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Chapter Text

If there was one thing that Qyburn could say was a fortunate upside of slamming into the shores of Gogossos, it was the chance to study the creatures of the island first hand, and there was no better way to do that than upon his table. The air elsewhere was clean and splendid, carrying with it the taste of the sea air and the scent of Sothoryi flowers, but here, in his room, it was thick with the stench of death, where the hammering and beating noises of sailors working to mend and repair their ship mingled with the wet, slipping sounds of gloved fingers sliding around and through meat and guts, exploring the innermost depths of the eyeless creature's chest, exploring the mysteries of its strange and fascinating form. Few were the men that dared to peek inside and witness the work itself, to gaze through the empty frame where his door had been before they took it for timber, every man doing their best to ignore the sights and sounds and smells as they hurried past, mopping the deck and walls, gathering up pieces of broken pottery as they did. None lingered for long. None dared to watch for long, for as twisted as it was, none could bear the sight of Qyburn plucking the organs from its belly...

...none other than Artos, the quiet Northman who Davos had sent to help him with the work. Sweat beaded on his brow, even here, even in the holds of the Gerold, but still he stood there, jar in hand. Plain spoken and simple in his manners though he may be, Qyburn found his direct nature refreshing in its own way, even encouraging. The clansman wasn't at all bothered by the work they were doing, or at the very least didn't show it, but instead stood there, taking the samples Qyburn gave him, helped him to seal the jars tight and then put them into wooden boxes and then lifted them up onto the shelves with ease, where they would be safe. A half dozen organs floated there already - Qyburn had to admit to being somewhat puzzled as to where to start, so he took a little of everything: one of the kidneys, a length of intestine, one full hand that had curled up like a dead spider in the night, a knee that had been hard on his saw, and a few dozen teeth stored in little vials to keep the root preserved. He looked at them, curious, thinking. The eyeless creature was unsettlingly similar to a man on the outside, albeit a man that was far too thin and far too tall, but within, within, the differences became stark. He could barely recognise some of the organs, and some of them he was sure had no equal in the body of any Man, leaving him forced to guess what they might do from the things that he did recognise. Glands and bones and organs, pieces of a fleshy puzzle that would rot before he could solve it.

Still, it is fascinating, he couldn't help but smile, gloved fingers drumming on the table as he thought. At least now I have something to do without worrying that my mind will go to rot...

"Mayhaps the heart next," he suggested...before looking into the chest, and pointing at a bulbous organ off to the right. "Or...that."

"What is it?" Artos asked, gruff words flavored by the thick accent of his Northern homeland. "Is that...the spleen?"

"It might very well be." Qyburn reached in bloodied gloves, inspecting it for himself. "Or perhaps another stomach."

"You've already found two."

"Might be it has another?" Qyburn pulled back, and took a thin, sharp blade from a waiting tray before reaching back inside. "Find one of the smaller jars, would you?"

Artos turned towards the desk on the other side of the room, a table covered in jars and jugs and bottles and vials, all neatly arranged with corks in their mouths. A thick pitcher with a chipped rim stood safely in the corner, the base wrapped in an old shirt to help keep it stable, to keep it from spilling the precious mixture that would - Qyburn hoped - preserve the flesh for their return. It did not need to be perfect, did not need to be pristine, but the meat itself could not be rotten if he was to decipher the true function of them over time, to conduct the dissections that he would need if he was to ever discover their full purpose. The Northern clansman set down the one he was holding and took a small jar, little wider across than a cup, removed the cork between thumb and forefinger, then took the pitcher of liquid with all the care that Qyburn had first instructed. Then he poured, filling it to two thirds full, and with all the care of a groom desperate to avoid spilling a drink upon his bride, turned towards Qyburn again, holding it as still as a statue. Qyburn nodded with a thankful smile, and set to work removing the organ, slicing through veins and arteries with the knife...

...and with the gentlest care, he plucked the flesh from its place, turned, and carefully, carefully put it into the jar. The moment it fell into the liquid it began to swell, to bob up and down, plumes of green blood wafting through the not-water like smoke. Artos, without needing instruction, turned and took a piece of cloth to cover the neck, then wedged the cork in atop. Lastly he reached for a melting candle, pouring the hot wax into and onto the cork and neck, sealing it shut, all whilst the organ sloshed and bonked into the glass with his movements. Sealed and ready, Artos finally lifted the jar up onto the shelf, wedging it in safely with others of its kind. Qyburn was half-impressed at how well the quiet Northman took to instruction, to how he did things exactly as they were described to and no way else. It made sense in its own way. There was no room for error in the frozen mountains where the clansman came from, no room to try and do things any differently than how they had been done a dozen or a hundred or a thousand times before.

It made him a good assistant, better than most of those he had at the Citadel before they took his chain.

But better than his obedience were the questions he asked. He didn't ask if this was something they should be doing, he asked why they were doing it. He didn't ask whether it was moral, he asked what they might learn. He asked the right questions and accepted the answers he was given, something that might've been a flaw if he didn't use those answers to ask more questions, and yet he often did. That was vital. That was something that many acolytes struggled with, something that could end the future of a maester before they even had a handful of links in their chain. The Citadel could teach much, could teach a man what to think...but it couldn't teach them how to think. It could not teach them how to combine the tinder of curiosity, the kindling of diligent study and the firewood of a learnt mind with the spark of the right question, all of which had to be put together in one place if one was to get the flame of a knowledge that did not merely know things that were, but could discover things to be, a flame that could spread and grow and banish ignorance like the dark shadow it was. That was not something that the Citadel could teach. It could teach a man to decipher the secrets of the wanderers of the night's sky, to learn the angles of construction, to understand the power of numbers and how they might be wielded to Man's benefit, but without that spark, without that fire inside them, a student was little better than a raven, spitting out the words of the greater minds that filled books and libraries.

And to his surprise, it seemed as if Artos had that fire inside him. A clansman of the North and of the mountains, who couldn't read nor write, but who had a better knack for learning and thought than half the lordlings that Qyburn had met in Oldtown. He would've laughed at the thought, were it not something more sad than humorous. The flame was there, but it had never been encouraged, never been nurtured the way it should have.

"You know, Artos, you would make an excellent maester," Qyburn said honestly at last. "You could rise high at the Citadel."

"I've never met a maester before," Artos shrugged. "They're the ones with all the birds, aren't they?"

"Ravens, yes, but that's just one link in the chain. Healing and medicine and the study of the body is another," he said, gesturing to the corpse on the table. "You certainly have the stomach for it."

"Only one," Artos japed without realizing.

"Only one, yes." Qyburn laughed. "But there are other things to learn there, things that would surely help your clan in the mountains. Architecture and engineering, perhaps. Archmaester Zarabelo teaches herbology and gardening, and it isn't rare to see the silver link of healing go with his tin one, but the same things that might make healing herbs grow well in bad soil can just as easily do the same to wheat and barley."

