Chapter 51 Phantom Turtle
"Princess, are you okay?" Jorah asked with concern.
Entering the dragon dream again, it was still a white light. Dany said angrily: "Something happened! I can't see anything now."
"What are you looking at?" Jorah was at a loss.
"What did you see?" Erathon asked anxiously.
Dany looked around and asked in confusion: "How long has it been?"
"You have been staring at the candle for a quarter of an hour. I am worried-"
Erathon pulled Ser Jorah away and approached Dany and said: "I told him not to worry, but he insisted on waking you up from your trance. Mother of Dragons, tell me quickly, do you see a different view?"
After calming down, Dany roughly understood the situation at this time.
"I saw the starry sky and the Dothraki Sea in the white light of the candle, and then I felt someone punched my shoulder hard, and I woke up." She said blankly.
"I didn't use any force, just a light touch." Jorah argued.
"That would be a punch to her." Erathon glared at him and said unhappily, "The Mother of Dragons is an extraordinary being. Her sight can see through mountains, seas, and grasslands through glass candles, and can see places tens of thousands of miles away. It is even possible to travel through time, see the future, penetrate other people's brains, and see other people's thoughts and dreams."
Dany's mouth twitched slightly, and she deliberately said in a skeptical tone, "Isn't it exaggerated? I think it's more like an illusion."
"This is true. The ancient Valyrian Empire had only more than 20 dragon king families. How did they rule such a vast world? It was all thanks to glass candles. Through them, their wizards can communicate with each other across half a world." Erathon said seriously.
"If you can see through the future, why did all the Valyrian dragon kings die out in the Cataclysm?" Jorah sneered.
"Who is she?" Errathon pointed at Dany and asked, "Why did the Targaryen family sell all their property and take all their people away on the eve of the Cataclysm?"
Dany carefully recalled the fairy tale that Viserys told her predecessor, and said, "It is said that the virgin girl Daenys is a 'dream walker'. The enlightenment she gained in her dream was not relying on the glass candle to see through the future."
"The principle is similar." Errathon waved his hand and sighed, "The glass candle is just a tool. You can eat with a spoon, and you can put food into your mouth without a spoon."
"What is the fuel used for the glass candle? The light it emits is very strange." Dany asked.
"It is a solid made of obsidian. If you look carefully, there is no pipe connecting the fuel.
Errathon directly pulled the twisted glass rod out of the stone platform and shook it left and right. No oil or anything like that dripped down.
Shit, perpetual motion machine?
The laws of thermodynamics were broken?
A series of question marks flashed through Dany's mind.
"Should it be to extract magic from the source of the world? The dragons are back!" Xaro, who had been silent, smacked his lips and said indifferently, "I am not ignorant. The glass candle has not been lit for more than a hundred years. That time point was just after the Targaryen prodigal sons created the "Dance of the Dragons". A group of lunatics completely smashed the cornerstone of their own rule."
The Dance of the Dragons was the bloodiest and cruelest civil war in the middle period of the Targaryen Dynasty.
In order to compete for the right to inherit the Iron Throne, the Targaryen siblings formed a group to ride dragons and fight each other for more than ten years.
Almost all the Targaryen people and their dragons died in the civil war. In a few years, the dragons were completely extinct.
Dany did not comment on the "Dance of the Dragons" and asked the wizard, "Can you see the future through the glass candle?"
"No, I am not talented enough. I can't do anything except let it burn." Errathon said frustratedly.
It is precisely because he has seen the upper limit of his talent that he is not so obsessed with mysterious power.
"Then what other magic can you do?" Dany asked again.
"Curse." Erathon's voice was cold, and the temperature in the air seemed to drop several degrees when he said the word.
"Do you know Katie of the Malaraowen family?" he asked.
"I don't know." Dany shook her head.
"Katie? The wife of Mathos, the administrator of the West District of Midtown?" Jorah looked at the blue-lipped wizard in horror, and his vigilance was raised to the extreme. "She is now a laughing stock in Qarth. A few days ago, on the crowded streets, she took off all her clothes like a madman. It is said that the softest oriental silk can make her feel as painful as a knife cutting or an insect bite."
"Yes, I cursed her." Erathon nodded and admitted, "It's just a small punishment. I just need to take off my clothes and it will be fine."
"Katie laughed at his wizard robe for being old-fashioned, ugly, and not gorgeous enough." Xaro explained to Dany.
"How to avoid being hurt by mysterious powers?" Dany asked the main purpose of coming here tonight.
"Mother of Dragons, what price can you pay?" Errathon smiled, a very businesslike smile, "Every step a wizard takes to gain wisdom comes at a great cost."
Xaro winked at Dany, signaling her to pay the gold and silver as agreed.
"Ago." She ordered the bloodriders.
Ago untied a soft leather bag from his waist, as big as a swollen hot water bottle, bulging and heavy, and placed it on the stone platform where the glass candle was inserted before.
Errasson glanced at the purse, estimated the approximate amount, and smiled with satisfaction. "Blood is the most important medium for casting spells, and the demons in the shadows are the strongest means of attack.
