"lisandre," Jon remarked. "I still have a doubt about the story of the warlocks."
"What is it, my Lord?" lisandre questioned.
Both Jon and lisandre were walking through the streets of Qarth. It had been a couple of days since his eting with Xaro Xhoan Daxos. For the past two days, Jon had been trying to infiltrate Xaro's mansion and sotis the House of the Undying, but without any notable success.
But he had learned sothing important. He had been able to spot a visitor at Xaro's manor. A visitor he had been able recognize. Pyat Pree. The very sa warlock Daenerys had killed when he had captured her and her dragons to strengthen his magic.
And Pyat Pree was also the first and the only warlock Jon had been able to witness after coming to this city. The warlocks of house of undying were very secretive. Even at the building of the house of undying, Jon had only been able to spot the servants and the slaves working there. And not a single warlock.
Although Jon had not learned any valuable information, it had at least been confird that there was so connection between the warlocks and Xaro Xhoan Daxos. Whether it was a personal connection with Pyat Pree alone or whether Xaro was connected to the House of the Undying as a whole was still unclear.
"About the source of the power of the warlocks," Jon said. "When you told the story of the first warlock and the House of the Undying, you did not ntion any connection between them and dragons."
"Yet we are here to investigate if the birth of dragons has brought back their powers," he added. "And we also know that as the dragons went extinct from the world, their powers also vanished with them. I fail to understand this connection."
"Also," Jon continued, "you said that the enmity between Volantis and Qarth; which is the extension of the enmity between the Red Temple and the House of the Undying began when word got out about the warlocks using corpses as the source of their power."
"What is the connection between their powers, the corpses, and the dragons?" he asked. "Nothing is clear and everything look so ssy."
This was the biggest question Jon had been contemplating, and now he had finally voiced it to lisandre.
"This is an interesting question, my Lord," lisandre responded, walking side by side with Jon. "And I had been wondering for the past two days when you would ask this question."
"To be honest," she continued, "and mind you, I am not certain but dragons do not really seem to have any connection with the source of power of the warlocks."
Jon frowned at this but remained patient, waiting for lisandre to finish her answer.
"If you rember," lisandre went on, "unlike every other known magic system in this world, warlocks were the only ones who did not need a dium to use their powers. Unlike others, they had the capability to draw magic directly from the air… or from their surroundings, to put it better."
"And apart from them," she said, "there was only one other creature which could use magic directly without any dium."
"Dragons," Jon mumbled from her side.
"True," she nodded. "Dragons were the only creatures who could use magic without any dium."
"At least until you gave us our powers," she added softly, referring to the magic that had been granted to the three ladies.
"Anyways," she switched back to the topic, "there was a difference between the warlocks and the dragons. Warlocks were proficient in manipulating the magic in their surroundings, while dragons used the magic inside them. They did not directly manipulate the magic around them."
"The warlocks too had this power," she said. "They too had the ability to use the magic inside their bodies."
"But they had a problem. The reserves of magic inside them were very low, far too low to perform any powerful or significant spell. They could create fla using the magic within themselves, but it was nothing more than a flicker, lasting only a few monts. And they needed a long ti to replenish their magic."
"The dragons, on the other hand, are magical creatures. They have a vast amount of magic inside their bodies, and the ti it takes for them to refill their reserves is very short. This is why dragons can go on breathing fla for a very long ti," she added. "Although fla is the only magic that the dragons could perform."
"Now," lisandre continued further, "this limited the set of powers that the warlocks could use. While they could teleport a short distance and even push or pull things by manipulating the magic in their surroundings, there were other spells, like producing flas or a storm or creating clones of themselves, that could only be perford using the magic inside their bodies."
"And they needed to find a way to overco this. A way to increase the magical capacity of their bodies. A thod which would make them stronger. And they, probably the first warlock himself devised a thod. A thod using corpses."
"Whenever a creature, human or animal, dies, it is said that their soul leaves the body and an emptiness is left behind in wake of it. And in that emptiness, magic takes place, filling the dead body. The reason may not be entirely accurate, but it is a known fact that a dead body has an extrely high capacity to hold magic inside it compared to its living self."
"And the warlocks devised a thod which allowed them to absorb the magic of a dead body, strengthening their own."
"It granted them two benefits," she continued her explanation. "Firstly, it boosted their reserves until they had used up the stored magic. And secondly, the constant absorption increased the capacity of their bodies to hold magic, as well as the speed at which their bodies would naturally absorb magic from their surroundings."
"Did you understand what I ant by corpses being their source of power, my Lord?" lisandre asked.
"I got it," Jon replied, his mind churning various thoughts at a rapid pace. "But I am still waiting for the answer about their connection with the dragons."
"Yes, you are," she replied. "But this will have to wait."
Jon looked ahead only to realise that they had reached their destination. They were standing before a grand mansion which seed to be decorated in various colours. It was the mansion of Xaro Xhoan Daxos.
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