Chapter 337: Slaver's Bay (Part I)
The eight-hundred-foot Great Pyramid soared from its majestic square base, piercing the clouds. The Queen's terrace sat at its apex, surrounded by lush greenery, fragrant flowers, and shimmering pools. From here, one could look down upon the entire city: the narrow, winding alleys and broad brick streets; temples and granaries; hovels and palaces; brothels and bathhouses; gardens and fountains; and the concentric red-brick tiers of the Great Pit of Daznak. Beyond the city walls lay the ashen sea, the meandering Skahazadhan River, parched brown hills, scorched orchards, and blackened fields.
The Queen's high sanctuary felt like the peak of a holy mountain, yet it lacked its Queen, housing only a worried and anxious Hand.
Even Petyr Baelish had to admit the limits of his own intellect.
He had appeared before Daenerys and pledged his service the very day she took Meereen. At that time, starving masses from Yunkai and Astapor who had followed the Queen to this place were flooding into Slaver's Bay's largest city, looting and killing amidst the chaos of its fall. The noble families' majestic stepped pyramids had largely escaped the brunt of it, but the common quarters were devastated. Though the Unsullied eventually stabilized the situation, it took all of Petyr's skill—using both carrot and stick—to restore order, barely managing to implement his strategy of driving the tiger to swallow the wolf to establish a functional rule.
This was no easy feat. In Westeros, he moved like a fish in water, aided not only by his sharp mind, meticulous planning, and a complete lack of moral boundaries, but also by his deep understanding of the high lords and the fact that everyone underestimated Littlefinger.
In Meereen, this viper's nest, he no longer had his low birth as a primary shield. He was out in the open, under constant scrutiny, and his hidden enemies were capable of being even more unscrupulous than he. He had to keep every nerve taut; he handled state affairs by day and slept with one eye open by night. In this environment, for the first time since his awakening, Petyr had no spare energy for personal schemes. Instead, he poured all his experience and wit into protecting the interests of his liege.
Fueling his resolve was a burning rage, a desire to help Daenerys Targaryen fight her way back to Westeros and exact revenge on the Tullys, the Arryns, the Lannisters... on everyone who had once despised him, mocked him, judged him, and betrayed him. One day, he would rule the Seven Kingdoms in the Queen's name from the Iron Throne. He would investigate the Note Incident that had ruined him and forced him into exile, and he would take the head of every participant to mount on a spike atop the walls of the Red Keep!
That was the distant future. For now, he had to be a diligent Hand of the Queen.
Meereen's new nobility soon buckled under the pressure of his combined tactics, and the city began to function under the banner of the dragon, steadily producing the resources and armaments needed for its defense and Daenerys's eventual invasion of Westeros. Unfortunately, this was perhaps the only good news since Petyr had boarded the ship of the Last Targaryen.
The willful and young Queen had conquered Astapor and Yunkai before arriving at Meereen, but due to poor management, she had left a trail of disasters in her wake that he now had to clean up.
Astapor: When Daenerys left, she installed a council of three—a healer, a scholar, and a priest—but never considered if they had the skill to rule, nor did she leave them enough military force to protect themselves. Predictably, the council was soon overthrown and executed by a butcher named Cleon. This former slave, whose speed at slaughtering pigs was unrivaled, superficially abolished slavery but essentially became a new slaver king. The Butcher King seized the children of the former nobility and began training a new generation of Unsullied. Every pyramid in Astapor became a barracks; the streets were filled with death and lies, and the shops held little food but were teeming with slaves. Compared to before Daenerys arrived, it had become more like hell.
Yunkai: Relying on a few clever ruses and a timely betrayal, the Queen had taken the city with ease. Perhaps because the victory came too easily, she did not cherish it. Daenerys neither drained its resources nor established a new order; she didn't even deal with the ruling Wise Masters. She simply added countless freedmen to her train who needed feeding and hurried to her next destination. Worse still, as soon as she left, the Yunkai slavers resumed their rule, now viewing her as their greatest threat. They sent envoys to Volantis, Qarth, and other Free Cities to spread rumors about her, gathering allies for a counter-offensive.
Cruelty where mercy was needed, and mercy where cruelty was required—this was classic political naivety. But given that Daenerys was a novice queen, Petyr had little room to complain.
After much maneuvering, the newborn Dragon Queen's regime managed to find its footing under his guidance, surviving its most perilous infancy.
