Yulon's Travel Diary (4)

Valantis—the Long Bridge, Between Past Blossoms and Present-Day Swamps

The Rhône River was a murky artery that split Valantis in two, while the Long Bridge was the fragile vein connecting these two utterly different worlds.

I stood on the bridge, feeling the different pulses beneath my feet. On the east bank lay the quiet world of the ancient nobles behind the Black Wall, steeped in whispers of power and the haze of sandalwood. On the west bank was a noisy quagmire of sellswords, foreigners, slaves, and commoners, where the air churned with the pungent stench of sweat, spices, and decay. The city's division was so naked, so cruel.

Slaves. They were the inescapable backdrop of Valantis. There were so many of them it was suffocating—supposedly five times as many as the Free Folk. They moved silently through the streets and docks, eyes lowered, forming the unseen foundation that kept the city running.

They said this had once been the "City of Flowers and Fountains," the mightiest and most prosperous jewel among the nine Free Cities.

Now, I could only piece together some semblance of its past glory from the surviving giant statues and the ruins of its magnificent fountain pools.

That foolish War of Conquest a century ago had drained it of its lifeblood. The bitterness of defeat had driven the people to smash countless statues of Tiger Party magistrates. Valantis now resembled a magnificent robe that had been mended: dazzling from afar, but with crude stitching and obvious flaws up close. Many fountains had long since dried up, becoming stagnant pools breeding mosquitoes. Some districts had even been swallowed by the swamps again, reduced to desolation and memories.

I went to the places I had to see and check off my list.

The Black Wall—it was more than a wall. It was a declaration, coldly proclaiming that bloodlines and class could never be crossed.

At the Temple of R'hllor, the Red Priests served their Lord of Light in the shadowy halls. Flames danced among the shadows, promising illusory power and salvation.

Gwendoline, the Red Priestess, pulled me inside and preached their god to me.

House of the Merchant, Valantis's finest tavern, was a colossal four-story building overlooking the surrounding docks, wharves, and warehouses. Its hall was larger than that of most castles in Westeros. The courtyard at its center was paved with stone and planted with many grape trellises; the surrounding pavilions and caves made the hall look like a maze. They said it was the largest and most expensive tavern in the world. Yet every table was still full of guests, which showed just how many wealthy people there were in this world. A large-scale tavern at the port in King's Landing would surely turn a profit.

Last was the Long Bridge, which crossed the mouth of the Rhône River and connected Valantis's two districts. At its entrance stood an arch built of black stone, carved with sphinxes, manticores, dragons, and other monsters. All kinds of buildings lined both sides of the bridge, where you could buy almost anything. In the middle of the bridge, thieves' hands and criminals' heads were displayed on spears.

We were lucky. We arrived just in time for the city's election. In Valantis, the Tiger Party and Elephant Party held elections for their magistrates every year. Every Valantene of free birth who owned land had the right to vote. The election lasted ten days, and those ten days were Valantis's carnival.

Tiger or elephant, what did it matter? I was only passing through, so I enjoyed the sea of merriment... But this election system meant they kept changing their minds from day to day, giving the country the stench of decay.

Valantis still breathed, but every breath carried a hint of mustiness and weakness. It taught me one thing: the deepest decline began with inner rot, not the blades of foreign enemies.

The Dothraki Sea—the Sea of Grass, Scimitars, and Trials

At last, we left so-called "civilization" behind and entered the boundless sea of grass known as the Dothraki Sea.

The sky here seemed impossibly vast, like a giant bronze bowl mottled with green rust, overturned at the edge of the world. The wind was the only everlasting sound. It swept through the waist-high grass, letting out an endless low moan, as if tens of thousands of ghosts were sighing all at once.

Here, laws were written by hooves and revised by scimitars.

We found a huge khalasar and offered gifts, showing that we were not cowards. Only then were we barely allowed to follow along as "guests." Yet the look in every Dothraki warrior's eyes was clear: Guests? Prisoners? The distance between them was no more than the outcome of a fight.

