Kapitel 38: Schemes and movements part 3

At the port, a man holding a letter was boarding his own ship. He was wearing an extremely large full-body armor, its shape was very strange, almost as if he was wearing 2 or 3 layers of armor, but the men on the ship didn't find it strange at all, even though he was wearing something so heavy on a ship. He was one of the supposed Mages who didn't belong to the 40 families.

"My Lord, are you sure we should go? We didn't stock up on enough supplies for a very long trip, and everything we have now we paid a high price for due to your urgency and the inflated prices to board."

The man looked at the letter again before storing it in his shadow bag and confirming.

"We should go. I have a bad feeling and received a warning from someone friendly. You remember the last time I had such a feeling, right?"

The man sweated as he remembered how close they came to death when leaving a city that was infected by a lethal and terrible disease. He quickly hoisted the sails and the ship soon pulled away from the harbor.

***

In a cave in the western district area, the leader of a mysterious organization in Pentos called the Black Hand had just finished dinner when he decided to see the ravens that brought news of the city and feed the other birds and animals they kept. He and his sister had been in this cave for over a year, while she was busy creating her own totem, he kept her safe.

The reason they chose Valyria for the totem was because the 14 flames were a very powerful catalyst to feed the totem's magic, not only for fire spells, but the totems made and stored here had far-reaching effects for the entire world due to Valyria's geographical position. When he arrived at the place, he saw two ravens marked with urgent news from the city and immediately went to check on the first two since they were very isolated here and it was important to know everything about the city to avoid problems. The first raven reported the chaos happening in the northern district and the last was a letter warning them about the dangers of the faceless men. There was even another letter along with it addressed to his sister. He read it again, not believing it… Dozens of totems destroyed in a single day and two powerful wizards murdered. He dropped everything and ran to tell his sister in an attempt to prevent the completion of his totem. Once built, it could never be moved or it would lose all its magical effects and the ingredients would no longer work.

"What are you doing here, Yuri? It's not like you to enter my laboratory without knocking."

"Sis, we need to stop your totem right now and also leave the city, look at this."

He then handed her the letter intended for her. After reading it, she stopped everything she was doing and began to use several animal bones to make a prediction. Frowning, she used cowrie shells for the second time. Not trusting the result, she picked up and shuffled her tarot deck and drew a card, only to see a skeleton holding a scythe. Frightened, she repeated the process 3 more times, this time using different prediction methods. She stood up urgently and an expression of terror covered her face.

"We need to get out of here quickly, prepare to summon little Kuro, we can't risk taking a ship."

—But it's dangerous to fly on it in the outskirts of Valyria, there are many wild dragons and we are a very conspicuous target.

"In my predictions our futures disappeared, flying on it was the only vision that gave a positive result."

After Yuri left the room and went to prepare to summon his pet, his sister Laura started another divination. This time trying to observe her supposed benefactor. After two attempts sacrificing some animals, all she saw of the supposed Red Sage was a faceless and nameless man.

Giving up on the person, she did one more investigation, using strange translucent stones before her eyes changed color and she finally found a ship, after concentrating she read its name on the side it was: "Sigh of Valyria", when she read this name out loud she felt huge waves of destiny reverberate. She was surprised, when a name of a place or item emitted such waves it meant that its entire destiny was altered and great changes on top of that. When she realized the name and remembered the disaster that this person predicted and warned them about she knew why the ship had such a name. She then wrote two letters, one of them to her contact at an inn and the other asked to be delivered to the supposed ship.

At that time her brother returned, she then collected all the items related to the still incomplete totem before following her brother out of the cave. Outside a huge black crow bigger than a helicopter had already been summoned by her brother, its feathers were so black and sometimes seemed to be living shadows, sometimes they turned into shadows, before turning back into feathers again. She smiled at the animal and then climbed on it with her brother and the two left Valyria in the dead of night.

