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P.O.V. Marvin "The Magician."
The beginning of the eleventh month of the year 299 A.D. Simultaneously with the beginning of the Siege of Meereen.
Research Chambers, Pelargir Fortress, Felicis Peninsula, Sotorios.
«Very interesting, very interesting..." I mumbled as my hands separated the hyoid pouch, full of a dangerous and very rare poison, from the rest of my body in movements that had been practiced a hundred times.
«What is it, Master Marvin? - Lucio, one of the five candidates sent here by Lord Felix to accompany the first expedition, asked me.
«Have you noticed one interesting feature of this species that distinguishes it from the others? - I answered the question with a question, making a small incision and removing a small piece of scales, which made visible numerous veins and arteries, through which flowed a thick green ichor.
«You mean acid blood? - The bright boy didn't disappoint me, showing me once again that he was one of the five who had been sent here on a very important mission for a reason.
Admittedly, when our ships docked here eight months ago, on a previously nameless peninsula where a small wooden fortress with a stone base had already grown over the years, I thought that I would have a lot of work to do with people stricken by epidemics and diseases, with stupid understudies as subordinates, but the reality showed its surprises. These "understudies" knew more about local diseases and infections than I did, having described and documented nearly two hundred new diseases, parasites, fungi, and their vectors that had never been seen on the continent before! That's enough for two silver chains on the Citadel.
«That's right. - I nodded complacently, smiling involuntarily. It's nice to work with smart people who respect you as a maester and a seeker of knowledge. Too bad it's on par with Quibernus. - This species is the only one of its kind that has a blood system like that. Why? Why do basilisks or swamp lizards that live in the same conditions have blood that is very poisonous but still normal?
«Do you mean that wyverns are different from other beasts because they have such a peculiarity? - Lucio asked me thoughtfully, looking at the dark-bellied wyvern lying on the stone table. I had been studying it and its fellows, such as the spotted, swamp, and nocturnal ones, for the past month, almost without leaving the walls of my chambers.
When Lord Felix, the man who had recognized in me a true genius and a true seeker of magic years ago, the man who had given me everything the Citadel had denied me for years, had told me to go to Sotorios with his daughter, I had not even considered the danger of the place. A living dragon, the legacy of the greatest of the world's empires, the Valyrian Freehold, the source of all magic on Planetos and my long-held dream had fallen into my hands. Yes, at first I was quite surprised that little Fiora, whom I had mentored since childhood with her troubled siblings and introduced to the path of knowledge, would turn out to be the missing and presumed dead Rhaenys Targaryen, daughter of the Last Dragon, but later I frankly didn't care about that.
The very possibility of touching what many had long considered a myth, of trying to understand, realize and study it, was even better than the strongest fire wine from my lord's distillery. So I spent almost the entire voyage in Lady Fiora's cabin, carefully observing and recording all the actions of the little dragon.
Unlike Quibernus, who would have immediately taken a knife and cut the baby open to see what he had inside, I understood the gravity and sadness of the moment. After all, the dragon his mistress had decided to name Raphael, or "Gift of the Gods" in the Old Norse dialect, was the only one of its kind (I didn't know about Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons at the time). This meant that even if he was lucky enough to live to a ripe old age and die his own death, in four hundred years this world would once again be without the lords of the heavens that had once parted the skies in packs and ruled them as full lords. So everything about the little dragon has been written down and sketched by me.
«Yes. Different. I believe that, like dragons, wyverns have magic in their veins. - I said, causing the young candidate's eyes to widen in shock. It had long been thought that only dragons were truly magical animals in this world. Of course, there were direwolves, mammoths and dusky cats of the North, but according to the theory of Maester Varistor, written six hundred years ago, they were the creation of magic of the Old Gods and Children of the Forest, but not its source. - I realize that the claim is unsubstantiated and even insane, but if all is confirmed, we will be one step closer to the Valyrian Freehold, someday achieving the same greatness and power.
