So the voyagers had parted ways as they left the islands. Lady Meredith turned back east for home, whilst Alys Westhill and her Sun Chaser pressed on westward, chasing the sun. Eustace Hightower’s voyage home would prove to be nigh as perilous as his voyage out had been. There were more storms to be weathered, though none as terrible as the one that had claimed his brother’s ship. The prevailing winds were against them, forcing them to tack and tack again. They had taken three of the great grey lizards on board, and one bit his steersman, whose leg turned green and had to be removed. A few days later, they encountered a pod of leviathans. One of them, a huge white bull larger than a ship, had slammed into Lady Meredith of a purpose, and cracked her hull. Afterward Ser Eustace had changed course, making for the Summer Islands, which he figured to be their nearest landfall. They were farther south than he had realized, however, and ended up missing the islands entirely and fetching up instead upon the coast of Sothoryos.

“We were there for a full year,” he told his grandsire, “trying to make Lady Meredith seaworthy again, for the damage was greater than we’d thought. There were fortunes to be had there as well, though, and we were not blind to that. Emeralds, gold, spices, aye, all that and more. Strange creatures…monkeys that walk like men, men that howl like monkeys, wyverns, basilisks, a hundred different sorts of snakes. Deadly, all of them. Some of my men just vanished of a night. The ones who didn’t began to die. One was bitten by a fly, a little prick upon his neck, nothing to fear. Three days later his skin was sloughing off, and he was bleeding from his ears and cock and arse. Drinking salt water will make a man mad, every sailor knows that, but the freshwater is no safer in that place. There are worms in it, almost too small to see, if you swallowed them they laid their eggs inside you. And the fevers…hardly a day went by when half my men were fit to work. We all would have perished, I think, but some Summer Islanders passing by came on us. They know that hell better than they let on, I think. With their help, I was able to get Lady Meredith to Tall Trees Town, and from there to home.”

There ended his tale, and his great adventure.

As for Lady Alys Westhill, born Elissa of House Farman, where her adventure ended we cannot say. The Sun Chaser vanished into the west, still searching for the lands beyond the Sunset Sea, and was never seen again.

Except…

Many years later, Corlys Velaryon, the boy born on Driftmark in 53 AC, would take his ship the Sea Snake on nine great voyages, sailing farther than any man of Westeros had ever sailed before. On the first of those voyages, he sailed beyond the Jade Gates, to Yi Ti and the isle of Leng, and returned with such a wealth of spice and silk and jade that House Velaryon became, for a time, the wealthiest house in all the Seven Kingdoms. On his second voyage, Ser Corlys sailed even farther east, and became the first Westerosi ever to reach Asshai-by-the-Shadow, the bleak black city of the shadowbinders at the edge of the world. There he lost his love and half his crew, if the tales be true…and there as well, in Asshai’s harbor, he glimpsed an old and much weathered ship that he would swear forevermore could only have been Sun Chaser.

In 59 AC, however, Corlys Velaryon was a boy of six, dreaming of the sea, so we must leave him and turn back once again to the end of autumn in that fateful year, when the skies darkened, the winds rose, and winter came again to Westeros.

The winter of 59–60 AC was an exceptionally cruel one, all those who survived it agreed. The North was hit first and hardest, as crops died in the field, streams froze, and bitter winds came howling over the Wall. Though Lord Alaric Stark had commanded that half of every harvest be preserved and put aside against the coming winter, not all his bannermen had obeyed. As their larders and granaries emptied, famine spread across the land, and old men bade farewell to their children and went out into the snow to die so their kin might live. Harvests failed in the riverlands, the westerlands, and the Vale as well, and even down into the Reach. Those who had food began to hoard, and all across the Seven Kingdoms the price of bread began to rise. The price of meat rose even faster, and in the towns and cities, fruits and vegetables all but disappeared.

And then the Shivers came, and the Stranger walked the land.

