In the absolute silence of the secret tunnels, where the air smelled of ancient stone and the dust of centuries, Varys moved like a ghost in his own home. Only the yellow glow of a lantern in his plump hand carved out his round silhouette, casting a dancing shadow that seemed larger than the man himself. He arrived at one of his many hidden alcoves, a small, spartan office, far from the loud intrigues of the Red Keep. It was here that he truly thought.
On the dark wooden table rested an object he enjoyed contemplating lately. A short crossbow, matte black, with a complex mechanism and a deadly beauty. A "Widowmaker." One of his "little birds" had retrieved one, going to great trouble to do so; in fact, he had even died for it. Varys caressed it with his fingertips, a touch as light as a feather. The steel was cold, precise. Soulless. And yet, so revealing of the soul that had created it.
"Ah, Tony." A small smile, invisible in the gloom, stretched his pale lips.
It had all begun innocuously. An unremarkable trip to Myr by Oberyn Martell. A young slave belonging to a cruel and unimportant master. His survival and escape during a slave revolt. And finally, worming his way onto Oberyn Martell's ship, landing in King's Landing. A footnote, nothing more. He had tasked a little bird in Flea Bottom with keeping an eye on him. Just in case.
And what a surprise it had been. The boy hadn't just survived in Flea Bottom. He had thrived. The rat traps, amusing. The takeover of a gang of children, precocious. The war against Groleau... there, curiosity had turned to interest. The massacre in Weavers' Alley was methodical, ruthless. And then this... (he tapped the crossbow). This was no longer craftsmanship. It was engineering. A deadly engineering, found nowhere else, not even in Essos, and Gods knew his agents had looked.
No, such an element could not be allowed to develop without being probed. A complete outsider, with no allegiance, no known history, growing like a strange, poisonous flower in the garden of the realm. What did he want? Gold? He was minting mountains of it while barely a fortnight old, it seemed. Power? He was taking it, discreetly. Vengeance? Against whom? His motivations were a closed book.
And a closed book, in Varys's game, was an intolerable danger. Especially since, for a child, his knowledge bordered more on sorcery than anything else, and he did not tolerate that practice.
So, he had done what any good spider would do. He had gently tested the prey. He had not acted out of malice, "oh no, never."
He had acted for the good of the realm. A little nudge to the greed of Lord Rosby, whose cough was matched only by his anxiety over lost profits. A suggestion whispered in the ear of zealous Septons about the "impiety" of those smoking factories. A few coins to encourage a band of sellswords to test the security of that oh-so-rich convoy, through Rosby. Simple tests. To see how the prey would react to adversity. Would it break? Would it bend?
Varys sat, his silk robe gliding silently over the stool. The prey had neither broken nor bent. It had struck back. And how.
The report from the Kingswood ambush had given him chills, a feeling he hadn't experienced in years. Eighty hardened sellswords, annihilated. Not by an army, but by three wagons. Machines bursting from the roofs, spitting fire and steel at an infernal rate. A butchery where honor had no place. His agents, lost in the operation trying to get to the bottom of it, were a regrettable but necessary cost. The boy had an arsenal.
In the flickering candlelight, Varys studied the map unrolled on the table. A red dot now marked the Hollard lands—that wound that had festered after the failure of the Kingswood ambush. A city built from scratch in barely six months. A city with no lord, no royal seal, no blessing from the Seven. A city of steel and fire, sprung from nothingness as a challenge to the very laws of Westeros. And that was precisely why he had been forced to act.
Seven hundred men. An army of shadows, raised without banner or war cry, assembled under a thousand pretexts and a thousand purses. The Septons spoke of purifying a mechanical heresy, a place where soot replaced incense and where labor blasphemed prayer. The landed knights believed they were defending the order threatened by this lordless city, Dontos being a drunken puppet. The merchants, ruined by the boy's inventions, hoped to restore their lost monopolies. As for Lord Rosby and a few other worried nobles, they had seen in his call only a way to protect their lands and their profits. No one knew the hand that tied these disparate interests together. No one, except Varys.
If the attack had succeeded. Before the small council, he would have justified it in a soft, reasonable voice. A simple security measure, he would have said, against disturbing rumors: experimental weapons, missing men, caravans attacked on the bay road, alchemists and sorcerers from beyond the Narrow Sea who had poisoned Ser Dontos with their magic. The King, distracted by his internal squabbles and his debts, would have seen only a law-and-order operation organized by lords worried about their domains, wanting to protect the King's Peace. The Maesters would speak of a plague nest successfully eradicated, the Septons of a den of witchcraft purged with extreme prejudice. And no one would know that at the heart of it all was a boy—an inventor with no lineage—whose only crime was possessing knowledge that shamed maesters and nobles alike.
