Paradosi
patreon
A Song of Blackjack and Hookers (chapter 17)
🕑 Added 2025-04-05 19:30:54 +0000 UTCDaenerys
The small and salt-stained cabin had become as familiar to her as her own thoughts on their journey to Dorne. Still, she tried not to let said thoughts wander as she sat with Viserys on the bed and listened to Maegon Laessaryon speak of Valyria of old.
The Volantene nobleman had a soft voice, one made even softer by his speaking to them in High Valyrian, and sometimes there seemed a great sadness in his eyes that made her sad as well, though she still loved his stories.
She glanced at the sorcerer, his back and head propped against one of the cabin's walls, his eyes closed. For all it seemed he was asleep, Dany knew that wasn't true. He was always listening, always watching even when his eyes were not turned on them.
The knowing had left a lingering worry in her heart at what he planned for them in spite of the great kindness he had shown them, but not her brother. It had only taken a few short days for Viserys to be consumed by the vision the sorcerer had laid out for him. That he would ride Balerion the Black Dread come again and be a king the smallfolk would still speak fondly of a thousand years from now.
Which wasn't to say that she completely misliked this change in her brother, for he had become kinder, more thoughtful. Even now he listened to Maegon more intently than herself.
"The lorekeepers of Volantis say Oros was much like Myr in the way Tyria was much like Tyrosh. The rainbow city it was known as, for it had gardens where the flowers and the trees were all glass, and even some of its towers were made wholly of dragonglass."
Dany tried to imagine it, a city that had rainbows dancing across its streets during the day, or a garden without the sweet scents of flowers but a treat for the eyes instead.
"There was also Faelar in the east. It brought the wealth of the world to Valyria and the wealth of Valyria to the world. It was said its docks could hold a thousand ships with room to spare." A wry smile took his lips. "Though of course none of them could compare to Valyria herself. Then the dragonlords numbered forty families that counted hundreds of dragons to their name. One can only imagine the vastness of a city that had to cater to them all."
Her eyes ghosted to the chest that lay in the corner of the cabin, the one Solomon had cursed with a tithe of their blood and his own. When she had dared to ask if he feared the ironborn might try to steal the eggs, he had only told her 'just in case' with a funny smile.
"And yet Valyria for all her might had never conquered the Sunset Kingdoms," the same man whispered, his eyes still closed.
"That is true," Maegon agreed. "There are many thoughts as to why, and I am unsure which is the most compelling."
"It cannot be military might," her brother argued. "The Conqueror and his sisters took the Seven Kingdoms with only three dragons. If Valyria commanded hundreds of dragons, surely it would not even have been a contest."
"Perhaps Aegon found a most opportune time," the sorcerer suggested. "Or perhaps it was a poisoned chalice he drank, for not even two centuries had passed that the dragons had gone."
Dany frowned at the thought. Would it only happen again were they to succeed?
"I can see you are confused," he continued. Though that he said it with his eyes closed made it seem a jest. "The day Aegon's reign began, every power in the realm from lords high and low to the Citadel and the Faith had reason to see his dragons dead. And yet he still played their game, tried to win them over, not knowing that the game had already been lost. The fifth Aegon at least thought to win the smallfolk, who only ever cared for peace and plenty. A shame then that Summerhall had—"
He paused, the room turning silent. Maegon was the first to break it. "Solomon?"
The sorcerer's eyes opened. "We have guests."
Guests? On a ship? He had left the cabin before she or her brother could ask, and they nervously followed.
Outside, he was already at Lady Greyjoy's side as she looked at the sea with a Myrish spyglass. "I see it," she muttered. "It's the Valyrian. Salladhor Saan is almost certainly on it." She fiddled with the spyglass thoughtfully. "He and I have an understanding." Her black eyes found them. "I do not know how much good that will do if he sees a prize as us."
"What do you suggest?" Solomon asked as Dany tugged at her newly dyed blue locks nervously.
Lady Greyjoy gave a queer kind of laugh. "I've never had the trouble of having too much treasure, but I suppose the gods would have there be a first time for everything." The Myrish spyglass was folded away. "I have a good idea of how Saan thinks. If we refuse his hails, he will have more traps waiting for us. Though with your bird, perhaps we might avoid them."
He stared out into the sea for a time.
"I think it best if we found out why he is so intent on a conversation," he finally said, cutting through the tense atmosphere. "And if he is set against us, I have a thought or two on how to make him reconsider. A pirate only has friends when it is convenient to him in the end."
As the ship neared, Dany could tell it was maybe twice the size of the Black Wind if not more, with too many oars for her to count.
The man that soon stepped upon the deck with two of his men on either side was not the queerest sight she had ever seen, but it was still a queer one. Atop his head sat a starkly green cap decorated with peacock feathers, and a sash of the same color around his waist, holding together a silver ensemble.
