#saffron straits
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The Pirate Prince of Yi Ti: Raids past the Saffron Straits *3 of 3*
by Shella Longclaw
“I look back at this voyage with both wonder and regret,” quote from Prince Choq Nen. Having plundered the Jade Sea and Summer Sea, the twenty-one-year-old Pirate Prince decided to journey for new riches further east. He sets sail for the first time on his dragon skin vessel commonly called the Tanned Boat. He figured that he needed the fire resisted vessel to survive the perils of traveling through the Saffron Straits.
Like Tarth the Sapphire Isle, the Saffron Straits aren’t named this for either growing saffron nor for a saffron trade route. It’s called this for the native large, saffron colored crabs which are the size of elephants. The deadly creatures are known to feast on men from time to time. Though, the crabs didn’t devastate the people of Ulos. According to Yi Tish records, the kingdom of Asshai had conquered the small islanders and brought every last one of them over to their kingdom as slaves. Though, it wasn’t Asshai that concerned the Pirate Prince. “My men and I keep one eye open for tiger-men’s ships prowling hungrily the strait.”
After the defeat of the Bloodstone Emperor, his allies, the tiger-men relocated to the lands of Ulthos. That is one place, which would be amazing to explore, though first meeting the powerful tiger-men must be done carefully. Scribe Ayo Ve wrote that the Pirate Prince and his crew were fortunate to not run into any of them as the pirates traveled through and back in Saffron Straits.
The description of the land, the people and animals of these lands will not be supported nor discredited by me. To the kingdom east of the tiger-men are called the Kay-eri, who are known for their mushroom hats and friendly nature. They ride foxes, as they herd their cattle. The pirates looted nothing there, but they traded seeds for moonstones.
Past what we now called the Shadowlands, the pirates spotted a serpopard devouring a blue crow by the shore. They raid merfolks on the edge of land before endless sea. They gained blue and green pearls, and red and orange coral, and hooped snakeskin. The loot is currently held in the palace of Yin. The Pirate Prince and his men venture into the unknown sea for five days. They had decided that if nothing is seen, they will sail back.
On the fourth day, three islands appeared on the horizon. “It appears men that pirates have already claim this spot, though they claimed it poorly.” A ship was observed on one of the island’s shore raiding. The islanders were winning the battle against the invaders. Since the islanders were allied with the merfolk, Nen joined the fight and supported the unknown pirates. Despite the language problems between the two pirates, they were victorious against the islanders. The loot was split fairly between the two invaders’ sides. This is where things start sounding familiar.
The unknown pirates claimed to hail from isles further east. They picked all the iron ore and left the platinum for the Yi Tish. Nen called them Iron Pirates because they seemed to cherish iron. They had slaves rolling below the deck of their ship. The two groups shared a meal together in peace. It was then that sailor Koi gutted a poisonous kumi lizard and showed an Iron Pirate’s daughter how to do it. He fancied this woman Lady Salt and asked for her hand in marriage. Koi gave an old pirate a dragon bone hilt Valyrian steel dagger for her. The old evil pirate used the dagger to stab Koi in the back. A fight erupted between the Yi Tish pirates and the Iron Pirates.
Thankfully, another band of pirates with grey leather skin and two large fangs attacked the Iron Pirates, and Nen and his men were able to escape. Though I don’t doubt the account, I do believe there is more to the story. The interpreter had been a failed scribe who admitted in his journal that he couldn’t completely comprehend the strangers. He didn’t know if the young man and young woman’s name was Rock and Salt, or if they were simply comparing them to salt and rock. I believe these strangers are actually the Ironborn. If this is true, it would give a reason for the sudden attack.
A Yi Tish man commonly gives a dowry for a lady, while in Westeros, a father of the lady gives a prospective husband a dowry. Koi’s polite gesture might have been view as an insult by the Ironborn who believed he sought to buy the young woman as a slave. Sadly, both Koi and the young woman perished in the conflict, and the dagger was taken by an Ironborn. I can’t be certain of this, so I ask if a maester might inquire of the Ironborn about this event to confirm it or deny it. I am curious about what happened to the dagger as well.
In any regard, this was the last voyage of Prince Choq Nen. “Koi was my brother, and the crew has always been my family if only I had been blessed not to be a prince. I must retire my post because I can’t bear to lose any more of you, and a good captain is fearless.” He gave up his ship and position as captain to one of his men. He married a deceased sailor’s widow and lived on one island of the Manticore Isles. It’s rumored to this day that his home became a haven for Yi Tish pirates.
His legacy has captured the hearts of young Yi Tish sailors. Over thousands of years, many pirates would hold titles such the “Master of Currents” (a title which Nen referred to himself) and Indigo Pirates in honor of him. As for his astonishing ship the Tanned Boat, its fate is uncertain. Some scholars claimed that it was destroyed in a battle against another pirate, while some scribes believed that a second dragon skin ship had been destroyed, and Prince Choq Nen’s descendants kept the vessel. No one knows.
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WHEN BLACK-MEN RULED THE WORLD
Some Things You Did Not Know About the Moors of Spain
1. The Spanish occupation by the Moors began in 711 AD when an African army, under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa and invaded the Iberian peninsula ‘Andalus’.
2. A European scholar sympathetic to the Spaniards remembered the conquest in this way:
a. The reins of the Moors horses were as fire, their faces black as pitch, their eyes shone like burning candles, their horses were swift as leopards and the riders fiercer than a wolf in a sheepfold at night . . . The noble Goths [the German rulers of Spain to whom Roderick belonged] were broken in an hour, quicker than tongue can tell. Oh luckless Spain!
Quoted in Edward Scobie, The Moors and Portugal’s Global Expansion, in Golden Age of the Moor, ed Ivan Van Sertima, US, Transaction Publishers, 1992, p.336
3. The Moors, who ruled Spain for 800 years, introduced new scientific techniques to Europe, such as an astrolabe, a device for measuring the position of the stars and planets. Scientific progress in Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Geography and Philosophy flourished in Moorish Spain.
4. Basil Davidson, one of the most noted historians recognized and declared that there were no lands at that time (the eighth century) “more admired by its neighbours, or more comfortable to live in, than a rich African civilization which took shape in Spain”
5. At its height, Córdova, the heart of Moorish territory in Spain, was the most modern city in Europe and the world. The streets were well-paved, with raised sidewalks for pedestrians. During the night, ten miles of streets were well illuminated by lamps. This was hundreds of years before there was a paved street in Paris or a street lamp in London. Cordova had 900 public baths – we are told that a poor Moor would go without bread rather than soap while the then
Queen of England never had a bath!
6. The Great Mosque of Córdoba (La Mezquita) is still one of the architectural wonders of the world in spite of later Spanish disfigurements. Its low scarlet and gold roof, supported by 1,000 columns of marble, jasper and and porphyry, was lit by thousands of brass and silver lamps which burned perfumed oil.
7. Education was universal in Moorish Spain, available to all, while in Christian Europe more than ninety-nine percent of the population were illiterate, and even kings could neither read nor write. At that time, Europe had only two universities copied from Spain, the Moors had seventeen great Universities! These were located in Almeria, Cordova, Granada, Juen, Malaga, Seville, and Toledo in which the majority of the lecturers were women.
8. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, public libraries in Europe were non-existent, while Moorish Spain could boast of more than seventy, of which the one in Cordova housed six hundred thousand manuscripts.
9. Over 4,000 Arabic words and Arabic-derived phrases have been absorbed into the Spanish language. Words beginning with “al,” for example, are derived from Arabic. Arabic words such as algebra, alcohol, chemistry, nadir, alkaline, and cipher entered the language. Even words such as checkmate, influenza, typhoon, orange, and cable can be traced back to Arabic origins.
10. The most significant Moorish musician was known as Ziryab, the Blackbird who arrived in Spain in 822. The Moors introduced earliest versions of several instruments, including the Lute or el oud, the guitar or kithara and the Lyre. Ziryab changed the style of eating by breaking meals into separate courses beginning with soup and ending with desserts.
11. The Moors introduced paper to Europe and Arabic numerals, which replaced the clumsy Roman system.
12. The Moors introduced many new crops including the orange, lemon, peach, apricot, fig, sugar cane, dates, ginger and pomegranate as well as saffron, sugar cane, cotton, silk and rice which remain some of Spain’s main products today.
13. The Moorish rulers lived in sumptuous palaces, while the monarchs of Germany, France, and England dwelt in big barns, with no windows and no chimneys, and with only a hole in the roof for the exit of smoke. One such Moorish palace ‘Alhambra’ (literally “the red one”) in Granada is one of Spain’s architectural masterpieces. Alhambra was the seat of Muslim rulers from the 13th century to the end of the 15th century. The Alhambra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
14. It was through Africa that the new knowledge of China, India, and Arabia reached Europe. The Moors brought the Compass from China into Europe.
15. The Moors ruled and occupied Lisbon in Portugal (named “Lashbuna” by the Moors) and the rest of the country until well into the twelfth century. They were finally defeated and driven out by the forces of King Alfonso Henriques. The scene of this battle was the ‘Castle of St. George.’
Beginning in the 12th century and continuing for hundreds of years, the Inquisition was infamous for the severity of its tortures and its persecution of Jews and Muslims. Its worst manifestation was in Spain, where the Spanish Inquisition was a dominant force for more than 200 years, resulting in some 32,000 executions.
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The Magic Users Before Old Valyria, Part One: Magical Nuclear Fallout
i am positive this post has been made before but i'm making it anyway because it's eating away at my brain so let's gooooo.
We are delving into a fever dream that Dany has in AGOT, that will take us to the Pre-Valyrian magical users and their link to Valyria.
so in Dany's fever dream in AGOT, she has a vision of her ancestors:
Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade.
They look just like other Valyrians - hair of gold, white, and silver with funky colored eyes.
But note the exact gems mentioned! In TWOIAF, we get a little background on Yi Ti and their belief system. read here:
[In the beginning] a single realm ruled by the God-on-Earth, the only begotten son of the Lion of Night and Maiden-Made-of-Light, who traveled about his domains in a palanquin carved from a single pearl and carried by a hundred queens, his wives. For ten thousand years the Great Empire of the Dawn flourished in peace and plenty under the God-on-Earth, until at last he ascended to the stars to join his forebears.
Dominion over mankind then passed to his eldest son, who was known as the Pearl Emperor and ruled for a thousand years. The Jade Emperor, the Tourmaline Emperor, the Onyx Emperor, the Topaz Emperor, and the Opal Emperor followed in turn, each reigning for centuries…
When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. He practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy, enslaved his people, took a tiger-woman for his bride, feasted on human flesh, and cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky.
Opal, Amethyst, Tourmaline, and Jade Emperors, just like her ancestors. It's not a huge stretch to say that likely, Dany, and therefore Valyrians as a whole (or at the least the Dragon Riders of Valyria) are the remnants of this ancient empire, The Great Empire of the Dawn, the same way that the Ghiscari culture is the remnant of Old Ghis - changed a bit, but with many similarities passed down amongst its people.
But who exactly is this civilization and how did they eventually turn into the Valyrians? Well, let's keep continuing with that passage about the Bloodstone Emperor:
In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night…How long the darkness endured no man can say, but all agree that it was only when a great warrior—known variously as Hyrkoon the Hero, Azor Ahai, Yin Tar, Neferion, and Eldric Shadowchaser—arose to give courage to the race of men and lead the virtuous into battle with his blazing sword Lightbringer that the darkness was put to rout, and light and love returned once more to the world.
Basically, the people of Yi Ti believe that the Great Empire of the Dawn stretched far across the globe, and that when the Bloodstone Emperor usurped his niece, The Amethyst Empress, potentially using some weird blood magic, it caused the Long Night and the collapse of the Great Empire of the Dawn.
I think that this blood magic he was messing around with was, to use a metaphor, basically a magic nuclear bomb and I think ground zero for this - and therefore the capital of the Great Empire of the Dawn - is Asshai-by-the-Shadow. It's very notable that Asshai is so old its people don't even know what its origins are:
The ancient port of Asshai stands at the end of a long wedge of land, on the point where the Jade Sea meets the Saffron Straits. Its origins are lost in the mists of time. Even the Asshai’i do not claim to know who built their city; they will say only that a city has stood here since the world began and will stand here until it ends. Few places in the known world are as remote as Asshai, and fewer are as forbidding. Travelers tell us that the city is built entirely of black stone: halls, hovels, temples, palaces, streets, walls, bazaars, all. Some say as well that the stone has a greasy, unpleasant feel to it, that it seems to drink the light, dimming tapers and torches and hearth fires alike.
Note that last part, about the city being built from black stone - Valyria is well known for having Weird, Cool Architecture that involves black stone, fused together by dragon fire. From ADWD prologue:
Across the wide blue expanse of the Rhoyne, he could see the Black Wall that had been raised by the Valyrians when Volantis was no more than an outpost of their empire: a great oval of fused stone two hundred feet high and so thick that six four-horse chariots could race around its top abreast, as they did each year to celebrate the founding of the city.
and again from Tyrion's POV:
The gateway to the Long Bridge was a black stone arch carved with sphinxes, manticores, dragons, and creatures stranger still. Beyond the arch stretched the great span that the Valyrians had built at the height of their glory, its fused stone roadway supported by massive piers.
And one more time F&B/The Princess and the Queen, when Aegon and Sunfyre on are Dragonstone:
Sunfyre’s scales still shone like beaten gold in the sunlight, but as he sprawled across the fused black Valyrian stone of the yard, it was plain to see that he was a broken thing, he who had been the most magnificent dragon ever to fly the skies of Westeros
rip to the hottest dragon in westeros.
It's very much a Valyrian thing, this fused black stone...yet the entirety of Asshai is built with black stone, even though the city predates Valyria, and the black stone of Asshai is just a little different - a greasy, unpleasant feeling. I think that this greasy feeling comes from the remnants of the magic that caused the Long Night - going back to that idea of a magical nuclear bomb which is poisoning the land the way radiation does. I think this because there are actually several ancient cities of mysterious origin with black stone and a greasy, oily feeling to them, all of which seem to have suffered some sort of magical nuclear fallout the way Asshai has, and they're all not too far from each other either:
The Idol on the Isle of Toads in the Basilisk Isles
Ruins found upon the Isle of Tears, the Isle of Toads, and Ax Island hint at some ancient civilization, but little is now known of these vanished men of the Dawn Age. If any still survived when the first corsairs settled on the islands, they were soon put to the sword, so no trace of them now remains … save perhaps upon the Isle of Toads…
On the Isle of Toads can be found an ancient idol, a greasy black stone crudely carved into the semblance of a gigantic toad of malignant aspect, some forty feet high. The people of this isle are believed by some to be descended from those who carved the Toad Stone, for there is an unpleasant fishlike aspect to their faces, and many have webbed hands and feet. If so, they are the sole surviving remnant of this forgotten race.
The Five Forts
The Five Forts are very old, older than the Golden Empire itself; some claim they were raised by the Pearl Emperor during the morning of the Great Empire to keep the Lion of Night and his demons from the realms of men … and indeed, there is something godlike, or demonic, about the monstrous size of the forts, for each of the five is large enough to house ten thousand men, and their massive walls stand almost a thousand feet high.
Certain scholars from the west have suggested Valyrian involvement in the construction of the Five Forts, for the great walls are single slabs of fused black stone that resemble certain Valyrian citadels in the west … but this seems unlikely, for the Forts predate the Freehold’s rise, and there is no record of any dragonlords ever coming so far east.
The Ancient City of Yeen
Maesters and other scholars alike have puzzled over the greatest of the engimas of Sothoryos, the ancient city of Yeen. A ruin older than time, built of oily black stone, in massive blocks so heavy that it would require a dozen elephants to move them, Yeen has remained a desolation for many thousands of years, yet the jungle that surrounds it on every side has scarce touched it.
And even more suspicious is the fact that Sothoryos, where Yeen is located, is known for its large wyvern population:
Most terrible of all are the wyverns, those tyrants of the southern skies, with their great leathery wings, cruel beaks, and insatiable hunger. Close kin to dragons, wyverns cannot breathe fire, but they exceed their cousins in ferocity and are a match for them in all other respects save size.
Now there's different stories on how dragons came to be, but most interesting to me is what the Asshai'i claim:
The Valyrians themselves claimed that dragons sprang forth as the children of the Fourteen Flames, while in Qarth the tales state that there was once a second moon in the sky. One day this moon was scalded by the sun and cracked like an egg, and a million dragons poured forth. In Asshai, the tales are many and confused, but certain texts—all impossibly ancient—claim that dragons first came from the Shadow, a place where all of our learning fails us. These Asshai’i histories say that a people so ancient they had no name first tamed dragons in the Shadow and brought them to Valyria, teaching the Valyrians their arts before departing from the annals.
Septon Barth later writes that he believes Valyrians used wyverns and blood magic to make dragons:
In Septon Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns, he speculated that the bloodmages of Valyria used wyvern stock to create dragons. Though the bloodmages were alleged to have experimented mightily with their unnatural arts, this claim is considered far-fetched by most maesters, among them Maester Vanyon’s Against the Unnatural contains certain proofs of dragons having existed in Westeros even in the earliest of days, before Valyria rose to be a power.
So to sum up basically:
Dany's vision shows us her ancestors, who are almost definitely the rulers of the Great Empire of the Dawn
We know several cities - Asshai, Yeen, the Isle of Toads - that have an architectural resemblance to the fused black stone that the Valyrians used, but their structures predate Valyria.
We know Septon Barth believes dragons were made through blood magic with wyverns as a base stock and that there are a lot of wyverns in one of these ancient places, Sothoryos/Yeen, where the black stone architecture is found.
The people of Yi Ti believe that a magical calamity of some sort caused the Long Night.
THEREFORE: The Great Empire of the Dawn had its capital in Asshai, and used blood magic to start the Long Night (by accident, most likely), which caused a huge magical calamity that affected the entire world, and while their people never recovered from it, they brought their magical knowledge with them to their new home in Valyria, where they made more black fused stone architecture and turned their wyverns into dragons. Meanwhile, the "ground zero" for much of this magical calamity still experiences the magical fallout of this calamity.
OKAY. That's part one because this is getting super long winded. Part Two will be....JUST HOW BIG WAS THE GREAT EMPIRE OF THE DAWN ANYWAY?
#valyrianscrolls#old valyria#the great empire of the dawn#house targaryen#getting on my soap box#septon barth#yi ti
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Assorted Dragon Ball Dub VA Thoughts
I do not like Ian James Corlett's take on Son Goku. Disrespectful as that may sound seeing as he was the original English VA for the character, I just think he brought the wrong energy, wrong tone, wrong inflections, and just wrong portrayal to the role. He made Goku sound like a mature, macho superhero, and that had a negative effect on how Peter Kelamis and Sean Schemmel had to perform the role when they took over for Ian. Everything uncharacteristic about Goku in the early dubs can be traced back to Ian's portrayal of him.
The big three English voices for Goku to me are Sean Schemmel, Peter Kelamis, and Kirby Morrow. Schemmel is easily the most iconic and recognizable, and he really made the role his own as he improved over the years, Kelamis' portrayal of Goku in the Pioneer dubs of the first three movies is as close to a dead ringer to Masako Nozawa in English (but from a male VA) as you could ask for, and I think the late Kirby Morrow, who took over from Kelamis in the Westwood dub, was the only VA for Goku from the Ocean Group to get the character down right in the show itself, doing less of the cheesy hero shtick. All of them work really well for Adult Goku.
For Kid Goku, however? Sorry, but I can hear literally no one else but Stephanie Nadolny in that role. No one else even comes close. Her rough voice and delivery of her performance was just pitch perfect.
Bulma's best dub VA is still Tiffany Volmer, who never gave a poor, half-assed performance in the role except for her debut outing in Season 3 (which was just cringe). Monica Rial comes in as a close second but the trouble with her is that when she needs to get comically frantic and really emote, she sounds very immediately recognizable as a Monica Rial performance, whereas Volmer always sounded more unique. Three other Bulma VAs that go overlooked are Lalaina Lindjberg, Maggie Blue O'Hara, and Wendee Lee. Lalaina's Bulma is underappreciated, as it was very fitting and well acted. Maggie's Bulma sounds the most "real" out of all the Bulma voices, but in that movie dub she sort of underperformed compared to how she could've (think Lime) and she should not have been brought back in the Westwood dub. And with Wendee Lee, I just find it funny that she technically was the first to do Bulma in English for the lost Harmony Gold dub and then reprised the role many, many years later in the short lived Bang Zoom dub of Dragon Ball Super.
