WHAT STRANGE HELL OR HEAVEN

(follow-up of FAMILY DUTY HONOR)

I open my eyes and ser Barristan is sitting beside me in the tent, wearing a dirty-white tunic and a red-and-black Targaryen cloak. A candle lights his thoughtful face, his close-cropped white hair and beard. He turns to me and breaks into his unassuming smile. "Awake at last, Brynden!"

I am lying on some kind of cot, covered in furs. At least I am dying in a tent, on a battlefield, the Seven be thanked. My side hurts, my head hurts. The last thing I remember is Barristan thrusting his sword between my ribs, the pain all but blanking out my vision. Blood-soaked snow. So much blood.

I should not be awake.

"It was a duel to the death," I manage to whisper.

Barristan shrugs. "I asked the Khaleesi for your life. She granted it. She is most generous and forgiving."

I barely remember Queen Daenerys Targaryen, her face and hair too bright and pale on the battlefield to distinguish her features. Arthur Dayne always had the same effect on me.

"So - the North has lost?"

"Aye," Barristan replies somberly. "You fought masterfully, lad. We were well-matched. I landed a lucky blow."

Weird to be addressed as "lad" by a knight past sixty, only a handful of years my senior. He called me thus when I was sixteen and hopelessly in love with the young, handsome Kingsguard. That was the first and last time we met.

"To the death," I insist mindlessly. "You should have killed me."

"I was ready to." Barristan is grim. "But you were beaten, and there was a chance to save you. Are you that sorry, Brynden?"

A sudden thought strikes me. "Maege?"

"Out there, discussing terms with the queen. Aye, I know, a dismal thought." Barristan laughs quietly.

I try to smile, not quite managing it. "What now?"

"We wait for you to recover, and then move against the Others. Queen Daenerys means to leave you in command of the Northern Army…"

"No. Waiting - waste of time. Give it to Mallister."

"We'll see. Anyway she and Lady Maege are discussing a united North, belonging to the Queen but ruled by a Warden, as it has been for centuries. Are you refusing this post too?"

"Why is she showering titles on me?" I try to raise on my elbows, but the pain is too much.

Barristan bends over me, holding me still with a hand on my shoulder and checking my bandages. "Don't tear the stitches, Bryn." He looks me over, concerned, and brushes away a grey strand from my face.

I grab his wrist. "We're too old for this."

He chuckles and does not pull away. "To me, you haven't changed one whit in forty years."

I grin tiredly. "Neither have you." I grasp his hand. "We hurt each other, but we parted in peace. That's what kept me going all these years. The peace - but also the hurt, can you understand?" I do not know why I am telling him this. "Hurting meant remembering. I treasured it."

Barristan smiles shyly, looks away. I have always had the power to embarrass him to death. "It was the same for me. Missing you was agony. But yes, I am at peace, now."

I let his hand go. Mine is trembling. I touch my face, grab my hair. "It can't be. It's too perfect."

He frowns at me. "What?"

"All of this. Being still alive. Maege safe and debating with the queen. The North united. Us, talking in friendship after so many years." An eerie fear creeps through my bones. "What strange hell or heaven is this? I am dead, am I not? You killed me."

Barristan shakes his head firmly. "Don't be a stupid trout as usual. Think. Your wounds ache, right? So how can you be dead?"

I cannot chase that deep, cold fear away. "The duel was to the death," I repeat for the third time.

Barristan lets out a long, infinitely sad sigh. "Since you say so." He looks at me with affection. I stare into his pale, pale blue eyes, trying to understand, and do not notice at once.

A red stain is spreading on the front of his white tunic. It was not there before. It keeps getting wider, around the heart. There is a ragged tear in the fabric. My sword made it, before or after he cut me.

He is still looking at me kindly.

I shake my head, cannot talk. My breath has left me. My throat opens and closes on something that might be "No."

"You have learned, lad," Barristan says with his long-cherished smile, lying in the bloody snow. "I am proud of you."

My sight is failing. I cannot see him clearly anymore.

I try to hold on to his image, but it slips away from me, and suddenly I am looking at a grey-garbed Lord Jason Mallister, sitting beside me.

I close my eyes and try to die.

THE END