Chapter 25: The God in the Gutter
The silence of the mountain had become as loud as the screams he had fled. On his high Dornish mesa, surrounded by the stark, clean beauty of stone and sky, Thor had discovered a new kind of hell. It was a hell of perfect, pristine clarity. Without the dulling comfort of alcohol, without the distracting cacophony of mortals, he was left utterly alone with his own mind. And his mind was a ruin haunted by the ghosts of a thousand worlds, a billion souls he had failed to save.
He had thought action would bring purpose. The execution of Aerys, the annihilation of the Lannister host, the breaking of the Lion's pride—these were acts of immense power, of kingly judgment. For a fleeting moment, they had made him feel like the god he once was. But the feeling had faded, leaving behind only the bitter aftertaste of consequence. He had not fixed the world. He had not brought peace. He had simply kicked over a hornet's nest and then flown away, leaving the mortals to be stung. The knowledge that he had created a power vacuum now being filled by the same old ambitions and a new, terrified king brought him no solace. His intervention had been as meaningless as his apathy.
The solitude, once a balm, was now a mirror reflecting his own impotence. He was a god of infinite power, and the only thing he had managed to create was a wider, more complicated field of graves. He looked at his hands, hands that could crush mountains and summon storms, and he saw only the hands of a failure.
He came to a decision, not out of hope or a sense of duty, but out of a profound, bone-deep need for noise. He needed the filth and the chaos of humanity to drown out the pristine silence of his own despair. He needed to drink. He needed the familiar, comforting oblivion that only the vilest mortal alcohols could provide. The self-brewed poisons of the mountain were too clean, too efficient. He needed the grime. He needed the gutter.
He stood, a lonely figure against the rising sun, and simply stepped off the edge of the thousand-foot cliff. He did not fly. He plummeted downwards, letting the wind whip at him, a brief, thrilling sensation of absolute freedom. Just before he would have become a crater in the Dornish sand, he halted his descent, hovering a foot above the ground. Then, he began to walk north.
His return journey was an event in itself. The news spread ahead of him on wings of rumour and terror. The Storm God is moving. Peasants fled from their fields. Lords barred the gates of their holdfasts. Entire villages emptied as the silent, purposeful figure of the god strode through their lands. He was not a king returning to his capital. He was a natural disaster, a plague, and the land itself seemed to recoil from his path.
When he reached the gates of King's Landing, the Gold Cloaks on the walls did not challenge him. They dropped their spears and fell to their knees, their faces pale with terror. The great iron gates were hauled open for him without a word of command being spoken. He walked into a city that was utterly his.
But he did not walk towards the Red Keep. He ignored the grand avenues and the noble septs. He turned his steps towards the familiar, stinking labyrinth of Flea Bottom. The city held its breath, watching him go. The god was home.
In the Red Keep, the news of Thor's return landed with the force of a physical blow. King Robert Baratheon, in the midst of a Small Council meeting where he was trying to grapple with the monumental task of rebuilding a treasury without the benefit of Lannister gold, was interrupted by a trembling page.
"Your Grace… he… he's back."
No one needed to ask who 'he' was. A heavy, leaden silence fell over the council chamber. Robert's face, which had been slowly regaining some of its colour and boisterous energy, went pale.
"Where?" Jon Arryn asked, his voice steady, though his hand trembled slightly.
"Flea Bottom, my lord Hand," the page stammered. "He walked straight to The Grinning Pig. The… the Storm-Crier and the others… they are hailing it as his 'second coming'."
Robert slammed his fist on the table. "By the Seven Hells! He's back in that filthy tavern? What does he want? Has he come to finish the job? To take my crown?"
"He has made no move against the Keep, Your Grace," Varys said, his voice a soft, silken thread in the tense silence. He had been a subdued figure since the sack, his usual web of intrigues rendered moot by the new reality. "He appears to have… resumed his former life."
"Resumed it?" Robert bellowed. "He killed a king, wiped out an army, and shattered the richest House in the realm! He doesn't get to just go back to being a drunk in a tavern!"
"It would seem," Varys murmured, "that he believes he does."
