Chapter 16: The First Harvest
The timeline of mortals, the god had learned, was a chaotic, violent river. From his vantage point of divine perception, he watched the Century of Blood unfold across the continent of Essos. He saw the great grass sea tremble as Dothraki hordes, unleashed by the power vacuum of Valyria's fall, crashed against the ancient kingdoms of the east. He saw the merchant princes of the Free Cities turn on one another, their trade disputes escalating into bitter, undeclared wars fought by sellsword companies whose banners changed with the seasons. He saw pirate fleets choke the rivers, and entire towns vanish from the map, their names forgotten in a single, bloody afternoon.
To a mortal, it was an age of terror and collapse. To the god, it was a market correction of unprecedented scale. The old, monolithic corporation of the Valyrian Freehold had gone bankrupt, its assets liquidated in fire and ash. The market was now flooded with chaos, creating immense risk but also opportunities of breathtaking scope for any new enterprise with the capital and the nerve to exploit them. His own burgeoning church, safe within its Meereenese microcosm, was stable, but it was also stagnant, isolated from the brutal, fertile chaos that was reshaping the world. To remain confined to the compound and the tavern was to miss the greatest business opportunity in history.
His followers were learning. The knowledge they gleaned from their new asset, the disgraced Septon Barthos, was proving more valuable than a thousand swords. The scholar, reinvigorated by the respect and high-quality materials provided by his anonymous patrons, was producing a torrent of work. His secret correspondence, delivered via their dead-drop, was a masterclass in the political and economic theories of empire. His latest missive had detailed the Valyrian practice of cultural acquisition—how the Freehold, in its conquests, had not simply slaughtered its enemies, but had identified and absorbed their most skilled populations, preserving the genius of conquered artisans, scholars, and engineers to strengthen the heart of the empire. Valyria grew not just by conquering, but by harvesting.
As the god absorbed this new strategic insight, his senses brought him a correlated piece of real-time market data. A Dothraki horde, led by a rising, ambitious chieftain named Khal Zorro, had just fallen upon the independent city-state of Saris, a small but renowned centre for its master glassblowers and metallurgists. Saris had been burned, its people scattered. A stream of destitute refugees was now making the long, arduous trek towards Meereen, their only hope to sell themselves into the relative safety of slavery before they starved on the road.
The god saw the intersection of these two events with perfect, divine clarity. Barthos had provided the theory; the Century of Blood had provided the laboratory. The fall of Saris was not a tragedy. It was a harvest, ripe for the picking.
"They made glass that could sing," Barthos's elegant script read. Kaelen was reading the latest missive aloud to the council in the cistern. "The glasssmiths of Saris wove metallic threads into their creations, so that a goblet would chime with a pure, musical note when tapped. Their metalworkers could fold steel a hundred times, creating blades of incredible strength and lightness. The Valyrians had coveted their skills for centuries, but Saris always maintained its independence through shrewd diplomacy."
"Not shrewd enough to stop a Dothraki horde," Jorah grunted, though his voice held a note of respect for the fallen city's reputation.
It was then that Lyra, having just returned from a meeting with Tarek, brought the news. "Saris has fallen. Khal Zorro has left it a smoking ruin. The survivors are walking to Meereen. Tarek says the first of them are expected to reach the city gates within the week."
The two pieces of information hung in the air, clicking together like the tumblers of a lock. They all felt the significance, the convergence of knowledge and opportunity.
"We could help them," Elara said softly, her healer's instinct rising to the surface. "Offer them food, water. Guide the sickest to my care."
"We could," Lyra agreed, her gaze sharp and analytical. "But we cannot save them all. There will be thousands. And what happens when we have tended their wounds? They will still be destitute, and their only option will be the slave markets of Meereen. Their skills, their legacy, will be scattered and lost, their genius wasted on making trinkets for Great Masters." She looked at Kaelen, her eyes reflecting the lamplight. "Barthos wrote that Valyria acquired the best of its conquests. It didn't just buy slaves; it preserved entire guilds. It didn't just take bodies; it took knowledge."
