“-. 274 AC .-“
Damn every last tree root in the world! Could he not go more than two slopes without stumbling over one like a drunk simpleton forever doomed to crash arse-over-teakettle in the mud?
“Alright down there, boy?” The greybeard asked with the well-worn tone of an elder well used to herding the clumsy spawn of everyone else’s even clumsier spawn.
Luwin felt the burn of humiliation wash over his face. Whoever decided those damned board shoes could be used year-round should be flogged and hanged. It was hard enough to ride the things in the snow, but skiing over detritus? Through a forest? In
summer? Madness!
He angrily kicked off his skis. When that didn’t work, he set about stumbling to his feet with an even hotter feeling of humiliation. The little grey eyes laughed at him from where they bounced around the man’s feet in his shadow.
“Careful now,” the man was suddenly there, yanking him away from the nearby stream that the sun shone out of. “What’d I tell you? Stay out of the red light.”
They resumed their trek, but the only reason Luwin didn’t crash into more shrubs and trees was because he merely lumbered all the way to the bottom of the wooded hill, pushing his sticks deep into the ground with every step. The little grey eyes laughed at him childishly the whole while, flitting from shade to shadow every time he looked away.
Of course, then came another hill to climb and descend from and everything started again.
“Spread the tips of your feet a bit more,” Marwyn the Mage said from where he followed their guide right next to him. “Now push off – that’s right. Left, right, left, right, good. Feel the difference in the arms?”
“Some,” Luwin huffed. The end of the hill couldn’t come fast enough. “Not as much as you, I’m sure.”
“Just a bit more practice and you’ll be flying across the highlands.”
“You mean a lot of practice.”
“Hardly. A couple hours and you have the basics down.”
“Not all of us are freaks of nature that can pick up a skill after seeing it once.”
“And you think I can? Who do I look like, Mullin?”
Well he’d certainly played out his part word for word, of that conversation Luwin had with the other acolyte when they left Oldtown. It felt like a lifetime ago, now. Luwin huffed.
Marwyn glanced at him knowingly, as if he knew what had just gone through his mind. Disgustingly amused at his expense too. Luwin couldn’t even guess why. The Mage had been looking at him that way since he first faceplanted in the leaves. Whatever happened to his grunting cantankerousness? He was never this cheerful!
“I’m starting to wish we’d left by ship,” Luwin grumbled. It only drew another bout of childish laughter from the little grey eyes. It tinkled from one weirwood leaf to the next as unseen paws skittered over the pool of black water.
A strange canter reached their ears then, buoyed by the sound of some whimsical whistling that-
“Everyone hide!” their guide hissed suddenly, literally tackling Luwin into a butterfly bush.
Luwin tried to balk. The greybeard roughly covered his mouth with a hand. Luwin froze. The childish eyes landed near his head and closed, disappearing without a trace. Marwyn appeared on his left, kneeling to hide as told.
Then they all lied still and watched through green leaves and purple flowers as
a girl rode by on a white pony, no by your leave, no nothing. Young. Spry. Cheerful as a bird. She hummed as thunk and clank and clatter went the shoeless hooves upon the forest floor. Then she disappeared amidst the trees as fast as she’d appeared, taking her pride and joy and the whistling of some unseen voice with her.
“For Builder’s sake, again!?” the greybeard groaned as he climbed off of Luwin. “Guess this is where I do a runner. Good luck you two. I swear, when I find her minders…”
Luwin watched blankly as the greybeard hurried off after the girl, muttering threats and promises of doom all the while. A great shadow passed over them in his wake, flying after the man. Luwin couldn’t distinguish much through the thick canopy, but he knew a hawk’s cry when he heard it, even if he’d never heard one so loud. Or long.
“Tell me, Luwin,” Marwyn said. “Do you remember how you got here?”
“What?”
The childish eyes were suddenly in his face.
“GAH!”
Luwin gasped, slipped backwards and toppled up into the water.
He flailed and sputtered and drowned without drowning, then a familiar enormous hand grabbed him by the arm and dragged him onto solid ground again. He coughed, flailed and spluttered the whole way, then fell when the grip loosed. He kissed the dirt. Or would’ve, but winter had returned. The snow felt coarse against his face. Coarse and freezing after the warm pool. He rolled to his back, gasping for breath through a raw throat. Snowy pines filled his sight. The branches of fir trees mixed with red leaves shaped like hands. They hung off boughs white as bone even where snow didn’t reach. Above and beyond them all, the sky. It wasn’t green as grass anymore, somehow. It was a pale, greying thing now, thick with milky fog and the largest snowflakes he’d ever seen falling from the dreary clouds beyond. They looked like silver stars falling through gaps in an old, worn net growing more tattered and threadbare with every day that went by.
Luwin thought a day might come when he could hate all laughter. He turned his head aside to glare at the damned anklebiter. The eyes. They looked human. Grey. But also blue, now that he thought about it. They glowed like ice where white should be. Or was it a trick of the light?
Heavy footstomps next to his head made him turn the other way.
“Still here? I’m impressed. Usually the first time jolts the heart all a fret.”
Marwyn looked different. Luwin didn’t know how he only now noticed it. The man was still short and squat, but it didn’t seem unnatural now. The bulk packed into his chest and shoulders and even his hard ale-belly somehow complemented it, perfectly filling out the heavy plate he now wore. A segmented armor made of some dark, smoky metal. There was not a spot below the man’s chin that wasn’t covered in at least an inch of the heavy material. Pauldrons, brassarts, vambraces, gauntlets, cuirass, even a long, segmented kilt in place of faulds that reached all the way to just below the knee guards of the greaves. Overlaying it was a vast cape made from the fur of some great beast. And… And his
hair. Forget the bristly white sprouting from his ears and nostrils. They were just props for a veritably opulent mane. Wiry bristles framed his face all the way to the ears. Tufted eyebrows sailed up into the air like white ash from a pyre. Bushy whiskers capped with steel stuck up like boar tusks. They all mixed into a coat of white, like salt crushed and dusted over a full beard and head of hair that almost reached his belt, coarse and thick and kissed by fire like a beacon in full spate.
Luwin stared up at the man, astounded. “You’re Ibbenese!”
Marwyn looked down at him like he was mad.
Immediately, Luwin felt foolish. That was hardly the most memorable thing. There was a shroud around the Mage too, dark where he was bright and red as blood. It smelled like embers amidst smoke of salted pork fresh off the fire.
“Maybe not as lucid as I thought.” The Mage scratched his chin. His hand passed through his fiery beard as if it wasn’t there. “It’s far too early for you to be projecting your delusions unto others, lad. Ibbenese indeed!” Shaking his head, the man stomped off.
Luwin climbed to his feet and stared at the man, gaping. Mad? Him!? Change the color of his hair darker and he looked just like one! How had no one seen it before? The height. Those enormous hands. The heavy, broad-shouldered, broad-chested stature. That beetle-browed face with shadowed eyes and massive jaw. Great square teeth. The grunting, rasping manner of his speech. By the Gods, even his veins seemed to spring out of his skin here and there, like water trails in a ship’s wake. And those scars. Two scar tattoos etched in his skin. They criss-crossed over his sloping brow from eye to temple, looking almost like birthmarks midst those heavy ridges.
“Don’t dawdle, boy!”
Luwin stumbled after the man as well as he could. The snow seemed to grow ever thinner the further up the mountains they went until they had to give up the skis and snow shoes entirely. It only made the forest floor more treacherous the farther on they climbed though. Black ice worked against his footing when it wasn’t rocks making a bid at the same, dark as night and oily. There was never a plant or critter to be seen near them, even where the ground was bare as spring. Ahead of him, Marwyn walked without leaving any more sign of his passage than the green light trickling up through the cracks in the mountainside. Luwin tried not to gawk at him. Tried not to resent him either. He did his best to ignore the mirthful eyes pouncing around them too. They left no paw prints and then abruptly shot ahead of them both and closed and disappeared just like they’d-
Marwyn the Mage suddenly leap back and landed where Luwin was about to step, one arm held out protectively. The world caught flame at the edges. Spinning. Tilted too, somehow. It blurred the corners of his eyes like see-through, blue-white rims of a shining trapezohedron.
