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Chapter 75

Chapter 75: Subjugation of Tyrosh
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Two Moons Later

Archon of Tyrosh POV

For three weeks, unease had crept through the free city of Tyrosh. By the end of the third, it had ripened into chaos.

At first, there had been only scattered whispers in the markets, which warned of the incoming chaos. Warehouses that bustled with activity one night stood deserted by dawn. Merchant vessels slipped from their berths without declaring a destination. Even sellsword captains began refusing rich contracts without explanation.

Such things were not unusual in Tyrosh. Coins changed hands, and loyalties changed with it. Men disappeared after borrowing from the wrong magister or offending a powerful merchant.

That was what I thought till my allies began to vanish as well.

The first was Magister Varro, whose ships carried nearly half the dyes leaving the city. His servants claimed he had departed for Myr on urgent business, yet none of his vessels had sailed. Two nights later, the captain of the Black Horns failed to attend our customary supper. By morning, his lieutenants had emptied their barracks and vanished with nearly three hundred sellswords.

Others followed.

A banker who had financed my election as Archon. A merchant whose warehouses supplied grain to the palace. Two sellsword captains whose loyalty I had purchased with land, gold, and brides from lesser Tyroshi families.

All of them were gone.

Some disappeared with their entire households, while others left warm beds behind them and cups half-full upon their tables.

I sent spies and sellswords into the markets, the pleasure houses, the foreign quarter, and the counting rooms of every merchant prince who had ever spoken against me.

None of them returned.

By the third week, the silence from my allies became a risk to me. After all, too many people had vanished for chance to explain it. Someone was stripping away my power, ally by ally, without leaving behind a name, a witness, or so much as a trail of blood. They would soon aim for me.

There was one pattern that had emerged.

As my allies disappeared, the followers of R'hllor seemed to grow bolder and bolder.

Tyrosh had never belonged to a single god. Temples and shrines lined its streets and waterfronts, honoring Three-Headed Trios, the Patternmaker, the Lord of Light, and a dozen lesser gods brought by sailors from distant shores. The red temple had stood within the city for longer than I had held office, and its priests had once drawn no more notice than any others.

That has changed now.

Red priests who had once preached to small gatherings of dockhands and beggars now commanded entire market squares. They spoke before the Fountain of the Drunken God, along the waterfront, and beneath the walls of the inner city. From dawn until nightfall, their voices carried over the streets.

They proclaimed that Azor Ahai had come again, born amidst smoke and salt. They claimed the champion of the Lord of Light already walked among us.

At sunset, nightfires blazed in every quarter of Tyrosh. The priests called out, and tens of thousands answered as one.

"The night is dark and full of terrors." The words rolled across the city like distant thunder.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have ordered the sermons silenced and the loudest priests seized.

These were not ordinary circumstances.

An Archon was not a king. I had been chosen from the conclave of the wealthiest and noblest men in Tyrosh, and many who had raised me to my seat would gladly cast me down if it increased their own fortunes.