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Chapter 42: A Cloud of Guests
🕑 Added 2025-09-08 09:04:24 +0000 UTCDaenerys’s eyes flickered with a sudden interest. "Captain," she asked, "how long is the voyage from Qarth to King's Landing?"
The sea merchant, thinking she was planning her return, stroked his chin. "Your Grace must understand, a man of trade does not sail in a straight line. We follow the currents of profit. I would sell my far-eastern goods in the Free Cities, buy their local products, and sell those at the next port. In this way, a merchant’s fortune snowballs. A journey from here to King's Landing, for me, might take a year and a half. Perhaps longer. My own ship is bound for the Jade Sea first. It may be three years before I see the Sunset Sea again… if the waves do not claim me."
"And if you were not a man of trade?" she pressed. "If you sailed with all speed?"
"With fair winds and no stops save for food and water, it might be done in three or four months," he conceded.
Dany nodded, the information filing away in her mind. "You have brought me precious news, Captain Mo. I wish you a smooth journey and prosperous trade."
"It is I who am grateful, Your Grace," the captain said, his dark eyes shining. "You have given me the richest reward of all."
"Oh?"
"The dragons!" he stared at the creatures gnawing on bones at her feet. "I have seen a true dragon. It is the most miraculous moment of my life."
"Then I shall give you an even greater one," Dany said with a smile, waving a hand toward them. "Come. You may touch one."
"Truly?" Quhuru Mo was a whirlwind of emotions—joy, shock, and stark terror. He took a hesitant step forward, then one back. "Will they… will they bite me? Breathe fire?"
"No," Dany said, her voice a soothing balm of absolute confidence. "I am their mother. They listen to me." She gestured to the largest of the three. "You may have the highest honor. You may touch the black one. His name is Dahei."
It was, of course, a calculated risk. If he had tried to touch the white or green dragons, there might have been a tragedy even she could not prevent. But she could never admit that she did not have perfect control. She needed the world to believe she was the Mother of Dragons, in spirit as well as blood. The awe of the dragons must be her awe, too.
In the four months since their birth, they had grown to the size of small hounds, their wingspans now wide enough to cover her bed. In Qarth, she kept them on fine, heavy iron chains to prevent them from flying off and causing trouble. To soothe their irritable moods, she had to provide them with a near-endless supply of food. At this moment, Dahei was lying on the cool marble floor, gnawing on a charred bison thigh.
Dahei, do not harm this man, she thought, pushing the command through their silent, unique bond. He admires you.
The captain, sweating profusely, crept forward. He stretched out a trembling hand, touched the tip of Dahei's wing for a fraction of a second, and then snatched it back as if burned. Dahei ignored him, continuing to suck the marrow from the bone. Emboldened, the captain reached out again, this time stroking the dragon’s warm, black scales as gently as a falling feather.
"Wow," he breathed, his black face flushing with excitement. "It is as the legends say. The scales are hot to the touch. Only a true dragon can control a dragon."
"You have heard the legends?" Dany asked, intrigued.
"Many times, in the Citadel of Oldtown," he said, backing away with a newfound reverence. "The maesters said that only those with the blood of Old Valyria could subdue a dragon, that others could not even withstand the heat of their bodies. I did not believe it. What beast could be so hot a saddle could not solve the problem? But now… I see. If this one were the size of Balerion, his heat would be a furnace."
"And what do the maesters say of their wisdom?"
Before the captain could answer, Jorah spoke. "My own maester told me that Balerion had the wisdom of a boy of seven or eight."
"Then Mr. Mo," Dany said, a playful glint in her eye, "since you have given me three barrels of wine, my son will give you a gift in return. He will draw you a picture."
"A picture?" the captain asked, baffled.
Dany’s maid Dorea came forward with a roll of parchment and a small bowl of ink. She spread the paper on the floor beside Dahei, who looked from the ink to the captain, and then stretched out his right claw. Like a human, he had five digits. He curled four of them into a fist, dipped his sharp index claw into the ink, and began to move it across the page.
At first, the lines were a chaotic scribble, and the captain watched with a polite, if disappointed, expression. But as the seconds passed, a shape began to form. Lines of varying thickness and shade resolved into a figure, and then another.
"Gods be good," Quhuru Mo whispered, his mouth falling open. "I'm… I'm blind." The drawing was a perfect, breathtakingly detailed sketch of the very scene unfolding in the room: the captain, standing before the Khaleesi, his hand outstretched. Even the light filtering through the window, catching the dust motes in the air, was rendered with impossible precision. The skill was beyond that of any court painter.
He looked at the small black dragon, no longer with awe, but with a pure, unadulterated reverence. In his heart, this creature had just become a god. In truth, it was not divine intelligence. It was a physical gift. Da Vinci had drawn eggs to cultivate a sense of three-dimensional space. Dragons, Dany had discovered, were born with it.
Quhuru Mo left the palace in a daze, clutching the parchment as if it were a holy relic. His visit, and the story he would tell, opened the floodgates. A trickle of visitors became a raging torrent. Merchant captains brought lace from Myr and saffron from Yi Ti. Silversmiths brought her rings; blacksmiths forged her an arakh and a greatsword scaled to her size. Tailors brought bolts of colored cloth and begged to sew her the most beautiful gowns in the world.
A troupe of dwarves jousted for her on the backs of a pig and a large dog. A handsome young Volantene poet begged to become her valet, promising to write epics of her glory, while hinting that he was a master of the erotic arts. She had him thrown out.
Even a delegation from the Jogos Nhai, the nomads from the plains north of Yi Ti, came and gifted her a magnificent black-and-white zorse. Seeing in them a people who, like the Dothraki, were warriors of the plains, Dany extended an invitation for them to stay.
"Like the Dothraki, you are a people of the horse," she said to them during the evening banquet. "I would ask that you share with me your wisdom in leading a tribe."