What could have startled the Mage so?
Looking ahead, Luwin saw Death. An unlined outline cut into the shape of a hooded cloak made of one and one thousand eyes of blue and white fire. In front of it, a man. And a bear. Old. Tired. Starving. Bloody, the both of them. Fighting. Wrestling with the last of their strength in the snow at the mouth of a cave. Then the man seemed to summon some mighty burst of strength. Hauled himself forward by the broken spear shaft sticking out of the bear’s chest. Jumped on its back. Locked his brawny arms around its head before viciously snapping its neck with a loud, savage cry of pain and exultation.
They collapsed together. For a moment, Luwin thought they both were dead. The man crawled away though. Dragged himself by his chin, then with his hands, then he staggered to his feet. Drunkenly, almost. Clutching an arm around his midriff. He’d been disembowelled, Luwin marvelled, yet still he wanted to die on his feet. And he did. Limped, staggered and stumbled away from his kill while reaching out blindly but didn’t fall again. Not until Death reached out as well and took his hand in its own.
The body fell in a pool of its own guts. Its blood streamed forth like springmelt, red and fiery upon the steaming snow. The man himself stood easy, though. Straight. Solid, almost, like the mountain it had ruled his whole life. Hither came the Magnar. Hither came the Flint, grey-haired, long-bearded and jolly-eyed. A man, a hunter, a lord of the mountain with towering melancholies and towering mirth, to tread the sparkling snow under his booted feet. Hither he came. Walked one step after another, then fell to his knees and looked up at Death reverently, both hands latched onto its own. The hands of a warrior and hunter and father they were, strong and rough but gentle as they grasped the other, small and black as midnight.
Death overlayed him entire, somehow, that his blind grasping need be blind no more. The two thought together then. For a lifetime between one moment and the next. Of sense and reason and knowledge dreamed into the world from beyond the stars and everything the man did throughout his life that meant something. It was enough to enlighten even the poorest lackwit that never saw full age, but barely any of it found a point of purchase. The Flint was a gladsome but perceptive greybeard. What care did he have for wondrous crafts he’d never wield? Great works he’d never see? What did he know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft, the lie? Him who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky? The silver tongue, the trickster’s guile, they failed when the axe swings. Let kings and merchants dream about grand crafts and kingdoms. Let maesters and mages brood over questions of magic and reason. He’d lived, he’d loved, he’d known the bliss of warm arms, he’d raised his daughters and sons, he’d slain foes and beasts alike. Made a good show of his last hunt, even. He’d led his clan and left them better off then they’d been when he was young. Hadn’t he done well?
He had, Luwin knew with all the certainty of the dream. He was a worthy lord and father and kin to kings.
Death agreed with him. That was why it was here to greet him after all. It would even bring him before the face of his gods if he wanted, but wasn’t there anything he wished he’d done before all that?
The Flint laughed boisterously and kissed the hand of Death, then crawled forward on his knees to embrace it. His trunk-like arms disappeared beneath the cloak of fire while his face nestled near its heart like a child. Or a lover. A father even. A nuncle clinging to the goodson that taught his boys their letters but whom he’d never got to meet. He didn’t regret it anymore that he did the rest of his life though. If he longed for anything, he would that he had died in summer. He would’ve liked to enjoy life longer. He would’ve loved to fly.
Death returned the embrace and its garb unravelled around them. The great cloak of feathers unwove itself. The eyes unbraided from runes to flares and then floating fires scattering like stars at midnight. The black sky melted down through the clouds above them, then lower until it seeped all the way through the branches. The speckled void overlayed the boughs. The eyes and stars interposed where the leaves once were. And as the night sky swallowed them all, the ground seemed to fall away and they passed up through the firmament on the wings of some grand, mighty music played by voices and instruments that were out of this world.
Abruptly, Marwyn whirled around, grabbed Luwin around the midriff and literally crashed them out of the spell, down through the firmament and back into the world from whence they’d flown away. The starry void burned out of his sight as they fell, hot and fiery and stretching behind them like a red star’s trail.
Luwin crashed awake with a gasp. Back among the living. Back in the Mage’s hut of snow that the Stark’s guards had raised around the second widest stump of Weirwood at High Heart. The glass candle was still there in the middle of it. Luwin looked at it in a daze. He didn’t even think before he focused back on it. He wanted to go back there. Back to where he was going before Marwyn had… why would Marwyn do that? There was no harm done. The sky… The firmament was so wondrous. So beautiful and vast. So wonderful and full of knowledge he had never even thought to grasp. No more than the old chieftain had. He could see the Flint even now, drinking rapturously from whatever was that revelation, growing more than he was with each star that passed until he shed himself of himself entirely.
Luwin watched, awestruck, as a simple mortal man left his soul behind like he’d done his body before that. Shot upwards into some new life, past stars and moons and planets like a star unto himself. Suns adrift, suns in cages, suns and moons made of bright fruit. And everywhere… worlds. Small and large, barren and alive with small men and big men and cat men and talking lizards and a shining prince with golden hair that bestrode a world all his own while waging a one-shovel war against encroaching baobabs and was looking curiously right at him-
Marwyn cursed, yanked him away from where he’d crawled forward and jumped between him and the candle, breaking his line of sight.
The last thing Luwin glimpsed before the flame went out was Death raising up the soul left behind, bright and endlessly colorful and mighty.
Then there was only Marwyn the Mage barely outlined against the darkness as he stood there with his back turned, glaring in the spot where the glass candle had once burned.
“A pox on every highborn who ever thought they had a thought worth the hot air in their empty skulls! To think I’d gotten my hopes up after the grey rats! Here I am wondering about sorcerers and R’hlorrists and warlocks and the Black Goat fuckers and every other cult in the world that the North might have taken in, but no! They somehow do one better! And I’m sure Stark will make a solemn affair of this whole ‘meeting’ and how our pact is settled and I’m free to go on my way if I wish! Even though I’m the one who demanded a meet with his pet sorcerer in the first place! Why I oughta… Bah!” Marwyn’s faint outline looked terrifying in the darkness, like a rabid dog slavering at the mouth. Somehow though, Luwin didn’t have it in him to feel afraid. Or feel much of anything. The mage then turned and Luwin didn’t need to see his face to know he wore a glare. “And you! What the hell were you thinking, child!?”
Oh, he was talking to him now? Luwin’s thoughts skittered over his brain, like spiders. “Death was rather short for Death, wasn’t it?”
Wait, that hadn’t come out right.
“Bugger this on an Other’s icy prick.” Marwyn turned, tossed some firewood into the hearth along with a splash of his belly-melting firewater. The flame roared to life, casting the snow hut and the angry face of its owner into stark relief. The Mage then sat on the edge of the weirwood stump and went about checking Luwin’s health like he had back in Oldtown, twice as angry but no less careful.
Still addled by everything he’d undergone, Luwin blurted out the next thing that came to mind. “Was that a Child of the Forest?”
“Because height surely counts most in a magic vision, clearly,” Marwyn sneered derisively. “Why should the starry void of the long night matter? Tell me what all you remember. Don’t try to find a beginning, just talk about what stood out most and go from there.”
Luwin ended up starting from the beginning anyway. Not that his undignified bath in that black pool was the beginning, but it was
a beginning. When he reached the end, though, and told Marwyn about the last glimpses of the other side before he cut the flame off, Luwin stopped. He thought he’d get assailed with questions. Maybe scolded some more. Marwyn didn’t do that though. Instead, the Mage served him a bowl of baked walnuts and a cup of sage, peppermint, basil and rosemary tea right off the fire. They cleared his mind and lit his insides with the warmth of home and hearth. Softened the longing he still felt for the stars. Not all, but some.
