Chapter 6: The Mad King's Test and the Cage of Whispers
The Red Keep was a viper's nest, and Lord Varys was its most venomous, yet cautious, inhabitant. He approached the King's solar not with the swiftness of a messenger bearing good news, but with the slow, deliberate tread of a man walking into a cage with a starved lion. The information he carried, gleaned from the Moth's terrifyingly intimate report, was a dangerous morsel. Presented incorrectly, it would send the King into a homicidal rage. Presented correctly, it might just buy the realm a little more time.
He found Aerys Targaryen not on his throne, but pacing before the great, painted map of Westeros that covered the floor of his solar. The King was a whirlwind of agitated energy, his long, silver-gold hair flying about his head, his skeletal fingers tracing the borders of the Stormlands, then the Westerlands, his ancient enemies. The air was thick with the scent of melted wax and stale wine. Pyromancers, their red robes a jarring splash of colour against the grey stone, lingered near the door, their presence a constant, ominous threat.
"Well, Spider?" Aerys shrieked the moment Varys entered, not even bothering to look at him. "Have you brought my god to heel? Does he breathe fire? Does his lightning burn as brightly as my ancestors'?"
Varys bowed low, his face a mask of serene humility. "Your Grace, the entity known as Thor is… a power of a different sort. More ancient. More elemental."
"Elemental?" Aerys spun around, his lilac eyes wide with manic glee. "Like the earth? The sea? The sky?"
"Precisely, Your Grace. The sky," Varys affirmed, choosing his words with the precision of a master jeweller. "He is a god of sorrow and storms. He is not a beast to be leashed, but a force to be understood. My agent, a most delicate instrument, approached him with offerings of wealth and beauty."
"And? Did he grovel? Did he thank his King for such bounty?"
"He laughed at the sapphire, Your Grace. And he was… wounded by the sight of a perfect flower," Varys said, planting the seed.
Aerys froze, his head cocked to the side. "Wounded? By a flower?" The concept was so alien to his nature that it momentarily pierced through his mania. "Explain."
"He is a being of immense grief, Your Grace. A fallen god, by his own admission. He desires nothing. Not wealth, not power, not beauty. He sees such things as fleeting, reminders of a loss so profound it has… broken him." This was the most dangerous part of the report. Aerys did not tolerate weakness.
The King's face, which had been alight with excitement, contorted into a mask of petulant disappointment. "Broken? Useless! What good is a broken god to me? I need a weapon, not a weeping relic!" He kicked at the map, his slipper scuffing the painted surface of the Reach. "I should have him burned! If he is a god, let's see if he can withstand the dragon's fire! That is the purest test!"
The pyromancers behind Varys shifted, their eyes gleaming. This was the exact outcome the Spider had feared. He had to redirect the storm.
"But Your Grace," Varys interjected, his voice still a placid whisper, yet cutting through the King's tantrum. "Is that not the crux of his power? A god who desires nothing cannot be bribed. A god who feels no ambition cannot be tempted. A god who has lost everything has nothing left to fear." He paused, letting the words sink in. "Such a being is not a servant. He is a force of pure, untainted power. He is not a sword to be wielded, but a storm you might… guide."
Aerys stopped his pacing, his mad mind latching onto the new idea. A cunning, cruel light began to dawn in his eyes. "Guide…" he mused. "Yes. Not a servant. A test. A test of faith. Not his faith in me, but the people's faith in him."
Varys held his breath. He had diverted Aerys from the path of immediate immolation, but he had no idea what twisted road the King's mind would now travel.
"He sits in Flea Bottom," Aerys hissed, a slow, reptilian smile spreading across his face. "The smallfolk worship him. They see him as a protector. A dispenser of justice." He cackled, a dry, rattling sound. "How can he be a god of justice if he feels nothing? If he is broken by sorrow? It is a contradiction! It is a lie!"
The King began to pace again, but this time with a purpose, his steps quick and excited. "We will put this god's justice to the test. We will give him a trial so grand, so public, that all of King's Landing will see him for what he is! A fraud! Or…" his eyes widened, "a true power that will be forced to reveal itself for all to see!"
"A trial, Your Grace?" Varys asked, a cold knot of dread tightening in his stomach.
"A test of fire and choice!" Aerys declared, his voice rising to a fever pitch. He stabbed a long, dirty fingernail towards the painted depiction of the Great Sept of Baelor on the map. "There! In the plaza before the Sept! We will build a great pyre. A pyre worthy of a king! And upon that pyre, we will place a thief. A murderer. Some wretch from the dungeons, it matters not who."
