The Greedy Frog
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Hey, I Ruin Stories! Chapter 39
🕑 Added 2024-06-03 16:39:48 +0000 UTCChapter 39: Crow’s Eye (2/2)
A sorcerer and an assassin—two men who were never meant to mix, yet they stood in the same place.
“You know me, don’t you?”
The man stared at me for a second before turning his head away. “Euron Crow’s Eye Greyjoy,” he said. “Your name is infamous.”
This made me laugh. “And I know what you are too, a man from a group far more sinister than any known assassin group.”
He did not look at me. Instead, he stared into the sea.
“The Crow’s Eye does not appear unless the seas call for him, and unless the cities require turmoil.” He slowly turned to me. “What does the Crow’s Eye want with the peaceful kingdom of Westeros? Havoc is not something you would want in your home.”
He knew a lot about me, more than even the kings. The rats, doves, and ravens were quiet against me—or they were made to be. No king knew as much about me as he seemed to know.
“Faceless, the assassin feared by all.” I walked towards him. “In the ship of the Crow’s Eye, who would have guessed?”
I knew about them, oh, I knew so much about them.
“There are tales about the Faceless, about their oaths.” This made him jerk a little, drawing the eyes of the other man as well. “Tales of promises they make to their saviors, to the men that aid their cause.”
“Do not tell me that my crows told lies.”
He finally turned to me fully, his face impassive—a face that would change the moment he stepped foot on land.
“My cause would have been true even without you.” He was reluctant. Oh, how great it felt to break strong men. “But you did aid my cause, you did hasten things.”
The Faceless were unknown, appearing only when needed. Yet there was one right in front of me.
Westeros truly was a great choice.
“For that… I promise on the Faceless God to take the life of one man that you speak of.”
This made me laugh, causing the man to appear surprised and my voice to echo through the waves.
“How interesting.” My laugh made even the sorcerer raise an eyebrow. “I believe that will be useful for me in the future.”
I did not think I needed a Faceless to do my bidding, but the Faceless always kept their word, even at the cost of their life.
“Not for a second did I expect you to be aboard my ship.” I truly didn't. “But I believe I have to thank the sorcerer next to you.”
The sorcerer was unique; he wasn't the traditional sorcerer with a penchant for being unlikeable. He wasn't like those sorcerers clinging to strong men for their gain.
He seemed curious, and most of all, his magic… was different.
No man, no sorcerer blessed or cursed, would be unreadable to me.
Magic of the old gods, the new gods, the magic of the doom, and even before.
Yet his magic, his presence, fell under none of those.
“It is always better to move with opportunities than to be stuck and lose them.” He stared into the sea. “You believe that too, don’t you?”
He had a knowing smile. “Because no matter how hard-working you are, unless you seize those opportunities, no one can rule over so many men and have such massive fleets under them.”
He was entertaining.
“And you believe it was luck that got me what I have?” I asked, wondering what he would answer.
And he didn't disappoint.
“Luck, hard work, trickery, and greed. You need all of them to be powerful, and I believe you have it all.” He stood confidently. “And it makes me wonder, what does a man with all of that want from Westeros?”
“True,” the Faceless caught on. “While you are from Westeros, I do not believe you will go back there without a good cause.”
“And I believe the Faceless knows better than to pry into things that don't involve them.” This man, the Faceless, wasn't the usual. “But I believe one who became Faceless not long ago would require a while to fully adopt the views.”
Seeing him jerk affirmed my suspicion, and the sorcerer next to him caught on too.
“For me, who is neither a Faceless nor of Westeros, I certainly am curious as to what a man with such a massive fleet and crew made entirely of mutes plans to do in Westeros.”
“Asking so many questions is not always a good thing, sorcerer.”
He nodded. “Certainly, it isn't. And I am aware that you have links with Westeros.” He looked at the Faceless, referencing what he had said prior. “But it is simply curiosity, or well, in truth, worry that I might walk into trouble when I am simply going to an entirely new place for exploration.”
“You worry for your life.” He made me laugh a little. “But which man doesn't?”
“Ones that are overly brave.”
“We call them foolish.” Men who do not fear death are not brave; they are idiotic.
“But a man who is always afraid does not achieve greatness either.”
It had been a while since I heard opinions.
