Dragon King Part 25 (Patreon)

Elia forced herself to keep smiling as she reached the courtyard where her son was standing with a group of unfamiliar people dressed in silk. She relaxed slightly when she noticed that Ser Barristan and her brother were both relaxed. "Welcome back, are you going to introduce your friends?"

Myst looked away from where Ser Barristan was talking with Garold and gave his mother and Selena a smile. "Of course, let me introduce Princess Elayne Trakand of Andor, her aunt, Lady Moiraine Damodred of Cairhien and their guardian Lord al'Lan Mandragoran," he announced as he gestured towards Elayne, Moiraine and Lan.

Elia glanced between Elayne and Moiraine then focused on Lan, noticing how he carried himself. "Welcome to King's Landing and Westeros."

"Thank you for the hospitality," Elayne replied smoothly, wanting to make a good impression.

"Lady Egwene al'Vere and her handmaid," Myst said as he gestured towards Egwene and Bodewhin, shifting his hand to point towards the older Rand and Egwene as he continued, "Lord and Lady al'Thor, their children and his brother." He gave Kari and Joiya a smile then gestured towards Harry, Mione and Ginny. "Lord and Lady Potter of Godric's Hollow, Mione's younger sister Lady Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley, alchemist in training," he finished as he gestured towards Ginny.

"Alchemist?" Garold asked warily.

"Don't worry, I mostly make toothpaste, baking soda and stomach tonics," Ginny assured the guard, not seeing a point in telling him that she could use magic.

Garold relaxed slightly as he realized that she wasn't going to be trying to convince the king to waste money turning lead into gold or something. "Good."

Myst glanced at Garold then focused on his mother. "Is there anything I need to deal with immediately or can I get my friends settled?"

Elia glanced at Elayne then focused on Myst, wishing he'd given her more warning before inviting a princess of a foreign land she knew nothing about. "As it happens, we have a delegation from the Atha'an Miere that would like an audience to discuss trade. We were going to have them talk to Stannis but since you're here."

"Do you have experience with the Atha'an Miere?" Myst asked Moiraine, glad that he'd arrived in time to prevent Stannis from making a bad deal.

"The Atha'an Miere are a nation of sailors and traders that control a number of islands. They're a wealthy nation because of their connections to Shara and because they produce fine porcelain," Moiraine offered.

"Shara?" Elia asked.

"The land past the Aiel Waste, they're reclusive and dishonest but they have silk and ivory," Moiraine explained.

"How honest are the Atha'an Miere?" Myst asked, knowing they'd try to screw him over if he gave them half a chance considering the shit they'd pulled in the books.

Moiraine pretended to consider the question for a couple of seconds before replying, "It depends on the captain, if you'd like I'm willing to attend the meeting, it might keep them more honest."

"That would be appreciated." Myst turned to look at Selena. "Please show the rest of my friends to their quarters, once they get settled, feel free to give them a tour of the keep or the city."

"Of course," Selena replied with a smile as she started walking towards Maegor's Holdfast.

"I'll be in the throne room, please direct the Atha'an Miere there," Myst ordered as he turned and headed for the throne room, wishing he could justify using his teenage form.

Egwene smiled as she followed the attractive servant towards the stone keep, trying not to stare at everything in wonder or act like a wool headed fool.

Elia watched the group leave then turned to look at Ser Barristan. "What can you tell me about my son's friends?"

Ser Barristan glanced at Garold then focused on Elia. "Treat them like you'd treat a Stark and you should be fine."

"Are all of the lords in the Westlands like that?" Garold asked, trying to get enough information to protect the king.

Oberyn laughed. "Not by a long shot, I asked some of the witches, most of the nobles are just as dishonest as ours."

"Witches?" Garold asked warily.

"Magic isn't dead in the Westlands," Oberyn said with a smile as he headed towards the Hand's Tower. "Let's grab a drink, you're going to need it."

