Chapter 19: The Pilgrim Lords and the Sermon on the Mount
The death of a king is supposed to be followed by the cry of "Long live the King!" But in the days following Aerys's silent execution, the only cry in the Seven Kingdoms was a bewildered, terrified question: what now? The rebellion, a great and righteous engine of war, had lost its fuel. Robert's vengeance had been stolen from him. Ned's justice had been rendered moot. The great lords, poised to tear the realm apart over the sins of a tyrant, now found themselves staring into a power vacuum so absolute, so unnatural, that it chilled them to the bone.
The Iron Throne was empty. Rhaegar, the heir, was a fugitive, his name tainted by abduction and the dishonour of his father's reign. The remaining Targaryens were children. To press Robert's claim now was naked ambition, a conqueror's gambit that would unite the other great houses against the rebels. To do nothing was to invite anarchy, to let the realm splinter and burn.
They were caught in a political checkmate, and the piece that held them there was not on the board. It was the player who had overturned the table and walked away. Before any new game could begin, before any crowns could be claimed or alliances forged, they had to address the god-problem.
An uneasy truce was called. The rebel lords—Robert, Ned, Jon Arryn, and Hoster Tully—agreed to meet. But this was no mere council of war. Invitations were sent via raven to every corner of the realm, even to those who had remained loyal to the Targaryens. They were summoned not as enemies, but as peers of the realm facing an unprecedented crisis. Lord Tywin Lannister, ever the pragmatist, did not come himself but sent his brother, the steady and sensible Ser Kevan Lannister, as his eyes and ears. Even a representative from Prince Doran Martell of Dorne made the long journey, his people's fury at Elia's humiliation now complicated by the fact that the man who had shamed her was the de facto king, and the man who had killed his wife's tormentor was a god.
They met at the ancient castle of Riverrun, the neutral heart of the Riverlands. The Great Hall, usually a place of Tully warmth and hospitality, was thick with a tension that was colder than any winter. Stags, wolves, falcons, lions, and suns all sat at the same table, their ancient enmities and rivalries temporarily shelved in the face of a crisis that transcended them all.
"He killed the King," Robert Baratheon began, his voice a low, frustrated rumble. He had been subdued since the news, his boisterous rage replaced by a sullen, confused anger. "He smote him on the throne and then vanished. What does he want? Does he claim the throne for himself?"
"The reports say he showed no interest in the throne," Jon Arryn said, his voice the calm center of the storm. "He came, he acted as judge and executioner, and he departed. His actions were those of a man swatting a fly, not of a king seizing power."
"A fly?" the Dornish envoy, a sharp-faced man named Ser Manfrey Martell, sneered. "He murdered the King of the Seven Kingdoms. That is not swatting a fly. That is felling an oak. And now we are all left to shelter from the rain under its fallen branches."
"The question is not what he has done, but what he will do," Ser Kevan Lannister said, his voice quiet and measured, though his words carried the weight of his brother's authority. "Does he mean to rule us? Does he mean to install a ruler of his own? Or does he mean to let us tear each other to pieces? The realm cannot move forward until we have an answer. We are all playing our game in the shadow of a mountain, unsure if it is a dormant volcano."
For two days, they debated. They argued over succession, over past grievances, over the future of the realm. But every argument, every debate, circled back to the same, unanswerable question. What were the intentions of the Storm God?
It was Ned Stark, in his quiet, Northern practicality, who finally stated the simple, impossible truth. "We cannot know his mind until we ask him."
A silence fell over the hall. Ask him? How did one simply 'ask' a being who could walk through walls and kill with a thought?
"And how do we find him?" Lord Tully demanded. "He vanished from the most heavily fortified castle in the realm without a trace."
"He is not a spirit," Ned replied. "He is a man. A very powerful one, but a man nonetheless. He must be somewhere."
It was then that Lord Varys, who had been invited to the council as the crown's acting Master of Whisperers and had observed the proceedings with his usual unnerving calm, spoke for the first time. "He has been found."
All eyes turned to the Spider. "My little birds have an affinity for finding lost things, my lords," he said with a small, placid smile. "The entity known as Thor flew south. He has taken up residence on a high mesa in the Red Mountains of Dorne, near the border of the Stormlands. He is living alone, in complete isolation."