«But unfortunately, we won't catch that, Master. - Said Sam who had stealthily walked in, like Lucio he was a candidate sent to the southern continent. The only thing that distinguished him from the other students was his noble background - he was a Storm and had the long raven hair of a Morrigen - and the associated quarrelsome and acrimonious nature. If he hadn't been truly talented in medicine and loyal to Lord Temper, who had dragged him out of the gambling houses of Staromest, he wouldn't be here. - The Valyrians have been studying and creating their magic for centuries, taking many victims in the form of captured slaves, old and young dragons, and even humans from their own people. We simply don't have enough time.
«Sam, with a stance like that, you should have been apprenticed to Qyburn. - I said dryly, removing the leather gloves from my hands and nodding, ordering the school servant standing in the corner to clean up the remains of the wyvern. - It would quickly ensure your eternity by turning you into one of those mindless creatures. What do you want?
«A letter has arrived from the continent. My Lady Fiora told me to call for you. - Pretending not to notice my words, the candidate replied and without waiting for an answer left the chambers.
"Eh, if I had my power, I would knock out all the teeth of this little miscarriage. But you can't - he's too valuable for our survival" - I thought, throwing a thick brown cloak over my shoulders, with a deep hood and fine netting, completely covering my face.
«Lucio, write down our results from today. I'll come back later and check. - I said to the guy who nodded in response, before quickly opening the door and stepping out into a dark corridor lit by a few torches and almost completely filled with a whitish haze.
The Green Inferno was a land very uninviting and dangerous.
It was only after arriving here and beginning to study the records of the expedition that I realized that the preparations made by Lord Felix had only helped in the first few weeks. Yes, burning the forest around the fortress had eliminated the danger of forest predators and most of the poisonous creepers. Yes, keeping clean and using silver utensils (although according to the stories of the local soldiers the simpletons still tried to "lose" their utensils and start eating from wooden ones as before) helped against diseases and epidemics. But soon people began to weaken, parasites began to breed in the quickly built stone houses, and local wildlife began to raid frequently from the burned forest. The head of the expedition, Savaron Jos, an experienced seafarer and traveler from Lys, who had long served as captain of one of the many caravans of the Tempers, wanted to leave everything and go home.
But help came from when he was not expecting it.
For many thousands of years, as long as there had been great slaveholding nations such as Gys, Valyria, Roinaria, and Qarth, many people had fled southward in search of freedom and a new home. Most perished in the ghastly jungles of the Green Hell, killed by its inhabitants, disease, and the spotted people who lived in the interior of the mainland. But a few survived, and soon came into contact by chance with my lord's men who had already begun packing.
It has long been noticed by the Maesters that the terrain where people live affects them greatly. Northerners are larger and healthier than the rest of the people of the Seven Kingdoms. The natives of the Vale of Arryn have larger sinuses and stronger fingers that make them better able to climb mountains, and the Dornish, with their dark skin and dry build, are much better able to travel through the desert and can go without water for much longer.
So none of the candidates and heads of the expedition were surprised that the people who lived in the small village near the landing site had skin the color of lush grass, long stiff hair, lean and agile figures, and eyes with very large pupils and elongated crystalline lens. All this made them look more like snakes than ordinary humans, giving them the special name of snake people.
Thank all the Gods Savaron Jos had the good sense to order that the young woman, who had been caught by one of the many patrols sometimes sent out into the jungle to gather wild fruits and herbs, not be killed or raped. The girl and her people turned out to be descendants of slaves who had fled from Gorosh and other Giskar towns from their cruel masters. Here, far from the Basilisk Islands and the pirates who lived there, they had built a network of hidden settlements where they had lived for centuries, no longer fearing the horrors of the southern continent.
The Lysnian did not eat his bread in vain. Somehow (in my opinion, his handsome face - a descendant of the Valyrians after all) he convinced the gatherer to arrange a meeting with her elders and managed to negotiate with them. They themselves spoke a wild mixture of Valyrian, Giscarian, Quartian, Itian, and Rhoynar languages, so without Lucio's talents, Savaron would not have been able to negotiate with them for a long time.
For the ridiculous price of a few iron knives, axes and jewelry, they shared with us the secrets that for generations had allowed their ancestors to survive in this inhospitable place.