He gave a bow to Lady Greyjoy, his eyes glancing between them all. They eventually settled on Solomon as he spoke to them in heavily accented Common, "Solomon the Magnificent, yes? Your reputation precedes you much like Salladhor Saan's does."
"You have spoken to an old friend, I see. A knight of onions."
The pirate was close enough now that she could see his eyes were lilac. They flashed with something uncertain for the briefest moment at the words. "Perhaps I have. An old man should have many friends." His eyes had turned upon Maegon. "Another new addition to your crew, Greyjoy? However did you acquire the services of one of the Old Blood of Volantis?"
"Maegon of House Laessaryon," the Volantene nobleman introduced himself. "And these are my niece and nephew from Tyrosh. I admit it is all something of a story that we are here."
The beady black eyes of the man on this Salladhor Saan's left lingered on her longer than she liked.
Saan soon grinned at them, showing that half his teeth were false. "Then I must hear it! I see no reason why we must proceed to dull business so quickly." He motioned to his ship behind him grandly. "You will join me aboard my Valyrian, yes? Salladhor Saan sails no place without his dear cook, and rarely will you find such fine fare out at sea."
Solomon had not lost his own smile. "That is generous of you. It would be a feat to pretend that salted fish did not get dull after it's all you've had for a moon."
That was how they ended up in a much grander cabin aboard another ship, a table there that could seat them all without much trouble. Dany found the pale meaty stew and charred leeks a treat, though she saw her brother only glumly poke at his own fare.
Solomon and Maegon had spun a story for Salladhor Saan as they dined, though she could not tell if the pirate had believed them, for he smiled when he cried and frowned when he laughed.
He had also regaled them with stories of his own adventures in the Basilisk Isles and his voyages to Qarth and even Yi Ti when he was a younger man. She could not say she misliked them, even if some had been a fright.
It was not the first time she had ever heard the Basilisk Isles and Sothoryos mentioned, though where others just whispered of a green and nightmarish land and sometimes spoke briefly of Brindled Men and the cursed cities that had been abandoned since time began, he spoke in disturbing detail of his men turning to gibbering monsters over the course of a moon.
When the stories and the food came to an end, Salladhor Saan leveled Solomon with a smile just as queer as the rest of him. "You have been kind guests to Salladhor Saan, but I fear we must return to business. There is a sour lord who wishes to speak to you, so you must stay aboard my Valyrian." His eyes trailed to the Volantene nobleman and then to them as well. "You as well Maegon of the House Laessaryon, and your niece and nephew."
A stir went through the lavishly furnished cabin, and her brother seemed fit to protest when the sorcerer interrupted.
"Do you believe Stannis will deal with you fairly?" he asked pleasantly.
Stannis Baratheon? The Usurper's own brother? A chill had settled in her belly at the revelation.
"He is more sour than any lemon, it is true, but he is a man who would sooner bite off his own tongue than break his word."
"And what of me?" Lady Greyjoy asked, her eyes glittering like an angry beetle's.
"Why, you are free to go and ply the seas as you will, of course. You have been a friend to Sallahdor Saan and so he will be a friend to you."
Asha glanced at Solomon, who still had not even stirred himself to a frown, let alone anger.
"Stannis will not not break his word to you, yes, and when his wars are done, you will be rewarded handsomely. If, of course, you are still in any position to receive it."
The pirate looked at him drolly. "Have you come to offer Salladhor Saan prophecy as well? You would not be the first."
"You are right. What need has a man who lives by the winds and the tides of prophecy?" He was watched as a hawk as he stood. "Come. I wish to show you something."
Saan clicked his tongue before shrugging his shoulders. "I suppose it has been some years since I have seen a mummer's show."
They had all left the cabin as they entered, and she soon gasped as Solomon climbed atop the railing, something mad in his eyes and in his smile. "Perhaps a man that lives by the winds and the tides would instead care to see that there are powers in this world that rule them both."
The pirate's men had stirred to stop him, but the sorcerer continued to walk the thin and spindly surface gracefully. Then he stopped and stared into the depths.
He soon freed a familiar dagger from the yellow cloth it was bound in. "Let us see if I can wake them."
There were some jeers, but not many, and with those words she watched him cut into his flesh with it, the blood running down his fingers. As she hesitantly neared the edge of the ship herself, she spied the murky water below that seemed to drink it greedily.
Still, nothing seemed to happen save that the sorcerer's blood dripped and dripped, his eyes closed again with a smile she couldn't place. And then something did happen. Dany felt it first in the wind that tangled in her hair, the cobalt locks pulled along with it.
Then it was the sea that turned troubled, the ship beginning to rock more unsteadily, and the clouds above them seeming to darken as well.
There was a deep unease in everyone she saw, all except for Solomon, despite how precariously he stood. Instead he looked into the sea again. "Not enough? Hmph."
