Chapter 34: Empty Chairs At Empty Tables
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The crack of the whips and the screams of the tormented filled my ears as I continued managing the critical path and updating the drawings and specifications in response to field conditions and on the ground situations. Larys, my beloved servant kept me abreast of the supply lines and kept Aemond busy as Hand of the King putting down rebellions. A political scholar might note the frequency and intensity of these uprisings as evidence of incompetence at the top, but the logistician knows better. Each noble house foolish enough to turn against my dominion just adds another to the list for attainment and land seizure, and another population marked for a double penance lottery. More acreage taken from primarily Andal hands, held in trust for my worthy Valyrian sons to take in the future, and more slaves for my workforce.
Those outside my grand tent, those working themselves slowly to death, bring my design into being. Though they wail and gnash their teeth, in bondage they contribute to something far greater than anything they possibly could achieve in freedom. I have seen all the great wonders of the world and studied architecture and engineering for decades, fields I have found myself supremely talented in this life. Outside my command center hundreds of thousands swarm over the corpse of King's Landing, stripping every stone, every nail, every column, beam, and plank. Over a million man hours per day. The masons, carpenters, stoneworkers, and other such guilds that once desperately guarded their knowledge to prevent diminishing wages and job security now freely offer up their abilities and apprenticeships for the luxury of cup of wine, a loaf of bread, and reprieve from the lash. The slow, the dumb, and the slothful have all discovered remarkable adaptability and conformity. The crippled serves as eyes or ears. In the last year all of society has found its productive place, and ever more pour in to assimilate into our great wonder.
The Dragonspire shall rise far above Aegon's Hill, the entire stone hill serving as the foundation for a great terraced pyramid, which itself serves as the base of a high tower, both greater in scale than the Great Pyramid of Meereen and the Hightower respectively. The mega structure a byzantine labyrinth of load bearing, ventilation, hydraulic, agricultural, commercial, and residential systems capable of containing the birth, life, and deaths of tens of thousands. Atop the Dragonspire a temple dedicated to a golden Eternal Dragonflame, the ever burning beacon of my domination.
The shaft of Dragonspire shall rise in layers creating a massive fogwell capable of generating sixty thousand gallons of clean water per day as well as contributing to the environmental control of the human use sections. Along with water filtered and pumped from the Blackwater, the entire megastructure is designed for gods blessed plumbing. A silver mirror complex reflects and refracts sunlight into the interior, allowing for agriculture and healthy indoor living.
Absolutely nothing about this project is efficient in any way, with my labor force I could tear down and rebuild the old capital three times over within my build schedule, and come out under budget. I'm building this project entirely for my ego, and for the understanding of all the people who come after me to look up at this magnificent achievement of engineering and know that they are nothing more than a spec on a spoke of the cosmic wheel that once turned at my command. Let them joke about how my life's greatest work is nothing more than a giant stone phallus thrusting up into the sky, for their lives amount to less importance than a single silver-gold hair on my scrotum. Perhaps I shall stroke myself into the low hanging clouds and father the deluge that washes them away in its floodwaters.
An hour before the midday meal, I stepped out from my tent and beheld the swarm of workers busy about my will, and I spotted nearby one of my silver-gold bastards striking a man with a whip. The man cried out upon the ground weeping for the Seven to deliver him from this hell on earth, and I felt a great stirring in my chest. I rushed to the scene and yanked the whip out of my son's hand, schooling the disgust in my heart to register in my countenance as only disappointment. I turned away from the boy and looked down on the collapsed man, who thanked me between ragged breaths and sobs, then I looked back to my son and said.
"Like this."
Then I flowed with perfect clarity, coordination, and expertise to manipulate the bloody braided leather to land precisely to deliver maximum motivation per mutilation output. Understanding that a single demonstration stood no chance of sinking into the smooth brain of my typical son, I went about whipping half his stable into peak working order then guided him through the other half, in so doing I gifted him a piece of our Valyrian heritage and greater mastery of the self and others. With a nod, I left the boy to his work and walked about to further enrich his half-brothers, only a half dozen or so, a losing battle of wisdom against enthusiasm considering the scores that arrive each day to further my force of overseers, but I have hope that one day I can entrust the burden of carrying the culture to worthy sons.