Garold sighed when Ser Barristan nodded. "Fine, I'll tell Arthur to watch him."

0o0o0

"Behold the arrogance of my ancestors," Myst offered a touch sarcastically as he walked towards the monstrous throne that dominated the massive room with Moiraine following him.

"It's certainly imposing," Moiraine agreed as she studied the twisted and asymmetrical throne made out of broken and melted swords that would have made her uncle cackle with glee and might have stopped a war. She glanced at the guards standing at the base of the stairs, glad that she'd walked away from being queen.

Myst stopped at the base of the stairs as the guards moved out of his way and took a moment to appreciate the relic of a time when his family controlled dragons. 'Is it really arrogance when you have a dragon? Probably, they got complacent, lost their dragons and allowed themselves to be crippled by the maesters. That's the problem with borrowed power,' he thought as he climbed the metal stairs that would have driven an OSHA inspector into a homicidal rage.

Myst barely had enough time to sit on the throne before a servant opened the doors and announced the Atha'an Miere delegation. He studied the six dark skinned sailors as they walked into the throne room, not surprised that they were feeling uneasy despite the fact that they didn't look uncomfortable. He focused on the dark skinned teenager that looked like a boy at first glance, more than a little surprised to see a familiar name when he looked at the girl with his upgrade ability. 'Talaan din Gelyn, what are the odds? How badly is my luck twisting things or is it because of her mother's rank?'

"You stand before Myst Targaryen, first of his name, King of Westeros," the servant announced proudly.

"Welcome to Westeros, how can I help the Atha'an Miere?" Myst asked, his voice easily reaching the back of the room. He smiled when he felt most of their unease turn to disbelief when they spotted Moiraine. 'At least Moiraine's presence is keeping them off center.'

Pelanna stepped forward, wishing someone had mentioned the Aes Sedai or the fact that the king was a child. "I've been asked by the ruler of the Atha'an Miere to discuss a treaty as your land is close to one of our islands and wasn't here a week ago."

"What are you looking for in a treaty and why should I care?" Myst placed his right hand on his leg so he could create a popsicle without anyone noticing and focused on the windfinder's collection of skills, curious what he could copy.

"We can provide access to silk, ivory and fine porcelain as well as exotic spices," Pelanna offered.

"Which you get from trading with other nations." Myst created a skill book of her channeling skill and stuck it in his inventory then did the same with her navigation skills. "We have ships and merchants, I'm sure some of them will enjoy the challenge of dealing with dishonest merchants in Shara." He copied her navigation skill then swapped to the male in the group and started creating skill books for his crafting skills and ship skills.

"It takes a certain amount of skill to get there and we have a relationship with Shara," Pelanna pointed out.

Myst smiled as his mother walked into the throne room with Ser Barristan. "Lying to outsiders is part of their culture, if you actually believe anything that comes out of their mouth, you shouldn't be making deals."

"You know a lot about the world for someone from a land we've never heard of before," Caire din Gelyn Running Wave said, doing her best to ignore the Aes Sedai.

"This is generally why nobles have advisors," Myst replied as he continued creating skill books and sticking them in his inventory, wanting a decent collection of skills to add to the teachers in his tower for electives.

Caire glared at Moiraine, less than pleased that an Aes Sedai was close enough to sense her presence. "Some advisors aren't trustworthy."

Moiraine glanced between Caire and the young woman with an exceptional amount of potential.

"Talaan din Gelyn, a girl with the strength to match some of the weaker forsaken. A girl that stands in my hall, a girl that you fight over with your sister because you're an idiot that cares more about what people think than about your family. Why should I care about your opinion on anything?" Myst asked the windfinder.

"How do you know about Talaan?" Caire demanded.

"Let's ignore the fact that you're in my land, my city and my castle demanding answers. What do you have to offer for that secret?" Myst asked, not surprised that Caire was covering her shock with rage. "Talaan, what are you willing to trade for the knowledge to create ships that fly through the air so you don't have to put up with your family holding you back?"

