BEFORE ANYTHING, PLEASE , FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, READ ALL OF THE FIVE A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE BOOKS AVAILBLE (A GAME OF THRONES, A CLASH OF KINGS, A STORM OF SWORDS, A FEAST FOR CROWS, AND A DANCE WITH DRAGONS), THIS TAKES PLACE SHORTLY AFTER A DANCE WITH DRAGONS AND CONSEQUENTIALLY HAS SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES.
Now, let's calm down.
What this is:
This is my humble, more accurately, pathetic attempt to conclude the entire ASOIAF saga, really just a way to fill the days and weeks and months waiting for the sixth book in the saga, The Winds of Winter.
This particular fic is my counterpart to TWOW, and when it is completed it will be followed by another one, called A River of Fire, which will be the counterpart to A Dream of Spring, the planned seventh and final Song of Ice and Fire book.
Disclaimers and notes:
First off, I do not own any of the characters or races or geography or names, etc. They belong to George R. R. Martin, whose writing I cannot hope to even approach within 1000000 light-years of it. Yes, I am aware that GRRM is against ASOIAF fanfics, but this is really just a way for me to fill the wait for TWOW (write like the Winds of Winter, George!) and see my pet theories 'come true'
Second of all, don't expect regular updates or brilliant plotting, this is fanfiction by a rather poor writer. If you have any complaints/constructive criticism/accolades (especially these!) or you have spotted a mistake, please post in the reviews section.
I hope you enjoy my humble efforts!
And, without further ado, let it begin!
THE REIGN OF ICE
BY
THE21STGUN
Prologue
The winds bit into his skin and bones, colder and bitterer than any steel, even the one Raev'stak had thrust into his stomach, that no human had forged. Even the tattered black cloak Raev'stak had mockingly allowed him to keep on offered no protection from the cold and snow. But he had to go on, trudge on through the snow, the cold, and the never-ending, eternally replaying memories in his ruined head. He had to tell them. He had to warn them.
He did not know how long he had been this way, a grotesque, macabre husk of a man, how long had passed since that cold day, so cold, when the old ranger had urged them to start for the Wall. All he knew that his memory was a black wall of nothingness with only one directive flashing like light in what had been his brain: Warn them. They are coming.
But he did remember how to get to where the ones he had to warn were. Just go south, until the great ice stops you. He continued on, his hideous, mutilated face pointing south. South, south, he had to go on, despite the searing ice in his soul, despite the memory of Raev'stak and his voice like the cracking of ice and all the ones he had brought over to the necromancer's side. Not an Other, not anymore, for me at least, not an Other, for now I am become like them, bound to death and set against life forever. The snow went on and on and on, and even any footprints he made were erased within moments by the relentlessly falling whiteness. Good, the once-man thought, it will be harder for them to track me. Not even Will could find me now.
Not that they can do anything to me. You cannot fight the dead.
He made good time, for a dead man. Within a day he was in sight of that great ice structure that had been built thousands of years ago to keep certain creatures out. Creatures like me. In front of him the smoke from the fires of Castle Black, black as its origin, melded into the darkness of predawn. I am the fire that burns against the cold. He had heard those words, somewhere, far away in time and space, and yet very near. He would have scratched his head, raking his fingers through his black hair, but that was just another thing Raev'stak had taken away and given only this pathetic quasi-'life' in return. He walked, slow and clumsy, tripping again and again, falling headfirst into the white, cold snow and rising slowly and awkwardly, ever south. South was where a faint glimmer of something resembling a life awaited, where his nerveless legs would carry him no matter what his will was. If I have a will any more. Until he had awakened, suddenly free of the commands of Raev'stak, the one armored in a coat of ever-shifting metal, whose sword was colder than ice. And from the commands of all the others like him. Heh, the dead man thought. He would have smiled, like the smiles that had broken many a maiden's heart, but his face refused to budge. It was frozen, just like the rest of him and everything around him.