First up was the cave mushroom. There are many hidden and liana-covered caves scattered across Sotorios, where an unremarkable mushroom grew, looking very similar to the Western Grebe. If it was dried and crushed, and the resulting powder was placed in small smokers and set on fire, the resulting smoke would quickly cure all the diseases in the air. After Savaron, to the incredulous looks of the others, ordered all the rooms of Pelargir to be smoked, the cases of heavy foot, bloody runny nose, drying curse, and many other diseases which had previously been considered fatal, almost completely ceased.
A veritable miracle cure, were it not for one BUT. If a person inhales the vapors of this mushroom for too long, he begins a rapid destruction of the stomach and intestines. To prevent this from happening, the locals constantly ate berries from one of the local trees they called Dradi Gron - the Divine Tree. According to them, its sour fruits, like Dornish lemons, not only helped them not to die from the fungus vapor, but also improved their health and prolonged their lives. Whether this was true or fiction none of the arriving candidates found out.
But they had one disadvantage, which instantly blocked Lord Temper's dreams of acquiring a cure for all diseases. These berries had to be eaten within three days of being plucked from the tree. After that, they began to quickly wither and turn into raisins, which no longer had their miraculous properties. And the seeds delivered to Osgiliath a year ago never sprouted, despite the best efforts of the gardeners who tended them. Now a few seedlings have been sent to Westeros and hopefully they will take root.
One way or another, Lord Felix would not give up this opportunity to get even more rich until the very end.
The second gift was a method of making special cloaks, one of which I wore before leaving the chambers. Made from the skin of local five-meter snakes, treated with special compositions, very reminiscent of lysine alchemy, with a special mesh covering the face, they perfectly hid from the pesky insects, which were not only bloodsuckers, but also carried a lot of diseases and poisons that only the locals could treat. I'm not even talking about the concealment of odors, and thus the camouflage of most of our warriors from the local beasts.
The third gift, which was as important as the first two, was the knowledge given to us by the elders of the snake-like people. Features of the most dangerous predators of these boundless forests, their habitats, weaknesses, preferences in food, ways to combat poisons and much, much more. But the most important knowledge concerned the indigenous people of the continent, called by the Basilisk pirates the Spotted People.
Some knowledge of them was in the Citadel as well. The Sotorians were creatures with broad bones, huge muscles, long arms, sloping foreheads, huge square teeth, heavy jaws, and stiff black hair. Their broad, flat noses looked more like pig snouts, and their thick skin was covered with brown and white patches, according to Archmaester Lothar, who had studied their lives from the accounts of pirates and Tyrosians who sometimes took them as slaves to sell them in the fighting arenas of Meereen. In short, they resembled wild pigs more than humans. And the fact that their women could not procreate with anyone but their own men made it clear that the species before us was a different species, only outwardly similar to humans.
"Really that last conclusion is a credit to Lord Temper" - I thought, making another turn down the corridor and entering the living area of the fortress where Lady Fiora's room was located. - "Although his system of categorizing into species, groups, squads and families is a rather controversial thing, it's better than nothing"
The Spotted People, according to our snake-eyed allies, were the biggest threat to us on Sotrios. The backbone of their people lived deep in the continent, near the impossibly large Lake Skraharkanvavl, the size of a small sea. The strongest tribes, numbering between forty and fifty thousand, settled directly on the shores, thus showing their strength and power. The smaller tribes lived far from the shores. Even smaller tribes lived deep in the jungle, only occasionally being allowed to see the lake.
Thus, closer to the shores of Cape Basilisk and Cape Wyvern lived the true outcasts, who had no right to go farther than the ruins of Yin and who had never seen the sacred lakes of their people. But while by the standards of the Spotted People they were considered wild savage blasphemers, to us it was the opposite. For the very culture of this vicious people was built on mass sacrifices, cannibalism, worship of their secret and dark gods, whose names they refused to pronounce even under threat of death, and incredible cruelty. Those who settled close to the sea shores at least went to "dialog", giving the chance to become their slaves, and only then tried to eat you.
