We were quite a bit late to the ship, and we barely had time to get used before the plank was pulled, the anchor weighed, and we set sail.
When I spoke to the gruff captain, a wind-scarred man by the name of Jarak of Feastfires, he informed me our first port would come just the next day, when we would stop at Crakehall for a few hours to wait for a Lannister carrack that would serve as our escort for the rest of the trip to prepare itself.
I didn't know whether to be flattered or worried Tywin had decided to send a ship to escort me back home. Apparently, it wasn't even going to be one of the carracks I bought, as those would be taken to Tarth at a later time.
The only explanation I could imagine was that the cog's crew, small as it were, with only seventeen crewmen and three officers from what I heard, still needed to be ferried back home somehow.
I was still thinking how curious the whole thing was when I opened the door to my quarters.
As a noble and the new master of this ship, I was to be given the captain's rooms for the trip. The three lads, passing as guardsmen, would bunk below with the crew. No doubt Jack would be skimming them off their hard won coin in a game of dice as soon as he could.
So it's no surprise I froze when I saw the yellow-haired man splayed across my would-be cot, while half the room was littered with gold-lined, lion-infested chests and trunks up to the ceiling.
My mouth flopped for a few seconds before I found my voice. "Ser Gerion?"
Lazy green eyes rose from the lines of a leather-bound book gaze at me. "Oh, if it isn't Ser Sapphire. What a lovely surprise. Can I help you with anything?"
I gave him a strange look. "Shouldn't I be asking you that? Are you, perhaps, coming to Tarth with us?"
"I always wanted to visit your fair isle," he said with a shrug.
"Truly?"
Gerion Lannister smirked. "No, not particularly," he said cuttingly, like he couldn't help himself. As if catching his own tone, he closed his book, sat up, and gave me a more neutral look. "I've been there already, Ser Galladon. It's a beautiful place. Quaint, aye, but charming, so do not take it as an insult."
I sighed. I couldn't care less what a pompous, gold-obsessed Lannister fourth son thought of Tarth. What I really wanted was a good bed to sleep off my pounding headache.
He seemed to notice my forlorn look. "Don't worry, lad, I'm not taking it from you for good. King's Landing is my destination. On my lord brother's task, of course, so I'll be transferring over to the other ship once we stop at Crakehall."
I left quietly after that.
I might have made a fuss were it anyone else, as I already held the deed to the ship in my name, but the crew wore Lannister red and not the quartered sun and crescent of Tarth. No need to upset the proud lions quite yet.
The arrangement turned out not as bad as I expected. I slept through most of the day, uncaring about the strange smell of the bunk I found myself in, and that evening, Ser Gerion invited me to dine with him in the captain's quarters.
Besides having an arrogant streak I had simply come to associate with anyone having the Lannister name, the man was not half-bad company. We ended up spending most of the night drinking expensive arbor gold, playing terrible games of cyvasse, and speaking about all the faraway places we had dreamed of visiting.
From cold Ibben to cursed Asshai-by-the-Shadow, from beyond the Wall to the dense jungles of Sothoryos; we traded stories we had read from books, heard from bards, or got from passing traders stopping at our home ports.
When he casually mentioned a burning desire to find the lost Valyrian sword, Brightroar, I almost laughed at him. It was like a light bulb had gone off in my mind. I had completely forgotten he'd died in his ill-fated voyage more than a decade from now.
Dissuading him came first to my mind, but I figured he wouldn't care what some storm lordling had to say about it either way. Instead, I told him that, if he wanted a pointier sword so bad, he could simply march down the Ocean Road, cross the Mander, fight off half the Reach, then put Horn Hill to siege and pry off Heartsbane from Lord Randyll Tarly's cold dead fingers.
It would still be a far safer endeavor than venturing into the deadly water of Old Valyria
He took that as the joke that it was, but I hoped I had planted at least a seed of doubt in his mind. I wouldn't want a man I shared a table with dying a horrible death in some misbegotten foreign land.
xxx
The Dutiful Man
His master had been clear in their instructions.