Gohan's a complicated case for me, since unlike Kid Goku, I was never big on how Stephanie Nadolny voiced Kid Gohan - she undersold everything during the Season 3 dub and then was too try-hard in the redub and every reprisal. I greatly preferred Saffron Henderson and Colleen Clinkenbeard's more natural takes. However, Nadolny absolutely killed it as young Teen Gohan in the Cell Saga, to the point where every other VA to perform the role during those events just will not sound right. As for older Gohan, while I love the way Kyle Hebert does him, Chris Hackney in the Bang Zoom Super dub was almost just as good. Brad Swaile in the Westwood dub and even Lex Lang in the US release of Final Bout showed potential too.
I always liked Terry Klassen's Krillin in a semi-ironic way. Like, he had a naturally fitting voice for the character but often overacted like crazy and made him hard to take seriously. Sonny Strait, like most, started off a weak replacement in Season 3, but nowadays? He IS Krillin. He breathes so much life and likability into the character and for years I'd believed Sony would never have a role that could match or surpass it...until a certain yellow octopus teacher came along. While I also like how Mike Thiessen and Brian Beacock approached the role, they fail to stand out when stacked against Sony's take. Also, major props to Laurie Steele as Kid Krillin - her voice for him sounds exactly like a kid who'd grow up into Sonny Strait's Krillin.
Scott McNeil and Chris Sabat are both hailed as the best VAs for Piccolo by many, and I'd say that's right....but Sabat himself has gone on record to say that he believes his Piccolo is utterly dwarfed by Scott's even now, so I'm sort of inclined to believe him. Solid as Sabat's Piccolo has become, there's just this gruff, gravelly, badass quality to Scott's Piccolo that just cannot be matched. Aside from them, Dan Woren and Ray Chase were fitting VA picks for Piccolo (though Woren was sadly misdirected given where he featured in), and you just gotta have a soft spot for Paul Bandey as Big Green!
Chris Sabat was, however, the best voice for Demon King Piccolo in the Dragon Ball dub, which helped make his Piccolo Jr. better.
Vegeta....is a toughie. Chris Sabat was horrid as the character in Season 3, showed improvement in Season 4, came into his own in Season 5 onward but also sounded awful in the redub and phoned it in for a lot of his subsequent outings, and then ever since dubbing Kai, he's been excellent enough to secure his place as the definitive English voice of Vegeta. Like, his Kai and post-Kai performances are objectively the best Vegeta has ever sounded in Western dubs, he just embodies the role so much. ...And yet, whenever I think back to or revisit the first two DBZ sagas, it is exceedingly difficult for me to get Brian Drummond's Vegeta out of my head. The nostalgia is a large part of that, but on its own merits, Brian's Vegeta was just so deliciously sinister sounding and oozing with underlining arrogance and spiteful fury that made Vegeta seem so intimidating. This is the guy who made "OVER NINE THOUSAAAND!" and "MY WRAAATH!" so unforgettable! He did fine, if not a touch weaker, in the Westwood dub as well, though by the Buu Saga I definitely prefer Sabat's take. The only other English VA to come close to these two would be Kaiji Tang in Bang Zoom's Super dub, but even that's mainly due to him strongly channeling Sabat into his Archer-esque vocal portrayal.
Linda Young's Freeza remains iconic for many, and I will say that I can't pass any blame on her for having been in the role and any missteps she might've committed in it, as she was cast to be a soundalike replacement for the late (and sadly miscast) Pauline Newstone. I will also say that in her first five years voicing the part, from 1999 to 2004, her Freeza sounded pretty great and she was skillful at voicing the character as it had been translated. In Season 3 she'd been the highlight and its sole shining instance of competent voice acting, giving Freeza different, fitting voices for all his forms and nailing the character's sadistic evilness in spite of the scripts feeding her some truly horrendous dialogue. However, by 2005 and the redubbing of the Namek/Freeza sagas, Linda had, for whatever reason, decided to start voicing Freeza in this "tranny granny" voice, like a high pitched, chainsmoking old diva with obnoxious line reads and screams like Rita Repulsa, and the voice directors just...let her do that. And this was especially harmful for Freeza in his final form, as the voice acting did not match the character as depicted in any way whatsoever. Her being recast for Kai was a not pre-planned thing, but I was and still am so relieved it happened. It's what had to be done and indeed what should have been done a long time back.
The late, great Christopher Ayres is bar none the best dub VA for Freeza. He redefined how the character would sound like in English, delivering a take on him faithful to Ryusei Nakao's original portrayal while also making enough distinctions to stand on its own. While Ayres is still greatly missed in general and his passing was a huge loss for the industry, it wasn't a huge loss for the role of Freeza since Daman Mills is freakishly beyond brilliant at recapturing that voice and doing similar performances to carry on that legacy, so we are so fortunate to have him. Beyond them, the only other offical dub voice for Freeza to even begin to match up would be Derek Stephen Prince doing his Vexen voice for the character in Bang Zoom's Super dub.
Cell's an interesting case where all dub VAs to do Imperfect Cell sound alike and all suit him well, but for Semi-Perfect Cell, Travis Willingham surpassed Dameon Clarke in how he performed the voice prior to Clarke's reprisals starting with Kai, where he improved the Semi-Perfect Cell voice to stack up to how Travis did it. And Perfect Cell? Dameon Clarke stands alone there, unmatched. He is perfect!
Both Josh Martin and Scott McNeil give portrayals of Mr. Buu that work for his character. The same can't be said of Corby Proctor's strange Jar Jar-Gollum hybrid voice, and Spike Spencer trying way too hard yet failing to come off as convincing.
Justin Cook's initial outing as Super Buu was...off. He just sounded way too scary and ominous for a character who's supposed to be not just demonic, but savage, brutish, and petulant. Brian Dobson in the Westwood dub actually played the part better. But in practically every reprisal, especially by Kai, Justin proved able to easily match that.
Am I the only one who has a hard time stomaching Eric Vale as Future Trunks these days? From his first shot at the role all the way to the Kai dub, he absolutely nailed the character and endeared him to so many fans with his emotional performances, but afterwards he started making the voice way too gruff and snarly and it's made Trunks harder and harder to take seriously. I don't think he's no longer capable of doing Trunks as good as he used to since other roles like Yuki Sohma suggest that he still could, so I don't know what he's going for anymore. Sean Chiplock sadly never got the chance to go into more Trunks material since Bang Zoom's Super dub lasted those first two sagas, but I think he'd sound a lot better in the role.
Master Roshi had a great VA for him for Funimation's initial dub of Dragon Ball in Michael Donovan, and it's weird that he was never brought back for DBZ. Out of the other Ocean Group VAs to voice him, I only really liked Don Brown in The World's Strongest - Ian James Corlett, Peter Kelamis, and Terry Klassen never sounded right and were never convincing. Mike McFarland IS Master Roshi in English: he did a good job crafting the character's voice and playing the part from the start, and by the second, full dub of Dragon Ball and going onward he's just nailed it, sounding more and more natural in the role the more he himself ages. He gives the character so much charm, humor, and stern seriousness when needed that it almost, almost, makes his dated old pervert shtick easy to overlook! The only other good Roshi voice is Kirk Thornton is the Bang Zoom Super dub, but even he can't quite hold a candle to McFarland's iconic take.
Chi Chi has mostly had fine VAs whose portrayls of her have worked for what the character calls for. Of particular note are Carol Anne Day, Lisa Ann Bailey, Lara Sadiq, Nicole Oliver, and Cynthia Cranz.
I only really like Dave "Squatch" Ward and Dave Petit as the Ox King. Kyle Hebert's not awful or anything, but his Ox King never sounded natural. Best you can say is that it's better than Mark Britten's take.
Likewise I only really like Elan Ross Gibson and Linda Young as Fortuneteller Baba (who had some male VAs voicing her a lot for whatever reason?), and only Brian Drummond and Mike McFarland for Yajirobe, though with a bias towards Drummond in the latter role since he got it down earlier and his delivery was more memorable. And I will remain forever insistent that Yajirobe is a Chris Sabat role he never got. Sabat's Kuwabara voice seems meant for the part!
It seems to be an unpopular opinion but I preferred Ward Perry to Dale Wilson as Kami Sama. And Dale was very good as Kami, mind you, but Ward Perry just has a natural gravitas in his voice and carries an aged god-like quality that makes his Kami voice my favorite. Third place goes to Chris Sabat, as it should be a natural choice to have Kami and Piccolo share a VA, but it took until the dub of Kai for Sabat to get it down. Beforehand, his Kami was too wheezy and like a younger man doing a weak impression of an old man.
I prefer Chris Casan to Chris Sabat as Mr. Popo, but prefer Alvin Sanders to them both. Sanders is the only VA to give that odd looking caricature any dignity, and him actually being black helped as well.
I will freely admit that Don Brown remains the definitive King Kai voice in my mind, as he most effectively balanced silly clownishness with an aged wisdom and dignity to him. Dean Galloway in the Blue Water GT dub and Michael McConnohie in the Bang Zoom Super dub are also excellent, with the latter sounding the most like the OG Japanese voice for Kai. Sean Schemmel....I've gotten used to his King Kai and he performs the part more competently nowadays when compared to how he started, but I still think the voice he goes for is just not what the character called for. It sounds too stupid, everyone has made fun of it. I mean, on literally day one of that early Captain Ginyu: Double Cross VHS release back in 1999, the friend who lent it to me had to warn me that this stupid voice was coming! That out of all the poor replacement Funimation voices, it had to be singled out as being particularly awful! So it's bizarre Sean's still kept with it.
Ward Perry and Chris Rager are the only good King Yamma voices.
Young Andrew Francis was the best and most natural voice for Young Dende, but Maxey Whitehead is definitely the next best thing. While Laura Bailey's Dende was well acted, the voice she used couldn't really disguise the fact that Dende's being voiced by a girl, unlike her Kid Trunks. The less said about Ceyli Juliann Delgadillo, the better. As for older Dende, only Justin Cook does it great.
Only Bill Jenkins got Grand Elder Guru down right. Robert O Smith's creepy Alfred Hitchcock voice didn't fit the large elderly Namekian and didn't even sound weary enough. Chris Sabat sounded more weary in Season 3 but was clearly a fake old man voice that didn't require much from him, and he sounded a lot worse in reprisals.
Chris Rager is Hercule Satan. It's the role that literally launched his career as a voice acting and he's never missed a beat in reprisals of the character. Jamieson Price in the Bang Zoom Super dub fits him very well too, even if he's naturally easily eclipsed by Rager. While I could get what Don Brown was going for with his take, I just don't like the performance - we all know the Ocean VA who should voice Mr. Satan is Trevor Devall, but that Kai dub they did was never released so we'll never know if he ended up doing it or not. And Dave Petit as Mr. Satan is such a massive letdown. You'd expect the dub VA for Master Asia to easily nail Mr. Satan, and yet he gave us THAT???
Kara Edwards is definitively Videl. She did great as her voice since she started voicing the role and has only gotten better by Kai. Monica Stori in the Westwood dub isn't bad per say, but I feel Myriam Sirois would've been the more obvious and better casting choice there. Erika Harlacher was spot on casting for the character but was sadly hampered by Super's lackluster Videl-in-name-only material.
I could never quite buy Laura Bailey's Erasa, as she sounded like a sweet Girl Next Door trying too hard to sound like a ditzy diva. Kelly Sheridan pulled off her voice more naturally in the Westwood dub, but Alexis Tipton in the Kai dub is easily the best of the bunch.
Bradford Jackson is the definitive Oolong voice, and it shouldn't even be close, yet Bryan Massey, Richard Newman, and surprisingly even Ray Chase give surprisingly close enough to match his portrayal. The only real opinion I can give is that as much as I enjoy Massey in the role, I think that after Jackson left the second time, they should've given the role to Jeremy Schwartz, who's an even closer soundalike.
Once he finally shook off the absurd Harvey Fierstein impression that Paul Dobson originated, Chris Sabat has played the best Korin. Roger Rhodes, Paul Bandey, and Theodore Lehmann also have very fitting voices for the old cat and they work in their own ways. Ted Cole is by far the most baffling to me, as he opted to play Korin like Garfield even though he was coming off of Dobson's Fierstein voice, creating a huge whiplash in what's meant to be the same character.
Speaking of Ted Cole, though, his Yamcha is still my personal favorite voice for the character. Sabat's Yamcha is fitting too, but can also grate on you after a while and it's more than a bit awkward to have Yamcha and Vegeta voiced by the same person. The other best sounding Yamcha would be Grant George in the Bang Zoom dub.
For whatever reason, Tienshinhan has barely recieved a good dub voice. John Burgmeier stands out as easily the best of the bunch, though Brendan Hunter and (yet again) Ray Chase are good as well.
Chuck Huber is the definitive Emperor Pilaf and I will accept no substitutes. Not even Don Brown, Dean Galloway, or Tom Fahn.
Kent Williams is easily the best Tao Pai Pai, but Doug McKeag in the Blue Water dub did a fittingly menacing yet campy take on him as well. Scott McNeil in the Westwood dub of DBZ is also entertaining to listen to, but giving an oriential dressed character with an oriental sounding name a Russian accent was...questionable.
While the older dub for Mystical Adventure is pretty cringe on the whole, it featured easily the most fitting vocal performance for Master Shen the Crane Hermit from the late, great Robert Axelrod. The only VA who comes even close to comparing would be Clark Robertson in the Blue Water dub. Chuck Huber comes in third place here, I never much liked his Shen, especially compared to his Pilaf.
Jason Gray Standford and Justin Cook have both given us equally perfect vocal portrayals of Raditz. Likewise, Michael Dobson and Phil Parsons are both solid as Nappa, though here I'd say the latter gets a definite edge over the former since he plays the role straight as the cruel, brutish and imposing Saiyan commando Nappa is meant to be, whereas Dobson delivered a lot of his lines in too juvenille a way.
Dodoria's voices in the Funimation dubs all work for him, but John Swasey is especially well cast as he effortlessly bridged the divide between the higher, raspy take by Paul Dobson and the deeper, throatier take by Chris Forbis into one pitch perfect voice.
J. Michael Tatum is the only VA for Zarbon who was just flawless in his approach and performances, so it sucks that he parted with the role once Mira became his main DB role to voice. Paul Dobson also did a kickass job, giving Zarbon a more masculine characterization than I think would be expected of him, though the Australian accent was certainly a choice. Chris Sabat has been all over the place here - he did a spot on Paul Dobson impression in Season 3 but then settled into a more refined, vaguely British sounding voice until suddenly he began doing his flamboyant, campy Ayame Sohma shtick for Zarbon and it sounded awful and ill-fitting. Now that he's got the role again he's notably improved once more, retaining the Ayame voice but changing up the delivery so that we buy Zarbon is actually taking shit seriously and so we're able to take him seriously.
The ideal lineup for the Ginyu Force would be Brice Armstrong as Ginyu, Vic Mignogna as Burter, Chris Sabat as Jeice, David Kaye as Recoome, and Terry Klassen as Guldo, as those were all the best fits for those characters. For Ginyu I also love Richard Newman, Richard Epcar, and R. Bruce Elliot's versions - Dale Kelly is the only one who flat out sucked, as he was horrendously misdirected and sounded like a generic big dumb goon or an evil Popeye the Sailor Man. Don Brown was a good establishing voice for Burter, and while Vic can no longer voice him for obvious reasons, I'm glad Sabat is doing better in channeling him rather than Mark Britten, who was the worst Burter. While I like Scott McNeil and Ernesto Jason Liebrecht's Jeices in their series' better than Sabat's, Sabat as Space Australia Jeice in all the video games has been the most entertaining. Obviously David Kaye's original Recoome can never quite be measured up to, but as of the Kai dub Chris Sabat finally found his footing with the role rather than doing a bad attempt at Kaye, a weird Schwarzenegger voice, or a painfully unfunny blithering retard stereotype voice like before. And while Bill Townsley did alright as Guldo, I think Greg Ayres really refined and perfected the whiney froggy voice he was going for.
Jason Douglas is the only VA to get King Cold down pat. Bradford Jackson's approach was a bit too literal-minded in sounding like a posh, faygala king and then transitioning 100% into a threatening thug when swinging the sword at Trunks. Michael Dobson just sounded like a generic evil brute. Douglas gets down the king quality, the cold quality, and the subtle menace all in a fairly deep voice that's just deep enough and aged enough to perfectly suit the character.
On the Androids...obviously Todd Haberkorn was best suited for 19 seeing as the competition was a high pitched racist stereotype voice speaking in monotone and Cathy Weseluck trying way too hard to sound like a big dumb fatso. Both Kent Williams and Brian Dobson were stellar as 20/Dr. Gero, but the former became especially suitable for the role with each reprisal of it he's done. It's no contest with 16, as even before his improvement for Kai and beyond, Jeremy Inman's voice fit better than Scott McNeil's overly done giant voice. And while Chuck Huber and Meredith McCoy are the most iconic and perfectly suited for 17 and 18, I think all the VAs to for the characters did good enough jobs, including Colleen Clinkenbeard's 18 in Kai.
Duncan Brannan did the best Babidi, it's not even remotely close.
Beerus and Whis are simply owned by Jason Douglas and Ian Sinclair, though I don't think John DeMita and Doug Erholtz in the Bang Zoom dub were awful, they just could've been directed better.
Champa, meanwhile, is a case where the short-lived Bang Zoom dub actually managed to outdo Funimation. Kirk Thornton fits Champa's appearance and personality better than Ernesto Jason Liebrecht, and it's not even close, though Caitlin Glass and Tamara Ryan do come close to each other as Vados: their voices and tone are both perfect.
James Marsters as Zamasu is just...if anything sells Zamasu as one of the all-time greats of villainy in Dragon Ball, that casting does.
I slightly prefer Don Brown as Garlic Jr. (his monologue upon gaining immortality really clinches it for me), but Chuck Huber also put in a tremendous effort to bring life to the role so that he seems a bit more than just a throwaway filler villain. Should he ever resurface, I think Bill Townsley ought to have a crack at voicing him, as his Babidi voice was closer to Huber's Garlic than to Duncan Brannan's Babidi.
Dr. Wheelo has three VAs and rather curiously falls into the exact same situation as the three VAs for Andross of Star Fox - one of them (R. Bruce Elliot) fits a big scary villain but doesn't carry much of an old scientist quality to him, while another (Douglas Rand) sounds like a mad scientist but carries virtually no menace in his acting. And then there's the one, Ward Perry, who gets it down juuuust right.
Turles is another great Ward Perry villain role, though more so in the uncut Pioneer release dub than the TV dub where he put on what sounded like a forced impression of Brian Drummond's Vegeta. Chris Patton didn't really carry the same quality to his take on Turles in the redub, but in the games to feature Turles afterwards, especially by Xenoverse 2, he's become just as definitive a Turles voice as Ward.
Jonny Yong Bosch as Broly > Vic Mignogna as Broly, come at me, but I'm right. Also, Paul Bandey was actually the significantly better (and more entertaining) fit for Paragus in the Big Green dub of Movie 8, but the more aged Dameon Clarke fit Super's Paragus far better.
This doesn't seem the common opinion, but for the GT version of Pan I think Caitlynne Medrek of the Blue Water dub > Elise Baughman of the Funimation dub. She sounds closer to the character's age and doesn't deliver most of her lines like she's half-yawning all the time. Similarly, Carol Anne Day > Amber Cotton as Valese in that show. You just can't go wrong with Carol Anne Day!
Bura, meanwhile, is a case of when the English VAs get better and better. Parisa Fakhri had a decent voice but was a notably wooden voice actress who never really committed to selling her characters. Leda Davies in the Blue Water dub had more energy and I'd argue she fit Bura better than she ever fit Bulma. Brina Palencia took over from Parisa for a cameo in Budokai Tenkaichi 2, delivering a similar voice saying more competently acted lines. Lauren Landa, who's been Bulla ever since the end of Kai, is easily the best Bura voice, as she gets down the right voice, right energy, and right line reads.
Lastly, let's talk about the Dragon himself. Don Brown, Chris Sabat, and Dave Petit are all top tier voices for Shenron, all making him sound believable as a mighty, magical wish-granting dragon diety. Sabat has become easily the most iconic out of them and he does wonderfully....but my personal favorite remains Don Brown. Partly because of that growl he has that's very Tiger Head Cave from Aladdin sounding and befitting a dragon, but also partly because it's Don Brown. Look at his resume, particularly as DB characters like many mentioned on here, and would you ever guess that was him?
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The neck of her saffron gown fell open a good deal lower than the sark she usually wore: and as she leaned towards him the thing that she wore on a silken cord around her neck swung out through the opening, and he saw that it was a ring; a heavy golden ring, much battered and set with some dark green stone.
[...]
