233 AC. Dol Guldur.
They were having guests over again, a three man hunting party from a nomadic clan this time that had gotten caught in a blizzard out in the Haunted Forest. Luna had felt sorry for them and offered them shelter in the tower.
Harry had rolled his eyes in exasperation, but didn't really care. He was well used to his wife's compassion.
At least they weren't as dumb as Borol had been. Aside from being a little skittish about magic, they were as courteous as fur-clad barbarians could be.
That was actually very courteous. To quote from Robert E. Howard, 'civilized men are more discourteous than savages, because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.'
His contemplations were interrupted when a raven flew into the dining room and landed on his shoulder.
"Blasted birds." Adrastia muttered discontently, which made him grin.
He knew she hated the fact that his ravens and crows could fly into the tower as they pleased.
"What is it?" Harry asked the big black bird.
The raven croaked out a response that only he could clearly understand, although Luna was also able to discern the gist of it.
"Oh?" Harry's eyebrow rose. "They moved faster than anticipated."
"You mean those rangers from the Night's Watch?" Adrastia asked.
"Yes, they'll be here in three days if they continue their current pace." Harry answered, standing up with the raven still on his shoulder.
"There's crows comin' here?" The leader of their guests asked, a burly man with hair and beard more grey than brown. He was obviously none too fond of the Night's Watch if his tone was any indication. "What do they want?"
"I imagine that they just about shat themselves because of my tower." Harry smirked as the free folk hunting party laughed in response. "The group currently coming towards us has orders to investigate and kill us if possible."
"We'd be happy to help you fight 'em." The man declared, to raucous agreement from his fellows.
"No need." Harry waved off. "They aren't a threat of any kind and you need to get back to your clan anyway."
The man nodded reluctantly, clearly disappointed at missing an opportunity to kill a few 'crows' as they called the black brothers.
Harry kind of disliked that actually. He was quite fond of crows and didn't want them being used as an insult.
"Where are you going?" Luna asked.
"I'm just going to scare them a bit." Harry smirked again. "Don't worry, I'll be back in time for desert."
"Okay."
He walked out of the room with the raven still perched on his shoulder. Up and up they went, across multiple halls and stairways of the magically expanded interior of the tower. Harry could have easily stepped outside to one of the balconies and flown up, but walking had honestly become a bit of a habit over the past hundred years. Plus, it was good exercise. Never skip leg day.
When they finally reached the top of the tower, the raven flew off with one final croak and Harry smiled as he took a deep breath of the frigid air.
This was an even better spot than the one at his old tower in Greenland. He could see so much. The deep and wide Milkwater to the west and the Frostfangs further in the distance. The great expanse of the haunted Forest to the south, east and north. The hills and clearings and snowy plains. It was a beautiful place.
And the Greensight extended his vision far beyond what mere physical senses allowed. The Wall was too far south to see with eyes alone, but he saw it still.
Taking another deep breath and closing his eyes, he connected to the weirwoods below. It was a little difficult from this distance, but the presence of the Old Gods was everywhere and he was strong.
Soon enough he had it and an image formed in his mind's eye, seen through the weirwoods. A party of four men clad completely in black skulking through the forest at a steady pace.
"So, Bloodraven, you thought you could outpace my attention?" He said portentously, trying not to sound too amused. "And when that fails, what then will you do?"
Harry took his staff out from hammerspace. It was dead and useless in this world, but that wasn't the point. The point was to make a proper reference and he needed a staff to do that.
With his robe flapping about in the cold wind, he raised his arms up and began chanting.
"Cuiva, nwalca Carnirassë! Nai yarvaxëa rasselya taltuva ñotto-carinnar!"
His voice boomed with magical enhancement, carried towards the approaching black brothers on a fierce wind.
XXXXX
Haunted Forest.
Brynden suddenly stopped, crouching low to the ground. His fellow rangers followed his example.
"What is it?" One of them asked quietly. He was a good man, one who had fought at his side for many years during the Blackfyre rebellions and chosen to follow him to the Wall.
Brynden just opened his mouth to reply when it happened.
A fierce wind ripped through the trees, throwing snow into their faces. And with it came the voice, deep and powerful.
"Cuiva, nwalca Carnirassë! Nai yarvaxëa rasselya taltuva ñotto-carinnar!"
As an albino, Brynden couldn't get any more pale, but the dread on his face was plain to see as he turned to his men.
"The sorcerer knows we are here." He said with resignation.
Brynden wondered what he should do now. The wise thing would be to retreat back to Castle Black, but then they would have accomplished nothing and the Night's Watch was in dire need of information on this new threat.
His expression firmed. "No matter, we press on."
The multitude of ravens and crows that were perching on the trees around them suddenly started up a cacophony of croaks that sounded disturbingly like laughter.
That didn't make them feel any better, or lower the sense that they were being watched.
