Chapter 45: Dialogue with a Bronze God
The Titan's great, bronze head, a monument of verdigrised fury and impassive vigilance, completed its ponderous tilt. Its glowing emerald eyes, each a gem vast enough to ransom a kingdom, narrowed with an almost imperceptible slowness, their light seeming to solidify, to pierce the intervening air and fix upon the audacious speck of silver and black that was King Baelon Targaryen and his dragon, Silverwing. The low, resonant hum emanating from the colossus deepened, vibrating through Baelon's bones, a silent thrum of immense, contained power.
Silverwing, despite her Valyrian blood and the reassuring presence of her rider, let out a nervous, guttural hiss, her wings beating uneasily to maintain her position before the Titan's sheer, overwhelming presence. Ser Corlys Vaelaros and the ten Dragon Guard knights arrayed behind Baelon on their dark coursers on the nearby islet, though shielded by illusionary mists, felt the psychic weight of the Titan's attention like a physical blow, their hands gripping their Ignis-tempered blades, their faces grim masks of disciplined resolve. This was no mere statue; this was a power from the dawn of legends, and their King had just challenged it to a parley, or a duel.
Baelon, however, remained a figure of absolute, chilling composure. The Ignis Shard, affixed to his gauntlet, pulsed with a warm, defiant light, its primal fire a counterpoint to the Titan's ancient, metallic aura. The Voldemort soul within him, which had faced down prophecies and dueled with the most powerful sorcerers of his former world, felt not fear, but an exhilarating, razor-sharp focus. This "Watcher at the World's End" was an enigma, a potential asset of unimaginable power, or an ultimate obstacle to be dismantled. Either way, its secrets would be his.
"A tool to be reforged…" the Titan's metallic, mind-voice echoed, each word resonating with the weariness of centuries, yet underscored by a current of immense, restrained power. "You speak with the arrogance of your fleeting kind, Valyrian. Many have come, bearing fire and ambition. Their empires are dust. Their dragons are bones. Yet, the Watcher endures."
"Empires fall, Watcher, as do gods," Baelon projected back, his mental voice sharp, precise, infused with the subtle heat of the Ignis Shard. "But some wills are… more enduring than others. I am not my ancestors, content to merely borrow the fires of this world. I intend to master them. You are a testament to Valyrian artifice, or perhaps, Valyrian hubris in binding what should have remained free. Which is it? And to whom, or what, does your vigil truly belong now that Valyria is a memory?"
The Titan was silent for a long moment, its emerald gaze unblinking. Baelon could sense a slow, ponderous internal process, like ancient gears grinding within its colossal frame, as it considered his words, his challenge. Umbraxys, a shield of cold shadow around Baelon's consciousness, probed at the edges of the Titan's aura, sensing immense, layered enchantments, a powerful, sorrowful consciousness bound within, and a deep, abiding resentment.
"Valyria…" the Titan's voice finally came, tinged with something that might have been ancient sorrow, or perhaps, contempt. "They were children playing with starfire, believing themselves gods. They forged this shell, yes. They poured their stolen energies, their fleeting lives, into my bronze veins. They sought a guardian, a weapon, a symbol of their defiance against the sea, against the silence that always waits." Its head moved, a fraction of an inch, a gesture that nonetheless conveyed a world of meaning. "But the fire that truly animates me… is older than their fleeting Freehold. It is the salt-bitter fury of the storm, the unyielding heart of the stubborn stone, the resentful spirit of the wave-lashed shore they sought to tame."
This was a revelation. Not a fire elemental, as some Valyrian constructs were rumored to house, nor a mere complex machine. But a nature spirit, perhaps, or an elemental of earth and sea, ancient and powerful, unwillingly bound. This aligned with Umbraxys's earlier sensation of a "captured, resentful echo" of "salt and fury."
"A slave, then," Baelon stated, his voice devoid of sympathy, merely stating a perceived fact. "A powerful one, certainly, but a slave nonetheless, bound by Valyrian chains that have long since rusted, serving masters who are now naught but whispers and ash." He pressed his advantage. "What purpose does your vigil serve now, Watcher? To guard a city of grasping merchants and furtive assassins who have forgotten the very meaning of the power that forged you? To protect a nest of cultists who worship an Abyssal Nothingness, a direct affront to any true spirit of this world, whether of fire or of stone?"
He deliberately infused his words with the knowledge gleaned from Lyra Maelon and the Antarion texts, testing the Titan's awareness of the Drowned Brethren.