He turned to Varys, his eyes burning with a terrifying, creative madness. "And beside the wretch, we will place an innocent. A child. A mother. Someone the smallfolk will weep for. We will tie them both to the pyre, and we will set it alight!"
Even Varys, a man who had seen the depths of human depravity, felt a flicker of revulsion. "Your Grace… the High Septon would never…"
"The High Septon will do as his King commands!" Aerys shrieked. "This is not a trial of the Seven. This is a trial of the Storm God! We will bring the Gray Giant to the plaza. We will force him to attend. And we will present him with a choice, in front of all his worshippers. 'Save one,' we will tell him. 'You are a god of justice. You claim to protect the weak. Prove it. Choose. Let your lightning quench the flames of the righteous, or let the guilty burn. But you can only save one.'"
Aerys clapped his hands together, his glee utterly obscene. "Do you see, Spider? Do you see the beauty of it? If he does nothing, his followers will see that he is a fraud, a heartless beast, and their faith will crumble into ash! His power over them will be broken! If he chooses the innocent, he proves he is bound by mortal sentiment, a predictable creature we can learn to control! And if he chooses the guilty," Aerys giggled, "well, what kind of just god does that? Either way, we expose him! We strip him bare before the eyes of the entire city! We will see what this god is truly made of!"
Varys bowed his head to hide the cold fury in his eyes. It was a plan of such exquisite, insane cruelty that only Aerys could have devised it. It was a perfect trap, a no-win scenario designed to destroy Thor's reputation or force him into a spectacular display of power that would satisfy the King's lust for spectacle. It was theatrical, sadistic, and utterly, terrifyingly brilliant in its madness.
"A most… illuminating plan, Your Grace," Varys said, his voice a silken lie. "It will surely reveal the truth of the matter."
"See to it!" Aerys commanded, waving a dismissive hand. "Prepare the plaza! Find me a wretch and an innocent! And send a royal summons to this 'Thor'! He is commanded by his King to attend this… festival in his honour!"
As Varys backed out of the solar, the King's mad laughter echoing behind him, he knew he had failed. He had not caged the lion. He had merely pointed it towards a different, more interesting prey. And he had unleashed a chain of events that could very well see King's Landing, and everything in it, consumed by a storm of divine wrath.
Thor felt it before he understood it. It was a subtle shift in the currents of the city, a change in the atmosphere that his dulled, but still divine, senses picked up on. It was like the feeling of pressure in the air before a great storm, a sense of something vast and terrible gathering just over the horizon.
His self-imposed prison, The Grinning Pig, had become smaller. The world outside its grimy walls seemed to be receding. The whispers he heard on the street were different now. Before, they were tales of his own unwilling deeds. Now, they were tinged with a new kind of fear, a nervous energy that had nothing to do with him. He heard snippets of a 'royal decree', of a 'great spectacle', of the plaza before the Great Sept.
Varys's containment had begun. New faces—men and women with watchful eyes and the quiet confidence of those who are paid to observe—had appeared in the periphery of Flea Bottom. They did not enter his 'territory', but they patrolled its edges, redirecting traffic, questioning newcomers, subtly isolating the entire district. The flow of information was being managed. Flea Bottom was being turned into an island, and he was its sole, unwilling inhabitant.
The reverence of the people had also changed. It was now laced with a desperate, frantic edge. They looked at him not just with awe, but with a pleading terror, as if they knew a great trial was coming and he was their only hope. Their faith was no longer a gentle pressure; it was a screaming chorus in the back of his mind, a constant, irritating demand.
He was sitting in his usual corner, a half-empty bottle of Olyvar's vilest spirits on the table, trying to drown out the noise in his head, when the door to the tavern was thrown open.
Silence fell, instant and absolute. But this was a new kind of silence. It was not the usual fearful respect. It was the silence of a royal court when the herald enters.
Framed in the doorway were four men. They were not Gold Cloaks. They wore the royal Targaryen colours of black and red, their breastplates polished to a mirror sheen and emblazoned with the three-headed dragon. They carried long, ceremonial halberds and wore expressions of stern, humourless duty. These were men of the King's own household guard. Their presence in Flea Bottom was as alien and as shocking as a dragon landing in a pigsty.
Between them stood a fifth man, a herald, clad in a magnificent velvet tabard, also bearing the Targaryen sigil. He held a large, beribboned scroll in his hands. His face was a mask of pinched disdain as his eyes scanned the squalid tavern, finally landing on the hulking figure in the corner.
