Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

The blackguards proved disciplined and organized, but they had not withstood the carnage of the previous battle all too well. Lacking armor and a robust chain of command, it was clear to Joffrey that they had not been created as a field formation. Line infantry they were not, thought the Matriarchs hadn't seem too concerned by their decimation during the furious melee.

It was clear that what truly made the Four Houses a near peer of Carcosa was not the strength of their indoctrinated bodyguards or the dubious worth of their ships, but rather the power and numbers of their Shadowbinders. The lances of darkness and shadow that had sought to strike the Flying Wights from the skies had been but the most obvious of their powers; behind their cover, strange rituals and incantations had resounded from the ship's hold, making the living dead stutter or crumble to ash with but a whisper of wind.

Joffrey counted a combined number of around a hundred and fifty Shadowbinders all told. A bit less than twenty for the South, thirty for the North, forty or fifty for the East and a bit over sixty for the West… before they had been 'humbled' at least. When combined and duly prepared, the Shadowbinders of Asshai made up a force capable of leveling small armies, and they were treated as such by their escort of Flying Men as they continued their journey upriver.

The Yellow Wings were a sort of household guard to the Lord of Carcosa, though Joffrey assumed they were more of a small army. About five hundred of their numbers escorted the ships along the rest of the river. He often found himself watching them on patrol, as the development of their tactics to account for the air itself was fascinating, from a military point of view.

He'd likened them to ships at first, but even that had betrayed his Westerosi origins. Dragon warfare, either during the Dance of Dragons or the rare Valyrian Civil Wars, had been more akin to that; ponderous, often massive dragons covering the blind spots of their brethren as they angled for fire-breathing runs.

The Winged Men accounted for the art of aerial war in a very different manner, at least as far as Joffrey could see. Good individual mobility meant that the men must have been trained religiously in maneuver warfare to be so effective, including a respectable proportion of serjeant equivalents with good initiative.

He'd had the pleasure of seeing them in action two more times. Once during an ambush from regular wights when the fleet stopped at an abandoned fishing town, and the other when they were jumped crossing the Mountains of the Morn. The vast majority of the Yellow Wings were made up of Slash Wings; fast, lightly armored, saber wielding flying infantry that specialized in air-to-air combat. They struck the wings of other aerial combatants, and served as light foot when the situation demanded it; though their effectiveness there compared poorly to other decent light infantry options.

One in five made up the elite core of the host; Lancer Wings. Medium armor, fierce discipline, and wielding long lances; these shock formations excelled at striking down foes on the ground with both steel and terror. After landfall, they could also serve as decent heavy infantry in a pinch, as the ambushers around the Mountains of the Morn had discovered to their detriment later on.

Still they soldiered on, the shimmer of the Red Comet above sending shivers of awe and suspicion through the Shadowbinders. By then even the lowliest of Callers knew something great and horrible was afoot, and the Matriarchs could all but smell the raw power in the air. A working with such a colossal amount of leakage was ominous, or so they said… He'd told Sansa that the reports of ravaging hordes consuming the continent would have been enough to see to that, but apparently 'that is not the way they think'… or so she told him.

The Hidden Sea was not what Joffrey had expected. The valley and sea were nestled within the Mountains of The Morn, and the Hidden Sea itself was a deep chasm not unlike the Dry Deep, but filled halfway up with tempestuous waters. The sea roiled in permanent storms; great titan waves emerging from the depths and hulking above sea level like krakens on a regular basis, scouring the cliffs off climbing wights.

Carcosa itself stood near the entrance to the river delta that left the Hidden Sea from the southeast, leading to the small but fertile plain of Ulan and then to Shatterpoint; the place where the Saffron Straits met the Furious Sea… at least according to Mahil Suul. The capital of the Sorcerer Lord stood atop a tall island that emerged from the chasm of the Hidden Sea, a black patch of land no bigger than Tyrosh connected by two great stone bridges to both sides of the delta.

It was in effect the biggest moat Joffrey had ever seen, though the nature of the region's local inhabitants made that less of a strategic advantage, he supposed. The city was one great spire of black bedrock, its wide base steadily giving way to a sharp tip of pure topaz from where the Yellow Emperor was said to rule supreme, always gazing over his dominion.

Their entrance into the city was uncontested as they marched swiftly under the city's great gatehouse, though Joffrey had been able to see flocks of Flying Wights in the distance when they did. He was impressed when the bridge was revealed to be a draw bridge in truth, a big section of it rising into the air as massive counterweights dropped from the other side of the great spire.

They walked their way up the spire in circles, and the great avenues that made up the main arteries of the city seemed a bit crowded to Sansa, who asked about it to Mahil Suul.

"Many people from the north have taken refuge under the hospitality of the Yellow Emperor, to escape the blight that crawls from beyond," said Suul, "His generosity has seen all who dwell here fed, as long as they do their part for the continued survival of the city."

Well, that doesn't sound sinister at all, thought Joffrey.

"There haven't been any food riots?" Sansa asked him.

"Only a few panics, all quickly contained. The Yellow Emperor, in his infinite wisdom, saw fit to fully restock the city's reserves months before the first wights arrived."

"And tell me, esteemed Mahil, how has the war been progressing for the Emperor?" Joffrey asked him. If anyone was to know, it would be Suul. If he'd understood things correctly, the Mahil was a sort of castellan and lord commander of all forces under the oath of loyalty to the Yellow Emperor.

He seemed to think over his words as they kept marching up the great road, the people giving them and the palanquins behind a wide berth. Joffrey could see everything from Bloodless Men to Winged to Yi-Tish to the pale denizens of the Beyond, all intermingling within the city with a wary, uncertain rhythm. "It has been slow," he said at last, "The Yellow Wings have managed to keep the land bound, eastern approaches clear, but the Enemy have been making gains by the other side of the sea during these past few months, seeking to cut us off from the west entire," he said, watching as the lancers clearing the way ahead had to forcefully move a wagon off the sloped road.

"So the City of the Winged Men has fallen?" said Joffrey.

Suul chuckled, "What a strange name. I assume you are talking about Zennibir?" he said.

Joffrey gave him a self-conscious smile, "The maps of my homeland turn quite sketchy around these parts I'm afraid," he said.

"Then your homeland must be quite the ways away, Joffrey Baratheon," he said as he frowned, showing his fangs again. "Zennibir fell a month ago, and the final outcome of that siege has been a constant thorn on our side."

Joffrey thought it was remarkable how, in the end, all species of men shared variations of the same core emotions, be they winged, brindled, tall, pale, it really didn't seem to matter in the end.

"I have a hard time believing that, having watched the Yellow Wings in action," he said as he watched the soldiers practice around the citadel, moving through the air in formations.

"Stop drooling dear," Sansa told him with a lopsided grin.

"Just two of those Lancer Wings, Sansa. Only two," he said as his heart ached with bitter envy. "With them, the Raiders, and the better half of the Crownlands's chivalry I could bleed out Renly in a week," he said in Westerosi.

"The Emperor is honored by your words, but the Yellow Wings only number around seven thousand. The rest of our current war strength is composed of Irregular Wings from fallen Zennibir and the Cliff Towns around the northern ends of the Hidden Sea. They are as likely to run as to charge the enemy," he said before scowling. "It's often better when they fly away, at least then they don't add bodies to our foe," he said before walking ahead of them.

"Excused me, honored ones. My presence is required," he said before taking off into the air with two powerful flaps of his muscled wings, making speed for the altercation with the fallen wagon at the front.