The emerald eyes of the Titan flickered, a subtle, almost imperceptible change in their luminescence. "The… deep-crawlers… the nine-limbed corruption…" Its mental voice was laced with a new, cold disgust, a primal aversion that resonated with Ignis's own reaction to the Drowned God's influence. "They too are… an imbalance. A festering wound upon the true silence of the depths. They offer a false oblivion, a creeping rot that chokes the breath of the world. They are… anathema."
Another ally, however unwilling or unknowable, in his crusade against the Abyssal Cult. Baelon filed this away.
"They are my enemies, Watcher," Baelon affirmed. "And I will see their drowned god cast down, its cultists purged, its influence erased from both Essos and Westeros. Braavos, your city, has become their primary sanctuary, their shield. Your current masters, the Sealord and his Keyholders, either tolerate this corruption or are complicit in it. Does your ancient honor, your bound duty, extend to protecting such… filth?"
The Titan's great frame seemed to shudder, a low groan echoing from its bronze chest that caused ripples on the surface of the Lagoon. "My… binding… is to Braavos. To the idea of it. A refuge from tyranny. A sanctuary for the lost. So it was… intended. But the meaning… frays. The purpose… erodes with the passing of ages. The city… forgets." There was a profound weariness in its mental voice now, a sorrow that transcended its metallic form.
"Meanings can be reforged, Watcher," Baelon pressed, sensing an opening, a dissonance he could exploit. "Purposes can be renewed. Tyranny takes many forms. Is not the influence of this Drowned God, this creeping rot that festers within your city's heart, a tyranny of the soul? Is not the greed of the Iron Bank, which holds nations in thrall, a tyranny of coin? Your Valyrian masters are gone. Their binding, however potent, is ancient. Perhaps it is time for a… re-evaluation of your terms of service."
He pushed his will outwards, not as an attack, but as an invitation, a subtle probe towards the Titan's "Heart-Core," the locus of its animation that Vaellyn had theorized. He infused this probe with the primal fire of the Ignis Shard, offering not domination, but a different kind of energy, a different kind of purpose – the fire of ambition, of order (his order), of an empire that would stand against the encroaching darkness.
The Titan reacted violently. Its emerald eyes blazed, and a wave of pure kinetic force, like an invisible battering ram, slammed into Silverwing, forcing her back several hundred feet. Baelon's Dragon Guard on the islet cried out as the ground beneath them shook.
"YOU DARE?!" the Titan's voice roared in Baelon's mind, no longer weary, but filled with a sudden, terrible fury. "You seek to tamper with the First Seals? To usurp the Ancient Compact? You are Valyrian in your arrogance after all, Serpent King!"
A colossal bronze arm, larger than any war galley, began to rise from the Titan's side, its immense fist, capable of crushing castles, slowly unclenching, its fingers like siege towers.
"I seek only to understand the nature of your chains, Watcher!" Baelon retorted, his own power flaring, the Ignis Shard blazing on his gauntlet, Silverwing struggling to hold her position against the psychic and physical turbulence. "If you are a true spirit, are you content to be a puppet for those who defile the very ideals you were supposedly created to protect? Or do you yearn for a purpose worthy of your ancient might?"
He was playing a dangerous game, deliberately provoking the colossus, goading it, trying to force it to reveal more of its nature, its power, its potential weaknesses. The Voldemort persona reveled in such high-stakes maneuvering.
The Titan's rising arm paused. Its eyes seemed to narrow further, the emerald light within them swirling like a storm-tossed sea. "My purpose… is Braavos. My chains… are my strength. They bind me to this place, to this vigil. Without them… what am I?" There was a flicker of something unexpected in its mental voice: uncertainty, perhaps even a hint of fear.
"You are a power unto yourself, Watcher," Baelon said, his voice softening slightly, becoming almost seductive. "A spirit of storm and stone, as you said. Such power should not be indentured to fleeting mortals who have lost their way. Imagine a Braavos cleansed of its abyssal taint, a Braavos that stands as a true beacon of strength and order in a darkening world, its Titan a willing guardian, not a chained sentinel. Imagine a world where the Drowned God is silenced forever, its corrupting influence banished. Is that not a purpose worthy of your vigil?"
He was offering it a new narrative, a new interpretation of its existence, one that aligned with his own ambitions. He was attempting to recruit a god-machine.
The Titan remained motionless for a long, tense minute, the only sound the eternal sigh of the wind and the distant cries of gulls. Baelon waited, his will a steady, unwavering pressure. He could feel the internal conflict within the ancient entity, the pull of its age-old binding versus the allure of a new, potentially more meaningful, purpose, and its inherent revulsion for the Drowned Brethren.
