Iron Islands, Old Wyk.
Gelmarr was a priest of the Drowned God, a drowned man. He venerated the sea and considered drowning in it to be the best kind of death.
He still coughed and sputtered and gasped for air when he was pulled out of it.
Gelmarr was driven half-mad by the pain and air deprivation, so when he saw the black-haired man with unnaturally bright green eyes scowling at him, the storm raging above yet not a drop of rain seemed to touch him and countless ravens making an unholy racket around them, his devout mind came to the logical conclusion.
"Storm God." He croaked fearfully.
The Storm God was the Drowned God's eternal foe. He sent storms at sea to destroy the Ironborn and ravens were his creatures. This man had already showed that he had power beyond mortal men when he'd dragged him out of his home. To Gelmarr's not-entirely-lucid thinking, he fit the description.
"Really?" The man/god asked with mockery in his tone. "A little dunking and you're ready to deify me?"
Before Gelmarr could even begin to puzzle that out, he was pushed back under the frigid water.
XXXXX
Harry threw the priest onto the shore in disgust, sat himself on a rock, pinned him under a foot and promptly began glaring at the horizon.
Getting into contact with the Drowned God was proving a mite more problematic than the Seven. That particular god had no temples save the uncaring sea, and its power was less concentrated as a result. That was the theory at any rate.
It was also entirely possible that the Drowned God simply didn't exist. Just because the Seven and the Old Gods existed didn't necessarily mean that every single deity that some credulous twit cooked up was real.
Unless a little imagination and belief was all it took to spark a god into existence, which would be terribly ironic.
He glanced up at the storm and tried to sense any otherwordly presence inside it, but there was nothing.
"Drowned God." He said to himself thoughtfully, looking down at the priest still heaving for breath under his foot. "Not Sea God or Wave God or Fluffy Pony God. Drowned God. Maybe it's time to try something a bit more literal?"
This sure brings back memories. Harry mused nostalgically as he held the man under the water, easily controlling his frantic thrashing.
Piracy had become an increasingly common problem in the disintegrating old world order. By 2042 it got so bad that Harry had to involve himself in the pest control. Dora tagged along to keep him from getting 'too enthusiastic'.
To his vast amusement, the seemingly endless parade of atrocities that they came across while burning out pirate nests – slavery, torture, rape and all the other typical pirate pastimes – had eventually made his wife the one that was 'too enthusiastic'. He would have been fine with just slaughtering the pirates and being done with it, but Dora was seething mad and not inclined to let them off that easy. Poor Dora, always trying so hard to do the right thing, and always so angry when the world proved unworthy of the consideration.
Harry personally thought that a pit filled with a shallow pool of acid that was just strong enough to slowly dissolve flesh was Bond villain levels of unnecessarily dramatic, but it certainly did send out a message.
Good times.
The sudden cessation of struggling from his victim brought Harry back from his trip down memory lane and he focused hard to detect any supernatural presence.
Aha! He exclaimed mentally when he felt something vaguely.....slimy.....grab hold of the drowned man's soul.
A quick and dirty application of Necromancy shackled the soul to the newly made corpse, preventing it from passing on.
"Alright, Davy Jones, start talking." Harry commanded, backing off from the shallows.
"His soul is mine, Sorcerer." The Drowned God gurgled, using the dead man's corpse as a medium.
"I'm not interested in him, I'm interested in you."
"Then become my prophet in the world!" The corpse was starting to look distinctly waterlogged now, as if it had been floating in the sea for days already.
"Not that kind of interested." Harry snorted. "How old are you? How did you manifest in this world? What is the nature of the connection between you and your followers? How do you perceive time, space and matter?"
"Serve me or perish!" The Drowned God roared, sea water flooding from the dead priest's mouth.
"How about you answer my questions and I don't unravel you like a poorly made carpet?"
The Drowned God's reply was an explosion of water from a ways off shore. Massive tentacles waved through the air.
"Are you trying to bribe me with sea food?" Harry asked, amused. "Admittedly, this is more appealing than what the Seven offered, but still pretty terrible."
The Drowned God gurgled something, the body he was using now too bloated to speak. With a final, disgusting squelch, the corpse fell apart, waterlogged meat sloughing off the bone as if it had been sitting in the ocean for months.
"Huh, power oversaturation. Material vessel unable to withstand possession." Harry noted scientifically, turning his eyes at the approaching giant squid. "Limited control over aquatic life? Connection to the sea confirmed. Further testing required to determine extent of influence."
