Stave Four: The Last of the Spirits.

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. Tywin could not see its face, body or shape. Every time he tried to obtain a glimpse of the spectre it's shadow seemed to blind him in a fashion unlike anything Lord Tywin had ever saw. But through his finger covering his eyes, it finally occurred to him that the figure was shorter in stature than he had originally ascertained. But still, he carried the threating presence of the Mountain and the terror of Balerion the Black Dread. He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved. All he could see was that in his left hand was a set of five long, bony, wispy figures. In the other was a golden crossbow with a lion's head.

"If Joanna was the Ghost of Winter that has passed and Robert the present; I can only assume you are of the future, The Ghost of that which is yet to come." Said Lord Tywin. The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand. "You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in time before us?" The Lord of the Westerlands pursued. Through the shining darkness Tywin could see a rippling in the uppermost areas of the figure, which he took for a nod. That was the only answer he received. "I will take your silence as a positive response." Tywin mumbled.

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Lord Tywin Lannister feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit pauses a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover from the shine. It passed eerily past Tywin and as its cloaked back was turned to him, the shine was downcast and Tywin could look at the phantom at least. Even though he knew he was much shorter, he did cast a very large shadow which made him look taller than he was.

But Tywin was all the worse for this. It intrigued him with a vague horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes that were intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.

"Spirit"' he exclaimed, "I could say that I have come to fear you more than any spectre I have seen this night. But as I understand it, your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear your company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak, do me that honour."

It neither replied nor turned around but outstretched it's bony hand. The hand was pointed straight before them.

"Lead on then." said Lord Tywin. "The night is wasting away, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit of the unknown." Tywin said, one hand by his side; another outstretched to the shade.

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Tywin followed in the shadow of its robe, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along. They scarcely seemed to enter the city but the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Lord Tywin had seen them often. The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of red cloaks inside the Great Hall, in the Red Keep. Observing that the spectre's hand was pointed to them, Tywin advanced to listen to their talk.

"No," said a great man with a monstrous chin, "I don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I heard from one of the Tower guardsmen."

"What happened?" asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. "I thought he'd never die."

The first guard said something inaudible to Tywin but the others in the group pulled solemn faces at the response

"What has he done with his whore?" asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again. "Queen Cunt threw her corpse in the river, perhaps. I haven't seen her. That's all I know."

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

"It's likely to be a very expensive funeral," said the same speaker; "though upon my life I don't know of anybody who'd want to go to it unless they have the name 'Lannister'. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer."

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must be fed, if I make one." Another laugh.

"Well, I just don't care, after all," said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to guard the King, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for I guarded the Queen for the first ten years of Robert's rule. Farewell, you baseborn whoresons" he announced as he replaced his helm and left the Hall. Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Tywin could recognise some of them, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation. The Phantom glided on into a street. Its lanky finger pointed to two persons meeting. Lord Tywin listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of shipbuilding: very wealthy, and of great importance. They always made a point of standing high in his esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.

"How are you?" said one.

"How are you." returned the other.

"Well." said the first. "The Lion has got his own at last, hey."

"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?"

"For the season. You're not a skater, I suppose?"

"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning."

Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.

Lord Tywin was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Aerys, or even anyone else Tywin had known in his lifetime, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy.

He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this. Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold.

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the city, where Tywin had never been before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

Lord Tywin and the shining Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.

"Let the charwoman alone to be the first." cried she who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance. If we haven't all met here without meaning this."

"You couldn't have met in a cleaner place," grumbled old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the shop. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two aren't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah, How it reeks. There isn't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha. We're all suitable to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the store. Come into the parlour." The store was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two.

"What odds then. What unbelievable odds, Mrs Dilber." said the woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did."

"That's true, indeed." said the laundress. "No man more so."

"Why then, don't stop staring as if you was afraid, woman; who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose."

"No, indeed." deadpanned Mrs Dilber and the man together. "We should hope not."

"Very well." cried the woman. "That's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things? Not a dead man, I suppose."

"No, indeed." said Mrs Dilber, laughing.

"If he wanted to keep them after he was dead," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he more active in his life. If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying there gasping and shitting Lannister gold, alone by himself."

"It's the truest word that ever was spoke." said Mrs Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the woman "and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe." But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come.

"That's your version," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give another copper, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?" Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock off half-a-stag."

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman.

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

"What do you call this." said Joe. "Crimson Bed-curtains."

"Ah." returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains."

"You don't mean to say you took them down, rings and all, with her lying there?" said Joe.

"Yes I did," replied the woman. "Why not?"

"You were born to make a fortune," said Joe, "and you'll certainly do it."

"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now."

"His blankets?" asked Joe.

"Whose else's do you think?!" replied the woman. "He isn't likely to take cold without them, I dare say."

"I hope he didn't die of anything catching. Eh." said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

"He died on the toilet," returned the woman. "Besides, I ain't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. You may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. The Queen'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.'

"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.

"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied the woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to do it with better ones. If calico ain't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in the casket going west."

Tywin Lannister listened to this dialogue in horror and disgust. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and contempt, which could hardly have been greater, though the demons, marketing the corpse itself.

"Ha, ha." laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you see. He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead. Ha, ha, ha."

"Spirit." Said Tywin, shuddering from head to foot. "I understand now. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Seven hells, what is this display."

He trembled and stumbled, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Tywin glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

Tywin glanced towards the Phantom, but quickly receded. He did notice its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon tywin's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.

It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike. And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal. No voice pronounced these words in Tywin's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts. Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares. They have brought him to a rich end, truly.

He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed: Tywin did not dare to think.