“Being afraid of life and being afraid of death is different,” the sorcerer spoke. “A man who is afraid of everything is no better than dead, but a man who is afraid of death finds ways to achieve his goals and dreams without sacrificing his life.”
They certainly were interesting. They weren't foolish, whose tongues I needed to cut off, and they were certainly smart enough not to do something reckless.
Westeros certainly is going to face the winds of chaos. Be it now or later, and the ones responsible for it will be them just as much as I.
That is something that the sea tells me.
And never once has the sea been wrong.
…
…
Crow’s Eye. That was what others called him. A psychopathic man with sadistic tendencies. He chopped off the tongues of his crew, named his ship The Silence, and tied a woman to the rudder, making her drown while the ship sailed.
He was a man of insanity.
But he was capable.
“Do you like what you see?”
“P-Please stop!”
He said he was bored, that he did not want us to sail in boredom.
“I-I will give y-you everything!”
“Bloody crazed man.” Even the Faceless, a man from a group of skilled assassins, felt disturbed by the scene.
“We cannot travel for days with just silence, can we?” He laughed, showcasing psychopathy at its finest.
A man who made every man on his ship mute and named it Silence, claiming he disliked silence.
But his reasons for making his entire crew mute were much more vile.
“Lower him further.”
“N-No no!!!”
The cries of the man echoed throughout. He pleaded, he begged, he cried—but Crow’s Eye didn't care.
He danced to the echoes of the cries.
“Nothing sweeter than the cries of helplessness.”
He danced in joy, as if listening to music of bliss.
Pure chaos.
This man was chaos itself.
Why was I here when he existed?
“Four days ago he was a noble, whoring with the most beautiful women of his city.” He laughed. “Now look at him, hanging like bait for fishes.”
He looked at us. “You enjoy this, don’t you?”
Neither I nor the Faceless answered. I enjoyed chaos, I enjoyed madness, but I did not partake in it.
I enjoyed seeing others drown in madness, others sinking into the depths of chaos.
I enjoyed his insanity, not the situation.
It was fun, but not the greatest.
Chaos was great when you were the one in control of it. And I hated not being in control.
“Somewhat.” Thus I answered truthfully. Enjoying the madness, just not my current stance.
“Somewhat?” He mused, then laughed. “Then let’s make it more interesting!”
He lowered the man further, his feet sinking into the sea as the ship sailed—dragging the man’s feet through the tides, breaking them from the pressure.
He cried, but the cries only made Crow’s Eye more joyous.
Insane beyond repair.
This made me fall back and lean onto the wooden rails of the ship, next to the Faceless who stood watching with a frown.
“What’s his deal?” I asked, voice low so only the man of many faces heard.
“Euron Crow’s Eye Greyjoy,” he said. “A man of noble birth of House Greyjoy of the Iron Islands. He is the younger brother of the current lord of the house, and to keep Crow’s Eye’s psychopathic tendencies away from the house, his brother let him go out and do his things elsewhere. And that's how Crow’s Eye came to be, the crazed man with adventures to his name.”
“Adventures?”
He didn't look at me before clarifying. “Tragedies, but adventures according to him. Even the Faceless have no true information of where and what he has truly been up to, and that is a feat of its own as the Faceless have knowledge of everyone.”
He went silent for a second before looking at me. “And that is also why you are unique to me. Because I have never heard of you.”
I did not comment on that and focused back on the madman.
Euron Crow’s Eye Greyjoy, an interesting man.
And while I am not sure if the Faceless know it, the man can use magic. Quite sinister and dark magic.
It is oozing out of him, but unlike in the previous world, this one does not have a generic classification of Dark Arts. Many might not even notice unless he actively displays it.
But something is weird. His magic is difficult to understand; it is nothing like what I saw from the warlocks of Qarth or anything that I heard from Daenerys or Jorah about Westerosi and Qartheen magic.
Was his magic from somewhere else? Maybe some other continent or from Essos but from some unknown place of there?
Possible.
“He is one man that the Faceless is trying to figure out but is having difficulty with.” He looked at me. “But we will figure it out. The Faceless always do.”
I could figure him out. All it would take was entering his head and going through his mind.
But I just didn't.
Coming here, I made a promise, and that was not to use mind arts at every instance. It was more of a Deus Ex Machina for me.
A way to escape from situations that I could not normally escape from.
It was not good, not entertaining to use it every other second. If I did, the world would end in under a day.
