He didn't like boats. He never had. They always made his stomach feel like it was doing flips inside him. Fortunately, this trip in the small boat was mercifully short. When Jon had asked him to join him in inspecting his new home, he had been excited. He had read about Queenscrown, how it had stood on it's island for over a thousand years, serving as a fortress for those living nearby, and as a warning beacon of wildling raids for those that were further afield. And that was the least interesting bit of the tower's long history. The fact that the Good Queen Alysane had once called upon the small keep was fascinating to him. It was not the sort of place one would normally find a Queen.

When it came to the tower's age however, Tyrion was more than a little doubtful that it was truly over a thousand years old. Judging by it's construction, he would estimate that it was no more than three or four hundred years old. What he did not discount was that some sort of tower had stood on the island for that amount of time. It had likely been torn down and rebuilt multiple times over it's history. And the current tower was merely the latest in a long line of towers that had been built on the site using the materials from the last tower to stand upon the island.

As his stunted legs took him onto the shore of the island, he had to marvel at whoever had designed the defenses. Whoever he had been, he was clever. The causeway left the shore and reemerged directly in line with the stairs at the base of the keep. To anyone unfamiliar with the holdfast, the causeway appeared to run in a straight line from the shore to the island. Only it didn't. It twisted and turned and meandered its way around more than half the bloody island. Anyone foolish enough to try and seize the tower would be exposed to a storm of arrows whilst trying to wade through the nearly chest deep water. And that assumed that they stayed on the causeway and didn't slip on the slime coated stone and fall into the depths that flanked it to drown in their armor.

Even the stairs leading to the low door were steep. Though the flight was short, his legs were burning from the exertion required to climb them. As he climbed, he took note of the condition of the building. From a distance, the tower appeared almost timeless. It looked to be stout and strong. Up close, he saw that was but an illusion. The stone of the stairs was beginning to work loose, and twice stones had broken free from under him as he climbed. The planks of the oak door had dried and warped, and it now looked to be impossible to fully shut it. As he looked up at the walls of the roundtower, he could see cracks forming in the mortar. In his inexpert opinion, the castle was stable for the moment, but well on its way to collapse if it didn't receive the needed repairs.

Jon was lucky in that regard. His Lord Father had sent a number of skilled builders with him to his new holding. Between rebuilding the settlement, constructing a wall and repairing the keep, those men would have their hands full. Builders such as the men with them were quite literally worth their weight in gold to a new settlement. They were expensive, but trying to rebuild without them? Tyrion shuddered at the thought.

But now they had reached the entrance to Lord Wolff's new home. The heavy oak planks of the door had warped and splintered as they dried. Jon and several of his guardsmen were looking carefully at the door and trying to decide where they could safely place their hands to force it open. When they had finally reached a decision on where it was "safe" to do so Jon, Benjen and Alyn all braced themselves and pushed.

It took quite some amount of grunting, groaning and cursing, but slowly the door was forced open. Tyrion was peering though the opened door when Jon said, "Uncle Benjen? Would you hand me one of those torches? We need some light in here."

In minutes, Jon had the torch in his hand and had sparked the oil soaked head into life. The light the torch gave off was somewhat smokey, but it certainly helped to see what was before them. And what Tyrion saw only raised his opinion of Queenscrown's builder. The strongroom behind the door would be yet one more formidable obstacle for any attacker to overcome. The murder hole in the ceiling would be death on anyone entering, while the iron gates blocking both sets of stairs would keep whoever was attacking in here and unable to advance. They would be sheep to the slaughter. Even a small force of men could hold this tower nearly indefinitely against even a large army.

Jon looked down at him and asked, "Well, Lord Tyrion? What do you think so far?"

Tyrion shook his head slightly and told him, "Your Lord Father has given you a strong keep, My Lord. The causeway, the strong room, the tower itself, whoever built them had a keen eye for defense. You soon-to-be Lady Wife shall be quite safe here should wildlings ever attack while you are away.

"There is work to do to repair the tower and ensure it is suitable for a young Lady, but you have the men to do that work. A better start than most, Lord Wolff."

Jon nodded and said, "Aye, I'm luckier than most. Uncle Benjen? Up or down, what do you think?"

"Makes no difference, Jon. Both need to be inspected."

"Aye, you're right. We'll start with the undercroft."

Jon rattled the iron gate that bared their way, sighed, and said, "Ser Alyn, hand me that bar we brought with us. We need to force this gate open."

