LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 20: Chapter 18: Conversations.
"—the lion ripped his balls off haaaaaaand…. The boar did all the rest…" The Bard woodenly finished his song, and an awkward silence descended upon the throne room. The midmorning sun shined through the stained glass, illuminating the audience that stood behind him. To the front was Joffrey, sitting on his throne, staring at the bard with a smirk. To his sides were Cercei, Sansa and the Hound, all looking at the spectacle in varying degrees of awkwardness or smoothed anger in the case of Cercei.
"Very amusing" Joffrey said as he started to clap slowly, followed by the rest of the courtly audience, all following the lead of their King.
"Isn't it a funny story?" Joffrey asked in his typical nasal twang, as the bard rose to his feet with a look of fear and impending panic. "I'm so sorry Your Grace… I'll never sing again…" he said, eyes quickly looking everywhere and back down to the floor.
Joffrey seemed to stare at him as he thought, fingering one of the pommels on the iron throne.
"Tell me, which to you favor, fingers or your tongue?" he suddenly asked.
"…Y-Your Grace?" stuttered the bard.
"Fingers, or your tongues. If you got to keep one, which would it be?" asked with a satisfied smirk.
The bard's stutter increased as he looked at Joffrey in dawning realization. "I could just cut your throat" Joffrey warned.
"E-E-Every man n-needs his hands y-your g-g-g-grace" he said as he struggled to comprehend what was happening to him in that moment.
"Good, tongue it is. Ser Illyn, who better than you to carry out the sentence?" Joffrey commanded the King's Justice. The man started to advance when suddenly the throne room's doors crashed open.
"STOP THIS MADNESS AT ONCE!" roared a voice. From the opened doors strode in Joff, light armor and chainmail jingling softly as he quickly walked towards the throne, the audience parting in front of him.
Sansa was looking at him, her expression neutral and her eyes fixed, but Cercei was gazing at Joff with a knowing smirk.
"Aah, someone is not enjoying the show?" said Joffrey as he leaned back on the iron throne, completely relaxed on his fine cloth and silk doublet.
Joff stamped his heavy spear's butt on the floor with all his strength, the heavy sound resonating throughout the throne room. "What do you think you are doing?! Ripping a tongue out?! For an idiotic song which is being played from here to Harrenhal!? I think I've never heard such a poor rhythm! And the rhymes! I've heard better from an Ibbenese dockhand!" bellowed Joff as he kept walking. "You would take a man's tongue out, possibly kill him for something as insignificant and stupid as that?!"
Joffrey laughed as he lay back, a bit of blood sipping down his sleeves from the iron tips on the throne, "A King does as he wants! Isn't that what you taught me mother?" he asked Cercei as he chuckled. "It is my sweet strong boy, the Truth is what the King decrees" Said Cercei, as if reciting some truth learned long ago.
"No closer" mewled Joffrey, and the Kingsguard and the multitude of Redcloaks standing in front of him took out their swords. "You moronic, bloodthirsty tyrant! People are out there fighting and dying for you, and you just sit there and torture your subjects?! Do you know what is happening on the Seven Kingdoms?! Do you know that every second the wars and schemes continue, thousands die and all that has been created by man on this continent is tore to ash?!?!" screamed Joff.
"HAHAHAHAHA" Joffrey giggled hysterically, his laughing convulsions shoving pieces of the iron throne all over his back and sides. Joff suddenly realized he could feel them as blood slipped down his armor. "So you'd rather take the throne? Come play the game? Do it! It'll be so much fun!!!" mewled Joffrey as he kept laughing, blood appearing from his chest.
"What!? No! Never!" Joff shouted. "Ser Illyn! Cut his tongue! Cut ALL their tongues!" Joffrey giggled maniacally, shoving his arms into the sword points.
The bard screamed as Ser Illyn took out a red hot dagger from his sheath and advanced upon the man.
"CEASE THIS MADNESS!" Joff screamed as he strode forward. A Redcloak pounced at him, but Joff stepped to the right and pierced the man's back with his spear. The redcloaks rushed him as Joff started to run, spinning and dodging, his spear leaving trails of blood in the air as he kept fighting and fighting, rushing to get to the throne.
Joffrey kept giggling like a madman as Ser Illyn cut of the Bard's tongue, its bloody remains falling to the floor with the bleeding and rasping man himself. Ser Illyn then started to cut the tongues of everyone on the throne room, silently working like a butcher works on a pig.