Didn’t really help him recall the earlier dream any better though. Which he wasn’t all that broken up over, truth be told. Bad enough he was barely competent on those skis in the waking world, he didn’t exactly relish dreaming about doing even worse. The rest, though… The greybeard with his hammer leading them around. The forest and its marvellous lights, and the red that streamed upwards from pits and waters. The green sky high above the clouds, like moss and grass set in the heavens. Luwin had no idea what to make of any of them. Then there was that little anklebiter that lured them down through the roots into the green to begin with, only to play tricks on him. Pounced unseen and laughed the whole time until they fell back out through the pool of black water.
Come to think of it, that one-eyed raven from back at the Citadel had been watching from the background too, once they passed into winter again.
When Luwin finished, Marwyn watched him for a time, not saying anything. The flickering flames cast half his face in shadow and the other as if alight with its own fire. The Mage looked like a fell spirit as he sat there. A king come forth straight from some barrow or cave far away. A god upon his throne, even, judging him from his hall of ice and stone and wood as white as bone.
“Was that really Death?” Luwin asked. He didn’t know what else to do.
“You think that’s what you saw?” Marwyn growled, spitting to the side. The glob of phlegm was smaller than usual and more pink than red. The pall upon them broke and Marwyn looked like his usual, uncouth, dangerous mortal self once more. “The only clean death I saw was of the bear, but how can you know it was real? Or are you asking about that creature? You don’t think it could have been a man? Or a woman? You dream whatever you fancy, would you have me think you never dreamed of playing god? And if it really was some god, what then? What if I told you it was the Stranger? R’hlorr the Red? The Black Goat of Qohor maybe? Do you want me to decide for you which gods are real? You follow the Old Gods of Many Faces, would you have me think they suddenly ring false to you because of one strange dream? A man’s gods are his own business.”
Not according to the Faith of the Seven and every other cult you just named. Though feeling chastised, Luwin nonetheless couldn’t contain himself. “That was nothing like any dream.”
“Nothing like any of
yours, perhaps, but how do you know it was yours at all? You didn’t work any of this magic, how do you know whose dream it was? What if it was mine? The greybeard’s? What about that little pup that aggrieved you so much?
Luwin didn’t know. “Was it?”
“Maybe it was neither. Maybe it was all of them. Maybe we passed through all their dreams at different points. Say we saw the dying dream of that old clan chief, whose dream did we pass through to get there? What does it say when a childlike spirit leads you to watch a soul being harvested by whatever that was, laughing all the way? Maybe we should tie jingling bells to our coffins and get it over with, hmm? Or maybe the whole thing was dreamed up by whoever lit the candle from halfway across the world and we saw only what he made us see, did you think of that?”
He hadn’t. He wasn’t thinking about a lot of things, it seemed.
Marwyn hauled himself off the stump, went to his pack and pulled out a leather-bound tome which he held out for Luwin to take. “Go sit and stop thinking about any of it for a while.
After that, write down everything you remember.
Only what you remember. Don’t try to guess. Don’t try to wonder. Don’t interpret anything. And for the sake of all the Gods and Others, don’t speak to anyone of
anything you saw and heard today.”
“… Alright?” What was he going to do, say no?
“Sorcerers, warlocks, shadowbinders, they’d all demand your sworn vow, Luwin,” Marwyn said, voice dark and sharp as salt on a wound. “They’d use their arts to enforce their will once you submitted yours. They’d feel it their right to exact price in blood and will and life if you then broke it. I don’t make a habit of such demands, but I hope you’ll heed the gravity of my words regardless. Now let’s get you back to the others. The camp will be abed soon and you could use some normal dreams, I reckon.”
Marwyn ushered him out, walked with him part of the way through the camp until he could find the rest of the way by himself, then stomped off to find Lord Stark.
The first thing Luwin saw once past the neatly arranged snow huts of the Winterfell guards was Lomys lying in the snow. He waved but didn’t otherwise move. Waiting to either stop feeling pain or to start shivering, Luwin knew. That was well ahead from where he himself was in Lord Stark’s honing regimen. Luwin still couldn’t believe it but the Reachman had somehow honed himself faster than all of them. So much for his weak constitution! Well, except Mullin but he was a freak of nature. He’d learned skiing in one hour, was bathing naked in the snow by the third day, started swimming in ice-cold rivers and lakes by the end of the first sennight of travel, and now he’d taken to sparring against all of Lord Stark’s retinue every time they stopped somewhere. In fact, he was doing that right now. Seemed to have gone from beating a third to just over half of them in a row, now. At their own weapons. They were none of them greenhorns either. Little wonder Rhodry was staring at him with stars in his eyes from the side.
For his part, Luwin was more surprised they were out in that blizzard. It wasn’t the worst blizzard they’d travelled through, certainly nothing on the one that prevented them from moving on the previous day. But it was still bad enough to bite the skin and make Luwin glad they hadn’t left by ship. Winter storms were
not good places to be.
Despite knowing well the reason for their haste, though, Luwin was privately glad for the delay. Their way of travel didn’t agree with him. They weren’t traveling on horses but in carriage houses pulled by dogs. Well, some of them were. Even with three sledhouses and all the guards on skis, they only barely managed to all fit in the beginning, and only because they slept in shifts
and a third or so of Luwin’s fellow acolytes had already learned to ski by the time Marwyn rescued him. Luwin had only ever read of wildlings using such things, and they were just normal sleds pulled along by hounds in crude harnesses. Most of his misgivings about them dissipated early on, admittedly, when he realized they were making better time than a horse in midsummer. He still wished for a spot of rest or at least a horse to doze on from time to time, though, instead of spending more time on those skis than anywhere else. But Lord Stark had commanded them all to learn their use swiftly, then made them switch between sledhouse and ski travel as they sped northward, sometimes without a single stop for days save however little it took to eat rations while the dogs napped and fed.
Skis. For all that he was among the worst at riding them, they were clever contraptions, Luwin had to admit. Made him wonder why no one had come up with them previously. Even the bear paws they used on their stops weren’t really bear paws as he remembered them. A man might actually be able to work and even fight in them. The tracks in the beaten snow at the center of camp certainly looked as if a lot of sparring had been done with them on very recently.
Alas, for all that they’d made good time through the Reach, the winter weather grew worse the further up the Riverlands they went, until the mother of all Blizzards caught up to them just after Acorn Hall. Which they had bypassed entirely, like Honeyholt, Horn Hill, Highgarden itself and every other hold and settlement worth a name. That was how they ended up camping within the circle of thirty weirwood stumps at High Heart, high up on the summit.
Not seeing anyone else about of those he knew, Luwin made for the largest communal snow hut that had been erected for him and the other acolytes.
Snow huts. Everyone with more than air in their head knew about snow protecting crops and plants between fall and spring. Despite that, though, it had never before occurred to him what that might be turned towards. But now, after resting half a dozen times in a huddle of bodies half again as spacious as all sledhouses put together, Luwin was starting to wonder what other old idea might serve being put to new use.
Snow houses probably wouldn’t make the best long-term dwellings. Anything resembling a permanent outposts would need to be made out of something lasting like stone or wood, perhaps on stilts like a fire lookout tower to keep it out of the snow? The huts were very good for travel and emergencies, however, and Luwin wouldn’t be surprised if moving villages started cropping up during winter times. ‘Permanent’ camps and fisheries moving ever onward as snow huts were built and rebuilt in the wake of hunting trails and fishing spots. There certainly seemed variations to the design, based on its purpose and the weather at time of making.
Luwin inspected the construction as he approached. The access tunnel was smaller and deeper into the snow than usual, but having to crawl for a few meters was a small price to pay for being protected from the gale. Opposite from the entrance, there was an actual smokeshaft, from where smoke raggedly sputtered before being dispersed by the heavy wind. It still amazed him that fire could blaze so merrily in a hearth of ice, even now. No that the hut actually needed it. Even that first night, by the time Frenken girded his loins and lit a fire on account of being the closest, the air had grown to be damn near toasty by Luwin’s standards. Despite being built large enough for them all to sit in a circle around their dinner pot, the hut had grown warm enough to lounge around in from their body heat alone. The only issue with the huts had been that Hother couldn’t stand upright, unless he was right in the middle. But a cursory glance indicated that wouldn’t be an issue this time.
