Chapter 23: The Age of Fear
The ink on King Robert's first war-time proclamations was not yet dry when the world broke for the second time. The Rebel Lords, gathered in the Great Hall at Riverrun, were immersed in the familiar, tangible business of war. Maps were spread across the great oak table, detailing troop movements and supply lines. The debate was fierce but grounded in the realities of men and steel. Robert, his rage now channeled into a king's purpose, argued for a swift, decisive march on the capital to crush the remaining Targaryen loyalists and seize the Iron Throne. Ned and Jon Arryn urged caution, arguing for a more diplomatic approach to consolidate their power and avoid appearing as conquerors.
It was a sensible, mortal debate, predicated on the assumption that they were the primary actors in their own destiny. That assumption was about to be annihilated.
The first messenger arrived on a horse that collapsed and died in the courtyard of Riverrun. He was a Tully scout, his face streaked with soot and tears, his eyes wide with a horror that was more profound than the mere sight of battle. He burst into the Great Hall, babbling of fire, of screams, of the Lion of Lannister's banners unfurling over a dying city.
"The Sack!" he gasped, falling to his knees before Lord Hoster Tully. "King's Landing… Lord Tywin… he was welcomed as a friend, and he has put the city to the sword!"
A wave of cold fury washed over the hall. Robert Baratheon's face went purple with rage. "Lannister!" he roared, smashing his fist on the table and splintering the ancient oak. "That treacherous, oath-breaking dog! I knew he could not be trusted! He plays all sides against the middle!"
Ned Stark's face was a mask of grim, stony disgust. The sack of a city, the slaughter of smallfolk… it was a violation of every code of honour he held dear. "He came to steal the throne for himself while we fought the war," he said, his voice low and dangerous.
"We will march on him now!" Robert bellowed. "We will crush his army in the ruins and I will have his head on a spike!"
The lords were in an uproar, their plans instantly obsolete. The enemy was no longer the fractured Targaryen loyalists, but the full might of House Lannister, entrenched in the capital. It was a disastrous turn, a complication that would prolong the war for months, perhaps years. They began to shout, to argue over new strategies, to debate the logistics of a siege.
They had been debating for less than an hour when the second messenger arrived.
This one was not a soldier. He was a merchant who had been fleeing the city, his fine clothes torn and spattered with blood. He was incoherent, babbling of a storm, of a god's wrath, of an army of men turned to ash. He was dismissed at first as a madman, his mind broken by the horrors of the sack. But he was followed by another, and another. A trickle of refugees from the capital, all telling the same, impossible story.
Jon Arryn, his face a mask of deep concern, took charge, isolating the refugees and having Maester Vyman question them carefully, cross-referencing their tales. When the maester returned to the Great Hall, his face was ashen, his hands trembling.
"My lords," Vyman whispered, his voice barely audible. "The stories… they are consistent. They are… unbelievable, but they are consistent." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "They say… they say the Storm God came back."
A profound, chilling silence fell over the hall. Every lord, every knight, every servant froze, their attention fixed on the maester.
"They say a storm, a purple and black storm, fell upon the city," Vyman continued, reading from his notes as if he could not trust his own memory. "They speak of lightning that did not strike, but… erased. Of the very ground shaking. They say the god appeared in the city, and… and he annihilated the Lannister army."
"Annihilated?" Lord Tully scoffed, though his voice lacked conviction. "A force of twelve thousand men, the most disciplined army in the realm?"
"That is the word they all use, my lord," the maester insisted. "Not defeated. Not routed. Annihilated. One man spoke of seeing Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, crushed into a red mist without being touched. Another spoke of entire companies turned to ash and smoke. They all say he moved through the army, and when he was done… there was nothing left but bodies. All of them Lannister men. The city, the smallfolk… they were untouched."
The lords stared at him, their minds struggling to comprehend the scale of what was being described. Robert Baratheon, who had been so eager to fight the Lannisters himself, sank back into his chair, his face a mixture of disbelief and a strange, frustrated awe. His enemy had been stolen from him once again.
"And Lord Tywin?" Ned asked, his voice a low, grim whisper.
"The god left a handful of survivors, my lord," Vyman said. "He sent them back to Casterly Rock with a message for their master. The words, as one man remembered them, were… 'Your ambitions are ash. If you or any of your spawn ever set foot in King's Landing again, I will come for you myself. And I will finish the job.'"
The threat, so absolute, so personal, hung in the air like the smell of ozone after a lightning strike. The lords of Westeros looked at each other, their own ambitions and grievances suddenly seeming small, petty, and foolish. They had been playing a game of cyvasse, moving their wooden pieces across the board, only to have a giant's hand sweep the whole table clean.
They were now in a war with no enemy army. The Targaryen loyalists were a scattered remnant. The Lannister host was a memory. Robert was king of a realm that was not yet his, a realm whose former capital was now a bloodbath under the silent watch of a terrifyingly powerful and unpredictable god.
What does one do? What is the proper move? Their debate began anew, but it was different now. The fire and rage were gone, replaced by a cold, creeping fear. The fear of the unknown. The fear of a power that made their armies and castles and ancient lineages utterly irrelevant.
