Prince Aegon Targaryen
The endless expanses of Andalos, with its grass-covered hills, meadows, and sparse forests in valleys through which narrow silvery-blue ribbons of small rivers ran, then flowing into the Little Rhoyne, truly seemed velvet from the height of dragon flight. Autumn was coming into its own here too: Aegon was sure that before, the terrain beneath him shimmered with all shades of green, just like Lady Hightower's ceremonial dress at Viserys's coronation, but now yellow, brown, orange spots spread everywhere.
It was cold at altitude, and the warm cloaks gifted by Karlaris at parting were most opportune; Vermithor noticed changes in the weather too, and in the mornings became grumbling and rose into the air reluctantly. When Dennis suggested that food would help the Bronze Fury against the morning chill, the Prince only shook his head:
"In the cold, dragons move less, but eat less too. When Grandmother and Grandfather were in the North, Vermithor and Silverwing ate only a bison and a sheep each in two weeks. Paradoxical, is it not?"
The sworn shield found no answer.
From time to time ruins flashed beneath Vermithor's golden belly—overgrown with grass and shrubs, trees that had already managed to age and fall, stone walls, half-collapsed towers, earthen mounds that had become another velvet hillock; that was all that remained of the kingdom of Hugor of the Hill, the first and greatest of Andalos kings, who according to the sacred legends of the Faith beheld the Seven themselves.
The fate of Andalos was sad; as often happened in history, the gift of the gods—a beautiful wife who bore Hugor the Holy four score and four more sons—came out sideways for the recipient—a couple of generations after the semi-legendary King's death, his realm fell apart, and his descendants began to wage internecine wars for the right to be considered first of all. Behind their strife, they did not notice how Rhoynish city-states fell, and now nothing could protect them from the might of great Valyria, eternally thirsting for new lands, resources, and slaves. The Andals fled—some to the north, where they tried to build defenses on the shores of the Shivering Sea, others to the west, where they conquered almost all Westeros.
Their ancestral home turned out forgotten; conquered, humiliated, it doomedly accepted the slave yoke and dragged it on itself until the very Doom that ruined the Freehold. By the moment the power of dragonlords fell, the Velvet Hills had turned into a pitiful shadow of former greatness and languished in obscurity, abandoned and forgotten by most Andals. Rare pilgrims who had enough money and religious fanaticism to reach the paths the Seven walked, and pray in each of the Seven Great Septs threatened to become victims of robbers or Dothraki hordes sometimes wandering into these lands.
Once Aegon landed Vermithor by the ruins of one of the castles; the square skeleton of what likely used to be a donjon rose on a hill like a black hulk against the orange-scarlet sky at sunset. The lizard sprawled on the western side, exposing a bronze scaled flank to the setting sun, and the travelers, climbing out of the saddle, drawn by that mysterious and irrepressible force whose name is curiosity, carefully wandered toward the ruins.
The three-story tower lacked a roof and one of the walls, another had crumbled to the middle, and now stones from its masonry strewed the inner courtyard overgrown with weeds waist-high; stumbling on another cobblestone, Aegon swore irritably, and suddenly Dennis shushed him.
"Why do you shush me?!" the Prince was indignant, but also for some reason in a whisper.
"I know not," the knight admitted confusedly. "Forgive me, my Prince, I know not what came over me. It seemed to me someone might be here."
"Who can be here? We are in the very center of a whole lot of nothing. Locals live only by surviving castles and Great Septs, and this looks like neither one nor the other."
"I speak not of the living, my Prince..."
"Only do not tell me you believe in ghosts," snorted Aegon.
"Not that much, my Lord, but such tales do not come from nowhere," the sworn shield grimaced and ran a five-fingered comb through regrown piebald hair, looking around warily.
"We are on holy ground, Dennis," answered the Prince, against his will putting more venom into his voice than he calculated. "Evil spirits flee from these places."