"Here, M'lord," the new Knight said.

Jon forced the iron bar into a gap and began trying to lever the gate open. Slowly, slowly, the ancient lock gave way and the gate began to squeal and moan as the rusted hinges slowly turned to allow the gate to open. Tyrion could hear muttering under his breath that he needed to remember to bring some tallow with him next time to grease these hinges.

With the gate finally open, at least enough to let them squeeze past it, Jon and his party began to make their way down, down, down into the depths of Queenscrown. The undercroft of the tower was sunk deep into the rock of the island. First one level was passed, then a second, and finally a third before they reached the bottom of the curving stairs. As Jon led the way into the lowest levels of his castle, Tyrion saw the ruins of a crypt. While far smaller than the crypts that could be found at Casterly Rock, or the ones that he had heard were bellow Winterfell, It was still far larger than he had expected.

For nearly a a hundred yards, there was nothing but empty, open tombs that were awaiting their occupants. Then he began to see ones with statues of bearded men standing before sealed tombs. Each statue was alike, yet different. They stood in similar poses, but each face was unique. All the statues held an iron long sword before them, clasped in both their hands with the blades pointing to the ceiling above them. Some of the statues were carved with the men wearing plate armor, some were carved to wear chain mail, others wore no armor at all. Tyrion wondered at the significance of that, or if it even had any at all.

At the end of the crypts, the oldest statues had features that were worn by time, the lines of their faces had softened and left their visage indistinct. The swords that the statues had wielded were often little more than thin pieces of rust, and in a one case, it was nothing but a red stain upon the hands of the statue and on the floor of the crypt. The entire journey so far had been made in near silence, save for the crackling of the torches being carried to light their way. Tyrion decided to break that silence, in a soft voice he asked, "I wonder what the significance of the swords are for all the statues? And why some were carved in armor, while others were not?"

When he spoke, he saw a few men jump at his words, as if they had been expecting the dead to rise and join them on their sojourn. Tyrion had barely enough good grace not to laugh at their reaction, but he did still smirk a bit at seeing it. Tyrion raised his brows and looked around when no one answered for several long minutes.

Finally, Lord Jon replied, "The swords are ceremonial. They are meant to keep any restless dead in their graves. The crypts in Winterfell have much the same thing in them. Swords are placed before each tomb to keep the dead inside them. I don't know about the armor. Maybe it was meant to show when a Lord died in battle, or at least fought in one? I don't know. And there wasn't much in the library at Winterfell to tell us about Queenscrown either."

Tyrion grunted in response. He already knew that these Northmen would not appreciate his opinion on old superstitions such as these. What would be next? Telling him that snarks and grumpkins were going to come after him in the night? He shook his head. He liked Jon, liked him quite a bit actually. But he couldn't for the life of him understand how someone as smart as Jon seemed to be could believe in tales that his wetnurse likely told him when he was a babe.

Jon seemed to be studying one section of wall quite closely, and it started to pique Tyrion's curiosity. Walking over to Jon, he added his torch to the one Jon was holding and cast a bit more light on the wall. Suddenly, Jon started to laugh. It was a soft laugh, and one full of irony, but it was a laugh none the less. Tyrion asked, "May I ask what is so funny, My Lord? All I see is a wall before me."

Jon looked at him, seemed to weigh something and said, "Ser Alyn, will you and Wayn take the men and head up to the next level of the undercroft and see what is in there?"

"Yes, M'lord," the Knight replied before leading the guards that had accompanied them down back the way that they came.

Jon said, "Uncle Benjen, will you look at this wall. Tell me if you see what I do."

The First Ranger approached the wall, began to carefully study it, focused on a stone at about his eye level, then started to laugh. He clapped Jon on the shoulder and told him, "Looks like you're not the first son of House Stark to call this place home, Jon. And aye, if you're thinking what I am, this does look familiar. You try that side, I'll try this one."

Tyrion now was getting slightly upset. He said, "Would someone mind please telling me what you two are going on about?"

Jon glanced at Benjen, who shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's your castle, your decision."

Jon replied, "Aye. There's a sigil carved into one of the stones here. The sigil of House Stark. These crypts look like they were built to emulate the ones at Winterfell. It seems a good guess that Queenscrown was originally built for a younger son of the King in the North. Beyond that, I believe there is another similarity between the crypts at Winterfell and here."