XXXXX
Harry snickered to himself as he put away the staff. Of course, the words made no sense in this context, but it wasn't like any of the rangers spoke Quenya to call him out on it, nor could they possibly know that he just wanted to do a Saruman impression.
XXXXX
Three days later.
They had finally arrived, after three days of jumping at shadows. Ravens and crows had followed them every step of the way, mocking them with their croaks. The weirwoods felt watchful. Some of the men even claimed to have seen them move. The Haunted Forest had changed over the past few moons, it felt darker, closer, the air more oppressive.
Now, standing at the edge of the tree line and staring at the monstrous tower that completely dominated the rocky hill upon which the Fist of the First Men once stood, Brynden knew that any attempts to kill the sorcerer had been doomed to failure from the start. Even if he hadn't known they were coming, what were they supposed to do? Siege equipment was impossible to move beyond the Wall, not that the tower looked like it would break anyway, and scaling its smooth sides was surely impossible.
"Change of plans, men." He said. "We ask for bread and salt. Keep your hands away from your weapons."
"Is that wise?" One asked nervously. "What if he decides to kill us?"
"I suspect he could have done so already if he wished." He replied grimly, silencing any further protest.
Another surprise waited for them as they came closer. It hadn't been visible from a distance but now they could only stare in bafflement.
"A snowman?" Brynden muttered to himself, staring at the three lumps of snow piled together. It had sticks for arms, pebbles for a smiling expression and a carrot nose.
He had no idea what to think of this, so out of place it was.
While the four of them were pondering that mystery, the great doors opened with a groan of stone on stone.....
.....and revealed a short woman with golden hair, big blue eyes and a guileless expression. She wore a light blue dress of exquisite quality that left her shoulders bare and didn't look nearly warm enough for the True North and a pair of large, ridiculous white slippers that looked like rabbits.
She made her way down the steps with a brazen lack of fear and smiled at them dreamily.
"Hello." She said with a tone that matched her expression. "Would you like to come in?"
Brynden blinked, nonplussed. The small woman was as clean and well-groomed as any royal he'd ever seen and her dress was of matching quality even if the design was most unusual and simplistic. That would normally be enough to make him assume that she was of high status and should be treated as such, but why had she come to greet them? And alone on top of it?
Still, better to err on the side of caution.
"Good day, my lady." He offered respectfully. "I am Brynden Rivers of the Night's Watch and I was hoping to speak to the master of the tower."
"That's nice. I was hoping to have my tomatoes ready for a pizza today." She said and he wondered if he was being mocked...but her tone was that of someone simply making conversation, although he had no idea what a 'pizza' was supposed to be. Some kind of food? And how was she growing tomatoes this far north anyway? "My name is Luna."
"We could kill her." Brynden just barely heard one of his men mutter, notably not one of those that had been part of his Raven's Teeth before they came to the Wall.
"Please don't try it." Luna apparently had no problem hearing him either, although her tone was as airy and unconcerned as ever. "If you try to hurt me, Harry will turn you inside out and leave you to be eaten alive by the crows."
Brynden gave the suddenly pale man a quelling glare with his single eye before turning back to....Luna. Strange name. "Is Harry your husband, my lady?" That was a Westerosi name.
"Yes!" She replied with the beaming smile that reminded Brynden achingly of his half-sister and lover, Shiera Seastar. If only she could have been so happy at the thought of being married to him.
"Could you take us to him?" He asked politely, not allowing his feelings to show on his face. At least he had confirmation of the woman's status, although he was still baffled as to why she had come to greet them herself instead of sending a servant. Or if they had no servants, why this 'Harry' had allowed his wife to greet potentially dangerous strangers by herself.
"Okay." She....agreed? At least, Brynden assumed that's what the strange expression meant. "Follow me."
Luna twirled around and skipped back up the stairs and into the tower.
Brynden followed just a step behind, marveling at the reflective black floors that were smoother than glass and at the shining crystals hanging from the ceiling that provided light instead of torches. The Red Keep in King's Landing wasn't half as majestic.
"Did your husband build this tower all by himself?" He asked probingly.
"No, I helped."
That gave Brynden pause. If Luna was a powerful sorceress in her own right, then the mystery of why she was so fearless in the face of four armed men was explained. And she had said that if they tried to hurt her that Harry would extract gruesome vengeance against them, not if they actually did hurt her, didn't she?
As he was considering this, he became aware that the hallway they were walking through was unusually long. Although the tower was quite wide at the base, surely it wasn't this wide? And that wasn't even taking into account that the hallway still needed to connect to something.
As if to mock his thoughts, they passed by a balcony that was at least a hundred feet off the ground.
"How did we get up here?" Brynden asked in alarm.
Luna turned back to look at him with a quizzical expression. "We took the stairs."
"I recall no stairs!" He asserted.
"Of course you don't." Luna assured. "The confounding enchantment is playing tricks on your mind because you haven't been keyed into the wards."