"I thought as I approached Lady Fiora's chambers, which were guarded by two guards. They nodded when they saw me, confirming that they had been warned of my visit, and unlocked the door to let me in.
Lord Temper's children were always known for their good looks. Lords Lyon and Alaric were the dreams of most of the girls of Dorne and the Free Cities, and my Lady Elayne, even with her terrible temper, had many suitors. Some of them were kept away by her father and brothers, and others by herself. Often by brute force. Lady Fiora had it a little worse - her status as a bastard and the fourth child in her family were the main reasons why only obscure knights or middle-class peddlers who wanted to snatch a morsel of the House of Temper's wealth sought her out. But that didn't mean she was inferior in appearance to her sister.
Her face, with its straight but slightly upturned Valyrian nose, her thick black hair, which had grown like yeast since the dragon's birth, and her eyes glowing pure gold, combined with her perfect figure, full breasts and firm hips, made her one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. If I had not hurriedly taken that Asshai potion and had not lost my manhood because of it, I might have desired the daughter of my benefactor and suzerain.
«Oh, Master Marvin! - My lady turned to me, dressed in a light red dress, tightly fitting her figure, leaving only her chiseled shoulders exposed. - A letter has arrived from Osgiliath. So much new news! You must hear it!
«And what news is that, my lady? - I asked interestedly, knowing full well that the always calm and collected girl would not exaggerate.
«War has broken out. Dorne has attacked the Vastness and has been ravaging it for weeks. - Wow, the news is truly shocking. The new round of war, coupled with the recent news of Daenerys Stormborn and her three dragons, made it clear that the world in Westeros and Essos was beginning to actively change. And surely not the least reason was the awakened magic. - Father is now besieging Highgarden, having stormed one of the three rings of the walls, Uncle Oberyn is standing at the crossing at the Bitter Bridge and preventing Randyll Tarly's army from crossing to the other side, and Lord Fowler has already ravaged Honey Grove and the Highlands and is approaching the Old City. By the looks of it, Dorne is winning!
«War has never been permanent, my lady. - I smiled slightly and rubbed the iron link that symbolized my knowledge of warfare with my fingers. - It may well be that the High Garden is already taken, Old Town is in flames, and the Blood Hunter's head adorns Prince Oberyn's Blood Sun. But it could be the other way around. We can only wait for further news and hope for the best. Is there any other news?
«Yes, of course. - A little sluggishly, apparently thinking about my words, the Mother Dragon replied, taking another sheet of reports from the table next to her. - My brother has finally finished his business in Azabad and is on his way home. He would be home in a couple months.
«What did the young gentleman need in Azabad? - I asked, remembering my visit to this city many years ago. A simple transit town between Inem and Quart, where caravans from Bayazabad often stopped. An interesting mix of Golden Empire culture and the long fallen Hyrkun Fiefdom. But there is nothing interesting there that could attract one of the richest merchants in Westeros. What the heir to the Temper family might have forgotten there, especially in such troubled times, I was left to wonder.
«I don't know for sure myself. - My Lady replied, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. - But my father mentioned a weapon. A weapon capable of burning an entire city to the ground if used properly.
«I've never heard of such a thing in the Golden Empire. - I remarked, remembering everything I knew about I-T.
«Neither have I, but my father has many friends all over the world, and he must have been able to get his hands on something that ordinary people don't know about. - Said my lady, placing the letter on her desk and picking up another, but not of paper, but of wood, on which symbols from the Valyrian, Giscarian, and Itian languages were easily recognizable. - But there was news of far greater importance. A letter has arrived from the Grand Elder of our snake-like friends. They're inviting us to a feast in three days. I'm thinking whether or not to go is a silly question. How many people to take there and what gifts to prepare. Master Marvin, you were the best at understanding their language and traditions.
«Did he mention the name of the feast? - I inquired.
«Tha... Thaker-psa-jalat. - The lady read with a hesitation, bringing the wooden plaque almost close to her eyes.
