Chapter 35: A King's Decree and a Spider's Gambit
The new peace of King Robert's reign was a fragile, wounded thing, a ship with a patched hull floating on a sea of fear. The great lords had settled into an uneasy truce, their ambitions checked not by loyalty to the new crown, but by the terrifying knowledge of the power that slept in the city's gutters. Robert Baratheon ruled, but he did not reign. He was a king perpetually looking over his shoulder, his authority a flickering candle in the shadow of a dormant volcano.
Years passed. Robert's son, Joffrey, grew from a babe into a boy with his mother's cruel smirk and none of his father's strength. Queen Cersei remained in her gilded cage in the Maidenvault, a mad ghost haunted by her own reflection, her name a curse whispered in the halls of power. Tywin Lannister remained a broken lion in his ruined Rock, his influence gone, his name a byword for divine retribution.
The realm was quiet. Too quiet. It was the quiet of a forest after a great fire, a quiet of shock and slow, painful regrowth.
And in the Red Keep, King Robert grew fatter, angrier, and more paranoid. His victory had brought him no joy. His crown was heavy, his marriage a torment, and his throne was a cold, iron mockery of the power he craved. His hatred of the Targaryens, once a roaring fire, had curdled into a thick, poisonous sludge of fear and resentment. He had killed Rhaegar, but the dragons were not all dead. On the storm-lashed island of Dragonstone, the last two of them lived. Viserys, a boy growing into an arrogant, entitled youth, and Daenerys, a babe born during the very storm that had heralded the end of her family's dynasty.
They were a constant, itching wound in Robert's pride. A reminder that his victory was incomplete. A potential rallying point for his enemies. He would rant about them in his cups, his voice booming through the Small Council chamber.
"Dragonspawn!" he would roar, his face purple with wine and rage. "They plot against me, I know it! They gather swords on their island, waiting for their moment to strike! We must end them! We must wipe the whole cursed line from the face of the earth!"
Jon Arryn, his Hand, would always counsel patience. "They are children, Your Grace. Exiles on a lonely rock. They pose no threat. To murder them would be a dishonour, an act that would turn the realm against you."
Ned Stark, in his letters from the North, echoed the sentiment. But Robert's fear, stoked by his own insecurity and the whispers of lesser, ambitious men, was a beast that could not be reasoned with.
The breaking point came on a dark, stormy night, much like the one that had seen the end of the Targaryen fleet. A ship, battered and half-sunk, had limped into port, its captain bearing tales from Essos. He spoke of the Beggar King, Viserys Targaryen, sending envoys to the Free Cities, seeking to buy the allegiance of sellsword companies with promises of land and titles in a reconquered Westeros.
It was likely nothing more than the desperate boasting of a powerless boy. But for Robert, it was the confirmation of his deepest fears.
That night, he summoned only two men to his private solar: his brother, Lord Stannis, and Lord Varys. Jon Arryn and Ned were not to know. This was to be a king's secret command.
"I want them dead," Robert snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl. He was not drunk. He was murderously sober. "The boy and the girl. I want their heads on spikes on the walls of the Red Keep before the next moon turns. I don't care how you do it, Varys. Poison, a dagger in the dark, a hunting 'accident'. Just see it done. End them."
Stannis, a man to whom duty was a religion and the King's word was its holy text, nodded grimly. "It is a grim necessity, Your Grace. They are a threat to the peace."
Varys bowed low, his face a perfect, placid mask. "As you command, Your Grace. Your will shall be done."
But as the Spider left the King's solar, his mind was a whirlwind of frantic calculation. This was a disaster. Robert, in his paranoid fury, was about to commit an act that would shatter the fragile peace. The murder of Elia Martell's children by the Lannisters had already left Dorne a simmering cauldron of resentment. To now murder the last Targaryen children would be to invite open war with the Sunspear. It would be an act of butchery that would horrify even Robert's own allies, like the honourable Ned Stark. It would destabilize the entire realm, for no better reason than to soothe a drunken king's nightmares.
Varys's own long-laid plans, his secret support for a different kind of Targaryen restoration, were also threatened. But his immediate concern was for the realm. Robert's command was a madness that had to be stopped.
But how? He could not disobey a direct order from his king. Stannis was now party to it, and his rigid sense of duty would ensure it was carried out. He could not appeal to Jon Arryn or Ned Stark; by the time they could intervene, the assassins would already be on their way.
He needed a power that stood outside the laws of kings. A power that could stop a ship in the night, a power that answered to its own, unknowable code. A power that had already judged one king for the crime of harming children.