That was as good as a confirmation that the slip of a girl was much more dangerous than she looked. To beguile their minds so easily.....
Brynden was deeply unnerved and he could see that his men were as well. All of them were straining their eyes in an attempt to determine what was real and what wasn't.
He couldn't tell if it was working and decided not to waste the opportunity to ask questions in pursuit of the fruitless effort.
"Were you born beyond the Wall, my lady?" Brynden asked, hoping to determine what he was dealing with exactly.
"No, I was born in Devon." Luna replied breezily.
"I have never never heard of any place called Devon." Brynden frowned in thought. "Is it in Essos somewhere?"
"No, it's in England."
That didn't help one bit. "And where Is England?"
"The British Isles."
Alright, now they were getting somewhere. "Is that in the Jade Sea? Or perhaps among the Thousand Isles?"
"No, it's in Europe."
Or maybe not. Brynden was getting more and more baffled. Surely he should have recognized something by now? "And where is Europe?"
"On Earth."
"Earth?" He echoed. How could a region be on dirt?
"Earth." Luna nodded as if that made perfect sense, while Brynden was starting to think that she was a madwoman in addition to being a powerful sorceress. "Here we are, Harry's study."
Before he could get a word out, she pushed open the doors – without knocking or asking for permission to enter, notably – and breezed inside.
"Hello, dear." Luna said whimsically and went to give her husband a kiss on the cheek. "I brought our guests."
Brynden's hackles immediately went up when he saw the master of the tower. He was a big man with a strong build. His scarred, muscled arms were plainly in view due to the strange tunic he was wearing; black, sleeveless, thin and made of some material Brynden had never seen before, with the only adornment on it being a mocking inscription which claimed that 'a wizard did it'.
But what was really making him so tense wasn't the man's appearance or even the fact that he was reading a book that was levitating in front of him. No, it was his sheer presence.
"So I see." Harry said flatly, putting away the book and staring at them with hard emerald eyes set in a scarred face. "I was going to let them cool their heels in the cold for a while, seeing as they're here as scouts and assassins."
So, their mission truly had been doomed from the start. The sorcerer had known where they were and even why they were coming the whole time.
Brynden wondered if this was where he died. Luna hadn't felt like a threat, but her husband was another matter entirely. Maegor the Cruel would have envied the air of casual menace around him.
"That would have been rude." Luna said, either oblivious or uncaring of her husband's displeasure. Brynden admired her courage and hoped that she wouldn't suffer for it.
Harry snorted and, very much contrary to Brynden's expectations, placed a plate of bread and a bowl of salt on the table. He briefly wondered where he'd even gotten it, but the question slipped from his mind like smoke.
"You would offer us your hospitality even knowing why we came here?" He asked, surprised.
"And why did you come here?" Harry asked in a low, dangerous tone, stepping forward to loom over him threateningly. "To get the measure of me? To kill me? Or is it in truth because Sleepy Jack is quietly panicking for fear that he'll be further disgraced?"
Brynden stared back into the darkly amused emerald gaze and steeled his resolve, hiding how unnerved he was. "You are well informed."
"There are many who whisper secrets in my ear; birds, beasts, trees...a squirrel doesn't shit in these woods without me knowing about it." The sorcerer smirked and Brynden feared that he wasn't boasting or exaggerating. "Regardless, I care nothing for your petty concerns and killing me is a task far beyond your means. You can stay the night as my guests and then return to tell your lord commander whatever you want. His flailing might even provide a little amusement."
That was a clear threat wrapped in an offer and the four black brothers were quick to partake of the bread and salt to symbolically place themselves under the sorcerer's protection. A great deal of tension drained out of them now that they were safe from attack for the duration of their stay, be it by blade or magic.
"I'll show the others to their rooms while you boys talk." Luna chirped.
"Send Adrastia here too while you're at it." Harry said.
"Okay!"
"Have a seat." Harry offered, gesturing to the chair in front of the desk and Brynden took it with a nod of gratitude.
While his host moved to sit behind the large and solid desk, Brynden took a chance to look around. This 'study' was very much like a lord's solar, although so large and appointed so richly that even a king would envy it. The chair he was sitting on was incredibly comfortable, the carpet covering the reflective black floor was a deep burgundy color and of a quality that surpassed anything the Free Cities had to offer. Although lacking in decorative tapestries or any other kind of art, there was plenty of excellently made wooden furniture and even some glass cupboards. And the glass was completely transparent and smooth instead of milky and filled with bubbles like the one from Myr, which allowed Brynden to see numerous mysterious arcane items and books stored in them.
It was looking more and more likely that the sorcerer had indeed plundered Valyria, because where else could he have gotten all this? He didn't have the look of a dragonlord himself, so that was something at least.
"That's an interesting sword you've got there." Harry began, nodding towards his waist.
Brynden looked at it and briefly considered evading the unspoken question or perhaps even drawing his blade and killing the sorcerer here and now.