"Damnit, I wanted to ask him about the Emperor again," said Joffrey.

"Me too Joff, though I doubt he would have answered anything else than a tired old retread of 'he has been expecting you'." Sansa was still wearing her green mask, a fact that marked her as a Shadowbinder to the people of the city; they gave her a wide berth, even more so than to the escorting Yellow Wings.

Calinnia had been equal parts intrigued and wary, and she'd all but ordered them to proceed with utmost caution. The line of the Yellow Sorcerers was a long one, and he was not a figure to be trifled with lightly, least of all east of the Mountains of the Morn.

They kept walking up the spiral as the houses turned more and more elegant, though trying to make a distinction between the tower itself and the houses sometimes seemed futile. They appeared to be melded with it, part of one great structure that was the city itself… almost as if the houses themselves had been chiseled out of it. The architecture itself varied wildly the further one climbed the spire, with the upper houses showing a distinct disregard for common sense; things such as main doors at second story levels, wider windows, and even great holes around the sides for the bigger residences.

"Most of the Winged Men live near the top of the Spire," Sansa noted. "Living closer to the ruler of the city is usually a sign of greater prestige and social status."

Joffrey grunted, "You think he uses the Winged Men to oppress the masses of common human stock around the lower districts?" he asked her.

"Perhaps… most likely he leans on them to man his bureaucracy and elite military units," she said.

"That makes more sense. It also fits with what we saw down below… No one in the Hidden Watch seemed to have wings, and they seemed decently drilled and armed for a major city guard. I doubt the Emperor would have gone to such an effort to train and arm a mob that would like to see him dead."

Sansa nodded, looking behind at the lead palanquin. They would soon be reaching the Topaz Palace, ruling place of the Yellow Sorcerer and now Yellow Emperor. "Do you still think he wants to use us as fuel?"

"I don't know Sansa, but if there's anything I learned when dealing with Shadowbinders, present company excluded of course"- he added with a sly smile -"is that they are unpredictable. If he looks hungry for some high power blood we're downing the pouches immediately. Are we clear?" he said, brooking no disagreement.

"I know I know," she said as she held her hands up. Ever since their first encounter with the Matriarch of the West, Joffrey had been adamant that they carry small pouches as pendants, pouches which held tiny crystals of Niamba. Joffrey had turned the raw plant into a highly potent and fast acting poison after subjecting it to a complicated alchemical treatment. They should be dead even faster than it would take to bleed out from the heart.

"Seems we're here," he said as he gazed up. The road ended in a great plaza which surrounded the entrance into the top of the Spire proper; a golden arc of glittering topaz and emeralds surrounded the entrance itself while the spire continued upwards now like a proper tower, a great balcony just peeking high above.

-: PD :-

"Honored Guests, I am pleased to present the Matriarchs of Asshai and their retinues, blessed be they in blood," said a Winged Man in elegant yellow finery as he bowed almost to the floor, holding one hand near his chest and the other wide open, signaling the newcomers.

They walked into the hall of the Yellow Emperor in a hush of whispering voices, a multitude of different kinds of men turning to see them. The hall seemed to have more in common with a reception at a Braavosi evening than a royal court hearing in Westeros; the guests of the Yellow Emperor formed groups around the ground floor, while the second held a massive throne filled with topaz from which a shadowed figure watched them all. He wore a topaz encrusted tunic which fell from his shoulders in wide pieces of fabric, all of them intermingling as they seemed to fuse into a vest by his chest. His head was almost completely hidden by a hood though, the angle of lighting around the place making it hard for Joffrey to define any features at a distance.

The Four Matriarchs stepped forward as one, bowing in deep respect. "Hail, Emperor of Yi-Ti and hallowed Lord of Carcosa," said Calinnia.

"We come forth by your call," said Kijima.

"To honor our word solemnly given," said Jiia.

"To give mutual aid, in the name of the Compact," said Wylla.

The Emperor seemed immobile, and only after a minute of silence did his make a small gesture with his hand.

Then came the gifts. Wylla presented a topaz encrusted short sword of extraordinary craftsmanship, its hilt adorned by a replica of the Spire so detailed that even at a distance -standing with Sansa by the side of the hall with the rest of the Shadowbinders- he could see the various roads and gates of the great city.

Jiia laid down a small chest on the floor before opening it smoothly; it revealed a single, bent, bronze studded mask that left many of the Shadowbinders by Joffrey's side shuffling lightly. It seemed so old it was one wrong breeze away from crumbling to ash, but that only seemed to add to its allure.

He'd seen the mask before; Calinnia had two in the House of the South and proudly presented them as ancient artifacts of their ancestors… salvaged from the ruins of Stygai centuries ago. After his brief, nightmarish visit to the City of Night itself though, Joffrey was pretty confident that the creators of said masks had nothing to do with any of humanity's branches. They'd likely been extinct for tens of thousands of years before even the First Men looked up at the sky in wonder.

Kijima brought forth a multi-faceted ruby the size of Joffrey's fist, a thousand cuts bending the light within so it shone with an inner brightness which mesmerized many of the onlookers around the hall.

And then it was their patron's turn. Calinnia did something with her robes, and from one moment to the other held the Valyrian Glass Candle in her hand, the one they had stolen from the warlocks and given to her as a sort of down payment for Sansa's training. The Shadowbinders gasped ever so slightly, shuffling in mild shock as the Yellow Emperor extended a hand by an inch or two.

Sihua -the finely dressed herald which had announced them- sprang forth immediately. He held the Glass Candle reverently, carrying it forth through the oval shaped steps towards the topaz throne.

He prostrated himself, holding out the Candle without looking as the Emperor grabbed it. He held it in his hands for a few seconds, turning it slowly before his yellow hood turned towards Calinnia. "The House of the South is generous," he said, his voice thick and barely audible.

Calinnia nodded gracefully, and then the Emperor made another gesture. The Herald was back at ground level quickly, clapping twice as servants emerged from side doors carrying all manner of dishes and beverages.

"His divine majesty, the Yellow Emperor, wishes to celebrate the arrival of our old allies. Let all guests under his roof make merry and celebrate with him, lifting our dreams to higher ends," said the herald. Calinnia was already by their side, talking quickly with Fiqua and another of the green masks before turning to them.

"Mingle with the guests, find out as much as you can about them and the state of the city. Be careful," she said, pausing to look at the Yellow Emperor from the corner of her mask. He stood unperturbed, as unmoving as he'd been when they'd first arrived.

"I take it he has a different definition of 'mingling'?" said Joffrey.

"Do not be impertinent," she snapped, "He could end half this room with a flick of a finger, including you and your disappearing sword."

"He'll behave, Matriarch," said Sansa.

"See that he does," she said before walking back to the other Matriarchs, which were being catered lavishly by groups of servants carrying twisting glass cups filled with red liquid.

Joffrey doubted it was Arbor Red.

"Quite the presence the man has," said Sansa as they locked elbows together and walked away from the Matriarchs in search for an interesting group to settle for a while. They were old hands at this game, and Joffrey could already see her cycling through guests. He was more interested in the Emperor's decorations though, gazing at the great sheets of parchment hanging from the second story; great and intricate designs of a wholly abstract nature that tickled Joffrey's curiosity.

"… Yeah, has the sorcerer king vibe down pat," he said absentmindedly.

There's something awfully familiar about those sketches, he thought.

