Liquor dripped from down his chin into his long, black beard. “I curse you,” Aeron said, when the cup was empty. The wine of the warlocks, sweeter than your seawater, with more truth in it than all the gods of earth.” When Aeron tried to spit it out, his brother tightened his grip and forced more down his throat. It was thick and viscous, with a taste that seemed to change with every swallow. But what flowed into his mouth was not wine. I would not have you preaching against his rule, so I took you with us.”Įuron grabbed a handful of the priest’s tangled black hair, pulled his head back, and lifted the wine cup to his lips. “I left the islands in the hands of old Erik Ironmaker, and sealed his loyalty with the hand of our sweet Asha. “What can you offer me that I have not had before?” Euron smiled. “Where are we sailing?” “South – for conquest, plunder, dragons.” Madness. His lips were crusty with scabs, his voice hard. His eyepatch was red leather, his lips blue. That night he wore a shirt of iron scales and a cloak of blood red silk. Once, aboard the Silence, he hung the lantern from a post and poured them cups of wine. Aeron would wake from sleep to find his brother standing over him, lantern in hand. The light would leave when the mute did, and once again his world would become a damp darkness smelling of grime and mold and feces. His tongue was gone, Aeron did not doubt. The man who brought the food was dark, dour, mute. Aeron gobbled it down and hoped for more, though oft as not he retched the meal up after. A nameless sour-faced man brought his food, salt beef as hard as wooden shingles, bread crawling with weevils, slimy, stinking fish. The only light in his wet world came from the lanterns that the visitors brought with them, and it came so seldom that it began to hurt his eyes. When he slept, the darkness would rise up and swallow him and then the dream would come … and Urri and the scream of a rusted hinge. When the tide rushed in to kiss him, the salt got into the wounds and made him gasp. The shackles that bound him to the wall were old and rusted, and his fetters had cut into his wrists. His chains were so short that he could not reach to scratch. He could feel them moving through his hair, and the bites itched him intolerably. Aeron’s beard and scalp crawled with lice and fleas and worms. They would bite him as he slept until he woke and drove them off with shouts and thrashings. Rats moved in the darkness, swimming through the water. The night they moved him, he had seen the moon floating on a black wine sea with a leering face that reminded him of Euron. In between there had been the ship, the Silence. There had been another dungeon before this one. He knew that he was in some dungeon, but not where, or for how long. His feet had grown huge and soft and puffy, shapeless things as big as hams. Saltwater sloshed about his legs whenever the tide came in, rising as high as his genitals only to ebb again when the tide receded. The mutes had robbed him of his of robe and shoes and breechclout. It was always midnight in the belly of the beast.
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