***

Jhon was a magic apprentice, one of the few in the city considered to be true. Being taught by a witch in the Village of Dawn in the west of Essos, Jhon had a great learning when it came to healing and poisons.

Following his father who was a merchant, he ended up in the Valyrian Freehold, where thanks to his poisons he became one of the largest suppliers for the group of Faceless Men. Thanks to this, he and his father became rich quickly.

Recently, Jhon had been worried about the increasing amount of poisons the group was requesting from him, and there were several times when he was even pressured to pass on some of his recipes to the group, but he resisted, saying that if he was pressured he would just leave. This did not please the group at all and also worsened the tensions between the two sides.

Living in this state of constant poison creation, Jhon had barely had time to create new formulas or even improve himself as a wizard. The witch who accepted him as an apprentice said that he had a rare talent for the nature element, which was also commonly called the plant element. But until now, due to years of incessant work, he had not mastered his first spell, which was called Entangling. Under such pressure and constantly wondering whether he should run away and leave everything behind, today he received a letter that only made him more worried. The letter had no name or address, all it had were the words: "Beware of faceless men."

Who could it be? Did someone know something and try to warn me in advance? Was it a test? Or had the faceless men finally decided to get rid of him? So many questions made Jhon even more paranoid and at that moment someone knocked on his door.

"KNOCK KNOCK"

Taking a deep breath he shouted:

—WHO IS IT?

"It's from the restaurant, we have some leftovers and we want to know if you want any?"

It was them! And the worst part was that they came without warning. This question was part of a code established by both sides.

Jhon replied:

—Yes, I want, how much food do you have?

"We have plenty, practically everything that's left."

Jhon took another deep breath, this was a code that meant they wanted everything he had, of all types and effects. Are they really going to get rid of me? Jhon thought.

Coming without warning, after having come yesterday, and asking for everything I have is very suspicious, this has never happened before. He then opened the door and the man came in. As soon as he entered, the man looked at everything as if he was on high guard, after looking at everything he went back to the door. Jhon then explained that he had almost nothing, but that he would prepare everything in a box after a few minutes. The man nodded and waited.

While filling the box, Jhon watched the man discreetly, the faceless man was constantly looking at the closed door and a window, his hand constantly hovering over the dagger at his waist, while he looked suspiciously at Jhon while keeping his distance from him. As soon as he finished putting everything in the box, Jhon said, waving at the box on the table:

—Take it!

But the man didn't move, and said back:

"Bring it to me, or leave it here near the door, I want to check it first."

Jhon knew right away that this would be a life or death moment, the man didn't even want to approach him to carry the box and wanted him to do it. He then secretly threw another item inside it and walked towards him before placing the box two meters away and walking away.

While he did all this, Jhon continued to count down in his mind. As soon as he also moved another two meters away, the man finally bent down to pick up the box, but before he could lift it, a bang came out of it, throwing smoke and liquids in his face. The man screamed in pain, drew his dagger and advanced towards Jhon without even hesitating.

For Jhon, it was enough, the man must have just been hesitating whether it would be easy or not to get rid of him, the poison he used in the explosion was not lethal, it was only used to distort the senses and cause pain in the orifices where the smoke reached. With his life at risk and without further hesitation, he took out a sealed bottle of potion and threw it at the man, when it hit his face, the glass broke, spreading a green liquid on the man's face and chest. A horrible burning hiss was heard followed by a scream, as the faceless man fell to the ground with his skin melting. Jhon, being merciful, took a small needle kept in his cloak and threw it at the man from a distance, afraid he would react.As soon as the needle hit him, less than 10 seconds passed and he quickly stopped moving. At the same time, black lines spread like worms through his veins, originating from the place where the needle hit him.

Jhon remembered the origin of the poison with some nostalgia before dragging the corpse to the center of the room. After taking everything of value he had in the room and on the dead man, he put everything in his storage bag and set fire to his entire laboratory along with his house and the evidence of his crime. Wearing a mask and a cloak, he went to find his father to try to escape the city as quickly as possible.

