Marisius

He had asked to be bound in Valyrian steel shackles? Rather than a madman's ravings, that sounded like an extremely specific precaution, one that even carried a certain ritual significance.

Because of its unique magical properties, Valyrian steel was often thought capable of warding off evil. If anything, this made Viserys find the man somewhat more credible.

"Take me to him." Viserys's voice brooked no argument.

Naharis seemed to have expected this and offered no excuses. He summoned a steward and gave him a few quiet instructions. The steward bowed and withdrew, returning shortly with a tray bearing two black hooded cloaks.

"As a precaution," Naharis explained, "we must go quietly. There are too many eyes within the Black Wall, whether they belong to the Elephant Party itself or the Tiger Party."

Viserys and Arthur donned the black cloaks, pulling their hoods over most of their faces. Naharis changed into a plain brown robe. Led by the steward, the three bypassed the main entrance and passed through an inconspicuous corridor in a side wing of the residence. The steward pushed open a hidden door disguised as a bookshelf, revealing a passage leading downward.

"Please follow me." Naharis led Viserys and Ser Arthur into the passage.

The air in the passage grew cold and damp. Oil lamps hung at intervals along the walls, their flickering flames casting wavering shadows over the stone.

After roughly fifteen minutes of walking, they came to a heavy iron door with only a small peephole. Two burly guards stood outside. At the sight of Naharis, they bowed slightly and unfastened the several chains securing the door.

Beyond the door lay a small stone chamber, less a prison cell than a crude confinement room. A sour, musty odor filled the air, mingled with a faint smell of burning and sulfur. The walls were rough, and a single dim oil lamp burned in one corner. A figure huddled in another corner on a bed of straw.

By the light of the oil lamp, Viserys made out his form.

He was a middle-aged man with his head hanging low, hair tangled like dead grass and a matted beard obscuring most of his face. A filthy rag was all he wore. His exposed skin was an unhealthy white, covered in scars. Their strange shapes suggested splashes of scalding liquid or corrosive burns.

Most striking were his hands and feet, firmly bound by chains with a dark sheen, their other ends secured to iron rings in the wall. Viserys recognized the material at once by the distinctive rippled luster of Valyrian steel.

At the sound of footsteps, the man jerked his head up.

Viserys saw a face that looked as though it had been burned and then forcibly pieced back together. Dark red and deathly pale scars crisscrossed it. His left eye was nothing but a sunken socket, but his right was exceptionally bright, a beautiful pale purple.

"Who?" His voice was hoarse and parched, yet his words were surprisingly clear. "You again, Naharis. I told you, I know nothing. Let me out, or just kill me."

"Quiet, Marisius," Naharis cut in. "I've brought you a new friend today. He wants to hear your stories about Valyria. Afterward, perhaps I'll give you an end to this, or some hope."

"Stories?" The man called Marisius let out a dry laugh that set their teeth on edge. "There are no stories there. Only echoes. Echoes of fire, echoes of stone, and their whispers."

His lone eye fixed on Viserys behind Naharis. Though the hood concealed Viserys's face, that gaze seemed capable of piercing it. "You... you smell of smoke. Not the smoke here. Something older, hotter..."

Viserys took a step forward, Arthur following close behind, alert. Viserys slowly lowered his hood. His silver hair caught the dim light, and his purple eyes calmly met that frenzied stare.

Marisius's breathing suddenly quickened. He recoiled sharply, sending the Valyrian steel chains clattering.

"No... don't come closer. Dragon blood... I can smell dragon blood. But it's wrong. Why is it still burning?" He rambled incoherently, covering his good eye with a hand, then peeking at Viserys through his fingers. "Weren't you... weren't you supposed to be ashes already?"

"Tell me what you saw, Marisius." Viserys spoke softly, but his voice carried a strange, soothing power. He quietly stirred a trace of mental energy, trying to reach the man's chaotic thoughts. This was a mental application of his Greenseer abilities. "What did you see in Valyria? What were those 'singing stones'?"

Perhaps it was Viserys's calm manner, or perhaps his power had taken effect, but Marisius's frenzy eased a little. He lowered his hand and stared blankly into space with his lone eye, as though gazing at some distant, terrifying scene.

"Fire. Fire everywhere, but it wasn't normal fire." He spoke as if in a dream. "It came out of cracks in the ground, out of the sea. Even the air was burning. Our ship melted like wax. When people fell in, they turned to smoke without even a sound..."

"We went ashore at the southern tip of the Bleeding Peninsula, at a place marked on the map as the 'Kiss of Astapor.' There was no smoke there, but there was light. The stones were glowing, all sorts of colors, as if they were alive. They were singing. You didn't hear it with your ears. They sang inside your head." Marisius clutched his head, his body beginning to tremble. "We thought we'd found treasure. That fool serving under Naharis ordered men to dig, to pry them loose..."

His voice suddenly rose, filled with terror. "Then they woke up! The stones came alive. Things like tentacles reached out from the walls, from the ground, grabbing people and dragging them inside. The people they dragged in... their skin began turning gray and hard, and their eyes became like glass marbles. They were still moving, but they weren't people anymore. They were stone. Stone Men."

Stone Men. Viserys recalled the rumors. It seemed they had not been entirely imagined.

"How did you escape?" Viserys asked.

Marisius's lone eye focused on Viserys's face, a strange gleam flashing through it.

"I was afraid of fire, so I kept to the back, near the shore. When those stone monsters began chasing us, I jumped into the sea. The water was warm, like blood. I swam and swam until I reached a reef. I saw..."

He paused for so long that Naharis thought he was about to lapse into madness again.

"I saw a dragon." Marisius's voice was almost inaudible. "Not bones. A real dragon, but a tiny one, about the size of a dog, hiding in the shadows of the reef. Its scales were black, with dark red glowing patterns along their edges. It was eating a glowing fish. It saw me, but it didn't attack. It only glanced at me. Its eyes were red, like dancing flames."

A little black dragon? Viserys was shaken. There were still living dragons in the ruins of Valyria? It seemed unbelievable, but the original books had never described Valyria in detail. Could dragons still hatch in those extreme conditions after the Doom?

"What happened next?" Viserys pressed.

"Then I passed out. When I woke again, I was lying on a broken ship's plank. A passing merchant ship picked me up and brought me back to Volantis." Marisius's voice grew hollow again. "Vaharis thought I was dead, or that I'd turned into a monster.

"He locked me up as a slave, wanting to know exactly what I'd been through, but whenever I got near anything from Valyria, I went mad. He wanted to kill me, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Then I escaped."