"Did you have a tin link?"

"One of tin, but three silver," he admitted. "I would have had four, but Ebrose and I...differed...on what might merit a fourth link, and so he wouldn't let me take the trial for a fourth."

"Why?" Artos asked. "Didn't he like you?"

"No, and I didn't like him, either," Qyburn answered. 'He "determined' that a plague named the butterfly fever was caused by butterflies and says that mother's milk is good for newborn babes, and somehow that is enough for men to put a silver scepter in his hands and call him Archmaester. Meanwhile, I prove that you can use the blood of one sibling to save another and I get stripped of my chain."

"...sorcery?" Artos asked, uncertain. Qyburn shook his head.

"No, not sorcery, but merely through the use of a syringe," he explained, reaching through his tools to show him the item in question. It was an awkward and fragile looking thing of glass and metal, green and coppery. "There are many times when a maester finally seals a wound only for a man to have lost so much blood in the process that he still dies, usually when an artery is damaged. It makes speedy treatment all the more important, but even the fastest maester might still lose to the Stranger from time to time. Sometimes there is simply not enough time, no matter how good you might be. What you need, then, is more time."

Setting the syringe back down, he reached back towards the corpse, pulling and pushing organs here and there until he found one of the thick, leathery tubes that trailed down the creature's spine. It was not red, nor even the green of the creature's own blood, but had become a rough yellow color ever since he drained the body of all its blood, the first thing he did after the body ended up on his table. It was dead, they said, with Artos' axe in its skull. Qyburn knew that there was a difference between something being dead and something merely appearing to be dead, and he wasn't willing to take the chance of the creature waking up. So, to be certain, he had found and opened the arteries of the neck and legs and arm and drained all of its blood into a bucket, the way a butcher might bleed their pigs. Though a grisly work in its own right, it had made certain that he need not worry about it rousing from false-death on the table, with his hands inside its chest, and made the work that little bit cleaner, too.

Still, a part of him lamented, it was a shame it wasn't a pig on his table. He wouldn't have minded some black pudding. Blood and oats and fat, some bread crumbs, a bit of thyme and a pinch of marjoram, put in the intestines for a case to make a sausage, cut thick and fried in its own lard, served with jam. His mouth was almost watering by the time he spoke, and Artos looked at him with genuine concern.

"Forgive me, I was thinking of dinner," he admitted. "We eat better food than we fear, but not what we might hope for, don't we?"

"Food is food," Artos shrugged. "So long as it is filling, that's good enough."

"You have simple tastes, then? No favorite things to eat?"

"Ham, cooked the way my aunt does," the Northman answered quickly. "She makes the crunchiest crackling in the North."

Qyburn laughed. "Strong praise for a realm as vast as the rest of Westeros."

"Not praise, true," Artos said. "The old Lord Stark said so."

"The old Lord Stark? Rickard?" he asked with an honest surprise. "I thought you came from one of the smaller clans?"

"I do, but my mother was a Flint," the clansman explained. "The chief wanted a son, so he kept trying on his wife and ended up with ten daughters...chiefdom went to his brother Torghen, but my mother was tenthborn. Old Stark came north to meet with Qorgyle about wildling raids south of the Wall, but came to the clans first to see if we could help. There was a blizzard, so he was stuck with them for a while, had his food cooked by aunt. Rickard had been around the whole North before then and said hers was the best crackling he had, so it is the best crackling in the North."

"Which aunt?" Qyburn asked, unsure. "You have nine."

"Twelve, some on father's side, too many brothers there," the clansman explained. "But Flint side..."

Artos paused, thinking.

"Lyanne, Lyanna, Lyarra," he started, counting on fingers as he went. "Then Lynara, then Lyessa, then Lyna. Aunt Lysa next. She cooked the ham. Then Lyra, then Alyssane. Mother was Lynda. All named after grandfather Lyman. He was named after a blackbrother at the Wall who saved his father, my great-grandfather."

"All that, and still no son," the former maester smiled, before turning back towards the corpse and continuing where he left off...only for another thought to come to mind, a thought that made him turn towards the clansman with an honest curiosity. "How did a Northman such as you, a mountain clansman, even end up on this voyage, anyway? I understand the sellsword, the archer and certainly the Seaworth, mayhaps even the Greyjoy and the Clegane, but not you. How did you end up in Lannisport to join our humble crew?"

Artos considered that for a moment.

"Nowhere else to go," he said, suddenly. "Chief didn't want me around anymore."

"The chief of your clan?"

"My father, head of Marclee clan," Artos nodded. "I was the last born of five sons. There was only meant to be four, but mother bore twins."

"Birthing twins is hard enough in a maester's care. It must've been difficult in the mountains."

"It was, but she lived for a week or two after....long enough for kin in other clans to know of the birth," Artos paused, thinking for a moment. Then he continued. "A death in any clan is bad. There is always too much work to do, and too few hands to do it. Losing a grown woman to gain a newborn son is a poor trade, losing a woman to gain two newborns is worse, much worse. Mother and father were close, so it hurt him more when she died. That made things worse too."

"Father and clan never liked me much," Artos continued, as if he said it everyday. "Father said I wasn't meant to be born. Said they would've given mother moontea if they thought she was having twins, tried again. Less risk with one babe, less harm to the clan. Father couldn't get rid of me, though, as mother came from another clan that knew I lived, the Flints, much stronger than Marclee, and allied with other strong clans...Harclay and Liddle, too. If anything happened to me, it would be an insult to them, so there would be war. That would be even worse for Marclee than my mother dying, so they had to keep me alive. Father didn't want to, though."

That said much of Artos, Qyburn realized, much of how he came to be the quiet, guarded man he knew. Newborn babes were all the same when one looked at them closely, whether highborn or low, yet whatever happened to them in the cradle left marks that could last a lifetime. The bite of a wandering spider could leave them terrified of them for the rest of their days, or so his studies said. Who was to say that they could not have hardened his heart, buried the open showings of thought and feeling and gave him all the open emotion of a mummer's puppet? Might that be the truth of that? Or was that merely the way of the mountain-men? Always guarded, always plain, forever ready for one disaster or another.

He might've asked, might've wanted to learn more, but the dull grey eyes of the Northman were like the clouds of a maelstrom, dark and foreboding. This wasn't a topic that the clansman wanted to continue, and Artos thought it wiser to agree. So, with a nod and a breath, he turned back towards the body. "Now....where were we?"

"You were talking about more time," Artos said, peering in to take a look at the arteries once more. "Do you have to put it...in there?"