He had one last, desperate, and terrifyingly risky gambit to play. It involved a man he had come to fear, but also to respect, in a strange, intellectual way. The one man in King's Landing who was as much of an outcast as himself, and the only man who had ever had a civil conversation with the god. He had to get a message to the dwarf.
Tyrion Lannister had settled into a comfortable, if precarious, routine. He was the official Lannister representative at court, a role that consisted mainly of enduring Robert's jokes and the other lords' pitying glances. His real work took place in his library and in the smoky confines of The Dregs, his observation post across from The Grinning Pig.
His study of the god had become the central, defining passion of his life. His journal was now three volumes thick, filled with observations, theories, and philosophical musings. He had mapped the god's moods, his drinking patterns, his rare, quiet interventions. He had come to understand Thor not as a deity to be worshipped, but as a case study in power and grief. The conversation they'd had, the god's raw, painful confession, had been a key that had unlocked a new level of understanding. Tyrion knew he was studying the most tragic and powerful being in existence.
He knew Thor had warned him not to ask another question. He had respected that. He had kept his distance, content to watch from afar.
The message from Varys came in a way that was both subtle and unmistakable. A street urchin, one of the Spider's little birds, bumped into him in the market, pressing a small, tightly folded note into his hand and whispering a single word: "Dragonstone." The urchin was gone before Tyrion could even react.
He retreated to the privacy of his chambers before reading the note. It was not signed. It contained no names. It was just a few, simple, chilling facts. A royal ship, the Sea Serpent, departs on the evening tide. Its destination: a stormy island. Its cargo: two blades from the Faceless Men of Braavos. Its purpose: to prune the last two branches of a dragon's tree. The King's sleep is troubled by whelps.
Tyrion read the note three times, a cold dread spreading through him. He understood instantly. Robert had ordered the assassination of Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen. The Spider, for his own reasons, was trying to stop it, but couldn't act himself. So he had passed the knowledge, and the choice, to him.
He crushed the note in his fist, his mind racing. He paced his room, a storm of conflicting thoughts. What was this to him? He was a Lannister. The Targaryens were his family's ancient rivals. Their final destruction should be a matter of indifference, or even satisfaction, to him. To interfere would be to act against the interests of his King, to commit a form of treason.
But they were children. A frightened, arrogant boy and a girl who was little more than a baby. To be butchered in their beds on the order of a paranoid drunk. The thought turned his stomach. He thought of his own childhood, of the scorn and hatred he had endured from his own father. He thought of his monstrous nephew, Joffrey, and his sweet, innocent niece, Myrcella. Children were not responsible for the sins of their fathers.
But what could he do? He could go to Jon Arryn, to Ned Stark when he returned to court. But it would be too late. The ship was sailing tonight. There was only one being in the world who could stop a ship in the middle of the ocean, who could intervene with enough speed and power to matter.
But to go to him again… the god had been explicit. Do not ask me another question. To go back now, to ask for something, not just for knowledge but for action, was to risk an anger he could not begin to comprehend. He remembered the look in Thor's eyes, the cold, final warning.
He poured himself a large goblet of wine, his hand shaking slightly. He drank it down, the liquid doing nothing to calm the frantic beating of his heart. He was trapped. On one side was the murder of children. On the other was the potential wrath of a god.
He thought of their conversation. He had found the god's weakness, the chink in his armour. It was his own buried sense of duty, his instinct to protect the helpless. He had seen it with Finn, with the tenement collapse. He had seen it in the god's brutal, absolute response to the Sack of King's Landing. The god had judged Aerys for his cruelty to children. Would he truly stand by and let Robert, the new king, commit the very same crime?
Tyrion had to gamble. He had to gamble that Thor's revulsion at the murder of the innocent would be stronger than his irritation at being bothered again. He had to frame it perfectly. Not as a request. Not as a plea. But as he had before. As a piece of information. A point of data for a higher mind to consider.
He left his manse, his heart a cold, hard knot of fear and resolve. He made his way to Flea Bottom, to the now familiar sight of The Grinning Pig. This time, he did not wait in the alley. He walked straight to the front door, through the parted crowd of whispering pilgrims, and into the lion's den.
Thor was drinking. The raw agony of his grief, which Ned Stark's visit had torn open, had slowly scabbed over again. He had retreated back into the familiar, comforting fog of the ale, his mind once more a dull, grey landscape. He was aware of Tyrion's entrance, a minor, irritating disturbance, but he did not look up. He had given the dwarf his answer and his warning. He had nothing more to say.
Tyrion approached the table and, without waiting for an invitation, sat down on the rickety stool opposite him.
