10
thebrute7
Walker of the Planes
|=====|=====|=====|=====|=====|
Ten
|=====|=====|=====|=====|=====|
Dragonstone may have been a dreary island for the most part, but there was one respect in which it outstripped the Red Keep. The baths.
Dragonstone's baths were naturally heated, deep down underground. I didn't know from where precisely the hot water came, but it was most welcome.
I laid back against the smooth stone of the bath, groaning. Steam rose around me in twisting whorls.
"Feels good, doesn't it, Ser Willem?" I asked. We did this often, him and I, after he spent the morning or afternoon putting me through his assorted miseries.
"That it does."
It was just him and I in the baths at the moment, which was most unusual, even for the Lord's Baths. There were two great baths in the Keep, one for the use of the servants and common folk who maintained and guarded the castle, the other for the lords and ladies and knights of the castle and their guests.
I closed my eyes and soaked. It felt damn good for my sore muscles.
"A raven arrived this morning from Sunspear," I said after a while. "Doran Martell has agreed to play host for a meeting between us."
"Good," Ser Willem remarked. "We'll make plans to travel there then."
"We will. And I need your help with something."
"And what would that be, my lord?"
I let out a long breath.
"Robert Baratheon won't accept a surrender from us, and we can't hold Dragonstone, not forever. You know it, I know it, and my vassal lords know it." I drummed my fingers on wet stone. "It's two months at least by sea to reach Sunspear, probably more like three if we are taking many ships, and the same back. By then, Robert could have raised a fleet sufficient to fight our own on even footing, now that Lord Stark has broken the siege at Storm's End."
"We can't come back here, Ser Willem." I stared down at the rippling water. "If we come back after Sunspear we'll be trapped on this island."
Ser Willem just watched me with his old, experienced eyes. He had been doing that often of late, just watching as I trained, or spoke with the my vassal lords. I think that of all of them, it was him alone who considered me more than just a boy.
He sees something of Rhaegar in me, I think. He told me that when Rhaegar was a boy, he was much like me, aloof and interested in books, and one day he came down into the yard of the Red Keep and told Ser Willem to make him a knight. So much like I had done when I told Ser Willem to make me a knight as good as any in the Realm.
But he also listens to me. Lords Velaryon and Sunglass do too, but oftentimes I feel they are just humoring me.
"What do you propose?" He asked finally.
"We need to take everything with us when we leave."
"Everything?"
I shrugged. "Everything of significant value. We have the carracks, and all but four of them are Targaryen ships, and not my vassal's. We should empty the vaults and take our things of value with us. Once we have met with the Martells, we move to one of the Free Cities with our gold."
"Do you think it would be that easy?"
"No," I said. "But we have to face the facts. We have lost. Mace Tyrell will not back me. He backed Aerys because he felt Aerys had the bigger army and the better generals, not because he cared about his claim. And while the Martells might well be willing to support us, Dorne alone cannot defeat the other six kingdoms for us."
Ser Willem dunked his head under the water. Bubbles rose up around him. When he surfaced, he shook his head and gave me another unreadable look.
"Perhaps you are right. And perhaps not. But what about your mother?"
I scowled. "I will convince her. It shouldn't be too difficult. If I were to imply that both my life and her unborn child's would be in too great of danger here on Dragonstone - which they are - she'll agree to my plan. And if not..."
I shrugged my shoulder's and gave Ser Willem a grim look. "Better that I have to ask Mother for forgiveness for going against her wishes than for us to have our heads cut off by Baratheon men. Can you keep the preparations secret?"
Ser Willem slid deeper into the water. "I think I can find ways to keep it from prying eyes. I've known a few, let us call them less than lawful individuals in my days. You don't mean to inform Lord Velaryon or Sunglass?"
"Would I have brought it up in here, while we are alone, if I wanted them to know? I do not trust them, not with this. Lucerys is entirely too likely to name me craven and just disappear back to Driftmark with his ships."
"Would that be so terrible if you mean for us to leave for Essos?"
"The longer they and their ships remain on Dragonstone, the longer Baratheon and his men will believe us to be here as well."
"Speak to your mother then," Ser Willem said, pulling himself out of the steaming water. "I'll make my preparations."
"One more thing," I said as he made to leave. "Make sure that the crews of the carracks are men we can trust. Especially the Aegon Targaryen, her crew above all the others must be ours to the man."