"Any priorities you have in mind?" said Sansa.

"Hmm… you know me."

She sighed theatrically as she guided him between groups, nodding at the common men that served as servants. "Those soldiers over there then?" she asked him, looking at a group of ten or so armored men of distinct Yi-Tish stock.

"Yeah I… wait, I know that sign," he said as he gazed at the trio of crossed bones tied to their iron lamellar breastplates. "I've definitively met these guys before…" he said as they approached.

"Dangerous?" Sana asked as she brought one hand next to the other. The group was armed, most of them carrying sheathed heavy sabers though one or two had bamboo sticks slung from their backs.

Primitive Fire Lances, thought Joffrey, the flotsam of recognition floating closer.

"I don't think so," he said as they reached them. They all looked pretty sunburnt, toasted almost by harsh winds and long days. One of them turned and bowed as they joined the circle, the one with the longest bones nailed to his chest piece.

"Let me extend the Guild's gratitude for your arrival in person," he said as he faced Sansa, "With Whisperers fighting by our side the advance of the Returned should be slowed down significantly." He seemed polite enough, though he kept eying Sansa warily despite his words, scars bulging by the right side of his face.

Slowed down… not stopped? Joffrey asked himself silently, still looking at the three crossed bones.

"… The Soldier's Guild," he said, nodding at the man in recognition, "You are a long way from Bonetown, Guildmaster…" he said before trailing off.

"Guoyin. Guildmaster Guoyin," he said, smiling for a bit when Joffrey offered his arm and they clasped.

"Joffrey," he said before looking at Sansa, "And my wife Sansa." If Guoyin seemed curious at his apparent marriage to a Shadowbinder, he didn't show it.

"Do you know of these fine warriors, dear?" Sansa asked him.

"They were a common sight when I made it as far east as Bonetown, selling my wares," he said.

"A bone trader then? Did you depart the city before the caravans?" asked Guoyin, the other members inching closer with interested looks.

"Not quite, though I heard about what happened there after you left," he said, unable to keep the slight disapproval from his tone.

Guoyin frowned, though Joffrey thought he could see the slightest glint of shame in his eyes before they hardened once more.

"There was no way to hold the city… You would have run too if you'd seen them…" said one of the younger looking members, his voice vaguely hollow before his companions shut him up with disapproving looks.

But I didn't… I didn't run, he thought as he felt an abrupt pang of loss before putting the memories away.

"My apologies," said Sansa, "My husband did not mean to cause offense. Having seen the Reanimated with my own eyes I struggle to think what else you could have done."

Guoyin tilted his head down, "Thank you. I'm sorry if we've all been a bit wary around you, previous experience with Whisperers have left us… on edge," he confessed.

"Rest assured, the madness of those cultists couldn't be farther away from the discipline of the Four Houses," said Sansa.

"Indeed, though having slain more than one Grey Whisperer in my time, I can thoroughly empathize with you Guildmaster," Joffrey added.

One of the men scoffed, but Guoyin was watching at him with a knowing look. "High risk trader?"

"Straight to K'Dath," he said with a smile.

"Quite the story your life must make…" said Guoyin, looking at Sansa and then at Joffrey with appraising eyes.

"Perhaps we could trade tales about our journeys? His Yellow Eminence doesn't seem to be in a hurry," Joffrey said as he gazed at the statue-like ruler of Carcosa. Some of the men recoiled in fear at the blasphemy, but Guoyin -if anything- seemed more at ease.

"Perhaps we can," he said as he chuckled. One of the servants came close, and all but Sansa took the opportunity to help themselves with the small, boiled fish lanced by small wooden rods.

"So how did you end up here?" he asked him, relishing the spicy seasoning which was so scarce back in Westeros.

Guoyin scowled immediately, "We went east around the Dry Deep; hardly anywhere else to run to. To reach the Cities of the Bloodless Men we had to cross the Cannibal Sands through the southeast…" he trailed off, several of the men shaking themselves off discreetly, "We had experienced traders with us, people who'd been born tracing the same route over the sand just as their fathers had done… and yet the sandstorms still blinded us, made us lose our direction no less than four times… Easy pickings for the cannibals; sometimes scores of them would fling up from the dunes and rush us before we could circle the wagons, it was a bloody slaughter… and then the dead cannibals…" he trailed off with a fierce shake of the head, "Barley half of us made it to Blhadahar."

Joffrey nodded in sympathy. He could imagine the harrowing journey all too well… "Bloodless Men let you in?" he asked, as relieved as him at leaving that part of the tale behind.

"Hm. For the better half of our bones; decades of building up our warchest only to lose them to a jumped up border lord… didn't do 'em much good when the dead arrived though," he said with careless shrug.

"Weren't the Bloodless Men prepared for the advance of the dead?" Sansa asked him.

"They thought they were prepared alright," scoffed the younger one again.

Guoyim snorted as he looked at the young man, his trio of bones the smallest of all the company, "Captain Zenim has strong opinions on the subject," he said, motioning him to continue.

"We just kept running south," said Zenim, "By the time we heard vaunted Blhadahar had fallen we were around Bol-Qobam, and Bloodless from almost all the city states were there with weapons and armor. Fools thought they could stop the dead in a field battle."

"Didn't work out, I presume," said Joffrey. He certainly wouldn't take the walkers in open battle unless he was well prepared for the occasion… or incredibly desperate.

"Not for a lack of trying, they managed to assemble a mighty host, after all…" said the Guildmaster. "High Warlord Ka-Jan almost conscripted us too, but we marched away before he could add more numbers to his 'arguments'."

"Seems that didn't work out for them either," Joffrey told the young man before looking behind him.

Far from 'freely intermingling', Joffrey thought the groups were pretty clear cut. Most of the Winged Men stayed in their own groups, keeping the distance with the Bloodless and the newly arrived Shadowbinders. Another curious difference was between the Winged Men themselves; those of greater stature and physical bulk didn't really interact much with those who were not as well endowed. The 'Greatborn' which composed the ranks of the Lancers and most senior military positions of the Yellow Court formed a distinct social class all of their own.

"We were a month's worth of hard marching from Zennibir when we found out what eventually happened. They had three big field battles trying to relieve Bol-Kalayak before they were enveloped and overrun. High Warlord Ka-Jan preferred riding to his death than facing 'dishonor' though, leaving his realm without a Warlord while it crumbled on top of their people. Shows what a lack of blood can do to man," said Guoyin before shaking his head.

"Idiots still hate us for that," said Captain Zenim.

"How so?" Sansa asked him.

"Everyone needs a scapegoat, and we were the easiest targets," said Guoyin.

"Three thousand foot and a handful of armored sandrakes wouldn't have made any difference. They say the horde sieging Bol-Kalayak numbered over two hundred thousand for the Night Lion's sake!" growled one of the officers.

"We barely even stopped at Zennibir, kept going straight down the Cliff Road to Carcosa," said Guoyin.

"And now they're refugees, just as you," said Joffrey as he gazed over the hall once more. The Bloodless Men made up a substantial presence, the core of them concentrated around a young, pale man of great girth. He was armored in a sort of iron-plate reinforced chainmail hauberk, the same as half of his companions. Unlike the others though, the young man's turban was bright red, and it barely wobbled as he gesticulated wildly with great, sweeping gestures. He was arguing about something with Mahil Suul, whose wing's were swaying in what seemed mild consternation.

"Here we go again…" muttered Guoyin as he chomped on his fish stick like a veteran campaigner, watching the Bloodless warily.

