Slaves obey, men choose: chapter 30: Goodbye, Aegor

Astapor was big, and by big, I didn’t necessarily refer to its size or anything of the like.

No, when I said big, I meant the population. Before the revolt against the Good Masters that ended with them and their families dead, Astapor—from what I had gleaned through magic and confirmed through the scribes—was home to around 500,000 people.

Out of those 500,000 people, you first needed to take into account that most of this number was made up of slaves.

Astapor before the revolt had a population ratio of 5:1 for the slaves and the free people, and that was without counting the Good Masters.

I won’t say that no one in the free population had perished during the revolt, because that would be a lie, but when you're a free person in what is literally deemed a city of Slaver’s Bay, know and don’t be surprised that you selling slaves, being all friendly with the slave masters even if internally you hated the fuck out of them, would not be something a slave of said slave master would view favorably.

Sure, you weren't directly involved with the cruelty and the suffering, but you were still trying to enrich yourself—because of course, in a city where the ruling families own slaves, any path to wealth leads to you ingratiating yourself with them in some form or another—and that, whether you liked to recognize it or not, only helped in allowing the Good Masters to continue their bullshit without any hitch.

Because the thing was that the Good Masters had money and armies and stuff, but that shit is expensive, and expensive stuff like that needs money to continue without falling apart, so it was kinda logical that a slave who killed his master and broke his chains, upon seeing someone whom said dead slave master had called a good friend, would murder the fuck out of that person. Of course, there was nuance and shades of grey, but still.

In any case, what I was saying was that Astapor had, before the revolt, a population of 500,000. Of those 500,000 people, around 300,000 had been slaves, 100,000 freed people, and the remaining 100,000 were the Unsullied, which kinda made the people in the books who followed Daenerys not that numerous.

Sure, 50,000 people was a lot of people, but still. Anyway, when I said that Astapor was big, it was not an exaggeration because I could see before me the entirety of its population.

They were in the streets, covering the horizon, their luminaries making them look from above—from where I was looking at them—like an inverted sky. I was sure that I would not have been able to see any of them had it not been for my magic.

Since the revolt against the Good Masters, the population had increased with people—ex-slaves, people wanting to know if the tales about me, about Astapor, were true or not—which kinda made the current population of Astapor around 600,000.

I was very thankful for my Essence of the Archmage because I’m not sure that I could have done a tenth of what I had done with Astapor without it.

Still, you must be wondering, Aegor, why are you since the beginning nerding about numbers? Do something cool or funny, maybe like a backflip, I don’t know.

I would have said in any normal case, indeed Watson, let’s do a backflip as if I were an opium vampire, and they would have all clapped, of course, because backflips are cool, but unfortunately, there was a reason why the numbers mattered here.

You see, my original plan was to make something kinda symbolic for Astapor. I remember how in my original life, what was done in a lot of cultures to deal with grief but also celebrate those who had departed was to build something.

In Mexico, during the beautiful Día de los Muertos, families light up candles to guide the spirits of their loved ones back home for a visit. I was told once by a Mexican friend that the light was kinda there to represent, "We are here. We welcome you."

In Japan, they have lantern festivals where they set lanterns afloat on water to honor those who were gone. The water carried the light, like a soul on a journey.

In China, for centuries, they have sent Kongming lanterns into the sky, lanterns that were kinda like small, silent hot-air balloons carrying wishes and prayers to the heavens.

The original idea was to make something like that, something symbolic but very much needed, because when you could see the heart of your people, when you could see the buried grief like a wound still bleeding under gauze and ignored, you kinda get it quickly that this was important.

It was as if the people of Astapor were in some sense running, as if they were doing their best to think of the present, and while that could be a good thing, only thinking of the present, dedicating yourself to the future while you were drowning inside, was just waiting for things to go sideways.

The goal, like I mentioned before, was for it to be symbolic at best, using my magic to make them, without backlash, confront it themselves—not like mind reading, but kinda like a limited internal path of victory but for self-therapy—but my discussion with Grey Worm changed that and gave me an idea, a very complicated one.

I wanted them to have closure, to give it to them, not to forget their past but to be able to confront it and not let it drag them down, but wasn’t there a better way for me to do so? Instead of them facing it by themselves, why couldn’t I allow them to do so by thoroughly ending, extinguishing those regrets?

I had the Essence of the Archmage, I had Nemesis to help me use my magic kinda like a focus, but what I wanted to do, even with all of those things, would be something I knew would push me way more than anything I had done before since waking up in this world.

I could remember what Grey Worm had said, how he had told me he would, if he could, say goodbye, thanks, and sorry to his brother, and would there be anything more fit for closure than that?

600,000 people was a big number because of what it represented for what I planned tonight. Each of those people, I was sure, had lost loved ones. This was Planetos, a world where everyone suffered, a rat pit where rats bit into each other and dragged themselves further down.

This was a cruel world, and I will change it. This was a cruel world, and the 600,000 people before me deserved closure just as Grey Worm did, because I was sure that the majority of them had fucked-up life stories just like him.

I had in the past fought what could only be called an eldritch abomination and won without any problems. I fought against a god while simultaneously resurrecting my soldiers. I fought said god in armor made of the literal faith people had in me combined with my magic. I killed said god, the Great Stallion, and resurrected its victims—victims that, if I’m not wrong, numbered in the thousands—yet all those things were nothing before what I wanted to do right now, because I wanted those 600,000 people to have closure, and what better way to do so than letting them speak with those they lost once again?