Caire glared at Myst. "Are you seriously trying to lure Talaan away from her proper place?"

"Yes," Myst replied with a smirk. "Advisor, can you show her flight, I'd like to prove that we have something Talaan wants."

Moiraine used her flight ability to fly up into the air six feet, not seeing a problem with helping recruit someone with Talaan's strength.

Talaan considered her options then walked forward, knowing she'd have to put up with her mother holding her back for the next couple of years because of politics if she stayed. "I'd like the chance to learn."

"Traitor!" Caire snapped as she embraced the source to teach her daughter a lesson.

"Enough!" Myst snapped, his voice echoing around the room because of the acoustics. "If you channel at her or any of my guards, I'll knock you unconscious and toss you back on your boat. You came here to trick us into making an unfair deal, it's not her fault that you're a pathetic excuse for a mother or a person, now kindly shut your mouth, you've lost the right to talk." He used a touch of magic to silence Caire and tossed a telepathic message to Moiraine, 'See if you can get them to admit what they actually want.'

"Perhaps you should explain what you want," Moiraine suggested as she floated back to the ground.

Pelanna shivered when she saw Caire trying and failing to speak. "You're too close to one of our islands, we want to know where your island came from."

"A different world, day turned to night and we found ourselves in a strange world. If you're looking for trade, I suggest talking to my uncle Lord Oberyn or the merchants in town, I'm sure they'll be happy to have a new source of silk and ivory." Myst stood up and started walking down the stairs. "I've had a long day. Advisor, can you please open a portal to the school for Talaan?" He waited a second then opened a portal in front of Talaan that connected to his tower.

"Of course," Moiraine replied.

"Just walk through and tell the girl at the desk that you're a new recruit," Myst told the ex-apprentice windfinder as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Thank you!" Talaan replied and darted through the portal before her mother could stop her, looking forward to learning how to make them and disguise her weaves and everything they could teach her.

Myst waited a second then closed the portal before someone could do something stupid like follow her. "I have a princess and a dozen lords waiting for me, I'll leave my advisors to sort things out." He started walking towards the doors, knowing his mother would be able to charm them or at least get a favorable deal out of them with Moiraine's help. 'The silence spell should last another four and a half minutes,' he told Moiraine via telepathy.

'What are you looking for in a deal?' Moiraine asked as she watched Myst leave, keeping her amusement off her face.

'I don't care if they trade at every port, I just don't want to be locked into anything unreasonable,' Myst replied, not particularly concerned about the Atha'an Miere as he could always take a portal to Shara and have some fun with conjured gold and his disguise spell.

Pelanna waited until the king left then turned to look at Moiraine. "How did the king know about Talaan?"

Moiraine glanced at Caire. "He has friends that can channel."

Caire gestured towards the spot where the portal had been then at her throat.

"Can you remove the weave preventing my friend from speaking?" Pelanna asked, annoyed that Caire was making a scene.

"It should wear off in a couple of minutes," Moiraine assured them. "I don't feel like your windfinder would add anything to the conversation right now."

"You kidnapped an apprentice," Pelanna complained, trying a different tactic.

"She was given a better offer, she took it. How is that our fault?" Elia asked, speaking up.

Caire glared at Elia, not sure who the woman was because she hadn't been introduced.

"Enough," Pelanna said, willing to admit the lady had a point. "I have concerns about pirates."

"If you find any pirates, feel free to sink them," Ser Barristan told them, not particularly concerned about pirates or Ironborn going missing.

"We should probably discuss this with the master of ships and Cressen," Elia suggested, knowing Stannis should be involved in the discussion since it involved ships and trade.

"I'd be happy to discuss it," Pelanna said, hoping they were more reasonable than the terrifying child.