But no, he had broken his word when he arrested and executed Aenys Blackfyre for the good of the realm despite promising him safe conduct, which was what had gotten him sent to the Wall in the first place. One could argue that violating guest rights and slaying Harry would be the same, but doing so would surely doom him and his men to vengeance at Luna's hand. And given how confident the sorcerer was, there may be magic at play that would prevent him from succeeding anyway.
"Dark Sister, once the blade of Visenya Targaryen." He said cordially.
"Mind letting me take a closer look at it?"
That was a perfect opportunity to fish for some more information.
"You have not seen Valyrian steel before?" He asked, unbuckling his sword and handing it over the desk.
"No." Harry said absently, drawing the blade from its sheath. "Interesting work. Damascus steel ripples? Odd. Folding. Spellforging. Dragonfire....."
Brynden listened to the man's mutters with interest. If this was his first time seeing Valyrian steel, then he couldn't have been in the Doom as there was surely plenty of it there. Where did he come from then, and where did he gain his knowledge of the higher mysteries? He looked Westerosi and had a Westerosi name, yet his manner of dress was foreign.
The door behind him opened and he twisted around in his chair to see who had come. Did Harry not care at all for decorum and allow people to come and go from his solar....study....as they pleased?
Brynden blinked at the Summer Islands woman that entered. This was presumably Adrastia, but what in all the hells was a Summer Islander doing beyond the Wall?
"Found a new toy to play with?" She asked with a wicked smile and glided towards Harry seductively, sitting herself down in his lap.
Brynden was reminded of Shiera once again, but this time it was of her less admirable qualities. He hadn't seen it when he'd been a young man blindly in love, but time and distance had revealed to him that Shiera, for all her beauty and intelligence, had not been a kind woman. She'd taken delight in using her beauty and sensuality to play with men's feelings and turn them against each other in jealous rages. She had been amused by his own jealousy as well. As time had taken her beauty, her games had stopped, but the memory of them was still vivid in his mind.
This Adrastia, with her own great beauty, seductive voice, alluring eyes and tight fitting clothes that emphasized the sinful body beneath, reminded him of those parts of Shiera acutely.
"Just a sword." Harry shrugged and returned Dark Sister.
"I wasn't talking about the sword." Adrastia said with a wide smile, undressing Brynden with her eyes.
By the gods, she was exactly like Shiera at her worst.
"Of course." Harry replied drolly, clearly used to this kind of behavior from her. "This is Brynden Rivers, sometimes known as Bloodraven, ranger of the Night's Watch and novice dabbler in magic."
Brynden started in surprise. True, many had accused him of being a sorcerer, but most of it had been slander from his enemies or rumors started by smallfolk. He had kept his ability to warg a closely held secret.
"Oh?" Adrastia said, staring at him calculatingly. "Are you going to take him on as an apprentice?"
"Perhaps, if he wants to stay." Harry said idly. "It would be a shame to let the talent go to waste."
"I have sworn oaths to the Night's Watch." Brynden replied, although he couldn't deny a certain curiosity.
"You were forced to swear them, you mean." The scarred man said dryly. "But whatever, if you don't want to learn how to harness your gifts then that's your choice."
The offer to learn more magic was tempting, but Brynden wouldn't forsake his vows lightly, even ones he had been forced to take. He had broken his word once because he felt it was necessary to put an end to the Blackfyre rebellions once and for all, this time he had no such reason.
"We should discuss future relations between Dol Guldur and the Night's Watch." Adrastia spoke up.
Dol Guldur? Was that the name of this tower?
"What's there to discuss?" Harry grunted. "The Night's Watch will do what it feels it must and the same goes for me."
"Yes, but we could prevent so many unfortunate....incidents.....by coming to an agreement." The dark-skinned woman argued.
Brynden wasn't sure he liked how she said that.
"What kind of agreement would you propose?" He asked.
"Nothing too onerous." She assured. "Dol Guldur will not raid or otherwise attack the Wall or anything south of it. In return, the Night's Watch will not send rangers beyond the Wall without Harry's permission."
"And you would attack the Wall and the lands south of it without such an agreement?" Brynden asked cautiously.
"Who knows?" She shrugged and wrapped her hands around Harry's neck with a grin. "My man here is rather temperamental, and has a habit of solving problems by killing them. There's no telling what he might do if the Night's Watch keeps bothering him."
Truly, Adrastia would have fit right in at the royal court with that poisonous tongue of hers. Brynden was darkly amused at the thought that you couldn't escape from politics even on the frozen roof of the world.
"Alternatively, we can just ignore each other and go about our lives like sensible adults." Harry interjected with a voice so droll that even the greatest lackwit would be able to tell that he had no faith in this happening.
"Harry, we cannot ignore our neighbours." Adrastia said in a long suffering tone.
