Chapter 21
Deep in the Shadow, where light was dead and night was everlasting, two men stood facing one another on a great heap of earth before the Only Gate.
Forces greater and more terrible than mankind swung their gaze to regard this. In the Tower of Wailing thousands of miles away to the north and west, in the cold heart of the Land of Always Winter, where a host of the reanimated dead marched a hundred-thousand strong, the Others on their frozen thrones turned away. Eyes burning like blue stars fixed their icy stare on Stannis Baratheon and Euron Crow's Eye. Lords of ice and undeath, scions of a civilisation that had been ancient for aeons before man emerged upon this world… and in that moment, nothing mattered to them but here. Nothing but this.
To that light, the darkness answered. From dread Stygai, just on the other side of the Only Gate, an enormous presence smashed like a battering ram into Stannis's thoughts. Thundered a voice Stannis had heard once before, in an ancient temple; a voice deep like bottomless chasms, a voice larger than the world, a voice of vast and burning darkness:
STORM-BORN, STORM-FEEDER, STORMCHILD. YESSSSSSSS. The enormous voice of darkness thrummed with glee. COME TO ME. YOU HAVE COME SO CLOSSSSSSSSE.
"The city is not yours, nor ever will be," Stannis retorted. "Not so long as I breathe to prevent it."
"Prevent it?" The Crow's Eye laughed. "My dear brother, you are not here to prevent my scheme but to assist it."
"If you think that, you are truly lost to madness," Stannis said with contempt.
"Oh, am I? Go on. Use that feeble mind of yours. Indulge me." Euron was grinning. "How did you think I got here?"
"You took your ship."
"I tried. I failed." Euron was cheerful in admitting this. "No normal crew will venture this deep into the Shadow Lands—not even mine. I cannot skinchange into all of them at once. Usually they are obedient enough to sail a ship and row like dumb puppets, mindless with fear of me; but not here. The sheer dread evoked by the Shadow is so powerful they cannot help but try to run." Euron's blue lips twisted with annoyance. "They are more scared of the Shadow than of me."
Stannis remembered how it had felt when Marro had nearly been Taken. It had jabbed his heart like daggers. Euron spoke with clipped briskness, as if terrorising his men into risking their souls to everlasting torment were a mere tedious inconvenience.
"Even animals will not go this far into the Shadow-On-The-World. Instinct rebels against it. The only kind of creature that will go forward when every thought in their head is screaming flee! is thinking men." Euron grinned, pearly teeth gleaming in the cold glow of Stannis's witchlight. "So I needed thinking men to sail me to Stygai. Yours."
Stannis did not believe him for an instant. "Liar."
"Oh yes, often," said Euron, unashamed. "But not this time. When you were fool enough to spy on me outside your body, I caught you and for three turns of the moon I held you in my thrall; and then I let you wake. Why do you think I let you wake? And why three turns of the moon? Because that was the time it took for me to sail to you from the west coast of Westeros. Just like Jorah Mormont, who did the same thing. I did fear that I might have been discovered when you called Mormont close. Without the unnatural winds I commanded for the ship that brought both him and me, his time at sea was far too short. But no, when you called my travelling companion, you just wanted him to tell you tidings of Westeros, to reassure you your blood-brother was as incompetent a king as everyone in the Seven Kingdoms already knows he is." Euron's blue lips twisted in a cold smile. "Sentiment is a weakness, little brother. Our father should have taught you that."
Stannis had not thought to ask when Mormont had left Westeros. Mormont had simply never been important enough to bother asking. Had he asked… had he known…
"I joined your company as an ordinary soldier," the Crow's Eye said. "As soon as my entry to the company was secure, you awoke, because I wished you to awaken. Then you took your Swords of the Storm onto your ships, sailed them with the fastest winds you could conjure, and brought me right to my prize." He dashed an elegant, mocking bow. "Much obliged."
Stannis reeled. It could not be, it could not be that he had made such a terrible mistake, that he himself had brought the servant of the Enemy to his goal. It must be a lie. The Crow's Eye was known for it.
"You are lying to me," was all that he could bring himself to say.
"Am I?" Euron laughed. "Tell me, little brother, why do you think I let you wake up when I did?"
"You had to. You could not hold me down forever."
"Plausible," said the Crow's Eye. "And yet… when we were in Asshai-by-the-Shadow the corpse of your friend Li was freshly slain. At most, days. You think it coincidence: the greatest length of time I could hold you was timed exactly that your arrival in Asshai and mine were so close?"
No. No. No!
Every bone in Stannis's body rebelled against the notion. And yet the logic was remorseless as cold iron. That coincidence could not be believed.
"In truth, I joined you upon the Rhoyne. I'd say it was difficult, but why should I lie to you? It was easy. Some hair dye, an eyepatch, pretending my first language was Braavosi… shielding my magic from your senses was the only part that was actually hard." Euron was enjoying this, Stannis could tell. The elder greenseer's youthful handsome face was bright and smiling. "Then I reached into the dreams of that preening fool of a Qohorik who accosted you for what you did to his city, and I guided him to Asshai-by-the-Shadow to find you there."
