Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon

"Maester Pylos, is there still no reply from the raven of Storm's End?"

Two days later, Viserys had to ask about this matter. Now the raven communication with Stannis of Storm's End is the only "diplomatic" affair of Dragonstone, and it is also the focus of Viserys's next stage of work. They have clearly established contact before, and there will be a letter exchange every six to seven days.

Such contact has been carried out twice, and Stannis is close to relenting.

The third letter was the price and sincerity offered by Viserys. He was willing to use Lady Selyse, Axell and some sergeants to exchange for Earl Bale Emmon, the lords of the Narrow Sea, especially the knights and soldiers of the Port of Fell. In order to show his sincerity, Viserys temporarily put aside the willingness of the Marseille family of Stoneyon to serve - the Marseille family's joining will make the Narrow Sea and the Throat completely controlled by Viserys.

Of course, Viserys's purpose in doing this was not entirely to exchange hostages. He was actually forcing Stannis to respond to his existence, because Stannis was the typical example of his plan. Whether he decided to fight or make peace, as long as he responded, it was what Viserys needed.

This is also one of the reasons why Viserys was not in a hurry to conquer Westeros. This continent is too big. It takes five to seven days for a raven to communicate from Dragonstone to Storm's End, and the raven can still fly.

When Storm's End stopped replying, what happened there was completely silent to Viserys. He had to wait for the merchant ship passing through Storm's End to Dragonstone to hear from the merchant ship today what happened there a week, even a month, or several months ago.

For someone who has lived in the information age, this continent, this world is like a bloated corpse, and the efficiency of message transmission is shockingly low.

Viserys had lived in the information age. There are always people who like to say: In the past, the carriages were slow, the letters were far away, and a lifetime was only enough.

I really don't know if they can still say such words if they are really thrown to Westeros to see how the news is exchanged between Dragonstone and Storm's End.

For example, after Illyrio sent Viserys' maid Ani and bodyguard Butch, they were thrown away by Viserys. The last time they heard about them was more than a month ago. It was Jorah who told Viserys that they were still waiting for Viserys to appear in Volantis. I don't know if anyone has told them that Viserys is already in Dragonstone, and whether they will appear again.

Viserys has not yet established his own intelligence network. In addition to the control of Dragonstone, King's Landing and Storm's End occasionally sent news. For him, the map outside is now dark. After landing on Dragonstone, he is sure that his butterfly wings have caused great changes to the world, but he can confirm that the only uncontrolled area of ​​change is King's Landing.

Because Dragonstone is close enough to King's Landing, there are the most frequent merchant ships there, and the merchant sailors are Viserys' only source of information about King's Landing.

So Viserys came up with a public opinion offensive and made chicken soup like crazy on Dragonstone, hoping that these chicken soup stories would spread everywhere.

It was not until his first fleet commander Grole returned from Pentos this time and the fleet began to take shape that he finally had a ship available to disguise as a merchant ship and send scouts to King's Landing - because King's Landing was more threatening in Viserys' eyes - and that merchant ship had not yet brought back the first message.

Viserys had no way of knowing at the moment that because of his appearance in King's Landing, the alliance of lions and roses decided to withdraw from Storm's End, and because of this decision, Storm's End now eliminated the threat of the Tyrell army.

Or because of the poor communication, when Varys learned that Stannis was heading south and the news reached the Tyrell siege troops via King's Landing, Stannis's army retreating from the Blackwater River had already landed in Storm's End, catching the Tyrell siege troops off guard. After that, the siege troops paid attention to and blocked the harbor of Storm's End.

Stonehenge should belong to Stannis, and the information channel is smooth, but in order not to provoke Dragonstone, they chose to remain silent during the siege of Storm's End.

This series of events has led to a large amount of new and old intelligence flowing into Storm's End recently. The news that there may be dragons on Dragonstone was not transmitted to Storm's End Castle until the siege was lifted.

Stannis had been ignoring the letter from Dragonstone, which suddenly became particularly important.

Who would have thought that the one who had been secretly contacting Dragonstone on behalf of Stannis was Lord Alister Florent, who was in Storm's End. The relief of Storm's End led to the arrest of this self-willed Prime Minister, who was sent to the prison of Storm's End by Stannis on the charge of treason.

And this is the reason why Viserys could not receive a reply from Storm's End.

Why did Viserys risk entering the waters of Dragonstone and dancing on the edge of Stannis's naval line when he attacked Dragonstone? Wasn't it because the information outside the field of vision was always lagging behind?

There is no omniscient person in this world, and no one can figure out what happened at the moment. Viserys can only come to Maester Pylos to ask about the letter from Storm's End.