It was into this atmosphere of fearful paralysis that the third raven came. This one was from the West. From a small holdfast on the coast near Kayce, a vassal of the Lannisters. The message was not intended for Riverrun, but had been intercepted by Tully outriders. The seal was that of the local lord, and the message was a panicked, frantic plea for aid and guidance addressed to his non-existent superiors at Casterly Rock.
Jon Arryn read the message aloud, his voice growing more strained and incredulous with every word.
The message spoke of a storm. A storm that was not a storm. It described a black wall of cloud that had risen from the sea and moved with intelligent purpose. It described the sea itself being lifted into the air, the great fleet of Lannisport being smashed to kindling. It described the port, the pride of the West, being pulverized into rubble by dozens of targeted waterspouts.
"Gods be good," Hoster Tully breathed, his face draining of all colour.
Jon Arryn continued, his hand shaking as he held the parchment. The message went on. It spoke of the earth shaking, of mountains groaning. And then, the most impossible part of all. It spoke of the collapse of the hillsides that housed the great Lannister mines. The Golden Tooth. The mines of Castamere. All of it, buried under billions of tons of rock in a deliberate, controlled implosion. And then, the final, cruel blow. A deluge of rain and seawater, a river falling from the sky, flooding the collapsed shafts, poisoning the veins of gold with salt, rendering them useless for a hundred generations.
When Jon Arryn finished reading, the silence in the hall was absolute. It was the silence of utter, soul-shattering shock. This was a blow from which there was no recovery. It was not just a military defeat. It was an economic and symbolic annihilation. Thor had not just killed an army. He had taken the two things that made House Lannister what it was—its fleet and its gold—and he had erased them from the world. He had not just slain the lion's soldiers; he had pulled the lion's teeth and claws, and broken its spine for good measure.
Robert Baratheon stared into the fireplace, his mouth agape. His own fury, which he had always considered a force of nature, was a child's tantrum compared to the cold, calculated, and absolute wrath that had just been described.
Ned Stark felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He thought of the stories of the North, of the wrath of the old gods, of the coming of the Long Night. This felt like something from those tales, a power of winter and stone and sky made manifest. He thought of Thor's words to him on the mountain. You would make a good king. Had it been a compliment? Or had it been a curse? A condemnation to rule over the ashes of a world where such powers were now awake?
"He has gelded the Lion," Jon Arryn finally said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He let the parchment fall from his fingers. "He has broken the wealthiest and most powerful house in the Seven Kingdoms with a single storm. He has ended our rebellion, destroyed our greatest rival, and left the Iron Throne empty, all in the space of a fortnight." He looked around at the faces of the assembled lords, his own face a mask of weary despair. "And now we must decide what to do. How do we build a kingdom when we know there is a power in it that can unmake mountains at a whim?"
The question hung in the air, unanswerable. All their plans, all their ambitions, had been predicated on a world governed by the laws of men. That world was gone. They now lived in a new age. The Age of Dragons was over. The Age of the Stag had not yet truly begun. This was the dawning of a new, far more terrifying era. The Age of Fear.
In the Red Keep, in his web of secrets, Varys the Spider received the same news. His little birds, his spies from the Westerlands, sent their reports, their words laced with a terror that transcended the usual dryness of their intelligence summaries.
Varys sat in his chambers and read of the shattered port and the flooded mines. He felt no triumph at the fall of his great rival, Tywin Lannister. He felt only a cold, profound, and deeply professional dread.
He was a master of the game. He understood men. He understood their greed, their lust, their ambition, their fear. He could manipulate these things. He could pull the strings of the human heart and make the puppets dance to his tune. His plans were intricate, long-term, designed to place a ruler on the throne who would bring peace and prosperity to the smallfolk he professed to serve. It was a delicate, complex, and entirely human endeavor.
But how did you manipulate a hurricane? How did you flatter a walking earthquake? How did you find the strings to pull on a being who could unmake the very ground you stood upon?
Varys looked at the cyvasse board on his table. He saw the intricate pieces: the dragon, the elephant, the trebuchet. And he imagined a new piece being placed upon it. A piece that was not made of wood. A piece that was as large as the board itself. A piece that, with a single, indifferent shrug, could shatter the table, the room, and the castle around it.
He could not play this game. No one could.
He took a lit candle and held it over the reports from the Westerlands. He watched the parchment curl, blacken, and turn to ash, just as Thor had turned the ambitions of House Lannister to ash. He had to rethink everything. All his plans, all his allegiances. The dragon prince he had been supporting, the secret Targaryen heir across the sea—what did they matter now? What did any king matter?
There was only one true power in Westeros now. It was not sitting on the Iron Throne. It was sitting on a mountain in Dorne, or walking through the ruins of King's Landing, a being of unimaginable power and, far more terrifyingly, of unimaginable grief.
The game of thrones was over. Varys knew it with a certainty that chilled him more than any winter. The old game was done. The goal was no longer to win. The goal was simply to survive what came next. And for the first time in his life, the Master of Whisperers had no idea what that would be. He was a spider in a world where the web had been torn, and he was falling into the dark.