Ago spared no effort with the horses. Three days later, they reached a satellite village belonging to Qarth. Dany and the others had not yet set out when a caravan of three hundred camels, all laden with supplies, headed toward White Cloud City.
Khal LS marched on for a full four days. Seven or eight dozen horses died along the way. The caravan nearly drank all their water and mare's milk dry before they finally encountered the camel caravan's scouts.
Thus, this relay that spanned a full thousand kilometers at last completed its handoff.
Dany finally relaxed and began to focus on her own troubles.
Between Mirri Maz Duur the maegi and the prophecy of this Dragon Seeker, Dany now fully understood one thing: aside from dragons, this world truly did possess magic and witchcraft.
She wanted to seek guidance from Quaithe.
As for why not a warlock—well, these past few days the merchant Xaro had been constantly whispering bad things about warlocks in Dany's ear.
"Warlocks did indeed have a period of great prosperity," Xaro said quietly to Dany when the other two guests were not present. "Back then, even the dragonlords of Valyria treated them with respect.
"But today is no longer the same. Those blue-lipped fellows are like feeble old soldiers in dockside taverns—boasting endlessly of past glory, having completely forgotten that power and skill have long since abandoned them.
"They hide in the House of Dust, reading rotten scrolls and sipping shade-of-the-evening until their lips turn blue, muttering hints that they still wield terrifying power. Compared to their predecessors, though, they're nothing but empty shells."
"And what about Quaithe?" she asked again.
"That woman…" A trace of awe flashed through the merchant's eyes as he muttered, "She comes from Asshai-by-the-Shadow. There's a saying: better to swallow a poisoned scorpion than to trust a child of the shadow. Her power only makes her more dangerous. Khaleesi, you must not believe her."
With that, Dany also figured out who it was that had foreseen her existence.
It wasn't the warlock Pyat Pree, who loved to prattle on about arcane mysteries and strange arts, but Quaithe—the one so low-key that people almost forgot she was there.
That woman was not simple.
Finding an opportunity, Dany urged her camel closer to the woman wearing the lacquered wooden mask and asked softly, "Quaithe, do you understand the art of prophecy?"
Now that she had a camel to ride, Dany naturally freed her little silver mare.
Quaithe wore not only a wooden mask but also a wrap of desert cloth around her head. She turned her head toward Dany, but it was impossible to see her eyes or expression.
"Daenerys, in Asshai, people do not use the title 'miss,'" she said in a clear, cool voice.
"All right then, Mage Quaithe," Dany pressed on smoothly. "Can you predict whether I'll be able to bear another child in the future? Sigh… my poor Rhaego. That maegi named Mirri cursed me, saying my womb would never again bear life."
As she spoke, moisture welled in her eyes, and she turned her head aside in sorrow.
Quaithe paused for a moment, then finally said something that made Dany cheer inwardly.
"Cast aside your past grief. Greater matters await you in the future. As for children… alas, I cannot foresee such things."
"Why not?" Dany asked. "You've never even met me, yet you knew I hatched dragons and remained in White Cloud City." She seemed unwilling to let others see her reddened eyes and pulled the silk scarf from her neck, wrapping it several times around her head.
Quaithe said, "Prophecy is a kind of magic that is difficult to grasp. When the Bleeding Star appeared, I sensed that magic was rapidly reviving, like a tide surging against coastal cities.
"So I opened my eyes and tried to see the world clearly—the world in its truest essence. And I saw you, on the wasteland, taming dragons. Now do you understand?"
"Not really," Dany admitted honestly.
"Mortals fear and slander magic and sorcery, but in truth, they are forms of wisdom that ordinary people are unqualified to learn. At its core, it is as simple and clear as knowing the sun will rise when you see the eastern horizon dyed crimson." Quaithe looked at Dany, as if asking whether she understood now.
"Then maybe I'm just an ordinary person without the qualification to grasp that kind of wisdom," Dany said with a bitter smile. She still didn't quite get it.
"Hehehe… can an ordinary person make the tides of magic surge across the world once more?" Quaithe actually laughed.
Then she explained for the third time. "I see the eastern sky flush red, so I know the sun will rise. If I cannot see it, or choose not to look, then I know nothing.
"What you call prophecy is merely the world displaying information before my eyes. I look, and thus I know.
"As for whether you can bear children again in the future—information related to that has never appeared. It cannot be gathered, cannot be inferred. So I do not know."
This time, Dany more or less understood. Prophecy was a bit like big data analysis—except that, in addition to collecting and organizing information themselves, prophets also received vague messages from the world's consciousness in unseen ways.
Dragons brought magic back into this world. Their influence was immense, like roaring tides. Thus, Quaithe could clearly see the "waves," and through them, the source above the surf—Dany and her dragons.
As for children, perhaps they would have a great impact on the future, but at present, the "tide" had yet to stir.
Before Quaithe's eyes, the sea was calm and unruffled.
Unless there existed a greater being, whose sight could pierce the waters and see the raging undercurrents of the ocean's depths.
For example—the greenseers.
"Can you teach me knowledge of magic?" Dany asked, looking at Quaithe with hopeful eyes.