Redcloaks flooded the room from nearby doors, dozens, hundreds. The hall seemed to stretch as the throne and Joffrey kept getting farther away and away.
"Admit it! Deep inside you, you crave it, you crave that power, to make truth your desires! To rule them all! To rub the faces of all the imbeciles in the game and show them what they're worth! Half plans and afternoon musings, investment plans and commerce strategies, public works and crown armies and power, POWER! SO MUCH POWER!!! BUAHAHAHAHA" Joffrey cackled as his blood seemed to engulf him, completely tinting him red as fountains of it spilled from his body and the throne.
"IT'S NOT TRUE!!! LET ME PASS DAMN YOU! I'LL KILL YOU! ILL KILL YOU!!!!" Joff screamed as blood engulfed him, redcloaks stabbing him from all sides as he kept killing them, discarding his spear and taking out his arming sword, butchering them as if they were chickens.
Joffrey seemed to find that the greatest joke he'd ever heard. He grasped his belly as he screamed, blood falling out of his eyes. "YOU CANT EVEN KILL ME! IF YOU KILL US WE'LL JUST BE BACK FOR THE NEXT LIFE! AND THE NEXT! AND THE NEXTANDTHENEXTANDTHENEXTANDTHENEXT UNTIL WE LOSE OUR MINDS AGAIN AND WE BECOME SOMETHING EVEN GREATER! GRANDER! EVEN NOW YOU FEEL IT! THE LUST FOR THEIR BLOOD, THE SOARING HEIGHTS IT'S TAKING YOU! I'M NOT HERE! I'M JUST YOU! YOUYOUYOUYOUYOU---"
Joff stared as his blood soaked body, feeling the pleasure engulf him, pinned to the Iron throne. The 'You's had somehow morphed into ME's as he lay back on the throne, avalanches of blood bursting forth from the glass vitrals and flooding the throne room.
MEMEMEMEMEMEMEME
"NO! PLEASE NO! PLEASE NO!!!" he screamed as he rose from the chair, his body with a will of his own as he walked to the bard with a dagger and started to stab him again and again.
MEMEMEMEMEMEMEME
…
Joffrey's eyes twitched, light slowly filling them as his eyelids opening gradually but fell back down every time he blinked. In between blinks, he saw the back end of a wagon, gently moving from side to side.
The wagon had no roof, and he could see numerous flights of Condors flying overhead, each the size of a man as they tumbled and cartwheeled through the blue skies, playing or fighting for some scrap of food. Joffrey was entranced by the play of black and blue feathers, moving and jinxing and mixing in an alluring show of colors.
He blinked slowly, and he saw no more.
…
He walked through long, damp hallways. Even though they were dark, he could see where he was going. He turned to his right and kept moving, ever downwards. He finally stood in front of an opened cell, a macabre spectacle lit by nearby torches.
Joffrey saw himself standing beside a table. His face sported a manic expression as he swung a small knife left and right, unleashing torrents of blood and sighting in ecstasy as the man on the table groaned and gave short, strangled screams that never lasted longer than a second.
It was Eddard Stark, his face a rictus of agony and pain as Joffrey selected another implement of torture and continued with his bloody work. Ned didn't even have the strength to beg any more, now he was just taking the pain in, low moans and rolling eyes the only evidence that he was alive anymore.
As the Sadistic Torturer continued with his spectacle, Joffrey entered the cell and looked to his left. There on the corner was Sansa, hands holding her face as she sobbed and sobbed, not begging the monster in front of her to stop, but still staring at his bloody work.
Joffrey walked by her side and kneeled, crying. "I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry… please… I'm so sorry…" he said as he bawled in front of her, wanting to touch her but feeling incapable of doing so.
"I'm so sorry… I was sick… I'm sick… Sick from the inside… please I'm sorry… I didn't know… I'm so sorry… I didn't know what I was doing…" Joffrey begged as he sobbed.
"I know" whispered Sansa as she took his hand, holding it with hers. Her face was serene as Joffrey hold on to it with his whole strength, never letting go…
…
He opened his eyes and saw Chief Valyon worriedly speaking with someone in front of him, but Joffrey couldn't see the other man's face. They were all inside some kind of round tent.
When the man turned, Joffrey saw him. It was Jon Rivers, he looked at Joffrey as he opened his mouth, seawater bubbling forth like a fountain, flooding the tent and everything in it.