The herald marched forward, his boots clicking on the filthy floorboards, stopping a respectful, yet firm, distance from Thor's table. He did not kneel. He stood tall, a representative of the one power in this land that did not bow to gods, new or old.
"By order of His Grace, Aerys of the House Targaryen, the Second of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm," the herald's voice rang out, loud and clear, trained to carry across tourney fields and throne rooms.
Thor did not look up. He slowly, deliberately, refilled his tankard from the bottle, his movements sluggish, bored. The sheer, pompous weight of the King's titles was exhausting.
The herald, undeterred, unrolled his scroll with a flourish. "Let it be known that the King, in his great wisdom and benevolence, has taken note of the entity known as Thor, the so-called 'God of Storms'. To honour this new power within his domain, the King has decreed a festival to be held in two days' time, at the ninth hour, in the grand plaza before the Great Sept of Baelor."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. The patrons of the tavern were frozen, their faces pale with terror. They understood, better than the herald, the danger of a King's 'honour'.
"At this festival," the herald continued, his voice rising, "a test of justice shall be conducted, that all may witness the nature and disposition of this new god. The entity known as Thor is hereby summoned and commanded by Royal Decree to attend this test, that he may pass judgment and reveal his true quality to the King and his loyal subjects."
The herald finished, rolling the scroll back up with a snap. He stared at Thor, awaiting a response.
For a full minute, Thor did nothing. He simply stared at the head of foam on his ale, his mind a maelstrom of weary rage. Commanded. He, who had argued with Odin, who had defied the will of cosmic entities, was being 'commanded' by some jumped-up, inbred mortal with a shiny chair. The sheer, unmitigated arrogance of it was almost impressive.
He had tried so hard to be nothing. To be a ghost. To be a memory. He had failed. The mortals, with their games and their fears and their mad kings, would not allow it. They insisted on dragging him into the light. They insisted on making him a player.
Slowly, he lifted his head. His eyes, no longer clouded by drink but burning with a cold, clear, and utterly terrifying light, met the herald's. Under that gaze, the herald's carefully constructed composure shattered. He felt a primal fear, a feeling of being judged by something ancient and vast. He saw, for a terrifying instant, the image of a king not on a throne of twisted swords, but on one of crackling lightning and swirling nebulae.
Thor didn't speak. He didn't have to. He simply raised his tankard to his lips and took a long, slow drink. It was a gesture of profound, absolute contempt. A dismissal more powerful than any word.
The herald, his face suddenly slick with sweat, took an involuntary step back. The household guards gripped their halberds tighter, their knuckles white. They had been sent to deliver a summons to a man. They were standing in the presence of something else entirely.
Without another word, the herald turned and almost fled from the tavern, his guards scrambling to keep pace. They had delivered their message. The summons had been issued.
When they were gone, a collective, trembling sigh went through the tavern. All eyes were on Thor. He had defied the King's summons with his silence. What would happen now?
Thor lowered his tankard, the silence of the room pressing in on him. He was trapped. If he ignored the summons, the mad king would likely send an army, or worse, his pyromancers. Flea Bottom would burn. The people who had, against his will, placed their faith in him, would suffer. If he went, he would be walking into a trap, a public spectacle designed by a madman to poke and prod at his deepest wounds.
He looked down at his hands. Hands that had once wielded Mjolnir, that had saved realms, that had held the power of a star. Now they just held a cheap, pewter tankard.
The mad king wanted a test? He wanted to see the quality of a god? A bitter, humourless smile touched Thor's lips. So be it. The king would have his spectacle. He would have his test.
Thor was tired of the whispers. He was tired of the fear. He was tired of being a prisoner. He had not asked for this fight. He had not wanted this crown of thorns. But they had pushed him. They had prodded him. They had commanded him.
And a god, even a broken one, does not answer to the command of a mortal king. A storm does not ask for permission to break.
He stood up, his full, immense height seeming to shrink the tavern around him. He slung Stormbreaker over his shoulder, the familiar weight a cold, hard comfort. The patrons cowered, expecting an explosion of rage, a flash of lightning.
Instead, he walked to the door, his steps heavy, deliberate. He paused on the threshold and looked back, not at the people, but at the corner he had occupied for so long. His prison.
The mad king wanted to put a god on trial. He had no idea what he had just unleashed. For the first time since his arrival in this miserable, backward world, Thor felt a flicker of something other than grief or apathy. It was a cold, grim resolve. He was going to attend the King's festival. And he was going to give them a show that would be remembered for a thousand years. The game of thrones was about to be interrupted by a thunderstorm. And gods help anyone who got in the way.