The Three-Eyed Crow
Once, he walked in the daylight as a sorcerer and adviser to kings. In those days Brynden Rivers had seen much and caused just as much. Now, as a greenseer wrapped in the roots of the earth he saw more and caused less, though his touch was much more subtle and dangerous these past few summers. Between the eyes he was born with and those granted by his arts Brynden had seen most of the world inhabited by men.
But not this place.
Where am I?
He stood as a man, shorn of his preferred guises, under a sky the color of rust. The sun gleamed fitfully, shining down on fields of green-gold grass covering rolling hills. Here and there copses of trees, all slender as reeds, shot into the air.
His first thought was of the Dothraki Sea, one of the few places in the worlds of men where grass stretched from horizon to horizon, but further examination proved that false. Brynden did not know the Dothraki lands well, but he knew enough: the sky and grass were far too wrong, even through the distorted glass of dreams.
Brynden took a quick look at the sun. It wasn't strong, which suggested the far north, but it was higher in the sky than one might see in the lands beyond the Wall. It also wasn't directly overhead, so the rough direction was east. Or west, I've no idea if it's morn or eve right now. There were no recognizable landmarks around him, just grass, hills and boulders the color of the sky.
The wind stirred, a gentle breeze flowing around the hills. Brynden breathed deep, catching the tang of salt in the air. Whichever direction the wind blew from, the sea was nearby. Access to the sea meant the possibility of seafarers, fishermen, sailors, somebody who knew where he was and what this meant.
To the sea, then.
The old greenseer marshaled his power and tried to return to a more comfortable form. His body wavered but stubbornly refused to change. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and put all his effort into the change, willing himself to return to his favored crow self. Again, nothing happened.
Brynden sighed, cocking an eye towards the sun. "If this is meant to teach me humility," he said in the general direction of nowhere and everywhere, "I'm afraid you may be left wanting." No response came, but he wasn't expecting one. The singers weren't the greatest conversationalists at the best of times, and even after half a century in their care Brynden knew little of their ways. "Very well. If I must walk, then walk I shall."
Thus resolved, Brynden Rivers set off across the rolling plain towards the sea.
His first steps felt oddly light, in fact they were almost too light, for instead of a steady gait he bounced through the grass like a young boy. The feeling was exhilarating at first, then his sense of confusion deepened. Wherever in the waking world this place was—if indeed it existed there—was truly no part of the world he had ever heard of, and someone surely would have told tales of a country where men felt lighter just by standing on its ground.
Brynden continued to walk, finding a long, loping stride that allowed him to cover ground quickly whilst retaining enough of his dignity. Climbing over and around the hills, he found himself surrounded by ponds and lakes of all sizes, each one perfectly round and surrounded by a high embankment. Interesting, that, he mused. Why go to all the trouble to build such large damworks in such a haphazard manner? It was an interesting question, but one he could reexamine at some other point: in the middle distance he could see the unmistakable gleam of sunlight on the water.
It took him close to an hour in perception before he passed the last of the ponds and reached the sea, or rather a long bay not unlike the Blackwater's mouth with long sloping hills covered in grass, short brush and tall trees that seemed to him far too thin to be so large. The water was the color of Dornish wine and lapped gently against a shoreline of red sand. Between him and the sea lay a city of white Valyrian stone and glass. Towers higher than any works in Westeros save the Hightower or the Wall sprouted alongside wide streets lined with trees. Overhead he could hear gulls calling and circling around the docks.
"Huh," a distinctly female voice said from his left. "Now that's a thing I didn't expect." He turned and, as he half-expected, half-dreaded, sure enough that damned woman was standing there, looking at the city with fond confusion. "I wonder, am I generating this? Or did George? The imagery has to be coming from me, but was it an unconscious interest in having familiar ground to stand on on my part, or is it George grabbing this out of my mind to make me more comfortable? Could go either way, really…" she muttered.
Brynden felt a very familiar eyebrow twitch coming on. He cleared his throat, the woman's mumbled diatribe broke off and she jumped, turning to face him. Brynden put on his best sardonic smile and bowed. "My lady," he drawled.
"Woof!" She blinked hard, then gave him a considering look. "Wasn't expecting guests either," she said finally. "And you are—?"
"Just a humble traveler who found himself lost in a strange land, my lady," he replied. "Do you happen to know where we are?"