"Fine, then Bloodraven can carry your proposal to Musgood. He'll splutter in shock for a bit and then start wondering what kind of fiendish wildling plot it is. More ranging parties will be sent and I'll either ignore them or confound them to walk in circles until they run out of food and have to turn back. If they somehow manage to piss me off I might even kill them. A few years or decades down the line, the Starks might get paranoid enough to think that sending an army at us would be a good idea, which will force me to murder them in their sleep before they even make it out of Winterfell. After that, the stupid, stubborn bastards might finally figure out that maybe , just maybe, they should have considered the deal you proposed." Harry ranted.
"Would you be amiable to speaking with Lord Commander Musgood and perhaps Lord Stark about your proposal?" Brynden asked after a few long moments of silence.
He could all too easily imagine events playing out exactly as the sorcerer described. And if he truly could see as much as he claimed, and could indeed simply murder the commanders of any army sent against him, then he was effectively unassailable. Regardless, he wasn't Hand of the King anymore and couldn't make that decision himself.
"That would be excellent." Adrastia quickly spoke up, as if she was afraid of how Harry might reply.
Perhaps justifiably so, because he glowered at her for a moment while she favored him with an incredibly fake innocent look.
"Fine, I'll talk to them, but only if they come here." The sorcerer finally said. "I'm not going to waste my time chasing you miserable cunts around and you have nothing better to do with yourselves than come here anyway."
That....would probably not go over well with either the Lord Commander or Lord Stark. Still, Brynden could see that Harry would be bent no further. Why did he even agree to it when he clearly didn't care one way or another? Adrastia seemed to be pushing him in this direction and he was letting her for some reason. Something to keep in mind.
XXXXX
"He turned me away!" Adrastia fumed as she stomped into their room late in the evening.
Harry looked on with amusement as the furious woman raged. They had just finished dinner and Adrastia had latched on to Bloodraven to 'escort' him to his room.
"This reminds me of a story I heard once." He began, suppressing a smile when he saw that he had her attention. "About a pornstar that lost her confidence after a man wasn't able to squeeze out more than a few drops of cum on her face."
Luna giggled while Adrastia glowered.
"There is nothing wrong with my confidence, thank you very much!" The dark-skinned witch said snippily. "I'm pissed because he would have been a perfect agent in the Night's Watch."
"Yes, well, judging by his surface thoughts you reminded him of a half-sister of his that he lusted after. She was a lot like you; incredibly beautiful, intelligent, manipulative, capricious and with a penchant for getting men killed. And since this woman was a royal bastard with basically zero responsibilities, she had a lot more leeway for her games than you ever did. He knew you were trouble the moment you opened your mouth."
"I see." Adrastia's rage cooled, either by the explanation or the offhand flattery. "How unfortunate. And why did you not tell me about this sooner?"
"I thought it'd be funny." Harry shrugged. "I was right."
And just like that, the rage was back, along with Luna's giggles.
"You...!" Adrastia trailed off into a glower.
Her anger truly was a sight to see. It had taken more than a decade before she became comfortable showing him her true emotions instead of the mask she showed everyone else.
"I was also in the mood for angry sex." He continued with a grin. "Strip."
XXXXX
Harry stared at the ring on his finger, the Ring of Resurrection.
After meditating on the issue for a long while, he had decided that Adrastia's suggestion had merit. He did want more wizards and witches in this world, and he was curious to see if the magic would express itself differently. Would it be like his own, local or some kind of hybrid?
Bloodraven was an albino wizard, an impossibility on Earth. He likely also did not have the naturally expanded life of an Earth style wizard, the resistance to mundane disease or the risk of accidental magic during times of stress. What he did have was a natural talent for some very specific types of magic. Skinchanging and the Greensight particularly. It came from his First Men ancestry.
Back on Earth, intrinsic differences among human ethnic groups were mostly superficial. Melanin quantities, eye shape, disease proclivity, average size, skeletal structure, bone density,....all minor things that were either only skin deep or so minute that they required careful study to spot.
Here, the differences seemed more profound, although subtle. He was starting to see that a lot of things to do with magic in this world were subtle.
The First Men were much closer to nature than others, although not nearly to the extent of the Earthsingers. This seemed to be more true for the free folk than the Northmen south of the Wall. Could have something to do with the density of weirwoods or it could be because there had been effectively zero mixing with the Andals north of the Wall.
The Andals had the lowest magical potential he had encountered so far. His current hypothesis was that the Seven was to blame for that. A spiritual parasite? Maybe, or maybe something else. He'd crack the secret open eventually. He always did.
There had as of yet been no opportunity to examine the Rhoynar, but it was on the agenda. Most of the Rhoynar had assimilated into Dorne's Andal culture, only one group remained relatively pure – the so-called Orphans of the Greenblood, who clung to their original Rhoynish culture, language and religion. Hopefully, studying the differences between the Orphans and the other Dornish would prove illuminating.