"No, you can put it in about anywhere," he said, taking the syringe and demonstrating on the creature's arm, pressing the tip against pale, milk-white flesh, but without breaking the skin. "On a Man there is a vein around here, in the elbow. Easy to find if you know where you are looking, and easier still to draw from, but you can just as easily put in what you take out. The syringe goes in there and the blood goes everywhere through vein and artery. It can feed the organs and the brain, too. That is the secret of it, I think. Keeping the organs fed. A man can lose an arm and a leg and live, but the bleeding will kill them. Replace the blood that comes out of the wound and they will live long enough to seal any wound."

Artos looked at him, skeptical. "Does it work?"

"Oh, of course it does," the chainless man answered with pride. "I tested it on dogs first. There are always strays in Oldtown, and always one that might've had some encounter with a cart or wagon. Their bones are too small to mend, so the most any will do is end their pain with a knife to the throat. This one had just been a second slow, and had the back of one of its legs crushed flat. The chest and organs were fine, and the animal was alive, if in horrific pain. It had a littermate that didn't leave its side, and followed me back to the Citadel with them. I had thought about it for a time, and that seemed as good a chance as any to see if I was right."

"...what happened?" the clansman asked, uncertain if he wanted to ask the question.

"I gave it a tiny cupful of milk of the poppy to ease the pain, then did what I had to do to treat the injury," he said, fingers tapping on a bonesaw, wordless. "Afterwards the animal was so excitable you would barely think they had been hit at all, and one of the acolytes working on a silver link fitted them with a tiny wooden leg. But before then, it nearly died. Blood loss, of course, that would have been the killer. But I decided to put my ideas to the test. I took blood from one and put it into the other."

His smile was proud. Many years of work and many hours of study had gone into that moment. Time spent working with colleagues in the Citadel to design the mechanisms and tools, time spent to consider all the possibilities of how they might be worked. Time spent waiting for the devices to return from Myr and Tyrosh, where the greatest craftsmen in the world had seen their abilities tested to the absolute limit. Even then there were controversies, even then there was disapproval from the Archmaester and his ilk. It only grew when they learnt of his other studies, of his forging of a Valyrian steel link to add to his chain, of his work with Marwyn the Mage...but before then, before, it was surely one of his greatest achievements, something that pushed sourer memories aside.

"After saving the dog, the next step was naturally a test on a man, and as if by luck, I had my chance," he continued on. "Oldtown has its shipyards, and shipyards have their woodsmen. An accident with a saw, an opened wrist and a man so pale as to be as white as cloth, his wife sobbing over him. He had a twin brother too, chance had it, with the same eyes and the same hair. A rare identical twin, born together with him. They hadn't the coin for a maester's care, not really, but this was my chance, you see, a chance to prove I was right on a Man, too, and not merely with dogs. So, I brought them back to the Citadel. My fee could have easily been tens of dragons, but I offered them coin and a place in writing if they let me do the work. They accepted, gladly."

"Did it work?"

"I sewed his wrist together as best as I could, no easy feat when the cut was so deep that he was lucky to still have it attached at all," he nodded...and then, quieter, he spoke. "But as fast as I was in closing the wound, it wasn't enough."

"He died?" Artos asked, surprised.

"A septon said as much, and I had no grounds to disagree," Qyburn nodded. "We felt his chest and didn't feel a breath. I checked his wrist - his unwounded wrist - to see if I could feel a heartbeat, but there was none to be found, and his eyes were still. His wife was inconsolable, of course. She was with child, but hadn't a chance to tell him yet, not when she wanted to be certain. It was very...tragic."

There was quiet, then, quiet but for the lapping of distant waves and the hammering of the Gerold's crew and boots on the deck above. Quiet but for the memories of choking sobs and recited prayer, quiet but for the smell of blood and a septon's oils and incense.

"The septon tried to comfort her, saying that he was with the Seven, now, but I couldn't shake the feeling...I felt that I had to try at least something, so I did, and I asked if he was sure he was dead, and he said without a doubt," he continued, speaking quietly, speaking as he remembered it. The clansman hung on every word. "I turned to the brother, and asked if he would be willing to try one last thing to save his brother. He agreed, of course he would agree. I sent the septon out - had him dragged out really - and told him to go pray with the wife, and I sat the brother down at the bedside, and I bled him as much as I dared...the tool I had was something far more intricate than anything I have here, or had since. One end went in the living brother, the other in the dead, arm to arm. It had a little pump. You had to push it in and out, and it worked the blood from one to the next."

"So I pumped, and pumped, moving the blood from one to the other, til even the living one was pale and sickly, but he was a big man, strong, and urged me to go on if I thought I had to. He loved his brother. Two pints, mayhaps three. I dared to take no more, removed the syringes and put a tight bandage on both, so that the pressure might keep the puncture closed."

"What happened?" Artos asked.

"We would have waited, had the man who had given his blood not tried to stand up straight after to get a drink. He nearly fainted and fell back into the chair, so I sent one of my assistants to bring him some ale from the other side of the room. They brought it over and passed it to me, and I raised the cup to the man's lips, and then there was this...this gasp," he continued. "Like a man half-drowned, coming up for air."

"The dead man?"

"The living man," he corrected. "He was not dead, not anymore, he was alive. Shivering, sweating and weak, but alive when a maester and a septon had both declared him dead. He had been gone for but a few minutes, but that changes nothing: he was dead, but he came back. He couldn't talk, not then, not straightaway of course. I had warm blankets brought to fight the chills, and warm milk, too. Within one turn of an hourglass, he was well enough to put words together, so I had his wife brought from her prayers to us."

"She thought she was going to be saying her last goodbyes before the silent sisters took his body," Qyburn smiled. "Imagine her surprise when she saw him sat upright, eating porridge and honey to rebuild his strength. The septon came with her, and he could barely believe his eyes either. He could speak then, the man, and speak well enough to prove he was no ghoul, no wight, no mockery of a man. No, this was him, back from death. Brynden was his name, of no great birth. He talked about the accident, about what happened. How he remembered being brought to the Citadel, and placed upon the bed. for treatment. He remembered all of that..."

"...but more, he remembered some of what came after," he said. "He could remember us saying he was dead, and he felt he was dead, too. Like sinking in milk, he said, peaceful, quiet, as warm as a hug. Then he felt as if he rose up, floating up off the bed."

Artos was silent. Utterly, utterly silent. So quiet it seemed like he was barely breathing, yet he was, transfixed entirely by Qyburn's words.

"He looked down and saw himself, saw his family weeping over him...but then he felt a presence, felt as if something was looking at him," he continued. "He looked to the door, and he said he saw the Stranger. That caught the septon's attentions, and mine too. He said they stood there, all in white, with a hood covering their face so he couldn't see what they looked like...but besides Them, where the door was, there was a tunnel of brilliant, blinding light, so bright as to be as if he was staring at the sun. It had all the warmth and comfort of it, but it didn't hurt to look at, didn't sting his eyes. No, it was comforting, and gentle."

