THE MASKLESS GUEST

The sound of water lapping at the sides of the barge intruded on Lyanna's thoughts, even when she shut her eyes. She had not thought so quiet a sound could prove so distracting, but there it was. The most distressing part was how it never stopped. On and on the barge sailed through Braavos' famed canals, and the water lapped, lapped at the sides, endlessly. She listened to it, and wondered how she'd ever thought it had been charming.

For the hundredth time that evening, she thought of her son. What must he be thinking, back in that little house? Did he think he'd abandoned her? It'd be only fair. She thought of all the times she'd sworn to protect her little child, and now, look at her. Spending her night on a Braavosi pleasure barge, and not for the first time. But always maskless, she reminded herself, as she looked out on the fog and tried to discern where in the city she was. That was the rule on the Poetess' barge-if you wished to partake of the courtesan's revels, you wore a mask. If you simply wished to attend, you went maskless.

Most who accompanied the Poetess went masked.

"...waste of time," came a voice behind her. "This lot sees me as nothing but an amusing source of tales. And my tales are growing old and stale here. In another month I'll be begging in taverns and sailor halls." Turning she saw a tall man clad in a blue-green cloak, his face disguised by an elaborate mask that looked as if someone had blended a dragon with a leviathan.

Another shorter, broader man followed him, wearing a brown cloak trimmed with gold and silver and a far simpler mask of some sort of sea bird. "Perhaps," said his companion, in the accents of Ibben "given time they will believe you."

The tall man gave a cynical laugh. "I don't know if that would please me. I'm all but certain the damned Braavosi would just view it as another chance to extract another pound of flesh from my folk, when we have so little left to give." He pounded the railing with a fist that Lyanna saw was as dark as the wood. "They will only help us freely if they believe the Dothraki are a threat and that will only happen when the blasted horselords cross the water. Which as good as saying never."

"But not quite," said the Ibbenese. He turned and saw her for the first time. "Oh, my apologies, young madam. My companion and I..."

"She goes unmasked," said the tall man.

"That is no excuse for rudeness," said the Ibbenese. "Lok of Far Ib, at your service. And my companion is..." He turned to the tall man. "You do not mind if I introduce you, dear friend?"

The tall man gave a cynical laugh accompanied by a dismissive wave. "Do as you like."

"Formally?" asked the Ibbenese hopefully.

"As formally as you please," said the tall man, eyes still fixed on the waters.

"Then may I introduce to you, sweet lady, Zor Alexi, Lord of the Silver Hall, Master of the Two Hundred Gates, Chanter of the Names of the Thirtyfold Thirty Gods, the Pearl Beyond Price, the Thread Which Does Not Diminish, Friend to the Supplicant, Staff to the Needy, He Who Is, First Lord of Saath, and High Prince of the Sarnor."

The tall man turned as the titles were completed. "Well, thank goodness you decided to be only somewhat formal, or you'd still be talking."

Lok turned to Lyanna and made a slight bow. "I left some out."

"You also left out that the Silver Hall has been stripped of silver and indeed, of much of the hall," noted Alexi, "that the Two Hundred Gates are down to a few dozen, and that while I chant the thirtyfold thirty names, neither I nor anyone else can tell you what three-quarters of them mean anymore. As for the rest, if I am beyond price, it is because I am worthless, if I do not diminish it because there is nothing left, if I am friend to the supplicant and staff to the needy it is insomuch as I support myself, and if I am First Lord of Saath and High Prince of the Sarnor, well, it is because I am slightly better off than any of my equally impressively-titled and extraordinarily impoverished fellows."

"Zor Alexi is a man sore-beset by fate," explained Lok.

"Zor Alexi is of a race sore-beset by fate," muttered Alexi. "And also by yammering tongues."

Lok chuckled. "And see how well he bears it?"

Alexi's response to this was another sigh.

Lyanna felt a sudden urge to make an effort to cheer the Prince. "My mother used to tell me that no sorrow is eternal…" she said.

Alexi gave a dark laugh at that. "Well, that is cheering. My people's sorrows have lasted for nearly three hundred years, so perhaps they are about to turn soon." He chuckled again, only for it to turn into another sigh. "I'd say I'd not heard that before, but alas I've heard it often."

Lyanna looked away. "I am sorry."