The Ironborn were another group that needed a look at. That Drowned God of theirs sounded like a vicious cunt, even for a god. He may in fact be part of what was driving their pirate culture. He and Adrastia had theorized that the godlings present in this world were somehow subtly influencing human behavior, which would go a long way to explaining why the continent was so damn politically and culturally stable. He had already confirmed that the Old Gods attempted to help any people within range of their influence via dreams, gut feelings and visions for those especially sensitive to such things.
But he was wool-gathering. He needed to ask Fleur and Dora what they thought of the idea of using Stone Age mating strategies on the local women.
He turned the ring three times on his finger. "Fleur and Nymphadora."
"Hey there, lover." Dora greeted with a smile on her spectral face. "Where's Luna?"
"Packing for a trip." Harry said dismissively. "I needed to run something past you girls."
"Oh, and what would that be?" Fleur asked teasingly.
He quickly explained the situation. "....so, what do you say? Is it okay to just snatch women and fuck them into submission in these circumstances?"
"The things you get up to....." Dora sighed in fond exasperation. "I wouldn't have thought you'd want more kids."
"I doubt I'll be able to love them in the same way I loved ours." Harry shrugged. "I'm too old for that, but I will take care of them and teach them."
"I say it's fine." Fleur declared. "From what you said, these women would be throwing themselves at you anyway, given half a chance, but 'stealing' them would probably make them feel more secure in the long run. If you want them, then go ahead and take them."
Dora was quiet for a while before nodding her agreement. "Just don't be too rough or keep them prisoner and I'll be satisfied."
Harry nodded. "Alright, I figured it would be like that, but I wanted to be sure."
"That's sweet of you, mon cher." Fleur said with a smile. "Until next time. We'll be waiting."
"Bye." He said with a small wave as they faded out.
Now he just had to pick out some women. Or more accurately, he had to tell Adrastia to pick out some women.
XXXXX
"Finish the work I set for you and don't play around with the forge, understand?" Harry asked sternly.
"I understand." Bragni said with a firm nod.
"Good, and don't slack off. I will check."
Nothing that required his presence was set to happen for a while, so he and Luna were going on an expedition to the ruins of Valyria. Bragni was progressing well, but he was still a dumb kid and prone to doing dumb things as a result, occasionally. Harry would not be at all surprised to come back and discover that he'd burned his hand or smashed his fingers attempting to practice blacksmithing on his own, despite all warnings not to.
Harry was keenly aware of the hypocrisy of him, of all people, telling others not to do dangerous things unsupervised, but he ignored it. There was nothing else he could do.
He moved on to Adrastia and she immediately smirked at him.
"I will have a list ready when you return." She said.
Harry nodded, feeling no need to say anything further.
Luna gave both of them a firm hug, with Adrastia being made far more uncomfortable by it, funnily enough. "We'll be back soon. Call if you need anything!"
And then they were off, zooming away at top speed on their Discs.
XXXXX
The Valyrian peninsula was thousands of miles away from Dol Guldur. The top speed of the Discs was just barely below supersonic, but it still took them more than six hours to make the trip.
Harry had been tempted to stop by the ruins of the ancient Rhoynar capital of Chroyane, destroyed by the Valyrians a thousand years ago now. It was almost directly in their way, so it wouldn't even be a detour.
Ironically, it was the serious magic he could sense from it that convinced him to leave it for another time. He didn't want to feel as if he was supposed to be somewhere else while looking it over.
It was nearly evening by the time they finally reached the wrecked peninsula. There was a permanent mass of black clouds hanging over it and their bottoms glowed orange-red because of the chain of volcanoes called the Fourteen Flames. The glow was visible long before they reached the broken Lands of the Long Summer, which was impressive even if they did see it from high above the ground.
When they at last arrived at the ruined capital – unimaginatively also called Valyria – Harry let out an impressed whistle.
"This is an evil place." Luna said with uncharacteristic somberness, edging closer to Harry for comfort.
Despite his opinions on good and evil, Harry had to agree. It wasn't the toppled and broken buildings, the shattered earth, the magma flows or even the perpetual stench of sulfur and brimstone. All of that was just scenery or a minor irritant easily taken care of with a Bubblehead Charm.
No, it was the feel of it. Cruelty, malice, suffering and despair hung in the air so thick that they could almost taste it. It was orders of magnitude worse than what the Aztecs had left behind. The Valyrians had practiced both sorcery and slavery on a wide scale. Putting those two together never ended well. Little wonder that nobody had ever managed to traverse this place – the magical residue would poison the souls of even the most spiritually insensitive, although the right sort of psychopath might be able to withstand it long enough to get in and out.
Harry and Luna wrapped their auras around themselves into a hardened shell to keep out the magical residue and began looting.
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Harry irritably waved away yet another wailing ghost and flew towards what used to be a large estate. The blasted spirits had started shoving up not long after he and Luna had arrived and wouldn't get the fucking hint.