The information hung in the air, a stunning revelation. He had not vanished. He was simply… hiding.
A new, desperate plan was forged. A delegation would be sent. A small, powerful group that represented the great powers of the realm. They would seek out this god in his mountain retreat and humbly, respectfully, ask him his intentions. They would not go with an army, but as pilgrims, as supplicants to a power they could not hope to command. Jon Arryn would go for the Vale. Hoster Tully for the Riverlands. Kevan Lannister for the Westerlands. Ser Manfrey Martell for Dorne. And Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon would go for the storm of their rebellion. It was a desperate, unprecedented, and utterly humiliating mission. The most powerful men in Westeros were going to beg a god for permission to have a future.
The climb was arduous. The mesa Thor had chosen was remote, its sides sheer cliffs of red sandstone. The air was thin and bitingly clean. The lords, used to the comforts of their castles and the backs of their horses, struggled up the narrow, treacherous goat path that was the only way to the summit. They were accompanied by a handful of sworn swords and the best trackers the realm could provide, men who had followed the trail of a being who had left no trail, guided only by the Spider's whispers and the strange, intuitive sense that they were moving towards a great and terrible power.
After a day of climbing, they reached the top. The summit was a vast, flat expanse of wind-scoured rock, empty save for a few hardy, twisted trees. And there, sitting on the edge of the cliff overlooking the vast desert below, was Thor.
He was not the wild hermit they had half-expected. He had bathed in some hidden spring; his hair and beard, though still long, were clean. He was clad in simple leather trousers, his massive, scarred torso bare to the wind. He was not drinking. He was simply sitting, staring out at the horizon, a figure of immense, sorrowful stillness. Stormbreaker lay on the rock beside him, its presence a silent, deadly promise.
He did not turn as they approached, though he was clearly aware of their presence. He simply continued to stare into the distance, as if the arrival of the most powerful lords in Westeros was a matter of supreme indifference to him.
The lords stopped a respectful twenty paces away, their breath catching in their chests. The sheer, raw power emanating from the silent figure was overwhelming. It was not a magical aura; it was the simple, undeniable presence of a being who was fundamentally more.
Jon Arryn, as the elder statesman, stepped forward. His face was grim, his posture dignified despite the arduous climb. "Lord Thor," he began, his voice steady. He had decided against using the term 'god'. It felt both inadequate and presumptuous.
Thor did not move or speak.
Jon Arryn cleared his throat and continued. "We have come to you as representatives of the great houses of the Seven Kingdoms. The realm is in crisis. King Aerys is dead, by your hand. The Iron Throne is empty. The line of succession is broken. We are on the brink of a war that will tear the kingdom apart." He paused, letting the weight of his words settle in the thin mountain air. "We have come to ask you… what are your intentions? Do you claim the throne you have emptied? Do you wish to name a successor? The realm must have a king. We cannot move forward until we know your will."
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the wind whistling over the rocks. Then, Thor finally spoke, his voice a low rumble that seemed to come from the stone itself. He did not turn to face them.
"My will?" he said, a note of bitter, incredulous amusement in his voice. "You climb my mountain and you ask for my will?" He slowly turned his head, and his eyes—clear, blue, and filled with an ancient, weary sorrow—pinned Jon Arryn to the spot. "I have no will for this world. I have no intentions. I have no desire for your throne or your kingdom."
"But you acted," Hoster Tully interjected, his voice brusque. "You killed the King. That was an act of war! An act of rule!"
"That was an act of pest control," Thor corrected, his gaze shifting to Lord Tully. "I saw a rabid animal, and I put it down. I did it not for you, not for your rebellion, but because I was tired of listening to it bark." He turned his gaze back to the horizon. "The consequences are yours to deal with."
This was not the answer they had expected. They had come prepared for demands, for commandments, for anger. They were not prepared for this absolute, soul-crushing indifference.
Robert Baratheon, his patience finally snapping, strode forward, his fists clenched. "So that's it? You break the realm and then you wash your hands of it? You leave us to clean up your mess?"