"The heavens?" Artos asked, his voice no higher than a whisper..

"That is what the septon said," Qyburn nodded. "And after Brynden's words, I have little grounds to doubt it, either. The Stranger beckoned him to come closer with a wave of a hand, so Brynden came, and it took him around the shoulder gently and began to lead him to the tunnel. He said he knew what would happen, knew that would be the end of it all, knew that he would leave the moment he stepped through. He followed him to the very mouth of the door...and hesitated, at the last second. He felt different, he said, and looked back to see the blood pumping into his arm...and with every pump, the light grew that little bit dimmer."

"Still, the Stranger stood with him, one arm around him, the other towards the door. The Stranger did not push him, did not pull him, merely stood with him. The choice was his to make, to stay or to leave. He chose to stay. The Stranger nodded and went through, Brynden turned and came back to his body, glancing behind once to see but the tiniest light left, one last chance. He fell into himself, was pulled into himself, gasped, and that was that."

"Naturally, that made the septon a very happy, very eager man," Qyburn laughed. "Proof from a man that had died that the Seven-who-are-One are real and that the heavens await after death...sweet words, even for a man of faith."

"Proof," the Northman said, chewing the word as if he didn't understand what it meant. Qyburn could see it in his eyes. Questions, so many questions, and a mind unsure of how to sort them all. "The Andals are right?"

"Mayhaps they are," Qyburn shrugged. "Not all were so eager. Some at the Citadel said that what he had seen was proof that he hadn't died at all. There had been writings of such things before, in some of the older books and accounts at the Citadel...works from the Blackfyre Rebellions and the Dance of the Dragons before then, where wounded men clung to their lives and saw tunnels and light and the Stranger too, from time to time. They named it a "near death," for that is what they said it was: an experience of being at the very brink of death, but not death itself."

He turned back to the corpse, reaching inside. "I disagreed, of course. My findings had been far more than merely that such a movement of blood could help the wounded, it proved that there was some...bond between the body and what the septons might call a soul. His body had died, but the spirit of Brynden had lingered. It could have left, but waited, and eventually was pulled back into himself. If there was a bond to pull and bring him back inside, then mayhaps there could be a remnant, some piece of who they are that is left within the body when it dies."

"The next day I met with Marwyn the Mage for the first time. He was the only Archmaester to agree with the idea," he continued. He took up another knife to continue the work, and Artos wordlessly readied him another jar. "Three months later, I had my Valyrian steel link. I lost my chain by the end of the year. Dabbling in necromancy was the reason, a study forbidden by the Citadel, or so the grey sheep say. Unlike the Gogossosi, I am less interested in what happens to people whilst they are alive. I prefer finding out what happens when they are dead, and whether or not death really is as final as they say it is."

Qyburn was about to dig back into the corpse when, suddenly, as if to emphasise his word,s as if it had heard everything, the body began to move, to twitch and jerk, sliding little by little towards the table's end, where the legs hung off. Qyburn was fast, taking a thin, daggery tool and ramming it into the opening made by the clansman's axe, pushing it in as far as he could as Artos hurried for his weapon, as the ex-maester's hands dove for a mallet, clutching, grabbing, swinging - and driving the blade into the brain with such force that it went entirely into the skull, utterly buried in monstrous flesh. The bang echoed...

...and as the sound faded, an angry hiss came.

But it wasn't from the creature on the table.

It was the cat, as angry and bitter as it always was, emerging from beneath the table. Its mouth was green with the blood of the eyeless creature, a green that was washed away with a subtle lick of its tips. Artos set his weapon back against the wall and came over, reaching down pick up the dead-again foot...

...and as they lifted the leg upwards, as Qyburn took a look at the foot, he saw bite marks, chew marks, etched into nail and skin and meat. Something had been attacking it, gnawing it, eating away at it when it had the chance. It wasn't hard to see what. The shadow of the cat moved next to his legs, suddenly purring, suddenly pleading. The black cat hungrily pawed at his apron, licking and lapping at the emerald blood and juices, and looked up at him with dark eyes, eyes that were usually full of naught but hate for each and every soul aboard the ship, but now looked towards him with ravenous hunger.

"Oh fine," he said, reaching for his scissors and cutting off a few strings of muscle and reaching to offer them to the cat...only for the cat to snatch them from his fingers and dart out into the hall. "At least we know it can be eaten."

"It looks lean," the Northman said, looking at the disemboweled body. "You wouldn't be able to get any good crackling."

"And you do like your crackling," Qyburn smiled. "No, too lean for crackling. I suppose you could pan fry it like bacon if you wished."

"Sausages would be better," Artos suggested. "Grind up all the meat and use the guts for casings, with salt and an onion."

"You must have eaten some odd things, if this bothers you so little," the former maester answered, turning his gaze back towards the carcass. It was an ugly thing, thin and shrivelled. It was not merely the claws that had tightened together in death, but the tnrei body that had began to curl up and tighten. It gave it a sinister, spidery appearance, more unnatural in death than it was in life. "I must admit, it wouldn't be my idea of a meal."

"You eat what you can eat in the mountains," the Northman shrugged. "One day it might be a squirrel, the next it might be wolf, because the day after that it might be nothing. The chief gets the best bits, but nothing is left to waste. We could put the rest of this on a spit outside. cook it in its own juices...food is food. You've already gutted it."

"Food might be food, but it is probably best not to try and eat it ourselves," the maester in him reasoned. "If a worm can go from a pig to a man even in Westeros, I dread to imagine what could come from such a creature as this, here in Gogossos."

He paused, then, looking over his work. He couldn't preserve the entire body, he hadn't the space. His biggest jar would've been enough for the Lannister, but only if he broke his back and folded him up; proof of his death to bring back to Lannisport for sure, though even Qyburn doubted it would be wise to walk into Casterly Rock with Tywin Lannister's son floating in fixative. Either way, it would be much too small for the corpse, much too small for him to take the whole, so he had to pick and choose whilst he had the chance...the stomach, perhaps? No, too simple, too common. The liver? Mayhaps, but didn't the Citadel already have a dozen different jarred livers? He needed something new, something exotic. Something none of the maesters had ever seen before, something that not one of them could dare to deny. Something that would stun them all into silence.

A thought dawned, and Qyburn smiled.

"Pass me the bonesaw," he said. "And find a jar big enough for the head. Oh, and some pliers. I'll need to remove the awl from the skull, else it'll rust."