'It was my father’s and his father’s before him, right back to the ancient times – from the time of the Redcrest soldiers who built the great fort to guard the Anglesey strait.’
Bjarni sat turning the ring between his fingers, catching and losing the firelight in the green stone. There was something engraved on it, a fish of some kind . . . he bent closer and saw that it was not a fish but a dolphin.
Sword Song, Rosemary Sutcliff
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Dany's actions in ACOK and AGOT and the advice she receives
As I was rereading ASOIAF, I made it my goal to compile all* the book passages demonstrating either certain key attributes of Daenerys Targaryen (e.g. that she's compassionate and empathetic) or aspects of hers that are usually overblown (e.g. that she's violent and ambitious). Doing such a task may seem exaggerated, but I'd argue it's not, for many, many misconceptions about Dany have become widespread in light of the show's final season's events (and even before).
It must be acknowledged that it can be tricky to reference, say, ADWD passages to counter-argument how she was depicted in season eight (which allegedly follows ADOS events). Dany will have had plenty of character development in the span of two books. However, whatever happens to Dany in the next two books, I would argue that there is more than enough material to conclude that her show counterpart was made to fall for flaws that she (for the most part) never had and actions that she (for the most part) would never take.
Another objection to the purpose of these lists is that Game of Thrones is different from A Song of Ice and Fire and should be analyzed on its own, which is a fair point. However, the show is also an adaptation of these books, which begs the questions: why did they change Dany's character? Why did they overfocus on negative traits of hers or depicted them as negative when they weren't supposed to be or gave her negative traits that were never hers to begin with? Another fact that undermines the show=/=books argument is that most people think that the show's ending will be the books', albeit only in broad strokes and in different circumstances. As a result, people's perception of Dany is inevitably influenced by the show, which is a shame.
I hope these lists can be useful for whoever wants to find book passages to defend Dany's character in analysis or even conversations.
*Well, at least all the passages that I could find.
Also, people may interpret certain passages differently and then come up with a different collection of passages, so I'm not arguing that this list is completely objective (nor that there could ever be one).
Also, some passages have been cut short according to whether they were, IMO, relevant to the specific topic of the list they're in, so the context surrounding them may not always be clear (always read the books!). Many of them appear in different lists, sometimes fully cited, sometimes not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not putting examples here because I feel like this part of her storyline doesn't tend to receive as much backlash as her ASOS and ADWD arcs do, probably because she isn't wielding as much power as she later will. Yes, she's still unjustly blamed for Viserys's death and her burning of Mirri is often pointed out as a sign of madness (when her reasoning for doing so is right there in the text), but I still think it's less worse than thinking she never cared about slavery and only wanted an army, for if you do so, you end up misunderstanding every single thing she does in those books.
Anyway, while she doesn't have the same influence here as she does in later books, her leadership arc already begins in the first book. I collected all passages I could find to showcase it.
Her actions in ACOK and AGOT
ACOK Daenerys V
But where am I to go? Ser Jorah proposed that they journey farther east, away from her enemies in the Seven Kingdoms. Her bloodriders would sooner have returned to their great grass sea, even if it meant braving the red waste again. Dany herself had toyed with the idea of settling in Vaes Tolorro until her dragons grew great and strong. But her heart was full of doubts. Each of these felt wrong, somehow ... and even when she decided where to go, the question of how she would get there remained troublesome.
~
It was good to hear men speaking Valyrian once more, and even the Common Tongue, Dany thought as they approached the first ship. Sailors, dockworkers, and merchants alike gave way before her, not knowing what to make of this slim young girl with silver-gold hair who dressed in the Dothraki fashion and walked with a knight at her side. Despite the heat of the day, Ser Jorah wore his green wool surcoat over chain-mail, the black bear of Mormont sewn on his chest.
But neither her beauty nor his size and strength would serve with the men whose ships they needed.
“You require passage for a hundred Dothraki, all their horses, yourself and this knight, and three dragons?” said the captain of the great cog Ardent Friend before he walked away laughing. When she told a Lyseni on the Trumpeteer that she was Daenerys Stormborn, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, he gave her a deadface look and said, “Aye, and I’m Lord Tywin Lannister and shit gold every night.” The cargomaster of the Myrish galley Silken Spirit opined that dragons were too dangerous at sea, where any stray breath of flame might set the rigging afire. The owner of Lord Faro’s Belly would risk dragons, but not Dothraki. “I’ll have no such godless savages in my Belly, I’ll not.” The two brothers who captained the sister ships Quicksilver and Greyhound seemed sympathetic and invited them into the cabin for a glass of Arbor red. They were so courteous that Dany was hopeful for a time, but in the end the price they asked was far beyond her means, and might have been beyond Xaro’s. Pinchbottom Petto and Sloe-Eyed Maid were too small for her needs, Bravo was bound for the Jade Sea, and Magister Manolo scarce looked seaworthy.
As they made their way toward the next quay, Ser Jorah laid a hand against the small of her back.
~
“Now tell me, what would Magister Illyrio have of me, that he would send you all the way from Pentos?”
“He would have dragons,” said Belwas gruffly, “and the girl who makes them. He would have you.”
“Belwas has the truth of us, Your Grace,” said Arstan. “We were told to find you and bring you back to Pentos. The Seven Kingdoms have need of you. Robert the Usurper is dead, and the realm bleeds. When we set sail from Pentos there were four kings in the land, and no justice to be had.”
Joy bloomed in her heart, but Dany kept it from her face. “I have three dragons,” she said, “and more than a hundred in my khalasar, with all their goods and horses.”
“It is no matter,” boomed Belwas. “We take all. The fat man hires three ships for his little silverhair queen.”
“It is so, Your Grace,” Arstan Whitebeard said. “The great cog Saduleon is berthed at the end of the quay, and the galleys Summer Sun and Joso’s Prank are anchored beyond the breakwater.”
Three heads has the dragon, Dany thought, wondering. “I shall tell my people to make ready to depart at once. But the ships that bring me home must bear different names.”
“As you wish,” said Arstan. “What names would you prefer?”
“Vhagar,” Daenerys told him. “Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned.”
ACOK Daenerys III
Descendants of the ancient kings and queens of Qarth, the Pureborn commanded the Civic Guard and the fleet of ornate galleys that ruled the straits between the seas. Daenerys Targaryen had wanted that fleet, or part of it, and some of their soldiers as well. She made the traditional sacrifice in the Temple of Memory, offered the traditional bribe to the Keeper of the Long List, sent the traditional persimmon to the Opener of the Door, and finally received the traditional blue silk slippers summoning her to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones.
~
“Weep, weep, for the treachery of men.”
Dany would sooner have wept for her gold. The bribes she’d tendered to Mathos Mallarawan, Wendello Qar Deeth, and Egon Emeros the Exquisite might have bought her a ship, or hired a score of sellswords.
~
She would have been lost without Xaro. The gold that she had squandered to open the doors of the Hall of a Thousand Thrones was largely a product of the merchant’s generosity and quick wits. As the rumor of living dragons had spread through the east, ever more seekers had come to learn if the tale was true—and Xaro Xhoan Daxos saw to it that the great and the humble alike offered some token to the Mother of Dragons.
The trickle he started soon swelled to a flood. Trader captains brought lace from Myr, chests of saffron from Yi Ti, amber and dragonglass out of Asshai. Merchants offered bags of coin, silversmiths rings and chains. Pipers piped for her, tumblers tumbled, and jugglers juggled, while dyers draped her in colors she had never known existed. A pair of Jogos Nhai presented her with one of their striped zorses, black and white and fierce. A widow brought the dried corpse of her husband, covered with a crust of silvered leaves; such remnants were believed to have great power, especially if the deceased had been a sorcerer, as this one had. And the Tourmaline Brotherhood pressed on her a crown wrought in the shape of a three- headed dragon; the coils were yellow gold, the wings silver, the heads carved from jade, ivory, and onyx.
The crown was the only offering she’d kept. The rest she sold, to gather the wealth she had wasted on the Pureborn.
~
“...Why should my sailors care who sits upon the throne of some kingdom at the edge of the world?”
“I will pay them to care.”
“With what coin, sweet star of my heaven?”
“With the gold the seekers bring.”
“That you may do,” Xaro acknowledged, “but so much caring will cost dear. You will need to pay them far more than I do, and all of Qarth laughs at my ruinous generosity.”
“If the Thirteen will not aid me, perhaps I should ask the Guild of Spicers or the Tourmaline Brotherhood?”
Xaro gave a languid shrug. “They will give you nothing but flattery and lies. The Spicers are dissemblers and braggarts and the Brotherhood is full of pirates.”
“Then I must heed Pyat Pree, and go to the warlocks.”
The merchant prince sat up sharply. “Pyat Pree has blue lips, and it is truly said that blue lips speak only lies. Heed the wisdom of one who loves you. Warlocks are bitter creatures who eat dust and drink of shadows. They will give you naught. They have naught to give.”
“I would not need to seek sorcerous help if my friend Xaro Xhoan Daxos would give me what I ask.”
~
Ser Jorah Mormont came to her as the sun was going down. “The Pureborn refused you?”
“As you said they would. Come, sit, give me your counsel.” Dany drew him down to the cushions beside her, and Jhiqui brought them a bowl of purple olives and onions drowned in wine.
“You will get no help in this city, Khaleesi.” Ser Jorah took an onion between thumb and forefinger. “Each day I am more convinced of that than the day before. The Pureborn see no farther than the walls of Qarth, and Xaro ...”
“He asked me to marry him again.”
“Yes, and I know why.” When the knight frowned, his heavy black brows joined together above his deep-set eyes.
“He dreams of me, day and night.” She laughed.
“Forgive me, my queen, but it is your dragons he dreams of.”
“Xaro assures me that in Qarth, man and woman each retain their own property after they are wed. The dragons are mine.” She smiled as Drogon came hopping and flapping across the marble floor to crawl up on the cushion beside her.
“He tells it true as far as it goes, but there’s one thing he failed to mention. The Qartheen have a curious wedding custom, my queen. On the day of their union, a wife may ask a token of love from her husband. Whatsoever she desires of his worldly goods, he must grant. And he may ask the same of her. One thing only may be asked, but whatever is named may not be denied.”
“One thing,” she repeated. “And it may not be denied?”
“With one dragon, Xaro Xhoan Daxos would rule this city, but one ship will further our cause but little.”
Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men. “We passed through the bazaar on our way back from the Hall of a Thousand Thrones,” she told Ser Jorah. “Quaithe was there.” She told him of the firemage and the fiery ladder, and what the woman in the red mask had told her.
“I would be glad to leave this city, if truth be told,” the knight said when she was done. “But not for Asshai.”
“Where, then?”
“East,” he said.
“I am half a world away from my kingdom even here. If I go any farther east I may never find my way home to Westeros.”
“If you go west, you risk your life.”
“House Targaryen has friends in the Free Cities,” she reminded him. “Truer friends than Xaro or the Pureborn.”
“If you mean Illyrio Mopatis, I wonder. For sufficient gold, Illyrio would sell you as quickly as he would a slave.”
“My brother and I were guests in Illyrio’s manse for half a year. If he meant to sell us, he could have done it then.”
“He did sell you,” Ser Jorah said. “To Khal Drogo.”
Dany flushed. He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. “Illyrio protected us from the Usurper’s knives, and he believed in my brother’s cause.”
“Illyrio believes in no cause but Illyrio. Gluttons are greedy men as a rule, and magisters are devious. Illyrio Mopatis is both. What do you truly know of him?”
“I know that he gave me my dragon eggs.”
He snorted. “If he’d known they were like to hatch, he would have sat on them himself.”
That made her smile despite herself. “Oh, I have no doubt of that, ser. I know Illyrio better than you think. I was a child when I left his manse in Pentos to wed my sun-and-stars, but I was neither deaf nor blind. And I am no child now.”
“Even if Illyrio is the friend you think him,” the knight said stubbornly, “he is not powerful enough to enthrone you by himself, no more than he could your brother.”
“He is rich,” she said. “Not so rich as Xaro, perhaps, but rich enough to hire ships for me, and men as well.”
“Sellswords have their uses,” Ser Jorah admitted, “but you will not win your father’s throne with sweepings from the Free Cities. Nothing knits a broken realm together so quick as an invading army on its soil.”
“I am their rightful queen,” Dany protested.
“You are a stranger who means to land on their shores with an army of outlanders who cannot even speak the Common Tongue. The lords of Westeros do not know you, and have every reason to fear and mistrust you. You must win them over before you sail. A few at least.”
“And how am I to do that, if I go east as you counsel?”
He ate an olive and spit out the pit into his palm. “I do not know, Your Grace,” he admitted, “but I do know that the longer you remain in one place, the easier it will be for your enemies to find you. The name Targaryen still frightens them, so much so that they sent a man to murder you when they heard you were with child. What will they do when they learn of your dragons?”
Drogon was curled up beneath her arm, as hot as a stone that has soaked all day in the blazing sun. Rhaegal and Viserion were fighting over a scrap of meat, buffeting each other with their wings as smoke hissed from their nostrils. My furious children, she thought. They must not come to harm. “The comet led me to Qarth for a reason. I had hoped to find my army here, but it seems that will not be. What else remains, I ask myself?” I am afraid, she realized, but I must be brave. “Come the morrow, you must go to Pyat Pree.”
ACOK Daenerys II
Xaro Xhoan Daxos had offered Dany the hospitality of his home while she was in the city. She had expected something grand. She had not expected a palace larger than many a market town. It makes Magister Illyrio’s manse in Pentos look like a swineherd’s hovel, she thought. Xaro swore that his home could comfortably house all of her people and their horses besides; indeed, it swallowed them. An entire wing was given over to her. She would have her own gardens, a marble bathing pool, a scrying tower and warlock’s maze. Slaves would tend her every need. In her private chambers, the floors were green marble, the walls draped with colorful silk hangings that shimmered with every breath of air. “You are too generous,” she told Xaro Xhoan Daxos.
“For the Mother of Dragons, no gift is too great.” Xaro was a languid, elegant man with a bald head and a great beak of a nose crusted with rubies, opals, and flakes of jade. “On the morrow, you shall feast upon peacock and lark’s tongue, and hear music worthy of the most beautiful of women. The Thirteen will come to do you homage, and all the great of Qarth.”
All the great of Qarth will come to see my dragons, Dany thought, yet she thanked Xaro for his kindness before she sent him on his way. Pyat Pree took his leave as well, vowing to petition the Undying Ones for an audience. “An honor rare as summer snows.” Before he left he kissed her bare feet with his pale blue lips and pressed on her a gift, a jar of ointment that he swore would let her see the spirits of the air. Last of the three seekers to depart was Quaithe the shadowbinder. From her Dany received only a warning. “Beware,” the woman in the red lacquer mask said.
“Of whom?”
“Of all. They shall come day and night to see the wonder that has been born again into the world, and when they see they shall lust. For dragons are fire made flesh, and fire is power.”
~
She turned to her bloodriders. “We will keep our own watch so long as we are here. See that no one enters this wing of the palace without my leave, and take care that the dragons are always well guarded.”
“It shall be done, Khaleesi,” Aggo said.
“We have seen only the parts of Qarth that Pyat Pree wished us to see,” she went on. “Rakharo, go forth and look on the rest, and tell me what you find. Take good men with you—and women, to go places where men are forbidden.”
“As you say, I do, blood of my blood,” said Rakharo.
“Ser Jorah, find the docks and see what manner of ships lay at anchor. It has been half a year since I last heard tidings from the Seven Kingdoms. Perhaps the gods will have blown some good captain here from Westeros with a ship to carry us home.”
The knight frowned. “That would be no kindness. The Usurper will kill you, sure as sunrise.” Mormont hooked his thumbs through his swordbelt. “My place is here at your side.”
“Jhogo can guard me as well. You have more languages than my bloodriders, and the Dothraki mistrust the sea and those who sail her. Only you can serve me in this. Go among the ships and speak to the crews, learn where they are from and where they are bound and what manner of men command them.”
Reluctantly, the exile nodded. “As you say, my queen.”
~
It was near evenfall and Dany was feeding her dragons when Irri stepped through the silken curtains to tell her that Ser Jorah had returned from the docks ... and not alone. “Send him in, with whomever he has brought,” she said, curious.
When they entered, she was seated on a mound of cushions, her dragons all about her. The man he brought with him wore a cloak of green and yellow feathers and had skin as black as polished jet. “Your Grace,” the knight said, “I bring you Quhuru Mo, captain of the Cinnamon Wind out of Tall Trees Town.”
The black man knelt. “I am greatly honored, my queen,” he said; not in the tongue of the Summer Isles, which Dany did not know, but in the liquid Valyrian of the Nine Free Cities.
“The honor is mine, Quhuru Mo,” said Dany in the same language. “Have you come from the Summer Isles?”
“This is so, Your Grace, but before, not half a year past, we called at Oldtown. From there I bring you a wondrous gift.”
“A gift?”
“A gift of news. Dragonmother, Stormborn, I tell you true, Robert Baratheon is dead.”
Outside her walls, dusk was settling over Qarth, but a sun had risen in Dany’s heart. “Dead?” she repeated. In her lap, black Drogon hissed, and pale smoke rose before her face like a veil. “You are certain? The Usurper is dead?”
“So it is said in Oldtown, and Dorne, and Lys, and all the other ports where we have called.”
He sent me poisoned wine, yet I live and he is gone. “What was the manner of his death?” On her shoulder, pale Viserion flapped wings the color of cream, stirring the air.
“Torn by a monstrous boar whilst hunting in his kingswood, or so I heard in Oldtown. Others say his queen betrayed him, or his brother, or Lord Stark who was his Hand. Yet all the tales agree in this: King Robert is dead and in his grave.”
Dany had never looked upon the Usurper’s face, yet seldom a day had passed when she had not thought of him. His great shadow had lain across her since the hour of her birth, when she came forth amidst blood and storm into a world where she no longer had a place. And now this ebony stranger had lifted that shadow.
“The boy sits the Iron Throne now,” Ser Jorah said.
“King Joffrey reigns,” Quhuru Mo agreed, “but the Lannisters rule. Robert’s brothers have fled King’s Landing. The talk is, they mean to claim the crown. And the Hand has fallen, Lord Stark who was King Robert’s friend. He has been seized for treason.”
“Ned Stark a traitor?” Ser Jorah snorted. “Not bloody likely. The Long Summer will come again before that one would besmirch his precious honor.”
“What honor could he have?” Dany said. “He was a traitor to his true king, as were these Lannisters.” It pleased her to hear that the Usurper’s dogs were fighting amongst themselves, though she was unsurprised. The same thing happened when her Drogo died, and his great khalasar tore itself to pieces. “My brother is dead as well, Viserys who was the true king,” she told the Summer Islander. “Khal Drogo my lord husband killed him with a crown of molten gold.” Would her brother have been any wiser, had he known that the vengeance he had prayed for was so close at hand?
“Then I grieve for you, Dragonmother, and for bleeding Westeros, bereft of its rightful king.”
Beneath Dany’s gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth gleamed like black needles. “When does your ship return to Westeros, Captain?”
“Not for a year or more, I fear. From here the Cinnamon Wind sails east, to make the trader’s circle round the Jade Sea.”
“I see,” said Dany, disappointed. “I wish you fair winds and good trading, then. You have brought me a precious gift.”
“I have been amply repaid, great queen.”
She puzzled at that. “How so?”
His eyes gleamed. “I have seen dragons.”
Dany laughed. “And will see more of them one day, I hope. Come to me in King’s Landing when I am on my father’s throne, and you shall have a great reward.”
The Summer Islander promised he would do so, and kissed her lightly on the fingers as he took his leave. Jhiqui showed him out, while Ser Jorah Mormont remained.
ACOK Daenerys I
The Dothraki named the comet shierak qiya, the Bleeding Star. The old men muttered that it omened ill, but Daenerys Targaryen had seen it first on the night she had burned Khal Drogo, the night her dragons had awakened. It is the herald of my coming, she told herself as she gazed up into the night sky with wonder in her heart. The gods have sent it to show me the way.
Yet when she put the thought into words, her handmaid Doreah quailed. “That way lies the red lands, Khaleesi. A grim place and terrible, the riders say.”
“The way the comet points is the way we must go,” Dany insisted ... though in truth, it was the only way open to her.
She dare not turn north onto the vast ocean of grass they called the Dothraki sea. The first khalasar they met would swallow up her ragged band, slaying the warriors and slaving the rest. The lands of the Lamb Men south of the river were likewise closed to them. They were too few to defend themselves even against that unwarlike folk, and the Lhazareen had small reason to love them. She might have struck downriver for the ports at Meereen and Yunkai and Astapor, but Rakharo warned her that Pono’s khalasar had ridden that way, driving thousands of captives before them to sell in the flesh marts that festered like open sores on the shores of Slaver’s Bay. “Why should I fear Pono?” Dany objected. “He was Drogo’s ko, and always spoke me gently.”
