The Mountain of Ice and Fire

Gregor knelt on the floor, upon a rug whose colors had long faded, its patterns worn away.

Seated opposite Gregor, across a dilapidated table, was an old person whose face and gender were indistinguishable.

A head of dusty, disheveled hair obscured the entirety of this old person's face.

The table was cluttered with a dense array of bottles and jars, their labels bearing the names of various medications.

Standing behind Gregor, Lord Gawen and Miss Jeyne did not recognize the script on the bottles. It was a language they had never seen before, similar to the languages of Westeros, yet distinctly different.

The room was filled with a strange medicinal odor, causing Jeyne, who had studied medicine, to frown.

Lord Gawen pulled out a handkerchief and held it to his nose.

Miss Jeyne’s carriage was parked just outside, guarded by eight Westerling family guards.

This was a very secluded corner of the city.

Not far from the house was where the residents of the street piled their garbage.

Although there was a drainage ditch, it had been filled with garbage and silt due to long neglect.

Fortunately, it hadn't rained, or sewage would be flowing everywhere.

This street was also inhabited by the poor.

No matter how many nobles and merchants there were in Lannisport, the poor were like rats, found everywhere.

Lord Gawen had a vague idea of the identity of the old person sitting behind the medicine bottles.

Jeyne, standing in front of Lord Gawen, turned to look at her father. Lord Gawen could see from Jeyne's eyes that she might have guessed the old person's identity as well.

However, neither of them dared to be certain.

After all, Lord Gawen hadn't seen or heard from the old person in sixteen years. As for Jeyne, she had never met this old person since birth. She had only heard some stories about the old person from her mother and uncle's conversations.

"Grandmother!" Gregor said tentatively in a soft voice, "My name is Gregor Clegane, and I have come to see you with my fiancée, Jeyne Westerling, and my father-in-law, Gawen Westerling."

The deference in Gregor's voice astonished Jeyne and Lord Gawen. Both were very surprised.

They had never seen Gregor so polite and respectful to anyone. Gregor's notorious dominance and strength had completely disappeared. In front of the poorly dressed old person, he was like an obedient child.

Lord Gawen wanted to turn around and flee, but he forcibly resisted.

Gregor exerted an intangible influence on Lord Gawen.

The old person sitting across the table made no sound, as if asleep. Just as Jeyne couldn't bear the strange smell in the room and felt like gagging, the old person moved.

A withered, skeletal hand emerged from the cloth robe, picked up a bone splinter of indeterminate color from the table. The bone splinter was very sharp, like a maester's surgical needle.

The speed of that fearsome bone hand was so fast that Lord Gawen and Jeyne didn't even see clearly. The bone splinter pricked the back of Gregor's hand, which was resting on the table.

A bead of blood emerged from the back of Gregor's hand.

Lord Gawen and Miss Jeyne exclaimed in surprise, but Gregor didn't move an inch.

The old person's bone hand pinched the bone splinter and slowly retracted. The tip of the bone splinter was stained with Gregor's blood.

The old person used the other hand to lift the disheveled hair that was draped over the face, revealing a toothless, sunken mouth. The bone splinter was slowly placed in this mouth, and a long tongue extended, licking the bloodstains off the bone splinter.

"Gregor Clegane," the old person spoke, the voice of an old woman.

"Yes, Grandmother," Gregor said respectfully.

"If you go east, you will die by fire," the old person said.

This sentence confused Jeyne and Lord Gawen.

But Gregor was shaken all over.

He knew what he would encounter if he stayed in Westeros. He originally had a second self-rescue plan to dig for gold, become a rich man, and then go east, but the old person's words suddenly reminded him, making him suddenly think of the greater enemy he had across the Narrow Sea: Daenerys Targaryen, who was as lucky as if she had a cheat code.

Daenerys Targaryen was the posthumous child of King Aerys Targaryen, who had been served by Duke Tywin for twenty years as the previous king.

In the year 283 of Aegon's Conquest, the Mad King Aerys Targaryen was killed from behind by his Kingsguard, Jaime Lannister, and the capital and palace fell. Ser Gregor Clegane, known as the Mountain, and Ser Amory Lorch, known as the Poison Scorpion, together bloodied the palace.

Ser Amory Lorch's coat of arms was a black manticore on a red background. His people were as vicious and cruel as his coat of arms, the manticore. He personally killed Daenerys's niece, Prince Rhaegar's four-year-old daughter, Princess Rhaenys. He stabbed her more than 50 times until the girl was silent.

Afterwards, Duke Tywin Lannister was very disgusted with Ser Amory Lorch's behavior. He believed that Amory lacked brains, and the correct way should have been to coax the child and then use a soft silk pillow to do it.

The other villain, Gregor, raped Daenerys's sister-in-law, Princess Elia Martell, and broke into the royal nursery, smashing Daenerys's nephew, Princess Elia Martell's son, Prince Aegon, in his swaddling clothes, against the wall.

This was the blood feud between Gregor and Daenerys, and Daenerys was in the East.

Daenerys would grow into an absolute ruler on the continent across the Narrow Sea. She was the Unburnt, unharmed by the great fire, and she herself belonged to fire. She would also have three dragons, and dragons also belonged to fire.

The old person made a prophecy: if Gregor Clegane went east, he would die by fire.

If Gregor believed this old person's words, he would have to cancel this second plan to escape east.

The east was also the place where the faith of the Red God R'hllor spread. R'hllor was the Red God, the Lord of Light, the God of Fire and Shadow.

If Gregor did not die at the hands of Daenerys Targaryen, he was likely to die at the hands of the Red God believers. In the Free City of Volantis, there was the largest known Red God temple in this world. The Red God temple had an armed organization: the Fiery Hand.

Gregor believed in this prophecy.

He believed in the mysticism of this world.

Before he crossed over, he was an atheist.

But in this world, there was indeed the will of God walking, and there would indeed be dragons. In the North, there would be the children of the Cold God: the Others and the wights.

Gregor had come to find this old person specifically.

This old person was a witch. But she was none other than the mother of Lord Gawen's wife, Miss Jeyne's own grandmother, from Essos, the eastern continent across the Narrow Sea. In her youth, she married a spice merchant and was brought to Lannisport.

In Lannisport, people called her the Witch.

The spice merchant and the witch had a son. This son did not want to be a merchant anymore and wanted to be a noble, so he founded a family named Spicer.

Spicer had two children: a son, Rolph Spicer, and a daughter, Sybell Spicer.

Sybell married Lord Gawen and gave birth to a daughter, Jeyne Westerling.

Now Jeyne Westerling was Gregor's fiancée.