Artos complied wordlessly, the towering Northman reaching across the room to another table on the far side, where bigger and more specialized tools waited for their time and turn, resting neatly on a bed of dark leather. The bone saw was amongst the largest, and perhaps the most specialized. His knives could be used for a thousand things, from cutting loose thread after stitching up a wound to cutting tissues and removing organs, but a bonesaw had but one purpose, one task that it did very, very well. Times changed often at the Citadel, with different styles of knife and different tools coming to prominence based on one discovery or thought or another, but the saw endured, ageless and unchanged for a thousand years. A proud lineage if there was one.

And it was sharp. So sharp that even Artos knew to handle it with care, his own gloved hands not coming anywhere near the steel teeth as he gripped it by the neck, offering the handle to him. Qyburn took it with care, and only began to move his hands back towards himself, back towards the body, once Artos was clear. He had seen an acolyte die whilst helping to amputate a leg, once, the maester cutting through so fast he sliced his assistant's fingers off, only for both wounds to fester. That thought amused him, sometimes, put a smile on his face and a tiny laugh in his throat from the sheer madness of it all, from a maester that somehow operated on one man but killed two. Oh, it was a tragedy, of course, but it was a stupid tragedy, and it was that stupidity that made him smile. That smile came to him now even as he made sure to mind his fingers as he put the saw's teeth on the eyeless creature's throat, but the laughter came up, a quiet giggle as he pressed down to begin -

- and saw Davos Seaworth in the door, looking at him with surprise, looking at Qyburn and his smile, looking at the corpse strewn out before him and the saw in his hands and the smile and the organs on the wall and the smile.

"Should I come back later?" he asked, his voice quiet and uncertain.

"No, no, I was just about to begin," Qyburn said quickly, banishing the thought and the smile with it, and taking the saw away from the creature's throat, too. "Is there something you wish to discuss?"

"Aye, well...." Davos cleared his throat and hardened his stomach. He stepped into the cabin proper, and Qyburn saw a glance towards the organs on the shelf, a glance that quickly saw his gaze comes tragith towards Qyburn and nowhere else. "Have you...any progress?"

"Some, but I find myself finding more questions rather than answers," Qyburn said honestly. "I had thought the internals of the creature might be not too different from ours, but it would seem not...some maesters say that the reason that we have two kidneys and two lungs is to have a spare in case something goes wrong. If that is so, then this creature does not merely have spares, it has a line of succession. Still, I've noticed at least one thing particularly interesting."

Davos swallowed hard, and peered over at the table. "What?"

"I can't seem to find any...reproductive organs," he said, delicately. Davos looked back at him, unsure. Qyburn chose cruder words. "It hasn't any balls."

"Then...what is it?" Davos asked. "Was it made?"

"No, it was definitely born," Qyburn said, reaching over with a gloved hand to pull back one of the folds of flesh, revealing a pale, fleshy dimple of a navel. "I'm not sure how they make more of themselves, but they are born. Mayhaps they are like bees?"

"Bees?" Artos asked. "They live in hives?"

"Possibly?" Qyburn reasoned. "It would be a fair suggestion."

"Then what would that make this one?" Davos asked, stepping closer. "A worker?"

"Or a scout," Artos offered. "Might've been it was looking for food when it found us."

"Whatever it is, I doubt that this is the only...form of creature, for these things would never last long in the wilderness if they cannot make more of themselves," Qyburn said. "Mayhaps there is a true nest somewhere near, where a queen might be found, breeding them out by the dozen and where the creatures return at dawn and leave at sunset. That could be why they came to the ship...it isn't unheard of for large beehives to abandon their home and move somewhere larger or better sited from time to time. Mayhaps it thought the King Gerold would make a better nest?"

"...and if one has that kind of thought, might be that we'll see another," the Seaworth sighed. "So long as they only come one at a time, they aren't dangerous. Do you think we might see more of them at once? The entire group?"

"If the guess is right, and the hive is migrating, then...perhaps?" Qyburn said with all honesty. "But there is as much a chance that they'll stay clear of us entirely now that one of their number has failed to come back from here...and as much a chance that we will be swarmed as a threat to be wiped out."

Davos sighed at that. He reached for the bag he kept around his neck, rubbing it for but a moment before his fingers fell away. The wreck had been hard on the Seaworth, Qyburn knew. The voyage was meant to have been but a simple journey, there and back, easy coin for an easy job...only things had turned out to be not nearly so easy. The Gerold's beaching upon the shore was proof enough of that. It showed in him, showed in the clothes he wore, the weapon he wore at his waist. Fresh from Lannisport he had worn but sailor's clothes, loose shirts good to keep the sun's heat at bay with a sailor's knife in his belts to tend to the rigging if need be. Now he was in leather despite the heat, and what was on his hip was no dagger, but a longsword. Only the bag and the bones within remained, hanging around his neck. Qyburn had learnt the truth of it all in the voyage, and it was no wonder Davos kept them here, when he needed his luck now more than ever.

He met Qyburn's eyes, then, grim and quiet.

"Do you think they might've caught Tyrion?" he asked. "We've still no sign of him and the others."

"Truly?" Qyburn asked, thinking for but a moment before giving his true and honest opinion. "I doubt it. We haven't seen the creatures move around whatsoever in day. They only emerge at night, true night, not sunrise nor sunset. So long as they were in shelter before sundown, I doubt there was much danger from these. But from the brindled men...no, I doubt the Volantines would have let them be harmed. The same goes for every other threat: whatever dangers there might be, the Volantines would probably have been able to face. Even the blood creatures the fleshsmiths might've made cannot take on an army, and the Volantines have an army."

"The Volantines," Davos echoed. "Might be they are something more to worry about than the creatures then?"

"Potentially, but I think not," the ex-maester reasoned again. "As Tyrion said when they first arrived, they had the means to wipe us out the moment they found us, if they truly wished it, or they could have simply let the brindled men finish us off. Were it not for their help, I doubt any of us would still be alive." His eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know how I know," the Seaworth admitted. "But something....something isn't right. We should've had word from them if they were staying the night, and we haven't. We should have some idea why the Volantines are here, and we haven't. They wouldn't come here for nothing, not with an army."

"And you want to know what?" Qyburn asked...before thinking for himself. It was a mystery, even to him, but he could think of a number of possibilities. "It could be for any number of reasons, I suppose. Last I heard it was the elephants that still ruled in Volantis, a faction of merchants and traders, not conquerors. It might very well be that they think they might find something valuable here. Gogossos was a Valyrian colony, after all. I imagine one could mayhaps find some of their steel in the ruins somewhere. An army would make holding the city easy, and have enough hands to search for anything of use."

"Or," he continued, "It could be that they plan to claim the city...mayhaps they think they might be able to turn it into a trade port, leading westwards to the Summer Isles?"

"Or a slave port," Artos suggested.

"Or that."

Davos wasn't convinced. Qyburn could see it on his face, in the grim, uneasy frown that dominated his cheeks, in how his fingers trembled at the instinct to reach back to his luck. They didn't.