“Ko Pono spoke you gently,” Ser Jorah Mormont said. “Khal Pono will kill you. He was the first to abandon Drogo. Ten thousand warriors went with him. You have a hundred.”
No, Dany thought. I have four. The rest are women, old sick men and boys whose hair has never been braided. “I have the dragons,” she pointed out.
~
Dany had named him the first of her Queensguard ... and when Mormont’s gruff counsel and the omens agreed, her course was clear. She called her people together and mounted her silver mare. Her hair had burned away in Drogo’s pyre, so her handmaids garbed her in the skin of the hrakkar Drogo had slain, the white lion of the Dothraki sea. Its fearsome head made a hood to cover her naked scalp, its pelt a cloak that flowed across her shoulders and down her back. The cream-colored dragon sunk sharp black claws into the lion’s mane and coiled its tail around her arm, while Ser Jorah took his accustomed place by her side.
“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. Once it was said, no word was raised against it. They had been Drogo’s people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law.
They rode by night, and by day took refuge from the sun beneath their tents. Soon enough Dany learned the truth of Doreah’s words. This was no kindly country. They left a trail of dead and dying horses behind them as they went, for Pono, Jhaqo, and the others had seized the best of Drogo’s herds, leaving to Dany the old and the scrawny, the sickly and the lame, the broken animals and the ill-tempered. It was the same with the people. They are not strong, she told herself, so I must be their strength. I must show no fear, no weakness, no doubt. However frightened my heart, when they look upon my face they must see only Drogo’s queen. She felt older than her fourteen years. If ever she had truly been a girl, that time was done.
Three days into the march, the first man died. A toothless oldster with cloudy blue eyes, he fell exhausted from his saddle and could not rise again. An hour later he was done. Blood flies swarmed about his corpse and carried his ill luck to the living. “His time was past,” her handmaid Irri declared. “No man should live longer than his teeth.” The others agreed. Dany bid them kill the weakest of their dying horses, so the dead man might go mounted into the night lands.
Two nights later, it was an infant girl who perished. Her mother’s anguished wailing lasted all day, but there was nothing to be done. The child had been too young to ride, poor thing. Not for her the endless black grasses of the night lands; she must be born again.
There was little forage in the red waste, and less water. It was a sere and desolate land of low hills and barren windswept plains. The rivers they crossed were dry as dead men’s bones. Their mounts subsisted on the tough brown devilgrass that grew in clumps at the base of rocks and dead trees. Dany sent outriders ranging ahead of the column, but they found neither wells nor springs, only bitter pools, shallow and stagnant, shrinking in the hot sun. The deeper they rode into the waste, the smaller the pools became, while the distance between them grew. If there were gods in this trackless wilderness of stone and sand and red clay, they were hard dry gods, deaf to prayers for rain.
Wine gave out first, and soon thereafter the clotted mare’s milk the horselords loved better than mead. Then their stores of flatbread and dried meat were exhausted as well. Their hunters found no game, and only the flesh of their dead horses filled their bellies. Death followed death. Weak children, wrinkled old women, the sick and the stupid and the heedless, the cruel land claimed them all. Doreah grew gaunt and hollow-eyed, and her soft golden hair turned brittle as straw.
Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick, yet it was her dragons she feared for.
~
Yet even as her dragons prospered, her khalasar withered and died. Around them the land turned ever more desolate. Even devilgrass grew scant; horses dropped in their tracks, leaving so few that some of her people must trudge along on foot. Doreah took a fever and grew worse with every league they crossed. Her lips and hands broke with blood blisters, her hair came out in clumps, and one evenfall she lacked the strength to mount her horse. Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on.
They saw no sign of other travelers. The Dothraki began to mutter fearfully that the comet had led them to some hell. Dany went to Ser Jorah one morning as they made camp amidst a jumble of black wind-scoured stones. “Are we lost?” she asked him. “Does this waste have no end to it?”
“It has an end,” he answered wearily. “I have seen the maps the traders draw, my queen. Few caravans come this way, that is so, yet there are great kingdoms to the east, and cities full of wonders. Yi Ti, Qarth, Asshai by the Shadow ...”
“Will we live to see them?”
“I will not lie to you. The way is harder than I dared think.” [...] “Perhaps we are doomed if we press on ... but I know for a certainty that we are doomed if we turn back.”
[...] The next pool they found was scalding-hot and stinking of brimstone, but their skins were almost empty. The Dothraki cooled the water in jars and pots and drank it tepid. The taste was no less foul, but water was water, and all of them thirsted. Dany looked at the horizon with despair. They had lost a third of their number, and still the waste stretched before them, bleak and red and endless. The comet mocks my hopes, she thought, lifting her eyes to where it scored the sky. Have I crossed half the world and seen the birth of dragons only to die with them in this hard hot desert? She would not believe it.
The next day, dawn broke as they were crossing a cracked and fissured plain of hard red earth. Dany was about to command them to make camp when her outriders came racing back at a gallop. “A city, Khaleesi,” they cried. “A city pale as the moon and lovely as a maid. An hour’s ride, no more.”
“Show me,” she said.
When the city appeared before her, its walls and towers shimmering white behind a veil of heat, it looked so beautiful that Dany was certain it must be a mirage. “Do you know what place this might be?” she asked Ser Jorah.
The exile knight gave a weary shake of the head. “No, my queen. I have never traveled this far east.”
The distant white walls promised rest and safety, a chance to heal and grow strong, and Dany wanted nothing so much as to rush toward them. Instead she turned to her bloodriders. “Blood of my blood, go ahead of us and learn the name of this city, and what manner of welcome we should expect.”
“Ai, Khaleesi,” said Aggo.
Her riders were not long in returning. Rakharo swung down from his saddle. From his medallion belt hung the great curving arakh that Dany had bestowed on him when she named him bloodrider. “This city is dead, Khaleesi. Nameless and godless we found it, the gates broken, only wind and flies moving through the streets.”
Jhiqui shuddered. “When the gods are gone, the evil ghosts feast by night. Such places are best shunned. It is known.”
“It is known,” Irri agreed.
“Not to me.” Dany put her heels into her horse and showed them the way, trotting beneath the shattered arch of an ancient gate and down a silent street. Ser Jorah and her bloodriders followed, and then, more slowly, the rest of the Dothraki.
How long the city had been deserted she could not know, but the white walls, so beautiful from afar, were cracked and crumbling when seen up close. Inside was a maze of narrow crooked alleys. The buildings pressed close, their facades blank, chalky, windowless. Everything was white, as if the people who lived here had known nothing of color. They rode past heaps of sun-washed rubble where houses had fallen in, and elsewhere saw the faded scars of fire. At a place where six alleys came together, Dany passed an empty marble plinth. Dothraki had visited this place before, it would seem. Perhaps even now the missing statue stood among the other stolen gods in Vaes Dothrak. She might have ridden past it a hundred times, never knowing. On her shoulder, Viserion hissed.
They made camp before the remnants of a gutted palace, on a windswept plaza where devilgrass grew between the paving stones. Dany sent out men to search the ruins. Some went reluctantly, yet they went ... and one scarred old man returned a brief time later, hopping and grinning, his hands overflowing with figs. They were small, withered things, yet her people grabbed for them greedily, jostling and pushing at each other, stuffing the fruit into their cheeks and chewing blissfully.
Other searchers returned with tales of other fruit trees, hidden behind closed doors in secret gardens. Aggo showed her a courtyard overgrown with twisting vines and tiny green grapes, and Jhogo discovered a well where the water was pure and cold. Yet they found bones too, the skulls of the unburied dead, bleached and broken. “Ghosts,” Irri muttered. “Terrible ghosts. We must not stay here, Khaleesi, this is their place.”
“I fear no ghosts. Dragons are more powerful than ghosts.” And figs are more important. “Go with Jhiqui and find me some clean sand for a bath, and trouble me no more with silly talk.”
In the coolness of her tent, Dany blackened horsemeat over a brazier and reflected on her choices. There was food and water here to sustain them, and enough grass for the horses to regain their strength. How pleasant it would be to wake every day in the same place, to linger among shady gardens, eat figs, and drink cool water, as much as she might desire.
When Irri and Jhiqui returned with pots of white sand, Dany stripped and let them scrub her clean.
~
The next morn, she summoned her bloodriders. “Blood of my blood,” she told the three of them, “I have need of you. Each of you is to choose three horses, the hardiest and healthiest that remain to us. Load as much water and food as your mounts can bear, and ride forth for me. Aggo shall strike southwest, Rakharo due south. Jhogo, you are to follow shierak qiya on southeast.”
“What shall we seek, Khaleesi?” asked Jhogo.
“Whatever there is,” Dany answered. “Seek for other cities, living and dead. Seek for caravans and people. Seek for rivers and lakes and the great salt sea. Find how far this waste extends before us, and what lies on the other side. When I leave this place, I do not mean to strike out blind again. I will know where I am bound, and how best to get there.”
And so they went, the bells in their hair ringing softly, while Dany settled down with her small band of survivors in the place they named Vaes Tolorro, the city of bones. Day followed night followed day. Women harvested fruit from the gardens of the dead. Men groomed their mounts and mended saddles, stirrups, and shoes. Children wandered the twisty alleys and found old bronze coins and bits of purple glass and stone flagons with handles carved like snakes. One woman was stung by a red scorpion, but hers was the only death. The horses began to put on some flesh. Dany tended Ser Jorah’s wound herself, and it began to heal.
Rakharo was the first to return. Due south the red waste stretched on and on, he reported, until it ended on a bleak shore beside the poison water. Between here and there lay only swirling sand, wind-scoured rocks, and plants bristly with sharp thorns. He had passed the bones of a dragon, he swore, so immense that he had ridden his horse through its great black jaws. Other than that, he had seen nothing.
Dany gave him charge of a dozen of her strongest men, and set them to pulling up the plaza to get to the earth beneath. If devilgrass could grow between the paving stones, other grasses would grow when the stones were gone. They had wells enough, no lack of water. Given seed, they could make the plaza bloom.
Aggo was back next. The southwest was barren and burnt, he swore. He had found the ruins of two more cities, smaller than Vaes Tolorro but otherwise the same. One was warded by a ring of skulls mounted on rusted iron spears, so he dared not enter, but he had explored the second for as long as he could. He showed Dany an iron bracelet he had found, set with a uncut fire opal the size of her thumb. There were scrolls as well, but they were dry and crumbling and Aggo had left them where they lay.
Dany thanked him and told him to see to the repair of the gates. If enemies had crossed the waste to destroy these cities in ancient days, they might well come again. “If so, we must be ready,” she declared.
Jhogo was gone so long that Dany feared him lost, but finally when they had all but ceased to look for him, he came riding up from the southeast. One of the guards that Aggo had posted saw him first and gave a shout, and Dany rushed to the walls to see for herself. It was true. Jhogo came, yet not alone. Behind him rode three queerly garbed strangers atop ugly humped creatures that dwarfed any horse.
They drew rein before the city gates, and looked up to see Dany on the wall above them. “Blood of my blood,” Jhogo called, “I have been to the great city Qarth, and returned with three who would look on you with their own eyes.”
Dany stared down at the strangers. “Here I stand. Look, if that is your pleasure ... but first tell me your names.”
The pale man with the blue lips replied in guttural Dothraki, “I am Pyat Pree, the great warlock.”
The bald man with the jewels in his nose answered in the Valyrian of the Free Cities, “I am Xaro Xhoan Daxos of the Thirteen, a merchant prince of Qarth.”
The woman in the lacquered wooden mask said in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms, “I am Quaithe of the Shadow. We come seeking dragons.”
“Seek no more,” Daenerys Targaryen told them. “You have found them.”
AGOT Daenerys X
On the platform they piled Khal Drogo’s treasures: his great tent, his painted vests, his saddles and harness, the whip his father had given him when he came to manhood, the arakh he had used to slay Khal Ogo and his son, a mighty dragonbone bow. Aggo would have added the weapons Drogo’s bloodriders had given Dany for bride gifts as well, but she forbade it. “Those are mine,” she told him, “and I mean to keep them.”
~
“Bring my eggs,” Dany commanded her handmaids. Something in her voice made them run.
AGOT Daenerys VIII
“We have ridden far enough today. We will camp here.”
“Here?” Haggo looked around them. The land was brown and sere, inhospitable. “This is no camping ground.”
“It is not for a woman to bid us halt,” said Qotho, “not even a khaleesi.”
“We camp here,” Dany repeated. “Haggo, tell them Khal Drogo commanded the halt. If any ask why, say to them that my time is near and I could not continue. Cohollo, bring up the slaves, they must put up the khal’s tent at once. Qotho—”
“You do not command me, Khaleesi,” Qotho said.
“Find Mirri Maz Duur,” she told him. The godswife would be walking among the other Lamb Men, in the long column of slaves. “Bring her to me, with her chest.”
Qotho glared down at her, his eyes hard as flint. “The maegi.” He spat. “This I will not do.”
“You will,” Dany said, “or when Drogo wakes, he will hear why you defied me.”
~
Trembling, her eyes full of sudden tears, Dany turned away from them. He fell from his horse! It was so, she had seen it, and the bloodriders, and no doubt her handmaids and the men of her khas as well. And how many more? They could not keep it secret, and Dany knew what that meant. A khal who could not ride could not rule, and Drogo had fallen from his horse.
“We must bathe him,” she said stubbornly. She must not allow herself to despair.
~
“Is there no other way?”
“No other.”
Khal Drogo gave a shuddering gasp.
“Do it,” Dany blurted. She must not be afraid; she was the blood of the dragon. “Save him.”
“There is a price,” the godswife warned her.
“You’ll have gold, horses, whatever you like.”
“It is not a matter of gold or horses. This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life.”
“Death?” Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels. “My death?” She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.
~
“Khaleesi,” he pleaded, “you must not do this thing. Let me kill this maegi.”
“Kill her and you kill your khal,” Dany said.
“This is bloodmagic,” he said. “It is forbidden.”
“I am khaleesi, and I say it is not forbidden. In Vaes Dothrak, Khal Drogo slew a stallion and I ate his heart, to give our son strength and courage. This is the same. The same.”
~
“This must not be,” Qotho thundered.
She had not seen the bloodrider return. Haggo and Cohollo were with him. They had brought the hairless men, the eunuchs who healed with knife and needle and fire.
“This will be,” Dany replied.
AGOT Daenerys VII
“You cannot claim them all, child,” Ser Jorah said, the fourth time they stopped, while the warriors of her khas herded her new slaves behind her.
“I am khaleesi, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the blood of the dragon,” Dany reminded him. “It is not for you to tell me what I cannot do.” Across the city, a building collapsed in a great gout of fire and smoke, and she heard distant screams and the wailing of frightened children.
~
“If your warriors would mount these women, let them take them gently and keep them for wives. Give them places in the khalasar and let them bear you sons.”
Qotho was ever the cruelest of the bloodriders. It was he who laughed. “Does the horse breed with the sheep?”
Something in his tone reminded her of Viserys. Dany turned on him angrily. “The dragon feeds on horse and sheep alike.”
AGOT Daenerys III
“Wait here,” Dany told Ser Jorah. “Tell them all to stay. Tell them I command it.”
The knight smiled. Ser Jorah was not a handsome man. He had a neck and shoulders like a bull, and coarse black hair covered his arms and chest so thickly that there was none left for his head. Yet his smiles gave Dany comfort. “You are learning to talk like a queen, Daenerys.”
“Not a queen,” said Dany. “A khaleesi.” She wheeled her horse about and galloped down the ridge alone.
The advice she received in ACOK
ACOK Daenerys V
But where am I to go? Ser Jorah proposed that they journey farther east, away from her enemies in the Seven Kingdoms. Her bloodriders would sooner have returned to their great grass sea, even if it meant braving the red waste again.
ACOK Daenerys III
[“]Why should my sailors care who sits upon the throne of some kingdom at the edge of the world?”
“I will pay them to care.”
“With what coin, sweet star of my heaven?”
“With the gold the seekers bring.”
“That you may do,” Xaro acknowledged, “but so much caring will cost dear. You will need to pay them far more than I do, and all of Qarth laughs at my ruinous generosity.”
“If the Thirteen will not aid me, perhaps I should ask the Guild of Spicers or the Tourmaline Brotherhood?”
Xaro gave a languid shrug. “They will give you nothing but flattery and lies. The Spicers are dissemblers and braggarts and the Brotherhood is full of pirates.”
“Then I must heed Pyat Pree, and go to the warlocks.”
The merchant prince sat up sharply. “Pyat Pree has blue lips, and it is truly said that blue lips speak only lies. Heed the wisdom of one who loves you. Warlocks are bitter creatures who eat dust and drink of shadows. They will give you naught. They have naught to give.”
“I would not need to seek sorcerous help if my friend Xaro Xhoan Daxos would give me what I ask.”
~
“You will get no help in this city, Khaleesi.” Ser Jorah took an onion between thumb and forefinger. “Each day I am more convinced of that than the day before. The Pureborn see no farther than the walls of Qarth, and Xaro ...”
“He asked me to marry him again.”
“Yes, and I know why.” When the knight frowned, his heavy black brows joined together above his deep-set eyes.
“He dreams of me, day and night.” She laughed.
“Forgive me, my queen, but it is your dragons he dreams of.”
“Xaro assures me that in Qarth, man and woman each retain their own property after they are wed. The dragons are mine.” She smiled as Drogon came hopping and flapping across the marble floor to crawl up on the cushion beside her.
“He tells it true as far as it goes, but there’s one thing he failed to mention. The Qartheen have a curious wedding custom, my queen. On the day of their union, a wife may ask a token of love from her husband. Whatsoever she desires of his worldly goods, he must grant. And he may ask the same of her. One thing only may be asked, but whatever is named may not be denied.”
“One thing,” she repeated. “And it may not be denied?”
“With one dragon, Xaro Xhoan Daxos would rule this city, but one ship will further our cause but little.”
Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men. “We passed through the bazaar on our way back from the Hall of a Thousand Thrones,” she told Ser Jorah. “Quaithe was there.” She told him of the firemage and the fiery ladder, and what the woman in the red mask had told her.
“I would be glad to leave this city, if truth be told,” the knight said when she was done. “But not for Asshai.”
“Where, then?”
“East,” he said.
“I am half a world away from my kingdom even here. If I go any farther east I may never find my way home to Westeros.”
“If you go west, you risk your life.”
“House Targaryen has friends in the Free Cities,” she reminded him. “Truer friends than Xaro or the Pureborn.”
“If you mean Illyrio Mopatis, I wonder. For sufficient gold, Illyrio would sell you as quickly as he would a slave.”
“My brother and I were guests in Illyrio’s manse for half a year. If he meant to sell us, he could have done it then.”
“He did sell you,” Ser Jorah said. “To Khal Drogo.”
Dany flushed. He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. “Illyrio protected us from the Usurper’s knives, and he believed in my brother’s cause.”
“Illyrio believes in no cause but Illyrio. Gluttons are greedy men as a rule, and magisters are devious. Illyrio Mopatis is both. What do you truly know of him?”
“I know that he gave me my dragon eggs.”
He snorted. “If he’d known they were like to hatch, he would have sat on them himself.”
That made her smile despite herself. “Oh, I have no doubt of that, ser. I know Illyrio better than you think. I was a child when I left his manse in Pentos to wed my sun-and-stars, but I was neither deaf nor blind. And I am no child now.”
“Even if Illyrio is the friend you think him,” the knight said stubbornly, “he is not powerful enough to enthrone you by himself, no more than he could your brother.”
“He is rich,” she said. “Not so rich as Xaro, perhaps, but rich enough to hire ships for me, and men as well.”
“Sellswords have their uses,” Ser Jorah admitted, “but you will not win your father’s throne with sweepings from the Free Cities. Nothing knits a broken realm together so quick as an invading army on its soil.”
“I am their rightful queen,” Dany protested.
“You are a stranger who means to land on their shores with an army of outlanders who cannot even speak the Common Tongue. The lords of Westeros do not know you, and have every reason to fear and mistrust you. You must win them over before you sail. A few at least.”
“And how am I to do that, if I go east as you counsel?”
He ate an olive and spit out the pit into his palm. “I do not know, Your Grace,” he admitted, “but I do know that the longer you remain in one place, the easier it will be for your enemies to find you. The name Targaryen still frightens them, so much so that they sent a man to murder you when they heard you were with child. What will they do when they learn of your dragons?”
ACOK Daenerys II
“Then why do men lower their voices when they speak of the warlocks of Qarth? All across the east, their power and wisdom are revered.”