"So why stop at Carcosa?" Sansa asked the officer which had spoken up.

"There's no other strongpoint to hold them off further south. The Mountain passes to the west are full of Returned freshly carved out of the Yi-Tish heartlands, as I'm sure you found out. Taking a small host south through the Shadowlands would be suicide… and that only leaves the Ulan Plains to the south east."

"The Yellow Emperor's demesne," said Sansa.

"The one thing keeping Carcosa fed," said Guoyin, looking back from the gesticulating Bloodless. "There'd be no point though. Only Shatterpoint has any walls there and by all accounts they aren't very impressive. We'd have to build ships to either force passage through the Furious Sea and probably drown in uncharted waters, sail south to Ulthos and choke to death, or sail west and hope we don't die of scurvy before reaching Asshai. No, the Yellow Emperor's walls are good and his coin too, this is where we'll make our stand," he said with a decisive nod, though Joffrey could see some of his officers were less than enthused, especially young Zenim.

"Please excuse us," said Joffrey, subtly pulling Sansa's elbow as he inched away from the group.

"We hope to see you later Guildmaster, captains," said Sansa, nodding apologetically at the group.

"With your story, I'm sure," said the bemused Guildmaster, holding up his cup.

"Of course," she said, the group of Guildmen disappearing behind the shuffling of the guests. "That was incredibly rude Joffrey, they won't open up so easy next time."

Her husband didn't respond, practically pulling her towards the left side of the great hall. He stopped in front of one of the hanging sheets of wide parchment, extending a trembling hand as he traced the twisting lines that bent over themselves, circling recursively.

"Sansa… this is…" he trailed off, swallowing drily as he looked at the other parchments. "It's a diagram of my soul…" he whispered.

"I- Like the bone tablet?" she asked him.

"Yeah… they're incomplete, and some parts make no sense, but… " he trailed off again, feeling the texture of the rough parchment, "I think it depicts another module…"

"Do you like it?" asked a voice behind them. Joffrey whirled in a half second, hand over Brightroar's hilt as he felt Sansa's arm increase in temperature, her own blood singing within her body.

The man was dressed in the simple yellow tunic of the servants, only a small black mark by the center of the doublet signaling a higher rank than them.

"The design is truly beautiful," Sansa said as Joffrey regained control over his heart.

"They're depictions of the ancient art held by the great obelisks that once dotted the Ulan Plains, thousands of years ago. The first of the Yellow Sorcerers sought to copy the artwork… or what was left of them, at least," he said.

"Then he was wise beyond measure," said Sansa, "Excuse me, I didn't quite get your name…"

"Call me Vajul," he said. The man's bow was so pronounced that his forehead almost touched the ground.

"Do you have anything to do with the other servants here?" Joffrey asked him, hand still over Brightroar.

"Yes, I make sure all guests here have as amenable a stay as possible… I hope that has been the case for the both of you?" he asked, before looking at Sansa in slight shock, "Please, forgive the oversight," he said quickly, signaling a servant.

The servant arrived with a cup of twisted glass, holding it to Sansa a he lowered his head.

"I- thank you," she said, accepting the beverage. She gazed at the deep red fluid, twirling lazily around the cup.

"It is to your liking, is it not?" asked Vajul. He looked at the servant and frowned, the man almost shrinking into himself.

"No, no. It's quite alright," she said, her mask still as the cup trembled lightly.

Joffrey squeezed her hand gently, and she took a deep sigh before opening a small clasp in her mask's lower side. Joffrey couldn't help but notice how the blood was already springing forward without the aid of gravity when it reached Sansa's lips, crawling up as if by its own volition into her mouth and leaving not a stain behind.

"It's… ah…" she whispered, looking down for a moment before recomposing herself, "Your liege has a… fine vintage," she finally managed.

"He has," said Vajul, looking pleased.

Sansa was of the line of First Men Houses that existed since the Age of Heroes, Starks and Tullys and Blackwoods, all shrouded in great and terrible workings of sorcery if one gave the ancient stories more than a perfunctory glance. That made her a potent Shadowbinder, because unlike the vast majority of them she could actually use her own blood as fuel worth the name… though that didn't mean that a little extra was useless.

Joffrey had been about to ask Vajul about the obelisks when he heard a commotion coming from the center of the hall: The young Bloodless was now shouting, walking away from Suul and back to him again as he raved. "Enough is enough, Mahil! The hospitality of Carcosa has been without equal, but the time for action is now!"

His armored companions all grunted fiercely, banging their armored gauntlets against the shields strapped to their backs, while the unarmored ones nodded in approval.

"For the Bloodless they might as well be cheering like madmen. They're usually very reserved," said Vajul, somewhat amused.

"Tell me Vajul, who is the young one in the middle? The one with the red turban," said Sansa.

"That is High Warlord Ka-Mil. He has been leading the hosts of the Bloodless since his late father fell in battle… what's left of them, at least," he said.

"If you wish to assault the wights on your own, then you and your army are more than welcome to sally out the gates," said Suul, growing irritated.

"And be defeated piecemeal?!" he scoffed, "We have done nothing but skirmish with the Damned since we arrived here! A change of strategy is needed if we are to survive this invasion!"

"You must be patient, young Warlord," said Suul, "The Emperor knows-"

"Patient? Mahil, I have been patient," he said, "Bol-Kalayak dead and in ruins, Jehmk reduced to nothing but ashes and dust, Holy Bol-Qobam overrun with the Damned! Nine in ten of my people lie dead or worse!" he shouted, "The time to wait is over!"

Suul banged the butt of his lance against the floor, "Once the Houses of Asshai have recomposed themselves from their harsh journey, then the -"

"I spit on the Blood Drinkers!" he interrupted the Mahil, swiftly following his words with action as he spat in the direction of the Four Matriarchs -to the sudden gasps of pretty much everyone present but the Bloodless, who if anything seemed even more exalted- "Some of the Sacred City's westernmost holds might still be alive, awaiting relief! Now that we have the strength we should march north at once; keep the wights off fresh bodies!" he snarled.

"Little more than mining towns and lookout posts hugging the Mountains of the Morn. They all fell within weeks of Bol-Qobam," said Vajul.

"How do you know that?" Joffrey asked him.

Vajul just gave them a wan smile, "I saw it. Ka-Mil didn't, but he knows that the likelihood of even a single one of those population centers surviving by now are as near to zero as can be."

"So this is all just theater," said Sansa, considering the High Warlord. "At least some of that anger is real though."

"Indeed," said Vajul, "He has felt the loss of his people most keenly, but the young warlord is not nearly as useless at politics as many think him to be. He inherited his father's girth but his mother's wits," he said approvingly.

"I see…" said Joffrey, more focused on Vajul than on Ka-Mil.

"He's shoring up his position with this," Sansa realized.

"He is. His leadership has been polarizing, especially since he all but abandoned the southernmost cities to fend for themselves. After the disaster at Bol-Kalayak, it was the only sensible course of action."

"You were there then, with the Bloodless," Sansa asked him.

"No, not in person," he said.

She looked back at Joffrey, who stared at her for a moment before returning his gaze to the young warlord. He'd missed Mahil Suul's response, but one of the Matriarchs had pushed him slightly to one side, interrupting the exchange.