Ser Willem bowed. "As you command."
|=====|=====|=====|=====|=====|
I was back in the Red Keep, in the gardens where the ladies of the court would walk and gossip and little boys and girls dashed about giggling and laughing.
I was playing cyvasse, but I couldn't see the entire board. Seemingly random tiles, both on my side of the board and my opponents were obscured, patches of darkness that swallowed the light of the sun. My opponent was faceless, but somehow it seemed proper that I shouldn't know who or what it was.
My pieces were silver and crimson. When I went to pick up the dragon, it came to life and snapped at me, drawing blood from the tip of my middle finger. Then the piece spread its wings and flew without my direction through a patch of darkness, where it suddenly vanished.
I reached towards the darkness to find my piece, only for the black to expand suddenly. The light was gone, it was dark as night, but without stars or moon to see by.
The night is dark and full of terrors, I thought to myself. Looking this way and that. The darkness shifted, and I took a step back, but no matter how many steps I took the roiling, oily-looking dark drew closer.
I swatted at it with my right hand, and I felt a drop of blood fall from my finger. Somehow it landed on a shadow, and the shadow caught fire, burning away.
I watched, astonished as the darkness itself seemed to catch fire for a moment, and then it was gone, the fire had burnt itself out and the shadows pressed ever closer.
I waved my hand again, but it did nothing. No blood fell from my finger, no flames lit the darkness.
And then there was a blinding flash as crimson and silver fire roared across my vision from the maw of a dragon. The silver and red dragon felt like an old friend, but when I reached out to touch it, it snapped at me and tore off the ends of my fingers.
I fell to the ground with a scream. Wherever my blood fell, it burst into flames that burned so hot they melted the stone beneath them. My left hand was clutching my right, covered in burning blood. It felt like even the blood in my body was boiling, running so hot that I was sure I would catch fire at any moment.
I stared at the dragon, which watched me wordlessly for a moment, before spreading its wings and disappearing into the darkness.
And then I was in my bed. And I couldn't feel my fingers. I rolled off my side and sat up, pulling my right hand in front of my face. My fingers were fine.
I let out a relieved sigh. I had just slept on them, and my hand was numb. Nothing to worry about. I wiped my forehead and then touched my back. I was drenched in sweat.
Flexing my fingers, I slipped from the bed and grabbed for the pitcher of water beside my bed. There was just enough light in the darkness for me to see by.
I drank deeply and reached for a candlestick. I needed to write down the dream while it was fresh in my memory. The dragon had never hurt me in the dreams before.
I resisted the urge to go wake Ser Willem and have him come with me down to the Dragon Vault again. I had an urge to touch that silver and crimson egg, as though it would somehow give me answers to my questions.
But it was still late, or rather early, and so when I was done writing I went back to sleep instead. Questions and eggs could wait until the morning.
|=====|=====|=====|=====|=====|
I lay on my stomach in bed, just admiring. Right in front of me was the egg. Its scaled surface shimmering brilliant silver and blood red in the light of the sun that shone in from the balcony.
The Bloody Egg, Ser Willem had called it, when we went together down into the Dragon Vault once more. With us we had brought two great sea chests, which we would put the eggs into, but also one smaller chest for the unpetrified eggs.
In the vault there were precisely forty two eggs. Forty two! A single egg was a fortune, but forty two were an entire kingdom's treasury. But of them, only five were not stone eggs. Only the clutch of eggs from the last dragon remained unpetrified.
My egg of silver and red, the fiery egg of orange and red and yellow, the deep blue egg with white whorls, the green egg with a golden spiral running its length from top to bottom, and an egg of sky blue and red so light it appeared pink that Ser Willem had almost believed wasn't a real egg at all.
A knock came at my door. I set my Bloody Egg back in the chest with the other four and closed the lid.
"Come in," I called.
Rhaenys hopped into the room. Her dark brown hair in a ponytail bounced behind her.
"Visys!"
I smiled indulgently. She knew full well how to say my name, but insisted on using the diminutive she called me by before she got the pronunciation right.
"What do you need?" I asked sitting myself on the edge of my bed.
Rhaenys slipped up beside me.
"Your mama says we're going to get on ships again." She didn't sound very enthused with the idea.
"We are."
"I don't like ships. They're smelly and cramped, and they make me feel sick."