While Jon had been speaking he had been pushing against certain areas of the wall, almost as if he was testing them. While he was doing that, he suddenly jerked upright, and small, sly smile crossed his face. "Nuncle. Over here."

When Benjen Stark joined Jon at the section of he was at, Jon pointed at a spot and the two Stark men braced themselves and began to push. Slowly, and with much groaning and grating, a section of wall began to give way. It was a small door, but a door none the less. The wall was built to slide back and open a passage to another room beyond the crypt.

Tyrion wrinkled his nose at the smell that assailed him as the fetid air escaped from the long closed room. After a few moments, and once the torches stopped sputtering in the foul air, Jon slowly eased himself through the gap he and his uncle had made in the stones. Tyrion had been about to follow when he heard Jon give a gasp followed by the sound of steel rasping against stone. Now what could that be, Tyrion wondered?

Squeezing through the opening, Tyrion felt his eyes widen. The room he was in had apparently once been Queenscrown's vault. It was not a large room, but he was shocked to see what remained within it. There were three chests within the room, all rotted with age and the straps that held them together were red with rust. From gaps in the rotted chests, silver glinted in the light cast by the torches. If that was the only thing the room held, it would have been a massive boon to the newly raised Lord of Queenscrown. But Tyrion's eyes soon drifted to where Jon stood and he audibly gasped at what Jon held in his hand.

In his right hand, Jon held a sword. It was the length of a standard long sword, nearly a hand's width across the base of the bade, with a crossguard hilt and a pommel of polished, black dragonglass. The blade of the sword was nearly dark as night, with swirls of smoke grey woven through it. It was a weapon unlike any other that he had ever seen. Even in the poor light of the torches, Tyrion could see that the sword still held an edge. How old must that sword be?

From behind him, he heard Benjen suck in his breath. The First Ranger said in a hushed tone, "Jon, are you holding what I think you are?"

Jon nodded his head silently. He looked almost numb at what he had found. Looking at the older Stark, Tyrion asked, "And what exactly is he holding, besides a very ancient sword?"

Benjen looked down at him briefly, scowled and shook his head. Jon though said, in an almost reverential voice, "It's the Night's Blade. The sword that legend says was wielded by Brandon the Builder during the Long Night. Starks of old are said to have carried this blade for thousands of years. But it disappeared from our histories a thousand years ago, with no mention of what happened to it. It was just suddenly not spoken of any longer. Father told us that it likely never existed and was only a legend. Robb and I used to pretend that the sticks we fought with as children were the Night's Blade and Ice."

Benjen spoke up and said, "Our father and grandfather said the same. That the sword was almost certainly a legend, and never truly existed. Or if it did, it was likely just a normal sword that the legend grew around over time until someone decided to stop speaking about it."

"What is the sword? I've never seen a blade that looks like that. Valyrian Steel can be dark, but not nearly black like that sword is."

Jon replied, "The legends say that the sword was forged from a falling star that struck the Fist of the First Men." Jon carefully moved the sword through the air a few times and said, "Gods, I've never felt a blade so light! It's lighter than even my new sword. And that's a smaller weapon than this!"

Jon paused, then said in a hushed tone, "I need to let father know of this. This sword belongs to House Stark. He or Robb should carry it."

Benjen walked over to Jon, placed his hand on his shoulder and told him, "Jon, you're as much Stark as they. You have just as much right to this sword as my brother does. You found it, in your own crypts. You should be the one to carry it going forward."

Jon smiled at his uncle and told him, "Thank you, Uncle. But I should still tell my father of this. If nothing else, he will be shocked to learn that it actually exists."

"As you wish, Jon."

Sucking in a deep breath, Jon told them, "Shall we return to exploring my new home, My Lords? While this was certainly exciting, I do need to see the rest of my home beyond just the crypts."

With a nod, the three of them exited the small strongroom, with Jon holding the sword in his fist. After studying the door, Jon and Benjen seemed to find some small hand holds and tugged and strained and pulled until the hidden doorway was closed once more. As they made their way back towards the stairs, Jon paused and held up the sword next to one of the iron longswords held by the statues of the long dead Lords.

"Uncle, look at this."

The sword matched almost exactly to the one that Jon held. Benjen shook his head. "It was here all the time, and there was proof it was here, right here in the crypts. Somehow, I don't believe it was a secret what happened to the sword, the facts have merely been lost to the mists of time."

"Aye, that seems most likely. Now lets go see the rest of the castle."

The three men began the climb to next level and left the crypts behind.