"Spectre." he said, "This is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me." He shallowly commanded

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.

"I understand," Tywin returned, "and I would do it, if I could. But I cannot. I am the Hand of the King, yet I do not have the power for this."

Again it seemed to look upon him through the shining darkness.

"If there is anyone in any of the Kingdoms, who feels a distraught caused by this man's death," said Tywin quite agonised, "show them to me, Spirit, I beseech you."

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a faceless mother and her children were.

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room started at every sound, she looked out from the window, glanced at the clock and tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play. At last the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met a strange man; a man whose face was clear and it's features missing like the others, though it was clear he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.

He sat down to the dinner that had been boarding for him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.

"Is it good…" she said, "or bad?"

"We are quite ruined."

"No. There is hope yet."

"If he relents," she said, amazed, "There is. Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened."

"He is past relenting," said the man. "He is dead."

She was a mild and patient creature if her mind spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.

"The half-drunken woman I told you of last night said, he was not only very ill, but dying, then."

"To who will our debt be transferred?"

"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a Hand in his successor. We may sleep tonight with light hearts."

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's death. The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.

"Let me see some heartache connected with a death," said Tywin "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for me."

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Lord Tywin looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob's house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little twins were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet.

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.

"The colour hurts my eyes" she said.

"They're better again," said Bob's wife. "It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time."

"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. "But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother."

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: "I have known him walk - I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed."

"And so have I," mumbled Peter. "Rather Often."

"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had they all.

"But he was very light to carry,' she resumed, intent upon her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door."

She hurried out to meet him in his lion crested cuirass; and Tint Tim in his comforter - he had need of it, poor fellow - came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young twins got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against his face, as if they said, "Don't worry about it, father. Don't be sad."

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of his beloved wife and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

"Sunday. You went today, then." said his wife.

"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child.' cried Bob. "My son."

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it, not even the proud lions on his shoulders could give any comfort. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than they were.

He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Midwinter. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of someone having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Lord Tywin's squire, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little "just a little down you know," said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. "On which," said Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, ser.' He said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.' By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know."

"Knew what, my dear."

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.

"Everybody knows that." said Peter.

"Very well observed, my boy." smiled Bob. "I hope they do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said,' for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card,' that's where I live. Come see me.' Now, it wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt for us."

"I'm sure he's a good soul." Said his wife.

"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he got Peter a good position in the Lannister guard."

"Only hear that, Peter," said Bob's wife.

"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping company with someone, and setting up for himself."

"Get away with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim - shall we - or this first parting that there was among us."

"Never, father." they all cried.

"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it."

"No, never, father." they all cried again.

"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy."

His wife kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young twins kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, your childish essence was from the Gods.

"Spectre," whispered Tywin, "something tells me that you will be leaving soon. I know it, but I know not how or when. Tell me what man had died."

The Spirit of That Which Is Yet To Come acknowledged him, as before - though at a different time, he thought indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future - into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Tywin to stay a moment.

"This place," said Tywin, "is where I have lived during my tenure as Hand, and has been for a length of time. I see the doors now. Let me see what I shall become, in days to pass."

Tywin could sense that the dread Spirit had stopped; he knew it's hand was pointed elsewhere.

"My chamber is right there," Tywin exclaimed. "Why do you turn away?" The inexorable finger underwent no change. Tywin hastened to the window of his study, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it through a sea of darkness until they returned to the rock and Tywin knew where the spirit had taken them. He paused to look round before entering.

The Hall of Heroes, where every Lannister from the House of Casterly to King Lann to Tywin's own Father, Tytos was interned for all time. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by stone; overrun by symbols of golden lions, and further on a strange sigil that Tywin guessed had belonged to the Casterly's. A worthy place for the Lions on the Rock.

The Spirit stood among the vaults, his back to Tywin, and pointed down to one. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

"Before I go to that Grace at which you point," began Tywin, "humble me with one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, and only that." Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Tywin slowly crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name; 'Lord Tywin of the House Lannister, the First of his Name, the Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport, Warden of the West, Thrice Named Hand of the King, Saviour and Sacker of the self-same city.'

"I am the man who lay forgotten on that bed, am I not?" he cried, upon his knees. Tywin had always found it his philosophy that being loved was pointless; could love from the people give you food or warmth. No, better to be harsh and effective than loved and weak. But as Tywin stood in that infamous Hall; his own gravestone staring at him he became overcome with a great sense of fear and dread; the likes of which he had never known. Was this his fate, to be a gravestone remembered by naught? Tyrion would leap for joy if he heard Tywin perished. Would Cersei weep for him, or smile now no one could hold her back? Would Jaime take up his rightful place or remain a bodyguard? Who would remember him, who could have anything in their heart for the Great Lion on the Rock? The spectre's finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

`No..." was all Tywin was able to breathlessly murmur; practically silent among his own grave. The finger continued to point.

"Spirit." he said, staring up at the shining darkness unafraid, "hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for the events of this night. Why show me this, if I am past all hope of redemption?" For the first time the bony hand appeared to shake.

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change what you have shown me this night, by an altered life."

The kind hand trembled.

"I will honour the spirit and goodwill of this season in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three of you shall strive within me. I will not deny the lessons that they teach. Tell me I am capable of that!" Tywin pleaded, for the first time since he could remember.

The spirit continued to make no reply but raised the crossbow and pointed it at Tywin who raised his arms in resistance "No…I beg you, no!" he cried. The spectre mumbled something he could not make out bar "…I have always been…" before firing a bolt. The pain seared through Tywin's side as his eyes began to close but before he did he noticed the spirit's shadow recede and one of his eyes turn to a sparkling emerald.