He stopped at the mouth of the tunnel door and hesitated. He didn’t feel ready to sleep just yet.
He decided to walk the rest of the way to the edge of the camp and sit downwind from the weirwood stump farthest out, taking advantage of the break in the wind to gaze out into the distance. Even with the gale and blizzard, High Heart was a place beholden with surprising visibility. He took to practicing the breathing Lord Stark had taught them that first time.
“Your tolerance of the cold is beyond atrocious and will serve you worse and worse the farther north we get,” Lord Stark had told them as he stood before them clad in trousers and nothing else. His head, his arms, his chest and back, even his feet were bare.
“You will join my men in their daily conditioning. Follow my and their instructions and you will be swimming in frozen streams by the time we reach Winterfell.”
It had sounded like a mad fancy but no one dared contradict him. Time stood him witness in good stead soon enough too. Luwin would have taken up the first half of the routine regardless though. The breathing they were taught made him feel tingly all over from toe to head. He always felt incredibly relaxed afterwards as well. It was that calm and ease of mind and body both that he craved now. If it took him falling as deathly still as the husk of High heart around him, he’d do it. He’d do it and do it again until he found that core of warmth in his chest and behind his eyes that the stars always called and the glass candle kindled.
High Heart. A hill so lofty that from atop it Luwin felt as though he could see half the world. Around its brow stood a ring of huge pale stumps, all that remained of a circle of once-mighty weirwoods. Luwin’s time hadn’t been his own for most of the past two days, but he’d still gotten around to counting them all. There were thirty-one, some so wide that a child could have used them for a bed.
High Heart had been sacred to the children of the forest, guardsman Tom had told them, and some of their magic lingered here still. “No harm can ever come to those as sleep here,” he’d said for the benefit of Rhodry and Wendamyr and the others among them without history links who didn’t already know. Luwin didn’t doubt the claim. The hill was so high and the surrounding lands so flat that no enemy could approach unseen.
The other thing Tom had told them about the place didn’t turn out to be quite as true. The smallfolk hereabouts supposedly shunned the place. It was said to be haunted by the ghosts of the children of the forest who had died here when the Andal king named Erreg the Kinslayer had cut down their grove. Luwin knew about the children of the forest, and about the Andals of course, but if there was anything to this talk of ghosts, it must have taken a holiday. He’d stopped counting all the smallfolk that came up to request an audience with Lord Rickard after the first dozen., and that had been yesterday.
The memory mingled in his mind’s eye with others of similar bent, of reachmen or rivermen gathered in numbers to petition the Lord Warden of the North each time he called a stop. Not their own lords or high lords, but the ruler of a different kingdom entirely. Luwin and the rest had been wary of inquiring into what might have been kingly business, or the next thing over. Fortunately, Hother was there to tell them when they were being idiots and explained. It turned out that Rickard Stark was making stops in the exact same places he’d stopped on the way south. Places several days or more removed from their lords’ holds. Modest places but well travelled. Inns where he dined and drank and talked with the smallfolk. Hamlets where he’d spread word of good work and pay for any people of the Old Way who had the grit to uproot themselves and head on North come spring.
By now Luwin had stopped breathing entirely, which was the only reason his ears picked up the traipsing of feet upon the snow. He opened his eyes and looked towards the source. There was a small pale shape creeping between the huts, thin white hair flying wild as she leaned upon a gnarled cane. The woman could not have been more than three feet tall. The guards gave her long glances from suspicious to unnerved, but didn’t send her away. Their torchlight made her eyes gleam as red as blood in the twilight. She looked like a ghost as she approached him.
The dwarf woman sat down next to him uninvited. She squinted at him with eyes like hot coals. “I’ve dreamed of you, blind seer. You and many things besides. Would you like to know what?”
Luwin stared at the dwarf woman, forgetting to breathe. Of course, that wasn’t so great a feat these days. The first few times under Lord Stark’s direction cured him nicely of his amazement over how long he could go without pulling in air. Knowing what was waiting for him was motivation like no other to practice as long and as often as possible. He still couldn’t believe he spent his mornings stripping naked. Taking buckets of ice-cold water to the face. Outside. In winter. And then they were just told to bury themselves in the snow and stay there until their skin stopped hurting. Frenken had almost died of frostbite in the beginning, when he tried exposure without enough preparation despite Lord Stark’s commands. One would think his antimony link would’ve stood him in better stead. He refused to participate in the training afterwards and Lord Stark indulged him. But then the cold began to sink into their bones the further North they went. And Lomys, somehow, managed to toughed up faster than all but Hother and Mullin so Frenken came around as well he should when-
“Are you alive in there?’ the dwarf woman asked, knocking him on the head with her gnarled cane. It was made of wood as white as bone. Weirwood, Luwin thought. “Has the chill gotten you? I’ve seen many men freeze in winter. Everyone talks about snows dozens of feet deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than a shadowcat, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don’t have the strength to fight it. It’s easier just to sit down or go to sleep. They say you don’t feel any pain toward the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade, and then it’s like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Peaceful. Like you!”
“… Who are you?” Luwin asked, but still did not breathe in. The tips of his toes and fingers barely tingled.
“Goodness!” the dwarf woman. “You live! Do you make all the ladies wait? Is that what they teach you in those bookish halls, those greyrobes? Or is this how the young court nowadays? Mayhap I can expect a kiss?”
Luwin reared back in disgusted horror.
The little woman cackled at the sight he made. “Aye, a sloppy kiss, a bit of tongue. Ah, but has been too long, too long. Your mouth will taste of mint and mine of bones. I am too old.”
“… A maester is sworn to celibacy.”
“But you’re no maester yet and you'll be a strange sort indeed when you get ‘round to it, won’t you? I’ve dreamed of you, child. I saw you gaze into winter’s mists borne forth by strings made of red fire. I saw you walk beneath warm stars in lockstep with the son of the burned woman and the corpse cutter. I saw the god of whales too, the king that was promised, who learned the truth of his begetting only to kneel and bow his uncrowned head. And I dreamed of a she-wolf with eyes made of flint. She’s deathly sick, but you already know that don’t you? In the hall of wolves the mother lies weak and fevered with her pack scattered to the winds. A starry void is her only company, stretching far around her and seeping deep into the dreams of winter’s court. I can’t see past those stars any more than I can see my own nose, but then again, I’ve not gone all that deep to snoop. Not like you will. I saw you, blind seer. I saw you gaze past fields and mountains and the cage around the pale court’s heart to spy the black wolf’s business. I saw you stare through flame and glass while fire and blood looked over your shoulder. I saw you snoop and I saw you
burn.”
A shiver trailed down Luwin’s back. It had nothing to do with the cold. A moonturn past he might have called it a mad fancy. Not now. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Which was half a lie. “You need to speak to my master.” Which wasn’t.
“Your master?” the woman scoffed. “That snarling lump? He’s the second I told what I just told. The Ice Wolf paid double for my news and just as well for my dreams, he did. Then paid me more to stick around and share with all the rest of you youngsters. So here I am. Queer man, that Ice Wolf. Handsome too, and that beard! Gold and silver and steel wrapped in silk. Oh, if he weren’t wed and I’d been just nine centuries younger… Oh well, dreams for a younger lass those be. I’ve done what I was bid. You were the last one left, so I’ll be on my way. Unless you’d like to escort little old me on home? What am I saying, you’re not half that gallant, more’s the pity.”
By the gods, was everyone going to moon over Lord Stark’s dashing looks? It was enough to unman a man. And what’s this about living a thousand years? Luwin stared at her. “You’re very strange.”
