Qarth

The greatest city that ever was or will be

The queen of cities on the Jade Gates, ringed by triple walls ÔÇö so its merchants never tire of saying.

The fuller tale

Qarth calls itself the greatest city that ever was or will be, and has the address to argue it: astride the straits the Qartheen name the Jade Gates, between the Summer Sea and the Jade Sea, so that the trade of half the world pays its harbor dues. Three great walls ring it ÔÇö sandstone, then grey stone, then black, each carved with reliefs of beasts, of war, and finally of lovemaking ÔÇö and within them rise fountained palaces, arcades scented with spice, and merchants who weep ornamental tears at a hard bargain. Milk-pale Qartheen aristocrats, the Pureborn, rule from the Hall of a Thousand Thrones; beneath them jostle the great merchant combines ÔÇö the Thirteen, the Ancient Guild of Spicers, the Tourmaline Brotherhood ÔÇö and beneath everyone, as ever in the east, the slaves who carry the palanquins. Qarth is what wealth looks like when it has had three thousand years to decorate.

The city keeps stranger tenants. In the House of the Undying, a windowless grey ruin, dwell the warlocks of Qarth, blue-lipped from the shade-of-the-evening they drink, masters of an art that everyone agrees has dwindled ÔÇö until dragons return to the world and the warlocks begin, unsettlingly, to matter again. The Sorrowful Men, a guild of assassins who apologize gently before they kill, take commissions in the shadows of the same arcades. QarthÔÇÖs glittering surface and its occult understory are the same market: everything in the city is for sale, and the priciest goods do not appear in the stalls.

Daenerys comes to Qarth out of the Red Waste with a starving remnant and three small dragons, and the city teaches her what her miracle is worth to other people. The merchant prince Xaro Xhoan Daxos feasts her and angles for dragons ÔÇö by marriage in one telling, by subtler contracts in the other ÔÇö the Pureborn refuse her ships with exquisite regret, and the warlock Pyat Pree draws her toward the House of the Undying, where the dust of the cityÔÇÖs magic wants her fire for itself. In the books she walks in willingly and is shown the sagaÔÇÖs densest reel of prophecy ÔÇö three fires, three mounts, three treasons, the blue-eyed king with no shadow, the mummerÔÇÖs dragon ÔÇö before the Undying Ones try to feed, and Drogon burns the house down around her. She leaves the city richer in warnings than in ships, which turns out to be the Qartheen exchange rate.

QarthÔÇÖs function in the tale is the gilded mirror. SlaverÔÇÖs Bay will show Daenerys the worldÔÇÖs cruelty raw; Qarth shows it lacquered ÔÇö a civilization that will applaud her, host her, appraise her, and lift nothing to help her, because dragons are an asset class and a khaleesi with no army is a curiosity. She arrives calling herself a queen and leaves understanding that no one in the east will give her a throne; the fleet she finally takes westward she will have to buy, break or burn her way to. Every liberator needs one city to teach her that admiration is not aid. Qarth volunteers.

The page and the screen

The tellings diverge sharply inside the walls. The show invents the theft of the dragons and the coup of the Thirteen ÔÇö chained dragons in the tower, Pyat PreeÔÇÖs duplicates, XaroÔÇÖs famously empty vault, and Daenerys sealing Xaro and Doreah inside it. In the books nothing is stolen: Daenerys visits the House of the Undying by invitation, receives her prophecies, and burns it from within; Xaro is a subtler figure who wants a dragon as a gift and, refused, reappears at Meereen seasons of plot later to declare QarthÔÇÖs war. The warlocks, half-comic on screen, remain at large in the novels ÔÇö a fragment of them pursues her east in the hold of a Qartheen ship, an unsettled account the show simply closes.

The chronicle here

Daenerys reaches the gates of Qarth and bluffs her way past the Thirteen. (S2┬ÀE4)
In Qarth, Dany's dragons are stolen and the Thirteen bleed for it. (S2┬ÀE6)
In Qarth, Pyat Pree kills the Thirteen and names Xaro king; the dragons are in the House of the Undying. (S2┬ÀE7)
The khalasar staggers across the red waste, dying by inches; Doreah dies of the wasting, and three riders return from the east with word of Qarth. (ACOK 13)
Qarth receives the Mother of Dragons: Xaro's hospitality with strings, Pyat Pree's blue lips, and the shadow-woman Quaithe's riddled warning. (ACOK 28)
Qarth exhausted, Daenerys takes stock at the docks: three ships bought with promises, and a course set east before south ÔÇö home by the long way. (ACOK 64)