If it were only me, I would have resurrected them, but resurrecting thousands of people was very different from resurrecting hundreds of thousands, at least, and sure, even though right now I couldn’t do it, I should be able to in the next days in the best case, in the weeks at worst, but still, right now I couldn’t.

It wasn’t a question of power, because the Essence of the Archmage and the faith people had in me gave me virtually a limitless amount of magic. The problem was the output.

I can already imagine the question: why don’t you, I don’t know, resurrect them group by group or something like that? I would have if resurrection, true resurrection, wasn’t complicated in this world, especially when the different underworlds were getting very active. It was something else to worry about later.

Still, I don’t think that I was that stupid to not do that if it were possible. I would have brought them back if I could, all of them who deserved it—and by deserved it, I mean those who weren’t pieces of shit—whose absence were wounds that would never truly be healed by the living.

I walked to the edge of where I was standing. Only one step and I would fall. Had I been an ordinary person, it would have been the kind of fall that would turn me to red mist upon impact, but I wasn’t. There had been a railing once here to stop anyone from doing what I was doing. It was broken when a Good Master was taught a lesson on gravity during the revolt, and with me being the only one liking to come here, I had seen no point in making another.

Even though the crowd extended to the horizon and beyond, I knew that they would hear me as if I were just at their side talking. Magic could be handy like that.

“Not long ago, we were slaves,” I began. “We were held in chains, treated as if we were nothing, as if our suffering didn’t matter and didn’t exist. The Good Masters didn’t care. No one cared, so we saved ourselves, so we broke our chains with our zeal, with our anger, because enough was enough. The Astapor of today is something none of us would have thought it could be months ago. We don’t have to fear hunger, pain, and the like; we all sleep in homes fit for kings, homes that our dead masters could never imagine the comfort of. We built, all of us together, something bright and beautiful. We did all of this, yet I don’t know about you, but I can’t forget, which is stupid, strange, don’t you all think? I have power, enough to make miracles, to make the impossible possible, yet I can’t help but sometimes think of those olden days when we were slaves. I can’t forget.”

I looked at them, into their eyes, and saw understanding because they knew what I meant, because they felt the same.

“I can’t forget what happened to me. I can’t forget what happened to others like me. I survived; they died when they didn’t deserve to, and I’m sure, no, I know that all of you here have someone you loved that is gone when they shouldn’t be, simply because the world decided to be cruel. In cities further away than anything you’ve seen, different, they did something I found beautiful. They built things, lanterns, objects in honor of those long gone, to celebrate them because they deserve it no matter where they are now, because we miss them, because we love them.”

They were now looking at the luminaries with something akin to understanding. A lot of them changed their grip on them, like a man realizing that what he thought was sand was in fact gold.

“I wanted them built to give you closure, to give us all closure, the ability to look at our past and, no matter what, no matter how cruel it had been, to not let it chain us. I want to ask one thing of all of you tonight: don’t hesitate.”

I watched confusion enter their eyes as I spoke, yet I continued with a growing smile on my face. “Tell them everything you couldn’t. Stay with them all this night.”

I could see the shroud of gold that had surrounded me as I began, as I readied my magic not for a spell but for a miracle. Above, Nemesis, the giant tree’s glow intensified.

“Hold them as much as you can. Tell them you love them, you hate them, you miss them. Cry if you need to. Don’t restrict yourself. Pass each moment with them as if it could be your last!”

I could feel blood flowing from my nose and my eyes, yet I ignored it and only grinned harder. I put my hands together as if in prayer.

I couldn’t resurrect them all, but from now until dawn, for at least six hours, I could bring those that they lost back by using each of the luminaries they had made as pseudo-receptacles.

Below me, gasps and screams of shock rang out as the luminaries morphed, began to change, to take shapes, human shapes.

I turned to look at Grey Worm, who was looking at me with what looked like a mix of horror and understanding.

Silly Grey Worm, I thought that at this point, he would expect such from me. Even though he didn’t have a luminary, it didn’t stop me from bringing him back.

I began to hover, to fly. I gave Grey Worm a last look. “I told you to keep those words in your head for a reason. Tell him. Tell your brother what you told me earlier!”

“Where are you going?” he asked me.

“On one of the higher branches of Nemesis. Don’t worry about me,” I told him with a smile that I hoped was good enough.

In what felt like a moment, I flew to one of the top branches of Nemesis, one as big as one of the streets of Astapor, and sat on it, my back against the bark.

What I hadn’t told Grey Worm was that the spell was one that needed to be maintained, and even with my Archmage essence, which made it more and more bearable, it was still fucking painful. It was honestly as if a screwdriver was tearing my brain apart.

Still, it was worth it. In my hands, I willed it, and from nothing, it slowly came into existence. I had told my people to make their luminaries. Why shouldn’t I make one too?

I had spoken of closure. I was kinda hypocritical, wasn’t I? Still, even then, there was one thing I wanted to say, that I think needed to be said: “You have never been told this. Your memories make sure I know it, so let me be the first person to tell you: thank you for having been born, Aegor. For having been alive, for allowing me to have this chance. I am sorry. Sorry it was me and not the both of us. Sorry that you had to go through so much, that you had to be strong when you were but a child, that you suffered. Sorry you are not here now to see… all of this. Sorry and goodbye, Aegor. I’ll try to live for the two of us. So goodbye, Aegor.”