Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon

This was one day a few weeks ago.

The interior of a temple.

A few candles burned along the wall, giving off a faint light.

In the temple, everything was quiet and cold. Light footsteps scraped the ground, and a door opened and closed gently.

In the huge empty space, someone was murmuring and someone was crying softly.

Even the running water in the temple is quiet.

Countless tall statues stand along the wall, red candles swaying at their feet, like distant and dim stars.

The quiet sound of running water came from a twelve-foot-tall marble statue of a woman. Realistic tears flowed from her eyes, into the bowl she held in her arms, and then slowly flowed from her bowl to a pool ten feet in diameter. . Under the dim red candlelight, the pool was as black as ink. She is the god of death in a certain belief, the weeping woman.

Next is a lion-headed man sitting on a throne, carved from ebony wood. He is the night lion of Yidi; there is a tall horse made of bronze and steel, with two thick hind legs standing upright. The Dothraki undead horse god carries away the dead; further ahead, a shaggy black goat as big as a bison, the black goat of Qhor; a hooded man leaning on a stick, hiding The face under the hood is blurry, he is a stranger among the seven gods; there are many looming shadows in the darkness

A few quiet people sat occasionally on rows of stone benches.

The smell of candles in the temple is some kind of strange spice. It smells like snow and pine needles boiled together, making people feel inexplicably calm and peaceful.

By the pool in the center of the temple, a man in a cloak was crying softly. He put his hand into the water, picked up a handful of water and took a sip. Then he stood up unsteadily, covering his stomach with his hand, and stumbled towards the wall. He climbed into a cavity dug into the rough stone of the wall, lay down on the hard stone bed, and slept.

There are many other cavities along the wall, and many people have slept in them.

Two hooded priests wrapped in black and white robes walked quietly past, their footsteps light, like a dragonfly touching water.

Silent as a shadow.

Other priests come from tunnels and hidden mysterious paths.

They are nobody.

They gathered in a room with a dozen tall chairs carved from ebony and weirwood, the ebony chairs having faces carved from weirwood on the backs, and the weirwood chairs the other way around.

The priests all wore black and white robes, and as they took their seats, each lowered his hood, revealing his face as he had chosen to wear that day.

Two acolytes stood serving, one holding a large wine jug containing dark red wine, and the other holding a kettle. When a priest raised his eyes or curled his fingers, the acolyte went over to fill his glass.

Clerics mostly communicate in the language of Braavos, but sometimes speak Valyrian and Common. Their voices were quiet, but they could hear each other.

The murmurs of the priests continued as the kindly man arrived.

After the kind man sat down, he also took off his hood. There was no face under his hat, only a yellowed skull with a little bit of skin stuck between his cheeks, and a white worm twisting out of the empty eye socket.

He looked as calm as a dead man.

When he spoke, he said: "Valarmorghulis."

The other priests stopped communicating and responded: "Valardohaeris."

The kind person raised the topic: "In a sense, death is not a bad thing. It is a gift from God to end our desires and at the same time end the pain. Life and death are not decided by anyone. Only the God with many faces can give it. We are His servants, and after the prayers and sacrifices of mortals, we give gifts to those chosen by the God of Many Faces. The God of Many Faces has chosen him, and our duty is to serve, so we should continue to bring gifts. he."

Someone said: "He has already rejected a gift from God. An unknown person went to the land of night for this purpose - thanks to the gift of God, the unknown person has found his angel."

These worshipers of the Many-Faced God think. Death is a gift from God. On the day everyone is born, the God of Many Faces will send a black angel. On behalf of death, this angel takes the recipient's hand and leads them to the land of night, where the stars shine brightly forever.

And they are the priests of the Many-Faced God, the servers who bless the gods and send mortals to hold hands with angels. They are nameless people.

What they were talking about was the assassination of Viserys, news had reached Braavos that a Faceless Man had died and Viserys was unharmed.

"Giving gifts to God's chosen ones is exactly what we do," the kind man said. "We are God's instruments." He was saying that the assassination should continue.

Someone said, "He will still refuse this gift. The unknown dances with the Black Angel." He was saying that there was danger in Viserys.

"All mortals are mortal," said the kind man. "We serve with all our hearts. We serve the God of Many Faces. If this is what He requires, then dancing with the Black Angel is the sacrifice God requires."

Someone asked: “Is the devotee’s devotion really enough for the Many-Faced God to listen to his prayers?”

The kind man replied calmly: "Some people contributed, but this is also God's will."

The priests in the room were completely quiet for a while, looking at the kind people with false faces. He said, God's will.

The kind man had only a yellowed skull under his hood, and his hollow eye sockets gave people a cold and chilly aura. He continued: "Go to the Blesser and bring the gift with the Blade of Mercy."

Someone answered: "I will give the gift to this person, I don't know him."

The kind man said: "Black and White."

Another person answered: "I will bring the gift to this person."

As the voice fell, the two monks and the other priests who were serving beside him left one after another...except the kind man and the two priests who gave the answer.

When they were alone, the kind man first looked at one of them: "Who are you?"

The priest calmly replied: "Nobody."

He looked at the other one: "Who are you?"

The other one also answered calmly: "Nobody."

The kind man stood up calmly, put on his hood, and led the two priests who served the gods devoutly to a closed carved wooden door in the room. The left door of the door was made of fish beam wood, as white as a skeleton, and the right door was slightly shining ebony. There is a moon carved between the two doors, but the weirwood is inlaid with ebony, and the ebony is inlaid with weirwood.