«Day of the Silent Forests... - With difficulty she remembered the name of one of the most important holidays of the natives. According to several elders I'd talked to when I'd visited their villages, the spotted people began a series of festivals and holidays with all their trappings a few weeks before the day. Sacrifices, necrophilia, cannibalism and many other such things. And taking advantage of this opportunity the serpentfolk, who spend most of the year hiding in their hidden villages, come together and hold a large gathering that serves as a fair, a place for marriages, alliances, and more. That's what I told Lady Fiore about.
«So we'll take more goods and a couple of "valuable" gifts. What about the people? - The Lady asked me once again.
«Most of their people will be gathered at the feast. According to their elders, there will be about two or three thousand people there. I think one hundred and fifteen hundred warriors will be enough.
«Good. - Fiora nodded, walking over to one of the cabinets and pulling out a stack of fresh, unwritten sheets. - We leave next morning. Maester Marvin, please alert centurions Robb and Liin.
«Yes, my lady. - I bowed lightly, pulled my hood over my head, and left her chambers, heading for the barracks, which were only a minute's walk from my lady's dwelling. It was all in the name of safety - if an enemy entered the fortress, the warriors' main task would be to protect the dragonmistress, and then the others.
Robb and Lion Sand were bastards of House Vile, whom the old Lord Vile did not want to see and had thrown out of the house as small children. They barely managed to get to the nearest castle where they wouldn't be strung up as Dornish brats (Stormlands) or sold as slaves to the nearest child brothel (the rest of Dorne), and ended up in a camp where Lord Felix was training future soldiers.
Good bloodlines, not bad intelligence, and incredible loyalty to the one who saved them from starvation made them perfect candidates to be sent on a secret quest and guard the secret Targaryen.
Two tall, lean Dornish men who never parted with their swords, despite the fact that one was an archer and the other a kopjack, calmly listened to my request and quickly set about organizing a two-day trek that would involve at least several loaded carts and two hundred guards. A hundred swordsmen and five dozen guardsmen who had arrived with my lady from Osgiliath would remain in the fortress, they said. The reason was simple - in the damp and teeming with all sorts of nastiness wargs, who were the inhabitants of the cold north, was very uncomfortable. And without their partners, the swordsmen couldn't go anywhere. The only reason they weren't sent back was the dogs' phenomenal sense of smell. They could perfectly sense foreign odors and warned in advance that some dangerous and secretive creature was approaching the fortress.
"I shuddered as I headed for my chambers, planning to continue my research on wyvern blood. That winged black creature, which I had to use almost all the wall scorpions to kill, was still terrifying to the common people, who had seen it when it had managed to break through a wooden wall and destroy several warehouses with its body.
The men of the Tempers had always been trained to the highest standards. Of course, there were always the slackers and crooks who wanted to get everything without doing anything, but on Sotorios they sent carefully selected laborers and warriors who, even after the horrors of the first few months, continued to do their jobs. So the next day, a troop of two hundred-plus men set out from the gates of Pelagir, accompanied by guides who had arrived early in the morning, headed for the largest village of the snake-like people.
«Eh, good. Now I understand the Valyrians and their pride in their roads. - Smiling contentedly, said one of the archers, next to whom, on the goats, sat I.
«Boy, the Valyrians did build good roads, but they didn't have any on Sotorios. - I remarked, once again marveling at the knowledge that Lord Felix's warriors possessed. As I'd heard, the training camp itself taught writing, numeracy, Valyrian language, and simple history, in addition to how to bludgeon other men with iron. When I asked him why he was doing that, my lord only smiled and said that from a warrior to a good warrior, thinking and a broad outlook are useful, especially when he finds himself in a bad situation.
«Yes? - The soldier looked at me in surprise, immediately returning his gaze to the road. - It's been a long time since I've repeated the history of Valyria. But agree, Maester, our lady's dragon is a real blessing in these woods.
"He's right here," I thought, glancing toward the beginning of the column, where a much grown and strengthened dragon sat on an open wagon, next to her protective cloak-clad mistress.