"Yes," Quaithe replied swiftly, in a tone that said I've been waiting for you to ask. "You may come with me to Asshai. There, you will find all the knowledge you need."
Dany hesitated—and suddenly woke up to the truth: no one is kind to you without reason, unless they love you.
Clearly, Quaithe did not love her. So who did she love?
Her dragons.
"I am Daenerys Stormborn of Dragonstone, and restoring the Targaryen dynasty is my duty and my destiny. My goal lies in the west—in Westeros. I cannot head south when my road is west."
At this moment, she was not fighting alone. Murong Fu stood with her.
Murong Fu said he would restore Great Yan—who could doubt him?
Naturally, Quaithe believed her as well.
Thus, she returned to her former taciturn silence, as if the moment Dany refused to go to Asshai, she ceased to matter.
With Quaithe's path blocked, Dany had no choice but to seek a backup.
"Great Warlock," she asked loudly this time, without restraint or waiting for others to leave. As everyone finished eating and prepared to rest, she spoke up directly. "I've heard that magical incantations are a special language independent of ordinary speech. Is that true?"
The warlock Pyat Pree greatly enjoyed talking with Dany. Aside from praising Qarth's greatness and prosperity, he loved recounting strange wizard tales whose truth was hard to judge.
Hearing her question, he said happily, "Khaleesi, you possess both the courage and wisdom to explore mysterious knowledge. Yes, this world has many professions tied to mysterious power—Shadowbinders, warlocks, alchemists, moon chanters, red-robed monks, dark arcanists, necromancers, sky mages, pyromancers, blood witches, torturers, inquisitor knights, poisoners, priestesses, night walkers, skinchangers…"
The great warlock rattled off dozens of magical professions in one breath. Dany's mouth fell open as she listened, utterly stunned.
Was this really the low-magic, low-martial A Song of Ice and Fire world?
Or had she somehow arrived on the continent of Faerûn, in a "Baldur's Gate"?
Pyat Pree caught his breath and continued, "Valyria, where your ancestors hailed from, also had its own system of blood magic. Essentially, every mystical system that truly possesses power has its own magical language—that is, its own incantations."
"Then why doesn't everyone use the same system of incantations?" Dany asked, puzzled.
"Well…" The warlock's blue lips parted hesitantly. "Perhaps because each school of magic originated in a different place. Like us warlocks and the Valyrian blood witches—two different civilizations, two different languages."
That was complete nonsense. Even if two civilizations were separated by a hundred thousand light-years, the physical formulas they discovered would be identical. In their math classes, it would still be "1 + 1 = 2." Truth might not be eternal, but it must share common ground—nothing like the arbitrariness he described.
Unless they had never grasped the truth at all—unless their incantations failed to touch the essence of the world, making them nothing more than fraudulent tricks.
As if sensing Dany's thoughts, Quaithe spoke up.
"What is this?" she asked, holding a piece of wood toward Dany.
It was simply a short, yellow-brown rod, its surface polished smooth.
Dany honestly described what she saw.
Quaithe nodded, then turned her palm toward Jorah. "What is this?"
"A man?" Jorah answered uncertainly.
Quaithe nodded again and turned her palm a third time, toward the Dothraki handmaiden Irri. "What is this?"
"A… a woman?" Irri said weakly, casting a fearful glance at the Shadowbinder.
When Quaithe turned her palm toward Ago, he said it was a lion.
Finally, Quaithe fully opened her palm. In the torchlight, they could see a small, exquisite wooden carving standing upright on her pale hand: one body with three heads—a short-haired warrior roaring in rage, a long-haired woman with a gentle face, and a male lion baring its fangs.
Now Dany understood. Earlier, Quaithe had only shown each person a part of the carving, so the four of them had reached four different conclusions.
"Do you understand now?" Quaithe's wooden mask faced Dany, reflecting flickering red light in the fire's glow.
"Even the greatest mage cannot grasp the whole of truth," Dany nodded.
Simply put, it was the wizarding world's version of blind men touching an elephant.
Jorah suddenly asked, "Great Warlock, the skinchangers you mentioned earlier—are they the same as the Children of the Forest?"
Every Northerner grew up on terrifying stories of skinchangers. They might never have heard of moon chanters or sky mages, but skinchangers were as unforgettable as the tale of the Rat Cook.
"Once?" The warlock shook his head and laughed. "Andal, I understand your thinking. The Children of the Forest are legends. Skinchangers are legends. The world is just as your maesters wish it to be—without a trace of miraculous power."
"They've been gone for thousands of years," Jorah frowned.
"They have never disappeared," Quaithe said coldly. "They were only deliberately isolated and forgotten by you. When I left Asshai and traveled west in search of destiny, I once purchased potion ingredients from a skinchanger. His hawk could pluck red lotus flowers from the peaks of mountains."
"All the skinchangers went to Asshai?" Jorah exclaimed, then let out a great sigh of relief, as if thinking, All the monsters are gone—how nice.
Dany, however, could not remain calm. She clearly remembered that A Song of Ice and Fire explicitly stated that skinchangers belonged exclusively to the Old Gods.
How could there be skinchangers outside of Westeros?
...
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(End Chapter)