Chapter 6: The Titan's Price and the Shadow Lord's Levy
The Shadowmere sliced through the ash-grey waves, leaving the corpse of Valyria to its smoldering damnation. Within its magically expanded hull, the treasures were staggering. Twenty-nine dragon eggs pulsed with latent life, a hoard that would have made the most powerful Archons of old Valyria green with envy. Chests overflowed with Valyrian steel, its dark ripples absorbing the faint light. Grimoires bound in dragonhide and human skin lay stacked, their forbidden knowledge awaiting Aelyx's meticulous study. And at the heart of it all, within a lead-lined, rune-etched vault, the Philosopher's Stone throbbed with a power that was almost sentient, engorged on the psychic death-screams of an empire.
Aelyx stood on the prow, the acrid wind doing little to stir his silver-gold hair, which he now kept longer, tied back with a simple leather thong. His violet eyes, usually so chillingly focused, held a distant, calculating gleam. Skagos awaited, his hidden kingdom, the incubator for his draconic and human legacy. But the ruins of Valyria had yielded more than just artifacts; they had reinforced a crucial understanding. Power required infrastructure, resources, and above all, a populace bound to his will, capable of building, sustaining, and defending his sanctuary. The Shadow Legion was a formidable beginning, but thirty thousand soldiers, however loyal, could not build a civilization alone. They needed support, skills, and the means to grow.
"Mipsy," he projected mentally, his voice calm amidst the internal chorus of Voldemort's impatient ambition and Flamel's cautious counsel. "Set a course. Not for Skagos. Not yet. We sail for Braavos."
Mipsy, who was overseeing the careful organization of Valyrian scrolls in one of the trunk's library annexes, replied instantly, her tone unquestioning. "Braavos, Master Aelyx. As you command. For what purpose, if Mipsy may be so bold?"
"Fleets, Mipsy. Warships to guard our shores, merchant vessels to fill our larders and carry our… people. And then, we shall visit our cousins in the other Free Cities. Skagos needs more than just warriors. It needs builders, thinkers, growers. It needs families. The Doom has created chaos. In chaos, there is opportunity for those bold enough to seize it, and wealthy enough to afford it."
The journey to Braavos was undertaken with utmost discretion. The Shadowmere was a phantom, its enchantments deflecting casual observation, its magically augmented sails carrying it swift and silent. Aelyx used this time to further study the Valyrian grimoires, his prodigious intellect absorbing complex theories of blood magic, glyph-weaving, and elemental summoning. Voldemort's soul-fragment thrilled at the raw power hinted within these texts, while Flamel's cautioned restraint, pointing out the inherent instability and moral corrosion often accompanying such Valyrian practices. Aelyx, as always, synthesized, taking what was useful, discarding what was too risky or inefficient for his long-term goals.
Braavos rose from the sea like a colossus of granite and fog, the Titan's legs bestriding its harbor entrance, a monument to defiance and mercantile might. It was a city of canals and a hundred islets, teeming with a thousand tongues, its air thick with the scent of salt, fish, and ambition. Here, gold, not bloodlines, was the true arbiter of power.
Aelyx did not enter Braavos as Aelyx Velaryon. That name was either lost with Valyria or would soon be a magnet for unwanted attention and pathetic appeals for aid from scattered survivors, should any recognize him. Instead, he crafted a new persona: Lord Aerion Marr, a mysterious, fabulously wealthy merchant prince of ancient, obscure lineage from a minor, now-lost Essosi island, a sole survivor of some unnamed local catastrophe, seeking to reinvest his vast, 'inherited' fortune. His appearance was subtly altered with glamours: his silver-gold hair took on a more muted, almost platinum hue, his features sharpened slightly, his violet eyes veiled by a hint of grey, giving them an even more inscrutable depth. His house-elves, particularly Tibbit, had spent weeks before their arrival in Braavos laying the groundwork, spreading rumors of this enigmatic Lord Marr through the city's undercurrents, establishing shell trading companies, and securing a discreet, heavily warded palazzo in a quieter district.
The acquisition of his fleets was Aelyx's first priority. He sought out the most renowned shipwrights of Braavos, men whose families had built warships for Sealords and merchant fleets for the Iron Bank. He did not deal with them directly at first. Tibbit, glamoured as a shrewd, tight-lipped majordomo, made the initial overtures, hinting at a patron of almost limitless resources.