Kijima was twirling her cup of blood, flanked by her two red-masked Shadowbinders as they stood in front of the king. "Resorting to insult already?" she said, seemingly disappointed. She was looking at the High Warlord as if he were some sort of abomination, scanning him from head to toe as she twirled her cup. "Here, I think you need this more than I," she said as she tilted her glass, emptying the blood on the floor.

"… You dare…" he rumbled almost quietly. Different from his earlier anger, this undercurrent of rage seemed a thousand times more real to Joffrey. The armored Bloodless were shuffling too, placing hands over the pommels of the long, ball-like maces they carried by the waist. They formed a line around their warlords, exchanging silent glances and positioning themselves for battle as the two Shadowbinders with Kijima stopped clasping their hands and stood on the tip of their toes.

"… How bad was that insult?" asked Joffrey.

Vajul tilted his head lightly, still looking at the group, "Bloodless Oral tradition holds that their ancestors ripped the blood and sinew from their own bodies in fell rituals and sacrifice, the screams of the willing victims still audible to this day in the city they now call Bol-Qobam. After the War in the Morn and their subsequent exile from Asshai, the descendants of those who would eventually call themselves the Bloodless swore to never again be used as food by the Shadowbinders."

"… They did it to themselves?! Surely there must have been another way to…" Sansa trailed off, her hand grasping air as she shook her head. The people around the High Warlord and the Matriarch were stepping back as they kept trading insults, while Mahil Suul slammed his lance against the floor to no effect.

"The ones who fled south instead of north certainly thought so," said Vajul, "Sadly, those who would later be called the Poisoned Men lost their minds as well as their blood," he said as the Warchief took his hammer from his belt.

"This isn't looking good," said Joffrey.

"Indeed," said Vajul, looking at the Yellow Emperor in his throne of topaz. The Lord of Carcosa raised a palm into the air, and suddenly all sound seemed to die within the room. Warchief Ka-Mil's mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out of it. He turned around in incomprehension, his mute companions flailing amongst themselves as Kijima turned towards the Emperor and swiftly prostrated herself on the floor. Not a single voice could be heard in the hall.

"The evening is over. We give thanks to his divine majesty for his generosity," proclaimed the herald, his voice loud and clear. High Warlord Ka-Mil gave the Emperor a shaky bow before turning on his heels and storming out of the hall, his followers close behind.

"That's-" Sansa cut herself off, her voice sounding painfully loud in the midst of the silence.

"Effective," ended Joffrey, his own voice similarly unimpeded as the mute guildsmen by the other side of the hall turned and looked at him.

"Would you mind walking with me? I've been waiting for this conversation for quite some time," said Vajul, odd lights glinting beneath his eyes.

-: PD :-

They were led through old tunnels and staircases that had been carved out of the Spire's black rock foundation itself, a triangular pattern that carried them to the top of the city. They emerged into a light rain, and Joffrey couldn't help but find the terrace somewhat familiar. He walked to one of its edges as he traced it with his hand, Sansa squeezed the other.

Joffrey squeezed back, and she took a deep breath before they both turned. Vajul had a wan smile on his lips as he gazed downwards, looking at the city as the sun hid almost completely past the Mountains of the Morn.

"I hope you liked the candle… getting a hold of it wasn't easy," Sansa said almost whimsically.

Vajul held out a hand, and a shimmer of smoke and light hovered above his palm before the shape of the Valyrian Candle resolved itself. It wasn't there though, it was more of a mirage, a shifting reflection of the real thing. The light around the top of the tower echoed strangely, colors turning warped as the image acquired definition.

"It's little more than a focusing devise for what should come naturally to the Self, an aid for those who are blind to the currents under the sun and moon," he said as he gazed at the candle thoughtfully, "And a damaged one at that," he added as the wan smiled disappeared.

"How do you know of us, and why do you care?" Joffrey asked the Yellow Emperor, holding a hand on Brightroar's pommel.

Vajul nodded lightly, as if conceding a point. "I've often liked to watch my surroundings. One can lose the track of time gazing at all the wonders of this world," he said, letting his hand fall. The warping smoke and shimmer didn't abate though, but expanded. The shimmer surrounded all three of them in a sort of dome or torus, the image of the Valyrian Candle atop the desk losing clarity until it was no more. Color lost all bearing as blues turned to reds and yellows to greens, black turning as dark as the void between the stars as a slight thrum reverberated throughout the terrace. Joffrey could see the City of Asshai around them, viewed from several locations above it as if from a thousand impossibly-high flying seagulls. He could see the ships of the merchantmen docking at harbor, the quick walking of the local Shadowmen with their red masks, even the Temple of the Aeromancers growing in size until Joffrey could see Master Wo-Ti sitting in silent meditation. The Master opened his eyes, frowning as he gazed around him slowly before looking almost at the point of view itself.

"You've been watching us," said Sansa, her voice almost drowned by the otherworldly thrum.

"Since you arrived at Asshai," he said.

"Why?" Joffrey asked him.

The thrum reached a fever pitch of intensity, a high whined noise that tattered around the edges as the shimmer surrounding them retreated abruptly, collapsing on the original point from where it had first expanded.

The Yellow Emperor gave a small sigh as he gazed beyond the railing, down at the titanic waves periodically sweeping the climbing wights off the base of the island, far below. From up here Joffrey could make out the original symmetry of the structure, beyond the additions carved into it or otherwise constructed on its sides. It was a straight, massive triangle projected downwards, its edges frayed by the passage of time.

"I'd stop the storm, but then the legions of undead would swarm us within the hour," he said with a sad shake of the head. "The Hidden Sea is usually quite beautiful at this time of the day too," he said while gazing below.

But Joffrey could the base of the tower, its original shape and form, its architecture unmistakable.

"You've seen me before. A carving."

"Yes," said Vajul.

"Show it to me," he said.

Vajul nodded, and he led them down the original set of stairs constructed by the Deep Ones; right and down the stairs, right and down the stairs, right and down the stairs as the murals around them depicted great masses of stick figures, periodically swarming the whole tunnel and the lone figure guarding it, only to disappear once more.

"Death and destruction on an unparalleled scale, a cycle repeating with no end… by the time I realized this ancient prophesy was coming true, it was already too late," said the Emperor.

Sansa felt the carvings with her hand, tracing the figures that swarmed the tunnel periodically before the three reached a great hall of oily black stone. Joffrey could feel the great waves of the storm surging above them, the whole of Carcosa hanging atop them as the stairs carried them below the Hidden Sea and his eyes were drawn upwards.

"Sansa, its-" Joffrey swallowed drily, feeling dizzy as he shook his head, "Its- one of the waypoints," he whispered.

Sansa took off her mask as she looked up and saw her husband's first death.

He was in so much pain, she thought, thrashing as he clawed his throat and the eldritch twists of the Purple expanded from his throat, surging like lightning bolts across the walls and forming the eternal recursion of fractals she'd seen so many times before. She could see the carved, weathered figure of Jaime Lannister shaking him as Cercei despaired, guests standing up in panic as the Kingsguard hefted their swords.

She saw herself, almost at the edge of the grand carving, running with some sort of court fool who was incomplete, bisected by the sudden ending of the mural. Her eyes were looking back at the choking Joffrey, carrying a multitude of meanings tied and twisted with one another; Surprise and shock and fear and triumph and joy and horror, so many of them lovingly crafted into her chipped frame. Most of all was the sheer, undiluted terror that entranced her so, the sort of heart clenching despair that arose from the powerless. I was an echo that she felt deeply within the bottom of her soul, old memories coming to the forefront of her mind.