I returned to my command center believing my physical activities for the day done, and my Small Counsel and I feasted together as Larys provided curated content from his growing intelligence network to amuse us, but as his entertaining tidbits turned to Dorne I felt a revelation descending upon me.
"Aye, she threatened to unman him with his own dagger, vowing to never allow a man to possess her save he who wooed her from her youth with yearly portraits and smouldering silence, our King." Larys smirked as my Small Counsel laughed uproariously, "Lord Yronwood imprisoned the lass for this in highest room in the tallest tower of his castle, swearing the girl shall repent her madness or never leave the chamber again."
As my servants finished their chuckles, my mind filled with awe.
"Armor!" I called out, "Now!"
Silence held the room save the sound of my squire, Lyonel Hightower, running off to obey my command.
"My King-" I interrupted Lord Wylde's wise counsel with a raised hand.
"There is a noble maiden of ancient royal blood locked in a tower by a dreadful Dornishman, desperately awaiting the arrival of the brave knight she so loves to come and rescue her from captivity, or worse, becoming a Dornishman's wife." I elucidated the revelation to my worldly audience, "This is a quest, a calling from the Maiden and the Warrior to prove once more my authenticity as the greatest knight of the age."
"King Aegon," Tyland Lannister began softly, "Our armies are spread across the Kingdoms carrying out your orders. There is no force available to undertake this quest without delays to our already difficult schedule and supplies."
"Armies, Tyland? What use have I for armies to storm a castle? To slow me down? To make a mountain of a molehill?" a corner of my lips turned up at the thought of such a decadent waste of my resources, "No, I shall deal with this matter personally."
My squire returned with a retinue of servants and the chests containing my various assortment of magical battle equipment. With sure hands I stripped away my civil kingly garb and once again donned my most comfortable apparel while my counsel did their best to politely put me off this madness. Unfortunately for them my mind was far away, in the sky with Sunfyre, calling the great beast down to come ferry me to glory.
"Aemond rules until I return." I instructed them as I donned my helmet and left with the Chimera's Wail and Dark Sister hung from my belt, the Sword of Kings left with my squire, for this is the calling of a knight, not of a king.
The great golden beast shook the earth with his landing, and dipped his body in just such a way as to create easy holds and landings for me to leap up and scale his side up to the saddle. My dragon shuddered with giddy glee as he felt my desire, his chest heaving with massive cackles and I swear I heard him working his fanged maw around the word 'good'. With thighs strong enough to crush stone he flung us into the sky from a standstill. We set off from Kingslanding around midday, soaring south south west over the Kingswood passing over the castle of House Cafferen, then over the stoney highlands of the eastern marches onto Blackhaven. Sunfyre's speed unmatched as he easily cruised at a speed half again faster than other adult dragons.
We closed in on Yronwood by the sea as the high summer sun settled down beyond the horizon. Sunfyre wanted to reign fire down upon an expensive looking caravel on the waves, but I pulled him back from it. This calling is for me, for my sword, not for his fire. Today my dragon serves merely as my steed, not my strength. The sound of a horn erupted from below, carried over the water to the harbor town, which carried the sound further to the fortress of the Bloodroyals with horns of their own.
Good.
Sunfyre carried me over the town as I stood up in the saddle and drew the Chimera's Wail, resting it over my shoulder as the handle of my great shield filled the other hand. We timed the flapping of his wings with the speed of our travel. I jumped off his back as his wing beat down, the golden fleece of my cloak caressing the golden scales and pink leather as I descended. My feet landed on a man blowing his horn on the castle wall, his chest turning to a paste of ruined flesh and shattered bones contained within his layered linen armor. I squatted low, allowing my legs to slow my landing just a beat further.
A pair of men nearby saw it all, stunned, but not for long as I leapt off my landing pad. My sword came down from my shoulder, cleaving the sandy colored gambeson and the man beneath it clavicle to crotch. To his partner, I punched out with my shield, crushing him between it and the thick merlon like a grape. The intricate tile work shattered under the impact, but the stone held firm. His body did not, his torso splattering under the sudden and immense pressure.