The squid was unimpressed by his monologue and swung one of its tentacles straight down, attempting to flatten him.
Harry glided to the side, noting with interest that the limb didn't seem unduly damaged by the impact with stone. He rose into the air, keeping just out of reach of the tentacles. The water had to get deep pretty quick if that huge thing was able to get so close to shore.
Experimentally, he cast a mid-strength cutting spell at one of the tentacles and raised an eyebrow when he felt the spell fizzle out before it could do more than make a superficial injury.
"Must be because you're a god's pet." Harry frowned, absently dodging another attempt to grab him. "Time to say goodnight."
He pulled out one of the Valyrian steel blades he kept in hammerspace exactly for situation like this and magically hurled it at the giant squid's forehead.....or whatever passed for it on a squid at least. The spellforged blade, with its power bound in physical form, couldn't be stopped and it penetrated the flesh easily. Like he'd hit an off switch, the flailing tentacles dropped and the squid started sinking.
"Oh no you don't." Harry said with a smirk and gripped his kill with a basic locomotion charm to haul it ashore. He could feel the Drowned God trying to undo his spell, but its power was too diffuse to be anything more than a minor nuisance.
Once that was done he just stared at the mass of flesh for a few seconds before shaking his head.
"Well, I guess it has been a while since we've had calamari. Need to make some tartare sauce though."
XXXXX
True North, the Haunted Forest.
Hala hadn't meant to stay on the hunt for so long, but then, she also hadn't counted on how much she would enjoy it.
The armored furs that Harry had given her were unbelievably warm and comfortable. The cruel bite of winter was nothing more than a pleasant coolness in them and they didn't scratch or itch like they used to either. Then there was her old tent, whose insides were suddenly impossibly large, and that dust, a fistful of which could easily keep her fed for a whole day when added to water.
Hala had discovered that stalking prey through the Haunted Forest when you weren't freezing and half-starved was an entirely different experience. The first deer had been caught far too quickly for either her or Ash's tastes and they had decided to continue hunting. Fortunately, the magical bag that Harry had given her could hold a lot more than just one kill, so it wouldn't be stupidly wasteful. Dol Guldur would have plenty of meat when she returned, which was one type of food that she had soon learned neither Harry nor Luna were overly concerned with acquiring most of the time.
The spearwife had nearly smacked herself when she realized that she had been complaining, even if only in her head, about the variety of available food, when not so long ago she would have thanked the gods to have any food at all. It had given her a sudden insight into why the kneeler lordlings were such entitled shits.
At the moment, she and Ash were stalking a fine elk. They had been on its trail for a couple of days already and were ready to finish the hunt and go home.
"Danger! People!" Dust fluttered in and croaked.
Hala looked up from the elk she was butchering to look at the crow with a frown.
"How many?" She asked.
"Twelve." The bird replied. How Harry had managed to teach it to count was completely beyond her.
"Hunters? Raiders?" Hala continued her questioning with some concern.
Dust cocked his head sideways as if asking how exactly he was supposed to tell the difference.
"Sorry." She muttered, already considering what to do.
She could leave the elk and run. Taking on a hunting party that large wouldn't be smart, even with her new gear and Ash to help. Dust had undoubtedly warned her early enough that she could get away with no trouble.
But.....
Hala had been a clanless spearwife for a long time, and she was used to hoarding every scrap of food and other useful resource she could get her hands on as a matter of survival. The short time spent in the abundance provided at Dol Guldur wasn't nearly long enough to break her of that mindset. Abandoning her kill, which had enough meat on it to feed her for a long time, went against every instinct.
So instead of running she just sped up butchering the elk. The magical bag Harry had given her wasn't nearly big enough at the lip to just shove the whole carcass into it, unfortunately.
She wasn't even halfway done when Dust croaked out another warning and the expected hunting party started appearing from the trees.
There was no greeting or conversation, there was nothing to say. Hala could see the hunger and desperation on their faces and knew that they wouldn't back off despite the direwolf growling at them. They were just too hungry.
Conditioned by the brutal environment as she was, Hala felt no sympathy for them and didn't even consider letting them have her kill even though she didn't need it. She just nocked an arrow and glared at the leader defiantly.
However, before violence could erupt, the trees around them let out a loud groan, making them all duck down instinctively.
Three very tall women with skin of white bark and hair of red leaves stepped out of the nearby weirwoods and walked among them, pushing down weapons in a clear command that they were not to fight.
Staring up at the red eyes leaking sap with wide eyes, Hala felt the urge to get down on her knees for the first time in her life. It wasn't every day that you met your gods.