“Once they were mighty,” Xaro agreed, “but now they are as ludicrous as those feeble old soldiers who boast of their prowess long after strength and skill have left them. They read their crumbling scrolls, drink shade-of-the-evening until their lips turn blue, and hint of dread powers, but they are hollow husks compared to those who went before. Pyat Pree’s gifts will turn to dust in your hands, I warn you.” He gave his camel a lick of his whip and sped away.
“The crow calls the raven black,” muttered Ser Jorah in the Common Tongue of Westeros. The exile knight rode at her right hand, as ever. For their entrance into Qarth, he had put away his Dothraki garb and donned again the plate and mail and wool of the Seven Kingdoms half a world away. “You would do well to avoid both those men, Your Grace.”
“Those men will help me to my crown,” she said. “Xaro has vast wealth, and Pyat Pree— ”
“—pretends to power,” the knight said brusquely. On his dark green surcoat, the bear of House Mormont stood on its hind legs, black and fierce. Jorah looked no less ferocious as he scowled at the crowd that filled the bazaar. “I would not linger here long, my queen. I mislike the very smell of this place.”
Dany smiled. “Perhaps it’s the camels you’re smelling. The Qartheen themselves seem sweet enough to my nose.”
“Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones.”
My great bear, Dany thought. I am his queen, but I will always be his cub as well, and he will always guard me. It made her feel safe, but sad as well. She wished she could love him better than she did.
ACOK Daenerys I
“That way lies the red lands, Khaleesi. A grim place and terrible, the riders say.”
~
Rakharo warned her that Pono’s khalasar had ridden that way, driving thousands of captives before them to sell in the flesh marts that festered like open sores on the shores of Slaver’s Bay. “Why should I fear Pono?” Dany objected. “He was Drogo’s ko, and always spoke me gently.”
“Ko Pono spoke you gently,” Ser Jorah Mormont said. “Khal Pono will kill you. He was the first to abandon Drogo. Ten thousand warriors went with him. You have a hundred.”
[...] “I have the dragons,” she pointed out.
“Hatchlings,” Ser Jorah said. “One swipe from an arakh would put an end to them, though Pono is more like to seize them for himself. Your dragon eggs were more precious than rubies. A living dragon is beyond price. In all the world, there are only three. Every man who sees them will want them, my queen.”
~
“You will not live long should you meet Khal Pono. Nor Khal Jhaqo, nor any of the others. You must go where they do not.”
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Mel’s Big Fantasy Place-Name Reference
So I’ve been doing lots of D&D world-building lately and I’ve kind of been putting together lists of words to help inspire new fantasy place names. I figured I’d share. These are helpful for naming towns, regions, landforms, roads, shops, and they’re also probably useful for coming up with surnames. This is LONG. There’s plenty more under the cut including a huge list of “fantasy sounding” word-parts. Enjoy!
Towns & Kingdoms
town, borough, city, hamlet, parish, township, village, villa, domain
kingdom, empire, nation, country, county, city-state, state, province, dominion
Town Name End Words (English flavored)
-ton, -ston, -caster, -dale, -den, -field, -gate, -glen, -ham, -holm, -hurst, -bar, -boro, -by, -cross, -kirk, -meade, -moore, -ville, -wich, -bee, -burg, -cester, -don, -lea, -mer, -rose, -wall, -worth, -berg, -burgh, -chase, -ly, -lin, -mor, -mere, -pool. -port, -stead, -stow, -strath, -side, -way, -berry, -bury, -chester, -haven, -mar, -mont, -ton, -wick, -meet, -heim, -hold, -hall, -point
Buildings & Places
castle, fort, palace, fortress, garrison, lodge, estate, hold, stronghold, tower, watchtower, palace, spire, citadel, bastion, court, manor, house
altar, chapel, abbey, shrine, temple, monastery, cathedral, sanctum, crypt, catacomb, tomb
orchard, arbor, vineyard, farm, farmstead, shire, garden, ranch
plaza, district, quarter, market, courtyard, inn, stables, tavern, blacksmith, forge, mine, mill, quarry, gallows, apothecary, college, bakery, clothier, library, guild house, bath house, pleasure house, brothel, jail, prison, dungeon, cellar, basement, attic, sewer, cistern
lookout, post, tradepost, camp, outpost, hovel, hideaway, lair, nook, watch, roost, respite, retreat, hostel, holdout, redoubt, perch, refuge, haven, alcove, haunt, knell, enclave, station, caravan, exchange, conclave
port, bridge, ferry, harbor, landing, jetty, wharf, berth, footbridge, dam, beacon, lighthouse, marina, dockyard, shipyard
road, street, way, row, lane, trail, corner, crossing, gate, junction, waygate, end, wall, crossroads, barrier, bulwark, blockade, pavilion, avenue, promenade, alley, fork, route
Time & Direction
North, South, East, West, up, down, side, rise, fall, over, under
Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, solstice, equanox, vernal, ever, never
dusk, dawn, dawnrise, morning, night, nightfall, evening, sundown, sunbreak, sunset
lunar, solar, sun, moon, star, eclipse
Geographical Terms
Cave, cavern, cenote, precipice, crevasse, crater, maar, chasm, ravine, trench, rift, pit
Cliff, bluff, crag, scarp, outcrop, stack, tor, falls, run, eyrie, aerie
Hill, mountain, volcano, knoll, hillock, downs, barrow, plateau, mesa, butte, pike, peak, mount, summit, horn, knob, pass, ridge, terrace, gap, point, rise, rim, range, view, vista, canyon, hogback, ledge, stair, descent
Valley, gulch, gully, vale, dale, dell, glen, hollow, grotto, gorge, bottoms, basin, knoll, combe
Meadow, grassland, field, pasture, steppe, veld, sward, lea, mead, fell, moor, moorland, heath, croft, paddock, boondock, prairie, acre, strath, heights, mount, belt
Woodlands, woods, forest, bush, bower, arbor, grove, weald, timberland, thicket, bosk, copse, coppice, underbrush, hinterland, park, jungle, rainforest, wilds, frontier, outskirts
Desert, dunes, playa, arroyo, chaparral, karst, salt flats, salt pan, oasis, spring, seep, tar pit, hot springs, fissure, steam vent, geyser, waste, wasteland, badland, brushland, dustbowl, scrubland
Ocean, sea, lake, pond, spring, tarn, mere, sluice, pool, coast, gulf, bay
Lagoon, cay, key, reef, atoll, shoal, tideland, tide flat, swale, cove, sandspit, strand, beach
Snowdrift, snowbank, permafrost, floe, hoar, rime, tundra, fjord, glacier, iceberg
River, stream, creek, brook, tributary, watersmeet, headwater, ford, levee, delta, estuary, firth, strait, narrows, channel, eddy, inlet, rapids, mouth, falls
Wetland, marsh, bog, fen, moor, bayou, glade, swamp, banks, span, wash, march, shallows, mire, morass, quag, quagmire, everglade, slough, lowland, sump, reach
Island, isle, peninsula, isthmus, bight, headland, promontory, cape, pointe, cape
More under the cut including: Color words, Animal/Monster related words, Rocks/Metals/Gems list, Foliage, People groups/types, Weather/Environment/ Elemental words, Man-made Items, Body Parts, Mechanical sounding words, a huge list of both pleasant and unpleasant Atmospheric Descriptors, and a huge list of Fantasy Word-parts.
Color Descriptions
Warm: red, scarlet, crimson, rusty, cerise, carmine, cinnabar, orange, vermillion, ochre, peach, salmon, saffron, yellow, gold, lemon, amber, pink, magenta, maroon, brown, sepia, burgundy, beige, tan, fuchsia, taupe
Cool: green, beryl, jade, evergreen, chartreuse, olive, viridian, celadon, blue, azure, navy, cerulean, turquoise, teal, cyan, cobalt, periwinkle, beryl, purple, violet, indigo, mauve, plum
Neutral: gray, silver, ashy, charcoal, slate, white, pearly, alabaster, ivory, black, ebony, jet
dark, dusky, pale, bleached, blotchy, bold, dappled, lustrous, faded, drab, milky, mottled, opaque, pastel, stained, subtle, ruddy, waxen, tinted, tinged, painted
Animal / Monster-Related Words
Bear, eagle, wolf, serpent, hawk, horse, goat, sheep, bull, raven, crow, dog, stag, rat, boar, lion, hare, owl, crane, goose, swan, otter, frog, toad, moth, bee, wasp, beetle, spider, slug, snail, leech, dragonfly, fish, trout, salmon, bass, crab, shell, dolphin, whale, eel, cod, haddock
Dragon, goblin, giant, wyvern, ghast, siren, lich, hag, ogre, wyrm, kraken
Talon, scale, tusk, hoof, mane, horn, fur, feather, fang, wing, whisker, bristle, paw, tail, beak, claw, web, quill, paw, maw, pelt, haunch, gill, fin,
Hive, honey, nest, burrow, den, hole, wallow
Rocks / Metals / Minerals
Gold, silver, brass, bronze, copper, platinum, iron, steel, tin, mithril, electrum, adamantite, quicksilver, fool’s gold, titanium
Diamond, ruby, emerald, sapphire, topaz, opal, pearl, jade, jasper, onyx, citrine, aquamarine, turquoise, lapiz lazuli, amethyst, quartz, crystal, amber, jewel
Granite, shale, marble, limestone, sandstone, slate, diorite, basalt, rhyolite, obsidian, glass
Earth, stone, clay, sand, silt, salt, mote, lode, vein, ore, ingot, coal, boulder, bedrock, crust, rubble, pebble, gravel, cobble, dust, clod, peat, muck mud, slip, loam, dirt, grit, scree, shard, flint, stalactite/mite
Trees / Plants / Flowers
Tree, ash, aspen, pine, birch, alder, willow, dogwood, oak, maple, walnut, chestnut, cedar, mahogany, palm, beech, hickory, hemlock, cottonwood, hawthorn, sycamore, poplar, cypress, mangrove, elm, fir, spruce, yew
Branch, bough, bramble, gnarl, burr, tangle, thistle, briar, thorn, moss, bark, shrub, undergrowth, overgrowth, root, vine, bracken, reed, driftwood, coral, fern, berry, bamboo, nectar, petal, leaf, seed, clover, grass, grain, trunk, twig, canopy, cactus, weed, mushroom, fungus
Apple, olive, apricot, elderberry, coconut, sugar, rice, wheat, cotton, flax, barley, hops, onion, carrot, turnip, cabbage, squash, pumpkin, pepper
Flower, rose, lavender, lilac, jasmine, jonquil, marigold, carnelian, carnation, goldenrod, sage, wisteria, dahlia, nightshade, lily, daisy, daffodil, columbine, amaranth, crocus, buttercup, foxglove, iris, holly, hydrangea, orchid, snowdrop, hyacinth, tulip, yarrow, magnolia, honeysuckle, belladonna, lily pad, magnolia
People
Settler, Pilgrim, Pioneer, Merchant, Prospector, Maker, Surveyor, Mason, Overseer, Apprentice, Widow, Sailor, Miner, Blacksmith, Butcher, Baker, Brewer, Barkeep, Ferryman, Hangman, Gambler, Fisherman, Adventurer, Hero, Seeker, Hiker, Traveler, Crone
Mage, Magician, Summoner, Sorcerer, Wizard, Conjurer, Necromancer,
King, Queen, Lord, Count, Baron, Guard, Soldier, Knight, Vindicator, Merchant, Crusader, Imperator, Syndicate, Vanguard, Champion, Warden, Victor, Legionnaire, Master, Archer, Footman, Gladiator, Barbarian, Captain, Commodore,
Beggar, Hunter, Ranger, Deadman, Smuggler, Robber, Swindler, Rebel, Bootlegger, Outlaw, Pirate, Brigand, Ruffian, Highwayman, Cutpurse, Thief, Assassin
God, Goddess, Exarch, Angel, Devil, Demon, Cultist, Prophet, Hermit, Seer
council, clergy, guild, militia, choir
Climate, Environment, & The Elements
Cold, cool, brisk, frosty, chilly, icy, freezing, frozen, frigid, glacial, bitter, biting, bleak, arctic, polar, boreal, wintry, snowy, snow, blizzarding, blizzard, sleeting, sleet, chill, frost, ice, icebound, ice cap, floe, snowblind, frostbite, coldsnap, avalanche, snowflake
Hot, sunny, humid, sweltering, steaming, boiling, sizzling, blistering, scalding, smoking, caldescent, dry, parched, arid, fallow, thirsty, melting, molten, fiery, blazing, burning, charring, glowing, searing, scorching, blasted, sun, fire, heat, flame, wildfire, bonfire, inferno, coal, ash, cinder, ember, flare, pyre, tinder, kindling, aflame, alight, ablaze, lava, magma, slag,
Wet, damp, dank, soggy, sodden, soaked, drenched, dripping, sopping, briny, murky, rain, storm, hail, drizzle, sprinkle, downpour, deluge, squall, water, cloud, fog, mist, dew, puddle, pool, current, whirlpool, deep, depths, tide, waves, whitewater, waterfall, tidal wave, flow, flood, leak, drain
Wind, breeze, gust, billow, gail, draft, waft, zephyr, still, airy, clear, smokey, tempest, tempestuous, windswept, aerial, lofty, torrid, turbulent, nebulous, tradewind, thunder, lightning, spark, cyclone, tornado, whirlwind, hurricane, typhoon
Man-made Item Words
Furnace, forge, anvil, vault, strap, strip, whetstone, brick, sword, blade, axe, dagger, shield, buckler, morningstar, bow, quiver, arrow, polearm, flail, staff, stave, sheath, hilt, hammer, knife, helm, mantle, banner, pauldron, chainmail, mace, dart, cutlass, canon, needle, cowl, belt, buckle, bandana, goggles, hood, boot, heel, spindle, spool, thread, sweater, skirt, bonnet, apron, leather, hide, plate, tunic, vest, satin, silk, wool, velvet, lace, corset, stocking, binding
Plow, scythe, (wheel) barrow, saddle, harrow, brand, collar, whip, leash, lead, bridle, stirrup, wheel, straw, stall, barn, hay, bale, pitchfork, well, log, saw, lumber, sod, thatch, mortar, brick, cement, concrete, pitch, pillar, window, fountain, door, cage, spoke, pole, table, bench, plank, board
Candle, torch, cradle, broom, lamp, lantern, clock, bell, lock, hook, trunk, looking glass, spyglass, bottle, vase, locket, locker, key, handle, rope, knot, sack, pocket, pouch, manacle, chain, stake, coffin, fan. cauldron, kettle, pot, bowl, pestle, oven, ladle, spoon, font, wand, potion, elixir, draught, portal, book, tome, scroll, word, manuscript, letter, message, grimoire, map, ink, quill, pen, cards, dice
Coin, coronet, crown, circlet, scepter, treasure, riches, scales, pie, tart, loaf, biscuit, custard, caramel, pudding, porridge, stew, bread, tea, gravy, gristle, spice, lute, lyre, harp, drum, rouge, powder, perfume, brush
bilge, stern, pier, sail, anchor, mast, dock, deck, flag, ship, boat, canoe, barge, wagon, sled, carriage, buggy, cart
Wine, brandy, whiskey, ale, moonshine, gin, cider, rum, grog, beer, brew, goblet, flagon, flask, cask, tankard, stein, mug, barrel, stock, wort, malt
Body Parts
Head, throat, finger, foot, hand, neck, shoulder, rib, jaw, eye, lips, bosom
Skull, spine, bone, tooth, heart, blood, tears, gut, beard
Mechanical-Sounding Words
cog, fuse, sprocket, wrench, screw, nail, bolt, lever, pulley, spanner, gear, spring, shaft, switch, button, cast, pipe, plug, dial, meter, nozzle, cord, brake, gauge, coil, oil, signal, wire, fluke, staple, clamp, bolt, nut, bulb, patch, pump, cable, socket
torque, force, sonic, spark, fizzle, thermal, beam, laser, steam, buzz, mega, mecha, electro, telsa, power, flicker, charge, current, flow, tinker
Atmospheric Words
Unpleasant, Dangerous, Threatening
(nouns) death, fury, battle, scar, shadow, razor, nightmare, wrath, bone, splinter, peril, war, riptide, strife, reckoning, sorrow, terror, deadwood, nether, venom, grime, rage, void, conquest, pain, folly, revenge, horrid, mirk, shear, fathom, frenzy, corpselight/marshlight, reaper, gloom, doom, torment, torture, spite, grizzled, sludge, refuse, spore, carrion, fear, pyre, funeral, shade, beast, witch, grip, legion, downfall, ruin, plague, woe, bane, horde, acid, fell, grief, corpse, mildew, mold, miter, dirge
(adjectives) dead, jagged, decrepit, fallen, darkened, blackened, dire, grim, feral, wild, broken, desolate, mad, lost, under, stagnant, blistered, derelict, forlorn, unbound, sunken, fallow, shriveled, wayward, bleak, low, weathered, fungal, last, brittle, sleepy, -strewn, dusky, deserted, empty, barren, vacant, forsaken, bare, bereft, stranded, solitary, abandoned, discarded, forgotten, deep, abysmal, bottomless, buried, fathomless,unfathomable, diseased, plagued, virulent, noxious, venomous, toxic, fetid, revolting, putrid, rancid, foul, squalid, sullied, vile, blighted, vicious, ferocious, dangerous, savage, cavernous, vast, yawning, chasmal, echoing, dim, dingy, gloomy, inky, lurid, shaded, shadowy, somber, sunless, tenebrous, unlit, veiled, hellish, accursed, sulfurous, damned, infernal, condemned, doomed, wicked, sinister, dread, unending, spectral, ghostly, haunted, eldritch, unknown, weary, silent, hungry, cloven, acidic
(verb/adverbs): wither (withering / withered), skulk (skulking), whisper, skitter, chitter, sting, slither, writhe, gape, screech, scream, howl, lurk, roil, twist, shift, swarm, spawn, fester, bleed, howl, shudder, shrivel, devour, swirl, maul, trip, smother, weep, shatter, ruin, curse, ravage, hush, rot, drown, sunder, blister, warp, fracture, die, shroud, fall, surge, shiver, roar, thunder, smolder, break, silt, slide, lash, mourn, crush, wail, decay, crumble, erode, decline, reek, lament, taint, corrupt, defile, poison, infect, shun, sigh, sever, crawl, starve, grind, cut, wound, bruise, maim, stab, bludgeon, rust, mutilate, tremble, stumble, fumble, clank, clang
Pleasant, Safe, Neutral
(nouns) spirit, luck, soul, oracle, song, sky, smile, rune, obelisk, cloud, timber, valor, triumph, rest, dream, thrall, might, valiance, glory, mirror, life, hope, oath, serenity, sojourn, god, hearth, crown, throne, crest, guard, rise, ascent, circle, ring, twin, vigil, breath, new, whistle, grasp, snap, fringe, threshold, arch, cleft, bend, home, fruit, wilds, echo, moonlight, sunlight, starlight, splendor, vigilance, honor, memory, fortune, aurora, paradise, caress
(adjectives) gentle, pleasant, prosperous, peaceful, sweet, good, great, mild, grand, topic, lush, wild, abundant, verdant, sylvan, vital, florid, bosky, callow, verdurous, lucious, fertile, spellbound, captivating, mystical, hidden, arcane, clandestine, esoteric, covert, cryptic, runic, otherworldly, touched, still, fair, deep, quiet, bright, sheer, tranquil, ancient, light, far, -wrought, tidal, royal, shaded, swift, true, free, high, vibrant, pure, argent, hibernal, ascendant, halcyon, silken, bountiful, gilded, colossal, massive, stout, elder, -bourne, furrowed, happy, merry, -bound, loud, lit, silk, quiet, bright, luminous, shining, burnished, glossy, brilliant, lambent, lucent, lustrous, radiant, resplendent, vivid, vibrant, illuminated, silvery, limpid, sunlit, divine, sacred, holy, eternal, celestial, spiritual, almighty, anointed, consecrated, exalted, hallowed, sanctified, ambrosial, beatific, blissful, demure, naked, bare, ample, coy, deific, godly, omnipotent, omnipresent, rapturous, sacramental, sacrosanct, blessed, majestic, iridescent, glowing, overgrown, dense, hard, timeless, sly, scatter, everlasting, full, half, first, last
(verb/adverbs) arch (arching / arched), wink (winking), sing, nestle, graze, stroll, roll, flourish, bloom, bud, burgeon, live, dawn, hide, dawn, run, pray, wake, laugh, wake, glimmer, glitter, drift, sleep, tumble, bind, arch, blush, grin, glister, beam, meander, wind, widen, charm, bewitch, enthrall, entrance, enchant, allure, beguile, glitter, shimmer, sparkle twinkle, crest, quiver, slumber, herald, shelter, leap, click, climb, scuttle, dig, barter, chant, hum, chime, kiss, flirt, tempt, tease, play, seduce
Generic “Fantasy-Sounding” Word Parts
A - D
aaz, ada, adaer, adal, adar, adbar, adir, ae, ael, aer, aern, aeron, aeryeon, agar, agis, aglar, agron, ahar, akan, akyl, al, alam, alan, alaor, ald, alea, ali, alir, allyn, alm, alon, alor, altar, altum, aluar, alys, amar, amaz, ame, ammen, amir, amol, amn, amus, anar, andor, ang, ankh, ar, ara, aram, arc, arg, arian, arkh, arla, arlith, arn, arond, arthus, arum, arvien, ary, asha, ashyr, ask, assur, aster, astra, ath, athor, athra, athryn, atol, au, auga, aum, auroch, aven, az, azar, baal, bae, bael, bak, bal, balor, ban, bar, bara, barr, batol, batar, basir, basha, batyr, bel, belph, belu, ben, beo, bere, berren, berun, besil, bezan, bhaer, bhal, blask, blis, blod, bor, boraz, bos, bran, brath, braun, breon, bri, bry, bul, bur, byl, caer, cal, calan, cara, cassa, cath, cela, cen, cenar, cerul, chalar, cham, chion, cimar, clo, coram, corel, corman, crim, crom, daar, dach, dae, dago, dagol, dahar, dala, dalar, dalin, dam, danas, daneth, dannar, dar, darian, darath, darm, darma, darro, das, dasa, dasha, dath, del, delia, delimm, dellyn, delmar, delo, den, dess, dever, dhaer, dhas, dhaz, dhed, dhin, din, dine, diar, dien, div, djer, dlyn, dol, dolan, doon, dora, doril, doun, dral, dranor, drasil, dren, drian, drien, drin, drov, druar, drud, duald, duatha, duir, dul, dulth, dun, durth, dyra, dyver,