I looked around at the many high towers and their keyhole arches, the mosaics built up over the millenia decorating them. Two sets of walls and the keep. Yronwood should keep around two hundred household guards, but I needed to give them time to arm and respond to my attack. More fighting men should arrive after from the town, hundreds. My feet started clearing space at an easy jog, a pace faster than a healthy man can sprint unladen, my course a lap around the outer wall.
Two men with spears emerged from the nearest tower on my path as a man on the second level began losing arrows from an opening. I put my blade on the trajectory of the shafts, shattering them contemptuously before batting aside a spear with my sword and the other with my shield. I kicked one man in the chest, sending his shattered sternum into his broken spine, and punched the other with the edge of my shield, crumpling his conical helmet and breaking his skull open.
Two more men came at me in the tower with maces, the archer and another whom I struck down with a pommel strike that cratered his face before a downward strike battered down the archers block and cleaved open his chest. I twisted the angle with a bit of wrist control to pass back out on the same side rather than continuing on out the other, carving his arm and shoulder from his body. His heart and a lung sloughed out the opening after his back hit the floor.
I completed a lap around the castle in under twenty minutes without much variety in my brief engagements, and when I took the steps down I found my path uncontested to the gatehouse of the second layer of walls. There I espied a large man in heavy plate armor beyond the grates of a iron portcullis with many men behind him.
"What madness is this?" he cried out.
"The Warrior and the Maiden called and we answered." I replied, "If it is madness bid, it is madness delivered."
"Why does the dragon not fire upon us?" the Yronwood man asked, but I answered not.
I sheathed my sword, and let the strap hold my shield. I squatted low and fixed my hands upon the iron between us, and with one explosive maneuver lifted it over my head, then leapt out from beneath it, seizing the armored man's helmet in my hands. I twisted it around, and the neck inside, showing his face to the men behind him. I roughly counted fifty men well armed and armored, I watched them scream and shiver as they stepped back from the impossible sight. I remembered that moment, when the aggrieved and bereaved mob in King's Landing broke at my approach.
"Come now, lads. You can't let me get away with killing this man in such a disrespectful manner. Rally your hearts and avenge your leader!" I drew my sword and raised it up, "Huzzah! Death before dishonor! Death!"
My efforts were rewarded with a flurry of spears and swords sent at me by enraged warriors. They tried to push me back against the portcullis, but lacked the weight of bodies to shift me. The Chimera's Wail lashed out in silver streaks, laying men open and low, and I shouted rallying cries to keep the enemy piling onto me instead of breaking, alas the terror of each strike quickly overwhelmed the value of my encouragement, and soon their morale bottomed out and the men routed. I ran about after them, slaying them before the shame of their retreat settled into their bones.
"What devilry is this?" a man shouted, coming down from the steps of the keep into the courtyard.
His plate blued black, and his rondels bore the image of the portcullis, the symbol of the House, cream streamers rolled down from his plume, and ermine trimmed his cloak.
"Lord Yronwood?" I enquired.
"You speak to the Lord of House Yronwood, Lord of the-" I interrupted him by throwing the Chimera's Wail as a javelin, spearing him through the grate like visor of his helmet.
"My gift to you, to die without knowing the horror of your helplessness against me." I eulogized the man before drawing Dark Sister and attacking his followers.
I lost track of time slaying everyone who came out to face me in the courtyard, but when I stopped killing there were no more men to kill. I reclaimed my wavy bastard sword and continued using the shorter blade as I entered the keep, slaying the men hidden within one by one room by room while the women and children screamed for me to stop. I traversed the keep like this till I came upon the highest room in the tallest tower, my Valyrian Steel blade making short work of the locks on it.
There within I found a young woman, fair skinned and blonde, willowy. The sight of me bending down to enter her chamber filled her with fright, but it vanished the moment I took off my helmet.
"My love!" She cried, and ran to me, "You came!"
She thought better of throwing her arms around me.
I gazed into her sea blue eyes, looking for the sparks of madness and finding a wildfire blaze, and now I knew what I needed to do next.
"Undress me." I commanded.
- Marius Yronwood -
The Lord Yronwood's son leapt from the caravel as It entered his personal docking slip, running down the wood pier as fast as possible. His mind wondered why the dragon circling overhead did not rain down fire on the town or castle. He moved around people fleeing into the wilderness, but pulled a man in castle garb to a stop.