"I think I forgot to breathe when I saw the two of you in Asshai," said the Yellow Emperor with a touch of humor, gazing at the choking Joffrey before his eyes cycled around the guests of the wedding, settling on the scared Sansa above. "So many of my predecessors devoted their lives to unearthing the true meaning of this mural, of this structure, left behind by beings which by rights should have gone extinct eons before the first man killed his brother with a sharpened stone…" he trailed off, an unwilling smile starting to dominate his features.

It suited him badly, distorting his face in ways it was not meant to be. "A most exquisite irony," he chuckled, "The keys to the puzzle that had plagued half of the Yellow Sorcerers of eras past, walking around the Endless City just as the world draws to an end."

"We… we are the reason why you activated the Golden Compact?" asked Sansa, though it had more the air of a statement.

"You don't think you can win this," Joffrey realized.

"Mahil Suul was quite impressed with your knowledge of warcraft, Joffrey Baratheon. So tell me, what are the prospects of Carcosa and the assembled might… or should I say the remaining dredge of southeastern Essos?" said Vajul as he turned to look at them. "Two thousand Lancer Wings, five thousand Slash Wings, ten thousand Carcosan ground militia, and over fifteen thousand Irregular Wings," he said, closing his eyes. "Eight hundred Bloodless Immortals and over twelve thousand regulars from the Holy Cities. A bit less than three thousand veteran guildsmen and twenty-two armored sandrakes," he said as the room thrummed strangely, blacks turning deeper as the oil lamps fluttered. "Over four hundred blackguards, less than a hundred and fifty Shadowbinders, and Four Matriarchs…" he said as the thrum increased in intensity and strange distortions of air and smoke began to open windows into reality, showing an eternal column of marching wights. They stretched over the horizon; the skies the color of dead grey as legions of flying wights covered the setting sun itself.

"Tell me, how will they fare?" said the Yellow Emperor, staring at the hundreds of Walkers leading the eternal, marching column of dead beings along the edges of the Hidden Sea. There were Shrykes and Legionaries, Westerosi and Yi-Tish, Bloodless Dead and Flying Wights, undead sandrakes and a hundred and one monsters of twisting bone and sinew marching tirelessly south.

"Gods…" Joffrey muttered. Sansa was holding her mouth with both hands, her mask discarded by the floor as she gazed at their dead blue eyes and their slack, hungering jaws.

Joffrey stared at the marching wights again before shaking his head, "There's too many of them. They'll swarm us until the defenders can't lift their arms from exertion, and then they'll keep coming," he said.

"I thought as much," said the Emperor, the grey vision distorting itself until it dissipated in smoke. "Even if we could somehow resist it would be of no use. That red Thing up in the sky is still channeling essence to the north, power never-ending the likes of which no living being could even comprehend. So much power mortals and Gods would scream and burst were they to receive it… So much power…" he whispered.

It was not awe or lust in his voice, but sheer mind-breaking terror. Here stood a man who could silence a room with a flick of a finger, who could peer beyond continents and oceans, who could summon storms to shake seas… and he was terrified.

Joffrey felt a strange kinship to the man, for he was a fellow witness. A witness to the reality that most were so blind about.

He seemed to recompose himself, blinking slowly as if to burn an afterimage off his eyes before walking around the carvings and stopping around the central circle below the choking Joffrey. He kneeled, pressing a hand around the half faded constellations and eroded letters of the common tongue, "I would like to know the meaning of this message before I died, if you would be so kind. Your possible futures were nothing but nonsense, and your past incoherent with the dilemma at hand," he whispered.

Joffrey looked down at the constellations, barely making out the Longship and the Bannermen, the others all but illegible under the harsh passage of time. "It led me to a Structure far to the west, similar to Carcosa's original shape but much thinner and longer. It reached down to the bowels of the earth, holding a message addressed to me… a message from eons past," he said.

Vajul craned his neck, gazing at Joffrey with a serene expression, "What did it say?" he asked.

"It had answers," he said as he sat down next to him, "Answers that I'd been searching for a long while. That my wife and I were but the latest incarnations of a long line of weapons designed to destroy The Long Night, a cyclical phenomenon that exterminates all sentient life on our planet every eon."

Vajul turned back to the carvings, nodding slowly, "I see… you've failed then? Like your predecessors?"

Joffrey looked at Sansa. She held him for two full seconds before giving him a single nod.

"Yes… in this life," he said.

"We've died many times, trying to stop the Cycle," said Sansa, "When we die, our minds return to a summer morning about eight years ago, and we try to either stop it or search the knowledge that will help us do it."

Vajul was -for the first time since Joffrey had met him- speechless. He was still gazing at the carved letters, but his eyes were unmoving, unfocused.

"I sense truth in your words… but the sheer power to reverse the world… to carry two minds through time itself… yes…" he said, blinking slowly, "Yes… such power befits those who would dare oppose such a mighty thing as this Cycle, this scourge which has ended all life in the Cities of the Bloodless Men, in the Winged Principalities, in half of Yi-Ti and the Sunset Lands and beyond…" he said before trailing off, standing up and smoothing his yellow robes.

"We will all be dead before morning, when the combined dead of half a hundred cities slams into Carcosa like the Night Lion reborn… but you two…" he said before shaking his head, "I would say I envy you, but in truth you are the bearers of the cruelest curse imaginable by mortal minds."

"We can help you," said Sansa, "If we could contact you somehow, we could warn you every life. You could prepare southeastern Essos for the arrival of the Long Night, keep them contained between the Five Forts and the Dry Deep."

He seemed almost amused at the notion of fighting the Cycle, considering the notion as he walked around the carvings with his hands behind his back, "I could reinforce Blhadahar with the Yellow Wings and perhaps aid the Five Legions with sorcery… but I suspect it wouldn't be enough, in the end…"

"It wouldn't, not on its own," said Joffrey, shaking his head. "But it would help our own efforts in the Sunset Lands. Every wight bogged down here would be another wight not assaulting the Seven Kingdoms. By presenting a harder front here, you'd deprive the western front of reinforcements through the land bridge north east of K'Dath… at least before the Cycle loses patience and escalates its power," he said.

The Yellow Emperor closed his eyes, tilting his head slowly as he thought, "You think you can end it somehow, before it 'escalates' as you say."

Joffrey sighed, looking at Sansa before returning his gaze to him, "We don't know exactly how, but every wight standing in our way is bound to make our task more difficult. Trying to fulfill our purpose will be hard enough without half of the Yi-Tish heartlands swarming in from the north," he said.

Vajul seemed to lose himself in deep concentration, standing still for a minute before he suddenly opened his eyes. They almost seemed to glow as he walked down the hall in a hurried stride, "A letter would be too unreliable a method of communication, I'll need to see the both of you to believe your words," he said.

"But Carcosa is too far away," said Sansa as they hurried after him, catching up with his quick strides, "We wouldn't be able to make the trip here and keep the Sunset Lands from falling into chaos before the Long Night even starts."

"That is why you won't come here. There are ways to see beyond eyesight… ways to make your mind reach across oceans and continents," he said as he reached a door seemingly made of pure topaz. He placed his hand over it, pushing it aside gently as if it weighted less than a feather.

They entered a place very different from the opulent grandiosity of the Topaz Throne; a great study room filled with bookshelves and scrolls, wide pieces of paper hanging from the wall and bearing indecipherable runes. "This way of looking and feeling the world is not something which can be taught, not if you wish to achieve true mastery," he said as he reached a small table.