Blood, shadows, pay careful attention to these two points, and you can avoid more than 80% of witchcraft attacks.
I'm not sure about the most powerful group of wizards, but in general, the methods of mysterious people are not as useful as swords.
The swords of warriors are more direct and effective, and wizards hiding in the shadows for most of the day may not hurt ordinary people.
In the final analysis, witchcraft, magic, and sacrificial techniques are all a kind of application of wisdom. There is no essential difference between the forging skills of blacksmiths and the weaving skills of weavers. Hurting people is just a side job."
"That's it?" Dany was a little dissatisfied.
She paid 200 gold coins for the "consultant" fee. Isn't this "expert" too "brick"?
"I heard that R'hllor's priests can give birth to the son of shadows and kill people invisibly with shadows." She said.
"This..." Errathon hesitated, "I have also heard of similar blood witchcraft, but there are only such stories in ancient legends. It is said that people cannot perform such witchcraft without hundreds of years of magic skills. But how can humans live for hundreds of years? Unless-"
"Unless what?" Dany asked hurriedly.
"It's just a rumor." Errathon said reluctantly, with doubt and fear. "Legend has it that the ancient wizards froze time. They hid in the Temple of the Undying and could live forever."
"The legend of the immortals?" Xaro shook his head and sneered, "Even the Temple of the Immortals has become a temple of dust, where can the immortals still exist? The so-called legend of the immortals is nothing more than a deception of the wizards, making people think that they have the power of immortality and then feel awe of them."
"Do you doubt the power of wizards?" Errathon said coldly.
"No, don't get me wrong!" Xaro waved his hands and flattered, "I am here now, and I have brought the most distinguished guests here, which has proved my awe of the power of wizards, but the immortals. Errathon, as a wizard, have you ever seen them?"
Errathon lowered his eyes and murmured, "Only the great wizard Baiya"
"All those who entered the Temple of Dust never came back. Except for Baiya, no one can prove the existence of immortals." Xaro shook his head.
"In addition to the legendary immortals, are there other wizards who have survived for hundreds of years?" Dany returned to the previous topic.
"No." Errathon said with certainty, "The power of magic has been cut off for more than a century, and it has only just been restored. If there is really someone who can still live forever when the magic power is exhausted, then he must be a god."
It makes sense, but what about Melisandre?
It seems that this guy who is paid to answer questions is a wizard with two knives.
"What is a god?" Dany asked again.
"A god is just a god, what else can it be?" Errathon was stunned.
Dany rolled her eyes and was completely disappointed in him.
Errathon's wisdom was far from enough to answer her doubts about this world.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Wizard. It's getting late, so we won't disturb you to rest."
Dany said to the wizard, and then asked Jorah and others to leave. It was late at night. Under the muddy yellow horse lanterns, this street seemed particularly quiet and peaceful. Except for the "trampling" sound of horse hooves and the "rumbling" sound of wheels, there was only the vague noise coming from the night market in the distance.
Leaving the high-end residential area in the west of the city, tall wooden and stone buildings with closed doors and windows gradually rose up on both sides of the street. They were close together like lovers, and the space became increasingly dark and cramped.
The moon was like a naughty child, following all the way, and from time to time it peeked through the gaps in the chimney to peek at the convoy in the hazy night.
"Hey, what is that?" Suddenly, Rakkaro in front drew out his scimitar and pointed to the alley on the left that was stained by the rich night.
Dany looked out and couldn't help but exclaimed, "Is that... a turtle? A turtle that can glow and fly? Is it a turtle demon?"
A turtle the size of a rice cooker was suspended two meters above the ground, emitting a dark blue light that seemed to be illusory. It was moving through the dark alley as fast as a galloping horse, extremely conspicuous and extremely weird.
"Don't make a fuss, this is a phantom turtle, a wizard's pet. Like a raven, it is used for communication." Xaro stood up and glanced at it, then lay back down calmly.
Dany stretched her neck and waited for the mirage turtle to pass through a stone wall as if it were nothing. Then she said in disbelief, "Pet? It has no wings, how can it fly? And it can pass through walls."
Xaro shrugged and said indifferently, "A spirit summoned by witchcraft? I don't quite understand.
Because of the magic tide, wizards have begun to restore the legendary power.
Recently, people often see mirage turtles passing messages between windowless houses on the Wizard Avenue. It's no surprise.
The next street is the Wizard Avenue. Not every wizard can afford a single-family house like Errasson.
Alas, I grew up listening to the story of the mirage turtle. I never thought that I would really see it one day."
"Don't be so exaggerated?" Dany didn't know what to say.
"How far can the mirage turtle run? Can it go to Westeros?" Jorah asked curiously.
As a native of a fantasy world, although he has always been taught by a maester that "there is no god and no magic", he accepted these magical things very easily after seeing them with his own eyes.
"It can only communicate over short distances, otherwise why would wizards keep ravens?"
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(End of this chapter)