When Aelyx finally met them, in candlelit, cedar-paneled offices overlooking the canals, he was the epitome of quiet power. He spoke little, his Valyrian accented with a strange, unplaceable lilt. He laid out his requirements with unnerving precision. For his war fleet: twenty warships. Not the lumbering galleys favored by some, but swift, ocean-going dromonds and heavily armed, fast galleasses, their hulls reinforced with methods subtly hinted at from his Valyrian lore (though he presented these as obscure family shipbuilding secrets), designed for the harsh northern waters around Skagos. They were to be equipped with ample space for soldiers, powerful rams, and emplacements for ballistae and scorpions.
The shipwrights, initially skeptical of this unknown lord's grand demands, found their doubts melting away when presented with the first down payments: chests of pure, heavy gold coins of an unfamiliar, ancient minting, bearing no trace of Valyrian origin. The gold from the Philosopher's Stone flowed like a river. Aelyx also subtly used Legilimency to gauge their honesty and skill, ensuring he was dealing with true craftsmen, not charlatans.
Simultaneously, he commissioned a merchant fleet: fifty large, sturdy cogs and carracks, deep-hulled and capable of carrying vast amounts of cargo and many passengers. These were for the lifeblood of Skagos – for transporting the population he intended to acquire, the resources they would need, and for establishing the carefully controlled trade that would eventually provide his hidden kingdom with a veneer of normalcy to the outside world.
Crews were the next challenge. While his house-elves could manage a few ships, and his Shadow Legion could be trained as marines, he needed experienced sailors. Braavos, a city of seafarers, had many. He discreetly purchased the contracts of skilled slave sailors, offering them freedom and high wages in return for unwavering loyalty, bound by magical oaths subtly woven by Flamel's gentler arts, reinforced by a hint of Voldemort's compelling presence. He also hired companies of mercenaries, mostly Free City sellswords with naval experience, paying them exorbitant sums and binding their captains with similar, iron-clad magical contracts. These mercenaries would form the initial fighting core of his fleet, later to be phased out or integrated as his own Legionaries gained experience.
The shipbuilding took months, a testament to Braavosi efficiency when properly motivated by mountains of gold. During this time, Aelyx was not idle. He established a secure, magically shielded warehouse complex near the shipyards, managed by Mipsy and guarded by Kreely and Gorok. Here, he began to convert some of his plundered Valyrian treasures into more liquid assets, melting down ornate gold and silver artifacts into anonymous ingots. Valyrian steel weapons and armor were carefully cataloged and stored, destined for his elite. The grimoires remained his most guarded secret, studied only in the deepest sanctums of his expanded trunk.
With the Braavosi shipyards hard at work, Aelyx, leaving Tibbit to oversee the final stages of construction and fitting out, took a portion of his newly acquired merchant vessels and the Shadowmere south, towards the great slave markets of Pentos, Myr, Lys, and Volantis. If Braavos was the bank of the world, these cities were its flesh markets.
His arrival in each city was preceded by carefully placed rumors of Lord Aerion Marr, the fabulously wealthy buyer seeking not just common laborers, but skilled artisans, scholars, and, discreetly, healthy young women and families. The fall of Valyria had sent ripples of instability throughout Essos. Trade routes were disrupted, economies faltered, and the slave markets swelled with those displaced by the chaos or sold by desperate masters.
Aelyx's methods were ruthlessly efficient. He didn't haggle. He paid top price for quality, his agents (house-elves in various disguises, or magically controlled human intermediaries) sweeping through the markets. He sought out master smiths whose hands still remembered the feel of fine steel, masons who could coax castles from stone, weavers whose tapestries were works of art. He acquired healers, not just hedge witches but those with some rudimentary understanding of anatomy and herb-lore. He bought scribes and mathematicians, men and women whose minds could be retrained to serve his purposes, to build the administrative and intellectual backbone of Skagos.
He bought laborers, yes, thousands of them, strong backs for the fields and quarries of his northern domain. But his focus was on skill and potential. He looked for intelligence in their eyes, resilience in their posture, a spark that hadn't been entirely extinguished by the horrors of their existence.
The acquisition of women and children was handled with particular care, though no less pragmatically. He needed to build a self-sustaining population on Skagos. He purchased families when he could, seeking to keep them intact to foster a sense_ of stability. He bought young, healthy women, many of them war captives or victims of famine, with the unspoken intention of pairing them with his Shadow Legionaries, to create the next generation of Skagosi citizens, loyal from birth to the Shadow Lord. He acquired children, orphans of the recent turmoils, young enough to be molded, to know no other life, no other master than him.