"I know you told me not to ask another question, my lord," Tyrion began, his voice quiet, respectful, but laced with an undeniable urgency. "And I am not here to ask one. I am here, as a student of history, to present you with an observation on the cyclical nature of mortal folly."
Thor continued to stare into his flagon, giving no sign that he was listening.
"A king sits in the Red Keep," Tyrion continued, his words precise, carefully chosen. "He is a man who won his throne by fighting a tyrant. A tyrant who was famous for his paranoia, for his cruelty, and for, among other things, burning men alive and finding joy in the murder of his enemies' children."
He paused, letting the words hang in the air. "This new king, it seems, has learned some unfortunate lessons from his predecessor. He is now so frightened of the ghosts of the past that he has dispatched assassins, this very night, to a lonely island. Their purpose is to murder two children. A boy, and a girl younger than my own niece. Their only crime is that they share the blood of the king he deposed."
Thor's hand, which was lifting the flagon to his lips, froze. A stillness, a dangerous, absolute stillness, came over him.
Tyrion knew he had the god's attention. He pressed on. "I find the parallel fascinating, from a historical perspective. A new king, so terrified of a potential future challenge, resorts to the very same crimes that made the old king a monster. It would seem the nature of power is to corrupt, and the nature of fear is to make monsters of us all." He looked directly at Thor's lowered head. "As I said, it is merely an observation. A footnote in the sad, repetitive story of this world. I am sure it is of no concern to a being of your stature."
He had laid the bait. He had presented the facts without a hint of a plea. He had simply held up another mirror, not to the god's grief, but to his own past actions. You judged Aerys for this. What of Robert?
Thor slowly, very slowly, placed his flagon on the table. He raised his head, and Tyrion felt his blood run cold. The weary, bloodshot eyes were gone. They were replaced by two burning, blue-white supernovas of pure, unadulterated fury. The apathy was gone. The sorrow was gone. All that was left was the God of Thunder, in all his terrible, cosmic wrath.
He had miscalculated. Tyrion realized with a surge of absolute terror. He had not just poked the god. He had stabbed him in his oldest, rawest wound. The failure to protect the innocent. The cycle of tyrants and victims.
"The sins of the father…" Thor whispered, his voice a low, crackling rumble, like the sound of a storm being born. "…are not the burden of the son." His gaze was not on Tyrion. It was looking through him, through the walls of the tavern, at something far away. He was seeing not Viserys and Daenerys. He was seeing himself and Loki. He was seeing the children of Asgard. He was seeing the endless, repeating pattern of violence and grief that defined existence.
He stood up, his chair splintering into kindling behind him. The air in the tavern became thick, charged with ozone. The few pilgrims in the room cried out and scrambled for the door as tiny forks of lightning began to arc between the horns of Stormbreaker, which was leaning against the wall.
Thor grabbed the axe, its runes glowing with a hungry, blue light. He turned and looked down at Tyrion, who was frozen to his stool, utterly convinced his last moment had come.
But the god's eyes held no malice for him. They held a strange, terrible fire, and something else. A flicker of grudging, almost imperceptible respect.
"You have a dangerous mind, little lion," Thor thundered, his voice the sound of worlds colliding. "You meddle in the affairs of beings you cannot comprehend." He took a step towards the door. "But you are right. This… this is a historical parallel I find… displeasing."
With that, he strode out of the tavern, not bothering with the door, but simply walking through the wall, which dissolved into dust and reformed behind him.
The pilgrims outside screamed as their god appeared among them, his eyes blazing, his axe alive with lightning. He did not look at them. He looked up at the night sky, towards the sea.
Tyrion stumbled out of the tavern just in time to see it. Thor raised Stormbreaker high, and with a roar that was a challenge to the heavens themselves, he brought it down. It did not strike the ground. It swung through the air, and the air itself tore open.
A swirling, chaotic vortex of rainbow-colored energy appeared in the middle of the street—a Bifrost, raw, untamed, and terrifying. It was not the clean, precise bridge of Asgardian legend. It was a maelstrom of colour and power.
Thor took a single, purposeful step and vanished into the vortex. A moment later, the portal snapped shut, leaving behind only the smell of ozone and a profound, echoing silence.
Tyrion Lannister stood in the street, shaking, surrounded by the weeping, praying faithful. He had done it. He had presented the god with a moral absolute he could not ignore. He had aimed the hurricane.
He looked out towards the sea, towards Dragonstone. He did not know what would happen now. He did not know if Thor would save the children, or if his rage would consume them all. He only knew that he had, once again, shattered the fragile peace of the world. And he, the cynical dwarf who believed in nothing, found himself whispering a silent, desperate prayer to the storm he had just unleashed.