"Oh sure, this is Acidalia. Well, okay, technically that's Acidalia," she said, waving at the sea, "but the old planum's been underwater for a hundred years or so. This is Pathfinder Bay, the mouth of the River Mawrth at the eastern edge of the Viking Gulf, and down there is the town of Watney's Crossing. My hometown, as a matter of fact," she added with a faint smile.
"This is… no place in the world I know of," Brynden replied. The words were familiar—the woman had been using the name Acidalia in waking life now and again. And yet, having a place to the name didn't make it any more recognizable.
"True enough," the woman replied. "But there are other worlds than yours."
Brynden felt his eyebrow twitch again. "That explains very little," he said.
"Not arguing that, but then I'm not here to argue at all," she replied. "I'm here to talk to a tree. So, George, what gives?"
What? "What?" he said.
The woman looked at him strangely. "Winterfell? You know, the moment where I touched the heart tree and you guys yelled so loud my head almost exploded? The one where I spent the last three months trying to put together something that'd let us talk without that happening? You… do remember that, right?"
Brynden looked baffled. "My lady, I… have no recollection of this." The woman had been skulking around Winterfell, true, interfering with his plots and ploys though not enough to cause true injury, but the heart tree? "I fear there may be some misunderstanding between us."
The woman gave him another close look. "You're…" she said, "not George, are you?"
"Alas, my lady, the name my mother gave me was Brynden." She sagged a little, hanging her head and laughing ruefully.
"Well," she said weakly, "that one's on me. Though to be honest, if I was going to gijinka a weirwood you're pretty much what I'd come up with. Maybe dye the hair red, though." Brynden had no idea what any of that meant. "Okay, so if you're not George, that means George is still around here somewhere. So… next step: find George."
"Who would George be?" Brynden asked.
"Let me explain," the woman said, then paused. "No, that would take too long. Let me sum up: there's a miniature weirwood in a box on my ship named George. I've connected myself to him by being fiendishly clever, and now I want to know what, exactly, George and his buddies need to tell me so goddamned urgently. Instead of giving me a straight answer, George has dragged me and an albino—that's you—into a representation of the town I grew up in and is hiding around here somewhere. Clear?"
"Not quite," Brynden said, "but I've worked with worse intelligence before. So once we find your stray weirwood, what happens next?"
"I talk to it, hopefully it talks back and I get something approaching a straight answer."
"And if you don't?"
"Then," she said darkly, "I get mad." She stalked off down towards the empty city, greenseer in tow. That might be worth seeing… from considerable distance, Brynden thought. The walk into the city was eerily silent; no sound of people moving about, only the wind, the sea and the gulls far above. "Weird to look at the place like this," she said, looking around the glass-walled towers. "I keep expecting to see foot traffic, or bikes or something. The Crossing's a small town, but it's never this quiet in daylight."
"A small town, she says," Brynden muttered, looking up at buildings to rival Harrenhal.
"Hey, it's true," she said with a shrug. "There's only fifteen, twenty thousand people living in the Crossing, really. It's not a big center like Sheffield or Noctis, to say nothing of a place like New York or Shir'Kar."
"I see," he said. Thinking it over, he supposed that if an edifice like this, half the size of a reasonable city like White Harbor, could be small then the large cities would be impressive indeed. "An interesting place to grow up in," he ventured.
"It had its moments," she said absently. "Now… if I were a tree-like intelligence, where would I be? Assuming George wants me to find him; he wouldn't just hide in a corner somewhere. No, it'd be a place that I'm likely to look for him… somewhere I'd know. And if I was going to stash a tree around here…" she trailed off. "I think I know where we're going."
The woman led him down through the empty streets towards a large open square covered in greenery, surrounded by four glass towers. At first he thought it might be something like a tourney ground; the square was wide enough to support one, but the ground was covered in flagstone and plants growing in neat rows. Almost like… "Vegetables?" he mused.
"Yeah," the witch replied. "Soil outside of town is… tricky to grow food in, so there are garden districts all over the place." She pointed at one of the glass towers. "Most of the heavy lifting is done in those, but the public gardens out here have been a thing since before the domes came down. But enough of ancient history, we're looking for a tree and look who I just found!"
The weirwood was in the exact center of the garden, a splotch of white and red against green grass and pink stone. "In the real Crossing there's a fig tree here," the witch said. "I spent a lot of time as a kid hanging out under it. Now I'm really wondering if this is George being puckish or my subconscious having a deep sense of irony."
