Chapter 39: The Great Work
The silence of a perfected world was a silence Krosis-Krif had not anticipated. In his first life, he had craved quiet, a refuge from the meaningless noise of a world he despised. In his second life, as a fledgling dragon, he had craved the quiet of security, a state free from the threat of extinction. Now, in his third life as a god, he had achieved a quiet so absolute, so profound and eternal, that it had become a prison. His victory was a flawless, static masterpiece, and he was the sole, bored spectator in the gallery.
The river of faith he drank from was nourishing, a constant, high-quality energy source. But it was a river that flowed in a perfectly straight, predictable channel. The dramas of his subjects were small, their passions muted by the ever-present knowledge of his omniscience. The Dragon's Tithe, his great agricultural project, was a slow-growing crop whose harvest was decades away. The game was won, the board was clear, and the player was idle.
Larys Strong's dying whisper had been the most interesting thought he had heard in ten years. Now that you have everything... are you not... bored? It was a diagnosis, and it was accurate. A psychopathic mind does not thrive in serenity. It requires a project. A problem to solve. A system to manipulate.
His vast consciousness, which had been turned inward, contemplating its own perfect order, now turned outward. His gaze swept past the shores of Westeros, across the Narrow Sea, and settled on the sprawling, chaotic, and gloriously untidy continent of Essos.
He saw the Free Cities, a morass of warring merchant princes, assassins' guilds, and Byzantine politics. He saw the Dothraki Sea, a great, churning ocean of nomadic warriors living by no law but their own strength. He saw the strange lands of the far east, Qarth and Yi Ti, shrouded in mystery. And everywhere, he saw the great, festering, disorderly wound that was the foundation of their entire civilization: slavery.
He saw the hopeless eyes of a bed slave in Lys, the broken back of a miner in the salt mines of Ghis, the terror of a child being sold in the markets of Volantis. It was not the immorality of the act that struck him. Concepts like morality were quaint, mortal constructs. No, he saw it for what it was in his grand, systematic view of the world: the ultimate inefficiency. The ultimate disorder. It was the idea that one being, a complex system of will and energy, could be treated as a simple tool by another. It was a flaw in the code of existence, a dissonant chord in the symphony he was composing.
And in that flaw, he found his new purpose. A new game. A Great Work. He would not just be the god of Westeros. He would be the god who tidied the world. This new project was beautiful in its strategic elegance, achieving three perfect objectives at once.
First, it would give his now-pacified Westerosi subjects a common enemy, a grand and righteous purpose to unite them and channel their energies outward, away from petty internal squabbles. Second, the suffering of a distant war would only make his followers cling to their faith more tightly, their prayers for their soldiers and for the continuation of their own peace becoming a torrent of high-quality energy. And third, most brilliantly, every slave he freed would be a soul primed for conversion, a heart full of gratitude for the god who had broken their chains. It was a strategy for exponential growth.
His decision made, he gathered his will, and for the first time in years, he prepared to speak to his entire kingdom.
In the Great Hall of the Red Keep, King Viserys II was presiding over a tedious dispute concerning shipping tariffs between White Harbor and Gulltown. His court was a placid, orderly affair. The lords were well-dressed, their tones respectful. The Queen, Jaehaera, sat beside him, her quiet beauty a calming presence. It was the picture of peaceful governance.
It was shattered by the arrival of the god's voice. It was not a whisper this time. It was a trumpet call, a thundering proclamation that resonated in every mind from the Wall to the shores of Dorne.
"PEOPLE OF WESTEROS! YOU HAVE LIVED IN MY PEACE. YOU HAVE PROSPERED IN MY ORDER. YOU HAVE BEEN SHELTERED FROM THE CHAOS OF THE OLD WORLD."
Viserys froze mid-sentence. Every lord in the hall went rigid, their faces turning towards the unseen source of the voice.
"BUT YOUR PEACE IS AN ISLAND IN A SEA OF SUFFERING. BEYOND YOUR SHORES, A GREAT UNTIDINESS FESTERS. A CANCER OF CHAOS THAT POISONS THE VERY HEART OF MANKIND. IT IS CALLED SLAVERY."
Vivid, horrifying images bloomed in their minds, projected with perfect clarity. They saw the squalor of the fighting pits of Meereen. They felt the lash on the back of an oarsman in a Tyroshi galley. They witnessed the despair in the eyes of a woman sold away from her children in a Pentoshi manse. The visceral reality of it was more powerful than any sermon.
"THE IDEA THAT ONE MORTAL CAN OWN ANOTHER IS THE ULTIMATE DISORDER," the voice thundered with cold, implacable logic. "IT IS AN OFFENSE TO THE VERY CONCEPT OF A MANAGED, ORDERLY SYSTEM. IT IS A FLAW IN THE WORLD'S DESIGN. AND IT WILL NOT BE PERMITTED TO EXIST IN MY WORLD."
A terrible, dawning understanding began to spread through the hall.
"THEREFORE, I PROCLAIM THE GREAT WORK. A HOLY CRUSADE TO CLEANSE THE LANDS OF ESSOS OF THIS FILTH. YOU, MY PEOPLE OF WESTEROS, WILL BE THE INSTRUMENTS OF MY WILL. YOU WILL BE THE SWORD OF MY ORDER. YOU WILL CARRY MY PEACE TO THE SHORES OF THE ENSLAVED AND BREAK THEIR CHAINS."