Then Stannis remembered the words of Monobho Parit, the red-robed Qohorik, the proud foolish sorcerer who thought he could best Stannis. Whom Stannis had slain. When you sacked Qohor, I swore I would be strong enough to avenge her. I gathered to me others who survived the Burning, studied the world's dark and mysterious places, taught myself secrets of fire and blood… all for this moment. Urrathon Nightwalker of Qarth told me you would come here, and he was right, down to the day, down to the hour. And now I have you at my mercy.
Urrathon Nightwalker. Urrathon Nightwalker. An Ironborn first name and a surname alluding to greenseers who walked in dreams.
Stannis cursed himself for a fool. Gods, it should have been obvious.
"Asshai is vaster than Volantis, and mostly unpeopled," the Crow's Eye went on. "It was easy for one Sword of the Storm to go missing from the rest, in the empty streets of that maze of a city. I killed Li Xinong an hour before you came to that house and wrote you the message in his blood. As with Xinong, so with Parit—I didn't want to slow you down on your journey to Stygai. Quite the opposite. I just wanted you to think I wanted to." Euron grinned boyishly. "That, and I admit I couldn't resist it. The look on your face when you saw his corpse and my message there…" Euron giggled. "Gods, the look on your face."
Stannis did not interrupt. If Euron wished to speak at length of all Stannis's failings and follies, yielding secret knowledge that might be of use, Stannis would not stop him.
But beneath a blank mask of a face, Stannis's thoughts churned and seethed with hate. He still remembered the old warlock he had fought alongside in Yi-Ti against the Bol Qo Rebellion. He had liked Li Xinong. Like Andonno Vanore, like Handtaker, he was one of the few leaders Stannis considered something of a friend. And Euron had murdered him, not as an enemy, not as a sacrifice, just for amusement.
You will pay in blood for that, Stannis promised in cold silence.
"Then your own ships brought me here into the Shadow Lands. Well, most of the way. I faked my death during the battle with the dragon. That was easy also. Enough men died there in truth, lost and their bodies never found. After that, I set off single-handed, by other ways."
The Crow's Eye took a mocking curtsy, clutching his breeches. He lifted his voice girlishly high.
"Thank you for your help, my lord. I could not have got this far without you."
Stannis clenched his fists with rage. Clawlike nails dug into his skin.
The Prince of Sunset spoke quietly, coldly, with deadly purpose. "Mayhaps you used me. You are such a liar, none can know the truth of it. Be it true or nay, I am here to stop you now."
Euron was unafraid. "No. I am still using you. To open the Only Gate requires a sacrifice. The life's blood of a greenseer will serve. A lord of space and time, the most powerful sorcerers in this world… yes, that will do nicely. Poor child," Euron gloated. "This is why you shouldn't believe in heroes. You came here through great pain and deadly peril to save the world of men—to stop me claiming the boons, claiming the Horn of Joramun and tearing down the Wall. And all you've achieved is to bring me on a silver platter the only ingredient I still required: you."
Stannis laughed, a rasp harsh and cold. "You think I did not know what the Only Gate required?" he said. "You are arrogant, Crow's Eye. Remember I started this quest before you. You were left trailing in my wake. I have read the signs on the walls of Yeen before you did."
For a flash, Euron looked unnerved. Then it was back to smiling serenity. "Then why did you come here?" he sneered. "You walked into my trap."
"Oh, I still had to come stop you," Stannis said mildly. "You might have had other sacrifices prepared, to claim the boons without me. It would take a great many shadowbinders, skinchangers or warlocks to match one greenseer, but you could have gathered them."
Euron giggled. "I could have," he admitted, "if I had no better path. But I do have better. I have no need of those weaklings. I have you."
"Do you?" said Stannis, his voice ice-cold.
From his side Stannis Baratheon drew a sword like soot and smoke. Valyrian steel, forged in blood and fire, taken from a temple of the Black Goat of Qohor when Stannis and his Swords of the Storm set the City of Sorcerers aflame.
Euron Greyjoy drew his own blade: a shortsword of castle-forged steel. No match for Stannis's Valyrian steel blade. He stood facing Stannis, on opposite sides of an enormous mound of earth that lay before the immense black gate of the City of the Dead.
The Prince of Sunset took one step forward, then another. He trod over bare, lifeless soil. Even now, half-starved and skeletal, Stannis Baratheon was a mountain of a man, gigantically tall, broad of chest and broad of shoulder. He towered over the slim, delicate Euron. A duel between those two men was only going to end one way.
"I told you you are arrogant," Stannis murmured. "You speak as if you have won before we begin fighting. Do you presume you can defeat me?"
"Certainly not," said Euron, smiling.
Stannis blinked.
"You are the better warrior," said Euron. "Certainly you could slay me. I confess it."
Dark blue eyes narrowed. There were many things Stannis had expected: tricks, boasts, bravado. Not this.
Stannis was cautious of tricks and traps. This time Stannis's mind was not venturing out beyond his mortal form, vulnerable to be seized and gripped by the mind of Euron. So why was Euron wearing that too-wide, sharklike smile?