They wandered around the tower and entered its shadow, where it was already much cooler; suddenly the knight stumbled himself and fell into a pit treacherously hiding in the tall grass. Not shy of any ghosts and dead men, Dennis expressed everything he thought about them, and about the damned pit, and about the damned castle, and wished its damned builders not to freeze in the Seven Hells.
"Eloquent," Aegon could not refrain from a remark, offering the knight a hand and helping him climb out of the pit. "Congratulations, you have been in the dungeon of an Andalos castle. I suppose this can be considered the anteroom of the First Hell?"
"Will you consider the cellar of some armory or barn a dungeon?"
"Actually, I am creating a story of your legendary adventures for you," the Prince was insulted almost seriously. "To visit catacombs so deep that the underworld is within reach—not every knight has managed! Think—'The Tale of How Ser Dennis the Grey Visited Hell and Returned'."
"Think you tales will be composed about me?" chuckled the not-yet-legendary ser crookedly.
"Of course," Aegon answered readily. "Companions of great men always get a couple of pages in chronicles, but in people's memory their deeds are popular no less, and maybe even more, than the achievements of those very great men."
"You will not die of modesty."
"Oh, only not of it," he nodded.
Behind this conversation, they did not notice how they came out to what used to be the southern wall of the tower. The breach, revealing to the gaze all the innards of the donjon that had not yet succumbed to the corrupting influence of time, was brightly illuminated by the last rays of the sun; only one dark needle cast a shadow on it, cutting it into two parts.
Before the tower rose a Valyrian sphinx, no less than twenty feet in height; a stone statue with the body of a dragon and the face of a man sat, leaning on wings thrust forward, and wrapped its tail around its pedestal. Once scales were carved on the black stone, but time, wind, and rains smoothed the carving, and now it was visible only on the belly and the inner side of the wings. His face, turned to the southeast, was framed by a beard braided into two small plaits; gaps yawned in place of eyes—evidently, precious stones were inserted there before, but thieves managed to pick them out. Despite acquired deformities, the expression on the face was calm and even serene.
The sphinx did not suffer from loneliness: a whole alley of white stone sculptures kept him company. Statues of quite human size depicted people who had dragon wings growing from shoulders instead of arms. The pose of each was unique: someone pressed wings to chest, turning gaze to the heavens, someone spread them behind back, someone folded them like a house over head, turning a sorrowful face down. Some lacked wings, a couple were beheaded, and one poor fellow lost the upper half of the torso to the waist.
"Black eyeless sphinx and white armless angels," commented Aegon. "How like a cemetery."
Limping, he approached the foot of the sphinx and carefully touched the wing; to the touch the surface was rough and cold, despite the fact that the day had been sunny. On the pedestal, almost completely hidden in grass, the Prince noticed an inscription in Valyrian glyphs. Pressing down the vegetation with his cane, Aegon ran his hand over the indentations in the stone, reading what was written.
"Kesīr Jaenar Raelaryon ozzalteks, ēlī judliō Valyro Jaegaro Raelario trēsy iksis. Morghūltus hen melos lumivose iemnȳ zugallio sīgliot ampā jēdaro Lyko Pāstyro. Sīlie hārēpsā jēdari ūndas (Here lies Jaenar Raelaryon. He is the first son of the Valyrian Jaegar Raelaryon. He died of a burning stomach ailment in the tenth year of the Peaceful Shepherd. He saw thirty-seven years.)."
A little lower under a dividing line were carved other words in which Aegon recognized an ancient prayer he himself read in the family crypt:
"Perzys istan, ñuqir issi. Aōhos ōñoso jis, aōhos rūnir sikiaks perzītsos zālilza. Aōhos morghon Balerion jiōrilza ("I was fire, [now] there are ashes. [In] your light..., [in] your memory... a small flame will burn. Balerion will receive your death.")."
"Looks like this was a noble warrior," remarked Dennis. "But where is his dragon?"
"Nothing is said about him here. Evidently, the scarlet fever, in whatever it manifested, struck only people," Aegon frowned.
"Did Valyrians get sick?" marveled the knight, walking around the statue.