The King's Landing court was stunned into silence. Jacaerys Velaryon, attending the council, felt a bitter, ironic laugh bubble up in his throat. He had called them wolves, and now the shepherd was commanding them to hunt on his behalf.
Queen Mother Rhaenyra, now old and frail, listened from her solar, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. She looked at her old rival, Alicent, who sat opposite her. For once, their expressions were identical: a shared, profound shock.
"He is mad," Alicent whispered. "A crusade? Against the whole world?"
"No," Rhaenyra replied, her political mind, though weary, still sharp. "He is not mad. He is… a genius. A terrible, monstrous genius." She looked out the window at the people in the courtyard below, who were now falling to their knees, their faces alight with a new, fervent purpose. "He has just given our kingdom a reason to love him. A reason to need him. And a reason to kill for him."
The reaction among the faithful was exactly as Krosis-Krif had predicted. It was not fear. It was ecstasy. In the Riverlands, Ellyn the Weaver, now revered as the First Hand of the God, gathered her followers. Her flock had grown into an organized, powerful clergy who administered the god's charity throughout the land.
"Did you hear it?" she cried, her face shining with a divine light. "The Great Order has given us the Great Work! To not just heal the sick among us, but to free the oppressed across the sea! To spread his perfect peace to all mankind!"
Matthos, the old soldier, his body straight and strong, drew a sword he had not touched in years. "A righteous war," he roared, his voice booming with a zealot's passion. "The first true holy war in the history of the world! I will march at the head of the column myself and carry the banner of the Great Order!"
A great cheer went up from the crowd. They were no longer just the beneficiaries of the god's peace. They were its soldiers. Its crusaders. Their faith had been given a purpose, and it was a purpose they embraced with every fiber of their being.
King Viserys II convened the first war council the next day. The Great Hall was filled with the lords of the realm, their somber, orderly court suddenly transformed into a council of war. The change was electric. For the first time in a generation, there was a sense of purpose, of direction, in the air.
"The god's will has been made clear," Viserys began, his voice steady, though his heart felt like a trapped bird. He was a king of peace, now being commanded to wage the largest war in history. "We will prepare an expeditionary force. Lord Stark, what can the North provide?"
Lord Cregan Stark's heir, a hard young man named Rickon, spoke with his father's bluntness. "The North is not rich, Your Grace. But its men are hard. For a cause like this… to free slaves… you will have ten thousand of our finest warriors. It is a long march south, but they will come."
Lord Tyland Lannister spoke next. "The Westerlands will fund the equipping of the royal army. The god's peace has been good for our coffers. We can supply twenty thousand men with the finest steel."
And so it went. The lords of the Vale, the Stormlands, the Reach—all pledged their banners, their men, and their wealth. The old rivalries were forgotten, replaced by a shared, divinely-inspired purpose.
Jacaerys watched it all with a cold, detached clarity. "He has done it," he murmured to Corlys, who sat beside him, looking ancient and tired. "He has united them all. Given them a common enemy. A righteous cause to channel all their petty ambitions and hatreds into. It is a work of political genius."
"It is the work of a farmer rotating his crops," Corlys replied, his voice a low whisper. "He fears the soil of his pasture has grown fallow. Now he seeks to fertilize it with foreign blood."
Viserys, now acting as a true commander-in-chief, turned to his brother. "Jace," he said, his voice now holding an authority it had lacked just the day before. "Your knowledge of military matters, from your studies… it is greater than mine. I need you. I want you to be the Supreme Commander of this host. The Sword of the Queen—of the Crown."
Jacaerys looked at his brother, the king. For a moment, he saw not the boy who had been chosen over him, but a man struggling with an impossible burden. In that moment, his bitterness seemed a petty thing. This was not a game of thrones anymore. It was a war for the world, and they were all on the same side, whether they liked it or not.
"I will serve, Your Grace," Jace said, the words feeling strange in his mouth. For the first time in decades, he had a true, tangible purpose.
The news of the Great Work traveled faster than the fastest ship. In the Free City of Pentos, Magister Illyrio Mopatis was meeting with a slave trader from the Ghiscari city of Astapor. They were haggling over the price of a shipment of Unsullied, the famed eunuch soldiers.
"Their discipline is flawless, I assure you," the trader, a man named Grazdan, was saying, his voice oily. "Perfect for guarding your estates. They do not think, they do not feel. They only obey."
A terrified servant burst into the room, his face slick with sweat. "Magister!" he gasped. "A ship… a ship just arrived from Westeros! The captain brings a tale…"
"What is it?" Illyrio asked, annoyed by the interruption. "Has the Dragon Queen finally died?"
"No, my lord," the servant stammered. "Worse. Westeros… it has a new god. A real one, the captain says. A great dragon that sits on a hill and speaks in every man's mind."
Grazdan the slaver let out a contemptuous laugh. "A new god? The Sunset Kingdoms are full of superstitions. What does this have to do with us?"
The servant swallowed hard, his eyes wide with fear. "The god… it has declared a war, my lords. A holy war. Not against a city, not against a rival. It has declared war on… on slavery itself. It calls it 'the Great Work.'" He was trembling now. "An army is gathering. From every kingdom in Westeros. The Targaryens are leading it. They are coming here. They call it… a crusade."
Magister Illyrio and Grazdan the slaver stared at each other. The laughter died in their throats. The predictable, profitable world of Essos, built on the buying and selling of human lives, was about to be shattered by the bored, orderly, and infinitely powerful god of their neighbors. The great game board had just become global, and a new, terrible piece was about to make its first move.