Then, the Titan's mental voice came again, softer this time, imbued with a profound, almost tragic, resignation. "The Valyrian seals… they are woven… into my very essence. They cannot be… unmade… without unmaking me. My masters may be dust… their city may forget… but the compact… endures. I am Braavos. Braavos is me. Until the sea reclaims all, or the stars fall from the sky, I… watch."
A stalemate, then. Or so it seemed. The Titan was bound by its ancient programming, its Valyrian geas, too deeply to be swayed by mere words, however persuasive.
"A pity," Baelon said, a genuine note of regret in his mental voice, though his eyes remained cold and calculating. "Such power, shackled by forgotten oaths to serve unworthy inheritors. Then know this, Watcher at the World's End: I will cleanse Braavos of the Drowned God's taint. I will break the power of those Keyholders and Iron Bankers who shelter this corruption. If you stand in my way, if you choose to defend the parasites that fester within your city merely because your ancient chains compel you, then those chains, and you with them, will be broken. Valyrian magic made you. Valyrian magic, augmented by fires you cannot comprehend, can unmake you."
The Ignis Shard on his gauntlet flared with a sudden, intense heat, projecting a beam of crimson-black light that struck the Titan's vast bronze chest. It was not an attack meant to damage, not yet, but a focused probe, a taste of the power Baelon now wielded. The bronze at the point of impact glowed cherry-red for a moment, and a deep, metallic groan of… surprise? Pain? …echoed from the colossus.
The Titan's arm, which had remained poised, now began to lower, slowly, ponderously. Its emerald eyes, however, burned with a new, focused intensity.
"You… carry… a shard… of the First Flame…" it projected, a note of shock, and perhaps even a flicker of something akin to… recognition or fear… in its ancient voice. "The Heart-Flame of the World… still burns… in the hands of mortals?"
"I carry the means to an end, Watcher," Baelon replied, pressing his advantage. "And the end of your city's corruption is nigh. You have a choice. Stand aside when my legions come to purge the Drowned Brethren from your streets. Allow me to dismantle the Iron Bank's support for this abyssal cult. Do this, and your vigil may continue over a Braavos cleansed, perhaps even strengthened. Defy me, and your bronze shell will become your tomb."
The Titan was silent again, its great head now fully lowered, its glowing eyes fixed on the pulsing Ignis Shard in Baelon's hand. Baelon could feel the immense, ancient mind within grappling with this ultimatum, this unprecedented challenge from a mortal who wielded the fire of a primordial god.
Finally, its voice came, no longer booming, but a low, resonant whisper that seemed to carry the weight of the sea itself. "The… Drowned… Ones… are… an… offense… to the… True… Balance…" A long pause. "When… your… fires… come… to… cleanse… that… specific… taint… the… Watcher… may… find… its… gaze… averted… for a time." Another pause, then a final, chilling addendum. "But… Braavos… itself… endures. Its… walls… are my skin. Its… canals… my blood. Harm… the city… needlessly… harm… its… innocent… and you… will… face… a reckoning… that… not even… your… borrowed… starfire… can… prevent."
It was not an alliance. It was not surrender. But it was… something. A crack in the Titan's implacable defense. A grudging, conditional neutrality regarding his war against the Drowned Brethren within Braavos. Baelon had not broken its chains, not yet. But he had, perhaps, given them a moment's slack.
He had also received a clear warning. He could hunt the cult, but if his actions threatened the city itself, the Titan would intervene with its full, terrifying might.
"Your terms are… noted, Watcher," Baelon projected, allowing a hint of triumph to color his mental voice. He had achieved more than he had dared hope for in this initial parley. He had confirmed the Titan's animosity towards the Drowned God, secured its potential non-interference in a targeted purge, and gained invaluable insight into its nature and the power of the Ignis Shard.
He pulled back on Silverwing's reins, the dragon responding with an almost palpable relief. "Our conversation, for now, is concluded. But know this: I will return. And the fate of Braavos, and your own, Watcher, will be decided by the choices made in the coming storm."
With a final, lingering look at the colossal, enigmatic guardian, Baelon guided Silverwing away from the Titan's immediate presence, back towards the mists that concealed his ships. The emerald eyes of the Watcher followed them until they were out of sight, its great bronze form once more a silent, brooding sentinel against the grey Braavosi sky, its intentions still shrouded in ancient mystery, but its voice, and its conditional terms, now known to the Serpent King.
The dialogue with a bronze god had ended. The war for Braavos's soul was about to truly begin.