In Search of Slender Hopes
Third Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
In his youth Malarys Vanor had never been particularly enamored with the greater magics of conjuration, much preferring divination that sharpened the eye and the mind, or transmutation that molded the world to his will to those arts that required one to bargain with or compel a spirit from the beyond for power. The rewards of fiend binding were so rarely worth the risk and as for brighter spirits, they most often refused the call of Balerion's priests and when they did deign to grace a summoning circle with their hallowed presence their price might be weightier in its own way than even the greediest of fiends. Thus it was with some surprise that the now Lord Justice Malarys Vanor realized he quite enjoyed the company of Yrael Elaenos, governor of what had once been the City of Monsters .
Perhaps it was simply that the grim truth of Heaven's breaking that had snuffed out the harsh light that so often blinded one to more practical concerns, or mayhap he simply had a great deal more in common with the steel-winged archon than the minstrel incarnate or the ancient assassins so quick to their vials of poison and the Dornish Prince who was just a step behind, likely because he was tangled in some new lover's tokar or the
fey...
He cut off the thought abruptly before his temples started throbbing again. Instead, he followed the archon's bright gaze out the window to the City of the Great Masters, Meereen the Great by the banks of the Skahazadhan from which no man drank who wished to see the next sunrise, Meereen the Bloody, painted in the blood of a thousand slaves. Meereen the Decrepit it should be called in these days, where the empty windows of abandoned shops and empty houses looked up resentfully at the garishly painted pyramids of the highborn, a city twice ruined by the heirs of Valyria.
"What do you see, my lord?" the mage priest asked curiously.
"A poisoned well waiting to be drunk by the unwary," came the unexpected reply. "This wedding between Pahl and Loraq seems madness to me, and not just for the blood and pain with which it is to be celebrated. Where do they find the coin for the feasts, the the games, the supposed 'charity'? House Pahl is rich that much is clear, but Meereen is being bled of coin more with every day."
"You suspect our true foe of something so simple as buying their allegiance?" the Lord Justice asked surprised.
"It would be a straightforward subtlety, as King Viserys would put it, but that does not necessarily make it weak. Given the Graces' association with the Sons of the Harpy and their vanquished queen there seems to be some question as to who would perform the ceremony. Should 'a priest from a far off land' speak to the glory, the wealth, the power of his god, many of the Great Masters would be inclined to listen. They see the noose tightening as easily as we do, Lord Vanor, and they have had precious little else before their eyes for years..."
"And they lack the wit to understand that all they would have to do is duck their head to avoid it, yes," the magelord finished.
Now it was the spirit's turn to look in askance. "You think King Viserys would take them into his service?"
"He has cracked the First Pact that he might accept the oaths of baatezu. What is mere mortal enmity besides that?" With a shake of his head he dismissed the thought. "In any case it is unlikely all but the most far thinking of the Meereenese would take the offer even with dragons at the gates. Their hatred of Valyria runs deep and only their need to trade slaves for silver quenched it, yet now the Daughters of Valyria turn their faces from them one by one. The Unsullied were made fools of during the siege of Tyrosh, then
unmade into full men by sorcery."
"Do you believe what the the shadow-kin brothers told us, that the Unsullied hate the 'heresy' even more than their masters do, then?" Yrael asked after a moment.
Malarys considered the matter for a long moment sniping from a cup of lemon water. "Oh yes, envy is a dreadful thing, particularly that of the lowly and lost who have had the hope of rising from the muck beaten out of them and now no longer desire anything more than to drag others down with them, but it bears remembering that such sentiments would be the loudest for the masters would find them sweet to the ear."
"Whereas thoughts of rebellion would be hidden, yes," the archon lord replied. "We can but hope some of the priests of the Lady of Spears are so inclined, else our warnings will fall upon deaf ears."
"Never fear, my lord, the Great Masters are not so skilled as to expunge all hope even from the most wretched of their slaves, that is the domain of He whose power we have come to these shores to contest," Malarys replied, faint comfort indeed, but better than none.
OOC: This came out more abstract because of the nature of both Malarys and Yrael, never fear though, we are doing the full dive into Meereenese culture and atmosphere next update with Oberyn and the drow.