He cut himself open again, more of his blood draining into the water as the world turned darker and darker.
Dany soon had to take a hold of the railing to not lose her balance, and she saw many of the others had as well, the sea turning tempestuous as in a storm.
She heard the protests of Salladhor Saan now and even Lady Greyjoy tried to get his attention, but he would not listen, his dark eyes hungry as he stared into the depths like a man possessed.
"Show me," he demanded. "I want to see it all."
When he cut himself open for a third time, the world suddenly stilled, as calm as a lake at the midnight hour. For some reason it seemed more eerie to her than had the fury continued.
Dany soon braved a look at the water again, and she wished she hadn't. The sea that was a murky green had turned the deepest black she had ever seen. And when it shifted, she knew it was something impossibly vast underneath them, falling back on her rear in primal terror.
Viserys had seen it as well as he knelt by her side and held her, his eyes skittish. All the pirate's men had moved as far from the sea as they could, prayers on their lips.
Yet Solomon had not even moved, only a kind of terrible wonder in his dark eyes.
Those eyes soon returned to them, something of whimsy in them now. "We yet live, no? You will likely not see a sight like this again to be so fearful." Not one of them moved, though the Lady Greyjoy did take another peek, her cheeks pale as snow. "Or will you have it be said that Salladhor Saan fears the sea?" he asked again.
The pirate glanced around at his uneasy men who stared at him in return, and then he laughed. "The day when men say Salladhor Saan fears the sea will be the day when men swear off women and learn to fly."
His steps soon took him to the sorcerer, where he braved to stare into the water as well, horror and wonder bleeding together in his weathered features. The braver of his men followed, and so did Maegon, his mane of pale silver hair hiding his features as he beheld it also.
Viserys helped her to stand and brought her closer, whispering that they are the blood of the dragon.
Dany tried to still her madly racing heart as she looked at it again, that inky blackness stretching so far from the ship that she could not imagine anything greater, not Vhagar and not even Balerion the Black Dread.
The trance was lifted as something broke the surface of the water. A woman? No, she thought, a mermaid, for she spied a tail whose colors seemed all that much brighter next to the blackness beneath her.
A storm of whispers followed, but Dany only watched as the mermaid raised a hand in Solomon's direction, as if beseeching he join her.
The sorcerer, having sat, chuckled softly at the sight. "I think not. At least… not now. Rain check, maybe?"
Her brows furrowed as she wondered what he meant by it, the mermaid seeming to circle for a moment before diving back under the water. Then, faster than such a thing had any right to be, the vast blackness underneath them left elsewhere, the sea and the sky slowly returning to how it had been.
Solomon seemed unsteady as he stepped back on the deck of the ship, but he quickly found his legs again, wrapping another cloth around his wounds.
Lady Greyjoy moved to help him as she looked upon him in a strange way, the comely ironborn man next to her still pale.
"Was that mummer's show all you hoped it would be?" the sorcerer asked the pirate pulling at his white beard.
"That and more," he answered with a laugh, his eyes and lips again refusing to mirror it.
Solomon let Lady Greyjoy finish, though her hands had not left him when he spoke again. "I will come with you to speak to Stannis. As will Maegon." His eyes turned to her brother and her. "But not them, for the Lady Asha Greyjoy had promised them safe passage. Do this favor for me and I will of course return it."
"Hmm…" The pirate soon shrugged his shoulders. "Salladhor Saan can agree to this pact, for indeed he is a friend to all who are a friend to him."
Dany found herself breathing easier at the words in spite of what she had just seen.
"Woondarbar! Shall we depart for Dragonstone at sunset? I have some belongings to retrieve."
"At sunset," Saan agreed.
They had all returned aboard the Black Wind when Solomon stopped them a moment, Maegon at his back and Lady Greyjoy still holding his arm. "You will proceed to Dorne as we have planned. Prince Doran will meet you there, and no doubt your betrothed as well," he said to Viserys. "Remember what I have said, Your Grace."
Her brother nodded slowly, but there was still a certain nervousness about him that she had not seen since Ser Darry had passed. Sometimes she still dreamed of that house in Braavos with the red door…
"You need not worry for me, Your Grace," he continued gently. "After all you have seen, do you think I will lose my head so easily?" He touched both their shoulders softly. "You have run from place to place all these years, no home but where you stood. This I think will be the start of a new chapter."
Dany tried for a smile, but she could not calm the uncertainty in her heart. About what she had seen, about what she would do. Viserys might have taken the vision of a righteous king into his heart, but what was fated for her?
When they made to return to the cabin, Lady Greyjoy stopped them, pulling Solomon and that comely ironborn man inside and swiftly closing the door in their faces. Viserys stared at it with a petulant look until they heard the bed creaking, and even she knew what that had meant.
Her cheeks hot, she fled and turned to the sea again, even as the sounds grew more lurid and debauched.
