Chapter 47: The Age of Fools

Chapter 47: The Age of Fools

300 AC, Month of the Drunken Fool

The death of Tywin Lannister was the snapping of the spine that held the Seven Kingdoms together. The great Lion had been a ruthless, terrible man, but he had been a force of fearsome competence. In his absence, a power vacuum yawned open, and into it stepped his daughter, Cersei. From his serene vantage point at Serpent's Head, Alaric watched the Queen Regent's ascension not with alarm, but with the quiet, predatory anticipation of a businessman watching his chief competitor hand the keys to their empire over to a drunken, paranoid child.

His sanctum became his throne room and his window on the world. The dark, rippling ring he had forged on Dragonstone was now a permanent part of him, a direct conduit for his will. He no longer needed the cumbersome scrying bowl for simple observation; he could close his eyes, focus his mind, and his consciousness would soar, a silent ghost in the halls of the Red Keep.

He watched as Cersei began her disastrous reign. He observed her systematically dismantling the competent administration her father had built. She filled the Small Council with sycophants, flatterers, and fools. The treasury was entrusted to the bumbling Lord Gyles Rosby, the master of ships to a landlocked lord who had never seen the sea. It was a masterclass in self-destruction, and Alaric catalogued every blunder.

<> Prometheus noted coolly in his mind as they observed a council meeting together. <>

Alaric's public response to this unfolding disaster was impeccable. He remained the dutiful, reclusive Lord Paramount, focused entirely on the governance of his own domain. He sent regular, polite letters to the capital, detailing the prosperity of the Blackwater March and the readiness of the Royal Fleet squadrons being built in his shipyards. He was a pillar of stability and competence in a realm rapidly descending into madness.

His business, in turn, fed on this madness. His new, quiet alliance with the Tyrells bore immediate fruit. With Cersei actively alienating her daughter-in-law's family, the Queen of Thorns, Olenna Tyrell, began to discreetly shift the vast commercial power of the Reach away from King's Landing and towards the secure, efficient port of Blackport. Convoys of wagons laden with the finest wines of the Arbor and the richest harvests of Highgarden now bypassed the capital, their goods transferred to Blackwood Mercantile ships bound for the Free Cities.

"The Tyrells are diverting nearly a third of their exports through our channels, my lord," Nervo reported, his eyes wide with the scale of the profits. "They are paying us a premium for the privilege of avoiding the Queen Regent's chaotic tariffs and corrupt officials. We are making a fortune by simply being… competent."

"Competence is the rarest and most valuable commodity in an age of fools, Nervo," Alaric replied. "Ensure the Tyrells receive flawless service. Their friendship is a temporary but useful asset in weakening our primary competitor."

But Alaric's most significant move was in response to the event he knew was Cersei's greatest folly. Through his scrying, he watched as she, in a fit of pique against the Tyrells and a desperate bid to solve her financial woes by seizing the wealth of the church, agreed to the High Septon's request to restore the ancient military orders of the Faith of the Seven. The Faith Militant, the Poor Fellows and the Warrior's Sons, were reborn.

Alaric knew this was a catastrophic error. Cersei believed she was unleashing a dog to attack her enemies. In reality, she was unleashing a dragon that would consume her. He would not interfere. Instead, he would build a firewall.

He immediately tripled his donations to the Faith in his own lands. He sponsored the construction of a magnificent new sept in Blackport, a structure of white marble and stained glass that would rival the Great Sept of Baelor. He brought his father, Lord Theron, down from the Riverlands to preside over the ceremony. Lord Theron, a genuinely pious man, wept with pride.

"You are a good and dutiful son, Alaric," his father told him, his earlier fear replaced by a bewildered pride. "To see such devotion in a great lord… it is a balm to the soul in these dark times."

Alaric accepted the praise with a serene smile. His piety was a calculated investment in political immunity. When the fanatical Sparrows inevitably turned their gaze upon the great lords of the realm, the famously devout and charitable Lord of the Blackwater March would be beyond reproach.

While the realm crumbled, Alaric's own dynasty flourished in their island fortress of order. His heirs were his most important project, the living culmination of his ambitions. Tyber, his firstborn, was now eleven. The boy was his father's son in every way that mattered. His education was a relentless course in strategy, economics, and power politics.

One evening, Alaric presented him with a scenario. "The Queen Regent has armed the Faith, but the Faith now challenges her authority. The Tyrells are alienated but still bound to the throne by the royal marriage. The Iron Bank is demanding payment on the crown's debts. You are the Hand of the King. What is your move?"

Tyber thought for a long moment, his violet-tinged eyes focused on the cyvasse board between them. "The Faith is a fire," he said finally, his voice unnervingly calm for a boy his age. "You cannot put it out, so you must aim it. I would find evidence of the Tyrells' impiety—their decadent spending, their quiet heresies—and leak it to the High Sparrow. Let the Faith and the Rose weaken each other. While they are fighting, I would use the crisis to petition the Iron Bank for a restructuring of the debt, arguing that only a stable, Lannister-led throne can guarantee repayment. I would use one enemy to cripple the other, and use the resulting crisis to consolidate my financial position."