Follow the Tarth boy into the city. Note down the ship's name, flag, and frame. He was to tally how many guards the boy would be taking for the trip, and how many men crewed the ship.
Twenty. He counted twice to be sure. The boy and his men made four and twenty.
His flat black eyes rarely missed much. Much could be said about the man. Much that was not flattering. He was not a good man, he knew that. To make a living, he had done terrible things to terrible people, and terrible things to good people. He did not enjoy doing those things, but he did them anyway.
He was a dutiful man. A loyal man. His master was fair to him, and he would thus do his duty by them.
So as the Fair Wind sailed away from Lannisport, its fat belly skimming through the calm waves of the Sunset Sea, a raven flew back home with a lengthy note attached to its leg.
The raven would cross the Western Hills, follow the Gold Road east, then turn south over the Tumbleton Heights and further beyond.
The raven was not the first bird to be sent back about the Tarth boy. Many a message and correspondence had been issued from the Westerlands by his master's own hands to their other servants back at their home.
This would be the last one.
When the message arrived, its contents would be passed along to the right hands. For once, the dutiful man was glad his job was simply taking down notes. The bad things—the terrible things his master planned, those would be done by other men. Less dutiful, perhaps, but no less competent men.
Bowing his head slightly, the dutiful man said a prayer to the Seven. This one in particular he dedicated to the Stranger.
For as was his master's will, the Tarth boy and his ship would not be making it home.
xxx
The Maid
The Maid woke to a thunderstorm.
She rose, confused. The hearth by her bed had gone cold, the fire guttering out at some point in the night. Her shutter was cracked open by a finger's width, and a brisk, hissing wind blew across the room.
It was cold. Cold and dark.
She shivered. Gooseflesh covered her arms and legs under her shift. Why did she awake? She had not been dreaming. The Maid never dreamt. Her sleep was a short, fitful thing. Yet she felt as if she had almost grasped at something just now.
Her brows furrowed. Had she imagined it?
Sleepless, she left her room toward the only place that could bring her a semblance of peace. The halls of the tower were dark at this hour. She had ordered no light be lit past dusk. She moved by touch, feeling her way across walls. The stonework was old here, older than memory, and she knew its cracks like the lines in her palms.
Lightning flashed purple across the sky. For a moment, the shadows in the hall lengthened like black, reaching arms. The world shook and pealed as the thunder rolled in. High in her tower, the stones seemed to rumble with the storm.
It took her no more than five minutes to arrive in the solar. It had been her father's once, but she had taken it over when she was twelve. He had given up finding an answer. The Maid had not.
The room was long and narrow, with two tables running lengthwise at the very center. Books covered the walls like bricks, stacked neatly atop each other, leather-bound, hide-bound, skin-bound. Old scrolls and artifacts that had once been strange to her littered the tables. She knew them near by heart, now. Her own notebooks filled a corner of the room, proof of her tireless work these past four years.
The Maid spent more time here than anywhere else, hunched over a book or several, reading and studying under candlelight. This time, however, it wasn't a normal candle she looked at.
The fire above the tall, twisted black candle did not waver when a draft whistled from the open door. Its strange light suffused the room, shifting dull colors into dazzling hues and turning shadows into something so dark it seemed she was looking into an abyss.
Her breath caught in her throat. She had never seen the candle lit, only read about, thought about it, obsessed about it. Before she could help herself, she had crossed the room in a rush, stopping close enough she could feel the heat of the candle.
The steady fire was bright, so bright it hurt to look, but it called to her like the gleam of gold to a thief. Uncaring, the Maid looked into the fire, and in it, saw a Titan.
xxx
AN: This marks the official end of the first arc of the story—the Lannisport Tournament arc. Going forward, I'll try to be more concise and not let arcs drag on for too long. Chapters will be a bit longer on average too.
On to bigger and deadlier things, then. I'm really, really excited about what's coming.
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