Upon A Crimson Throne
ASOIAF & Dragon Age Crossover
Disclaimer: All Rights Belong to GRRM and Bioware
The Grand Enchanter
The Old Mage stood on top of the gold-tinted balcony of the Hand's Tower, overlooking the familiar cityscape that Aegon's High Hill dwarfed with all the arrogance of the Conqueror himself. It was three hundred ninety-seven AC, and a storm was brewing to the north. Bruise-black clouds obscured the hazy, predawn sky, and he drummed his timeworn fingers against the balcony's railing as the first drops of rainfall plummeted to the city below. Lightning tore through the black horizon, ominous in its brilliance. Wordlessly, he said a small prayer to no god in particular for his king, who had rode north four days prior, fast in pursuit of a new Hand.
Jon Arryn's death was as swathed in mystery as it had come swift, the Grand Enchanter thought, fascinated. He had always enjoyed solving a good puzzle, and considered the sudden passing of the king's late Hand as great as any to distract him from the daily exigencies of courtly intrigue. He knew beyond a doubt that the Old Falcon's demise was no mere accident, as that fool Pycelle tried and failed to play it off as. Nevertheless, finding the true culprit was of little importance to the Grand Enchanter. There were half a million people in King's Landing alone, and any one of them could be the assassin as far as he was concerned.
What fascinated him so, was how Lord Arryn had died. A fast-acting poison; a curse beset by the foulest of Black Magics; the pinpoint of a pen, he mused, all but laughing against the roaring rain. In the end, the Grand Enchanter was content, albeit barely, with the knowledge that he would likely never know the answer to that question, given Lysa Arryn's abrupt flight from the capital back to the mountains of the Vale with her husband's rotting corpse, stuffed and reaved of everything once important, lugging by wagon in tow.
Despite his indifference, he still was loyal to the Crown. Naturally, he had his suspicions as to who killed Jon Arryn, as did each of the king's advisors, but was unwilling to commit to any one name without definite proof. Already, thirty innocent heads decorated pikes outside the Red Keep's ramparts, and many more had wound up hanging in the streets following King Robert's furious demands of the perpetrator being caught and found and put to death. The City Watch had taken to this command with the utmost fervor, eventually turning to the Faith Militant for additional assistance when the Gold Cloaks proved worthless. The end result was a great culling of human lives, many of whom belonged to the city's small outpost of mages – his beloved children, he smiled.
Robert Baratheon had taken one brief look at the surrounding chaos and then professed his desire to see the North, seemingly as bored with his declaration of vengeance for Jon Arryn as he was uncaring of the loss of lives he was indirectly responsible for extinguishing. A sea of spirits had commended the king's leaving, rejoicing on their journey to the other side. The Grand Enchanter could only smile at Robert Baratheon's carelessness; this behavior was entirely too in character of the king he had spent a decade observing, watching and dutifully serving. Where Aerys was weak-willed and Jaehaerys impressionable, he found Robert Baratheon to be a distant king, too steadfast in his burning hatred for Rhaegar Targaryen and all his kin to properly manage the realm.
"It was wise for the king to leave the south and its delicate politics for a time to surround himself with friends and family on his venture north," he spoke his thoughts aloud, reminiscing his youth spent in the cold and desolate north. "The city will heal, given time. Though I suppose it remains unknown whether the honorable Eddard Stark will be the friend his grace is desperately searching for after their disastrous falling out fourteen years past."
Suddenly, the Grand Enchanter thought of Rhaegar's bastard then, imprisoned within Winterfell's great stone walls, and closed his eyes with portentous delight. There was a puzzle he had never been given the proper chance to study, he lamented as he swept the inside of the Hand's chamber, eventually settling his gaze on a Myrish styled desk, where a single parchment of paper resided, neither signed nor stamped, unmarked to the eyes of all those unable to manipulate the Fade. Change was nigh on the horizon; the old mage was certain.
Lost in his musings, he found himself thinking back to the tumultuous compromise Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark had struck before the Iron Throne, before the few remaining skulls of the royal Targaryen dragons not yet stripped from the Throne Room's grim interior—
XXX
"Give the dragonspawn here, Ned!" the newly crowned Robert Baratheon urged, teeming with anger. "I'll put an end to Rhaegar's line and restore honor to Lyanna's name."
"You speak of honor, Robert, in the same breath as killing a newborn babe. Lyanna would be disappointed," Lord Stark responded with equal condemnation.
The king's eyes smoldered. "Such insolence! Have you forgotten so soon who your king is?" he gestured to his antlered crown, scowling darkly. "That new-born is the bastard of the man who stole my betrothed and raped your sister half-mad in that damned tower if she truly died asking you to raise that abomination in your household."
"The boy is of my blood." Lord Stark's expression had tightened for a heartbeat.