The Wall no longer wept. Unlike that fragment of a memory in which he had strode out of the gate near Castle Black, seeing the great ice weep the tears of summer. Summer? he thought as he neared the ice, stark blue, towering above the white kingdom of snow, white as its new masters.
Even if his mouth would kindly move to allow breath and speech to flow in and out, he could not express the joy he felt when he saw the black cloaked watchman looking down at him. I am the watcher on the walls.
Who said that?
He did not enjoy the terror in the watchman's eyes, not anymore, not since he escaped Raev'stak and his band. All too soon both of the small fires he liked to call 'emotions' within him winked out. It was not as if he liked fire any more. He feared it.
He trudged on and on and on, fearing fire and arrows and a thousand and one other things. I thought dead men had nothing to fear. Finally, he stood a hundred paces before that iron gate, cold and hard like the north itself. He thought: This is it. I'm almost back. Back to where I should be.
He had only a vague recollection of what that place was, but he did know it was here.
Then, he heard a horn. Oooooohtooooooohoooooh.
One blast, he recalled, one blast means that someone… someone they like is returning. Could it be they are welcoming me home?
Then, it blew again, Ooooohtoooooohooooooooh.
Bad people. Bad people are coming, those wild wolf men. But I can handle it. No one can fight the dead.
Finally, another blast. Oooohtooooooohooooooooooh.
And then he realized he was not welcome on the great ice. He realized they did not want him back.
I'll make them see, he thought, I'll make them take me back. I am one of them, no? That's what the light in my memory tells me. This is where I belong.
He ran towards the gate, irrationally willing it to open at his command. But all that happened was that he was pushed back. And then he remembered. I am the shield that guards the realms of men.
He'd said those words once, before the drunken, fat man who wore a crystal, beneath the small, pathetic icons of those he had sung to, once. In their light he had been named and anointed, and swore to protect the innocent and defend the weak, but that was while he had had a name. But now it was they who shielded, they who protected, they who guarded the realm from monsters such as him. He could hear a strong, feminine voice, carried up to the heavens and reaching even higher than the cage that went up to the top of the Wall.
"R'hllor!" it cried, in voices that spoke of pain and grief and abandonment, "I pray to you, Lord of Light, Creator, Heart of Flame."
He was unsettled by the talk of fire, distant as it seemed here amidst the ice and snow and cold that he knew would bring his masters soon, all too soon. The darkness will sweep over ice walls and steel gates and metal swords, will conquer all and quench the fire of life forever. Ignorant of these pessimistic, heretical thoughts, the voice continued in its desperate prayer. "R'hllor, take the body and blood of this good man, who although worshipped other, false gods was a man worthy of You and Your light, R'hllor. Let him be reborn in Your light, and let his blood protect us from the dark and cold servants of the Other, whose name may not be spoken, who seek to extinguish the light. Protect us, R'hllor, Lord of Light, for the night is dark and full of terrors."
He ran. Or more precisely, tried to run. His legs were little more than bones tied to skin by the power of Raev'stak, and failed to propel him through the snow very fast.
The fiery arrow lit up the darkness. I am the sword in the darkness, the light that brings the dawn.
It missed, burning a clump of white snow to water a few yards ahead of him, but it was not the end. Another one, and another, and another, a triple-headed dragon breathing his murderous flame at him.
He turned around and in his brain something flashed that he still remembered from the darkness of his time with Raev'stak:
"Ahl barkt el Ak Stak, ahl burz Ak Ahai, ahl barkt Ak Stak vurz nas dauth vuz burzi Dracarys. Barkt."
When they hit him, the heat was not a pain, but a blessing. As the darkness took over and clouded out his pathetic existence, he heard someone shout: "There was only one pathetic one there, you fools! He looks… familiar. He looked like a Valeman."
Before Stak came to collect his soul, the dead man who, in his short eighteen years of life had been called lordling and ser, and occasionally, popinjay, smiled inside and thought: Night gathers, and now their watch begins.
TO BE CONTINUED