But alas, the failure was even more spectacular than the botched ambush. His agents in Val-Engrenage, aside from the sounds of distant explosions, had reported nothing substantial. Tony's men had let no one escape, and the area was sealed; only chosen men could move within the zone. But one thing was certain: the army was annihilated, proving the boy was also a remarkable commander, even if his methods remained obscure.
Only the poisoning of his allies in King's Landing, a more subtle test of his internal security, had been half-successful. However, the response had not been long in coming. Six deaths, as soon as he made his swift return, but above all, a purge. A purge of chilling efficiency. In one week, all the weak links, all the intermediaries, all those who could, however remotely, be traced back to him, had vanished. The boy was as ruthless in counter-espionage as he was in engineering.
And the masterstroke... Tyrion Lannister. Instead of cowering, instead of seeking blind vengeance, the boy had analyzed, and played a masterstroke. He had gone to the one man in King's Landing whose intelligence could rival his own, and whose name offered formidable protection. He had used the Imp's gold as a shield, turning a potential threat into an unlikely ally. An alliance between the ghost of Flea Bottom and the Scion of Casterly Rock... The board had just shifted dramatically.
Varys sighed, a barely audible sound. The test was over. The result was clear: Tony was no longer a pawn to be probed. He was a player. A major player, unpredictable, and now, dangerously connected. He could no longer attack him from all sides without risking their exchanges being brought into the light. Eliminating the boy was one thing, but letting the Usurper and his minions get their hands on him or his tools was unacceptable.
And the old tools? Lord Rosby, and that little cabal of minor nobles and zealous priests? They had become liabilities. Failures. Rabid dogs that had not only failed to bite but had drawn attention to his web. They were now a nuisance. Above all, they were a link, however tenuous, back to him.
Let Tony deal with them himself? Varys caressed his powdered cheek. No. That would be a mistake. If the boy attacked nobles, even fools like Rosby, it would create a scandal. It would draw the attention of the Hand, the King, Tywin Lannister. The boy would be forced to reveal himself, or be crushed. And all that potential... industrial, military... would be lost, or worse, fall into the wrong hands. No, the boy must not dirty his hands with noble blood. For no matter the reason, a noble is always right in the eyes of his peers. The death of Rosby and his ilk would cause more waves than that of a thousand Flea Bottom gutter rats. And besides, Tony had checked him several times; he couldn't just let him have this victory. The advantage he would gain from it would give him too much confidence all at once.
He would have to clean up his own soiled tools. It was cleaner. Quieter. And more advantageous for him at this stage.
Varys rose. He moved to a wall alcove, concealed behind a tapestry depicting the Doom of Valyria. He took out a small vial containing an amber liquid. Not a fast-acting poison, no. Just enough to... aggravate an existing condition. Poor Lord Rosby and his cough... such a sudden tragedy. It would be a mercy. For the Septon, an "accident" in a dark alley, so ironic. For the others... his little birds would find suitable solutions. Financial ruin, an embarrassing scandal... death was not always the most effective answer.
He prepared a small scroll. He was not going to meet the boy. Not yet. But he would let him know. A message, delivered through an impenetrable channel.
He would tell him, in chosen words, that the threats hanging over him had been... taken care of. That the realm needed stability, and that disruptive elements, whether noble or common, could not be tolerated. He would make him understand that his enterprise, his genius for organization and innovation, was more useful to the realm than the vain quarrels of these old families. He would offer him his tacit protection, presenting himself as the discreet manager of the shadows, the one who does the dirty work so the realm may prosper.
And in return? A debt. An implicit debt, but a very real one. "I have spared you the burden of killing nobles, young man. A burden that would have crushed you when your ascent is only just beginning. You are indebted to me."
Varys returned to his table, the enigmatic smile back on his lips. The Tony-Lannister alliance was a new challenge. But it was manageable. The boy was a wild force, a powerful gear spinning out of all control. But even the most powerful gear needs an axle. And Varys excelled at becoming that axle. He would guide this new power, let it clean the dirty corners of the board for him, all while keeping it under subtle influence. The realm, above all. His realm. His vision.
The game continued.