0o0o0

Rand pulled his attention off his regenerated fingers when his younger counterpart stepped into the doorway to the quest room he was using. "Something on your mind?"

"How do you control it?" Rand blurted before he could change his mind.

"Flame and the void, you just reach out and grab it," Rand replied, not seeing a point in lying.

"Are you…" Rand trailed off, not sure how to ask if he was insane.

"Insane?" Rand asked dryly. "Not particularly, I was just rotting and I was depressed now and then, not exactly surprising considering it was getting harder to do the work around the farm."

"What was living with Egwene like?" Rand asked, changing the subject because he didn't want to think about his limbs rotting off or channeling now that he had something of an answer.

The older Rand smiled as he thought about what he'd been like before Viaria had pushed him to get up the courage to actually ask Egwene out rather than dancing around the subject. "We had some good times and some hard times. We made a couple of mistakes along the way but I wouldn't change it for the world."

"Must be nice," Rand muttered.

"Something on your mind?" the older Rand asked as he gestured for Rand to step into the room rather than stand in the doorway.

"Egwene changed when Moiraine got here, she doesn't care about braiding her hair and she's running around the tower in a dress you can see through," Rand complained as he stepped into the expensive looking room, wondering if coming to see the city was a mistake.

The older Rand laughed as he membered some of the times his wife had run around Edmond's Field with just a skirt on various holidays. "Do you want a piece of advice?"

"What's that?" Rand asked, not sure he was going to like it given the way his counterpart was looking at him.

"Get over it," the older Rand replied with a grin. "Two Rivers folk are stubborn, if she doesn't want to braid her hair, she's not going to. It was a stupid tradition anyways and I doubt anyone remembers how it started. As for running around without a 'proper' dress, there's nothing wrong with having a bit of fun now and then. Besides, she made a deal for enough power to destroy mountains and level cities, that's worth all of the embarrassment in the world."

"Everything feels off since Winternight," Rand admitted, changing the subject since he could see his point.

"My path isn't your path, I had fifteen years without the Forsaken showing up, your adventures are just starting," the older Rand told his counterpart.

"I could say the same thing," Rand reminded his counterpart.

"I'm old," he argued, not looking forward to fighting the Dark One or the Forsaken.

Rand shook his head. "You're thirty five and you can channel, you barely look older than I do."

"It was worse before Vanessa healed me," the older Rand admitted.

"What's it like having two daughters?" Rand asked, trying not to think about the reason his counterpart needed healing and knowing he'd be in the same situation if they didn't cleanse the source.

"They're troublemakers," the older Rand admitted with a smile as Myst stepped into the doorway. "Thankfully, they're not as bad as Mat."

"Did he ever actually grow up?" Rand asked.

"He got older," the older Rand offered, knowing his friend had actually gotten more responsible over the years, if only because he had to take care of his family. "Joking aside, he's better than he used to be."

"Nothing wrong with a little responsibility," Myst pointed out.

Rand turned to look at Myst. "Thank you for the invite."

"You're welcome," Myst assured him. "It gave me a nice excuse to cut things short with the Atha'an Miere."

"Speaking of cutting things short, do you have any suggestions on how to defeat the Dark One?" the older Rand asked, knowing Myst had access to some interesting magic thanks to some of the things Vanessa and Viaria had said.

"I have a couple of ideas but I'm not sure how much they'll help," Myst warned them, wishing he could remember the exact wording of the bit in the series where Rand and Nynaeve cleansed the source. "In a vision, a version of you used the interaction of saidar and saidin to juice press the taint at Shadar Logoth using massive sa'angreal. The main problem with using that method is I'm not sure exactly what you'd have to do, I saw part of the setup and the result, just not enough to actually explain."

"Makes sense," the older Rand admitted, thinking of some of the more complicated weaves he'd figured out over the years and how hard it was to describe them to Egwene in a way that helped. "I'd rather have more of a plan."