The ambition of her unspoken thought was terrifying and brilliant. They would not just offer charity. They would offer preservation. They would harvest the fallen civilization of Saris.
Kaelen felt the familiar, thrilling pressure building in his mind. The council had arrived at the precipice of the god's own conclusion. He closed his eyes, inviting the Whisper.
The dream was of a vast forest of ancient, proud trees, burning in a wildfire that swept across the land. Animals of every shape and size fled before the inferno in a blind panic. But Kaelen saw a single, great, grey wolf that was not running. It stood on a ridge overlooking the only river, the only escape route from the blaze. As the desperate animals surged towards the water, the wolf watched with intelligent, discerning eyes. It did not attack. It observed. It saw a magnificent stag with a broken leg, a powerful bear blinded by smoke, a flock of panicked birds. But then it saw a small family of silver foxes, clever and quick, and a pair of mighty eagles, their wings scorched but their eyes still sharp. The wolf did not attack the weak or the strong. It moved with purpose, herding the chosen few—the valuable, the skilled, the ones with potential—away from the main throng, down a hidden path to a secret, protected valley where the fire could not reach.
The whisper was a lesson in divine triage.
In a time of fire, do not flee. Stand by the river of chaos and choose who is worthy of being saved. The fall of the old world is the harvest of the new.
"We will not save everyone," Kaelen announced to the council, his voice filled with the cold authority of the god's vision. "We will save the best. We will save the seed of their civilization, so it may be replanted in our own soil."
The plan they formulated was codenamed Operation Harvest. It was the most complex logistical undertaking they had ever attempted, a plan to project their power outside the city walls and acquire not just an object, but an entire community.
Phase One: The Triage Station. This would be their river crossing. Fendrel and Tarek were the key. They would use funds from Pyat to establish a "charity station" a mile outside the Meereen gates, on the road from Saris. It would be a simple affair: a few tents, a large cauldron of thin soup, and barrels of fresh water. Its official purpose was a display of Fendrel's "pious generosity." Its true purpose was identification. Tarek, with his quiet empathy and keen eye, would move among the refugees, listening to their stories, identifying the leaders, the master craftsmen, the engineers. He would be looking for the silver foxes and the eagles among the panicked herds.
Phase Two: The Workshop. They needed a place to house their harvest. A secret valley. Hesh and Pyat took on this monumental task. Pyat, citing a need for Grazdan to diversify his assets into property, arranged the long-term lease of a large, derelict warehouse complex in the dusty, industrial outskirts of Meereen, near the polluted river. It was a place no one of importance ever went. Hesh then orchestrated its secret renovation. He used a network of sympathetic slaves and a few hired, tight-lipped labourers paid from their secret funds to transform the cavernous, empty buildings. They built hidden living quarters, installed ventilation systems, and, most importantly, constructed fully-equipped, if crude, workshops for glassblowing and metalworking, using tools and materials that Pyat acquired in dozens of small, untraceable transactions.
Phase Three: The Offer. This was Kaelen's role. He would be the face of their mysterious organization. Once Tarek identified the key artisans—the head of the glassblowers' guild, the master smith, the chief architect—they would be brought to a secure meeting place. Kaelen would not offer them slavery or charity. He would offer them a contract. He would speak to their pride, their legacy. He would offer them a chance not just to survive, but to rebuild.
Phase Four: The Transport. Jorah would oversee the logistics and security of moving the chosen families. Once an artisan accepted the offer, they and their immediate kin would be discreetly separated from the refugee stream and transported in covered wagons, via back alleys and forgotten roads, to the hidden workshop. It was a mass exfiltration, conducted in plain sight.
The operation was a massive gamble, a drain on their resources and a huge security risk. But the potential reward was the foundation of a new society.
The road outside Meereen was a river of human misery. The refugees from Saris stumbled along, their faces blank with shock and grief, their bodies gaunt with hunger. Tarek and Fendrel's soup kitchen was an island of mercy in a sea of despair.