But the true challenge soon arrived. After Yunkai regrouped its slave soldiers and sellswords, allied with the legions of New Ghis to retake Astapor, Meereen faced an armed intervention by the combined forces of the slavers and the Volantene fleet. Petyr integrated all resources within and without the city, forming an alliance with the Lhazareen (the "Lamb Men" of the stony hills) and reorganizing the Unsullied, mercenaries, and refugees into a new Meereenese army. He even sent troops to prevent more refugees from the south from flooding in and bringing famine and plague.
Despite his best efforts, the disparity in strength remained vast. Ultimately, Daenerys accepted his advice to use negotiation and compromise to reach a peace with the opponents she had once had the chance to crush.
Thus, a deal was struck: the restored slave-cities of Astapor and Yunkai would respect the liberation of Meereen. In return, Meereen would respect the institutions of the former two; allow those in the city who wished to return to slavery to leave; open its ports to the trade ships of the Free Cities and Slaver's Bay; and provide compensation to the former Great Masters of Meereen.
In this manner, a fragile peace was achieved. Yunkai, having used the Queen's hand to eliminate its two main rivals, became the monopoly holder of the Slaver's Bay slave trade—the biggest winner of this farce of liberation.
However, as if to guard against Daenerys breaking her word, Yunkai's army remained stationed south of Meereen, and their warships stayed in the harbor. Whether out of necessity or pure humiliation, the slavers set up slave pens and auction blocks outside the city walls, right under the noses of the Meereenese garrison, reopening the slave market.
One wall, two worlds!
"They mock me to my face, showing the world that I am powerless to stop them."
Beyond the walls, the yellow tents of the slavers stretched to the horizon. There were the disciplined Iron Legions of New Ghis, Ghiscari levies, and numerous sellsword companies camped behind trenches dug by slaves. This sight undoubtedly stirred the blood of the dragon. Daenerys looked down upon this scene, swearing a furious oath that one day she would defeat the provocateurs and crush slavery forever.
Logically, this shouldn't be difficult: after all, the Queen possessed the most famous and powerful biological weapons in the world—three dragons. They were indeed growing, but the problem was that Daenerys did not know how to control them.
The three dragons had grown from the size of kittens to over ten feet long. As their bodies grew, so did their appetites. At some point, Daenerys could no longer feed them with morsels held between her slender fingers; likewise, they had begun to hunt for themselves... sheep, cattle... and reportedly, humans.
To prevent the increasingly feral dragons from causing further catastrophe, Daenerys decided to imprison them. Viserion was the first; his mother personally led him into a deep pit where he was left with several bulls. Once he was sated and drowsy, soldiers rushed in to chain him. Rhaegal took more effort; soldiers had to trap him with heavy iron nets while he basked on the Queen's terrace, and it took three days to stumble him down the servants' stairs. Six men were burned in the process.
But Drogon—the winged shadow, the largest, fiercest, and most wild of the three, with scales like night and eyes like hellfire... the soldiers sent by the Queen failed three times to capture him. On the twilight of the final, disastrous attempt, he spread his wings and flew north over the Skahazadhan, toward the Dothraki Sea.
Two dragons imprisoned, one missing. This outcome made Petyr frown deeply. If dragons, unseen for a century, were a burden rather than an asset, did Daenerys truly intend to retake Westeros with nothing but Unsullied? In the name of the Hand, he issued new orders: collect information on dragon-riding and dragonlore from every possible source to help the Queen control these weapons of mass destruction.
It was an act of goodwill for the greater good, devoid of personal motive; Petyr even personally spearheaded the operation. Unfortunately, the art of dragon-taming had been lost with the Doom of Valyria. After offering bounties and searching widely, he found no legendary dragon-binding spells, but he did narrow down three locations where such knowledge might still exist.
First, the ruins of Valyria itself. The Doom had killed all Valyrians in its wake, but it hadn't completely destroyed the peninsula; perhaps in some corner of a ruin, scrolls remained, waiting to be found.
Second, Dragonstone and the libraries of King's Landing in Westeros. As the last Valyrian family to breed and control dragons, any place the Targaryens had long inhabited might hold clues—provided Robert Baratheon hadn't ordered them destroyed.
Finally, rumors of unknown origin: in the far southeast of the known world, in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, it was said that not only was there comprehensive knowledge of dragon-riding, but living dragons might still exist.
The ruins of Valyria were said to be haunted by monsters and demons, fraught with danger; King's Landing and Dragonstone were under enemy control. The impulsive Queen, perhaps in a moment of reckless heat during one of the black dragon's brief returns, ignored the cries and warnings of her advisors. Before the eyes of the city, she leaped onto Drogon's back and flew east, seeking the true knowledge of dragon-riding.
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