Chapter 17: The God-King's Justice
There is a difference between walking and striding. For months, Thor had walked the lands of Westeros, his gait the heavy, aimless plod of a man with no destination, a being weighed down by the gravity of his own sorrow. But as he left his small, bewildered flock by the shores of the Gods Eye, his gait changed. He strode. Each step was a league-eater, driven by a cold, grim purpose that had been absent for years. He moved with the relentless, ground-consuming pace of an army, his eyes fixed on a singular point on the southern horizon: King's Landing.
The journey that had taken his followers weeks to traverse, he covered in less than two days. He did not stick to the Kingsroad, with its merchants and travelers. He moved as the crow flies, a straight, unswerving line through forest, field, and stream. He waded through the Trident as if it were a puddle, the powerful current parting before him. He climbed the rolling hills of the crownlands without breaking his stride, his powerful legs eating up the terrain. He was a mythic figure, a terrifying apparition to the few shepherds and farmers who caught a glimpse of him from a distance—a silent giant moving with the speed and purpose of a storm front, the strange, dark axe on his back seeming to pull him forward.
He did not eat. He did not sleep. He did not drink. The fire in his belly was no longer the artificial warmth of alcohol; it was a cold, clean fury, a rage purified by grief and honed by a sudden, terrible clarity. He had stood by once before while a mad tyrant sat on a throne of power, and he had watched half of all life pay the price for his inaction. The faces of Rickard and Brandon Stark, men he had never met, merged in his mind with the faces of Xandarians and Asgardians, all victims of a similar, predictable brand of megalomania. He had failed to go for the head once. He would not make the same mistake again.
He arrived at the outskirts of King's Landing at dusk on the second day. He did not approach the gates. The gates were for mortals, for those who obeyed rules and respected boundaries. He walked to a section of the city's high stone wall far from any gatehouse, a place shrouded in the shadows of the setting sun. The wall, some forty feet high, was meant to repel armies. To Thor, it was a minor inconvenience.
He paused for a single moment, placing his hand on the cool stone. He closed his eyes, not in prayer, but in concentration. He reached for the power within him, not the raging fury of the storm, but something deeper, something more fundamental. The power over the elements of the earth itself. The stone beneath his hand hummed, a low vibration that only he could feel. He took a step back, and with a movement as simple and as effortless as stepping onto a curb, he placed his foot against the wall and walked up its sheer surface, gravity a polite suggestion he was choosing to ignore.
He crested the wall and dropped silently into the darkened streets within. The city, which he had left in a state of religious fervor, was now gripped by a palpable terror. The news of the Starks' brutal execution had spread. The city was on lockdown. The Gold Cloaks, no longer the swaggering bullies of old, patrolled in nervous, heavily armed squads, their eyes darting into every shadow. They were not keeping the peace; they were enforcing a reign of terror.
Thor ignored them. He moved through the labyrinthine alleys of the city, a ghost of immense size, his knowledge of the city's layout, gleaned from months of aimless wandering, now serving his grim purpose. He was heading for the Red Keep.
He reached the foot of Aegon's High Hill as the last light of day bled from the sky. The massive fortress loomed over the city, a black, jagged silhouette against the twilight. Its walls were higher, its gates stronger. It made no difference. He found a place at the base of the curtain wall, hidden from the sight of the sentries on the battlements, and repeated his performance, walking up the impossibly high wall as if ascending a gentle slope.
He dropped into the outer bailey of the Red Keep. The air here was thick with a fear so potent it was almost a physical taste. Guards in the Targaryen black and red stood in rigid, terrified formations, their faces pale in the torchlight. Servants scurried from place to place, their eyes downcast, afraid to be noticed. This was not the seat of a king. It was the lair of a monster.
Thor's goal was singular: the throne room. He did not know the exact layout of the castle's interior, but he knew the direction. He began to move.
A patrol of four household guards rounded a corner and came face to face with him. They stopped dead, their mouths falling open in disbelief. Before they could even raise their spears or cry out a warning, Thor was upon them. He did not kill them. He moved with a speed that belied his size, a blur of motion. A hand chop to the neck, a precise blow to the temple, a grip on a shoulder that sent a jolt of paralyzing energy through a nervous system. In two seconds, all four guards were slumped on the ground, unconscious but alive.