Alexi stared at her a moment, as if seeing her for the first time. "I should apologize to you," said the Prince. "You've come here for your own reasons, and here I drag my bitterness to you." He turned, standing to his full height. "I've brought shame to the house of my fathers. Forgiveness." Lyanna stared at him, baffled, as he bowed. "And may the blessed light all shining of the Star Abiding bring you to a place of joy away from whatever woe you are now in."

"I… How did you know I was…?" Lyanna began.

The Prince turned to walk away. "Sorrow knows sorrow, my lady, and I… I know sorrow well." He walked away. Lok stood there, awkwardly, and then turned to Lyanna.

"And now I think you know why I follow him," said the Ibbenese. "He requires my assistance." He turned to follow the Prince, then paused. "My lady-I know nothing of you, or what has brought you here, and so I am perhaps unsuited to tell you this, but… I would feel better, if you were somewhere else on this night. It is a poor night for a young woman to be on her own, in the fog and the dark. In Ibben, we call this 'a night of ghosts'. The line of the world of the living and the world of the dead grows thin on nights such as this. It is too easy for some to slip from one to the other."

Lyanna gulped. "I am fine here."

The Ibbenese nodded. "As you say, my lady. As you say." Lyanna watched as the man shuffled off, then took a deep breath and buried her face against the barge's railing. Somehow, that entire encounter had been exhausting. She felt herself on the edge of sleep.

These thoughts were broken by the sound of someone coming beside her. "Would the lady like a song?" came a man's voice. He strummed a harp, swiftly.

"I would not," Lyanna answered.

"Are you sure?" whispered the singer urgently. "I know many songs, dear lady, songs sad and sweet, and dark as night." He began to play a haunting tune. Lyanna stiffened as she recognized it.

"How…? Who taught you that…?" she said, turning to look at him. She was left staring, wide-eyed at the man before her. By the gods, I am dreaming, or I have gone mad. "You.. you are dead…" she said at last.

Rhaegar nodded gravely, his sad purple eyes fixed on her. "I am, my lady. Dead and burned-Lord Arryn granted me those honors at least."

A part of Lyanna wished to shut her eyes, but another part wished to stare at him, her dead lover, for as long as possible. "How are you here?" she said at last.

"You heard the man from Ib-it is a night of ghosts, Lyanna," said Rhaegar. "A night where the dead can visit the living, and mayhaps, speak to them, and be heard."

Lyanna snorted despite herself. "I think it's more likely I've fallen asleep, and you are nothing more than my misgivings and that last cup of wine," she said.

Rhaegar smiled at that, those special smiles he gave to her and her only, those marvelous and subtle smiles that were like a flash of sunlight from a cloudy sky. She'd done so much for those smiles, and staring at this one, her heart whispered that it had all been worth it, no matter what her head said. "Perhaps you are right, my lady," he said, playing once again on his harp. "After all, if I am a dream, would I know it? Of course not, and so I would insist I was a ghost, that being a far more dignified thing than some airy imaging born of too much Arbor Gold."

Lyanna suppressed a chuckle at that. "Well, I, being a lady of refinement, will accept your opinion on the matter for the time being."

"Thank you kindly," said Rhaegar, strumming idly on his harp.

Lyanna looked at him, for a while, trying to fix this image in her mind. Even if it is a dream, how long has it been that I've dreamt of him thus?, she thought. I've dwelt so long on the sorrow that I've forgotten that we made each other happy. And that was a rare thing, for both of us. "What's it like being dead?" she asked.

"Very much like you told me it would be," said Rhaegar, with a frown. "You remember-when we went to Summerhall, and I asked you what you Northerners thought happens to the dead…"

"That they dwell among us, as ghosts, always watching, always near," said Lyanna, softly.

Rhaegar turned away. "And you recall what I said to that," he said at last.

Lyanna nodded. "'Oh happy Northmen, who have no thought of hell.'"

"That is it," muttered Rhaegar. He shook his head. "You may count that as another thing Prince Rhaegar was in error about. This puts all the torments our septons conjured up to shame. I walk about seeing all the blood and folly I loosed upon the earth, unable to do anything to stop it."

Lyanna gulped. "I… You did not mean for things to happen as they did."