I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close.
"You'll be fine," I said. "You're just unused to them is all. And we're going to go see your uncle. You've met him haven't you? Doran Martell?"
Rhaenys nodded. By the time we reach Dorne it will have been almost a year since she saw him last, before my father called Elia back from Dorne.
"He'll be glad to see you alive and well."
Rhaenys stiffened in my arms, and sniffed. I saw a tear glistening at the corner of her eye as she turned her face into my chest. I should have realized that she might think of her mother.
"Mama won't be there, will she?" She asked in a quiet voice, so muffled by my chest that I could barely make it out.
"No," I said softly and rubbed her back with my hand. "No."
The she started crying in earnest, and all I could think to do was keep rubbing. I am sure that if it had been my mother, she would have whispered some meaningless platitudes or perhaps some religious statement. I had none of that to give.
"Here," I said, once her tears had abated. "I have something to show you."
Her eyes turned up to me and I wiped the tears from her cheeks with a hand. Gently I guided her around the bed, to where the chest with the eggs in it was sitting.
"What's in there?" She asked.
"It's a surprise. Now, close your eyes."
Rhaenys closed her eyes obediently.
"Hold out your hands," I instructed as I opened the chest and withdrew the Fiery Egg. As I placed it in her hands, I told her to open her eyes.
When she opened her eyes, and locked her deep indigo eyes on the egg, she was frozen, as if turned to stone for almost five full seconds.
And then she squealed in glee and hugged the egg to her chest.
"It's gorgeous," she said. "Is it real? Please say it is real."
I smiled like a loon. "Completely real. You're holding one of only five known dragon eggs that have not turned to stone."
She looked at me with wide eyes. "Five?"
I stepped aside and directed her attention to the chest, where the others sat.
Delighted and entranced by the sight, she dashed forward and sank to her knees in front of the chest.
"Where did you find them?"
"In a vault, deep under the Stone Drum."
I watched her run her hands over the eggs and pull them out, holding them at arms length and turning them over and over to see every inch of them.
I couldn't blame her. Just looking at the eggs made my blood run hot. Their beauty was second to nothing I had ever seen. I wondered how they would stack up to a living dragon.
Ten
|=====|=====|=====|=====|=====|
Dragonstone may have been a dreary island for the most part, but there was one respect in which it outstripped the Red Keep. The baths.
Dragonstone's baths were naturally heated, deep down underground. I didn't know from where precisely the hot water came, but it was most welcome.
I laid back against the smooth stone of the bath, groaning. Steam rose around me in twisting whorls.
"Feels good, doesn't it, Ser Willem?" I asked. We did this often, him and I, after he spent the morning or afternoon putting me through his assorted miseries.
"That it does."
It was just him and I in the baths at the moment, which was most unusual, even for the Lord's Baths. There were two great baths in the Keep, one for the use of the servants and common folk who maintained and guarded the castle, the other for the lords and ladies and knights of the castle and their guests.
I closed my eyes and soaked. It felt damn good for my sore muscles.
"A raven arrived this morning from Sunspear," I said after a while. "Doran Martell has agreed to play host for a meeting between us."
"Good," Ser Willem remarked. "We'll make plans to travel there then."
"We will. And I need your help with something."
"And what would that be, my lord?"
I let out a long breath.
"Robert Baratheon won't accept a surrender from us, and we can't hold Dragonstone, not forever. You know it, I know it, and my vassal lords know it." I drummed my fingers on wet stone. "It's two months at least by sea to reach Sunspear, probably more like three if we are taking many ships, and the same back. By then, Robert could have raised a fleet sufficient to fight our own on even footing, now that Lord Stark has broken the siege at Storm's End."
"We can't come back here, Ser Willem." I stared down at the rippling water. "If we come back after Sunspear we'll be trapped on this island."
Ser Willem just watched me with his old, experienced eyes. He had been doing that often of late, just watching as I trained, or spoke with the my vassal lords. I think that of all of them, it was him alone who considered me more than just a boy.
He sees something of Rhaegar in me, I think. He told me that when Rhaegar was a boy, he was much like me, aloof and interested in books, and one day he came down into the yard of the Red Keep and told Ser Willem to make him a knight. So much like I had done when I told Ser Willem to make me a knight as good as any in the Realm.