The debate that followed was a repeat of the one at Riverrun, only now it was laced with a far more immediate and personal terror. The abstract threat was now sleeping on their doorstep. They were rats in a cage, and the lion had just wandered back inside and curled up in the corner for a nap.
"We must know his intentions," Jon Arryn insisted. "We cannot rule with this… this sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. We must approach him."
"Approach him?" Lord Estermont, Robert's grandfather, scoffed. "The last man who tried to command him was strangled on his own throne! The last man who provoked him lost his entire fortune and legacy in a single storm! You want to walk up to him and ask him what he wants?"
"We have no choice," Ned Stark said, his voice cutting through the fear. He had been silent until now, his face a grim mask. "We cannot live in fear. We cannot rule a kingdom while looking over our shoulders at a tavern in Flea Bottom. We are the King's council. I am his friend. We will go to him, Robert. Together. Not as a king commanding a subject, but as men seeking an understanding."
Robert looked at Ned, at his friend's unwavering, honourable gaze. He hated it. He hated the fear he felt. He was Robert Baratheon, the Demon of the Trident, the conqueror. He should be the one inspiring fear. But Ned was right. To hide in his castle while this entity held the city in a thrall of terror was not the act of a king.
"Fine," Robert growled, rising to his feet. "Fine! I will go and speak to the bloody god myself. But I'm not going as a beggar. I am going as the King of this land." He squared his shoulders, a flicker of the old Baratheon pride returning. "Ser Barristan! You're with me. Jon, Ned. Let's go and see what it takes to get a straight answer from a god."
Flea Bottom had changed in Thor's absence. The Grinning Pig was no longer just a tavern. It was a temple. The exterior had been painted with crude, swirling images of storms and lightning bolts. The incense smoke was thicker than ever. A constant stream of supplicants came and went, leaving offerings at a large, flat stone that had been set up before the door as an altar.
When Thor had arrived, the entire district had erupted. His return was seen as the ultimate validation of their faith. He had gone away to do his great and terrible work, and now he had returned to his chosen people. He had ignored their cheers, pushed through the weeping, prostrating crowds, and had entered the tavern.
His corner was there, exactly as he had left it, though now it was draped in silks and velvets stolen from the Red Keep during the chaos. Olyvar, the barkeep, tears of joy streaming down his face, had presented him with a golden goblet, filled with the finest Arbor gold. Thor had taken one look at it, pushed it aside, and had grunted a single word: "Ale."
And so he had sat, for a day and a night, trying to find his old rhythm. He drank the cheap, foul-tasting ale, feeling its familiar burn, willing it to work its magic. But the ghosts were more stubborn now. His mind was too clear. He could not un-see what he had done. He could not un-feel the weight of his own power. He was a king playing the part of a drunk, and the performance was no longer convincing, even to himself.
He was on his third flagon of the morning when the royal delegation arrived.
The crowd outside parted like the Red Sea, their faces a mixture of awe at their god and terror at the sight of the King in his black and gold finery. Robert Baratheon, flanked by Ned Stark, Jon Arryn, and the stoic Ser Barristan Selmy, strode into the tavern.
The change in the atmosphere was immediate. The handful of devout followers inside fell silent, their eyes wide. Olyvar the barkeep looked as if he might faint.
Robert stopped in the center of the room, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. He was trying to project an aura of command, of kingship. But in the dim, smoky light of the tavern, in the presence of the being slumped in the corner, he just looked like a man in a fancy costume.
Thor did not stand. He did not acknowledge them at first. He simply took a long, slow drink from his flagon, the sound of his swallowing loud in the silence. Finally, he lowered the flagon and looked at them, his eyes weary, bloodshot, and utterly unimpressed.
"The kings of men," he rumbled, his voice thick with sarcasm. "Come to my palace to pay your respects?"
Robert's face tightened at the mockery. "We have come for answers," he said, his voice tight with forced bravado. "You have made a mockery of my kingdom. You have slaughtered armies and leveled mountains. You have taken my crown from me before I even had a chance to win it. Now you return and expect to be left alone? The world does not work that way."