"Why do you abandon your post?" he demanded, frantic for news from the castle.
"Milord, the castle is lost. A demon stalks the grounds, slaying everyone! Everyone!" Marius silenced the man's raving with a punch then drew his sword.
"Follow me now!" he ordered, then continued running uphill to the castle without waiting to find out if the other man obeyed.
He found the gate house open and abandoned, and on the other side saw the top half of a man dashed against the ground, his legs dripping red down from above. Turning his head he spied pools of blood leaking down from the walls spaced around the defenses. Marius put haste to his feet, and ran around the inner walls, occasionally stepping over fallen, mutilated bodies. Some hewn, some crushed, some twisted, all mangled. When he came upon the second portcullis the sight of the courtyard leading into the keep caused him to cry out in despair.
"Father!" reaching his arm beyond the iron grating, "Father, no! Get up!"
The charnel house massacre was fit to drive a man to insanity, but Marius rallied himself and departed the scene to the exit of a secret tunnel that led him into the cellars of the keep. There he found many of the servants huddled together praying to the gods to deliver them from the evil that stocked their halls.
"Lord Marius!" a man cried out in surprise, one of the handful of men leaning against a shelving unit pressed against the entrance to the cellar, "Lord Marius, come no further, you must flee!"
"I must go up." Marius informed them, pushing through the grasping hands of women and children, making his way to the barricaded door.
"No, milord, no." the man sobbed, "There is not but death beyond this door."
"Go down the way I have come, flee this place with those who are left, but I must continue." he denied.
"Please, milord. Please, not like this. Come with us away from this place." the man begged.
Marius observed the man, the man who commanded the kitchens since as long as Marius remembered.
"Leave, Simeon. With my blessing." Marius laid a hand on the man's shoulder, then commanded them to pull back the obstruction.
It was only as the servants fled that he realized that no one came with him, not his friends from his boat, not anyone from the town, and certainly not the dead from the castle. Alone, he pressed on, and as he entered the great hall he broke down and wept, realizing that everyone who once filled the empty chairs and empty tables would never fill them again. With a monumental force of will he rose up again with sword in hand and continued hunting the demon that painted room after room red.
When he entered the tallest tower he heard a woman's screams, finally a sound after the long silence of his once boisterous home. His heart filled with even more urgency when he realized the screams came down from the highest room, rushing the stairs two at a time on the wings of hope to save his sister from this fiend.
He rushed past the door and over torn off locks. He came to a screeching halt when he saw it, like a man but bigger, so much bigger, unfathomably bigger. A naked white back filled his vision wide across as any two men, and filled with titanic slabs of muscle bulging and coiling taunt under flawless pale skin. The planes of the muscles formed the image of a demon's face, staring him down.
Beneath that unholy face, he noticed two pale legs struggling to wrap around the monster's hips. The ass cheeks of the beast contracted as two massive tree trunk-like legs dipped and rose over and over. Marius broke out of his stupor at the sight of the evil thing, realizing that the screams he followed here were the screams of his sister's violation. It turned just a bit, its neck twisting till a single purple eye beheld him. Marius froze, his vision contracted till only that single purple eye filled his gaze, filled his being, and a terrible chill caused him to shiver.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" he cried out in madness and horror, breaking the spell that held him as his feet pounded forward, seeking to drive his sword through its chest.
The demon spun faster than anything that big should move, and with one hand it slapped the sword out of his grip. Marius looked down dumbly at his empty hands, then his face turned up and twisted in disbelief.
"You are brave." The monster spoke, its voice driving away all other sounds, even the frantic beating of Marius's heart, "I pin most men with only my gaze, but for you I raise my hand. Be proud."
Marius swayed, finding it almost impossibly hard to remain on his feet. He spotted his sister with the beast so turned. He saw her face, not twisted with pain and terror, but morphed by rapturous pleasure, her hazy eyes filled only with the monstrous face of the creature inside her, her hands grasping its traps as she desperately pulled herself up and down its cock.
"No. No-no-no! NOOO! NOOO!" his mind crashed out and he gripped his blonde hair hard enough to begin tearing it out.
He had to look away, and he did so, looking at the baleful glowing purple eyes that shone like beacons in the poorly lit room. He heard the thing grunt as its thrusting stilled.