"Before you slay me, one last question." Perfect teeth flashed white in Euron's too-wide smile. "Why is there no ghost grass under our feet?"
Stannis chanced a look down. Euron was right. Ghost grass grew everywhere in the Shadow Lands, everywhere—plain after plain of the stuff. Why were they standing on a gigantic mound of bare, churned-up soil?
A mound…
Realisation came.
Stannis sprinted, lunging for Euron. The Valyrian blade stabbed outward, reaching for Euron's black heart.
Euron clapped his hands. Once, only once. And the earth…
…ERUPTED.
The gigantic mound of soil exploded outwards in all directions. Stannis was flung off his feet. He went crashing into the ground far away with a painful crash. Dazed from the force of that landing, he looked up and beheld the nightmares emerging from under the earth.
Great monstrous shapes, red as blood, surged upward out of the soil. First, a long shard of bone, as long as a whole jousting field. Another. Then vast spiderlike things, enormous in their own right, bigger than elephants, with wickedly sharp, curving legs… no, not legs. Claws. Huge expanses of blood-red flesh, like sailcloth, punctured with many arrows, stretching out between the very long bones.
Connected. They were connected.
This was not an army of nightmares Euron had buried under the earth to await Stannis. It was just one.
The nightmare unfolded itself under Euron. A monster that could put a city in its shadow. Talons that could slash houses in two. Razor-sharp wings were spreading, and spreading, and spreading, out and out and out.
Last to fully emerge—shaking off hundreds of tonnes of churned-up soil—was a great hulking mass, right under where Euron stood, blood-red and big enough to swallow a horse. The head of the dragon the Swords of the Storm had slain, hanging grotesquely loose from a neck that had been half-severed by the brave men's axes. It was not alive. It did not need to be.
The dragon's huge eyes, the size of kite shields, once coloured golden, shone a bright, icy blue.
For seconds Stannis forgot to breathe. Sheer horror froze him in place. In a mighty burst of muscles, the gigantic wight-dragon shook off the last of the dirt that had covered it and rose to its full height. Its wings had been pierced by hundreds of arrows. It could not fly. That was no comfort to Stannis. There were great castles in Westeros whose highest towers were not as tall.
Its eyes shone brilliantly with cold blue light, bright like icicles, bright like frozen stars—defiant of the Shadow-On-The-World that ruled around it. Euron sat perched on the dangling, part-severed head of the wight-dragon. He was laughing like a madman.
"Did you think me unprepared, little brother?" he giggled. "As if I would fight fair! I know the Shadow favours you. Do not waste your breath denying it; I could sense it from the beginning. So I sought aid from the forces of the cold and the light." Euron was grinning. "Did you think the Enemy would remain aloof from this battle between greenseers? They know I seek to blow the Horn of Joramun, to let them past the Wall. They know you mean to stop me. Behold the gift of power they have given unto me!"
Gift? Stannis was not sure. Euron's skin had turned pale as a corpse, his face crisscrossed with angry red lines. Stannis did not think the Crow's Eye would long survive this 'gift'. The power of the Others, the Enemy of all life, was not meant for the children of man. Stannis doubted Euron would survive it and doubted that the Others meant him to. Euron was a pawn to them, not an ally. They had no allies, only servants and victims. Once he had blown the Horn of Joramun, his usefulness to the Enemy would be ended.
He said nothing of this. He was beyond trying to reason with Euron Crow's Eye.
Silent, resolved, Stannis got back to his feet. Euron watched from above with bemused fascination. Stannis turned his Valyrian steel sword to his left arm and brought it across in a slash. Blood welled out from shoulder to elbow, greenseer's blood on the blade, hot and spurting. The blade burst into furious life. Bloodfire. Valyrian magic. The stronger the source, the stronger the flame. With greenseer's blood willingly spilt, it would slash butter-like through solid stone or steel—impossibly bright, impossibly hot, white and bright and blinding.
"You think to battle me?" said Euron. Perched on the skull of the gigantic wight-dragon, he stared down at the tiny figure below, incredulous. "Me, with all the power of the Enemy, with a dragon at my command?"
Stannis gazed up at the fallen greenseer, knowing he was outmatched. Euron was older, more powerful, more practised, more learned in the sorcerous arts. He had been studying magic beside the three-eyed crow before Stannis had even been born. Blood magic was why Euron was still dark-haired, untouched by time, not youth. He had his mind, his sense of will, that had already proven powerful enough to overcome and imprison Stannis once before. He had cruelty too. Stannis had scruples, though few of them. Euron had none. There were things Euron would do that Stannis never would. And Euron had his wight-dragon, the fell power granted to him by the Enemy, power only granted to him because the Enemy knew he would wield it against the Wall.
If Stannis died here, at Euron's or his own hand, Euron would use his blood and the Only Gate would open. Only Stannis stood between Euron Greyjoy and the power he wanted, to let the Enemy back into the world of men.
Sometimes a choice was no choice at all.
He lifted the sword, writhing with white flames. "Come at me, Crow's Eye, if you dare. I have had enough of talking."