“You’ll be strange too when you’re as old as me. My hair comes out in handfuls and no one’s kissed me for a thousand years. It’s hard to be so old, yet here I linger, just as the Old Gods linger, shrunken and feeble but not yet dead. This place belongs to them still, you know. You should heed that if you come by again. They don’t look kindly on those flames your master likes to gaze into. Or maybe not so much
likes, now. They won’t look kindly on whoever lit that fire either, mark my words. The oak recalls the acorn, the acorn dreams the oak, the stump lives in them both. And they remember when the First Men came with fire in their fists just as well as they remember the Andal brother killer and his axes of cold steel.”
The small woman turned around and left while humming some unknown tune, disappearing down the hill into the blizzard like a ghost. Luwin wondered if perhaps she was mad after all. The nearest settlement wasn’t exactly within spitting distance, this was no weather to be traveling in.
He was still sitting there and gazing out into the blizzard when Hother found him. “What are you thinking!?” The big man scolded him, hauling him off the ground, bundling him up in his own cloak over his and marching him back to their hut. “The breathin’s for when it’s nice and warm, you can’t take no warmth with you if there’s none of it to begin with! You weren’t even doing no exercises either!”
Luwin felt fine but knew better than to protest the man’s fussing. Soon he was inside, sitting next to their fire with Marwyn’s book open in front of him, a pen in one hand and a wooden mug of hot honeyed tea in the other.
Ginger tea. It was things like this that made Luwin believe Lord Stark was genuine when he spoke of them as investments. Rather than interlopers he was liable to execute at the merest sign of wrongdoing. Ginger wasn’t exactly the cheapest herb. It wasn’t even the cheapest import even in Oldtown. Assuming that was where he’d bought it rather than bringing it with him from home.
Hother left as soon as Luwin was settled across from Mullin, who was in front of him already spread out on his bedroll, like a wall between the sleeping Rhodry and the rest of their not so little hovel. The boy was doing fairly well in the day-to-day, all things considered, but he still needed a bulwark to get proper rest. Luwin didn’t remark or inquire after him. It had long become clear that his best contribution was to just treat Rhodry with the same probity he used with everyone else outside his former cellmates.
Luwin was starting the second page of his dream testimony when Hother returned with Tybald, their last wayward brother. It wasn’t enough to pull him away from writing though. Not until Harmune went on his nightly spiel of sullen grousing.
“So… when we gonna hear what all tha’ was ‘bout?”
“None of your business,” Tybald muttered as he crawled to his bedroll.
“Comm’on, spill them guts ‘fore I spill mine all o’er yours, huh?”
Harmune was certainly liable to puke all over him. Just what he did for Lord Stark’s guards to keep slipping him wineskins, Luwin couldn’t imagine. He just knew it didn’t matter how many Hother took away.
“I’ll spill that wine down your drawers if you don’t piss off,” Tybald said.
“S’cuse you! We deserve an espl’ation!”
“Since when? It’s got fuck all to do with you.”
“Horseshit. You’va been with them Lordy o’er n’hour.” What’s this now? “You don’t got
near as big a sob story ‘s all that!”
“You don’t know shit about my sob story.”
“So you
do havva sob story! Knew it!”
“Gods, you really are drunk off your arse. Someone punch him out.”
“M’sorry, Tybald old chum,” Harmune slurred, not sounding sorry at all. “Dunnae mean ter be all ‘nsensitive. ‘S’just you’ve been cryin’ and all, an’ it cannae been cuz Lord Stark went and hugged yer or nuffin, right?”
“Lord Stark gives great hugs, I’ll have you know.”
That ripped Luwin out of his write-up quite thoroughly, just as he was about to finish the greybeard’s description. Looking across the hut to the younger lad, he saw most of the others no less taken aback than himself. Even Umber was baffled at the claim.
Tybald shrunk under the attention, but didn’t clam up like he’d done every time before. “… He’s very patient.”
Harmune stared at Tybald through bloodshot eyes, blinking slowly. “…Yaknow, Umb’r, mebbe y’ain’t fullo’ shit ‘bout th’ wine,” Harmune mumbled, turning into his bedroll and throwing the wine skin away. Uncapped. Half-full. It splashed over Lomys, Wendamyr and Hother himself, much to general spluttering and the latter’s outraged fussing that the former two seemed less and less resentful of with every day that went by.
Tybald took that opportunity to pull his covers over his head, which left Luwin unable to ask him anything even if he’d been so inclined. Or if he were anywhere closer to the front of the snow hut. And he
was so inclined, considering what he’d glimpsed of his face before he bundled himself up. Tybald had looked like he’d just finished crying. But he didn’t seem scared or grief-stricken or anything like it. If anything, he looked relieved.
Turning back to his book, he noticed Mullin was gazing at him in that sideways manner of his. The one that told you he won’t pry but was there if you needed something.
“Go on. Enlighten me.”
“Tybald
Snow,” Mullin said simply. “From a village along the Weeping Water.”
Luwin blinked. All further thoughts of dream chronicles were pushed aside by the familiar feeling of his mind latching onto a new puzzle. He hadn’t thought anything of it before. Lord Stark had summoned all of them for private meetings at some point or another. Luwin’s own had been particularly arduous, especially once Lord Rickard began asking about maesters and archmaesters and teachings and their names. Still, he hadn’t dwelled much on it after. Its purpose was obvious, and the toil was nothing compared to some of his tests and lessons. Like those three months earning his third silver, which started with him getting used to tasting piss every day and didn’t get any better from there. Not that he’d ever liken a meeting with Lord Stark to tasting piss of course. This latest discovery though… “Commonners don’t usually have surnames. Just like most small settlements and villages don’t have names.” Luwin sent a long glance in the acolyte-shaped lump of bedding. “Tybald
Snow. From an unnamed village along the Weeping Water.”
Mullin grunted and finally pulled up his own covers, settling in for the night. “A bastard is always a powerful piece.”
The knowledge was too fresh to ruminate on, so Luwin took the chance to finish his writing while he waited for the pieces to assemble in the proper pattern at the back of his mind. It was some time before he was done, but Hother stayed up until he turned in as usual, reading by candlelight to give the polite fiction that he wasn’t just being a mother hen as normal.
Tybald Snow. A bastard highborn enough to merit the surname. From the Weeping Water. Luwin doubted it served to wonder about how the meeting may have gone. He supposed it wasn’t impossible that Lord Stark might be looking for a puppet heir to fill a certain vacancy that may or may not be open in that region. Knowing Tybald, though, he doubted it. There was no way someone like him would feel relief at such a news. He was timid and skittish and his face had been nowhere near scared or grief-stricken or anything like it. He really
had just looked relieved.
Ah well Luwin thought. It had nothing to do with him really.
He settled into his bedroll to rest. He slept deep that night. He didn’t dream.
They next day, the weather had cleared and their party departed as soon as fast was broken and Lord Stark spoke with some of the last petitioners. Luwin barely had enough time to eat and return the tome to Marwyn before they were off. Lord Stark seemed determined to make up for lost time, which led to a reprise of their first few days out of Oldtown. They skied and rode through the entire first day and then most of the night, taking advantage of the winter visibility. The moonlight reflected brightly off the snow to paint even the dark night white. They stopped only for however long it took to eat rations and let the dogs recover their strength before pushing on. Those of them with weaker constitutions took turns napping in the sledhouses. To his relief, Luwin was not one of them anymore, unlike in the beginning. He may not like the skis, but they were better than trying to rest inside the sledhouses. While he was thankful for the clever seat harnesses that held them tight in place, no matter how abrupt the turn, it still wasn’t very good rest.
They cut straight across the fields, over wide plains, down snowy hills and over frozen rivers. Forward scouts would sweep ahead to find good stopovers, where they rested, ate, trained and underwent Lord Stark’s harsh but increasingly bearable cold training. Luwin finally reached the point where he could stand naked in the cold without shivering. For a little while at least.