"That load shall forever stain your soul." It declared, and Marius did not understand, but he knew something horrible just happened.
It pulled his sister off its cock and a deluge of seed leaked from her as she collapsed on fucked boneless legs.
"There are starving children in the North." it stated, and his sister looked down at the seed leaking out of her gaping cunt, scooped it up and fucking ate it!
Marius lost all sense of decorum and preservation. He'd seen enough and now he needed to never see anything ever again. He jerked the dagger off his belt and pointed it at his own neck.
A hand wrapped around his hands, and pulled the blade away.
"You need to live." It spoke, squatting down on the balls of its feet, impossibly huge genitals flopping on the floor tiles.
"No. I need to die." Marius insisted, trying to throw himself on the dagger, but its other hand wrapped itself around his shoulder, the thing so big as to completely envelop it.
"You need to live as an anti-Targaryen advocate." It said, and Marius could not believe his ears.
"A wha-?" he responded but it interrupted.
"You need to live so you can tell all the other Dornish Lords what you saw here today. You need to tell them that I am coming, and that they need to prepare so they can do better than this frankly pathetic showing from you Yronwoods." It nodded its enormous head at him, smiling like a friend, but horrifying, "I am a very busy man, but I think I can fit one of these castle rushes in per moon if I'm lucky. So make sure to tell everybody so they can die better than this, otherwise I'm going to be very disappointed. Good luck, boy. You're my only hope."
Marius leaned back on his heels, looked up to the ceiling and cried, "My gods, why have you forsaken me."
"The gods, sent me. I am chosen." it mocked.
Marius disbelieved the words of the demon with every fiber of his being, calling on the gods to strike this horrible monster down, when a golden beam of light shined through the window. For a brief moment the new Lord Yronwood exalted the power and mercy of the gods, but then the golden light swirled around the beast, cloaking it in divine radiance. Images of the Seven, the Saints, and the holy symbols etched themselves on its hide, transforming it into a tapestry of the Faith.
Marius gave up. Everything is wrong and nothing will ever be right again. The monster gawked at its own skin as the light faded, observing the sacred icons covering its profane form.
"Pick up your sword, and strike me down." It commanded, standing tall and spreading its arms across the room.
Marius never heard before a command he more wanted to carry out. On shaking limbs he crawled to his sword, then stood, swaying and breathing heavily.
"Do it." It commanded again, and Marius obeyed.
He thrust his sword forth with all the hate of a fallen House, with all the rage of a righteous avenger. He felt death closing in on the monster, brought by his hands. Then that golden light erupted from its holy marked skin once more, and the blade of his sword shattered against it. Marius looked down at what was left of his sword and dropped it. Shaking his head in denial he shuffled back in shame and sorrow.
"Go boy, and tell them. My kingdom come, my will be done, on earth as decreed by the heavens." It commanded.
Shaking Marius backed out of the room, clutching the rail he descended from the highest room of the tallest tower, and down into the great hall. He pulled back his fathers chair, his chair, and collapsed into it. He knew not how long he stared at the empty hall, at the empty chairs and empty tables as his heart composed a miserable ballad.
"~There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Empty chairs at empty tables
Now my House is dead and gone
Here they talked of rebellion
Here it was they lit the flame
Here they sang about tomorrow
And tomorrow never came.
From the tables in this hall
They could see a Dorne reborn
And they rose with voices ringing
And I can hear them now!
The very words that they had sung
Became their last communion
From tower to lowly barricade..
At dusk.
Oh my family, my friends forgive me.
That I live and you are gone
There's a grief that can't be spoken
There's a pain goes on and on
Phantom faces at the window
Phantom shadows on the floor
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my family will meet no more.
Oh my family, my friends, don't ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my House will sing no more~"
For the first time since he first sang in this hall, silence followed his finish, silence engulfed him, until he heard the iron clank of armored boots across the room. His head snapped to the sight of a metal titan striding across the space with his now dressed sister following it out. He recognized it now, the great horned helm, the golden fleece cloak. How ironic, he failed to recognize the naked face of a man he'd seen in portrait year after year, how many times he saw that face burn, but now he recognized the man from a description he heard of his armor. King Aegon II Targaryen.
"Well sung." the King declared as he walked away.
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