The Streets of Lys

The service finished and the priests and priestesses of R'hllor began talking to the worshippers. One of the, a slender priestess whose gown looked like she had been engulfed in satin flames, came over to her with a smile.

"You are not from this place, lady. Do you worship the true god?"

"We have many skills at our disposal. The people expect to see a spectacle in honour of the god, so that is what we give them. Some have only tricks, others are blessed with the Lord of Light's favour and may do more than that."

"No, no, not at all. It is merely that the Lord of Light is honoured by such things. It is not proof, it is simply our form of worship."

"The Gret Other is the god of death and the enemy of the Lord of Light. He is the great evil of the world and we light the flames to keep him at bay. Fire brings warmth to the cold, allows us to prepare meat, and so we worship the god who gives us those gifts."

"Fire is the purest death," the priestess replied. "All who follow R'hllor know this. It is a great honour to be given to R'hllor in death. The god is powerful. He can destroy if he wishes, but that is why fire must be used only for good."

"Indeed." The woman eyed her hungrily "A dragon is the closest thing to a god in mortal form, I think. Now if only all dragonriders would worship the true god R'hllor, all would be well. Has your dragon slain many servants of the Great Other?"

"Of course. May Rh'llor light your way and keep you warm at night." The priestess bowed and let her go.

When she reached the Valyrian Pantheon, Rhaena was somewhat disappointed by what she saw. As she approached, she could see that the entire building was constructed of metal; black iron, though there were no seams or rivets that she could see. These were not metal plates but a single massive piece of iron, somehow shaped into the outside of the structure. Compared to the other houses of worship in Lys, the Valyrian temple was plain and drab, a square three stories high, but from each corner rose a tapering spire, and Rhaena estimated that there could be another several stories housed inside each based on their height, like towers on a curtain wall.

Rhaena reached the front of the building, and did not see a door on the side that faced the street, just a smooth iron face, black as coal and untouched by rust.

Rhaena passed through a narrow alleyway, not noticing any break in the solid iron wall to her right, while the buildings on the left side closed in ominously over her. Three men ratty looking men were huddled around a small fire, over which they were roasting what apeared to be two rats on a spit. They eyed Rhaena suspiciously as she passed, but when their gazes fell to her sword, they all looked away and at the ground.

Eventually the alleyway broke into a small square, clearly ill-used and ill-kept, it was filled with refuse and trash, and it was clear that the homeless denizens of the city often squatted in the area. As she turned the corner, however, she noticed a small doorway cut into the side of the iron building, only about five a half feet high and a few feet wide, Rhaena would fit through it easily, though a man might have to turn sideways and stoop over to pass through it.

The tunnel Rheana passed through was long; so long that she began to grow confused, sure that she had walked a further distance than the alleyway that had led her to the door in the first place; she ought to have come out through the front of the temple and onto the main street by now. There were no torches in the interior of the tunnel, which was exactly the same size and shape as the doorway, but somehow it was still lit; a sourceless pale light allowed Rhaena to easily see the path ahead of her, and eventually she spied a brighter lgiht coming in throguh another doorway at the end.

The door opened into a wide meadow, slighly hilly ground covered in grass, all under the open sky. There was not a hint of the disrepair or garbage that she had seen outside, and flowers bloomed in small clusters of color around the meadow. Rhaena looked up, and saw that she the doorway she passed through was part of the same iron wall she had seen outside; it rose about the same high and bordered the meadow, though Rhaena was sure that the meadow in which she currently stood was easily twice the size of the building she had been looking at from the street. The four spires still rose from each of the square wall's corners, though from the center of the meadow they seemed significantly higher than they had from the street.

Rhaena also realized with a start, that when they had arrived at Lys and flown around the city several times to announce their presence, she would have remembered seeing such a wide expanse of grass; she could not recall having seen even the smallest speck of green within the city limits when they were in the air.