They continued to avoid every major keep and village worth a name as well, which meant they never even came close to Oldstones or Fairmarket. Unfortunately, that came to an end just after they cleared the Hag’s Mire. They crested the riverbed to find something close to a war band in size, some three hundred strong. They bore banners and livery with two blue towers united by a bridge, on a silver-grey field.
Luwin considered their own side. With all of them from the Citadel and Rickard Stark’s home guard, they numbered two hundred seven and ten men in all. Not in their favour, but their mastery of the snow and mobility would serve them in god stead if it came to blows.
They came to a halt at the base of the river run, some hundred yards away from the veritable war party. Lord Stark then called three of his trusted guards, Marwyn and, to Luwin’s astonishment, even him after a moment’s pause.
“I should’ve done a detour east of Fairmarket,” Lord Stark said as he arrived within speaking distance. “Crossed the Green Fork early, like we did the Red and Blue. Don’t you think so?” The lord looked right at Luwin as he finished.
He tried not to gulp too obviously but replied honestly. Lord Stark had called on all but the youngest of them this way at some point. It didn’t need to mean more than that. “We’d have lost a day, perhaps more if we waded through that storm.” Winter weather down in the Riverlands callows wasn’t a trifle. “But we might have been back on the Kingsroad by now.”
“I was so pleased when we got that clear day,” Lord Stark said. “It let me see in advance what we might have been wading into. Alas, we traded the blizzard for the swamp.” There was no question that he wasn’t referring to the Hags Mire. “Well, let’s see who’s been camping here on the off-chance we passed by. There was no scouting involved, I can say that much. No one speak up unless I say so.”
They went forth on their skis and came to a stop mid-way to the other camp. Then they could but wait for the other side’s riders to reach them. It took a while. Most horses had trouble wading through just one foot of snow, and this one was two feet at least. Very tight and tough after so much time to settle too. Those mounts weren’t palfreys either, let alone garrons. Especially the main one. It was a destrier, sure enough. The grandest, mightiests of mounts that gave knights their glory at tourneys. It was also complete shit for riding in winter. It did poorly against the snow. Very poorly indeed.
They wound up standing there until three of knights dug a path for the rest after them. They were brothers by their looks, Luwin realized once they were close enough. They and their leader too. They must be four of Lord Walder Frey’s oldest sons. They all looked like weasels. The one on the destrier looked to be past forty, like an especially old and tired weasel. Luwin vaguely recalled from his extensive reading that Lord Frey’s heir had one or two grandchildren of his own already.
“I am Ser Stevron Frey, first son and heir of Lord Walder Frey of the Crossing. My lord father has sent me to greet you, and inquire as to who leads this strange convoy.”
“I am Rickard of House Stark, Warden of the North and Magnar of Winter.” Rickard Stark said, looking down at the rider from where he stood easily on top of the white snow-drift. “Think you to use this war band to bar my path?”
The knight was taken aback at the accusation but remained polite enough. “Not at all. My lord father would be most honored if you would share meat and mead with him in his castle and explain your purpose here. He is most interested to know what great urgency it must surely be, to drive the Warden of the North to risk a diplomatic incident by crossing into the Riverlands unbidden and unannounced with soldiery in tow.”
“Ser Stevron, I am indeed borne of great urgency so I hope you will not mind if I speak plainly.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“It is
not your place to question me,” Luwin made sure not to gape at the sudden, icy turn in Lord Stark’s mood. “It is not your father’s place to impose on my time. It is not your place to dictate the size of my guard force. I am not obligated to share my business with you, nor him, nor even with my peers, of which there are precisely
six in the whole world. Frey is not among those names. But you know that already, don’t you? Why else would you try to project
force so far afield in a winter like this? How very much like an upstart house, to think you can make
any demands of me. Unless House Frey is in the business of camping soldiers in the path of random travellers-”
“Lord Stark-“
“The last person who interrupted me died from their own poison.”
Ser Stevreon blanched. The knights with him shifted nervously. The Stark guards were fingering their weapons, Luwin noticed belatedly. All of them had bows too. And they had the high ground.
“Nonetheless, I spared what time I could to send word ahead to the relevant parties,” Lord Stark continued harshly. “Word which I
know was received. Your father should know well that I am not to be inconvenienced. Unless House Frey’s claims of importance are but words on the wind. Either way, it is no concern of mine who Lord Tully confides in or not. And yet here you are, a stone in my path. Demanding to know my private affairs. Demanding that I go out of my way to make a stop I neither want nor need. Risking a border dispute with House Mallister
and Charlton
and Vance of Atranta just to bar my way. Seeing as every minute I waste here is another minute my dying wife is deprived of the healers I went south to get for her, would you like to reconsider any of all you’ve claimed? Reassess what
else you may or may not have planned, perhaps?”
Stevron Frey’s skin suddenly seemed to contrast a lot less with the surrounding snow. “… My father bid me convey his words, and I have.” He croaked. “But House Frey means no harm upon the Lady Stark, or House Stark and the North.”
“No more need be said then. Good day.”
“Good day, Lord Stark.”
They returned to their convoy and resumed their journey unmolested, crossing straight over the frozen Green Fork without any need of the Twins, a ferry or anything else.
It wasn’t until late evening the next day, when they made one of their rare, full-night stops upon finally reaching the Kingsroad, that Luwin could talk about it properly with anyone else. No efforts had been made to keep any part of that exchange private, so everyone knew what had happened. Amazement, fright, disbelief and many other opinions flew back and forth between the maester hopefuls. The consensus was that Lord Stark had sounded impulsive to the point of madness, but that it was completely intentional. Probably. Mullin was the one whose conclusions probably hit closest to reality.
“Lord Stark is insane,” Ryben said gleefully over a strip of jerky.
“Watch your tongue!” Umber growled. Luwin was surprised he still spent more time with them than the other northmen.
“Oh shove off, Whoresbane. ‘Get out of my way or I’ll assume you’re part of the plot to murder my wife’ is what he basically said. He threatened a blood feud. A war between House Frey and all the North! Even you have to admit that sounds mad, unless Luwin’s looking to get a link in tall tales now?”
Luwin gave Ryben a most unimpressed stare. He did not appreciate being thrown in front of the horse. At all.
“Or he
wants people to think him a mad dog,” Mullin mused. He was in his smallclothes, lying bare-skinned on the snowy floor of the hut with his hands under his head. He wasn’t muscled
quite like a maiden’s fantasy yet but he was getting close. “Either news hasn’t caught up, or it
has reached the Twins and Lord Frey made a rash decision. Both options illustrate the current state of the new home we’re traveling to. The foreign dealings of House Stark and the North are balanced on an edge. On one side is all new interest by everyone. On the other side is business as usual, if only for southron peace of mind. Though less ‘nothing to see’ and more ‘don’t want the trouble of the mad dog’s nose twitching in my direction next.’ Say your guard dog breaks something precious. You can’t just kill him or your property will get invaded by thieves and robbers or what have you.”
“Lord Stark’s not a dog,” Hother grumbled.
“But he wants to be thought as one, methinks,” Mullin replied. “Or maybe a wolf. A mad wolf. The Mad Wolf of the North. And then there’s
who he showed this false front to.”
“House Frey,” Ryben said mockingly. “A glorified tollman just six centuries old. Mean-spirited, uppity weasels all of them. Mistrusted by practically everyone. Disliked too, and not just because Old Walder’s a miserly cunt. But because they always reach
above their station.”
“Genna Lannister,” Rhodry said. Luwin carefully didn’t react unduly to him speaking up, lest he sabotage his progress. Mullin had done well to start training him in the arts of war. “And now, this.”
“Trying to
force the Lord Warden of the North to divert from his path and pay their toll,” Ryben said. “Or that’s how Lord Stark will be able to spin it in the future, if he wants.”
“Nobody will believe the Freys over him,” Mullin said, rolling onto his front. His back was a bright pink instead of the red Luwin still went after the first quarter of an hour. He had no goosebumps either. “Or they won’t
openly believe them. They may even be inclined to think well of Stark for being at odds with them. Lord Walder’s just a couple of grandbastard generations away from fielding an army out of his own breeches, yet they have no feats of valor or honor to their name. Even though the last war happened pretty recently, as these things go.”