Sounds distorted as Joffrey closed his eyes again
…
"You have an awfully optimistic view of humanity, Archmaester Perestan", Joffrey said as he leaned back on his chair, looking at the historian as he spoke about war and peace, about hate and love.
The Archmaester stopped at that, his copper scepter still raised high. The master of history looked thoughtful as he lowered his scepter, gazing at it thoughtfully. "Many a man have said that… many a philosopher has spoken about the mere animal that is man too…" he said as he walked through the deserted auditorium. "Wise men and learned men they called them. Priests and Prophets too, sent to us by their gods to punish and save, to cleanse us of some deep infamy…" said the Archmaester as he turned back and stood in front of Joffrey again.
"I have studied History my whole life, Joffrey. I've read tales of kings and heroes, I've seen monuments to glory and to peace, I've seen patterns that stretch throughout recorded history…" he let the silence hang for a moment, and Joffrey was completely captivated.
"And you know what I've seen?" he asked his pupil.
"What?" Joffrey asked his teacher, intrigued.
"This" he said, holding his hands forward and almost bumping his scepter into Joffrey's head.
"A scepter?" asked Joffrey, confused.
But the Archmaester gave a knowing smile as he shook his head and kept bumping it into Joffrey, until he grabbed it.
Joffrey stared at the thing in his hand, about the length of his forearm but thinner, slender. He frowned as he thought, "…Copper?" he asked, faint wisps of understanding flying by, annoyingly close.
"Copper" repeated the Archmaester, as if it were the answer to the Cosmos. "Cynics look at mankind and see only the death and the intrigue, the cruelty and the despair… But I, dear Joffrey, I see Copper…"
The Archmaester stood back and walked through the auditorium, hands clasped at his back as he tilted his head slightly upwards. "You know a bit about Geology, Joffrey. Tell me, what was the earliest metal, to our knowledge, mined by any of the races of man? Be it the First Men, the Andals, the Qaathi, the Tall Men, the Ibbenese, any of them…" he asked.
"Copper" blurted out Joffrey, Archmaester's Benedict and Castos shouting the answer inside his head.
"Copper…" mused the Archmaester as he faced Joffrey again. "We organized ourselves, we communicated with one another, we cooperated to get the first chunks of this simple ore from the entrails of the earth. But we didn't stop there… tin and malachite and iron came forth. The mindless struggles from the past were relegated to legend, and we built" said the Archmaester, voice rising in intensity, "Oh how we built…"
"From the mindless bloodshed, we rose. Violence gradually became more organized, restricted, given a specific name for when its wide scale use became temporary accepted. We developed forms of government, and we made laws so those forms would not falter, so that we did not fall again into an age of darkness and futility. We built great, big stone monuments that reached to touch the very fabric of the heavens, we invented trade as people from all over the world connected and we spoke instead of killed each other. For every war started, ten mutually beneficial exchanges were concluded. For every murder committed, a priest or a chief or a king arbitrated a dispute without bloodshed" he said as he walked back to a nearby balcony on the side of the empty auditorium.
"While outside village walls animals ravaged each other and lived lives of constant fear and despair, we grew crops from the earth. We wrote stories and poetries, we loved and cherished things and peoples, we wondered about what this was all about… " whispered the Archmaester, trailing off as he stared at something on the window that Joffrey could not see.
He stood there for a while as Joffrey thought about what he'd said, and suddenly the man was confidently walking back to the big central desk that was at the center of the room, the Maester's Lecture Stand.
"Many came after, but Copper was first. It was the first witness of that long road, a silent observer who saw us at our lowest before we raised our heads and gazed at the skies" he said almost to himself. Then he nodded at Joffrey as he usually did when ending a lesson.
Joffrey was startled out of his deep thoughts by that. "Wait, Archmaester! Your scepter--" he started but he cut him off with his hand.
"Keep it. When you sit on that throne and gaze upon your realm, may it serve you as a reminder of which metal came first. Not iron. Copper." He said.
Joffrey looked at the scepter in his hand, shaking his head in confusion at what the Archmaester had said, but when he looked up, he was no longer there.
He kept looking at the scepter as the ground bumped from side to side.
…
He opened his eyes to the sight of an enormous waterfall, a dull roar that echoed throughout the valley. He was tucked in some kind of warm bundle of blankets, and though he didn't have the strength to move his head, he could see a few other bundles of men, some sleeping, others talking and jesting around tables.