"Evidently, they had their own diseases which did not survive the Doom."
"Well, and praise the gods for that."
"Only which ones?" for some reason lines of the prayer gave Aegon no peace. Understandably, in Valyria they did not worship the Seven; it is known that the Conqueror's dragon was named in honor of one of the old gods of his ancestral home; only his mention on the tombstone constantly attracted the Prince's attention.
"All the same," Dennis waved him off. "We are in Andal land on a Valyrian cemetery. Any gods will hear here. Let us go, my Prince, settle in the tower. It should not be so windy there."
While the knight built a fire, arranged lodging, and warmed up a simple supper, the Prince still wandered along the alley of dragon-winged angels and constantly returned to the sphinx. It was not about the Raelaryons—Aegon could not recall their surname from political chronicles he managed to swallow—and not even about the paradoxical location of a Valyrian sculpture amidst Andal ruins; the religious meaning of the inscription on the pedestal confused him. Judging by the same annals, Valyrians before the Doom did not believe much in gods—not in one of the multitude worshipped by their slaves; with that miraculous blood magic and tamed dragons they themselves became like celestials.
"Aōhos morghon Balerion jiōrilza (Balerion will receive your death.),"—may Balerion accept your death. Evidently, the Raelaryons honored their old gods, since they erected a monument to a family member in such a terrible backwater. But, judging by the fact that history barely preserved their name, the attempt to obtain intercession from higher powers failed; and were there those higher powers?
At supper, consisting of rusks, warmed corned beef, and dried vegetables they carried from Pentos itself, Aegon suddenly asked his sworn shield:
"Dennis, do you believe in gods?"
"Eh?" he nearly choked on a piece, but, clearing his throat, answered: "Probably, yes."
"So 'Probably' or 'Yes'? From the point of view of logic, these are incompatible answers."
"You have become like your uncle," grumbled the knight. "If you put the question that way, then here is my answer: yes, I believe."
"Why?"
"It is customary," Dennis shrugged, sending a piece of meat into his mouth.
"That is not an answer."
"I am not a Septon, my Prince, and not a uēpir like Darion to understand this."
"The High Septon anointed you," reminded Aegon.
"Because it is customary," the knight shrugged again.
"So you believe in the Seven?"
Instead of an answer, Dennis continued to eat, carefully chewing dried bread and corned beef. Drinking water from a flask, he asked a question himself:
"And what answer do you want to hear from me, my Lord?" he squinted, and ultramarine eyes in the reflection of the fire became almost black. "'Yes' or 'No'?"
"I know not myself," the Prince grimaced in vexation. "We had a Septon who read The Seven-Pointed Star to us and instructed in the Faith, but..."
"But you felt nothing?" guessed the knight.
"Faith in the Seven is the religion of the Andals, and there is not a drop of Andal blood in me. Did the Seven hear my prayers?"
"As far as I know, among the First Men there are also those who worship the Seven, and you saw yourself, in Pentos not only Andals went to septs."
The remark was fair; in the interval between feasts, Aegon and Dennis found time to inspect the city after all, and visited including each of the five Pentoshi septs, which if they yielded to Oldtown ones in size and wealth, then not by much. Parishioners truly belonged to different peoples of Essos: besides Pentoshi of Andal origin, there were Pentoshi with silver hair of Old Valyria, black-skinned Summer Islanders, even Norvoshi were met.
"So the Faith cares not for the blood flowing in your veins," Aegon spoke, looking into the fire.
Dennis chuckled, implying he had exhausted the stock of his theological knowledge, and had nothing to say; instead, he advised:
"Go to sleep, my Prince. Maybe that-very-dream will visit you again."
"Do not laugh," grumbled Aegon in response. "It is not as pleasant as it seems to you."
"Of course, you dream all sorts of dregs, instead of wenches from Nerra's house," the knight smiled greasily.
"Dennis?"
"Do you order me to go to the Seven Hells?"
"Go. You surely learned the way."
"And let me take you there too then."
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