"I thought you said the Candle was not needed to… see what is beyond eyesight," she said as Vajul took it from the desk and showed it to her.

"It's not, and most of those that use it never learn to see beyond its limitations... But you have seen time reverse, you have seen the inner skein of our reality, have you not?" he said.

Sansa seemed physically stunned by the question, her mouth pantomiming the start of a dozen explanations before settling on a simple "Yes."

"Then use it as a blind man would use a stick. And when you've gotten your bearings, open your eyes," he said, passing her the black candle.

Sansa held it uneasily. Even though she'd held it before -back in the House of the Undying- this time the thing felt full of portents and frightful news. "But… how do I use it? How can I…" she trailed off, thinking about that uneasy, string-like tension and frowning as she turned her attention to it. She delved into it as she'd done before with her own blood, and stumbled as her vision turned blurry.

A corner of Vajul's mouth had risen ever so slightly, "Not a second of hesitation… you've really seen it, felt it… that whisper…"

"My husband calls it 'the Song'... he… Joffrey?" she said as she turned.

Joffrey was staring up at the great, hanging sheets of paper. He was tracing his hands over the twisting lines, following the intricate patterns of fractals and recursions. "How many of these replicas do you have?" he asked urgently.

"Many more… I take it you know they are more than art?" said Vajul.

"Aye… they're… instruction sets… clues left behind by a previous civilization which was extinguished by the Cycle. They are diagrams of my own soul, sketches so I can guide my awareness towards sections of it and discover… parts of me. Parts of the weapon," he said.

"The Archive holds hundreds of them," he said, and Joffrey almost fell on his knees.

"Take me there. Please."

Vajul did, leading them up a flight of stairs and past strangely colored wooden door. There were scores of wooden tubes held in racks all throughout the Archive, and Joffrey immediately took one and opened it, spreading the parchment held within all over the floor.

The light of the lanterns had sparked to life as if with a will of their own, the silhouette of the Yellow Emperor shading the fractals as he stood behind Joffrey. "I've known for quite some time that they had something to do with this tower and the prophecy… the patterns seem to whisper deeper truths to those who care enough to look beyond, and many of my predecessors lost themselves trying to understand them."

"Do you know of any more?" Sansa asked him.

"None," said Vajul, "I've made my interest known to others who possess old lore, but alas they had nothing but lies and greed…"

"They're incomplete, sections of it all are wrong… The obelisks must have been massively deteriorated…" Joffrey said as he kept examining the parchment. He cursed, "There have been embellishments placed on the parchments themselves, probably to make the missing parts flow smoothly to the eye…"

"How many of the modules are there?" Sansa asked him as she opened another tube, placing the parchment on the ground next to another one Joffrey had pulled from the racks.

"… I think only one…" Joffrey said as he examined yet another scroll. "They knew the obelisks would likely end up destroyed or missing, so they repeated the same pattern instead of trying for many and likely failing completely… the same pattern over all the obelisks in… where did the first Yellow Sorcerers find them?" he asked Vajul.

"The Plains of Ulan, to the southeast of here. There were hundreds of them, according to the records; most of them barely more than smoothed blackstone. None remain to this day."

"I… I can make use of this. How long do we have?" he said.

"Hours. The thing's puppets are still marshaling their forces fifteen leagues from here… they'll likely attack after midnight," he said.

"Joffrey, no," said Sansa, "It's too dangerous, we can come back here during our next life."

"But Sansa it's right here! A component of the Purple!" he said.

She looked at the sheer hope in his eyes, a sort of almost childish wonder as he held the frayed parchment. "Sansa… this… they're part of us," he said slowly.

She sighed explosively, shaking her head, "Lady will keep an eye outside the room. We drink the poison the second I tell you, alright Joff?"

"Yes," he said immediately.

"How easy you talk of death," said Vajul, shaking his head in amusement. "I had been thinking about offering tutelage for the both of you, after you've reversed the flow of time within this world … but in truth, you already understand," he said.

Sansa looked shocked, "But that couldn't be farther from the truth! There are countless things I can't even-"

"Knowledge is easy," he interrupted her, his voice deep and powerful, the wind inside the room picking up and almost blowing the parchments away as the Yellow Sorcerer spoke. His words were slow and harsh, their weight inside the Archive palpable to all senses, "Insight is paramount. Those worthless fools to the west could drink gallons of Shade of the Evening, sacrifice a thousand Vessels and drown in their blood, and still they would understand nothing," he said, eyes boring upon them.

"Nothing but Silence," he added after a moment, amused.

Joffrey thought he could understand his vehemence, as the sorcerer's eyes met his own. That disbelief that others would be so blind to the greater reality of the Cosmos. How petty their ambitions seemed under that grandeur.

"The Song…" muttered Sansa.

Vajul nodded, "You're already halfway there," he said. "Seek my mind after you've mastered the candle. Carcosa's Spire glints strangely through the Second Sight, use its distortions of light as a beacon," he said before he turned, walking towards the door. "And try to find a Candle that is not half broken, it will help." he said almost negligently.

"How will I know? Will the shadows turn differently? Will the Song sound distorted?" she called out.

"No," he said as he reached the door and looked back at them. "It'll be green instead of black," he added, and Joffrey thought that was the first time he'd seen him smile. Truly smile.

"You didn't really want to be Emperor," Joffrey ventured.

Vajul's smile grew, as if he found his impertinence endearing or perhaps simply refreshing, "I thought I was being deposed, when I heard the First Lancers barging through the windows," he said almost fondly, "I wouldn't have been the first Yellow Sorcerer to be slain by the Greatborn… Alas, imagine my surprise when they carried me down the roads of Carcosa on a bed of crossed lances. 'Emperor', cried the commons. 'Emperor' roared my Yellow Wings…"

He seemed lost in the memory for a second, before gazing back at them with the hard face of the Lord of Carcossa.

"End this 'Cycle'. Destroy it," he said before walking away, the stones themselves trembling as Sansa shivered, feeling the coming outburst of power as the storm above them snarled.

They manhandled the wooden tubes, ripping the priceless sheets of parchment as they tried to join them together like a jigsaw puzzle. Joffrey took feather and blotter from the great desk at the end of the Archive, drawing great sweeping lines which connected sections and scratched errors. The hours passed like minutes as they rearranged the patterns on the floor, Joffrey's concentrated voice guiding Sansa's hands as she replaced sheets or added marks of her own.

The outbursts of power from above made the hair on Sansa's arm tickle, standing and ducking as moments of stillness gave way to breathtaking might that saw the Spire tremble, the assembled might of a hundred and fifty Shadowbinders, four Matriarchs, and a single Yellow Sorcerer going out in a blaze of glory enough to make her dizzy and lose focus. The warp and weft of power fueled by what must have been thousands of sacrifices was so mighty that at times they couldn't breathe, dizzy like children in a cog pummeling through the Sunset Seas. They lost consciousness two times, the tower groaning like a gasping old man as they woke up slowly and tried to finish their task.

"They want me to bend it… to bend the Purple? Spread it outwards… over me? How…" Joffrey whispered as he crawled over three pieces of parchment mashed together, eyes clouded as he gazed at the pattern. "Would it afford protection? Or would it attack the Cycle somehow..? Sansa, I think I'm close… just a few more matching scrolls… I… Sansa?"

