On the other side is the Golden Empire of Yi Ti,

which was ancient when the Valyrians were still fucking goats.

Even its ruins dwarf every city in Westeros.

And its princes are said to live in houses of solid gold

and feast on meat powdered with pearls and jade.

Foolish talk.

lf it were true, l would have visited long ago.

But a bold merchant will risk two years for one voyage

to fatten his holds with spices, gems, and silks

so that he never wants for anything again.

To be fair,

many never do

because my ship, Silence, finds them on their return.

Their merchant dreams look so pitiful poured out on my decks.

Not enough for any lifetime, but their own.

Traders from the Summer lslands make tougher prey.

Not even the Silence could run down their swan ships

on the open sea.

When we take them by surprise,

our rams splint and crack against their hulls,

carved from rare hardwoods of the Summer lslands

and fitted together without a single nail.

Worse, every swan ship carries a company of archers

armed with goldenheart bows,

which can hurl the shaft hard enough to pierce steel bait.

After all that trouble, we often find their holds filled only with maps,

fruit and wooden trinkets.

Hardly worth our time and blood, except for their women.

To worship their god, all women of the Summer lslands

learn to fuck.

lt's enough to make a man devout.

lbbenese whalers are the most worthless of prices.

The men of lb are short, thick and hairy.

So are their women.

Not even tales of their six breasts can tempt men to take them.

-(BlRDS CALLlNG) -But the lbbenese know how to build ships.

Their great bellied whalers can weather any storm

and withstand assaults of the largest beasts.

ln battle, the lbbenese are incredibly strong,

and even their blood reeks of blubber and oil,

and their holds are rarely worth scrubbing our decks free of the stench.

When our holds were full or needed repair,

we set a course for the greatest safe harbor on the Summer Sea,

the Basilisk lsles, Port Plunder, Sty, Whore's Gash.

No map can find these towns, nor can the laws of men.

The slavers keep their captives in caves in the lsle of Tears,

pirates trade their goods on Barter Beach,

and hire fresh crews from the murderers filling every inn.

Great piles of old yellow skulls line the shores of one deserted island,

offerings from captains who have fresh heads pinned to their masts.

Once every generation, the Free Cities send fleets to destroy the towns

and hang every man they find.

They do, and the towns are abandoned to rot and sink back into the slime.

But come the next year,

another Port Plunder sprouts up somewhere else in the isles,

like a toadstool from a new pile of shit.

For many years, l brought Silence to the Summer Sea.

But when l close my eyes,

l hear the waves breaking below the bridges of Pyke.

l hear the kingsmoot chanting my brother's name.

Merchants pay the gold price,

buying their desires with coin.

Reavers pay the iron price,

taking what we want from the corpses of the men who had it.

But for what l dream,

no gold can buy and no iron can take.

l must pay with fire and blood.