Most of them were spiteful, others regretful, some desperate. All of them were attention whores.
Feh, as if he had either the time or inclination to listen to the whining of the random dead.
He spotted something interesting sitting in the direct center of what was once no doubt a beautiful courtyard.
It was a horn. A very large, black horn obviously taken from a truly massive dragon, about six feet long and as wide as his chest. Bands of red gold and Valyrian steel circled it, inlaid with magical glyphs.
Luna looked at its polished, shiny surface and saw her reflection staring back, but twisted and vile.
"Didn't they know how to do anything except enslave?" She asked sadly.
Harry didn't reply the rhetorical question, as it had become quite clear over the past few hours that the answer was probably a resounding 'no'.
The horn only further proved this assumption. He couldn't read Valyrian yet, so he didn't know what it said, but he could listen to the horn's voice just fine. It was essentially a compressed ritual imbued into an item. A slave for a slave. The horn's innate fire magic would burn out and consume the human slave blowing it to charge a powerful spell meant to bind a dragon slave.
"We should destroy it." Luna continued.
"As soon as I'm done studying it." Harry agreed. The actual work done on the horn was genius, but he had no use for its purpose and he wouldn't let anyone else have any use for it either.
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It never got truly dark in Valyria, nor did it ever get bright. The Fourteen Flames and magma rivers running over the shattered landscape cast everything in a permanent reddish glow that reflected back from the dark clouds above, Combined with the intensely toxic miasma of dark emotion choking the region, the thousands of tormented ghosts flying around, the sweltering heat and the acid rain, the place had a definite 'Hell on Earth' sort of feel to it.
Harry and Luna spent the better part of two weeks picking over the carcass of the dead civilization, in the process accumulating a haul of treasure that would have kings and princes salivating had they known of it.
Weapons and armor of Valyrian steel, another twelve Glass Candles, fossilized dragon eggs, several tons of dragon bone, trinkets and baubles of every description.... They left behind the gold, but it was still enough to buy entire kingdoms.
They had even found Brightroar, the ancestral Valyrian steel greatsword of House Lannister that King Tommen II Lannister had taken with him on his ill-conceived quest to loot Valyria not long after the Doom.
Adrastia had asked them to keep an eye out for it because of the political leverage it represented. Harry hadn't really been planning to expend too much effort looking for it, but the trail of skeletons leading inland from a wrecked ship with a lion-shaped prow had been a rather obvious clue.
What they had not found a lot of was exactly what Harry had been hoping for the most. Books, scrolls, writings of any kind. There were some, but most hadn't survived the initial cataclysm or the intervening centuries of exposure to poor conditions.
Harry also visited the ruined temples dedicated to their gods. According to books on the subject looted from the Citadel, the dragonlords may have actually considered themselves to be above the gods and tolerated religion out of indifference, or perhaps even perpetuated it to make the lower classes and slaves easier to control. Opinions differed.
Whatever the case was, the temples yielded no answers. There was nothing there but broken stone now, if there had ever been anything else.
Sleeping in the Valyrian peninsula was a bit tricky with the miasma clinging to it, but they had come prepared. An expanded chest was converted into a small bedroom and enchanted to block outside influences.
Two weeks to the day of their arrival, they ventured north, a direction thus far avoided because it seemed to be the epicenter of the miasma.
The reason for this became clear when they came reached the base of one of the volcanoes that made up the Fourteen Flames.
There were numerous toppled towers and ruined mansions in the area steeped in powerful, albeit decaying, magic.
Near to them, there were always 'mining towns', which were really more along the lines of vast fields of slave pens and a small settlement for their whip holders. Clearly, the Freehold's dedicated sorcerers had wanted to stay close to a supply of sacrifices.
Harry now understood what had caused the Doom. Idiots who not only hadn't properly isolated their rituals, but had in fact been performing them in a place steeped in hatred, suffering and cruelty. And practically on top of a truly gigantic chain of volcanoes at that. The dumb cunts had probably been so drunk on their power, so obsessed with fire and blood and their own self-importance that they disregarded the feelings of their slaves as magically irrelevant. If the Fourteen Flames had erupted naturally, then it would have covered half the world in ash, but the hatred of the slaves had kept it tightly focused on Valyria alone.
Basically, the Doom was caused by stupidity. Harry couldn't muster even a shred of surprise. How typically human of them.
They were just exploring one of the ruined residences for magical knick-knacks when a tremendous roar shook the earth.
Luna blinked and looked up at the volcano looming above them.
"Ooh, that's a big dragon." She said, smiling at the reptile as it emerged from the volcano, its scales as black as coal.
"It sure is." Harry agreed. The damn thing was almost the size of the caldera it was crawling out of.
"Do you think he's friendly?" Luna asked hopefully, watching the gigantic lizard spread a vast pair of wings that were each about the size of a football field.