E - H
ea, eber, eden, edluk, egan, eiel, eilean, ejen, elath, eld, eldor, eldra, elith emar, ellesar, eltar, eltaran, elth, eltur, elyth, emen, empra, emril, emvor, ena, endra, enthor, erad, erai, ere, eriel, erith, erl, eron, erre, eryn, esk, esmel, espar, estria, eta, ethel, eval, ezro, ezan, ezune, ezil, fael, faelar, faern, falk, falak, farak, faril, farla, fel, fen, fenris, fer, fet, fin, finar, forel, folgun, ful, fulk, fur, fyra, fallon, gael, gach, gabir, gadath, gal, galar, gana, gar, garth, garon, garok, garne, gath, geir, gelden, geren, geron, ghal, ghallar, ghast, ghel, ghom, ghon, gith, glae, glander, glar, glym, gol, goll, gollo, goloth, gorot, gost, goth, graeve, gran, grimm, grist, grom, grosh, grun, grym, gual, guil, guir, gulth, gulur, gur, gurnth, gwaer, haa, hael, haer, hadar, hadel, hakla, hala, hald, halana, halid, hallar, halon, halrua, halus, halvan, hamar, hanar, hanyl, haor, hara, haren, haresk, harmun, harrokh, harrow, haspur, haza, hazuth, heber, hela, helve, hem, hen, herath, hesper, heth, hethar, hind, hisari, hjaa, hlath, hlond, hluth, hoarth, holtar, horo, hotun, hrag, hrakh, hroth, hull, hyak, hyrza
I - M
iibra, ilth, ilus, ilira, iman, imar, imas, imb, imir, immer, immil, imne, impil, ingdal, innar, ir, iriae, iril, irith, irk, irul, isha, istis, isil, itala, ith, ithal, itka, jada, jae, jaeda, jahaka, jala, jarra, jaro, jath, jenda, jhaamm, jhothm, jinn, jinth, jyn, kado, kah, kal, kalif, kam, kana, kara, karg, kars, karth, kasp, katla, kaul, kazar, kazr, kela, kelem, kerym, keth, keva, kez, kezan, khaer, khal, khama, khaz, khara, khed, khel, khol, khur, kil, kor, korvan, koll, kos, kir, kra, kul, kulda, kund, kyne, lae, laen, lag, lan, lann, lanar, lantar, lapal, lar, laran, lareth, lark, lath, lauth, lav, lavur, lazar, leih, leshyr, leth, lhaza, lhuven, liad, liam, liard, lim, lin, lirn, lisk, listra, lith, liya, llair, llor, lok, lolth, loran, lorkh, lorn, loth, lothen, luen, luir, luk, lund, lur, luth, lyndus, lyra, lyth, maal, madrasm maera, maer, maerim, maes, mag, magra, mahand, mal, malar, mald, maldo, mar, mara, mark, marl, maru, maruk, meir, melish, memnon, mer, metar, methi, mhil, mina, mir, miram, mirk, mista, mith, moander, mok, modir, modan, mon, monn, mor, more, morel, moril, morn, moro, morrow, morth, mort, morum, morven, muar, mul, mydra, myr, myra, myst
N - S
naar, nadyra, naedyr, naga, najar, nal, naal, nalir, nar, naruk, narbond, narlith, narzul, nasaq, nashkel, natar, nath, natha, neir, neth, nether, nhall, nikh, nil, nilith, noan, nolvurm nonthal, norda, noro, novul, nul, nur, nus, nyan, nyth, ober, odra, oghr, okoth, olleth, olodel, omgar, ondath, onthril, ordul, orish, oroch, orgra, orlim, ormath, ornar, orntath, oroch, orth, orva, oryn, orzo, ostel, ostor, ostrav, othea, ovar, ozod, ozul, palan, palad, pae, peldan, pern, perris, perim, pele, pen, phail, phanda, phara, phen, phendra, pila, pinn, pora, puril, pur, pyra, qadim, quar, quel, ques, quil, raah, rael, ran, ranna, rassil, rak, rald, rassa, reddan, reith, relur, ren, rendril, resil, reska, reth, reven, revar, rhy, rhynn, ria, rian, rin, ris, rissian, rona, roch, rorn, rora, rotha, rual, ruar, ruhal, ruil, ruk, runn, rusk, ryn, saa, saar, saal, sabal, samar, samrin, sankh, sar, sarg, sarguth, sarin, sarlan, sel, seld, sember, semkh, sen, sendrin, septa, senta, seros, shaar, shad, shadra, shae, shaen, shaera, shak, shalan, sham, shamath, shan, shana, sharan, shayl, shemar, shere, shor, shul, shyll, shyr, sidur, sil, silvan, sim, sintar, sirem, skar, skell, skur, skyr, sokol, solan, sola, somra, sor, ssin, stel, strill, suldan, sulk, sunda, sur, surkh, suth, syl, sylph, sylune, syndra, syth
T - Z
taak, taar, taer, tah, tak, tala, talag, talar, talas, talath, tammar, tanar, tanil, tar, tara, taran, tarl, tarn, tasha, tath, tavil, telar, teld, telf, telos, tempe, tethy, tezir, thaar, thaer, thal, thalag, thalas, thalan, thalar, thamor, thander, thangol, thar, thay, thazal, theer, theim, thelon, thera, thendi, theril, thiir, thil, thild, thimir, thommar, thon, thoon, thor, thran, thrann, threl, thril, thrul, thryn, thuk, thultan, thume, thun, thy, thyn, thyr, tir, tiras, tirum, tohre, tol, tolar, tolir, tolzrin, tor, tormel, tormir, traal, triel, trith, tsath, tsur, tul, tur, turiver, turth, tymor, tyr, uder, udar, ugoth, uhr, ukh, ukir, uker, usten, ulgarth, ulgoth, ultir, ulur, umar, umath, umber, unara, undro, undu, untha, upir, ur, ursa, ursol, uron, uth, uthen, uz, van, vaar, vaelan, vaer, vaern, val valan, valash, vali, valt, vandan, vanede, vanrak, var, varyth, vassa, vastar, vaunt, vay, vel, velar, velen, velius, vell, velta, ven, veren, vern, vesper, vilar, vilhon, vintor, vir, vira, virdin, volo, volun, von, voon, vor, voro, vos, vosir, vosal, vund, war, wara, whel, wol, wynn, wyr, wyrm, xer, xul, xen, xian, yad, yag, yal, yar, yath, yeon, yhal, yir, yirar, yuir, yul, yur, zail, zala, zalhar, zan, zanda, zar, zalar, zarach, zaru, zash, zashu, zemur, zhent, zim, ziram, zindala, zindar, zoun, zul, zurr, zuth, zuu, zym
A lot of places are named after historical events, battles, and people, so keep that in mind. God/Goddess names tied to your world also work well. Places are also often named after things that the area is known for, like Georgia being known for its peaches.
My brain was fried by the end of this so feel free to add more!
I hope you find this reference helpful and good luck world-building!
-Mel
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Artemis
Arrow-strait, arrow-swift,
Taut as a bowstring.
Goal: set,
Path: clear,
Obstacles must disappear.
Don't wait,
Aim true -
This is where She makes the rules.
Loud, loud -
Make some noise:
Maids in chorus,
Baying hounds.
Bright shafts of moonlight,
Black stalking shades -
Howling, oh, howling,
Singing to Her:
Scream at the top of your lungs
What you wanted to whisper -
This is no time to be tame.
Unchained, unnamed -
All the wild things are having a blast.
Such a vast world free from man's yoke -
Keep that shape-shifting cloak close around your shoulders.
Cold mountain summits and hidden lakes,
Where old spirits play -
Hey, don't become prey:
Are those teeth just for show,
Are those legs naught but rust?
Might as well be. But that's all we've got.
Still, all we do is run.
Surrender? Not yet. But
It's too late to think mortal strength is enough.
She - glowing silver in darkness,
She - soothing shade at noon...
The wounded seek healing, the strong-limbed
Can't help but wound.
Follow the greatest of she-bears,
Find Her in caves and among long grass,
In constellations, in road dust;
Further than the moon, closer than your skin,
Where no path can reach all tales begin.
Feet and soul - all bare,
Wrong place to be scared,
Right place to bark, screech and growl.
She - garbed in saffron and strength, and
Mysteries - She still smiles.
Wild Lady, Beastmistress, protect Your cubs!
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So, are the Saffron Straits by Asshai saffron (yellow) because of, like, the Planetos equivalent of nuclear fallout?
What are the theories on this, I wonder?
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Asshai ; a moodboard
Asshai is a mysterious port city located in the far south-east of Essos, where the Ash river meets the Jade Sea at its eastern exit, the Saffron Straits. The city is often called Asshai by the Shadow. The area of the Shadow Lands and Asshai are also sometimes referred to simply as the Shadow.
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When the Land is Cursed - Catastrophe and Magical Pollution in “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Part 2: Asshai-by-the-Shadow
(Asshai by the Shadow. Art by René Aigner)
In my previous post about the Doom of Valyria, I framed the blighted lands of the Valyrian peninsula and the surrounding Lands of the Long Summer in terms of magical pollution. I argued that it is possible that magic was partially the cause of the Doom in some form - possibly related to spells that the Valyrians used to make mining active volcanoes a feasible project. The Valyrians had a tendency to meddle magically with the natural order of things and in that sense, the Doom is framed textually as the punishment for such hubris.
What I found particularly interesting is the fact that the Doom not only shattered the Valyrian peninsula and turned it into a smattering of islands in a new sea - but that it also left the land blighted far beyond the the peninsula itself. I’m specifically thinking about the city of Mantarys where children often are born severely deformed, in a way that is eerily reminiscient of the effects radiation damage in the wake of nuclear disasters in our world.
However, the ruins of Old Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer are not the only places in the world of ASoIaF that suffers from magical pollution.
There is at least one other place that is magically polluted in a similar manner but perhaps to an even larger degree.
I am speaking of that mysterious place at the end of the known world: Asshai-by-the-Shadow. It lies in the far eastern reaches of Essos where the Jade Sea meets the Saffron Straits. It is just north of an unexplored landmass called Ulthos. It is about as far from Westeros as you can come.
THE CITY OF ASSHAI
Asshai is a mysterious place - its origins are lost in the mists of time and even the Asshai’i don’t know who built this city. It is a forbidding place:
Few places in the known world are as remote as Asshai, and fewer are as forbidding. Travelers tell us that the city is built entirely of black stone: halls, hovels, temples, palaces, streets, walls, bazaars, all. Some say as well that the stone of Asshai has a greasy, unpleasant feel to it, that it seems to drink the light, dimming tapers and torches and hearth fires alike. The nights are very black in Asshai, all agree, and even the brightest days of summer are somehow grey and gloomy. Asshai is a large city, sprawling out for leagues on both banks of the black river Ash. (TWoIaF, The Bones and Beyond: Asshai-by-the-Shadow)
This description of the gloomy cityscape of Asshai also brings to mind the trope of Foreboding Architecture.
Some of the statues were so lovely they took her breath away, others so misshapen and terrible that Dany could scarcely bear to look at them. Those, Ser Jorah said, had likely come from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai. (On Vaes Dothrak, AGoT, Daenerys IV)
This trope is mainly associated with video- and computer games but I do think that it is relevant in this context. Another trope that seems to come into play is Evil Is Not Well-Lit, which corresponds perfectly with the rather sinister reputation that Asshai has when it comes to magic:
The dark city by the Shadow is a city steeped in sorcery. Warlocks, wizards, alchemists, moonsingers, red priests, black alchemists, necromancers, aeromancers, pyromancers, bloodmages, torturers, inquisitors, poisoners, godswives, night-walkers, shapechangers, worshippers of the Black Goat and the Pale Child and the Lion of Night, all find welcome in Asshai-by-the-Shadow, where nothing is forbidden. Here they are free to practice their spells without restraint or censure, conduct their obscene rites, and fornicate with demons if that is their desire. Most sinister of all the sorcerers of Asshai are the shadowbinders, whose lacquered masks hide their faces from the eyes of gods and men. They alone dare to go upriver past the walls of Asshai, into the heart of darkness. (TWoIaF, The Bones and Beyond: Asshai-by-the-Shadow)
Several of the most powerful, mysterious and somewhat sinister magic practitioners that we meet in the novels have all spent time in Asshai: Mirri Maz Duur, Melisandre of Asshai and Quaite of the Shadow. Even a maester of the Citadel, Marwyn the Mage, travelled to Asshai to study magic.
(Asshai. Art by Marco Iozzi)
One curious aspect is that Asshai is a HUGE city. It has enormous land walls and it covers enough ground to contain Volantis, Qarth, King’s Land and Oldtown. However, despite its size it has rather few inhabitants. Its population roughly corresponds to a good-sized market town, which probably means that it has a couple of thousand inhabitants. This, of course, raises the question of what happened to the original population. Thus, Asshai is a variation upon the trope of the Ghost City:
A Ghost City is the larger version of a Ghost Town, and is used in visual media as shorthand for 'something terrible has happened'. A city typically contains millions of people, and the viewer knows that only the hugest of disasters could completely clear it of its inhabitants. [...] Usually there is one person, or possibly a few people, left to contrast the vast emptiness. (TVTropes)
However, Asshai is a thriving trade port despite its forbidding aspect as it is known for gold, gems and esoteric knowledge. Strange treasures can be found in the black bazars of Asshai - and ships travels from all parts of the world to partake in its riches.
THE SHADOW LANDS
Asshai is situated at the tip of a mysterious area called the Shadow Lands. It is a landscape of mountains and rivers, of which the most prominent is the river Ash that runs through a deep and narrow valley called the Vale of Shadows.
Though the landscape is harsh, the Shadow Lands are not entirely unpopulated. Certain areas are inhabited by the so-called Shadow Men. Not much is known about these natives of the Shadow, other than that they cover their bodies in tattoos and wear red laquered wooden masks. They are also known for piracy and reaving.
(Shadow Men. art by HBO)
Many stories exist about the Shadowlands but a common denominator is that these lands are home to twisted and monstrous creatures - demons, dragons and worse.
Some legends claim that the dragons originated in the Shadow:
She had heard that the first dragons had come from the east, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai and the islands of the Jade Sea. (AGoT, Daenerys III)
There might just be some truth to this legend as the three petrified dragon eggs that Daenerys Targaryen receives as a wedding present came from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai. Furthermore, during Bran’s first vision when he lies unconcious after his fall from the Broken Tower he sees this:
He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise. (AGoT, Bran III)
That is an interesting little tidbit of information and I wonder if it will play a part in the story to come novels. Some fans believe that GRRM initially planned to have Dany visit Asshai but that he ultimately dropped that plot (x). I’m not so sure about that because the story has set Dany up with a narrative arc as a failed saviour from the very beginning.
However, from a Doylist perspective, Dany’s proposed solution to the problem of the raped women becomes part of a pattern in her narrative arc where she attempts to save people from something (rape, slavery), only to end up with solutions that are very similar to the conditions she wanted to save people from. She wanted to save the Lhazareen women from wartime rape by putting them in a situation where they would be subject to marital rape. She wants to save people from slavery but end up using unpaid labour as well as profiting from people selling themselves into slavery. (x)
It is true that the shadowbinder Quaithe wants Dany to visit Asshai:
"To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow." Asshai, Dany thought. She would have me go to Asshai. "Will the Asshai'i give me an army?" she demanded. "Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?" "Truth," said the woman in the mask. And bowing, she faded back into the crowd. (ACoK, Daenerys III)
By not going to Asshai, Daenerys may have been set up by the narrative to fail as a saviour for the third and most important time - because she doesn’t learn whatever truth that Quaithe wants her to learn. The Rule of Three dominates Dany’s narrative and after ultimately failing to save the Lhazareen women from rape and after failing to definitely end slavery in Meereen, I fear Daenerys is set up a third and final time as the saviour of mankind.
GRRM has said that if Asshai appears in the novels it will be through flashbacks. If that is the case, then we may learn the truth that Quaithe alludes to and I think it is very possible that this truth relates to dragons. It is worth noting that there’s dragonglass in Asshai, just like there is on Dragonstone. It is, apparently, one of their important export goods.
STYGAI - THE CORPSE CITY
Asshai is not the only city in the Shadow Lands. In the Vale of Shadows lies the ruined city of Stygai, also called the City of the Night because it only sees sunlight for a brief period of time each day.
On its way from the Mountains of the Morn to the sea, the Ash runs howling through a narrow cleft in the mountains, between towering cliffs so steep and close that the river is perpetually in shadow, save for a few moments at midday when the sun is at its zenith. In the caves that pockmark the cliffs, demons and dragons and worse make their lairs. The farther from the city one goes, the more hideous and twisted these creatures become...until at last one stands before the doors of the Stygai, the corpse city at the Shadow's heart, where even the shadowbinders fear to tread. Or so the stories say. (TWoIaF, The Bones and Beyond: Asshai-by-the-Shadow)
Stygai is yet another example of the trope of the Ghost City but unlike Asshai, Stygai is completely abandoned - and a place of fear, even among the shadowbinders.
The name itself is interesting. Some fans believe that Stygai is an intertextual nod to the story “Shadows in the Moonlight” by Robert E. Howard (x). That is certainly possible but it is also worth remembering that in the English language “stygian” is used as a synonym for “extremely dark, gloomy or forbidding”, which certainly fits the description of a ruined city in the heart of the Shadow Lands. In the literal sense, “stygian” means something like “of or relating to the river Styx”. In classical Greek mythology, Styx was one of the rivers that constituted the border between the Earth and the Underworld (Hades), the realm of the Dead - and that definition is certainly also pertinent to the city of Stygai, which borders the black waters of the river Ash.
THE LAND IS STERILE
One curious feature of Asshai and its environs is, in my opinion, extremely important: the land is completely sterile! Outside the city nothing but the inedible ghost grass grows:
Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horseback with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. (Jorah Mormon to Daenerys Targaryen, AGoT, Daenerys III)
In fact, the Asshai’i are entirely dependant imported food and fresh water as the waters of the river Ash are blighted and unhealthy.