Sansa was not paying attention though, blinking slowly as something above changed. Joffrey swayed as he leaned on his knees, dizzy again.

She realized that they were on the onset of another loss of consciousness, the defenders of Carcosa channeling another great ritual… but something was different this time. Joffrey suddenly grabbed her arm like a lifeline, panic writ clear on his face. "It's escalating," he groaned in bone deep certainty.

Sansa could feel it as she gasped, the eye of the Red Comet shifting its gaze from the far north and blinking at Carcosa. She screamed as reality seemed to fray, the walls wobbling strangely as the weight of the Repository asserted itself within this world. With the city. Within the room.

She slammed her arms against the floor, willing the Archive to resist the onslaught of red enveloping their existence, but her power was a puny thing compared to the repository of the Cycle's might. All the power of her bloodline, all the blood she'd mercilessly stolen from prisoners, from the House of the South's Blood Harem, all the essence she'd stored inside her, it was nothing under the escalation.

The world screamed as whirlwinds of shrieking snow began drawing themselves throughout the walls, red tendrils of light coalescing as the long hand of the Red Comet grasped the Archive. She trembled when she realized this was but one of the many places within Carcosa which was now being torn apart, the Red Comet's energy flooding it like a tidal wave as jagged edges began to appear within the whirlwinds of incredibly cold air.

It's not enough, she thought as the drowning sound of the Comet's stare made blood leak out of her ears, dripping down and touching her shaking palms. Blood is not enough, she thought as Lady disappeared from the awareness of her mind in a heartbeat. She gazed at Joffrey as he clawed through the floor towards her, his nails leaving bloody trails on the floor as deformed Walkers gazed from within the jagged tears in the walls, freshly created hands grasping for the edges of reality as more and more holes tore reality open like knives in the dark, letting in gashes of red light throughout the room.

The sight was enough to make her remember.

'Autonomous Defense Administrator' the Deep Ones had called her, and though she didn't understand half of what that meant, she had the gist of it.

She would protect her husband.

She screamed as she reached beyond the power of blood, staring at the contours of her soul and bringing it out into the physical world, seeking to weave part of herself between them and the Comet. Purple fractals erupted from her hands in all directions as they carved themselves into the floor, crawling up the walls and multiplying exponentially over the ceiling. She sought the discordant tune and smoothed the Song as the Red comet thrummed in recognition.

Joffrey had told her many times, but it was then when she realized emotionally, that the Purple was them.

-: PD :-

From one moment to the next the pressure was gone, and only silence remained. The windows into the Red Comet were no more, only piles of snow dotting the floor as Joffrey stared at the pattern on the black walls, the floor, the ceiling. It was Sansa's soul writ clearly over stone; the afterimage of it having triumphed over the might of the Cycle, fractals and twists drawing the contours of it over solid stone.

His wife was still kneeling over the floor, gasping for air. "Joff, now," she managed in between breaths.

"Just... one… second…" he mumbled as he stared at the parchments.

"Joffrey! The poison! Now!" she screamed, holding her own pouch with one hand as she stood up.

He stared at the parchments one more time, searing the half completed pattern into his retina. It would have to do.

"Joff!" screamed Sansa as the now carved door bent and exploded in a shower of splinters, revealing an oddly tilted hallway that was filled with frost; even the black stone lay cracked and torn. What immediately caught Joffrey's attention was not the hallway though, but what lain within it.

The White Walker seemed deformed somehow, bloated. It's misshapen head laid bent and hanging sideways from its neck, one of its eyes staring at them as two enormous, misshapen limbs tore a bigger hole through the stones. It ripped them apart after a second's worth of effort, revealing more of its hulking brethren standing by its sides. They stood taller than normal Walkers: trunk like legs made of snow supported their weight, and their sword arms had lost all definition and seemed barely more than long blades protruding from their forearms. Red veins fresh with the power of the Red Comet thrummed through them, their eyes twin orbs of light which seemed to stare into their very souls.

Sansa ran to his side she emptied the pouch over her mouth, and Joffrey swiftly did the same. The bitter poison went down quickly, and he materialized Brightroar and Stars as bladed shadows emerged from Sansa's wrists. The walls to their sides bent and cracked, revealing more of the Red Walkers as they tore the stone apart. Some had weathered the infusion of power better than others; heads lay encrusted in ice deep within chests, eyes still moving, while others had seen one or two of their legs vaporized. Those crawled using their long arms as canes, ripping apart the tower's structure as they slipped from holes in the Archive's ceiling. Their presence seemed to not only freeze the stones themselves, but Joffrey swore he could hear the shrieking of the Red Comet emanating from them as they got close.

"Watch out!" Joffrey roared as he leapt and slammed Brightroar into the chest of one of the Walkers trying to force open the wall right beside them, cracking its outer layer and piercing the skull held within. It vaporized into scalding hot snow as Sansa and Stars tried to hold off the ones by the entrance. They only needed a few seconds until the poison killed them cleanly and abruptly.

She cut her wrist shallowly as she slashed down with it, spraying blood over the enlarged door frame and forming a sort of invisible wall that made the Red Walker smoke and partly dissolve as it tried to cross it. It stood back before all three charged in unison, Sansa grunting and biting her lip bloody as they were barely slowed, surging through the breach in a shower of steam. She and Stars were a whirlwind of motion then as the Silver Lion grasped hands and legs with its huge maw just in time for Sansa to cut them apart with her blades of smoke. Joffrey slew another of the struggling abominations as it tried to emerge from the ceiling, ripping its chest apart as he pulled Brightroar sideways… but there were too many of them, far too many as Stars was stabbed and slashed into dust and pain, Sansa screaming in agony as one of them parried her blow and another cut her arm in perfect synchronization, freezing the stump immediately.

"Joff it's too slow," she gasped in between breaths as she retreated back towards him, swaying as the Walkers strode behind her. He ran towards her and held her tightly, seeing the Purple crawl into the room.

Too slow, he despaired as he blinked slowly, his awareness dissipating far too slowly. He decided to run through his wife's heart with Brightroar as the Purple seeped from the edges of his vision, but before he could even lift his it a Walker's thick arm emerged from below the floor and crushed his leg within its icy grip. He screamed in pain as blood trickled down Sansa's nose, her eyes closing slowly as the press of bodies was too great and scores of hulking Walkers flooded the room, grabbing them from all sides. None of them said anything as their freezing hands tore flesh and froze blood, their bottomless red eyes peering into the depths of their souls as they loomed over them in dreadful silence.

Why is it not working? Why is it so slow? He despaired as the Others pummeled them into the floor side by side, each Walker holding a limb as he convulsed weakly and finally, finally breathed his last, his head leaning to one side and meeting Sansa's eyes.

"Joff…" she whispered before a blade of harsh white light slammed into her.

No, he thought, feeling an indescribable agony at the core of his being even as another blade slammed into him, the Purple's advance slowing down to a crawl as it slithered to the center of his being, each second slower than the last.

He couldn't even scream as he felt the blade somehow reach the core of him, time turning slow as he felt his very soul start to unravel, watching Sansa's dead eyes as the blades turned red. He felt the floor go out from under him, the Purple Pillars creaking and fracturing as something reached from behind. The Cold Wind flaying his soul was but the wake of something far grander approaching at immense speed; he could feel its incomprehensible presence roaring towards him, a mind-breaking shriek that grew and grew and grew until Joffrey blinked and realized he was staring at the crystal face of the Red Comet.

-: PD :-