"Are you..." She began, swallowing thickly as she recalled what Luna had told her not that long ago. "Are you the children Luna spoke of?"
The walking heart tree smiled and nodded, taking her hand and beginning to lead her away.
"But my elk....." Hala protested weakly.
This got her a reproachful look, accompanied by a sigh of wind through the leaves. A memory of the new family she had in Dol Guldur flickered in her mind, along with regret for risking her life for something she didn't need.
Hala briefly ducked her head, feeling like a child being scolded by their parent, and turned to look back at the leader of the opposing hunting party, who looked far more shocked than her.
"You can have the elk." She said somewhat grudgingly, although the approving nod she got from the living god beside her did a lot to make her feel better about it.
"Who are you?" He asked, looking around as if he still couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
"I'm the Sorcerer's woman." Hala shrugged, thinking it was the best explanation she could give. "Guess the gods didn't want me gettin' meself killed."
He just nodded, looking even more lost and worried.
The walking heart trees, seemingly satisfied that there would be no fighting, left in the same way they arrived, melding into the nearby weirwoods as if they belonged there.
"Come on, Ash." Hala said. "Let's go home."
The direwolf made a sound of displeasure at leaving all that meat behind, but went anyway.
XXXXX
"I thought you were going to make me a wand?" Adrastia asked with a pout, sitting herself at the edge of Harry's work table. One of them at any rate.
"Uh huh." He replied absently, not even looking at her. All his attention was on a dark greenish egg with brown spots about three times the size of an ostrich egg sitting on a custom nest made of cushions.
"Where did you get that egg anyway?" She asked, seeing that he wasn't interested in talking about her wand right now.
"Asked one of the crows to give it to me."
Adrastia looked at him oddly. "Harry, I may not know as much about crows as you do, but I'm fairly certain that they couldn't have hatched an egg bigger than they are."
"Obviously, but I decided that what this world really needs is a giant crow."
"Not a raven?"
"No, it has to be a crow." Harry insisted.
Adrastia decided not to press the matter, writing it off as one of his strange eccentricities. "So, about my wand.....?"
"Hmm? Oh yeah, I forgot I finished that already." Harry stood up and moved to a corner of the room, presumably to retrieve her wand.
Adrastia wasn't even surprised that he would forget about something that he'd finished already. He'd always had a habit of taking on multiple projects at the same time. That way, he could switch between them whenever he got bored of or stuck on one.
She'd stopped counting his current ones when the number exceeded ten.
One would think that this would be a crushingly stressful workload, but Harry was happier than she'd seen him in a long time. A new world with new mysteries was exactly what he'd needed to challenge his mind.
And since he wasn't such an impatient brat anymore, it even put him in a mood to facilitate her own schemes. A little forgetfulness could easily be forgiven on account of that.
"Here you go." Harry said, handing her a rather thick, darkly-colored wand with no adornments. "Thirteen inches, ironwood and dragon heartstring, hard and unyielding. A temperamental wand that will require a firm hand."
Adrastia took the magical focus and smiled at the rush of power. It was nothing at all like her old wand, that one had been with her for centuries and had absorbed much of her personality. It had been excellent at subtle and controlled spellwork, so much so that her spells were very difficult to detect even with detection charms.
In contrast, this one felt like a warhammer, a beast always pulling at the chain. It was a poor fit, but better than nothing.
"Why not weirwood?" She asked, giving the wand a wave and frowning at how volatile the magic it brought forth felt.
"Incompatibility." Harry said shortly. "They clash instead of harmonize. I tried using a wood with a little more flexibility, but ironwood was the only one that could properly contain the power. The local dragons are more deeply connected to the world than the ones on Earth."
"Well, I'm sure I will get used to it eventually." She said bracingly and gave him a smile. "Thank you."
"It would be easier if you spent some time training with me." He suggested.
"How kind of you to offer, but I don't think that will be necessary." Adrastia said coyly.
In truth, she just didn't want to. At this point, her magic was so heavily geared towards sex and emotional manipulation that trying to move in a different direction was incredibly frustrating. Harry was a jack of all trades compared to her master of one...although he'd had so much time and magical aptitude that he was in fact a master of many.
It wasn't impossible for her to diversify her skillset, Adrastia knew this, but she just didn't see it as being worth the effort. Not when Harry's power kept her safe from all harm.
"Suit yourself." Harry shrugged indifferently. "The wand itself will probably demand a little adaptation from you anyway."
