest. "Thank you," he almost sobs, caught by guilt and shame. Grandfather Balon's sharp retort echoes in his ears: Is it a man that Maron's wife whelped or a maiden? Stand up, boy!
He is so overwhelmed by gratitude he does not know how to say it. The fear of ruling all his father's restless captains and cutthroat lords, alone, as an eleven-nameday-old, is crippling. It is so unfair. What if he makes some misstep? He knows every man of them is awaiting it, ready to try to force him into obedience.
But now he has a man to advise him who understands the men's things that Grandmother never will. After all the fear and sorrow…
"Thank you… thank you…" He finds it hard to explain. "Thank you that I'm not alone."
"Of course you are not alone. You have a family." The blue lips twitch. "If you can't trust family, who can you trust?"