A bit farther away, not too far from the huge waterfall, he could see a great big village of tall but slender wooden houses. Their brown and black roofs had raised corners, one every floor, whose tips were painted a faint gold.
The late afternoon sun was just hiding behind a great mountain, and all above the tall village he could see floating pinpricks of light, sailing in small lethargic circles, as if a bunch of lanterns had suddenly sprouted wings and were out there enjoying the calm breeze.
"Captain?" suddenly asked a voice.
Joffrey strained to move his head to his left, but only managed to slowly move his eyes to the silhouette next to him. "V….Valy… on…" Joffrey whispered.
"I'm here Captain, I'm right here" said his trusted Chief as he kneeled beside him and did something to his forehead, taking something off from it.
"R…rrrr…Riversssss" Joffrey mumbled.
"…He didn't make it Captain… he didn't make it" said the Chief as he placed something freezing over his forehead.
"S-s-s-ssooo…. c-c-cold…" Joffrey muttered with the last of his strength. "Captain! Captain listen to me, you must… be strong now… listen … to my… voice… Captain… tain… in?!" Joffrey gazed at the swirling lights as they kept rising into the sky. When he closed his eyes he felt himself leave the ground behind as he rose to join them in a merry play of slow moving sparks and lights, and suddenly his world drifted into peaceful darkness.
…
Joffrey bit his lip as his paintbrush moved slowly, carefully to the right. He traced the great shape of a mountain, big and beautiful… but even so the shape was diminished. It covered barely a quarter, if that, of the painting. The central power and point of it was the great dark blue sea of stars that stretched throughout the entire thing, dwarfing even the mountain as the vast expanse of the cosmos looked on down.
"It's missing something" mused Tyrion by his side.
Joffrey rose an eyebrow as if to ask 'like what?'
The imp looked thoughtful as he gazed at the painting. Suddenly he smiled.
"Every great beauty needs a watcher, someone to gaze and sit in awe, someone to give it meaning…"
Joffrey smiled softly as he blinked, and Tyrion was replaced by a smallish looking man with slanted eyes and a long but thin black beard, wearing a hat with a monkey tail.
The man was removing some kind of bloodied bandages from Joffrey's abdomen. He took out a mortar and spread something vaguely cool over it, before placing a white, clean bandage on top of it.
The starry vault over Joffrey twinkled. "Gazer… to gaze…" Joffrey mumbled, blinking heavily.
…
He opened his eyes and saw a vast forest of strange, tall and wide mahogany trees with thick leaves but thin branches. A man on horseback cantered by the side of the open aired wagon he rode, seemingly distracted as he looked at the forest too. When he turned his gaze towards the wagon, Joffrey finally concentrated on the figure. He was not very tall, but he had the characteristic slanted eyes of the Yi-Tish, and he sported a rising sun behind a huge fortress on his breastplate.
Joffrey slowly tilted his head to the other side. He could see a great, flat green pasture peppered with occasional hills, filled with goats and sheep's of many different colors, red and blue and yellow and green. They had small horns on their head which they used to trawl the high weeds of the field, looking for tender bits of greengrass. On the far hills Joffrey could see a cavalry force stretching all throughout the horizon, clad in heavy plate and riding fierce warhorse, all livered in green and gold. The Tyrell rose flew from a great banner in the center.
The Hound laughed as he cantered by on his tall stallion, receiving a tossed wineskin and taking a long drink. "Must be the slowest rider in the Seven Kingdoms!" he said with a guffaw as an irritated looking Jon Snow followed him by atop his own horse, shaking his head in amused exasperation.
"Hey Joff!" said Jon as he took another wineskin from his saddle, taking a drink. "Joffrey! You look like shit!" said Sandor as he nodded at him, the remains of his smirk still present on his face.
"Leave the poor man alone Clegane, he's been bouncing all around the world for quite a while, he's a bit impatient!" Jon said with a fond smile.
"You could say that!" said the Hound as he looked at the horizon.
Joffrey's lips rose haltingly, a pale imitation of a happy smile.
"Rest Joff. Think and rest, I think you've earned it" said Jon as he too looked at the horizon. "Even a Broken Knight sometimes needs to be healed" he mused before Sandor suddenly butted in.
"You mean healed by pretty pirate ladies?" he said as Jon blushed.
"That was only one time!" Jon shouted at Sandor.
Suddenly Ghost leaped into the carriage, and he lapped at Joffrey's forehead playfully, taking a bit of the immense heat he felt there.