"I have a workaround but you'd have to sneak into the Stone of Tear and use a ter'angreal to talk to some creatures in another realm that can give you answers to three questions," Myst warned him.

"How dangerous is the ter'angreal?" Rand asked.

Myst frowned as he considered his answer for a few seconds. "The ter'angreal is safe as long as you don't channel an excessive amount of power while you're in there, the problem is the creatures in the other realm are twisted and don't see things the same way as mortals."

"In other words, they're evil?" the older Rand asked.

"Close enough, they also don't like questions that touch the shadow but you're one of the few people that might be able to get away with asking," Myst offered, not seeing a point into getting into the whole Ta'veren part of things. "Honestly, I'd rather avoid using the door if we can but we might not be able to avoid it."

"How much would you charge for an upgrade to the amount of power I can channel?" the older Egwene asked from the hallway where she was standing with Kari.

Myst turned and smiled at Kari and her mother. "I have a magical ring that I need tested."

"What does it do?" Egwene asked, thinking about some of Viaria's magical trinkets.

"It pulls the wearer into a dream realm maze where strange creatures out of myth try to knock them up, causing them to give birth to a naughty magical child the next morning that quickly ages up to fourteen over the span of two weeks. It also restores a year of their life each night they sleep with it," Myst explained.

Rand stared at Egwene's older alternate when he realized she was actually considering it. "Are you seriously considering this?"

Egwene turned to look at her husband's younger counterpart. "In case you weren't paying attention, we just had a demon lord the size of a mountain kill everyone in Tar Valon that Myst and his friends didn't save. Even ignoring the demons that are probably still running around, the Forsaken are going to eventually show up, having more power and access to sa'angreal could be the difference between dying and surviving. There's nothing wrong with wanting more power, especially when you're married to the Dragon Reborn."

Rand looked at his counterpart. "And you're alright with this?"

"Tam adopted me, I turned out fine, eventually," the older Rand muttered the last part under his breath, not sure he was ever this naive or at least hoping he wasn't.

"How naughty?" Egwene asked thoughtfully.

"I haven't actually tested it but one of my powers gives me a general description of a magical item or ter'angreal's function," Myst admitted. "They'd be mischievous, overly amorous, and I doubt they'd have much modesty."

"Sounds like Kari," Egwene said, teasing her daughter.

Kari snickered. "I'm not that bad."

Egwene smiled at her daughter then looked at Myst. "How much of a boost will you give me if I can talk some of the older townsfolk that can channel into using it?"

Myst glanced at Kari and smiled at Egwene. "I'll boost your potential past what Kari has if you use the ring and talk at least five female channelers into using a copy."

"Toss in an instructor for both Rands and you have yourself a deal," Egwene said, fairly sure that was already in the cards but just making sure.

Myst pulled his duplication coffin out of his inventory and set it on the ground in front of him. "Deal!" He pulled the cursed ring out of his inventory and dropped it in the coffin then closed and opened the lid five times, creating thirty two rings. He reached down and picked up two of the rings then handed one to Egwene and stuck the other one back in his inventory. "Best of luck."

"Are you expecting me to get caught or to avoid the creatures?" Egwene asked.

"Either," Myst replied as he pulled a bag out of his inventory. He floated all of the rings into the bag with telekinesis and handed it to Egwene. "If you can avoid the monsters, that's good to know, if you can change the monsters because it's part of the dream world, that's good to know, if you can't and you end up with a child, we'll have another channeler."

Egwene examined the plain gold ring for a couple of seconds then stuck it in her belt pouch, curious what she'd find in the maze. "Can you show us around the keep?"

"Sure," Myst replied as he put the coffin back in his inventory. "We have a dragon skeleton in the basement that you should take a look at."

"A dragon skeleton?" Rand asked in disbelief.

"They're basically large fire breathing lizards with wings," Myst replied with a grin as he turned and stepped into the hallway, looking forward to seeing their reaction to the massive skull.

0o0o0