The dragon roared again, and Harry heard the madness and hunger in the sound. It reminded him of this cannibal serial killer he'd run across once.
"Nope."
It lifted itself into the air with difficulty, gliding down towards them in wide circles much like a vulture.
"We should go, then." Luna said serenely, hopping on her Disc.
"Hmm." Harry frowned in thought as he did the same, staring at the dragon the whole time. He was conflicted. It would be a shame to kill such a magnificent magical creature, but it would be nice to get his hands on some materials with which he could make new magical foci. Decisions, decisions.
A immense torrent of black dragonfire attempted to incinerate them, but their Discs quickly took them out of danger. Where the dragonfire hit, molten rock was left behind.
"Bad dog! Rolled up newspaper." Harry scolded, conjuring up a spear of crackling yellow lightning.
It wasn't a very good spell, all things considered. There were others that were more effective, easier to cast and just plain better.
But none of those spells were references. "Have a taste of Gwyn's Sunlight Spear!"
The Sunlight Spear hit the great black dragon close to the shoulder and it roared in both pain and fury. The injury seemed to be causing it an unexpectedly large amount of trouble and it slowly glided downwards until it landed on the ground with a thundering crash.
Now grounded, the dragon roared another challenge.
Harry frowned as he heard the madness and hunger in the sound again. Had the dragon also been affected by the magical miasma left behind by the Doom? And something about this particular dragon niggled at the back of his mind. Its size and color and even its viciousness.
He had read up on the Targaryen dragons, being none too impressed with the way the inbred cunts had used them like living weapons. What had especially intrigued him was the fact that several of the beasts had vanished mysteriously during or immediately after the civil war known as the Dance of Dragons.
One such dragon in particular was described as being very much like this one, one who was known and feared for his habit of eating other dragons and dragon eggs, as well as anyone foolish enough to try taming him.
"Cannibal!" He called out, amplifying his voice with magic to make sure the overgrown lizard heard him.
It briefly stilled and its magma-red eyes narrowed, obviously recognizing the word. Then it inhaled deeply and breathed out another blast of black dragonfire.
The flames were huge and wide, but not nearly fast enough to hit him given the acceleration his Disc was capable of.
"He looks old." Luna noted, gliding up next to him.
Harry had to agree. Even aside from his ludicrous size, Cannibal was missing several of his man-sized teeth, one of his massive horns was broken, his claws were chipped and ragged and there were notable rips in his wings. Perhaps it hadn't been the Sunlight Spear that had grounded him after all, but simply the fact that he couldn't stay in the air for very long anymore. Now that he thought about it, his lift off earlier had also looked rather laboured, hadn't it?
And given the accounts of the maesters in the books he'd read, it was entirely possible that Cannibal had already been lairing on the island of Dragonstone before the Targaryen's had arrived there in 114 BC, more than three hundred years ago now. In comparison, Balerion the Black Dread, Aegon the Conqueror's dragon, had died of old age at a mere two hundred.
Although....those accounts didn't mention any signs of him looking so decrepit, or being so huge for that matter. Was it simply not mentioned, forgotten or was there something else going on?
Medieval history-keeping was an atrocity. Maybe the Greensight would give him some answers later, but given how few weirwoods there were south of the Neck, he wasn't holding his breath on it.
Well, at least he knew what to do now. Cannibal didn't look like he had much longer anyway, so killing him for materials wasn't just useful, it was also merciful. Having your body wither and fail on you was not something that a dragon should suffer.
"Just calm down and let me put you out of your misery." He said, weaving together a spell of Ball Lightning.
Cannibal took a deep breath and exhaled a great sheet of fire, swinging his head to and fro to cover as much of the sky in it as possible. He'd obviously learned that narrow cones wouldn't work.
Not that 'spray and pray' tactics would, seeing as both Harry and Luna only needed to rise higher into the air to get out of range
Harry threw the Ball Lightning down, hitting Cannibal dead on. The sphere discharged its contained power, making the dragon roar in pain for a few seconds before he shook it off.
"That's some magic resistance he's got." Harry muttered, impressed.
"Don't drag it out, Harry." Luna said. "I'll distract him for you so you can finish him."
Harry frowned in consternation for a moment before nodding. He'd wanted to test out how tough dragons in this world were, but Luna would be upset if he did that.
Below them, Cannibal roared again, projecting volumes of frustration and impotent rage. Grounded as he was, he couldn't really do anything against a flying foe and it was rapidly driving him deeper into madness.
"It's okay, it'll be over soon." Luna said sympathetically, reminded of many old predators she'd seen, who didn't know how to live anymore when their teeth fell out and their limbs failed them.
She conjured up a flurry of dancing lights before the dragon's snout, grabbing his attention. Cannibal snapped his jaws at them and let loose a brief blast of flame when that didn't work.
He never saw Harry descending down on him with one of the random Valyrian steel swords they'd taken, easily piercing through his thick skull and into his brain.
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