We followed them as they migrated in pursuit of water and pasture, the scorching sun overhead and the horizon stretching beneath our feet all the way to the stars. At last, we reached the legendary place—Vaes Dothrak.

There were no walls or gates. This great city had simply grown wild from the breast of the earth. Thousands upon thousands of tents filled the view, like a white sea. The air was a mixture of the charred aroma of roasted horse meat, the sour stench of fermented milk, and the everlasting smell of dust. The neighing of the herds was denser than thunder, and more unsettling.

It was here that I met Khal Drogo, the booming-voiced Khal. In a contest watched by every warrior, I used a clean, decisive Fish-Man Karate move to knock his son—Jorah, who was about my age—flat on the ground. In that moment, the noise stopped. Only the grass continued to hiss in the wind.

[You defeated Jorah, son of the Dothraki Khal Khal Drogo, and earned 40 points.]

Here, words were superfluous. Strength was the only pass—physical strength, strength of will, and the strength to command people's hearts. Humility was a virtue of the weak; weakness was a sin that earned no pity. You had to prove your worth before the grasslands would grudgingly grant you an inch of ground.

Only after I defeated Jorah, son of Khal Drogo, did Khal Drogo finally deign to look me in the eye, though I was only a child about the same age as his son.

I wanted horses. Yes, Dothraki horses, the finest in the world. I would trade salt, wine, and iron for them, and Khal Drogo agreed to the deal.

The Red Viper was a little confused. He couldn't understand why an Ironborn from the Iron Islands wanted horses. Did a lord of an island need to form a cavalry regiment or something?

I didn't explain. In the future, my territory would include not only the sea, but the land as well!

Slaver's Bay—Humanity with a Price Tag and Three Masks

With his voice, a blend of poetry and venom, Oberyn had painted this coast for me. He called it the "Three Sister Cities," three sisters born of the same source who would gladly slit each other's throats. And now, I had seen them with my own eyes.

Yunkai's atmosphere reached my nose first—the cloying perfumes mingled with the faint crack of whips, nauseating yet strangely thrilling. The entire city was one enormous, carefully run brothel and training ground for beasts. They claimed to export the world's most perfect pleasure slaves and servants, when in reality they were systematically taking people apart and polishing them into docile commodities. As I walked among them and watched the slaves wearing their trained smiles, all I felt was bitter irony: they had turned "gentleness" into the coldest business.

Meereen was shrouded in a layer of ochre-red dust that never settled. Its towering pyramid pierced the sky like the tombstone of some giant. Dust covered everything, worked into the gaps between my teeth and filled my lungs. It was the city's true ruler, a symbol of ancient, stubborn traditions that refused to change. The slaves here wore copper collars and labored silently beneath the Great Masters' shadows; even rebellion seemed a heavy burden.

But the city that truly made me stop was Astapor. If the first two cities still wrapped their "wares" in a veil of illusion, Astapor tore away even that last shred of hypocrisy. This was a human-modification factory, and it had only one kind of "product": the Unsullied.

I toured one of their training lines—they called it "the flow." The boys were stripped of their names, emotions, fear, and even their flesh, then reforged into weapons of slaughter that obeyed absolutely. Beneath every finished soldier lay countless broken souls. There was no deception here, only efficiency and cost.

Slaver's Bay made no attempt to hide its true nature. Here, people could be dismantled into parts, given a price, and put up for sale. Oberyn had been right: this was the ultimate place where humanity was priced.

I couldn't change this place, at least not yet. In Slaver's Bay's three cities, I traded with the haughty slave masters who looked down their noses at everyone. I needed people, all kinds of useful people: doctors, smiths, carpenters, masons, scholars, poisoners, warriors, merchants, generals... I wanted them all!

The future of the Iron Islands needed countless talented people!