Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon.

Chapter 19 Curse and the Red God

"This is a true story that happened in Pentos, as written in the book." Viserys held a thin storybook in his hand and began to narrate the story. "It happened at the port of Pentos. I learned about it from a friend with great difficulty. This friend insisted on keeping his name anonymous, so I will not mention the names of anyone who appeared in the story."

"One night, there was a heavy knock on my friend's door. He opened the door and saw his childhood friend outside. His friend was in a hurry, with a face full of fear, begging him to help save his life.

My friend is a kind-hearted and righteous person. When he heard his childhood friend begging like this, he took him into the house without hesitation and asked him the reason.

His friend claimed that his life was threatened: the merchant company that provided ship insurance contracts in the port tried to murder them because they did not pay them the shipwreck insurance. Before he came to my friend, his father, the captain himself, his uncle, the merchant ship's mate, and his uncle, the merchant ship's partner, had all been murdered.

As we all know, the Free Cities Insurance Company is famous for its business integrity. If it had not come from a friend who had known him since childhood, my friend would definitely think that this accusation was the nonsense of a drunkard or the ravings of a madman.

According to his friend, his family's merchant ship was originally planned to travel from Pentos to the Summer Islands for business. They had taken this route countless times, and buying an insurance contract with an insurance company in Pentos was just a routine way to buy comfort.

But something went wrong on this voyage. Unfortunately, their ship was hit by a hurricane on the way. The merchant ship hit a reef in the rough waves, and the keel was broken and the merchant ship shattered. The broken hull sank into the sea after holding on for half a day, taking with it all the cargo. Most of the crew members were also killed or injured. The survivors relied on lifeboats and sampans to drift on the sea for four days before they were rescued by a passing merchant ship.

Faced with such misfortune, his friend's family suffered heavy losses, and the only thing they could count on was the shipwreck insurance they had purchased before sailing.

Anyone with a little common sense knows that the actual performance of the contract signed between a merchant ship and an insurance company usually takes a long time to verify. After all, the ship is unsupervised on the vast ocean, and one cannot make arbitrary judgments based on the insured's one-sided words. Insurance companies need a complex set of procedures to ensure that they are not defrauded of insurance. Therefore, it is normal for the insured and the insurance company to have long-term negotiations, which often last for a month or even a year.

They were prepared for a long negotiation. Because their home was not in the port, after the initial negotiation, the next step of waiting for the merchant's reply was handed over to his friend's uncle. But during the negotiation with the merchant, his friend's uncle suddenly had an accident in the city and died.

At first, they didn't think it was murder. The cause of his friend's uncle's accidental death was very clear. He fell into the canal and drowned after getting drunk in the tavern at night. In Pentos, this happened every year. The soldiers of the city guards always fished out the drowned drunkards from the canals that flowed through the city during their morning patrols. So they didn't take it seriously, and just let his friend's uncle continue the previous process to negotiate with the merchant company.

Two weeks later, an accident happened again. His friend's uncle also drowned in a city ditch. The reason was the same as his friend's uncle, and the city guards reported it to them as a common case of falling into a ditch and drowning after drinking.

At this time, his friend's father began to have doubts. His friend's father was familiar with his brother's character and knew that his brother was a meticulous person and would never have such an accident. So he told his doubts and worries to his son, who was the friend who came to my friend that night to beg for help.

Because there was no evidence, the company's procedures continued as usual. His friend's father thought about it again and again, and after making up his mind to make sufficient preparations, he went to the city to continue negotiating with the company.

His friend's father had quite a few connections. After entering the city, he lived in a gang area and was always accompanied by two crew members. He negotiated with merchants during the day and in safe places. He did not drink and never went out at night.

But even so, one night two weeks later, my friend's friend's father had an accident.

It was the day after the storm from the Narrow Sea made landfall in the port of Pentos. Two days and nights of heavy rain caused heavy water to flow back into the city. The low-lying port area was severely affected. Many warehouses and houses collapsed under the attack of strong winds and floods, and countless people were killed and injured.

Needless to say, the father of my friend's friend also died in the disaster. According to the surviving crew members, the experienced old captain was unfortunately crushed by the collapsed house when the disaster occurred, and he was unable to get out, and was finally drowned by the rainwater that poured into the city.

It was an accident, everyone said.

My friend's friend is now the heir to the insurance contract.

The insurance company still informed my friend's friend to go through the process, but he didn't dare to go because the previous accident made him point the finger of suspicion at the insurance company.

This is the story my friend heard.

After hearing this bizarre story, my friend did not believe it completely, even though his friend was very sure of it. He arranged for his friend to be in a safe place, sent someone to investigate the matter, and personally negotiated with the insurance company on his behalf.

As my friend expected, the honest insurance company did not do such a despicable thing and had been fulfilling the contract according to procedures. And there was indeed no sign of murder in the deaths of his friend's three elders.

His friend's behavior seemed like a farce.

A few weeks passed and everything was back to normal, my friend began to think so.

But soon something unexpected happened.

One day, the servant came running to my friend in a hurry to tell him that his friend who was hiding in his secret courtyard had died unexpectedly.