"(I do wish you would start saying things that made sense,)" Brynden muttered. The witch paid him no heed, striding over to the weirwood and walking around it until she found the face. The carved image was impassive as always, red sap dripping from the old wounds and staining the bark.
"Well," she said, spreading her arms wide. "I'm here, George. You wanted to talk? Let's talk." The weirwood remained stubbornly silent. "Oh come on!" the witch cried. "We've all gone to a lot of fucking trouble to get this far and now you're not going to say anything? What the fuck is this, some sort of joke to you?"
—outlander—
The voice was thin and whispery, almost hidden in the wind. Brynden's eyes snapped to the tree. In his time as a greenseer he had communed with the dreams of men, the last few singers and the souls of greenseers within the weirwoods. This voice was something he had never conceived of as possible before, the voice of the weirwoods themselves. "Yes!" the witch exclaimed eagerly. "I'm here, I'm here."
—welcome outlander—
—not outlander, welcome zhdane—
The witch blinked. "Holy shit," she whispered.
"Zhdane?" Brynden asked.
"It's a word from a language thirty thousand years dead," she said. "It means 'maker of wonders.' My people translate it as 'Builder.'" She spoke again to the tree: "George, I… I'm not a Builder. They're all gone."
—outlander-not-zhdane inheritor? —
The witch hesitated. "I suppose? We found their works, tried to understand what they were doing…"
—that will be enough—
—needed aid, inheritor approached, brought inheritor to us—
—apologies, inheritor—
Brynden blinked. The old gods were powerful to bring the witch's ship to earth? The witch for her part was thunderstruck. "You did this," she said flatly. "You crashed my ship, you stranded me here. Why?" The old greenseer's blood ran cold.
—UNBIDDEN—
The word echoed like thunder through the air, causing the whole world to shake. Witch and greenseer recoiled from the tree in shock as the Acidalian seaside began to crumble and was replaced by the snow-filled landscapes of the lands beyond the Wall. The weirwood now stood before a semi-circle of heart trees in a forest clearing.
"The hell is this place?" the witch said.
"A grove fifteen leagues north of the Wall, in the haunted forest," Brynden replied. "There's another like it within sight of the Wall, the northern brothers swear their oaths in it."
—this link is not strong—
"What?" said the witch. "Wait, shit, no!"
—come to us to speak more—
"No no no goddammit I didn't spend this much time on this damn thing for you to wimp out now George come on!"
—we will speak again inheritor—
The world began to fade away, and the witch shrieked in frustration. "Fucking Christ, I'm getting tired of this cryptic shit!" she yelled into the void, then whirled to face Brynden. Green fire shone in her eyes. "Do you have any idea what the hell that was supposed to be?" she demanded.
The last greenseer swallowed hard, emotions he hadn't felt in a very long time rushing to the forefront. "I believe I do, my lady Hasegawa," he said reluctantly. "And it is not a pleasant thing, I'm afraid.
"Winter is coming to Westeros, and worse things follow in its wake."
Sarella
"Be back in a few minutes," Lady Jade had said before putting on the coronet. Almost two hours later, she still sat on the floor before her machines, eyes closed, only the rise and fall of her chest showing any signs of life. Lady Melisandre had joined her and Thoros in their vigil; it was highly unlikely that any physical harm could come to the sorceress inside her own ship, but none of them thought of leaving the workshop.
The sorceress twitched, the sudden motion surprising all of them. With a low groan, Lady Jade unfolded her arms and plucked the coronet from her brow. "Nnnnnnnnnnfuck," she said.
"Are you alright, m'lady?" Thoros asked.
"Mostly, I think," Lady Jade replied. "How long was I under? Feels like a week."
"No more than three hours," Sarella said, glancing at the ship's timepiece. Jade nodded, then made to stand up. Her legs wobbled and buckled under her, almost dropping back onto the floor before Thoros grabbed her arm.
"Okay yeah, should've seen that coming. Thanks," she said.
Melisandre cleared her throat. "Was your scrying successful?" she asked.
Jade sighed. "Yes and no. I found some of what I was looking for, and a lot of what I wasn't looking for." Her eyes met the priestess's eyes, and something Sarella couldn't grasp passed between them. Melisandre looked alarmed, then looked away.
The sorceress surveyed her little band. "Guys," she said grimly, "we have work to do."