The waters of the Ash glisten black beneath the noonday sun and glimmer with a pale green phosphorescence by night, and such fish as swim in the river are blind and twisted, so deformed and hideous to look upon that only fools and shadowbinders will eat of their flesh. (TWoIaF, The Bones and Beyond: Asshai-by-the-Shadow)
Incidentally, this little detail about the fish living in the Ash sounds eerily reminiscent of wildlife affected by nuclear fallout or extreme chemical pollution. The very climate is unhealthy:
There are no horses in Asshai, no elephants, no mules, no donkeys, no zorses, no camels, no dogs. Such beasts, when brought there by ship, soon die. The malign influence of the Ash and its polluted waters have been implicated, as it is well understood from Harmon's On Miasmas that animals are more sensitive to the foulness exuded by such waters, even without drinking them. Septon Barth's writings speculate more wildly, referring to the higher mysteries with little evidence. (TWoIaF, The Bones and Beyond: Asshai-by-the-Shadow)
The mention of Septon Barth here is an interesting and possibly important bit of information. I have previously written about Septon Barth and his writings on magic and unnatural creature. There are Doylist reasons for believing that his writings may contain clues to the magical mysteries of A Song of Ice and Fire. Furthermore, Samwell Tarly has in his possession the possibly only surviving copy of Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History.
He [Maester Aemon] asked Sam to read for him from a book by Septon Barth, whose writings had been burned during the reign of Baelor the Blessed. (AFfC, Samwell IV)
This book is a Chekov’s Gun waiting to go off at some point in the story.
There’s another important detail about Asshai where the water is undrinkable, where livestock die and where no edible plants grow:
There are no children in Asshai!!!
Asshai is so polluted that its inhabitants can’t even reproduce! They have to import food and water - and they cannot have children. Thus, there are plenty of signs that Asshai is a severely polluted place - but is the pollution of a magical nature?
She was stronger at the Wall, stronger even than in Asshai. Her every word and gesture was more potent, and she could do things that she had never done before. (ADwD, Melisandre I)
In this quote we should pay special attention to this sentence: “stronger even than in Asshai”. The implication being that Melisandre’s magic is stronger in Asshai than in other places (except for the Wall). There’s a reason that so many practitioners of magic travel to Asshai - there is of course the existence of ancient texts but it also appears as though the place itself enhances spellwork. The combination of the Ghost City trope and all the signs of pollution indicate that some kind of magical cataclysm once took place in the Shadow Lands and I suspect that Stygai was Ground Zero for this catastrophe, which turned Asshai-by-the-Shadow into the most polluted place in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire.
ASSHAI AND THE GREAT EMPIRE OF THE DAWN
As previously stated, the origins of Asshai are lost in the mists of time. So who, exactly, built this incredibly large city? On r/eddit the user u/sangeli has posted an elaborate and well-argued theory that Asshai was built by the Great Empire of the Dawn (GEotD).
In ancient days, the god-emperors of Yi Ti were as powerful as any ruler on earth, with wealth that exceeded even that of Valyria at its height and armies of almost unimaginable size. (TWoIaF, The Bones and Beyond: Yi-Ti)
u/sangeli argues that the GEotD is the only real candidate as the founder of Asshai in terms of the time period, the geographical location and its power. The GEotD was ruled by the gemstone emperors (Pearl, Jade, Tourmaline, Onyx, Topaz, Opal, Amethyst and Bloodstone). u/sangeli argues that the GEotD had dragons, which isn’t impossible since there are hints in the novels that there are, or once were, dragons in the Shadow.
According to legend the GEotD didn’t survive the Long Night and u/sangeli argues that Valyria could be the product of an Asshai’i diaspora - and a fragment of Septon Barth’s lost book Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History seems to suggest something of this kind:
In Asshai, the tales are many and confused, but certain texts—all impossibly ancient—claim that dragons first came from the Shadow, a place where all of our learning fails us. These Asshai'i histories say that a people so ancient they had no name first tamed dragons in the Shadow and brought them to Valyria, teaching the Valyrians their arts before departing from the annals. (TWoIaF, Ancient History: The Rise of Valyria)
I’ve previously mentioned that it is always worth paying attention to what Barth says when it comes to the history of the world, magic and dragons. Furthermore, this particular quote comes from the companion book The World of Ice and Fire where it is emphasized by the lay-out by being separated from the main text by a sidebar. There are Doylist reasons for taking the text in this sidebar seriously as GRRM himself has written the text in the sidebars of the book whereas his co-authors are responsible for the main text (x). Furthermore, u/sangeli argues that there is at least one clue in the novels that support this theory - the fever dream that Dany has when she miscarries during Mirri Maz Durr’s sorcerous ritual:
Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade. "Faster," they cried, "faster, faster." She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched. "Faster!" the ghosts cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward. A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew. (AGoT, Daenerys IX)
The ghost kings of Daenerys’ dream all have the silver-gold hair of the Valyrians but their eyes are described as gemstones, more specifically the gemstones that the emperors of the GEotD were named after. I have to say that this is a pretty compelling clue and though I don’t agree with everything in their comprehensive theory, I do find their argument that Asshai was the centre of the GEotD and that Valyria may have been founded by an Asshai’i diaspora after the Long night compelling.
THE LONG NIGHT
If it is indeed correct that Asshai was the centre of the Great Empire of the Dawn, then the stories of this legendary civilzation may hold the clue to the kind of cataclysm that left Asshai, Stygai and their environs permanently polluted to the degree that the very land is sterile. According to myth, the end of the GEotD came when the Bloodstone Emperor usurped his older sister the Amethyst Empress:
When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. He practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy, enslaved his people, took a tiger-woman for his bride, feasted on human flesh, and cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky. (Many scholars count the Bloodstone Emperor as the first High Priest of the sinister Church of Starry Wisdom, which persists to this day in many port cities throughout the known world). In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night. Despairing of the evil that had been unleashed on earth, the Maiden-Made-of-Light turned her back upon the world, and the Lion of Night came forth in all his wroth to punish the wickedness of men. (TWoIaF, The Bones and Beyond: Yi-Ti)
I don’t think that it was the act of usurpation itself that caused the Long Night. It is much more likely that it was the Bloodstone Emperor’s practice of magic (such as the dark arts of necromancy) that ushered in the Long Night. I think that only a magical catastrophe of extreme proportions can explain why Asshai and the Shadow Lands are so severely polluted that nothing is fertile in this particular region. Exactly what caused the Long Night remains a mystery - so far - but it is possible that Stygai was the Ground Zero of this catastrophe since this city is completely abandoned and even shadowbinders fear to enter it.
ON THE DANGERS OF MAGIC
GRRM has hinted that the Others work as a kind of analogy of climate change in his story:
I mean, we have things going on in our world right now like climate change, that’s, you know, ultimately a threat to the entire world. But people are using it as a political football instead of, you know … You’d think everybody would get together. This is something that can wipe out possibly the human race. So I wanted to do an analogue not specifically to the modern-day thing but as a general thing with the structure of the book. (GRRM)
Thus, I don’t find it impossible to think that an improper use of magic can function as an analogue to pollution within the narrative. After all, the text itself warns against the use of magic on more than one occasion:
“Take a lesson, Bran. The man who trusts in spells is dueling with a glass sword. As the children did. Here, let me show you something.” He stood abruptly, crossed the room, and returned with a green jar in his good hand. “Have a look at these,” he said as he pulled the stopper and shook out a handful of shiny black arrowheads. (Maester Luwin to Bran, AGoT Bran VII)
“We free folk know things you kneelers have forgotten. Sometimes the short road is not the safest, Jon Snow. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it.” (Dalla to Jon Snow - ASoS, Jon X)
There’s no safe way to use magic and it is dangerous to meddle with nature through the means of sorcery.
(Sadly, I haven’t been able to source all the art work)
#asoaif#a song of ice and fire#game of thrones#meta#asshai#asshai-by-the-shadow#the shadow lands#stygai#dragons#the great empire of the dawn#the bloodstone emperor#the long night#valyria#magical pollution
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Lagaan actress: 'Lagaan' actress seeks help from Aamir Khan in financial crisis after brain stroke - 'lagaan' co-star parveena seeks help from aamir khan after suffering a brain stroke last year
Lagaan actress: ‘Lagaan’ actress seeks help from Aamir Khan in financial crisis after brain stroke – ‘lagaan’ co-star parveena seeks help from aamir khan after suffering a brain stroke last year
Highlights:
The co-star who worked with Aamir Khan in ‘Lagaan’ is in financial straits
Parveen Bano suffered a brain stroke last year
Parveena sought help from Aamir Khan
Actress Aamir Khan, who played the role of Saffron in ‘Lagaan’, is seeking help. Parveena suffered a brain stroke last year. After which his financial condition has deteriorated. And now he wants to get back to work.
Parveena…
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Kashmiris Roast Bollywood Director On ‘Vegetarian Wazwaan’ | The Florida Star
SRINAGAR, India — “Wazwaan” isn’t just a multi-course, non-vegetarian feast for wosti (Chef) Shafi Ahmad Khosa (60) who has been making ready scrumptious Kashmiri dishes for 35 years. It isn’t a merely a matter of ability both; it’s a query of status.
And if you ask him if wazwaan might be ready with greens, he asks, “do you imply herbs?” a tad befuddled. He repeats the query to substantiate if he has heard accurately.
“What on earth is a vegetarian wazwaan?” he wonders.
Nicely, Khosa has clearly not heard of Vivek Agnihotri, a Bollywood filmmaker who, on a current go to to the Kashmir valley to shoot a movie, recommended that Kashmiri delicacies was in want of a vegetarian makeover.
“No one is aware of the way to make a vegetarian wazwaan in Kashmir. However I’m right here to result in change,” Agnihotri wrote on his twitter deal with. The tweet didn’t go down effectively with Kashmiri netizens who’re sensitive in relation to their culinary heritage and sparked sturdy reactions.
It was referred to as out as an try of “culinary colonialism.”
“A tradition is recognized by its language and meals and these points assume much more significance for a politically-sensitive, battle ravaged area like Kashmir,” explains Faizan Farooq, a analysis scholar primarily based in Srinagar.
In Farooq’s view, alteration of language and delicacies precedes the deeper-subjugation of a inhabitants.
“Be it Kemal Ataturk changing Arabic script with Latin alphabets following his secularization of Turkey or the mass-scale manufacturing of European staple crops in Australia changing the indigenous meals of Aboriginals and Torres Strait islanders, cultural appropriation typically precedes political subjugation,” mentioned Faizan.
Meat being minced to organize kebabs throughout a social ceremony in Srinagar (Hanan Zaffar)
Many Kashmiris fear that India’s ruling proper wing Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP), and its supporters try to work an integrationist agenda in Kashmir by way of political, social and cultural fronts.
In August 2019, the Himalayan area was stripped off its semi-autonomous standing by the Indian authorities and positioned below restrictions on mobility and communication.
“Kashmiris are inclined to understand each transfer taken or assertion made by mainland Indians as an infringement of their tradition, land and freedom,” mentioned Farooq.
However wosti Khosa isn’t conscious of all these socio-political connotations. He’s simply amazed that somebody might have even considered making wazwaan vegetarian.
“Even after I make greens for my prospects, I boil them in meat curry in order that they style good,” mentioned Khosa.
On most sunny summer season afternoons, alongside together with his apprentices — some 20 in quantity — wosti Khosa prepares dozens of delectable mutton-based dishes in Kashmiri social gatherings — principally marriage ceremonies.
In a single ceremony, as much as 20 quintals (4400 kilos) of lamb meat can be utilized.
“It’s predominantly a non-vegetarian delicacies,” says Khosa.
Cooked by conventional native cooks, referred to as wazas, as much as 30 out of 36 programs within the wazwaan might be preparations of mutton with fragrant spices like saffron, cloves, fennel, cardamom, and cinnamon and dried ginger. The dishes are served in traems — giant copper plates — through which 4 folks eat collectively.
“Wazwaan isn’t a mere banquet, however a ‘sequence of occasions’,” says Anayat Rahman, Professor of Culinary Artwork in College of Prince Murgin, Madinah. “It’s not solely about preparation but in addition how it’s served and eaten.”
Historically, wazwaan consists of mutton dishes like rista (meatball in purple gravy), rogan josh (tender lamb curry), tabak maaz (fried lamb ribs), aab gosh (lamb in milk curry), gushtaba (fatty meatball in yogurt gravy) and a number of other different mutton delicacies.
Conventional cooks (wazas) sorting meat to organize dishes for Wazwaan (Uman Naqeeb)
“Some greens like haakh (collard greens), nadru (lotus stems) and mushrooms are additionally served in wazwaan,” provides Rahman.
“However the thought of wazwaan is synonymous with mutton,” mentioned Zareef Ahmed Zareef, a distinguished poet and historian within the valley.
As per Zareef, earlier solely seven dishes — tabak maaz, rogan josh, kebab, daniwal korma, methi, abe gosh and yakhni had been a part of wazwaan, however later different vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes had been launched because the time progressed.
“A lot of the dishes in wazwaan have come from Central Asia. Names like rogan josh and aab gosh stem from Persia. We added a number of dishes like rista and gushtaba right here in Kashmir and consolidated it right into a single multi-cuisine meal,” Zareef provides.
The importance of this delicacies, says Farooq, might be gauged from the truth that even the Kashmiri Pundits regardless of being Brahmins (a Hindu caste identified for its strict adherence to vegetarianism), additionally devour it passionately and take nice cultural satisfaction it in as effectively.
Sagar Toshkhani, a Kashmiri Pandit primarily based out of New Delhi concurs.
“It’s an indispensable a part of our tradition. There are slight variations in preparation and names of dishes however total the delicacies is similar,” he mentioned. “It’s relished by all throughout area and faith.”
(Edited by Anindita Ghosh and Uttaran Dasgupta)
The submit Kashmiris Roast Bollywood Director On ‘Vegetarian Wazwaan’ appeared first on Zenger News.
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Kashmiris Roast Bollywood Director On ‘Vegetarian Wazwaan’ | The Florida Star published first on https://fikiss.net/
from Karin Gudino https://karingudino.blogspot.com/2021/01/kashmiris-roast-bollywood-director-on.html
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The Known World - Ulthos
Ulthos is a landmass in the far east, which may or my not be another continent. It lies to the south of Asshai and the Shadow Lands in Essos and to the east of Sothoryos. It is separated from the Shadow Lands by the Saffron Straits.
Headcanons
Four noble families inhabit the north.
Kin Gilead - Ruled by “The Golden King,” who keeps his only daughter under a mask so no man will wed her.
Kin Eusepa - Disease has wiped out most of the noble family, with the exception of a sickly boy prince who fancies himself a god.
Kin Ophira - Proud and loyal mountain family. Traditional.
Kin Sisera - Oldest noble family who live in the forest. Reclusive, resourceful, and mysterious. Considered “uncivilized” compared to the rest of the houses.
A tall mountain called The Arm of God towers over the four houses. Kin Ophira has kept the mountain secure for generations. Their forefathers carved stairs to the peak for travelers. Legend says good luck will follow those who reach the summit and scream into the void.
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Treat: Black Phoenix Trading Post Halloween 2017 Update
The Black Phoenix Trading Post WEENIES are online now and ready for your delectation!
We’re so excited about this collection of collections! Dive into Pile of Dead Leaves hair glosses, get goosebumps from Haunted Locations atmosphere sprays! Catch a sugar buzz on Halloween spice-y perfumes, bath oils and hair glosses. Stir up some old-school creeps with Tell-Tale Heart hair glosses, atmosphere sprays, and even a bath bomb. (Bang!) That last collection, based on the Edgar Allan Poe story, features eerie label art by Drew Rausch.
Dr. Frankenstein himself couldn’t have stitched together anything better than this supercollection. Meet the BPTP Weenies!
++ PILE OF DEAD LEAVES: HALLOWEEN HAIR GLOSSES
Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?
Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
DEAD LEAVES, SPANISH SAFFRON, PATCHOULI, LAOTIAN OUD, AND HONEY HAIR GLOSS
DEAD LEAVES AND BLACK MUSK HAIR GLOSS
DEAD LEAVES, CREAM AMBER, AND LEMON PEEL HAIR GLOSS
DEAD LEAVES AND BLUEBERRY CHYPRE HAIR GLOSS
DEAD LEAVES AND SUGAR CRYSTALS HAIR GLOSS
DEAD LEAVES, PUMPKIN PULP, AND PEPPERCORNS HAIR GLOSS
DEAD LEAVES, LICORICE ROOT, TONKA BEAN, AND PATCHOULI HAIR GLOSS
DEAD LEAVES AND BURNT MARSHMALLOWS HAIR GLOSS
++ BPTP HAUNTED LOCATIONS ATMOSPHERE SPRAY
Titivate your abattoir or (un)living space with these frightful atmospheric sprays.
ABANDONED CAR ATMOSPHERE SPRAY
Cracked, peeling leather, creeping sheets of corrosion, exposed wires, and congealed pools of motor oil.
DESERTED THEATER ATMOSPHERE SPRAY
Cracked oak beams, sagging, moth-shredded velvet curtains, beeswax and streaks of ancient greasepaint, shadows of broken props, a memory of tobacco smoke, a discarded ballet slipper, and a broken marionette.
DESOLATE FARMHOUSE ATMOSPHERE SPRAY
Dry, forgotten hay bales, discarded scythes, and stalks of ergot-thick rye swaying gently in the gloaming.
FORGOTTEN CHURCHYARD ATMOSPHERE SPRAY
Black-rusted gates swinging wildly on broken hinges. Weed-choked mausoleums and crumbling marble thick with corpse-green mold. Claw-streaked soil and broken pine boughs.
SHUTTERED ASYLUM ATMOSPHERE SPRAY
Decades of dust clashing with antiseptic. The mouldering canvas and leather of discarded strait-jackets. Crusts of blood threading between shattered tiles. Wet rubber padding. Electricity-scarred metal gurneys. Crushed pill casings and dribbles of sticky laudanum.
++ BPTP HAIR GLOSS
Get your fur, tentacles, shroud, scales, or carapace gleaming with Black Phoenix Trading Post’s ghastly glosses! (Okay, it’s actually made for hair, but it’s Halloween, people. Allow for some poetic license.)
AUTUMN CIDER HAIR GLOSS
Fermented apple juice, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, lemon zest, butterscotch liquor, and orange slices.
BLUEBERRY PUMPKIN MUFFINS HAIR GLOSS
Muffiny! Pumpkiny! Big oozy lumps of blueberry!
ABSINTHE-LACED CANDIED APPLE HAIR GLOSS
With a dribble of caramel and flecks of white sugar.
POMEGRANATE, WHITE PUMPKIN RIND, AND ROSE GERANIUM HAIR GLOSS
PUMPKIN LATTE HAIR GLOSS
Espresso, pumpkin syrup, smoky vanilla bean, milk, raw sugar, and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg.
PUMPKIN SPICE RUM HAIR GLOSS
For spiking that latte. (We won’t tell.)
PUMPKIN SUGAR HAIR GLOSS
Crystallized glittering shards of lightly spiced pumpkin sugar.
++ HALLOWEEN BATH OILS
Recline in pleasurable, tranquil languor, stimulate your senses, and renew yourself before your next haunting with our therapeutic bath oils.
POMEGRANATE CLOVE BATH OIL
Sweet and darkly warming.
PUMPKIN BUTTER ICE CREAM BATH OIL
As sweet as it sounds.
++ BLACK PHOENIX TRADING POST PUMPKIN FLOSS PERFUMES, PLUS ONE
CANDY CORN-COLORED PUMPKIN FLOSS PERFUME OIL
Sweet orange candyfloss with a hint of lemon peel and a husky breath of candy corn.
CHOCOLATE PUMPKIN FLOSS PERFUME OIL
Pumpkin floss with threads of dark chocolate!
CRIMSON PUMPKIN FLOSS PERFUME OIL
Pomegranate and maraschino cherry pumpkin floss!
PURPLE PUMPKIN FLOSS PERFUME OIL
Wild plum, fig, and blackcurrant pumpkin floss!
WHITE PUMPKIN FLOSS PERFUME OIL
White chocolate and marshmallow pumpkin floss!
GINGERBREAD HAUNTED HOUSE PERFUME OIL
White icing skeletons, sour gummi worms, red licorice bloodstains, chocolate werewolf prints, and pretzel stick vampire stakes.
++ TELL-TALE HEART
Story by Edgar Allan Poe, art by Drew Rausch, scents by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and Black Phoenix Trading Post.
VERY, VERY DREADFULLY NERVOUS HAIR GLOSS
TRUE! -- nervous -- very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
A proclamation of sanity: a dignified bay rum cologne and a hint of respectable lime aftershave, pierced through by glittering shards of madness.
A DARK LANTERN ATMOSPHERE SPRAY
And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it -- oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly -- very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this, And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously - oh, so cautiously -- cautiously (for the hinges creaked) -- I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights -- every night just at midnight --but I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
Midnight observations and false cheer: moon-shrouded indigo musk illuminated by a thin, wavering amber light, punctuated with erratic bursts of neroli’s sharp affability.
MY SECRET DEEDS HAIR GLOSS
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers -- of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back -- but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.
Thick darkness, black as pitch: opoponax, oily labdanum, and birch tar disrupted by a bubbling carnation chuckle.