Thor actually smiled. It was a faint, bitter thing, a ghost of a smile. "Oh, it does," he said. "It is the only way it works. The storm passes. The earthquake ceases. The volcano falls silent. And the ants rebuild their little hills, and pretend they are the masters of the world again." He took another drink. "I am the storm, King Robert. And I have passed."
"That is not good enough," Jon Arryn said, his voice calm and reasonable. "We cannot rule, we cannot build, with the constant threat of your… displeasure hanging over us. We need to know what you want. We need to know your terms."
"My terms?" Thor laughed, a dry, rasping sound. "I am not negotiating a treaty, Lord Arryn. I am not one of your rival houses to be placated with a marriage or a trade agreement."
"Then what are you?" Ned Stark asked, his voice quiet and direct. The question cut through the posturing and the fear.
Thor's gaze settled on Ned. He saw the genuine, troubled honesty in the man's eyes. He deserved a straight answer.
He sighed, a great, world-weary sound, and for a moment, the drunken haze seemed to clear from his eyes, revealing the ancient, tired soul beneath. "I am a refugee," he said, his voice suddenly stripped of its sarcasm, filled only with a profound, aching sorrow. "I am the last survivor of a dead world. A king of a kingdom of ghosts. And I am tired. So very, very tired."
He looked around the squalid tavern. "This… this is all I want. A corner to sit in. A bottle to drink from. A place where the memories are quiet enough that I can sleep." He leaned forward, his massive forearms resting on the sticky table, his gaze pinning each of the lords in turn. "I have no desire for your throne. I have no interest in your laws. Your politics are a bore, your wars are a tragedy, and your lives are a fleeting whisper in a hurricane of cosmic indifference."
His eyes hardened, the brief flicker of vulnerability gone, replaced by the cold, hard glint of absolute power. "Here are my terms. You will leave me alone. You will not send your guards to trouble the people of this district. You will not send your spies to watch me. You will not send your priests to bother me. You will let me sit in this corner and drink myself into the grave, however long that may take."
He leaned back, picking up his flagon. "You do that, and I will, in turn, ignore you. You can have your little kingdom. You can fight your little wars. You can crown your little kings and pass your little laws. As long as you do not provoke me, as long as you do not bring your madness and your cruelty to my doorstep, I will remain the storm that has passed."
"And if we do provoke you?" Robert asked, his voice a low growl, unable to completely let go of his pride. "If a king decides he does not like having a… a refugee of your power living in his city, unbound by his laws?"
Thor stopped with the flagon halfway to his lips. He turned his head and looked at Robert, and the temperature in the room dropped by twenty degrees. The weary drunk was gone. The god of thunder was back. His eyes held the cold light of a dying star.
"Then you will learn, King Robert, as King Aerys learned, and as Lord Tywin learned, the difference between the power of men, which is a fleeting, pathetic thing, and the power of a god, which is absolute." His voice was a whisper, but it carried the promise of annihilation. "You will learn that your crown is just a piece of metal, your throne is just a piece of furniture, and your kingdom is just a patch of dirt that I can crack open to the core of this planet if I so choose."
He held Robert's terrified gaze for a long, silent moment. "I want to be left alone," he repeated, his voice now calm again, but with an underlying finality that was more terrifying than any shout. "That is all I have ever wanted. Do we have an understanding?"
Robert Baratheon, the Demon of the Trident, the Storm Lord, the new King of the Seven Kingdoms, looked into the eyes of a being who had unmade armies and mountains, and for the first time in his life, he was utterly and completely defeated. He could not fight this. He could not win this. He could only obey.
He gave a single, jerky nod. "We have an understanding."
"Good," Thor said. He turned away from them, his attention returning to his drink. The audience was over.
The King and his council stood there for a moment, dismissed, irrelevant. They turned and walked out of the tavern, back into the light of day, their fine clothes seeming foolish, their royal authority a hollow joke.
They had their answer. They had a god in their midst, a god of unimaginable power, a god whose only demand was to be allowed to drink himself to death in peace. They now had a kingdom to run. But it would be a kingdom run on a razor's edge, a kingdom whose peace and stability rested entirely on the fragile condition that no one, ever, annoy the drunk in the corner. King Robert's reign had begun, not with a bang, but with a terrifying, whispered warning. And the god had returned to his gutter.