Tarek moved among the people, his heart aching at the scale of the tragedy, but his mind focused on his mission. He listened for the accents, for the technical terms of a craftsman, for the tone of authority in a voice. He identified a man whose hands, though filthy, had the calluses of a master smith. He found a woman whose children were clinging to her, but whose eyes were still sharp and assessing, her quiet commands to her family hinting at a lifetime of leadership.
He brought them, one by one, to a private tent. "My master is a wealthy man who respects skill above all things," he would tell them. "He believes the fall of Saris was a tragedy that must not be allowed to become an extinction. He has an offer for you, a private one."
Kaelen, smuggled out of the compound in a wine cask, met them in a rented warehouse. He faced proud, broken people. He saw the master smith, a giant of a man named Joron, whose spirit seemed as shattered as his city. He saw the guildmistress of the weavers, a woman named Elia, her face a mask of iron-willed composure.
"I will not be a slave," Joron growled, his voice like grinding stones. "I will die in the dirt before I forge trinkets for a Great Master."
"I do not offer you slavery," Kaelen replied, his voice calm and even. "Slavery is a waste of your genius. My patron offers you a contract. He has built workshops. He will provide you with food, shelter, and safety for your families. He will give you the tools and materials you need. In return, you will work for him. You will practice your craft. You will teach your apprentices. You will preserve the legacy of Saris. You will be his secret guild, and your work will be the foundation of his power."
He was offering them a deal that sounded too good to be true. But their other option was the slave market. He was offering them a chance to keep their dignity, to continue their life's work. One by one, faced with the choice between annihilation and this mysterious, impossible offer, they chose hope. They chose the Whisper.
The final stage of the operation was a masterclass in logistics. Over the course of a week, Jorah used three covered wagons to transport twenty-two of Saris's finest artisans and their families, nearly seventy people in total, to the hidden warehouse complex. The children were kept quiet, the parents silent with a mixture of fear and dawning wonder.
The climax was not a moment of violence or high drama, but of quiet, profound emotion. Joron, the master smith, was led into one of the prepared workshops. He saw a new forge, a full set of hammers and tongs, a supply of high-quality iron and coal. He ran his hand over the anvil, a gesture of deep reverence. He then turned to Kaelen, and the giant of a man, who had not shed a tear when his city burned, broke down and wept with gratitude. He did not bow to Kaelen as a master, but as a saviour. He pledged his life, his skill, and his loyalty not to a man, but to the cause that had saved his craft from extinction.
The Church of the Whispering Wyrm now had a new and vital asset. It had its own secret industrial park, a hidden enclave of genius and skill. They could produce goods, forge weapons, and create technological marvels, all in absolute secrecy. They had harvested the best of a fallen civilization and replanted it in the fertile ground of their own growing empire.
The resulting surge of faith was immense, a multi-layered symphony of belief. It was the desperate, life-altering gratitude of the seventy souls they had saved. It was the proud, fierce loyalty of the artisans whose legacy was now secure. It was the deep, strategic satisfaction of the five council members who had orchestrated the impossible.
The god felt this faith, this complex tribute to his wisdom, and his domain responded in a way it never had before. The Great Tree of Life at the centre of his golden kingdom, the tree whose roots were their foundation, began to bear fruit. From its glowing, golden branches, crystalline fruits began to form and ripen. One looked like a perfectly crafted glass goblet that chimed with an unheard music. Another looked like a miniature, perfectly folded steel sword. Another was a complex, geometric shape like a blueprint for a great building. The tree was no longer just a symbol of potential; it was producing the very essence of the skills his followers had just acquired.
He looked upon his domain, which now contained not only a secret government and a spy agency, but a thriving, hidden industrial and artistic community. He had guided his followers to profit from the great fire of the Century of Blood, not by looting the dead, but by rescuing the living. He was no longer just a god of secrets, systems, or even empires. He had become a god of civilization, a divine curator of talent, rebuilding the world from its ashes, one saved soul, one preserved skill, one harvested seed at a time. The foundation was no longer just deep; it was now alive, productive, and ready to build.