Rhaegar sighed and gazed out over the water. "And yet that is how they happened, because of my actions," he said at last. "Sometimes, we see the spirits of others in our wanderings. I have seen Elia and our children…"

Lyanna winced at that. "You… that was Tywin Lannister, not you…"

"I played my part, Lyanna," said Rhaegar, turning away from the water. "And I was not kind to her, or to them. I see that now, very clearly. And there are other ghosts, more terrible still…" He froze. "Lyanna, I beg of you, do not turn around."

Lyanna was about to ask why, when she saw the faint shadow of a man who appeared to have antlers. You, she thought. Of course, you are here, to ruin everything. She felt an urge to turn around and yell at the intruder. 'Go away,' she would shout, 'do not look on me, never look on me! You never saw me when you were alive, never knew me! All you ever saw was something you dreamed-Ned with tits, the mother you lost, the princess in every tale, all rolled into one! You never saw me! Never!'

And perhaps she did, and saw him there, for a moment, looking sad and lost, this man who'd been so sure for all his life that he was the hero of the tale, now nothing more than a faint memory that time would erase. Or perhaps she only imagined it. She was never sure afterwards, and only knew that the shadow had vanished and she and Rhaegar were alone again.

Rhaegar stared at her plaintively. "Lyanna, I do not have much time left. Our child…"

"He is fine, Rhaegar," said Lyanna. "He… he was a son, not a daughter like you thought it would be…"

Rhaegar nodded. "Yes, I know. My skills as a prophet and interpreter of prophecy were… poor at best, I'm afraid."

"I've given him your name," Lyanna noted sheepishly.

"That poor babe," muttered Rhaegar, shaking his head. "Lyanna, you must…"

"I know, Rhaegar," declared Lyanna. "I must prepare him for the role he is to play. I… I am sorry that I am not with him now, it is… I am… I have been so lost without you, since… since…"

And then she felt him embrace her, and it was the shadow of an embrace, and yet somehow it was enough. "Is that the woman who I fell in love with, the woman bold enough to best three knights?" he said softly, smiling at her.

"They weren't very good knights," said Lyanna, a smile coming to her face.

"The courage was in the attempt," said Rhaegar. His fingertips trailed over her face, though Lyanna noted that she could barely feel them. "Lyanna-do not worry about our son's destiny. If my life taught me one lesson, it is that will come when it will come. No, Lyanna, just try to see that he is happy and loved." He seemed to be fading before her, becoming something that was less seen and more imagined. "And see that you are happy and loved, my lady. I do not want you to mourn me for all your days. You have been given life, Lyanna. Live."

Lyanna shut her eyes. "I… I will try." She felt something light on her forehead, and then the vague feel of something trailing through her hair. It might have been a kiss and his fingers, or it might have been a bit of rain and the wind. All she knew is that when she opened her eyes, he was gone, if he had ever been there.

"Lady Flint, do you still wait here alone?" came a musical voice. "Or have you chanced, perhaps, to move elsewhere?" Lyanna turned to see the figure of a buxom woman in a revealing dress, her mask a bright songbird. "If you are here, please speak, be not a stone. Do not leave me to play the fool and stare."

"Hello, Poetess," said Lyanna softly to her hostess. "I… I hope you aren't being kept from your party."

"That? It is a small and dismal affair," noted the woman. "To leave it, gives me no great cause to moan, if I may strip my feeling on it bare. So, you've no need to take a guilty tone." She walked to Lyanna's side. "A pair of guests did come to me concerned-a woman they met whose spirit seemed low. It worried me, what I had learned, and so straight to your side swift did I go." She brought a hand to Lyanna's shoulder and caressed it fondly "Are you perchance engulfed by direst woe? I hope your confidence I may have earned, and that if you are, you would let me know, for I by misfortune have been bad burned."

Lyanna shook her head. "I am fine," she said. A part of her wished to trust the woman, but then-how could she, when the woman used such artifice for simple conversation. Everything about her is a game. "I… I think this will be the last of your parties I attend. I… I am sorry-it is kind of you to have let me come on, but… they aren't what I need, I'm afraid."

The Poetess was silent at that, and merely nodded. She turned and moved away. Lyanna watched her go for a while. "Poetess!" she said abruptly, and then watched her hostess turn. "Do… do you believe in ghosts?

The Poetess stood there briefly, then shrugged. "I've heard much talk of heaven and of hell," she said. "But I say it's within us the dead do dwell." And then she walked away, leaving Lyanna quite alone.