There is a legendary story about the origin of the Faceless Men.

The cult of the Thousand-Faced God was originally born among the miserable slaves in the mines of Valyria. The slaves in the mines often revolted, and the first Faceless Man was one of the rebels.

Some people think he is a slave, some say he is a citizen of Freehold, and some think he is an overseer who sympathizes with his slaves. In fact, no one really knows his origins. Everyone only knows that he is active among the slaves and listens to their prayers.

People from hundreds of countries were captured and worked in the mines of Valyria. Everyone prayed to their gods in their own language, but they all prayed for the same thing - liberation and an end to suffering.

An extremely ordinary and simple little thing, but it did not get a response from God.

Until one night, the first Faceless Man woke up and understood that all gods have their own tools and servants who serve them to execute the will of the gods in the world. The slaves are crying to hundreds of different gods. In fact, it is the same god with hundreds of different faces - the God of a Thousand Faces. And he is the tool of this god.

After that, the first Faceless Man gave "gifts" to those desperate slaves, and later he also gave gifts to those slave owners.

There are several points in this story that people tend to overlook.

Why in the Valyrian mines, it stands to reason that in that kind of place, when a slave wants to die, magma, fireflies, gravel, pickaxes... it is not difficult to die, but he has to pray to the gods for liberation?

Why is it a commendable legend that the Faceless Man gave "gifts" to slaves?

The kind man pushed gently, and the door opened silently inwards.

The two devout priests walked inwards under the guidance of the kind man, and the door closed behind them. For a time, the room was dark and blind.

But they continued to move deeper inside.

At the end of the dark room was a wall made of rough boulders and a staircase leading down, which was very narrow.

There was no light, but the kind man and the priests did not make any mistakes.

A chill swept up from the ground, like the cold breath of the deep underground.

They were completely unaware, and only took light steps, still moving down until they reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the deepest darkness.

The place they arrived at was a huge space, with countless huge stone pillars rising from the rough slate floor, two by two on the left and right, extending to the endless darkness in the distance. The cold here was enough to make people shiver. But the priests were not affected at all, and just followed the kind man silently.

Although there was no light source, after the eyes adapted to the darkness, they could see from the deeper darkness of the walls that, just like the part open to the public in the center of the temple, those walls were full of holes where the sleepers lay.

Over the years, thousands and tens of thousands of dead people have been buried here.

In the teachings of the servants of the Black and White Court, those who come to the Temple of the Thousand-Faced God to drink water are the black angels who come to find them, and now they are buried here. It is the land of darkness that the black angels took them to by hand, so that they can sleep peacefully. Although their faces were peeled off and placed somewhere else.

Finally, they arrived at their destination.

A small room that looks like a tomb, with thick stone storage cabinets on the walls.

Here, the kind man climbed up the stone steps on the wall and took out two rough-made glass boxes from one of the stone storage cabinets.

He placed the box on a stone platform in the middle of the room.

Then he took out a huge night-shining pearl from another cabinet.

The night-shining pearl's somewhat dim and cold light illuminated the small room. The light it emitted was dim, but it was enough for people to see the two boxes clearly.

The kind man silently signaled the two priests to open the box.

So the two priests stepped forward and calmly opened the box.

Inside were two weapons that would be very contradictory to anyone who knew a little about the mysticism of this world.

They were two short swords.

The blades were made of obsidian, the so-called dragon crystal. The black glass was smooth and shiny, showing that the blades of the two swords were sharper than steel.

The hilts were made of unknown black bones, which looked like dragon bones, but they were not. This bone originated from a creature called the fire dragon worm, and some people said that they were distant relatives of dragons.

According to legend, the Fourteen Fire Peaks of Valyria are the habitat of fire dragon worms.

Both the dragon crystal of the sword body and the dragon worm bone of the hilt are believed to belong to fire, heat, and the opposite element of coldness in the magic of this world.

However, these two swords give people a feeling of coldness and severe coldness, and when people touch the sword body, they will feel that they are bone-chilling and trembling.

In addition, the sword body is glowing with a faint blue light and a water-like luster; the hilt emits invisible fluctuations, and there is a faint breath of inexplicable sadness.

Their existence alone is enough to make all those who have studied mysticism in the world but do not know the truth feel that their worldview collapses.

They are so contradictory, with ice and fire magic, and the breath of water and earth.

But such a contradiction is now on the stone table.

In the mouth of the Faceless, they are weapons given to servants by the Thousand-Faced God in order to grant prayers liberation, and their name is the Blade of Mercy.

All mortals have to die.

All mortals need to serve.

Temple of the House of Black and White

A kind person

The God of Cold is an evil god who represents darkness, coldness and death.

The White Walkers are servants of the ancient alien gods, a kind of cold alien that lacks human emotions and humanity.

It is difficult not to associate the servants of the Thousand-Faced God with the God of Cold - during the training process, the Faceless will abandon human emotions and only serve the gods. Compared with other sects, they are more like an intermediate state from human to non-human.

In addition, the servants of the Thousand-Faced God believe that they will go to the "Land of Night" after death, and the House of Black and White stores a large number of intact corpses. Braavos is the land closest to the Northern Wall on the Essos continent.

From this, it is speculated that even if the Thousand-Faced God may not be the vest of the God of Cold at the beginning of his birth, as the moment of the decisive battle approaches, the belief in the Thousand-Faced God has quietly changed with the change in the strength of the source of power of the Faceless - the power of the God of Cold is getting stronger and stronger.

So the priests of the Red God will call them "poisoners of alien gods."