Palace of Sorrow

The Palace of Sorrow is the ruined remnant of the Rhoynar festival city Chroyane, a drowned and desolate place on the Upper Rhoyne where the stone men of greyscale dwell in madness. It is the most haunted stretch of the river, where the Shy Maid passes through the fog and the Bridge of Dream, and where Tyrion Lannister is dragged into the water by a stone man and nearly drowns.

Location and History

The Palace of Sorrow lies in the Sorrows, a stretch of the Upper Rhoyne shrouded in unnatural fog that stinks of sorcery. Once called the Palace of Love by the Rhoynar, it was the most beautiful and richest city on the river, a festival city where the streets were made of water and the houses made of gold. After the wars with Valyria, the city was drowned and ruined. The Rhoynar name for it was the Palace of Love, but for a thousand years it has been known as the Palace of Sorrow. The ruin is vast, ten times the size of the Red Keep and a hundred times more beautiful in its prime. It features a wooden keep beside the water, slender spires, roofless towers, halls and galleries, graceful buttresses, delicate arches, fluted columns, terraces and bowers, all ruined, desolate, and fallen. Grey moss covers the fallen stones in great mounds and beards all the towers, while black vines creep in and out of windows, through doors and over archways, up the sides of high stone walls.

The Stone Men and the Bridge of Dream

The stone men, victims of greyscale, inhabit the ruins and the Bridge of Dream, a smashed and broken bridge of pale stone arches that reaches from the Palace of Sorrow to the river's western bank. Half of the arches have collapsed, pulled down by the weight of grey moss and thick black vines. The broad wooden span of the bridge has rotted through, but some of the lamps that line the way are still aglow. The stone men shuffle aimlessly around the lamps like slow grey moths, some naked, others clad in shrouds. They are feeble, clumsy, lumbering, and witless creatures, but near the end they all go mad and become most dangerous. The fog hides the Shy Maid from them until the boat is almost at the bridge, and then it is past before they know it is there.

The Shy Maid's Passage and Tyrion's Ordeal

When the Shy Maid passes through the Sorrows, the fog is so thick that the boat moves like a blind man groping his way down an unfamiliar hall. The crew is uneasy, and Ysilla insists the fog stinks of sorcery. The boat drifts inexorably toward the Bridge of Dream, and stone men crash down onto the deck. Griff kills one with his sword, and Duck knocks another into the river. A third stone man, a Summer Islander whose jaw and half his cheek have turned to stone, grabs Young Griff. Tyrion kicks the lad's leg out from under him and thrusts a torch into the stone man's face, driving him back. The stone man grabs the torch and rips it from Tyrion's hands. Tyrion drives a shoulder into him, and they both fall into the river. The stone man's hand closes around Tyrion's arm, dragging him down into darkness. Tyrion is pulled under, unable to breathe, and the dark closes in around him. He is later rescued by Griff, who pulls him up, and Lemore forces the water from his lungs.

Narrative Significance

The Palace of Sorrow serves as a threshold of death and transformation for Tyrion Lannister. His near-drowning and the stone man's touch force him to confront his own mortality and the possibility of greyscale. The place is a physical manifestation of the decay and ruin that pervades the world of the novel, a reminder of the fall of great civilizations and the price of war. The fog and the stone men create an atmosphere of dread and hopelessness, a stark contrast to the beauty and laughter that once filled the city. The passage through the Sorrows is a rite of passage for the Shy Maid's company, testing their courage and resolve, and it foreshadows the dangers and transformations that lie ahead for Tyrion and the others.