But he also listens to me. Lords Velaryon and Sunglass do too, but oftentimes I feel they are just humoring me.
"What do you propose?" He asked finally.
"We need to take everything with us when we leave."
"Everything?"
I shrugged. "Everything of significant value. We have the carracks, and all but four of them are Targaryen ships, and not my vassal's. We should empty the vaults and take our things of value with us. Once we have met with the Martells, we move to one of the Free Cities with our gold."
"Do you think it would be that easy?"
"No," I said. "But we have to face the facts. We have lost. Mace Tyrell will not back me. He backed Aerys because he felt Aerys had the bigger army and the better generals, not because he cared about his claim. And while the Martells might well be willing to support us, Dorne alone cannot defeat the other six kingdoms for us."
Ser Willem dunked his head under the water. Bubbles rose up around him. When he surfaced, he shook his head and gave me another unreadable look.
"Perhaps you are right. And perhaps not. But what about your mother?"
I scowled. "I will convince her. It shouldn't be too difficult. If I were to imply that both my life and her unborn child's would be in too great of danger here on Dragonstone - which they are - she'll agree to my plan. And if not..."
I shrugged my shoulder's and gave Ser Willem a grim look. "Better that I have to ask Mother for forgiveness for going against her wishes than for us to have our heads cut off by Baratheon men. Can you keep the preparations secret?"
Ser Willem slid deeper into the water. "I think I can find ways to keep it from prying eyes. I've known a few, let us call them less than lawful individuals in my days. You don't mean to inform Lord Velaryon or Sunglass?"
"Would I have brought it up in here, while we are alone, if I wanted them to know? I do not trust them, not with this. Lucerys is entirely too likely to name me craven and just disappear back to Driftmark with his ships."
"Would that be so terrible if you mean for us to leave for Essos?"
"The longer they and their ships remain on Dragonstone, the longer Baratheon and his men will believe us to be here as well."
"Speak to your mother then," Ser Willem said, pulling himself out of the steaming water. "I'll make my preparations."
"One more thing," I said as he made to leave. "Make sure that the crews of the carracks are men we can trust. Especially the Aegon Targaryen, her crew above all the others must be ours to the man."
Ser Willem bowed. "As you command."
|=====|=====|=====|=====|=====|
I was back in the Red Keep, in the gardens where the ladies of the court would walk and gossip and little boys and girls dashed about giggling and laughing.
I was playing cyvasse, but I couldn't see the entire board. Seemingly random tiles, both on my side of the board and my opponents were obscured, patches of darkness that swallowed the light of the sun. My opponent was faceless, but somehow it seemed proper that I shouldn't know who or what it was.
My pieces were silver and crimson. When I went to pick up the dragon, it came to life and snapped at me, drawing blood from the tip of my middle finger. Then the piece spread its wings and flew without my direction through a patch of darkness, where it suddenly vanished.
I reached towards the darkness to find my piece, only for the black to expand suddenly. The light was gone, it was dark as night, but without stars or moon to see by.
The night is dark and full of terrors, I thought to myself. Looking this way and that. The darkness shifted, and I took a step back, but no matter how many steps I took the roiling, oily-looking dark drew closer.
I swatted at it with my right hand, and I felt a drop of blood fall from my finger. Somehow it landed on a shadow, and the shadow caught fire, burning away.
I watched, astonished as the darkness itself seemed to catch fire for a moment, and then it was gone, the fire had burnt itself out and the shadows pressed ever closer.
I waved my hand again, but it did nothing. No blood fell from my finger, no flames lit the darkness.
And then there was a blinding flash as crimson and silver fire roared across my vision from the maw of a dragon. The silver and red dragon felt like an old friend, but when I reached out to touch it, it snapped at me and tore off the ends of my fingers.
I fell to the ground with a scream. Wherever my blood fell, it burst into flames that burned so hot they melted the stone beneath them. My left hand was clutching my right, covered in burning blood. It felt like even the blood in my body was boiling, running so hot that I was sure I would catch fire at any moment.
I stared at the dragon, which watched me wordlessly for a moment, before spreading its wings and disappearing into the darkness.
And then I was in my bed. And I couldn't feel my fingers. I rolled off my side and sat up, pulling my right hand in front of my face. My fingers were fine.