Alaric felt a chill of profound pride. The boy was not just intelligent. He was a predator. He was perfect.

Cassia, his daughter, remained a quieter, more unsettling power. Her empathy with the natural world had deepened. She would spend hours in the castle's menagerie, a place Alaric had built for her, filled with exotic creatures brought by his ships. She would sit silently among them, and the great striped tigers from the east would rest their heads in her lap, their snarling fury soothed into a purring contentment. Lynesse saw it as a charming, if strange, gift. Alaric saw it for what it was: a subtle, powerful form of magical dominion, a type of warging connected not to wolves, but to all living things. He nurtured it carefully, providing her with texts on animal husbandry and biology, mundane sciences that would give her a framework to understand and control her arcane talent.

His own magical pursuits were now focused on a singular, daunting goal: recreating Valyrian steel. His sanctum was a laboratory of arcane metallurgy. The geothermal forge on Dragonstone, operated by his loyal team of engineers, was his crucible.

His first attempt to forge the ring had been a qualified success. It was a potent magical amplifier, but it was not true Valyrian steel. It lacked the lightness, the strength, the indefinable quality of the genuine article. He knew he was missing a key element of the ritual.

He spent his nights in a deep trance, the Valyrian swords laid out before him, his consciousness projected through his ring. He was not just scrying on events anymore. He was trying to scry on a memory, the memory locked within the steel itself. He sifted through the chaotic visions of fire and blood, seeking the clear, precise steps of the forging process.

Slowly, painfully, he began to piece it together. The folding of the steel was a ritual in itself, each fold accompanied by a specific chant. The quenching was not done in water, but in a mixture of alchemical reagents and, crucially, the blood of the sorcerer-smith himself. But there was still a missing piece, a final infusion of power that gave the steel its soul. He suspected it had to do with the dragonfire, not just its heat, but its own intrinsic magical nature. A problem he could not yet solve.

The climax of Cersei's folly arrived, as he knew it would. He watched, a silent observer from a hundred leagues away, as the Faith Militant, her own creation, turned on her. He saw them arrest Queen Margaery on charges of adultery. And then, in a moment of supreme, poetic justice, he saw them arrest Cersei herself. The Queen Regent, the most powerful woman in Westeros, was dragged from her chambers, accused of incest, treason, and murder.

Alaric felt no joy, no schadenfreude. He felt only the calm, detached satisfaction of a correct prediction. His chief rival had engineered her own spectacular downfall.

He pulled his consciousness back to his study in Serpent's Head. The game had changed once again. The Lannister-Tyrell alliance was shattered. The capital was now ruled by a council of fools and fanatics. The kingdom was, for all intents and purposes, leaderless.

A raven arrived that very evening. It was from his brother Martyn in Dorne.

Brother, the coded message began. The Red Viper's death has unleashed a storm. Prince Doran holds his nieces, the Sand Snakes, but Sunspear boils with cries for war. They speak of avenging Elia, of crowning the Princess Myrcella. But there are other, wilder whispers now, carried by sailors from the east. Whispers of a Targaryen queen. A young girl, with dragons. They say she has taken Meereen. They say she is the true heir, and that Dorne should ally with her.

Alaric read the message. Daenerys Targaryen. He had been monitoring her progress from afar, a background variable in his calculations. But now, her story was beginning to intersect with the great game of Westeros. The dragons were back on the board.

Another raven arrived, this one from Pate at the Citadel. Its message was even more world-shattering.

Master Alaric, Lord Commander Snow has done the unthinkable. He has opened the Wall to the wildlings. Thousands have passed through, to be settled in the Gift. The Night's Watch is on the verge of mutiny. Maester Aemon is dead, on a ship to the south. But his last words, they say, were of a prophecy, of a prince that was promised. And of the great enemy in the north. The Others. He said the winter that is coming will be the longest in a thousand years.

Alaric stood in his study, holding the two messages. The board was not just changing; it was expanding, revealing a new, far more dangerous dimension. The petty squabbles of the Five Kings were a child's game compared to this. A queen with dragons in the east. An army of the dead in the north.

He walked to the great map on his wall. He looked at the sigils of the great houses, now faded and blood-stained. They were all playing the wrong game. They were all focused on the Iron Throne, a prize that would be meaningless when the Long Night fell.

His years of patient consolidation, of building his fortress, of securing his wealth, of enhancing his bloodline, suddenly took on a new, urgent meaning. It was no longer just about founding a powerful dynasty. It was about creating a bastion of power and knowledge strong enough to survive the coming apocalypse.

His gaze turned north, past Winterfell, past the Wall, to the white wastes of the Lands of Always Winter. The true enemy. A variable he could not control, could not predict with perfect accuracy. An existential threat to his children, his legacy, his entire world.

The game of thrones was over for him. The game of survival had just begun. And he, with his magic, his wealth, his army, and his perfect knowledge of the enemy, was the only player on the board who stood a chance of winning.