"Come on Ghost! We're wasting daylight!" shouted Jon as Sandor laughed and suddenly spurred his horse, riding towards the green-gold horizon. "Come on Jon! They need us at the perfume shop!" he shouted as he rode out, chuckling. Ghost leaped out and followed him as Jon spurred his horse and raced after him "Roses come in---!" he shouted at the Hound.
"Pulped bodies come out!" shouted back the Hound as they rode into the light.
Joffrey smiled again as his head tilted back to the other side and he saw Young Rennick. The slim and willy sailor was washing some pieces of cloth in a water bucket to his side.
"Hang in there, Captain. Hang in there…" he whispered as Joffrey's smile faded and he closed his eyes yet again.
…
Joffrey felt himself sway slightly, as if he were in the seas again, but this time it the sway was minute, as if he were sailing up the Red Fork.
I've always wanted to sail up that river… calm and slow… docking in market towns to pass the nights and look at the sky… without guards or plots… without games and war…
He imagined himself there for a while, lazily floating through the river like a leaf on a stream…
He opened his eyes as he felt noise to his right. He was on a ship sailing through a river, but instead of the green, watery pastures of the Riverlands he saw a great big marsh, filled with strange animals… He saw a feathered crocodile snapping at some great pink bird, who cawed indignantly as it flew away. It was pretty dark, but he could still see a bit…
Must be approaching dusk or dawn…
He was on some kind of corridor, in a bed that was tucked in beside a wall. The corridor was long but its width was small. It stretched for a meter to his right and then there was only a wooden railing and the brownish red river.
Joffrey mused about what things he could remember, about his life and his place in it. He thought about the suicidal, terrified warlock.
Why was he so afraid? What he saw on the tablet had him so shaken that when he saw me walking through the strange darkness, he must have thought I'd been sent by…
The Emperor. Who is he? The only emperor in the known world is the Emperor of Yi-Ti. Does he have the answers?
…
All that effort… all I wanted to know… was what was happening to me…
He thought about the Red Priests and their madness. The Purple can't be an accident. It can't be and negate the red priests like that… I can't help but feel this is all part of something… greater, far greater than the squabbles and the prophecies… were the swirling robes correct? Is my existence my purpose? If so… my recurring existence... my recurring lives… the raw power and skill it must have taken to do this to me… I'm not sure I'm strong enough to know what the purpose is…
He spent a bit of time there, thinking as he watched the swamp move by, the ship turning gently through the many bends of the river.
"Captain?" suddenly asked a voice.
He struggled to turn his head when Chief Valyon kneeled by his bed.
"C-Chief… S-status rep-ort…" he rasped.
"Captain Joffrey! I.." The Chief was worried but very happy to see him speak. He took a breath as he stilled his excitement to deliver a report. "The Jade Dreams was lost to the seas. A few of us washed up on the shore and these fellows" he said, pointing at a soldier carrying a bow who calmly but deliberately walked by, looking at the swamp. "Picked us up" he said.
"Crew… Survivors?" Joffrey asked.
"About a dozen, Captain. Most of us drifted atop a piece of the hull, but you weren't among us… We'd thought we'd lost you" said the Chief.
Joffrey felt a deep exhaustion seeping into his bones, and his eyes started to droop.
NO!
He opened them with all his strength, looking at the Chief urgently.
"sssslaves?" he managed.
"Not exactly Captain. They haven't collared us and they only beat us a bit when a few tried to escape, it was no worse than a tavern brawl… they did speak something about 'paying off a debt' , or at least that's what Will managed to translate… They kept repeating a word in Yi-Tish, though Will couldn't decipher it" the Chief said quickly.
Joffrey could see they were leaving the swamp behind, the hills around it gradually losing height.
"Word" said Joffrey after taking in a lungful of air, struggling against the dark.
The Chief repeated the sounds as best as he could, and Joffrey tried to decipher it as the hills and trees finally cleared to reveal the horizon.
It means conscript, Joffrey thought, not having the strength to speak out loud.
The sun shone from the east as it rose, illuminating a set of five immense, towering structures. Each one seemed bigger than Oldtown, but instead of looking like cities, they looked like great fortresses built to withstand the wrath of Leviathans. Their fused black stone rose so far into the air that Joffrey gasped out the bit of air he still had left in his lungs. Each Fortress rose higher than the Hightower itself, almost brushing the very fabric of the heavens.
He blinked heavily once more, and finally fell into a deep, calm sleep.
-.PD.-