But what can Maester Pylos do? He can only answer: "Yes, Your Majesty."

Viserys can only say: "Notify me immediately when there is news."

Sometimes no news is also a kind of news. Viserys thought that something must have happened there.

——

There are ships coming and going between King's Landing, Dragonstone, and Storm's End, so the news is blocked for now.

Once you reach the inland where the roads are blocked, the news will be even more blocked.

The waterway news of the Reach basically comes from Crab Bay and Blackwater River above Crab Peninsula. Blackwater River basically does not let the news of the Dragon King into the inland now. Crab Bay is the battlefield of the Northern Army and the Lannister Army. Several bay ports, Maiden Spring, Saltworks, and even the mouth of the Trident River and the town of Earl Harroway upstream of Ruby Bank have been affected by the war. Basically, the ships coming and going here are from Braavos, Gulltown, Five Fingers Peninsula, and White Harbor.

The news about Viserys here is still stuck at the letter brought by the raven a month ago. It has not even been reported that Viserys has a dragon. Those who have some information channels here regard King Targaryen’s sea monsters appearing on Dragonstone Island and Five Fingers Peninsula as two major wonders.

Like now, when the Bloody Mummers have looted a chapel, sat on the Mother's chest, gouged out the chalcedony eyes of idols with daggers, hanged skinny bald monks, used civilian corpses as targets, and set their sights on Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth, who they had captured.

Vargo Hoult said, "Four Lords, do you know that Dragonstone has been taken by the Targaryens? Is your father too busy in King's Landing to reach out to Harrenhal?" He spoke incoherently, sitting by the campfire, eating half-roasted birds with a fork, grease and blood flowing through his fingers.

Vargo Hoult, known as "The Goat", is the leader of the Brave Band, from Qohor. The Brave Band is a mercenary group with a bad reputation in the Seven Kingdoms, known as the "Bloody Mummers". The "Mummers" in it are criminals and exiles from all over the world.

It's very dramatic. It was the warriors hired by Tywin who plundered the riverlands and spread terror. However, when Tywin attacked Robb, the warriors stayed in Harrenhal. But Goat and the acting lord Amory Lorch disliked each other, and soon defected and made a deal with Roose Bolton, and the warriors offered Harrenhal to the northerners.

Now, Tywin's son Jaime Lannister fell into the hands of the leader of the warriors, Vargo Hoult.

Goat was at the scene when Roose Bolton showed them the letter brought by Viserys's raven at Harrenhal, but he still thought the news was very outrageous, and it was called a strange talk together with the recent news of the sea monster on the Five Fingers Peninsula from the sea.

"Dragonstone was occupied by Targaryen?" Jaime Lannister thought he was joking, and laughed, "What, Aegon the Conqueror was reborn?" Although he and the "beauty" Brienne were tied to a horse face to face at the moment, in an awkward situation.

The goat didn't like the way he smiled: "Teach him to talk back."

The goat's men cut the ropes that bound Jaime and Brienne, and Jaime was dragged off the horse. One man leaned over and slapped him hard.

Compared to this slap, the completely arrogant look of the warriors who were sitting around the fire in front of the bloody statue of the Virgin Mary and covered in blood made Jaime feel even more frightened.

They were not afraid of him, the "King Slayer" of the Lannister family realized. He was cold all over.

"Listen to me," the beautiful Brienne was unaware of the current situation that Jaime had seen, and she was still begging, "In the name of the King of the North you serve, please listen to me--" She was ordered by Lady Catelyn to escort the King Slayer to exchange for Sansa and Arya.

"Teach her to talk back too." The goat ordered.

Someone under the goat's men immediately dragged her off the horse and kicked her hard.

"Don't hurt your bones," someone reminded, "this horse-faced bitch can be exchanged for sapphires."

This was the lie that Jaime and his men told when they were captured, saying that Tarth was named "Sapphire Island" because it was rich in sapphires. This prevented Brienne from being insulted on the spot and then stripped naked and hanged on a tree - they had seen many such scenes along the way.

Jaime still wanted to make conditions: "Lord Vargar, it is a pity that you abandoned my father, but it is not too late for us to reconcile. You know, my father values ​​me very much. All the gold in the world comes from Casterly Rock, and Lannister must pay his debts."

"Oh, make up for it," said the goat, "I can get the gold of Casterly Rock. But first, I want to give my father a token."

He said incoherently.

Someone took out a sharp meat cleaver.

——

Varys could have waited for Tyrion to leave before coming in. But today Tyrion did not bring his mistress Shae in to make love in the cellar—they had done it in the dragon skull many times before. Instead, only one person was silent in front of the dragon skull.