He continued on, an unstoppable force of nature. He moved through courtyards and covered walkways, past the silent, imposing structure of Maegor's Holdfast. More guards found him. None could stop him. He was not fighting them; he was simply… removing them from his path. He was a force of such overwhelming power and singular purpose that their mortal weapons and training were utterly irrelevant.
He burst through a set of oaken doors into a gallery lined with the skulls of the Targaryen dragons. Their empty eyes seemed to watch him pass, ancient predators acknowledging a far greater one. At the end of the gallery stood two Kingsguard knights, their white cloaks almost glowing in the gloom. One of them was Ser Barristan Selmy. The other was a young knight Thor did not recognize.
"Halt!" Ser Barristan's voice was firm, laced with the steel of absolute duty, though his eyes betrayed his shock. "No one may enter the throne room unbidden!"
Thor did not slow his stride. "I am not asking for permission."
Ser Barristan and the other knight drew their longswords, the ring of steel echoing in the hall of bones. They were two of the finest swordsmen in the Seven Kingdoms. They stood between Thor and the door to the throne room, the living embodiment of a sacred oath.
"You will go no further," Ser Barristan said, his stance perfect, his resolve absolute.
Thor stopped a few feet from them. He looked at the two men, at their shining armour, at the conviction in their eyes. He saw not enemies, but men trapped in a cage of honour, sworn to protect the unworthy. "I have no quarrel with you," he said, his voice quiet but resonant. "Stand aside."
"We cannot," the younger knight replied, his voice tight. "We are sworn."
"So you are," Thor said with a sigh of immense weariness. He raised his hand, and a wave of invisible force, a telekinetic shove of immense power, washed over them. The two knights were lifted from their feet as if by a giant's hand and hurled backwards. They slammed into the far wall of the gallery, their armour denting with the impact, and slid to the floor, stunned and breathless but, again, alive. Thor had judged them honourable. He would not kill them for it.
He turned to the great, iron-bound doors of the throne room. He did not try the handle. He simply placed his palm on the cold iron and pushed. The bar on the other side, a beam of solid oak as thick as a man's chest, splintered into a thousand pieces. The doors flew open with a deafening crash.
And Thor stepped into the throne room of the Mad King.
The room was a vision of hell. The great hall, once a place of majesty, was now a madman's laboratory. Dozens of braziers burned with a fierce, green flame—wildfire. The heat was immense, suffocating. The air was thick with chemical fumes and the smell of fear. At the far end of the room, upon the monstrous, jagged Iron Throne, sat Aerys Targaryen. He was a shrunken, manic figure, his eyes wide and wild, his clothes dishevelled.
Around the throne stood his pyromancers in their red robes, their faces alight with a zealot's joy. And standing on the steps below the throne, a silent white statue of horror, was Ser Jaime Lannister. His face was pale as milk, his eyes wide with disbelief and a dawning, terrible understanding as he stared at the giant who had just burst into the room.
The only other person present was Lord Varys, who stood in the shadows near a pillar, his face for once stripped of its placid mask, revealing a look of pure, unadulterated shock. All his plans, all his webs, had just been torn apart.
Aerys scrambled to his feet on the throne, his initial shock giving way to a paroxysm of rage and fear. "You!" he shrieked, his voice a cracked, inhuman thing. "The usurper! The false god! You dare enter my hall unbidden?" He pointed a claw-like finger at Thor. "Burn him! Burn him in the fires of the dragon! Burn them all!"
The pyromancers turned, their hands reaching for their pouches of wildfire, their faces twisted into masks of ecstatic obedience.
Thor ignored them. He ignored the King. His eyes were on Jaime Lannister. He saw the boy's disgust, his horror, the terrible conflict in his eyes. He saw a good man being forced to serve an evil one.
The first pyromancer threw a clay pot. The green liquid arced through the air. Thor simply raised a hand, and the pot froze in mid-flight, hanging in the air as if time itself had stopped. He clenched his fist, and the pot, and the wildfire within it, imploded, vanishing into nothingness with a faint pop.