I let out a relieved sigh. I had just slept on them, and my hand was numb. Nothing to worry about. I wiped my forehead and then touched my back. I was drenched in sweat.
Flexing my fingers, I slipped from the bed and grabbed for the pitcher of water beside my bed. There was just enough light in the darkness for me to see by.
I drank deeply and reached for a candlestick. I needed to write down the dream while it was fresh in my memory. The dragon had never hurt me in the dreams before.
I resisted the urge to go wake Ser Willem and have him come with me down to the Dragon Vault again. I had an urge to touch that silver and crimson egg, as though it would somehow give me answers to my questions.
But it was still late, or rather early, and so when I was done writing I went back to sleep instead. Questions and eggs could wait until the morning.
|=====|=====|=====|=====|=====|
I lay on my stomach in bed, just admiring. Right in front of me was the egg. Its scaled surface shimmering brilliant silver and blood red in the light of the sun that shone in from the balcony.
The Bloody Egg, Ser Willem had called it, when we went together down into the Dragon Vault once more. With us we had brought two great sea chests, which we would put the eggs into, but also one smaller chest for the unpetrified eggs.
In the vault there were precisely forty two eggs. Forty two! A single egg was a fortune, but forty two were an entire kingdom's treasury. But of them, only five were not stone eggs. Only the clutch of eggs from the last dragon remained unpetrified.
My egg of silver and red, the fiery egg of orange and red and yellow, the deep blue egg with white whorls, the green egg with a golden spiral running its length from top to bottom, and an egg of sky blue and red so light it appeared pink that Ser Willem had almost believed wasn't a real egg at all.
A knock came at my door. I set my Bloody Egg back in the chest with the other four and closed the lid.
"Come in," I called.
Rhaenys hopped into the room. Her dark brown hair in a ponytail bounced behind her.
"Visys!"
I smiled indulgently. She knew full well how to say my name, but insisted on using the diminutive she called me by before she got the pronunciation right.
"What do you need?" I asked sitting myself on the edge of my bed.
Rhaenys slipped up beside me.
"Your mama says we're going to get on ships again." She didn't sound very enthused with the idea.
"We are."
"I don't like ships. They're smelly and cramped, and they make me feel sick."
I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close.
"You'll be fine," I said. "You're just unused to them is all. And we're going to go see your uncle. You've met him haven't you? Doran Martell?"
Rhaenys nodded. By the time we reach Dorne it will have been almost a year since she saw him last, before my father called Elia back from Dorne.
"He'll be glad to see you alive and well."
Rhaenys stiffened in my arms, and sniffed. I saw a tear glistening at the corner of her eye as she turned her face into my chest. I should have realized that she might think of her mother.
"Mama won't be there, will she?" She asked in a quiet voice, so muffled by my chest that I could barely make it out.
"No," I said softly and rubbed her back with my hand. "No."
The she started crying in earnest, and all I could think to do was keep rubbing. I am sure that if it had been my mother, she would have whispered some meaningless platitudes or perhaps some religious statement. I had none of that to give.
"Here," I said, once her tears had abated. "I have something to show you."
Her eyes turned up to me and I wiped the tears from her cheeks with a hand. Gently I guided her around the bed, to where the chest with the eggs in it was sitting.
"What's in there?" She asked.
"It's a surprise. Now, close your eyes."
Rhaenys closed her eyes obediently.
"Hold out your hands," I instructed as I opened the chest and withdrew the Fiery Egg. As I placed it in her hands, I told her to open her eyes.
When she opened her eyes, and locked her deep indigo eyes on the egg, she was frozen, as if turned to stone for almost five full seconds.
And then she squealed in glee and hugged the egg to her chest.
"It's gorgeous," she said. "Is it real? Please say it is real."
I smiled like a loon. "Completely real. You're holding one of only five known dragon eggs that have not turned to stone."
She looked at me with wide eyes. "Five?"
I stepped aside and directed her attention to the chest, where the others sat.
Delighted and entranced by the sight, she dashed forward and sank to her knees in front of the chest.
"Where did you find them?"
"In a vault, deep under the Stone Drum."
I watched her run her hands over the eggs and pull them out, holding them at arms length and turning them over and over to see every inch of them.
I couldn't blame her. Just looking at the eggs made my blood run hot. Their beauty was second to nothing I had ever seen. I wondered how they would stack up to a living dragon.
Last edited:
