Aggo rode without sparing his horses. Three days later, he reached the first villages of Qarth. Before Daenerys had even broken camp, a caravan of a hundred camels laden with supplies was already making its way toward them.
Her khalasar had been on the march for four full days. They had lost nearly eighty of their weakest horses, and their waterskins were almost empty when the scouts from the camel train finally found them. The long, desperate relay race was over. For the first time in months, Daenerys felt a profound sense of relief. With the immediate crisis of survival averted, her mind turned to other, deeper problems.
The words of the witch Mirri and the arrival of these dragon seekers had made one thing clear: magic was real, and it was a power she needed to understand. She decided she would ask Quaithe. The warlock, Pyat Pree, was too eager, too theatrical. And Xaro Xhoan Daxos had been whispering poison in her ear about him for days.
"The warlocks once held great power," Xaro had told her, his voice a low, confidential murmur. "Even the Dragonlords of Valyria regarded them with respect. But that time has passed. Today, those blue-lipped fellows are like old soldiers in a dockside tavern, boasting of glories long faded. They hide in their House of Dust, poring over rotting scrolls and drinking shade-of-the-evening until their lips are stained blue. They whisper of terrible power, but they are merely hollow shells."
"And Quaithe?" she had asked.
A flicker of genuine awe—or perhaps fear—had entered the merchant's eyes. "That one comes from Asshai-by-the-Shadow. There is a saying: 'it is better to swallow a scorpion than to trust a child of the shadows.' Her power is real, Khaleesi, which only makes her more dangerous. Do not trust her."
From this, Dany had deduced the truth. It was not the blustering warlock who had foreseen her, but the quiet, watchful woman in the mask. She was the one to be wary of. And she was the one who held the answers.
When she saw an opportunity, Dany urged her camel alongside the silent, shrouded figure. "Lady Quaithe," she began, her voice low, "do you know the art of prophecy?"
Quaithe's masked head turned toward her. "In Asshai, Daenerys Stormborn, we are not called 'Lady'."
"Forgive me, Maga Quaithe," Dany corrected herself. "Can you tell me if I will have another child? A witch cursed my womb, you see. She said I would never again bear a living child." As she spoke, she let her eyes fill with moisture, turning her head away as if overcome with a wave of grief.
Quaithe was silent for a long moment. "Put aside the sorrows of the past," she finally said. "There are more important things awaiting you. As for another child, I cannot see such things."
"Why?" Dany pressed, turning back to face her, letting a single tear trace a path through the dust on her cheek. "You saw me before we ever met. You knew I had hatched dragons. You knew I was in White Cloud City."
"Prophecy is an elusive magic," Quaithe explained, her voice as flat and smooth as polished lacquer. "When the Weeping Star appeared, I felt the power of magic returning to the world, like a great tide rising. So I opened my eyes to see the world for what it truly is. And I saw you, in the wasteland, with your dragons. Do you understand?"
"I'm not sure that I do," Dany admitted honestly.
"Mortals fear magic because they believe it is an unnatural force. In truth, it is a form of wisdom. It is no more mysterious than seeing a crimson glow on the eastern horizon and knowing the sun is about to rise."
"Then perhaps I am just an ordinary person, not qualified to learn such wisdom."
A sound that might have been a dry laugh came from behind the mask. "Can an ordinary person cause the tides of magic to turn?" Quaithe asked. She then explained again, with a new patience. "I see the sky is red, so I know the sun will rise. If I do not see the red sky, then I know nothing. The world presents information. I see it, and so I know. The birth of your dragons was a tidal wave. It sent ripples across the entire world, which were easy to see. The matter of another child… that information has not yet presented itself. The sea, for me, is calm."
Dany thought she understood. It was like a form of cosmic data analysis. Some events were so massive they were impossible to miss. Others were quiet undercurrents, visible only to a more powerful seer.
"Can you teach me?" she asked, her voice full of a sudden, hungry eagerness.
"I can," Quaithe replied, her voice quickening, as if this was the question she had been waiting for. "Come with me to Asshai. There you will find all the knowledge you desire."
Dany hesitated, a cold realization dousing her excitement. No one offers such a gift for free. Quaithe did not want her. She wanted her dragons.
"I am the Princess of Dragonstone," she said, her voice turning formal, a mask of her own. "It is my duty to reclaim my family's dynasty. My destiny lies in the west, in Westeros. Not the east." The ghost of her brother's obsession was a useful cloak to wear.
Quaithe seemed to understand. The woman simply turned her head forward, and the conversation was over.
That evening, having been rebuffed by Quaithe, Dany turned to her "spare tire." As the camp settled down to eat, she approached the warlock. "Great Warlock," she asked, her voice loud enough for all to hear, "I have heard that magic spells are a language of their own. Is this true?"
Pyat Pree was delighted. He launched into an enthusiastic lecture, eager to display his knowledge. "You have a wise and curious mind, Great Queen! It is true! There are many paths to mysterious power in this world. There are shadowbinders and warlocks, alchemists and moonsingers, red priests and necromancers, pyromancers, bloodwitches, torturers…" He listed dozens of magical professions, his voice growing with excitement. Dany stared, dumbfounded. The world was far stranger and more complex than she had ever imagined.
"Basically," the warlock concluded, taking a breath, "every mystic system has its own magical language. Its own spells."
"But why are they not all one system?" she asked.
"Well," he hesitated, "perhaps their origins are different. We warlocks and the Valyrian bloodwitches, for example. We are from two different civilizations. We would naturally have different languages."
It sounded like nonsense to her. If magic was a true force of nature, its laws should be as universal as physics.
Seeing the doubt on her face, Quaithe spoke again. "What is this?" she asked Dany, holding up an object in her palm, though she kept most of it concealed.
It was a short, yellow-brown stick with a smooth surface. "A piece of wood," Dany answered honestly.
Quaithe nodded and turned her palm toward Jorah, revealing a different angle. "And what is this?"
"A man?" Jorah said, squinting.
She turned to Irri. "And this?"
"A woman?" the maid whispered, frightened.
Finally, she turned to Aggo, who saw a lion.
Then, Quaithe opened her hand completely. Resting in her white palm was a small, exquisitely carved wooden sculpture: a three-headed warrior, a gentle long-haired woman, and a roaring lion, all intricately carved from a single piece of wood.
"Now do you understand?" Quaithe asked, her masked face turned toward Dany.
"The greatest of magicians cannot grasp all the truth," Dany said, the lesson landing with the force of a revelation. It was the ancient parable of the blind men and the elephant.
"My lady," Jorah suddenly asked, his voice rough with a strange excitement. "The skinchanger you mentioned… do you mean the children of the forest from the old tales?" Every Northman grew up with ghost stories of skinchangers.
"Tales?" the warlock laughed. "Andal, the children of the forest may be legends, but skinchangers are not."
"They have been gone from the world for thousands of years," Jorah insisted.
"They never disappeared," Quaithe said, her voice cold. "They were merely… forgotten by your people. As I journeyed west, I bought certain potions from a skinchanger whose falcon could pluck a rare flower from an untouchable mountain peak."
"So they have all gone to Asshai?" Jorah asked, a strange relief in his voice, as if he were glad the monsters had left his corner of the world.
Dany, however, was not relieved. She was utterly baffled. Everything she thought she knew, every story she remembered, said that skinchangers were a magic unique to the blood of the First Men, tied to the Old Gods of Westeros. How could there be one in the farthest east?
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