From his position amongst the spectating crowd, donned all in white, the Grand Enchanter recalled that the young lord had recently lost a father and a brother in these very halls due to King Aerys' cruelty . . . and now a sister to the yet another dragon. Acknowledging the shared union of Ice and Fire through his bastard nephew must have come difficult to Eddard Stark. The Grand Enchanter did not feel sorry for the Starks, however. They chose treason against the Crown by defying their lawful king and paid for it with the cost of their lives. He had witnessed far more forgiving men and women and children die for much less.
"Perhaps it is I who have gone mad," Eddard Stark somberly continued, "for thinking you'd make a better king than the one we fought to depose." The words reverberated like the lashing of a whip against the Throne Room's bare walls, bleeding the surrounding atmosphere of air as an audible gasp rang throughout the crowd.
"Damn you, Ned," Robert had told him, cursing. "Damn you and that dragonspawn."
As if sensing the malice of the Stag King's words directed at him, the pale-skinned infant, who's snow-white hair marked him as a dragon of House Targaryen, wailed and squirmed in his nursemaid's arms. A small, fleshy foot crashed rather harmlessly against the woman's breast, pushing into her blouse; nevertheless, she did not flinch or show anger as she forced the boy's writhing head to her now revealed chest, sighing as she turned her back to the quarreling lords. The babe took to her nipple with a frightening hunger. King Robert went red with fury, his Lannister Queen glared daggers, disgusted, and Eddard Stark advanced forward, perhaps warily.
When the tension was at its highest and the Lord Commander appeared ready to spring forward into action, Jon Arryn chose that exact moment to interfere. Acting with all of the authority bestowed upon him as Hand of the King, he verbally reprehended both of his foster sons with a clear, cutting voice. "That'll be enough of this senseless bickering out of the two of you," he said. "I remember teaching you two how to be proper lords, not petulant children."
As the Lord of the Eyrie brought together the two men responsible for overthrowing the almost three-century old Targaryen dynasty in a matter of two meager years, the Grand Enchanter patiently wormed his way about the crowd to get a better look at the last of Rhaegar's children on a whim. The babe was a scrawny little thing, white of hair yet not quite albino if the specs of black he glimpsed between those narrowed eyes had a say. He saw none of Rhaenys or Aegon in the feeding infant, but mayhaps that was to be expected.
From what little he had seen of the northern lass at the Tourney of Harrenhal, he could certainly say that Lyanna Stark was no more a princess of the Dornish sun, than Elia Martell was a winter rose. Their differences were like the seasons, he poetically thought as he leaned on his stave for balance, and the children Rhaegar Targaryen sired on them reflected their differences similarly so. The Grand Enchanter's eyes did not waver from the suckling babe whatsoever when the bloody ruined, abused corpses of Elia Martell and young Rhaenys and Aegon flashed through his mind. A necessary evil, he admitted, to the stabilization of the Crown and King Robert's authority at large.
Shamelessly, he buried those pale lifeless faces to the back of his head as one would do a dead body in the ground. He had meant to do the same to Rhaegar's bastard, in the event the king got his way, but the infant's eyes gave him reason to pause. They were now opened wide and glaring over his caretaker's shoulder at something just out of reach, resembling twin pools of Valerian steel in the Throne Room's despairing glow.
The Grand Enchanter thought of himself as something of a prospector, but for talented mages as an alternative to mineral deposits. It was one of many techniques he had developed in his youth, all those years ago, when the study of magic and the Fade itself was less regulated by the Faith and its domineering military arm. The raw potential he felt from the babe was rolling off in waves, unlike anything he had ever witnessed; it was not quite tangible, and for that he was thankful, but potent enough to draw the wrong kind of attention.
That will not do, he swallowed what felt like a lifetime's amount of dread and something else . . . anticipation perhaps, as he fervently began devising plans to get to the child. Preferably alone. Who would have ever thought that after nearly forty years of serving the Targaryens, it would only be after their near extinction that magic is born anew in their blood. How peculiar, he chuckled, earning a few wary glances from those within his immediate vicinity who recognize him as a mage. How peculiar indeed.
It did not take the Grand Enchanter long to realize that getting to the babe would be next to impossible with Lord Stark's hawklike gaze remaining as vigilant as the Valerian steel sword strapped to his back was sharp. Defeat did not come easily to him, however. He was used to playing the long game, and determined to fit Rhaegar's bastard in his grand puzzle no matter the obstacle. Besides, what was magic good for if not making the impossible possible, he smiled crookedly?
All of a sudden, he was terribly gladdened to be the only mage allowed within the Red Keep during the delicate transitioning of the Iron Throne, and further gladdened for the Faith Militant's insistence on herding his children far out of reach of their newly crowned Baratheon king. "The Warrior come again," they practically worshipped the very ground Robert Baratheon walked on. A man possessed by his demons, the Grand Enchanter thought instead, snorting.
Focusing back on the Targaryen bastard, he saw a fire in those deep grey eyes that seemed to encompass the world itself. This child, the Grand Enchanter allowed himself to marvel the wonders of magic and the Fade for the first time since his election. This child has the eyes of a king. No, he immediately corrected, a God.