The sheer scale of his purchases was staggering. Tens of thousands of souls were bought, processed, and quietly transferred to his waiting merchant ships. Each vessel became a floating, magically shielded holding facility. House-elves, under Mipsy's direction, organized the intake. Basic needs were met – food, water, rudimentary shelter, and medical attention from Pip and Elara. The sick were healed, the malnourished fed. It was not kindness, but practicality; he needed his new acquisitions healthy and functional.
A low-level indoctrination began almost immediately. They were told they were now the property of the benevolent Lord Aerion Marr, who had saved them from far worse fates, and who promised them a new life in a new land, a land of opportunity for those who were loyal and hardworking. The name 'Skagos' was never mentioned. Their destination was simply 'the Northern Sanctuary.' They were taught the rudiments of the simplified language Aelyx had created for his Legion, a further step in erasing their past identities and forging a new, unified culture.
The horrors of the slave markets – the casual brutality, the despair, the dehumanization – Aelyx witnessed it all with icy detachment. Voldemort's soul felt a cynical familiarity; this was the natural order for lesser beings. Flamel's soul felt a faint, weary sadness, quickly suppressed. Aelyx himself saw only resources, cogs in the machine of his ambition. He was offering them a structured existence, a purpose, albeit one that served him absolutely. In his view, it was an improvement on their previous chaotic suffering.
By the time he had toured the major Free Cities, his merchant fleet was laden with a diverse human cargo numbering close to fifty thousand souls – artisans, scholars, laborers, women, and children. Added to his thirty thousand Shadow Legionaries already on Skagos, he was laying the foundation for a significant hidden population.
He returned to Braavos as his war fleet neared completion. The twenty warships were magnificent, their dark hulls sleek and menacing, their freshly carved figureheads – snarling shadow-cats, stooping obsidian hawks, coiled basilisks – hinting at a fierce, predatory nature. The merchant fleet, now numbering over seventy vessels with his new acquisitions, was a testament to his purchasing power.
The final step before sailing north was to consolidate his command and ensure utter secrecy. The mercenary captains were summoned to his palazzo. In a chamber warded against all scrying and eavesdropping, Aelyx, as Lord Marr, offered them a new contract: permanent service, unimaginable wealth, and a place of honor in his new domain. The price was an unbreakable magical oath of fealty, an oath that Voldemort had perfected, which bound not just their actions but their very will to his. Most, seduced by the gold and the power radiating from Aelyx, agreed. Those few who hesitated found their memories of the entire transaction expertly Obliviated by Aelyx himself, their previous contracts paid off with a generous bonus, and themselves deposited discreetly outside Braavosi territory with no memory of Lord Marr or his fleet.
The enslaved sailors were offered a similar choice: swear loyalty and become free men within his service, or remain slaves, albeit well-treated ones. Most chose freedom and the oath.
As the last of the preparations were made, Mipsy gave him a report from Skagos. Icefang Keep's outer walls were complete. Shadowport was a bustling, fortified hub. The Shadow Legion maintained control, their training progressing, their numbers slowly augmented by the first Skagosi-born youths reaching military age. The hidden sanctuary deep in the mountains continued its slow, secret expansion.
Aelyx stood on the bridge of his new flagship, the Leviathan, a massive dromond with black sails and a figurehead of a colossal, many-tentacled kraken wrought in dark, polished wood. His war fleet and merchant armada, over ninety ships in total, stretched out behind him in the misty Braavosi dawn, a private navy bought with the spoils of a dead empire and the endless bounty of the Philosopher's Stone.
The Titan of Braavos watched them depart, its bronze face impassive. Aelyx did not look back. His gaze was fixed on the northern horizon. He had his fleets, he had his people, he had his hoard of dragon eggs. The world was still reeling from Valyria's demise, preoccupied with its own fractured ambitions. No one would look for a new power rising in the desolate, feared island of Skagos.
The Shadow Lord was sailing home, to his fortress in the ice and mist, to begin the true work of forging an eternal, hidden dynasty, a kingdom of sorcery and dragons that would outlast all the petty squabbles of Westeros and Essos. The game was afoot on a scale Lord Voldemort, in his narrow obsession with a single magical island, could never have conceived. And Aelyx, with Flamel's longevity and Valyria's stolen might, intended to play it for centuries to come.