Fire-breathing lords of the heavens have always been the main target of people who decided to devote their lives to magic. And many works dedicated to them have been about their growth, maturation, and strength. A dragon grows throughout its life. This is an undeniable fact, often stated in the diaries of almost all Targaryens who lived before the Dance of Dragons, and everyone knows it, even the laziest and stupidest of schoolboys. But few know that the most exuberant period of growth for dragons occurs in the first three years of adulthood. It is this time that determines the future potential of the lord of the skies and how strong his flame will be.
After all, Balerion the Black Terror, Aegon the Conqueror's dragon, was considered the strongest even in the days of Valyria. As Maester Aerion, a close friend and Targaryen cousin, wrote that Balerion was originally bred as a dragon of the highest class, specifically for the head of the Targaryen family.
A slight digression needs to be made here. The Valyrian Freehold itself, or the Valyrian Republic as other nations called it, was controlled by forty-one powerful families who ruled the nation despite the right of every free citizen to participate. At the same time, the Targaryens, if some of the Quartia books in the lord's library were to be believed, did not occupy the highest position, barely keeping in the third ten in wealth and power.
The empire that had existed for five thousand years and the forty-one great clans that had founded it could not help but try to improve and strengthen their main weapon. All those rare books that were found in the country villas in Tolos, Lys, Elyria and Montaris, belonging to the noble Valyrians and their personal sorcerers, said that the result was a unique program of either training, or cultivation, or training. Thanks to it, it was possible to raise a huge dragon, one and a half times larger than the others, whose flame power was capable of melting stone and burning steel. But all this was very expensive, for even the Targaryens, not the weakest family of forty, had enough money for only one Balerion.
And now, comparing the growth rate of little Raphael with the Balerion described in the records of the ancient Targaryens, which by some miracle were in the library of Dragonstone, and which my lord later bought out, it was clear that he was not only not inferior to him, but even slightly superior. The reasons for this are not entirely clear to me. Yes, Raphael was provided with an amount of meat that not every village could eat at once. Yes, once he got strong enough, he began to hunt often in the local jungle, fighting the local creatures and sometimes returning with new scars on his scales, nearly bringing my lady to tears. But the Targaryen dragon, judging by the essays, was fed special potions and improved by the best Valyrian sorcerers. Why my lady's dragon was growing stronger than he was and could already spew flames capable of turning a damp jungle into ash in seconds, I did not know.
"But who am I to complain about such a thing" - I thought, taking a small flask of fire wine out of a secret pocket of my cloak and taking a couple good sips. - "Without him, I'd have to walk through this jungle like I did last time."
After all, it was the dragon that made a good gap in the jungle for the squad, instantly incinerating everything in its path, leaving only dry and slightly cracked earth that replaced the road perfectly.
«Look carefully to the sides! - Centurion Robb rode by, on a horse covered with a special blanket. After all, the local pests didn't care whether you were a man, a horse, or a dog. Without the special resilience that only the spotted and snake-like ones had, there was no way to survive here. - Even though most of these freaks have gone south, we can't relax!
«Understood, commander!
«Yes, sir!
The remaining two days of the journey were passed in peace and quiet. The main way to survive in this jungle is a well-developed sense of self-preservation. And the local beasts were well aware that attacking a squad of two hundred men guarded by a large fire-breathing creature was a guaranteed way to commit suicide. Of course, there were problems - no matter how perfect were the cloaks and medicines, the recipes of which were passed on by the locals, but we lost two horses and one worker, who was bitten by a huge ten-meter snake that abruptly jumped out of the jungle. With a severe shortage of men and horses, it was a very big loss.
But every journey comes to an end sometime.
At sunset on the third day, we found ourselves at the entrance to a large cave that served as the "front" entrance to the largest snake-man village, nestled between two sheer cliffs. This was the main reason why the locals allowed us to make a very visible fire "road" through the jungle and invited us to join them in the first place. The main entrance to their village was itself an impregnable natural fortress, squeezed on both sides by steep mountains, which were an ideal position for archers, and the "gate" itself was easily closed by a multi-ton boulder, moved by a special mechanism, based on a lever. If you consider that the stony road could barely pass a single wagon, and the tunnel in the cave in general narrowed to such an extent that only one person could pass there, it became clear why the snake-eyes did not hide this settlement.