Thor turned his head fully now, and for the first time, he looked directly at Robert. His gaze was not angry. It was analytical, dissecting. "You are Robert Baratheon," he stated. "The stag who wishes to be a dragon. You wanted vengeance against a man who stole your betrothed. But Rhaegar did not steal her. Your pride, and her cage, drove her to him. And now the man who shamed you is the rightful king, and the man who was the target of your vengeance is dead. You have no cause, Lord Baratheon. Only an appetite."
Robert recoiled as if struck, his face flushing with rage and the shock of being so utterly and accurately read.
"You have come here asking me to be your king," Thor continued, his voice taking on the tone of a weary teacher addressing a class of particularly slow students. "Why? So you can trade one absentee monarch for another? I have ruled a kingdom that spanned galaxies. Its people were eternal, its treasures infinite. I ruled it for fifteen hundred years. And I watched it all turn to dust."
He stood up, and the assembled lords instinctively took a step back. He was a terrifying figure, a monument of muscle and grief against the endless sky.
"You want me to sit on your throne of rusty swords?" he asked, a humourless laugh escaping his lips. "You want me to listen to your small lords bicker over a bushel of wheat or a disputed stream? You want me to sign your papers and judge your petty crimes? I am a being who has argued with the living embodiment of eternity. Your concerns are less than dust motes to me."
He walked towards them, his steps slow and deliberate. The lords stood their ground, but their sworn swords behind them gripped their weapons, their faces pale.
"You speak of the realm," Thor said, stopping before Ned Stark. He looked down at the young Lord of Winterfell, his gaze softening almost imperceptibly. "You. You are the only one here who does not want what you have come to ask for. You have honour. You feel the weight of duty. You would make a good king."
Ned stared back, his expression stoic, but his grey eyes troubled. "I have no claim, my lord. And I do not want a crown."
"No," Thor agreed. "The best kings never do." He then looked past Ned, his gaze sweeping over the entire delegation. "You want me to choose for you. You want me to anoint one of you and give you the divine right to rule. You want me to take the responsibility for your future off your shoulders. Because you are children. Children fighting over a broken toy, and you have come to ask your father to fix it for you."
His voice dropped, becoming cold and hard as the mountain stone. "I am not your father. And your toy is beyond repair. You have broken it with your pride, your greed, and your foolish, self-important songs."
He walked to the edge of the cliff, his back to them once more. "You want my will? Here it is. Go home. Your rebellion is over. Your king is dead. The game is reset. If you wish to crown Robert Baratheon, then do so. But know that you will be fighting a war of conquest, and the other houses will bleed you for it. If you wish to call for a Great Council and elect a new king, then do so, and spend the next fifty years squabbling amongst yourselves while the realm starves. If you wish to find your lost prince, Rhaegar, and beg him to take the throne he inherited, then do so, and place your faith in a sad man who follows the whispers of ghosts."
He turned his head one last time, his eyes boring into them, filled with a terrible, ancient wisdom.
"The choice is yours. That is the burden of mortals. That is the freedom you do not realize you have. I have made my choice. My choice is to be left alone." He gestured to the path leading down the mountain. "Your presence here… displeases me. Leave this mountain. Do not return. Do not seek me out again."
He sat back down on the edge of the world, his audience concluded.
The lords stood in stunned, absolute silence. They had come seeking a solution, a divine mandate, a path forward. They had been given nothing. Worse than nothing. They had been given a choice, and the mirror of their own inadequacies had been held up to them. They had been dismissed. Utterly and completely.
Slowly, without another word, they turned. They began the long, humiliating climb down the mountain, their minds reeling, their grand hopes dashed against the rocks of a god's indifference. They had sought out the storm, hoping to harness its power. And the storm had spoken, and its message was simple: you are on your own.
As they descended, Robert Baratheon looked back up at the silent figure on the summit. His anger was gone, replaced by a strange, hollow feeling. He had wanted to fight a god. But how do you fight a being who has already surrendered to a grief larger than your entire world?
The pilgrim lords had their answer. There was no divine will to follow. There was no god-king to serve. There was only the empty throne, the coming winter, and the terrible, terrifying freedom to choose their own damnation. The true war for the Seven Kingdoms was about to begin.