HEARKENING TO THE DEATH WATCHES IN THE WALL ATMOSPHERE SPRAY
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out -- "Who's there?"
I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; -- just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.
Doom: aged red patchouli, macerated red peppercorn, gloom-black musk, and creaking planks of dry oak.
I FOAMED! I RAVED! I SWORE! HAIR GLOSS
I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men -- but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed -- I raved -- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?
Black opium and screeching blood orange.
LOUDER! LOUDER! LOUDER! BATH BOMB
Almighty God! -- no, no! They heard! -- they suspected! -- they knew! -- they were making a mockery of my horror! - this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now -- again! -- hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!
A pulsating dragon’s blood and blood musk bath fizz.
Vegan, handmade, cruelty-free bath bombs crafted by Dream Drop Bath Bombs.
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Daenerys
The drapes kept out the dust and heat of the streets, but they could not keep out disappointment. Dany climbed inside wearily, glad for the refuge from the sea of Qartheen eyes. "Make way," Jhogo shouted at the crowd from horseback, snapping his whip, "make way, make way for the Mother of Dragons."
Reclining on cool satin cushions, Xaro Xhoan Daxos poured ruby-red wine into matched goblets of jade and gold, his hands sure and steady despite the sway of the palanquin. "I see a deep sadness written upon your face, my light of love." He offered her a goblet. "Could it be the sadness of a lost dream?"
"A dream delayed, no more." Dany's tight silver collar was chafing against her throat. She unfastened it and flung it aside. The collar was set with an enchanted amethyst that Xaro swore would ward her against all poisons. The Pureborn were notorious for offering poisoned wine to those they thought dangerous, but they had not given Dany so much as a cup of water. They never saw me for a queen, she thought bitterly. I was only an afternoon's amusement, a horse girl with a curious pet.
Rhaegal hissed and dug sharp black claws into her bare shoulder as Dany stretched out a hand for the wine. Wincing, she shifted him to her other shoulder, where he could claw her gown instead of her skin. She was garbed after the Qartheen fashion. Xaro had warned her that the Enthroned would never listen to a Dothraki, so she had taken care to go before them in flowing green samite with one breast bared, silvered sandals on her feet, with a belt of black-and-white pearls about her waist. For all the help they offered, I could have gone naked. Perhaps I should have. She drank deep.
Descendants of the ancient kings and queens of Qarth, the Pureborn commanded the Civic Guard and the fleet of ornate galleys that ruled the straits between the seas. Daenerys Targaryen had wanted that fleet, or part of it, and some of their soldiers as well. She made the traditional sacrifice in the Temple of Memory, offered the traditional bribe to the Keeper of the Long List, sent the traditional persimmon to the Opener of the Door, and finally received the traditional blue silk slippers summoning her to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones.
The Pureborn heard her pleas from the great wooden seats of their ancestors, rising in curved tiers from a marble floor to a high-domed ceiling painted with scenes of Qarth's vanished glory. The chairs were immense, fantastically carved, bright with goldwork and studded with amber, onyx, lapis, and jade, each one different from all the others, and each striving to be the most fabulous. Yet the men who sat in them seemed so listless and world-weary that they might have been asleep. They listened, but they did not hear, or care, she thought. They are Milk Men indeed. They never meant to help me. They came because they were curious. They came because they were bored, and the dragon on my shoulder interested them more than I did.
"Tell me the words of the Pureborn," prompted Xaro Xhoan Daxos. "Tell me what they said to sadden the queen of my heart."
"They said no." The wine tasted of pomegranates and hot summer days. "They said it with great courtesy, to be sure, but under all the lovely words, it was still no."
"Did you flatter them?"
"Shamelessly."
"Did you weep?"
"The blood of the dragon does not weep," she said testily.
Xaro sighed. "You ought to have wept." The Qartheen wept often and easily; it was considered a mark of the civilized man. "The men we bought, what did they say?"
"Mathos said nothing. Wendello praised the way I spoke. The Exquisite refused me with the rest, but he wept afterward."
"Alas, that Qartheen should be so faithless." Xaro was not himself of the Pureborn, but he had told her whom to bribe and how much to offer. "Weep, weep, for the treachery of men."
Dany would sooner have wept for her gold. The bribes she'd tendered to Mathos Mallarawan, Wendello Qar Deeth, and Egon Emeros the Exquisite might have bought her a ship, or hired a score of sellswords. "Suppose I sent Ser Jorah to demand the return of my gifts?" she asked.
"Suppose a Sorrowful Man came to my palace one night and killed you as you slept," said Xaro. The Sorrowful Men were an ancient sacred guild of assassins, so named because they always whispered, "I am so sorry," to their victims before they killed them. The Qartheen were nothing if not polite. "It is wisely said that it is easier to milk the Stone Cow of Faros than to wring gold from the Pureborn."
Dany did not know where Faros was, but it seemed to her that Qarth was full of stone cows. The merchant princes, grown vastly rich off the trade between the seas, were divided into three jealous factions: the Ancient Guild of Spicers, the Tourmaline Brotherhood, and the Thirteen, to which Xaro belonged. Each vied with the others for dominance, and all three contended endlessly with the Pureborn. And brooding over all were the warlocks, with their blue lips and dread powers, seldom seen but much feared.
She would have been lost without Xaro. The gold that she had squandered to open the doors of the Hall of a Thousand Thrones was largely a product of the merchant's generosity and quick wits. As the rumor of living dragons had spread through the east, ever more seekers had come to learn if the tale was true—and Xaro Xhoan Daxos saw to it that the great and the humble alike offered some token to the Mother of Dragons.
The trickle he started soon swelled to a flood. Trader captains brought lace from Myr, chests of saffron from Yi Ti, amber and dragonglass out of Asshai. Merchants offered bags of coin, silversmiths rings and chains. Pipers piped for her, tumblers tumbled, and jugglers juggled, while dyers draped her in colors she had never known existed. A pair of Jogos Nhai presented her with one of their striped zorses, black and white and fierce. A widow brought the dried corpse of her husband, covered with a crust of silvered leaves; such remnants were believed to have great power, especially if the deceased had been a sorcerer, as this one had. And the Tourmaline Brotherhood pressed on her a crown wrought in the shape of a three-headed dragon; the coils were yellow gold, the wings silver, the heads carved from jade, ivory, and onyx.
The crown was the only offering she'd kept. The rest she sold, to gather the wealth she had wasted on the Pureborn. Xaro would have sold the crown too—the Thirteen would see that she had a much finer one, he swore—but Dany forbade it. "Viserys sold my mother's crown, and men called him a beggar. I shall keep this one, so men will call me a queen." And so she did, though the weight of it made her neck ache.
Yet even crowned, I am a beggar still, Dany thought. I have become the most splendid beggar in the world, but a beggar all the same. She hated it, as her brother must have. All those years of running from city to city one step ahead of the Usurper's knives, pleading for help from archons and princes and magisters, buying our food with flattery. He must have known how they mocked him. Small wonder he turned so angry and bitter. In the end it had driven him mad. It will do the same to me if I let it. Part of her would have liked nothing more than to lead her people back to Vaes Tolorro, and make the dead city bloom. No, that is defeat. I have something Viserys never had. I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference.
She stroked Rhaegal. The green dragon closed his teeth around the meat of her hand and nipped hard. Outside, the great city murmured and thrummed and seethed, all its myriad voices blending into one low sound like the surge of the sea. "Make way, you Milk Men, make way for the Mother of Dragons," Jhogo cried, and the Qartheen moved aside, though perhaps the oxen had more to do with that than his voice. Through the swaying draperies, Dany caught glimpses of him astride his grey stallion. From time to time he gave one of the oxen a flick with the silver-handled whip she had given him. Aggo guarded on her other side, while Rakharo rode behind the procession, watching the faces in the crowd for any sign of danger. Ser Jorah she had left behind today, to guard her other dragons; the exile knight had been opposed to this folly from the start. He distrusts everyone, she reflected, and perhaps for good reason.
As Dany lifted her goblet to drink, Rhaegal sniffed at the wine and drew his head back, hissing. "Your dragon has a good nose." Xaro wiped his lips. "The wine is ordinary. It is said that across the Jade Sea they make a golden vintage so fine that one sip makes all other wines taste like vinegar. Let us take my pleasure barge and go in search of it, you and I."
"The Arbor makes the best wine in the world," Dany declared. Lord Redwyne had fought for her father against the Usurper, she remembered, one of the few to remain true to the last. Will he fight for me as well? There was no way to be certain after so many years. "Come with me to the Arbor, Xaro, and you'll have the finest vintages you ever tasted. But we'll need to go in a warship, not a pleasure barge."
"I have no warships. War is bad for trade. Many times I have told you, Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a man of peace."
Xaro Xhoan Daxos is a man of gold, she thought, and gold will buy me all the ships and swords I need. "I have not asked you to take up a sword, only to lend me your ships."
He smiled modestly. "Of trading ships I have a few, that is so. Who can say how many? One may be sinking even now, in some stormy corner of the Summer Sea. On the morrow, another will fall afoul of corsairs. The next day, one of my captains may look at the wealth in his hold and think, All this should belong to me. Such are the perils of trade. Why, the longer we talk, the fewer ships I am likely to have. I grow poorer by the instant."
"Give me ships, and I will make you rich again."
"Marry me, bright light, and sail the ship of my heart. I cannot sleep at night for thinking of your beauty."
Dany smiled. Xaro's flowery protestations of passion amused her, but his manner was at odds with his words. While Ser Jorah had scarcely been able to keep his eyes from her bare breast when he'd helped her into the palanquin, Xaro hardly deigned to notice it, even in these close confines. And she had seen the beautiful boys who surrounded the merchant prince, flitting through his palace halls in wisps of silk. "You speak sweetly, Xaro, but under your words I hear another no."
"This Iron Throne you speak of sounds monstrous cold and hard. I cannot bear the thought of jagged barbs cutting your sweet skin." The jewels in Xaro's nose gave him the aspect of some strange glittery bird. His long, elegant fingers waved dismissal. "Let this be your kingdom, most exquisite of queens, and let me be your king. I will give you a throne of gold, if you like. When Qarth begins to pall, we can journey round Yi Ti and search for the dreaming city of the poets, to sip the wine of wisdom from a dead man's skull."
"I mean to sail to Westeros, and drink the wine of vengeance from the skull of the Usurper." She scratched Rhaegal under one eye, and his jade-green wings unfolded for a moment, stirring the still air in the palanquin.
A single perfect tear ran down the cheek of Xaro Xhoan Daxos. "Will nothing turn you from this madness?"
"Nothing," she said, wishing she was as certain as she sounded. "If each of the Thirteen would lend me ten ships—"
"You would have one hundred thirty ships, and no crew to sail them. The justice of your cause means naught to the common men of Qarth. Why should my sailors care who sits upon the throne of some kingdom at the edge of the world?"
"I will pay them to care."
"With what coin, sweet star of my heaven?"
"With the gold the seekers bring."
"That you may do," Xaro acknowledged, "but so much caring will cost dear. You will need to pay them far more than I do, and all of Qarth laughs at my ruinous generosity."
"If the Thirteen will not aid me, perhaps I should ask the Guild of Spicers or the Tourmaline Brotherhood?"
Xaro gave a languid shrug. "They will give you nothing but flattery and lies. The Spicers are dissemblers and braggarts and the Brotherhood is full of pirates."
"Then I must heed Pyat Pree, and go to the warlocks."
The merchant prince sat up sharply. "Pyat Pree has blue lips, and it is truly said that blue lips speak only lies. Heed the wisdom of one who loves you. Warlocks are bitter creatures who eat dust and drink of shadows. They will give you naught. They have naught to give."
"I would not need to seek sorcerous help if my friend Xaro Xhoan Daxos would give me what I ask."
"I have given you my home and heart, do they mean nothing to you? I have given you perfume and pomegranates, tumbling monkeys and spitting snakes, scrolls from lost Valyria, an idol's head and a serpent's foot. I have given you this palanquin of ebony and gold, and a matched set of bullocks to bear it, one white as ivory and one black as jet, with horns inlaid with jewels."
"Yes," Dany said. "But it was ships and soldiers I wanted."
"Did I not give you an army, sweetest of women? A thousand knights, each in shining armor."
The armor had been made of silver and gold, the knights of jade and beryl and onyx and tourmaline, of amber and opal and amethyst, each as tall as her little finger. "A thousand lovely knights," she said, "but not the sort my enemies need fear. And my bullocks cannot carry me across the water, I—why are we stopping?" The oxen had slowed notably.
"Khaleesi, " Aggo called through the drapes as the palanquin jerked to a sudden halt. Dany rolled onto an elbow to lean out. They were on the fringes of the bazaar, the way ahead blocked by a solid wall of people. "What are they looking at?"
Jhogo rode back to her. "A firemage, Khaleesi."
"I want to sec."
"Then you must." The Dothraki offered a hand down. When she took it, he pulled her up onto his horse and sat her in front of him, where she could see over the heads of the crowd. The firemage had conjured a ladder in the air, a crackling orange ladder of swirling flame that rose unsupported from the floor of the bazaar, reaching toward the high latticed roof.
Most of the spectators, she noticed, were not of the city: she saw sailors off trading ships, merchants come by caravan, dusty men out of the red waste, wandering soldiers, craftsmen, slavers. Jhogo, slid one hand about her waist and leaned close. "The Milk Men shun him. Khaleesi, do you see the girl in the felt hat? There, behind the fat priest. She is a—"
"—cutpurse," finished Dany. She was no pampered lady, blind to such things. She had seen cutpurses aplenty in the streets of the Free Cities, during the years she'd spent with her brother, running from the Usurper's hired knives.
The mage was gesturing, urging the flames higher and higher with broad sweeps of his arms. As the watchers craned their necks upward, the cutpurses squirmed through the press, small blades hidden in their palms. They relieved the prosperous of their coin with one hand while pointing upward with the other.
When the fiery ladder stood forty feet high, the mage leapt forward and began to climb it, scrambling up hand over hand as quick as a monkey. Each rung he touched dissolved behind him, leaving no more than a wisp of silver smoke. When he reached the top, the ladder was gone and so was he.
"A fine trick," announced Jhogo with admiration.
"No trick," a woman said in the Common Tongue.
Dany had not noticed Quaithe in the crowd, yet there she stood, eyes wet and shiny behind the implacable red lacquer mask. "What mean you, my lady?"
"Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets."
Dany looked uneasily at where the ladder had stood. Even the smoke was gone now, and the crowd was breaking up, each man going about his business. In a moment more than a few would find their purses flat and empty. "And now?"
"And now his powers grow, Khaleesi. And you are the cause of it."
"Me?" She laughed. "How could that be?"
The woman stepped closer and lay two fingers on Dany's wrist. "You are the Mother of Dragons, are you not?"
"She is, and no spawn of shadows may touch her." Jhogo brushed Quaithe's fingers away with the handle of his whip.
The woman took a step backward. "You must leave this city soon, Daenerys Targaryen, or you will never be permitted to leave it at all."
Dany's wrist still tingled where Quaithe had touched her. "Where would you have me go?" she asked.
"To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."
Asshai, Dany thought. She would have me go to Asshai. "Will the Asshai'i give me an army?" she demanded. "Will there be gold for me in Asshai? Will there be ships? What is there in Asshai that I will not find in Qarth?"
"Truth," said the woman in the mask. And bowing, she faded back into the crowd.
Rakharo snorted contempt through his drooping black mustachios. "Khaleesi, better a man should swallow scorpions than trust in the spawn of shadows, who dare not show their face beneath the sun. It is known."
"It is known," Aggo agreed.
Xaro Xhoan Daxos had watched the whole exchange from his cushions. When Dany climbed back into the palanquin beside him, he said, "Your savages are wiser than they know. Such truths as the Asshai'i hoard are not like to make you smile." Then he pressed another cup of wine on her, and spoke of love and lust and other trifles all the way back to his manse.
In the quiet of her chambers, Dany stripped off her finery and donned a loose robe of purple silk. Her dragons were hungry, so she chopped up a snake and charred the pieces over a brazier. They are growing, she realized as she watched them snap and squabble over the blackened flesh. They must weigh twice what they had in Vaes Tolorro. Even so, it would be years before they were large enough to take to war. And they must be trained as well, or they will lay my kingdom waste. For all her Targaryen blood, Dany had not the least idea of how to train a dragon.
Ser Jorah Mormont came to her as the sun was going down. "The Pureborn refused you?"
"As you said they would. Come, sit, give me your counsel." Dany drew him down to the cushions beside her, and Jhiqui brought them a bowl of purple olives and onions drowned in wine.
"You will get no help in this city, Khaleesi." Ser Jorah took an onion between thumb and forefinger. "Each day I am more convinced of that than the day before. The Pureborn see no farther than the walls of Qarth, and Xaro . . . "
"He asked me to marry him again."
"Yes, and I know why." When the knight frowned, his heavy black brows joined together above his deep-set eyes.
"He dreams of me, day and night." She laughed.
"Forgive me, my queen, but it is your dragons he dreams of."
"Xaro assures me that in Qarth, man and woman each retain their own property after they are wed. The dragons are mine." She smiled as Drogon came hopping and flapping across the marble floor to crawl up on the cushion beside her.
"He tells it true as far as it goes, but there's one thing he failed to mention. The Qartheen have a curious wedding custom, my queen. On the day of their union, a wife may ask a token of love from her husband. Whatsoever she desires of his worldly goods, he must grant. And he may ask the same of her. One thing only may be asked, but whatever is named may not be denied."
"One thing," she repeated. "And it may not be denied?"
"With one dragon, Xaro Xhoan Daxos would rule this city, but one ship will further our cause but little."
Dany nibbled at an onion and reflected ruefully on the faithlessness of men. "We passed through the bazaar on our way back from the Hall of a Thousand Thrones," she told Ser Jorah. "Quaithe was there." She told him of the firemage and the fiery ladder, and what the woman in the red mask had told her.
"I would be glad to leave this city, if truth be told," the knight said when she was done. "But not for Asshai."
"Where, then?"
"East," he said.
"I am half a world away from my kingdom even here. If I go any farther east I may never find my way home to Westeros."
"If you go west, you risk your life."
"House Targaryen has friends in the Free Cities," she reminded him. "Truer friends than Xaro or the Pureborn."
"If you mean Illyrio Mopatis, I wonder. For sufficient gold, Illyrio would sell you as quickly as he would a slave."
"My brother and I were guests in Illyrio's manse for half a year. If he meant to sell us, he could have done it then."
"He did sell you," Ser Jorah said. "To Khal Drogo."
Dany flushed. He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. "Illyrio protected us from the Usurper's knives, and he believed in my brother's cause."
"Illyrio believes in no cause but Illyrio. Gluttons are greedy men as a rule, and magisters are devious. Illyrio Mopatis is both. What do you truly know of him?"
"I know that he gave me my dragon eggs."
He snorted. "If he'd known they were like to hatch, he'd would have sat on them himself."
That made her smile despite herself. "Oh, I have no doubt of that, ser. I know Illyrio better than you think. I was a child when I left his manse in Pentos to wed my sun-and-stars, but I was neither deaf nor blind. And I am no child now."
"Even if Illyrio is the friend you think him," the knight said stubbornly, "he is not powerful enough to enthrone you by himself, no more than he could your brother."
"He is rich," she said. "Not so rich as Xaro, perhaps, but rich enough to hire ships for me, and men as well."
"Sellswords have their uses," Ser Jorah admitted, "but you will not win your father's throne with sweepings from the Free Cities. Nothing knits a broken realm together so quick as an invading army on its soil."
"I am their rightful queen," Dany protested.
"You are a stranger who means to land on their shores with an army of outlanders who cannot even speak the Common Tongue. The lords of Westeros do not know you, and have every reason to fear and mistrust you. You must win them over before you sail. A few at least."
"And how am I to do that, if I go east as you counsel?"
He ate an olive and spit out the pit into his palm. "I do not know, Your Grace," he admitted, "but I do know that the longer you remain in one place, the easier it will be for your enemies to find you. The name Targaryen still frightens them, so much so that they sent a man to murder you when they heard you were with child. What will they do when they learn of your dragons?"
Drogon was curled up beneath her arm, as hot as a stone that has soaked all day in the blazing sun. Rhaegal and Viserion were fighting over a scrap of meat, buffeting each other with their wings as smoke hissed from their nostrils. My furious children, she thought. They must not come to harm. "The comet led me to Qarth for a reason. I had hoped to find my army here, but it seems that will not be. What else remains, I ask myself?" I am afraid, she realized, but I must be brave. "Come the morrow, you must go to Pyat Pree."
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