"Speaking of adaptation...." Adrastia smiled coyly. "I've noticed that Sigrid seems to have settled in. Are you ready to go out and steal another woman?"
Harry returned her smile with a wry one of his own at the blatant change of subject. "Point me at her."
XXXXX
Adrastia's next pick was another skinchanger. A rather tiny thing at 5'3'' with dull blonde hair, pale green eyes, delicate features and oddly serene disposition who went by the name of Oak. She was bonded to a raven and hadn't even put up a fight when Harry came to take her, having a minute talent for the Greensight that made her unusually perceptive. There was a better than even chance that she had some Earthsinger blood in her.
Unsurprisingly, she immediately hit it off with Luna.
The one after that was almost her polar opposite. A looming beast of a woman at 6'8'', nearly five inches taller than Harry himself, with unremarkable brown hair that leaned towards shaggy, black eyes, a slightly squashed nose that made her facial features look a bit flat and exceptionally hairy legs. Her name was Ava and her giant ancestry, although still probably at least several generations removed, was plain to see.
Despite her size, she put up substantially less of a fight than Hala as soon as it became clear that Harry was stronger than her, and settled into life at Dol Guldur with the unperturbable calm of the extremely laid back.
It turned out that her appearance wasn't the only thing Ava got from her giant blood. Unlike the long extinct Earth giants, the local ones tended to be quite passive unless provoked . Most wouldn't even eat meat unless there was no other choice. In Ava's case, that meant that getting stolen and having to adjust to a whole new lifestyle was nothing to get excited about as long as she wasn't mistreated.
Even Harry ambushing her in the shower with a razor blade a few days after stealing her didn't merit more than a raised eyebrow and a shrug, and she let him shave her legs and the veritable forest of coarse pubic hair on her crotch with no reaction aside from mild amusement.
Ava was also the last woman Harry stole, Adrastia having judged four to be the best balance between quantity and how much attention he could spare for each.
XXXXX
234 AC. Winterfell, the North.
Only fools, madmen and the desperate made long trips during winter.
That was the only reason that Artos Stark didn't call the banners and march on the Wall, or at least go there himself on a fact-finding expedition.
A raven had come, bearing news about a mighty sorcerer that had made his home in the lands beyond the Wall. A sorcerer that could very well become the next King-Beyond-the-Wall.
This was of great concern to Artos, as Raymun Redbeard had killed his brother a scant few years ago. He now acted as regent for his young nephew, Edwyle, and would have advised him to immediately march to put an end to the threat if not for the winter.
The Lord Commander may say that the sorcerer did not seem to be an immediate threat, but Artos did not have a high opinion of Jack Musgood, so it failed to reassure him.
He scowled and threw the letter away. He could do nothing at the moment. The snows were too deep to make the journey.
XXXXX
234 AC. The Red Keep, King's Landing.
"A sorcerer?" Aegon V Targaryen murmured as he read the missive his brother had sent him from the Wall. "What do you make of this, Duncan?"
"Had it been any but your brother sending this news, I would not have believed it, but Maester Aemon is not a man given to flights of whimsy." Ser Duncan the Tall said evenly.
"That was my thinking as well." Aegon agreed. "Perhaps he would know how to hatch a dragon?"
"I must advise caution, your Grace." The knight replied with a frown. "Sorcerers are not like other men, and should not be approached carelessly. Regardless, nothing can be done as long as the winter holds."
Not that Duncan knew much about magic users, but he knew that he was a knight of the Kingsguard and that it was his duty to keep his king safe. Consorting with sorcerers didn't sound safe to him.
"Of course." Aegon was disappointed, but he knew it was true. Still, his dream of one day hatching a dragon did not leave him.
XXXXX
234 AC. Asshai, Shadow Lands.
The shadow of the raven's wings grew ever longer and darker. Eggs now sat in its nest. It leaned over the Wall as if it was no impediment and pecked curiously first at a statue with seven faces and then at an angry kraken in the western sea.
The black spider continued to spin its web, a few silky strings already attached to the raven's eggs.
The rabbit hopped about with nary a care, affectionately nuzzling the raven, the spider and the eggs. In its path, trees grew legs and began to walk on their own.
Melisandre came out of her vision, blinking her red eyes. R'hllor continued to send her visions of whatever was happening beyond the Wall, but without context they provided little in the way of clarity.
She hoped that the matter was not urgent. Asshai was a vast distance from Westeros, and ships did not come to it often, as evidenced by the fact that not a single one had come that she could board since receiving that first vision. It could very well be years before she was able to get there.