Just as he came to a decision he knew he might regret in the future; the two lords and fledgling king reached an agreement. "Then it is decided," the Hand of the King projected. "The babe's fate will be determined once he has reached his age of majority. He will be a valuable hostage of the Iron Throne until then, and the North shall be his prison."
That garnered an array of mixed responses from the court. Stannis Baratheon, the king's very own brother, seemed to disapprove, Lord Tyrell, who had lingered in the Red Keep since Robert's royal coronation did little to conceal his earnest smile, murder danced behind Lord Lannister's impassive emerald orbs, and yet, none looked as pleased as Eddard Stark or as infuriated as Robert Baratheon.
"I'll raise him to be a man of honor just as you raised me," Lord Stark said. "Thank you, Jon."
"I'd expect no less from you, Eddard," said Jon Arryn. "What is the lad's name, anyhow?"
"Jon Snow."
Jon Arryn's reaction was rather tame in the face of that startling revelation. He frowned and slowly considered, muttering, "My namesake, a Targaryen bastard . . . how the gods manage to surprise me even at this old age, I will never know." The king's reaction, however, could be described as anything but subdued. He raged enough for the two of them combined. "You do him no honor by naming the dragonspawn after him," he bellowed, effectively breathing life into a new argument.
The Grand Enchanter had turned away by then and left the throne room for his solar, but not before glancing overhead in the general direction where Rhaegar's bastard was still glaring with an old, noble anger unbelonging to a new-born. Above the Iron Throne, two cruel eyes stared back, hollow and skeletal and black with malice—
XXX
Outside, the rainfall intensified. He grasped the ornate stave propped against the railing to his immediate left, within arm's distance of him. It was thin and wiry, fit for a hand larger than his own, with seven metal blades conjoined about an opal stone to create an obsidian edge used for stabbing, among other things. The stave was as old as the realm itself, having been passed down from Grand Enchanter to Grand Enchanter throughout the years since the founding of the Circle of Magi in Westeros.
Leisurely, he made his retreat from the rain, coming to a slow stop before the Myrish styled desk. His robes were splotched by the rain, hugging his small frame as he drew upon the Fade. With an influx of mana, the metallic tip of his stave brightened the color of wildfire, and he unveiled the contents of the paper.
It was from the College of Enchanters in Lannisport, the official seat of the Grand Enchanter, and consisted of three sentences in total. Hardly a letter, an unamused sound escaped the Grand Enchanter's throat. It read: We are tired of pain. We are tired of living as lesser beings to the paltry demands of an old, senile man dissatisfied with change. You are not the mage you once were; we will not be denied our freedom.
"Ignorant children, the lot of them." Finished reading, he sighed deeply, his smile slipping from his face entirely, leaving a certain blankness that hinged on the crossing of stoicism and displeasure. However, neither of those two emotions could be further from the truth. He was pleased with this series of events and expected nothing more from his First Enchanters.
History often repeats itself in the most queer of ways, he thought.
With tensions at an all-time high between the Faith and the Circle of Magi, the Grand Enchanter knew that the threat of rebellion was no longer a question of if but when. Some lords were aware of this as well, those that cared to look at the mistreatment of mages within the Seven Circle Towers scattered throughout the Seven Kingdoms that is, which is to say a few. Nonetheless, he did not believe that ordering all mages to descend their towers and bathe the Seven Kingdoms crimson in blood would solve anything except worsen the stigma attached to any child born with the gift of magic.
Turning to face the darkened cityscape, letter in hand, his smile returned when lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating the Great Sept of Baelor from its glorious position atop Visenya's Hill. "They would make an enemy out of the entirety of Westeros, the fools," he repeated. "What's the use in rebelling when you fail to completely annihilate the source of all your pain?"
In the end, it would be up to him to save the Circle of Magi and each of his precious children from their own ignorance . . . once again. The Grand Enchanter leaned against his stave to keep himself steady as he looked over the unveiled letter once more. He smiled hauntingly at the magically woven runes that were inscribed all over the parchment; they were masterfully arranged and elegant, a wonderful, powerful piece of craft not many mages would be able to create on this side of the Narrow Sea, and yet, he effortlessly dismantled them one by one even so. It would not do for Jon Arryn's killer or Varys' little birds or Lord Baelish or whomever else spying on him to overlook the paper he had so generously offered, after all. Without another word, he made his exit from the Tower of the Hand, making sure to be seen limping down its lengthy corridors, committed to getting an early start on the day's activities required of him as the Grand Enchanter.
AN: Firstly, while this is not a remake – as there is nowhere near enough chapters to "remake" – I will be revising my earlier chapters and re-uploading them at a later date. I want to clarify that although this is an ASOIAF & Dragon Age crossover, I am only utilizing the former's intricate magic system and the Circle of Magi. Thanks for reading.