"He took the maid who took care of him to swim in the sea, insisting that he could breathe underwater," the servants told my friend, "his feet were entangled by seaweed in the sea, and when the maid called us to fish him out, he was already dead, with seawater in his stomach." This news caught my friend off guard. It's one thing to hear about it, and it's another to actually see it happen to you.

As his friends' families drowned one after another in accidents, the well-informed man couldn't help but think of some bizarre stories he had heard when he was young, so he immediately set out for the temple of the Red God and reported the matter to the priest serving the god.

Upon hearing about this, the temple quickly sent a red-robed monk to investigate.

As soon as the red-robed monk saw the corpse, he concluded that the incident was unusual and ordered my friend to purify the body with fire, including the three previous deaths.

"It's a curse," the red-robed monk declared, and then ordered all of the deceased's belongings to be brought to him for him to examine.

It was only then that my friend realized that his friend's family had been carrying a bag of gifts in order to smooth things over, and that bag was circulated among the four dead people.

The red-robed monk finally found a pearl necklace among the relics. There was an ink-like stain on the largest pearl.

"This bead is stained with filthy blood," the red-robed monk said. "Anyone who touches this bead must follow me to be saved."

Even though my friend was well-informed, it was the first time he had experienced such a thing, so he sent the maid and the servants who were responsible for taking care of her to the temple, and the matter was finally settled.

Witnessing such a bizarre incident, my friend couldn't help but ask the red-robed monk: "Is there really a curse?"

The answer was: 'Of course.'

He asked again: "Since there is such an unpredictable curse in the world, how should we deal with it?"

The red-robed monk told him: "Those who believe in the King of Light can come to the temple. The blazing fire will purify everything and will also protect you. The night is long and dark, and everywhere is dangerous!"

Every night since then, when the red priests lit the fires in the temple and chanted their prayers, my friend would join them in offering prayers to the Red God, begging R'hllor to grant the dawn."

Viserys read this as he heard the red monks chanting prayers as they lit the night fires beyond the high walls, and he couldn't help but laugh at the coincidence.

Daenerys asked in confusion, "What's wrong?"

"It's a really bad sermon story, isn't it?" Viserys replied. The storybook in his hand was obviously from the temple of the Red God. Someone had specially collected and compiled it for sermons, and there were many short stories. The sermon stories and fables were varied, but they were just a few types: showing benefits - the protagonist of the story became rich and avoided disasters because of his belief in the Lord of Light; showing threats - the protagonist of the story suffered disasters because of his disbelief in the instructions of the Red God; and the other ones were the bizarre stories that Viserys was most interested in. The records of these stories were very poor, and the solutions were mostly mechanical deities, but they were recorded in the storybooks used for preaching, so Viserys paid special attention to them.

The non-story contents described in the stories in this booklet are very real and detailed, including how believers of the Red God worship, how to make offerings, the etiquette for believers to enter the temple, the way monks worship, and even the time when temple prostitutes give alms to believers and how to receive alms.
From this perspective, these bizarre stories may not necessarily be aimed at educating believers on how to deal with such bizarre events.

"What happened next?" Daenerys asked. Although she was not interested in the story, she still cooperated with her brother and asked questions. These days, she had to adapt to this new way of getting along. Viserys was particularly relaxed these days, and he seemed to no longer be angry about anything. He acted as if he was going to stay here for a long time. He was not impatient and was happy to share with her the new stories he saw.

It was just that it was hard for Daenerys to discern the emotions in Viserys' words, and even when he showed them from time to time, she could not tell whether they were real or not. She had a vague feeling that Viserys was belittling the story, but in reality he was interested in it. But she was not sure.

"No," Viserys answered. "Take a moment's rest. My mouth is dry from all this talking."

They were now in the pavilion in Illyrio's courtyard garden, spending time looking at the golden Narrow Sea at dusk. There were desserts and drinks on the table in the pavilion, and the cool and soft sea breeze blowing across his cheeks made Viserys feel relaxed and comfortable.

Dany quietly looked up at her brother standing in the wind with a relaxed expression, and closed her mouth silently.

More than half a month has passed. With good food and drink and diligent exercise every day at Illyrio's place, Viserys has gained weight visibly and is no longer as skinny as before. The natural determination and confidence in his expression make him look energetic, completely different from the brother Daenerys had previously remembered.

But Daenerys remained small and troubled. She could not understand what had happened to her brother, nor could she understand why he was so calm in Illyrio's courtyard.

Since Daenerys's legs healed, her brother took her with him wherever he went, talked to her, told her new stories, and treated her better and better. But the closer she got to her brother, the more she couldn't understand this calmness and change. Dany tried to ask him many times, but Viserys was vague and always changed the subject. So she gradually felt that her brother was perfunctory under the surface of closeness, which made her feel uneasy.

Dany's mind was in a mess. She couldn't help but look up and glance at her brother Viserys, who was sitting at the table leisurely, gazing at the Narrow Sea in the gentle sea breeze, and then followed his gaze to the ocean at dusk.

(End of this chapter)