“Should even be enough confusion to deter any other nosy cunts from bothering him and us for a while, least from less than great houses,” Ryben mused. “Meantime, House Tully’s been given a reason to publically censure House Frey without losing face. Then there’s the Iron Throne. Stark’s mad dog reputation may even be a balm to house
Hightower’s image. He
broke the
Citadel. Half or more of the realm are liable to think Stark and Hightowers are themselves in a blood feud now. But if this incident reaches King’s Landing before Lord Leyton is inevitably summoned there to account to the King...”
They talked of a lot more than that, especially about the long-term strategic implications of souring relations with the House that could decide whether or not you could cross the Trident. But that wasn’t likely to become too important in their lifetime. After all, what were the odds of the North waging war on the south?
Luwin still thought their conclusions were a bit simplistic. Or perhaps not simple enough? It could just be that Lord Rickard was merely venting. He clearly hadn’t planned for the encounter. But Marwyn agreed with the broad strokes during dinner.
“They’ll call it the Hour of the Wolf again and just be glad it’s over,” Marwyn grunted over his soup. “Put it out of their minds lest they need to take even the briefest break from that game of thrones they like to play so much. Dismiss it as Stark being a snob at worst. Even then they’ll say it’s to be expected. The real question is whether Hoster Tully will really let it pass without any resentment over Stark causing tension between him and such a strong bannerman.”
It should have been the end of the matter. And it was, for most of them. But Luwin thought his Master in the Mysteries also seemed a tad distracted. Not that anyone else noticed, except Mullin maybe, but Luwin was becoming a dab hand at detecting what few subtleties were speckled amidst the abrasiveness. He lingered behind when the others dispersed and took a seat next to the archmaester on the log. If not Luwin, who else was going to inquire after his wellbeing?
Luwin thought that was immensely sad. “Master, is everything alright?”
Marwyn turned his face away from the fire pit and looked up at him with a strange expression.
Luwin would have been intimidated by the sight once, but this time it only spurred him on. “You seem out of sorts. Can I make you some tea or…?”
“… You’re a good boy, Luwin.”
Now he felt outright alarmed. He didn’t know how to follow up though, so he just sat and waited. Looked around while the world reoriented itself. Lord Rickard was at the edge of camp, talking to the smallfolk again. They were a pittance compared to High Heart or the Blackwood lands, but groups of them still cropped up to talk to Lord Stark even now, whenever they stopped for more than an hour.
“The High King’s words do travel far, borne by the winds of winter,” Marwyn said with uncharacteristic melancholy. They sounded like the lines of an old song, its true meaning lost in translation. “I wish I could believe my own eyes.”
“… Master?”
“A highborn that treats honestly.”
As opposed to one who’d just pre-empted the destruction of his own reputation by way of
faking it to the one house in Westeros guaranteed to bungle it all the way around back in his favor.
“What if he does though?” Luwin pondered. “Treat honestly. I don’t think there’s anything of what he told Ser Frey that he didn’t mean.”
“But he’d have refrained if it were anyone else, and he’d have meant that just as much.”
Luwin didn’t know what to say when he saw the man descend even further into gloom. He didn’t know what he needed to say. What he should say, to dispel this fey mood. He didn’t even know what had brought it on. It couldn’t be just politics. He’d already tried to think about everything he could think of but still didn’t see the way. It was a common thing for him, much to Luwin’s dismay. To never get the right ideas when he needed.
But he had a way to deal with that now too. So he didn’t try to think anymore about it. He just waited and watched. And waited still.
Then it came to him, like a revelation. And it didn’t take a whole day this time. For the first time, he managed to harness his subconscious penchant for puzzles in time for it to be of actual use. “You told me before, that you don’t make nearly as many rhetorical questions as you seem.”
“I did say that.”
“Master… This wasn’t a rhetorical question just now, but…”
“Spit it out, boy.”
“Might… there be anything
else you wish you could believe your own eyes on?”
Marwyn looked past the fire at the white raven preening itself on the log across from them. He was silent so long that Luwin thought he wouldn’t answer, but then… “Have you ever been inside the Starry Sept?”
Well, that came out of nowhere. “Once, just to see what it looked like on the inside.”
“What stuck with you most?”
“The candles.” Luwin said immediately.
“Aye, the candles,” Marwyn said. “Such a grand edifice. Made of black marble and arched windows and lit by thousands of candles to represent the stars. It’s almost like they’re meant to be a grand, uplifting symbol for those who gaze upon them. Candlelight. Fire turned into a symbol of the beautiful life waiting for the faithful past the heavens. Such beautiful things, stars. So bright. So enlightening. So noble.”
“… Aren’t they?”
“They’re a pile of shit.”
Luwn gaped. He couldn’t help it.
“The Rhoynar taught the Andals steel and warcraft. This happened just as Valyria was turning its eyes west in the waning days of their war with the Ghiscary. What does that tell you?”
Luwin’s mouth clamped shut, but it’s not like he would ever deny a maester an answer. “They wanted allies against the Dragonlords.”
“Aye,” Marwyn said, taking a large bite of sourleaf. “Then a new religion suddenly comes out of nowhere and spreads as fast as plague through rats. It’s the most prescriptive, most
organised religion of all of written history. Then the Andals promptly pick up and leave Rhoyne in the dust and cross into Westeros with seven-pointed stars cut into their flesh and streaming blood.”
“… What does the Andal Invasion have to do with anything?”
“You still look only at the surface. Listen and
learn. No religion has ever saved anyone from death and suffering. No god ever came down from heaven to save mankind. It’s always man that has to solve his own problems. And yet you still get an uppity cult somehow erupting into that plague known as
organised religion,” Marwyn spat the words like they were snake venom freshly sucked from a bite. “Always it’s carried on the back of one thing:
symbols. Legends. Stories. Omens. Warnings to scare you into doing what they want. Interesting thing, it always comes down to your money and your life. For our age, dragons are the symbols – they brought with them the decay of our highest born. Decay in power. Decay in morals. Decay in wisdom. In the time of Hugor and Argos, the seven-pointed star became the symbol of decay for the
common born. You think the Faith of the Seven started out preaching about protecting women and children? They wouldn’t have conquered even half the Vale before their men revolted! The seven-pointed star brought submission to those born under it, and it brought war and death to those
not born under it. It brought ruin and subjugation too, to the children of those brave and wise enough to know there is no god coming to save you. Isn’t it strange that the Andals started getting subdued by the First Men just around the time they stopped cutting that symbol in their flesh? You think it’s a coincidence that it took the Hightowers on the other side of the world from Andalos with no blood of Hugor in their veins to finally turn the Faith of the Seven into something productive?”
“… Are you saying the Faith of the Seven used blood magic?”
“You still aren’t listening. Or I’m an even worse teacher than I thought. The answer is
maybe, but that’s not the point!”
“I’m sorry master, I don’t understand what you want me to see.”
“Stars, boy.
Stars. It’s starlight that guides the worst predators of the night. It’s by starlight that the Deep Ones come out of their seas to feast and raid. It’s for a sunless sky that the abominations of Leng wish to trade away the sun. It was a red star that heralded the Long Night. When the Bloodstone Emperor of eastern myth killed his sister the Amethyst Empress and caused a generational darkness, it was a black star that came down from the sky for him to worship and work evil magics. When the second moon flew too close to the sun, it was a red star that broke it and brought dragons raining from the sky. Even the exception to this trend only proves the rule. House Dayne’s sword is said to have been made from a fallen star. Depending how you read the legends, Dawn may have been Lightbringer itself. The flaming sword wielded by the hero of the Dawn. Hyrkoon the Hero, Yin Tar, Neferion, Eldric Shadowchaser who used a sword pale as ice to beat the Others back! But you need only study the myths to realise the star came down
before the Long Night even started. One of those dragons that rained down perhaps? If the moon shattered, maybe the dragons were just meteorites? They’d certainly look like flaming beasts at night, wouldn’t they?” Marwyn spat a glob of red phlegm into the fire. It hissed like roast pig. “Stars, Luwin. As portents go, they are
not good ones. Never. They don’t bring light and love. Especially when you’re not born under them to begin with. They herald
doom. The more they figure in a cult’s symbology, the bigger the odds of butchered bodies in the cellar. And the farther East you go, the closer to Asshai you chase rumors and spellcraft and arcane stories, the more stars you’ll see in your dreams as warlocks, blood mages and shadowbinders try to reel you in. Promises of answers. The wisdom of the stars. Signs. Dream visitations. Just a small price for their knowledge. Just a bit less small the more you ask. Your gold. Your time. Your blood.” Marwyn’s face twisted into a strange, grim smile. “Docksite temple sacrifices.”