Varys chose to show up.

The flames of the two torches looked small and lonely in the huge cellar.

Varys sighed: "There are credible news about dragons and sea monsters, but people only choose to believe that the news about dragons is true, but they are indifferent to sea monsters. Why do you think this is, Lord Tyrion?"

"Ah, good question, Varys." Tyrion looked in the direction of the footsteps and inserted the torch into the mouth of the huge dragon in front of him. The fire was bright, and the shadows danced wildly between the wall, the ground and the huge skull of the dragon. The dragon's teeth were like long scimitars made of black diamonds. Tyrion stood in front of the dragon's open-mouthed head, like a dwarf standing at the gate of a giant. "Because I'm right in front of its ferocious mouth. If it comes alive, crunch, gurgle, I'll be in its stomach. Will it think the taste of dwarfs is delicious, and how is it different from the taste of fat eunuchs?" "There is a saying that dragons eat cooked food." Varys said, "After being roasted in the flames, my lord, we should taste the same."

"Listening to what you said, I want to buy some spices to take home and use in the bath." Tyrion said, "It will be more distinctive after it is roasted this way. It will remember my taste and wonder why this little man tastes different from others." different."

"Oh, dear sir, after hearing what you say, I will never dare to eat barbecue again."

"You just said a sea monster, is that true?" Tyrion stretched out his hand and touched the dragon bone, which was as smooth and bright as agate and seemed to gleam under the light of the torch. He was fascinated every time he saw the dragon's skeleton. It's breathtaking. I never imagined that they could be such beautiful things. They are so beautiful that they are both jaw-dropping and intimidating.

The eunuch had already walked to Tyrion, put the torch on the other side of the dragon's mouth, put his hands into his sleeves, and assumed the habitual state of the old god's presence: "Who knows, the person who sent the news said that there are fishermen Witnessing the sea monster dragging the Iban whaler into the water, the red blood stained the sea like ink thrown into the water. Some people thought that it was the blood shed by the whale. The witness was so scared that he went crazy. It is said that the fishermen dare not go even half a step closer to the seaside.”

"Dragons, sea monsters, wildlings." Tyrion said, "When will the White Walkers appear?"

"Do you believe it, Lord Tyrion?" Varys said in a mysterious tone, "Perhaps there is magic hidden in these dragon bones, the magic power that was not used up during their lifetimes."

"Are you a descendant of the nine wizards who came across the sea?" Tyrion responded. "Tell me, Master Varys, what magic do you have that can awaken these bones? Do you need me to provide you with some wildfire?"

"You are joking." Varys took his hand out of his sleeve and reached out to touch the huge dragon bone, "Balerian. The Black Death has been dead for more than two hundred years. If anyone can really wake it up, it won't be my turn. ”

Where they were at the moment was in front of the huge skull of Balerion, known as the "Black Death". Its mouth is so big that it can swallow a whole bison or the legendary mammoth that roams the icy wasteland north of Port Iban.

There are a total of nineteen dragon skulls in the cellar. The oldest one is said to have lived for more than a thousand years and was brought from Valyria, and the youngest one is as old as a century and a half.

The skull of the young dragon is the smallest. The two monstrous skulls are not much bigger than the skull of a hound. They are the last two dragons hatched on Dragonstone, the last two of the Targaryen family, and were once considered They are the last two in the world, and they are very short-lived.

During the Targaryen dynasty, these skulls were displayed on the high wall behind the throne room of the Red Keep as the pride of the Targaryens. Later, Robert Baratheon I picked up the dragon skulls behind the throne and threw them together in a damp and dark cellar.

Only a few people would go to this dank cellar to see this.

Varys and Tyrion met by chance today.

Unlike in the past, they did not talk about government affairs or other secret matters this time. They just stood together in the dank cellar for a long time, staring at Balerion's empty and huge eye sockets, trying to imagine what the giant beast in front of them looked like when he was alive. Imagine it spreading its wings, sweeping across the sky, breathing fire from its mouth.

I don’t know if you have any idea about the "Five Finger Peninsula Sea Monster" mentioned in the original work. Judging from the timing of this news, it is estimated that the time when the news arrived in King's Landing was when Arya let Jia Kun go. Before and after time.

The Five Fingers Peninsula is right next to Braavos.

Many people guessed that the suspected faceless man on Dragonstone was Jia Kun, but he was not. Jia Kun's route in the original book is suspected to be that after being arrested for unknown reasons in the Red Keep, (running to King Balon, after completing Balon,) [doubtful] went to the Old Town, and suspected to go to the Academy to find a book and Books about 'Extinction of the Dragons'.