"Might be," the smuggler said at last. "But you know what this city was famous for. Bloodcraft, sorcery and slaves, too. If they're here, I think they'll be looking for something more than just coin and slaves. They'll be wanting magic."

"Magic?" Qyburn asked.

A part of his interests peaked. It would be a lie if he thought or said that he had no interest in their work. He did, for the fleshsmiths of Gogossos had known much of the secrets of life and death - their work, although not the same as his own studies, was a distant relative...and yet even he was hesitant. There were reasons why even the Lords Freeholder of old Valyria had banished them to the isle, and that reason was much the same as why the Red Death crept out of the pits to claim the lives of an entire city, a thousand, thousand times more lethal than even the worst sickness in the history of the Seven Kingdoms. Had that plague been further north, had it happened in Westeros or Essos, it would have been the end of Man and brought about the death of civilization. They were the masters of the art, men and women who had practiced for years where he might merely dabble, yet they too were consumed by their own creations in the end, destroyed by that which they had unwittingly unleashed. Their lust for power and knowledge had led every man and woman and child on the isle to their graves, or worse.

That was a warning. That was a warning like none other. That was a warning greater than any tale of monstrosity or writings of unleashed horrors. The world had avoided armageddon, once.

It might not be so lucky again.

That thought was enough to deter even Qyburn. There were other ways to learn, better ways to study, better things to learn. Though Ebrose and the others might've called him a practitioner of the black arts of necromancy, he would sooner forsake learning forever than tamper with true blood sorcery. It was gone from the world for a reason. He had no desire to try and bring it back from the death that it had rightly deserved to die.

His throat was dry. Davos and Artos both looked to him, as if expecting him to continue. He cleared his throat, a quiet cough.

"Mayhaps," he said, delicately. "It is...something to consider. Unlikely, as I doubt even the Volantines would be so mad as to tamper with the bloody arts, but...possible."

"Hells," Davos cursed under his breath. "We might need to put a party together in land...might be that they're fine, might be they aren't, but either way we should find out what is going on with them."

"And risk walking into a Volantine trap, if they are as hostile as you think they might be?"

"It might be that we've already been caught," the Seaworth said. "They've got three of us, and we haven't so much as heard a whisper of what's happened for them to be kept so late."

Artos was the first to offer a suggestion. "They're drunk and still in bed...?"

"I'd hope so," Davos answered, allowing himself the tiniest smile. "But if they're being held hostage, then we'll need to know."

"If they are being held, then it would be to make sure that we aren't doing anything rash," Qyburn warned. "And that would mean -"

"- that the Volantines are fools," came a harder and darker voice from behind the Seaworth, rough and rasping.

And in that doorway, Qyburn saw a shadow. Taller and broader than any man in their company, even the Northman, Sandor Clegane strode in. For a split second, for a heartbeat, only the unharmed side of his face could be seen, where thin strands of black hair flowed down a face as hard as iron, utterly devoid of softness. Then he turned, and the full nature of him was clear: slick black flesh where the burns had bit deep and never healed, where the flesh of his lips and ear had burnt away and left naught but a charred ruin, where the mad twistings of skin unsure of how to heal over his jaw gave the illusions of bone and sinew. The scars stretched and warped with his gaze, where only the depth of his brow had protected his eyes from the flame that ruined half his face. He was in armor again, all his armor, black steel that formed the heaviest plate any of their fighters might carry, its smooth color broken by the sharp shining of scratches taken at the Stepstones, by the dents of the axes and clubs of the brindled men that caught in the lamplight, flickering and gleaming like torches.

In that moment he looked more terrible a sight than the monster that lay on Qyburn's table.

"Shouldn't you still be resting?" Qyburn dared to say -

- and got a cold, hard glare in answer. There were no words, not one, and the ex-maester's voice died in his throat.

"I'd rather die than be in that damned bed a moment more," the Hound grumbled after a moment. "I'm bruised, not maimed. I can still fight."

"Aye, well, I'm hoping it won't come to that," Davos added quickly. "They've got many times our numbers. A fight will only end one way...and it won't be to our liking."

"You heard what he said. If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead," was the blunt counter. "They've not had the balls to attack us."

"You're the most experienced warrior here," Qyburn said, delicately. "What do you think?"

"I think they aren't interested in a fight," was the simple answer. "They could've slaughtered the lot of us on the beach. They didn't. They don't need hostages if we're all dead. And they aren't worried about us fighting them at the same time as the brindled bastards do, else they'd have killed us already."

"So...you agree with the maester, then?" Davos asked. "You think they're being honest?"

"I didn't say that. I said they don't want hostages and they don't want us dead," the Clegane answered. "Might be that they're worried we've got friends coming, might be that they just want us gone and don't care how it happens. Might be they haven't the guts to attack a Lannister ship and start a war with Westeros. Might be they want praise after we get back. What difference does it make? They've got the dwarf and swords ain't getting him back."

"You don't mean to leave Tyrion?"

"I didn't say that, either," Sandor answered with a crack of annoyance that hardened his voice. "Trying to cut our way in will just get us all killed and its stupid, too, if we don't know if he's a hostage or not. Might be we need to play their game, go to them -"

A horn wailed, a long and piping note.

It wasn't the Gerold's horn, Qyburn realized.

It wasn't the horns of the Brindled Men, either.

"Might be they've just came to us," Davos said with a sigh, turning back towards the door even as Sandor hurried out onto the deck. "Qyburn, we might have need of you for this."

"Me?"

"Aye," the smuggler nodded. "You're the only one other than Tyrion that knows any Valyrian. Might be we can learn more about what's going on here and where the three of them are if you're with us."

"Very well, but I hope I'm not going deeper in land on some rescue," he answered honest, removing his gloves and setting them down with the rest of the tools, flexing his fingers. Davos glanced at his bloodied apron, and Qyburn turned to let Artos undo the knots at the back, letting the clansman remove it and put it besides the rest of the tools. Aside from a few pale dots of splatter on his sleeves and a line of dried green where some blood had dripped onto his shin, there was barely a mark on his darker robes. "But I will admit, I might be less useful there than you might hope. The tongue of common Volantis has grown far from Valyrian over the years."

Another horn wailed, and a man shouted in the distance. No bows sang, no bolts shot, no swords left their scabbards. He could hear that, even from below, but it was enough to hurry Davos, to make him answer with naught but a nod. Qyburn followed, and Artos too was about to come with, still wearing his bloodied mittens. Qyburn pointed to the corpse, and spoke.

"Would you mind continuing on that whilst I am above deck?" he asked. "All you need to do is saw the head off for a jar, just a little past the bottom of the neck. It is as easy as cutting through firewood, so you shouldn't have any trouble.."