Little did Jhon know that the faceless man was as scared as he was. He had been warned of a possible conflict against all the wizards in the city, but he had been chosen to collect poisons for the last time from this apprentice, and in fact he shouldn't have been dangerous, but as soon as he entered he saw the man sweating all the time, with dilated pupils and slight tremors. For men trained in the art of killing, these signs were enough to indicate a possible dangerous situation, and if the apprentice saw him as a danger he would try to attack at any moment. In the end, a carelessness led the two to a life-or-death conflict, all driven and incited by Rafael who really wanted to plant distrust on both sides as a form of revenge.

That Saturday night and the Sunday that would follow, conflicts similar to Jhon's would break out throughout the city.

***

While most of the wizards from the 40 families did not make any major moves after Rafael's message, many exchanged messages with each other. However, in Esmer's mansion, his servants were instructed to ignore all the crows; he wanted to leave quickly and avoid questions about the disappearance of Immortal and the others. His servant, who had left early to buy the tickets, had only returned now that night and was kneeling in front of him apologizing.

"My Lord, I have truly failed in the mission you gave me. Due to the chaos in the northern district, the tickets had doubled in price and there were hardly any left. I had to pay 40 coins for a cabin that was barely pleasant enough for my Lord. It is my fault for not paying attention to what is happening in the other districts and I can only accept my punishment."

"There is no need to punish me for such a small amount, you may stand up. It is good that you still managed to get a ticket. Tell me about this chaos in the northern district.

"My lord, there is a commotion there, there are fights, robberies and thefts in several places, I have even heard of some deaths. They say that a disaster is about to happen and everyone is stocking up on food or going to sea, a minority without much money has started to migrate to the Summer Lands and are trying to hide in caves away from the 14 flames. When I asked about the disaster only one name came up, the 'Red Sage'."

Esmer's eyes wandered a little before his pupils dilated, that boy? Why would he do that? Besides, he directly told me his name as if it didn't really matter that I knew who he was... Wait! Without his real name I really can't find him now that he's gone! Well it doesn't matter, I'm leaving too... Esmer felt like he was forgetting something important, not knowing what was bothering him he went back to his room and planned to read a little until bedtime. After his satisfactory reading, Esmer was about to call it a night when he picked up a red bookmark, which immediately reminded him of who had given it to him…

Suddenly, Esmer stood up from his chair as he remembered something. 3 or 4 days ago, his ex-lover also left the city, taking all of his daughters with her. The reason was "new business" so he didn't pay much attention to it, but there was another piece of news that he did pay attention to: half of the Velaryons also left, taking everything they had, collecting debts at a great loss and taking out loans worth tens of thousands. This information reached all 39 families due to their actions at the Valyrian Bank.

Something seems very suspicious… Did they know something in advance? Suddenly, a knock on his bedroom door caught his attention.

"Knock knock"

"Come in!"

"Master, news of interest to you has just arrived!"

Esmer remained silent and his servant continued without waiting for his command:

"Master, less than 2 hours ago… A horrible explosion occurred, killing Kulan of the Triarchy and his eldest son. Many minor nobles and merchants also died. Large green flames that devoured everything were seen at the site of the explosion and Magnus and Madame Rosa are the main suspects. But since Madame Rose left the city and her 3 eldest sons died in the explosion, she ceased to be a suspect. Kuzar, who survived the explosion, started a gang war against Magnus, accusing him of being the perpetrator of the crime. Armed conflicts began to occur in several districts and places controlled by the Triarchy."

When Esmer heard the news and especially the words "green fire" he immediately knew who the culprit was, after all, this was his own creation. Has that woman gone crazy? Killing his own children just to get revenge on Kulan and then blaming someone else… He couldn't help but praise his former lover for her cruelty and also cunning, she was just an ordinary person, but her way of acting was similar to those old monsters from Asshai. Other thoughts about Rose crossed Esmer's mind, but they could only be confirmed later.

Author's note below.