Luwin felt a terrible chill run down his spine and it had nothing to do with the cold winter. “… Master,” Luwin ventured, thinking he might finally see where this is going. “The vision in the candle. What did it really mean?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? The old man that died. What did you feel from him at the end?”
“He was… joyful.” Luwin answered. He didn’t think he’d ever forget it. “He didn’t want to go on being so small. He was glad when he didn’t have to, I think. Content. Excited, even, to be more than he was.”
“Joyful, huh?” Marwyn wondered. “More than he was, huh? Is that what happened, do you think?”
The words were the same as every other time Luwin failed a test of some kind, yet the tone wasn’t. “I think so?” But it was as much a question as an answer, wasn’t it? “What… did it look like to you, master?
“I saw a dying man,” Marwyn said, sounding more like the ghost of High heart than anything else. “I saw a creature of the night ready to take him. I saw a vision of heaven that promises everything as easy as dreaming. After all, with the right dream everything can be real. Oh, what a wonderful vision. A creature of the dark and void and it was
good. Sure, he wants your soul, but he’ll pay you with so much enlightenment that you’ll leave it behind anyway. After all, isn’t the soul just a different sort of body? The world is made of Substance, Motion and Consciousness, isn’t it? If motion is what governs life and ends with you leaving your
substance behind, why should consciousness be the end of it?” Marwyn sounded like he actually wished he could believe it. Wondering. Awestruck, almost. But his final words were neither easy nor hopeful. “Whatever that was… that’s what blood sacrifice
wishes it was.”
“Master…” But Luwin didn’t know what to say.
They sat there alone at the fire until the embers burned low and Lord Stark had almost finished with the smallfolk. Luwin wondered about the distance the guards kept from them still. He wished it was just lingering mistrust after the Citadel’s treachery and nothing darker.
“Do you still want to learn from me, Luwin?” Marwyn asked suddenly, though he didn’t face him. He was watching the white raven still. “Do you want to learn deeper of the mysteries?”
“… I think so.”
“Well I need you to
know so. Going in cokeyed won’t cut it anymore. Not where we’re going. Now with what we might be getting into.”
Luwin felt alarmed all over again. “… What do you mean? Why would you say this?”
“Because that warlock or sorcerer or whatever it was had a cloak of flames, but underneath was a
void. In all my learning and my travels, I only found three things that appear that way in the dream realm. It could be a deliberate seeming, in which case he or she or it is beyond us and possibly not human at all. It could be a dream dear to their heart, and therefore closest to the surface of their thoughts. Or it could be a wound.” Luwin hadn’t heard Marwyn so grim even while he was vowing revenge on the citadel traitors. “Substance is Substance, Motion begets Motion, and Consciousness suffers vacuums even more poorly than nature does. Connection, relation, that’s how it exists at all. That thing will be influencing the dreams and thoughts of everyone around it and no mistake. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, I don’t even know if it’s doing it knowingly. Or at all, outside that dream specifically. What I
can say, though, is this: the net it casts is
wide. And while you were too put-upon in to ask anything of the wolf-pup, I was not so far gone. And what it told me is this: that thing was its sibling. And the ‘old ones of the forest’ had barred it from the
Greendream because, in its own words, ‘they think he will break everything.’”
The white raven stopped preening itself and hopped over the fire to land on Luwin’s knee, though it was Marwyn its eyes were locked upon. What a strange and friendly bird, Luwin thought. Lord Stark had excellent tastes in pets, if nothing else.
Marwyn, bizarrely, returned its stare with one just as intense. “I am going to Winterfell after all. Either to treat with whoever that dreamer is, or to kill it dead.”
“Dead! Dead! Dead!”
The raven flew away from them, back to the shoulder of the man whose letters it bore and whose food it ate. Lord Rickard was rubbing his eyes when the bird reached him. And then the man dismissed the last commoner, looked across the camp straight to Marwyn and nodded in the direction of his personal snow hut.
Luwin felt a puzzle he didn’t know he was working on all but smash into his brain.
Marwyn saw the look on his face and laughed deep in his belly. “Hahaha! Ah. Thank you Luwin. Truly. It’s that look of dawning realisation I live for. Cherish that feeling, lad. It will serve you well. Take it from someone who knows what its lack brings. Ignorance isn’t bliss, no matter what priests say. Dawning realisation should
always be your purpose. When things link up in a way never before seen, that’s when we truly glimpse the mechanics of the universe. The results of logic, of natural progression? Boring! An expected result? Dull! An obvious next step? Bah! Where’s the point in that? We want to see the unexpected! The strange and terrible! A dream may soothe, but our nightmares make us run and cry ‘BEHOLD!’”
Easy for him to say. After this, Luwin didn’t fancy he’ll ever want to dream dreams at all! “You know what, no. Just no.
No.” Luwin grumbled, not even knowing what he was about to say until the words were out. “We’rvegotten
far to accustomed to making plans based on suspicions and assumptions. I’d much rather act based only on what I
know instead.”
Marwyn laughed. It sounded startled, like a sleeping hound that had just been splashed with a bucket of water. “Oho! Indeed! Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is . . . and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. Hah! That’s what I like about you, Luwin. You have such wonderful common sense.” The Mage pushed himself to his feet, though he paused before leaving. “You’ll be Maester of Winterfell, I hope you realise.”
All talk of dreams and prophecies and demons abruptly scattered to the seven winds. “What?”
“You’ll most likely be Winterfell’s maester, if anything at all survives of the Citadel’s customs by the end of this trip.” Marwyn had the gall to look surprised that Luwin hadn’t known this. “Oh come now, lad. Who else could it be? Hother’s got his own family loyalty and Qyburn is unfit.”
Luwin was reeling. “But… I thought…”
“You thought it would be me?” Marwyn seemed far too amused for someone who’d just stated his plan to possibly murder someone in their master’s employ. Oh gods, Marwyn planned to murder someone in their master’s employ! “Luwin. Lad. Lord Stark’s wife is on her death bed and his heir was almost murdered because his maester decided he knew better than him. Lord Stark wants someone humble, loyal and obedient. I can at most be
one of those things, assuming I live to see the morn anyway.”
Having finished his spiel, Marwyn turned to stomp after Lord Stark as summoned.
“Master, wait…” Luwin jumped to his feet, but found them locked in place.
“Sweet dreams lad,” Marwyn grunted fondly as he walked away. “May they be cut and dry. But just in case they aren’t, remember this: dreamers are aware of a lot more asleep than awake. That goes for you just as much as for anyone trying to make your dream their own.”
The dark end to that conversation left Luwin feeling worried, fretful and completely out of sorts in every way he didn’t have mind to find words for. He didn’t even care about the strange looks being sent to him by the stark guards in earshot. The mage’s words sounded like they had multiple layers of meaning loaded onto them.
Then it occurred to him that he might have just heard Marwyn’s last words.
The horror and terror he experienced were beyond description. The despair he felt next was almost as terrible, upon realising that he couldn’t do what he usually did in this situation, which was go running to the maesters for help.
Then he walked back his own thoughts and literally slapped himself.
He’d completely forgotten about Qyburn!