Artos answered with half a shrug and half a nod, turning back into the room, and leaving Qyburn to hurry forwards. For all the chaos of the storm, for all the force of their impact, the decking held strong beneath his feet and many hands had made quick work of the debris that might've littered the ground. Even still, there was an odd angle to the floor, the tiniest crook from the ship's uneven resting place upon the sands, where the floor was not quite flat, throwing off his easiest steps. Davos moved across ita ll with the ease of a sailor, well used to the tossing and turning of the floor beneath him, well used to the odd angles that a ship at sea might take. Qyburn made sure to rest his hand upon the walls, holding onto the empty coves where lanterns and candles once sat to steady his steps and keep his balance. The space beyond his room was a place for crew to rest and sleep, hammocks strung up between timbers, crates of spare fittings and cloth used as tables for eating and drinking and gambling...but there was no one there, not now, not when all hands left were hard at work mending what they could of the Gerold's damaged hull, or working on shore, or guarding it all. He moved through, hugging the walls, til he reached a staircase so steep as to almost a ladder, whose railings were enough to steady his feet as he ascended...

...out into the bright sun of day, fresh air flooding his lungs just as too much light flooded his eyes and made him wince as he found his way onto the deck. Wooden splinters were all that remained of the Gerold's main mast, but so much else had been repaired and fixed, from the railings around the edges to cracked and broken timbers, all needed to secure a rigging that the sailors were wearily trying to put back together from what loops of rope they had. Standing at the prow atop the cabin of the fore castle was Anguy, the young archer stood bare-chested, his shirts wrapped around a helmet to protect his eyes and gaze from the sun and to let the cool breeze of the sea keep the heat at bay. Besides him was Davos and Sandor both, looking down onto the sands at something the maester himself could not see, talking quietly with words that he could not hear. Still he moved, striding across an uneven deck, closer and closer to the prow, closer and closer to the railings -

- and looked down to see the Volantines, a dozen of them. Violet scales gleamed brightly in the sun, so bright that they seemed to glow with a purple light of their own. They wore no cloaks, kept their weapons in their sheaths and their shields at rest on the pale sands, and helmets were affixed to belts. They were a myriad mix of men, men born from outer Volantis, from beyond the Black Walls, men of a dozen different kinds - men with the Andal look, the Dothraki look, the Ghiscari look, even the look of the First Men, and one seemed to have kin that came from distant Yi Ti. Leading them was a Valyrian man, one whose silver hair was cut short, whose violet eyes bordered on indigo. The scales upon his breast were colored with a pattern of some kind, some marker of rank on front and back alike, but whilst Qyburn knew much, the traditions of the Volantine armies were not one of them.

Then he saw what was with them. Something that widened his eyes.

They had a cart. A simple little thing of four wheels, pushed along the shores by the men that had protected it. A thick cloth covered whatever lay beneath, but there were shapes and bulges in that cloth, hints and clues as to what lay beneath - long rigid lengths, round heaps that might be the top of a barrel or a pot and the unmistakable shape of boxes.

"- as I said, good Westerosi," their leader said. "Our master, Daerion, wishes you no harm at all, and we come bearing gifts."

"Gifts?" Davos asked. "What kind of gifts?"

"The kind that you have most need of," the Volantine answered. He turned to the others, and spoke in the singsong tongue of his people. "Nāgeltigon."

Show them, he understood. The others moved, reaching for the seams of the cloth beneath watching, Westerosi eyes. They unfurled the cloth, and what lay beneath was a myriad number of things, so simple to the eye, yet so precious in a place so far removed from Westeros and Essos both. Timber. Shipbuilding timber, beams and planks ready to be cut to size and mend the wound in the King Gerold's hull. Pots and jars sat alongside it, with no clue as to their contents, and boxes too, all around a stout barrel.

"Wood with which to mend your ship, tar with which to seal the hull and make it watertight," the Volantine pointed to the pots, and his hand moved towards a box. "Nails, rope and cloth, too."

Then his hand moved to the barrel, and he lifted the lid to reveal simple, clear water. "And drink for your crew, fresh from the wells. I would boil it before drinking all the same, just to be safe."

Davos was smiling. "Aye, we can make good use of that."

"The master is also willing to offer the services of our own carpenters," they offered. "They will be happy to mend your damaged ship, and see you on your way."

There it was, Qyburn knew, and the briefest glance towards Davos and Sandor showed it too, showed it as plain the sun above them. See you on your way. Get you off the island and surely out of their way. How blunt they were about wanting them gone, how quick they were to make what they had named a gift into the means to carry out their request, their command.

"We're not leaving, not til we have the Lannister back," Sandor answered. He met the Volantine in the eyes, a gesture the man struggled to match. "Where is he?"

"He is with the master," was the simple answer.

"And where's that?"

"The city," came another, short answer.

Sandor growled, but it was Davos that spoke, hurrying to take control again. "Tyrion leads this voyage, and we'll have need of him and the others. Are they well?"

"They are," the Volantine said, another answer that was not truly an answer.

Davos tried again, more cleverly this time. "How well?"

"Well."

Sandor's temper boiled...and snapped. "He'll be doing better than you will if you don't start giving some answers!"

The Volantine paled in the face of the Hound's anger, but still, he spoke. "We came with gifts!"

"Anguy," the Clegane commanded, loud enough to be heard by the Essosi. "Shoot him."

The archer stared back at him, uncertain, but Sandor's glare forced him into action, forced the other men on guard to ready their weapons. He raised his bow, nocked an arrow -

- and the Volantine raised his hands, him and all his men, outnumbered by the Westerosi and weary from pushing the cart.

"The Lannister is not with the master, but will be," he said quickly, Anguy lowering his bow. "He and his companions wanted to see the wreck of his uncle's ship."

"His uncle's ship?" Davos asked, surprised. "It is here?"

"It is," the Volantine explained quickly. "We found it whilst searching for a landing ground."

Qyburn leaned over to Davos and whispered. "This is a mistake. The Essosi will remember this."

Davos nodded grimly, but said nothing. The frown said enough. This was a mistake. A mistake that might see the Volantines set aside whatever hospitality - true or false - that they might've had, and replace it with force...a force that the Gerold could not withstand, a force so great that it would not even be a battle, not truly, but butcher's work. If they had soldiers, if they had an army, if they had carts, then why not siege engines? Why not scorpions and catapults, which could cave in the crippled Gerold's hull, or douse it with fire and flame and see them burnt within its walls?

But Sandor spoke on. He was calmer now, it seemed to Qyburn, calmer and more reasonable. "I don't like liars."

"Then no lies, and just the truth. I swear it on the name of the Lord of Light," the Volantine said. "I don't know much. I am but a soldier -"

"- you know enough," Sandor grunted. "Why'd you all want us gone?"

"It is the master's command. Daerion does not want you here."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Why?" Sandor asked again, harder.