And no one wanted that, not me, not the devil.
So, I will figure him out.
But not by reading his mind, by other means.
“How far are we from Westeros?”
The sea was nice, but I was not much of a sailor. I wanted to be on land.
“It will take a few days, maybe even a month if the tides are not with us.” He sighed. “The worst scenario is two months, and the best is somewhere around twenty-eight days to a month.”
That… was a long time.
But well, I have no other option.
So, a month it is.
…
…
[Ten Days Over a Month Later — Some Miles from King’s Landing, Westeros]
Blazing sun, solid earth, the strong smell of fried food, and noise all around.
That's what I saw, smelled, and heard.
“We are close,” Euron said, standing near the edge. “Soon you will be in a new place.”
Westeros. A new continent, much different from Essos. Culture, topography, climate—everything was different.
And from what I heard, I might enjoy Westeros more than Essos.
“What are you going to do in Westeros?” the Faceless man asked. “An entirely different place from Essos.”
My focus was still on the city ahead. King’s Landing, that's what they called it.
And I can't lie, I liked the name. Quite grand and powerful.
“I believe we decided not to pry into each other’s lives.”
He too stared at the city ahead.
“That we did,” he breathed. “But I can't help but wonder what a man with no record of prior existence and capabilities such as yours will end up doing in Westeros.”
Oh, he would certainly be entertained if he knew.
“I can't tell you that, but I can say that when you hear something, you will know who was responsible.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“In this one month, I wonder who I learned to be worse: Crow’s Eye or you, Darius Safar.”
I gave him a smile, not truly giving an answer. There was still a lot we didn't know about each other, but one thing we learned in this time was the names.
Mateo, that's what he called himself. Now, whether it was truly his name or not, I didn't clarify.
And it does not matter.
All I need is a name to call him. After all, calling him Faceless was dangerous.
“Oh, I barely have anything on Euron.”
Euron Greyjoy truly is a menace.
Drunk and bored, he told us many stories, leaving it to us to believe them or not.
And some of them sounded straight out of fairy tales, or well, nightmares.
But if I learned anything about him in this long time, it was that he was more than capable of doing what he told us about.
Valyria, that’s what he told us about. A place that burned down ages ago and was only a fairy tale to many.
But the man said he visited it, unveiled its mysteries, and even obtained something from it.
“Do you believe what he said is true?” I decided to ask Mateo, and he went silent.
“Difficult to believe, but if Daenerys Targaryen hatched three dragons, then it is possible that he too might have obtained an egg from somewhere.”
Yes, Euron had a dragon egg. Neither did he show it to us, nor revealed much about it. But he did claim to have an egg.
Now, it was up to us to believe him or not.
Not much is known about him even after all this time. But the fact that he has a high leaning towards chaos has been clear since day one.
Yet the man is a little distasteful.
“He wants to marry Daenerys Targaryen,” Mateo sighed. “If that is true and not a drunken mumble, then the tides of Westeros will change soon… much more than what it is going through now.”
Yes, he said he wants to marry Daenerys, who is much younger than him. And he wants to do that to wage war on Westeros.
He was insane like that.
Westeros was already a disrupted place. Still not settled from the killing of Daenerys’ father, then the death of the Usurper. And now there was general dislike for the current king.
But that is for when I land there.
“He says he will move past the north.”
Past the north. Apparently, that place was cursed and beyond the control of the Kingdom. But it was Euron, and I do not doubt his words.
“This place will see change soon, and it will be a change for the worse.” He looked at me. “Try not to die in it.”
This made me laugh, “You too. Try not to take an arrow to the abdomen.”
He frowned and looked away.
From what Euron said, Mateo was more of a greenhorn. A person trained as a Faceless not for long.
So, he was not up to the level of the much more skilled members of the Faceless.
But he was still a skilled enough assassin who carried the name of Faceless.
So, I decided to finally ask.
“As Euron said over a month ago, the Faceless do not let help to their cause go unrewarded.” A smirk formed on my face. “So—”
“Three men,” Mateo said, fully aware of what I was asking of him. “I will kill three men for you, no matter what position of power, but that is the extent of what I can do for the help you provided.”
“That’s more than I could have asked for.”
And with that, we realized that we had reached King’s Landing—drawing the attention of many men toward the massive fleet of ships.
Well, this will be annoying.