"These cannibals, no matter how hard they try, can't take this place" - I thought, looking carefully under my feet and slowly making my way down the stone path, my lady and the two stout pennies and centurion walking in front of her.
«My lady, are you sure this isn't an ambush? - Robb asked quietly, so that only Fiora and I could hear.
«No, Robb. - She shook her head negatively, but didn't remove her hand from the short sword hanging from her belt. - If they wanted to attack, they would have done it when we first came to the gate, trying to turn us into needlepoint pillows with their wooden arrows before Raphael burned them. Here, we may have to fight one at a time, but I have faith in your skill and weapons, which the locals have nothing to counter.
«I see your point, my lady. - The centurion replied with a slight smile, also resting his hand on his sword.
The tunnel was not short, but it was not long either. Soon we came to a cave of incredible size, the sight of which took my breath away.
"The descendants of the greatest empires are not completely feral." - I involuntarily thought, looking at the real underground city.
Serpent-men did not care where to build their dwellings - on flat ground, near the cliffs, on the walls or in the stone icicles hanging from the ceiling! Dozens, if not hundreds, of various houses, built of wood and stone, of various heights, shapes and sizes, subtly resembled the same smoke mushrooms growing in the caves.
«Amazing... - My lady and I whispered almost simultaneously, frozen as stone statues, until we were nudged in the back by the rest of the group, who almost exactly mirrored our reaction to the views.
«Welcome to our home, Andalians. - We've already been greeted. As I said, the locals had long since adapted to life on Sothorios and had changed so much that it was impossible to mistake them for other peoples of Westeros or Essos. The man who greeted us had many feminine features, and if it weren't for his low voice, broad shoulders, and lack of breasts, he could easily have been mistaken for a woman. And so it was with all snake men. As Lord Felix had said back in Osgiliath, after reading the reports sent to him, the locals were androgynous (I wish I knew where he got that word from) - people with weakly expressed masculinity and femininity.
According to him, it could speak about their low fertility, because the more inherent in a man or a woman of their sex, the higher their desire. I myself became involuntarily interested in this research and spent almost a month gathering all available knowledge, from the description of nobles and the number of their descendants, to the description of eunuchs in the Dothraki and Ithians. My lord was right, but it was worth researching the natives personally to come to a definitive conclusion. Though the situation with the royal couple made me a little tense at the time - judging by their pronounced sexual traits, the queen should have gotten pregnant almost every year, instead of having only three children born almost two years apart.
«It is an honor to be invited to such an important celebration. - Replied my lady, while I was still in my musings and peering at a few snake-eyes with very practical interest.
«My name is Ankh-alsh-Berat. I am the leader of this village and the chief elder of our people. - The man, who unlike most of his tribesmen had skin as pale as milk, introduced himself.
«My name is Fiora Temper, second daughter of House Temper and head of all its people on Sothorios. I am honored to meet the leader of the people who have given us so much. - They spoke in a very mangled dialect, Valyrian, with occasional inserts of Ithian and Roinaric. It sounded strange enough - the fast and tinkling Valyrian didn't blend well with the chanting and soft Roinaric or the chopped and hissed Ithian.
«You're welcome. - The Elder replied, gently waving a hand clad in tight black leather. In general, the clothing of the locals at first caused most of the settlers a feeling of disgust and squeamishness - black snakeskin perfectly tightened the figures of snake people, leaving no room for imagination. Not even long grass skirts and double-sided cloaks covering both back and chest (a kind of analog of poncho, which Marvin cannot describe), made of the same grass, saved the situation. For not even the Dornish whores dressed so revealingly in the hottest weather. - For our people, meeting those who are not willing to make slaves of us, to eat or sacrifice us, and are willing to coexist peacefully, is the highest good. You must be tired from the journey. Let my men show you to your quarters.
«I will not refuse, Grand Elder. - My Lady nodded slightly, signaling the others to follow her and stay together.
In the end, our stay in the city of the snake-eyed people lasted much longer than three days, becoming the beginning of events that would haunt my nightmares for a long time to come.
***
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