"I don't know," he said again. "We don't question his commands, we carry them out. I don't know any more than that."

"For heaven's sake, Sandor, you're terrifying the man," Davos objected. "He's just a soldier. He can't tell us what he doesn't know."

Sandor seemed to consider that, quiet. "It's working, though."

"A frightened man might say anything if they think it keeps them safe," Qyburn said...before raising his own voice. "You must forgive the Hound, friend. He has a short temper, very short, and the hot weather helps little -"

"- the hells are you talking about?" the Clegane asked.

Qyburn ignored him. "- but whilst we do our best to keep him calm, his fury is made worse when our friends are missing and we haven't heard much from them."

Davos realized it before Sandor did, realized that the threat of the Hound was more useful than the Hound's own words. He came over to Qyburn's side, giving Sandor a knowing look, a wordless command, and then he spoke for himself. "You said they went to the ship. When was this?"

"Qoherion led them there this morning," came an answer, a useful answer. "The hope was for them to be back in time for the battle."

That caught their attentions. That caught the attentions of everyone. This was something, something important, something they didn't know, something that could change everything upon the isle. If the Volantines were sallying forth, then their strength was even greater than it had first appeared - they would need an army to fight the brindled men in their own lands, in a city where they knew all the secrets, knew the side streets, knew the alleys, knew the roads, knew how to sneak from place to place and slip around to take them from the front and sides and rear. No mere company of men could do that and succeed. An army was needed, hundreds strong, and that said much. Davos realized it, and Sandor too. Daerion did not merely have soldiers here, he had an army.

"What battle?" Sandor asked, quiet.

"We are to seize the city's center today," the Volantine answered. The man straightened. "The master hopes to shatter the brindled men, then and there. The hope is that your friends will be back in time that they needn't worry about being hunted down by the Sothoryi., and can be kept safe until after the battle's end."

"You're trying to protect them?" Qyburn asked.

"The master doesn't want you and yours harmed," was the simple answer...with an edge of annoyance, and anger. "You haven't returned his kindness."

"And that is our mistake," Davos admitted. "Please, give him our apologies. You can go."

The man scoffed and turned with the others, walking back up the shore, back the way they had came. Quiet words were spoken. He could barely hear them, could barely understand what was being said. Valyrian, of the Volantine kind, flavored by centuries away from the breast of the Freehold that had mothered their city and nurtured the newborn Volantis for years. But he heard two, heard two that proved the man knew far more than he had dared to let on, two words that proved he was more than just a mere soldier, proved that there was a lie.

Lēkia, the man said. Lēkia mentyr.

He didn't have a chance to say it before the others started talking.

And It was Anguy who started.

"I don't think he's lying about Tyrion," the archer said with a shrug. "But if they've got an army, they ain't here just to loot."

"No, they aren't," Davos agreed. "They've something else in mind, and that battle must be a part of it all."

"This place was a prison," Sandor said, with a quiet, harsh reasoning. "A prison has dungeons, and dungeons need guards. Must be a castle in the city, probably in the center."

"That is all well and good," the ex-maester started, all eyes turning towards him. "But if what I heard is true, then we may have a far greater problem than whatever it is their master wishes to conquer. I heard two words: lēkia mentyr."

"What does that mean?" Davos asked. "Lēkia is brother, I know that much. Salladhor told me that once. Mentyr?"

"Mentyr means army," Qyburn explained. "Lēkia mentyr means brother-army. It means forces in the area, and that means -"

"Reinforcements," Sandor realized. "Seven hells."

"That must be why they want us gone," Anguy laughed, nervously. "They've got allies coming and they're about to take that fortress for themselves. And when that army arrives there ain't going to be anyone who can take it from them."

"And this isle was ruled by blood sorcerers," the Seaworth sighed. A word went unsaid. Fleshsmith. "There's only one thing in that castle of theirs, and it'll be sorcery."

"...and our good friend Tyrion is no doubt being led straight towards it," Qyburn added. "If this Daerion is after sorcery, I dread to know what he has in plan for them."

There was a quiet moment, then. A thousand things went unsaid. They all knew what art this isle had practiced centuries before, when the streets were full of life and the towers full of madmen. They all knew what that sorcery could do. Men and women mated to animals, bringing forth chimerae that were half man, half monster. Flesh and skin and meat and organs, ripped from a dozen bodies and grafted together to make a new one. Twisted horrors with a hundred eyes and half as many mouths, thrashing in the hungry dark. Even the creatures of the sea and the animals of the land could be bred together with the power of their magics, to create hideous things that could thrive on land and sea.

And if they were right, if there was a castle that had been the core of old Gogossos, if it had been the place where the fleshsmiths had practiced their craft, then there was but one thing more certain than anything else.

The worst of Gogossos would lie within.

For a moment, no one said a word.

Not one word.

Then Davos spoke, and the moment broke.

"Seven have mercy," he said, reaching for his luck, reaching for the bones around his neck. "We have to get them back, and then we have to get away from this place."

"And leave the Volantines to find whatever the hells they're looking for?" Sandor asked. He shook his head. "You heard Qyburn before. There's sorcery here. Might be the Volantines are looking for it, trying to figure out how to make monsters of their own."

"An army of monstrosities as the sorcerers were said to command, used in war," Qyburn said quickly. "It...they would be invincible. No force could hope to match such a host. They would be a new Valyria, only without a Doom to stop them. An empire without end."

There was a sudden, instant agreement.

"Sandor," Davos said. "Take a party in lands, find Tyrion."

"You don't have to tell me," the Hound grumbled. "I'll find him, but I'll need men."

"I'm the closest thing you've got to a tracker," Anguy said. "I'll come, and if these monsters are half as bad as you say you'll want a bow to take them from afar."

"Artos is strong and brave, and I can do my work on my own," Qyburn suggested. "Take him, too."

"Don't want to come and see Gogossos first hand, maester?" Sandor laughed, darkly.

"I might be old, but I've still got my wits."

"Three men can move faster," Davos agreed. "Whilst you're in land, we'll work here on trying to get the Gerold afloat again. The wood they've brought us will help, but it won't be easy. But whatever you do, be careful. If the Volantines find out what we're doing, what we know..."

"They'll have our heads," Anguy nodded, grim.

"They'll have more than our heads," Qyburn said. "The blood sorcerers were said to be able to keep a man alive on the rack for weeks, cutting them apart little by little."

The mood of things turned darker after that, grimmer, and there was silence. Silence but for the steps of Sandor heading down below decks with Anguy not far behind, silence but for the grim and weary face of the Seaworth, heading to inspect the Volantine gift of wood and cloth. Silence but for the sound of Qyburn following, to return to his cutting and studying. Silence but for the sound of boots on sand, for the sound of three men heading into the thick, dark jungles.

Silence but for the sound of Gogossos.