The other pyromancers froze, their hands hovering over their own deadly projectiles. Aerys shrieked in frustration.
"Jaime!" the King screamed. "Your sword! Kill this beast for your King! Slay him!"
Jaime's hand was on the hilt of his golden sword, but he was frozen, trapped between his oath and the impossible reality before him. He looked at his King, a drooling, stinking madman. He looked at the being of immense power who had just defied the laws of physics.
Thor took a step forward. He looked past Jaime, directly into the maddened eyes of the King upon the throne. "Aerys Targaryen," Thor's voice was not loud, but it filled the hall, silencing the crackling of the wildfire, silencing the King's own mad thoughts. It was the voice of judgment, cold and final as the grave.
"I have known kings my entire life. I have seen good kings, and I have seen bad kings. I have seen kings who were weak, and kings who were strong. But you," Thor said, his voice dropping to a low, contemptuous growl, "are not a king. You are a disease. A rabid dog chewing on a crown."
He took another step. "You burn fathers in front of their sons. You strangle children for the crime of loyalty. You find joy in the screams of the innocent." He shook his head slowly, a gesture of profound, cosmic disgust. "I have stood by while tyrants committed atrocities in the name of balance and destiny. I have watched worlds burn because I hesitated. I will not make that mistake again."
He raised his hand, not in a threat, but as if pointing. His eyes, burning with a cold, blue fire, locked onto Aerys. The King clawed at his throne, his mouth opening in a silent scream. He felt a pressure, an invisible force wrapping around him, squeezing the very air from his lungs, the very life from his body. It was not lightning. It was not fire. It was simpler. It was an ending.
Aerys's body went rigid. His eyes bulged. A faint, gurgling sound escaped his lips. Then, with a final, pathetic shudder, he went limp, slumping bonelessly against the swords of his throne, his head lolling to the side at an unnatural angle. The Mad King was dead.
Silence.
The throne room was utterly, deathly silent, save for the soft hiss of the wildfire braziers. The pyromancers stood frozen in terror. Varys had melted deeper into the shadows, his face ashen. Jaime Lannister stood with his sword half-drawn, his mouth agape, staring at the body of the king he was sworn to protect, a king who had just been executed without being touched.
Thor stood before the Iron Throne for a long moment, the architect of a silent, bloodless regicide. He looked at the dead king, a pathetic, shrivelled thing, and felt nothing. No satisfaction. No relief. Only the weary, hollow ache of a necessary task completed.
He then turned his gaze to Jaime Lannister. The boy was shaking, his handsome face a wreck of conflicting emotions. Thor saw the choice that had almost broken him. He had just saved the boy from becoming a kingslayer. Or perhaps, he had just stolen the boy's one chance at redemption. He did not know. He did not care.
He turned his back on the Iron Throne, on the dead king, on the stunned courtiers. His work here was done. He had not come here to rule, or to conquer, or to liberate. He had come here to remove the disease. The body politic of this world could heal itself or fester and die. It was no longer his concern.
He walked from the throne room, his steps heavy, echoing in the vast, silent hall. He walked past the stunned Ser Barristan in the gallery, past the unconscious guards in the courtyard. He walked to the edge of the castle wall, and without looking back, stepped off into the night sky.
He did not fall. He simply floated downwards, landing as softly as a falling leaf in the darkened streets below.
In the throne room, chaos was erupting. But one man remained still. Jaime Lannister slowly pushed his sword back into its scabbard. He looked at the dead king, then at the open doors through which the god had departed. He had just witnessed the ultimate act of power, an act that had broken every rule of gods and men. Aerys had wanted to burn them all. And a god had answered, not with fire, but with a chilling, absolute silence. The rebellion had just lost its primary cause. The Iron Throne was empty. And the future of the Seven Kingdoms was now a terrifying, unwritten page. Jaime Lannister, the boy who would have been Kingslayer, was now just a witness. A witness to the day the thunder fell on King's Landing and put out the dragon's fire for good.