The maesters knew the Shivers. They had seen its like before, a century ago, and the course of the contagion was written in their books. It was believed to have come to Westeros from across the sea, from one of the Free Cities or lands more distant still. Port cities and harbor towns always felt the hand of the disease first and hardest. Many of the smallfolk believed that it was carried by rats; not the familiar grey rats of King’s Landing and Oldtown, big and bold and vicious, but the smaller black rats that could be seen swarming from the holds of ships at dock and scurrying down the ropes that held them fast. Though the guilt of rats was never proved to the satisfaction of the Citadel, suddenly every house in the Seven Kingdoms, from the grandest castle to the humblest hut, required a cat. Before the Shivers ran its course that winter, kittens were selling for as much as destriers.

The marks of the disease were well-known. It began simply enough, with a chill. Victims would complain of being cold, throw a fresh log on the fire, huddle under a blanket or a pile of furs. Some would call for hot soup, mulled wine, or, against all reason, beer. Neither blankets nor soups could stay the progress of the pestilence. Soon the shivering would begin; mild at first, a trembling, a shudder, but inexorably growing worse. Gooseprickles would march up and down the victim’s limbs like conquering armies. By then the afflicted would be shivering so violently that their teeth would chatter, and their hands and feet would begin to convulse and twitch. When the victim’s lips turned blue and he began to cough up blood, the end was nigh. Once the first chill was felt, the course of the Shivers was swift. Death could come within a day, and no more than one victim in every five recovered.

All this the maesters knew. What they did not know is where the Shivers came from, how to stop it, or how to cure it. Poultices were tried, and potions. Hot mustards and dragon peppers were suggested, and wine spiced with snake venom that made the lips go numb. The afflicted were immersed in tubs of hot water, some heated almost to the point of boiling. Green vegetables were said to be a cure; then raw fish; then red meat, the bloodier the better. Certain healers dispensed with the meat, and advised their patients to drink blood. Various smokes and inhalations of burning leaves were tried. One lord commanded his men to build fires all around him, surrounding himself with walls of flame.

In the winter of 59 AC, the Shivers entered from the east, and moved across Blackwater Bay and up the Blackwater Rush. Even before King’s Landing, the islands off the crownlands felt the chill. Edwell Celtigar, Maegor’s one-time Hand and the much despised master of coin, was the first lord to die. His son and heir followed him to grave three days later. Lord Staunton died at Rook’s Rest, and then his wife. Their children, frightened, sealed themselves inside their bedchambers and barred the doors, but it did not save them. On Dragonstone, the queen’s beloved Septa Edyth perished. On Driftmark, Daemon Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, recovered after being at the point of death, but his second son and three of his daughters were borne away. Lord Bar Emmon, Lord Rosby, Lady Jirelle of Maidenpool…the bells tolled for them all, and many lesser men and women besides.

All across the Seven Kingdoms, the noble and humble alike were struck down. The old and the young were most at risk, but men and women in the prime of their lives were not spared. The roll of those taken included the greatest of lords, the noblest of ladies, the most valiant of knights. Lord Prentys Tully died shivering in Riverrun, followed a day later by his Lady Lucinda. Lyman Lannister, the mighty Lord of Casterly Rock, was taken, together with sundry other lords of the westerlands; Lord Marbrand of Ashemark, Lord Tarbeck of Tarbeck Hall, Lord Westerling of the Crag. At Highgarden, Lord Tyrell sickened but survived, only to perish, drunk, in a fall from his horse four days after his recovery. Rogar Baratheon was untouched by the Shivers, and his son and daughter by Queen Alyssa were stricken but recovered, yet his brother Ser Ronnal died, and the wives of both his brothers.

The great port city of Oldtown was especially hard hit, losing a quarter of its population. Eustace Hightower, who had returned alive from Alys Westhill’s illfated voyage across the Sunset Sea, survived once again, but his wife and children were not as fortunate. Nor was his grandsire, Lord of the Hightower. Donnel the Delayer could not delay death. He died shivering. So did the High Septon, twoscore of the Most Devout, and fully a third of the archmaesters, maesters, acolytes, and novices at the Citadel.