PART III: A City This Darkness Can't Hide
The Ruins
300 AC
"Hel-"
Was this what death was like? Just an inky black void, an eternal crushing weight that one would feel until the end of time?
"He's-" the stuffed voice had called out again. Jon swore it sounded familiar. But it was difficult to place it. Everything hurt. "-found him under-"
Would he see his birth mother soon? His uncle and his grandfather too? Jon hoped that he would not see the Mad King out here in the void. How could he have gone to the same place as Aerys Targaryen himself?
The voices were getting closer to him, somehow. Jon felt something rumble, like the moving of heavy stones. "See! He's just-"
As if a great pressure had been lifted off his chest, Jon Stark heaved in his first breath of air in only Gods knows how long. Life fluttered back into the dust-choked lungs, and his heart began to beat furiously on and on once more.
A small light came to him from the corner of his vision. Something was moving there, blocking out the light. The voices were coming from that direction. "He's alive!" His father's strangled voice called out. "Lannister, pick up that stone on top of him!"
Jon Stark felt both of his legs being picked up off the ground. He was being dragged, he noticed. Then, the great stone that had trapped his upper body was lifted above him. Posting it up with both hands was Jaime Lannister.
With one great motion, Jon felt his back drag against the floor as he was pulled from underneath the stone and out into the arms of freedom. Unconsciously, his throat and lungs shook to life, violently rejecting the dust that had stained them.
Jon shot upright and was violently sick. Whatever was left of his breakfast he didn't retch up, he wheezed out the rest with hard hacking coughs.
By the time he was finished, Jon simply desired to fall on his back and go to sleep. The ringing bell of pain in his head would not stop pounding, not even for the briefest of moments. Just stop, please…
"Jon! Jon!" Arms coiled around him, keeping him upright. Jon blinked a few times, rubbing the dust out of his eyes. "I've got you, son."
Jon glanced up and saw the pair of gray eyes looking down at him. He quickly recognized his father, albeit covered in his own thick layer of dust and blood. His father's own doublet was torn by the sleeves. And there was a nasty scar running along his forehead as well.
"Father…" Jon croaked. His throat was as dry as the sands of Dorne. "What… what happened?"
"Wildfire." Someone else answered. It was Jaime. His armor was dented in several areas across his body, and he was missing a pauldron. Not to mention, his white cloak had been torn to ribbons, and his left eye was bruised with an angry purple blotch. "They put wildfire underneath the Sept and lit it. The whole bloody building collapsed on us."
Wildfire?
Jon's memories started flooding back to him one by one. He saw it all play out again before his own eyes. The sprouting green plants of emerald fire, the drowning out of screams, the way Renly's body had been torched along with his brother's, and the terrified look on Myrcella's face as the floor collapsed from beneath her feet.
Jaime continued. "I don't know how they put it back! I went through these tunnels and cleaned them out myself." He said, sounding increasingly frustrated.
"What are you saying, Lannister?" His father asked, his voice turning cold. "You knew the Wildfire was down here?"
"No! It-" the other man cut himself off. "It was Aerys who ordered for the wildfire to be put down here. After his death, I had them removed. But…" Lannister sighed angrily, pounding his armored fist against the wall. "Someone put them back."
"Aerys? Explain."
Jaime turned to the both of them. "The day of the Sack. The Mad King told his pyromancers to burn the city to the ground. He… He said to 'burn them all' They'd placed caches of wildfire underneath the entire city, even this place. But since I killed both Aerys and his pyromancer, it never went off."
There was a noticeable pause. "That was why you killed him."
"Yes."
Another pause. This one was far longer. "If you had them removed, then who put them back?"
Jaime shook his head. "I don't know. Besides the Alchemists' Guild, there were few others who knew of it."
"Who?"
"A few members of the King's council; Lord Rossart was made Hand of the King, I believe Pycelle suspected something, and probably Varys."
Varys.
Jon felt his father's voice go completely cold. "Varys knew of this?"
"He's Master of Whispers for a reason," Jaime said. "Do you believe he was behind this?"
"I don't know for certain. But I'm inclined to believe he is responsible." Eddard said in response. "But right now it doesn't matter. We need to get out of this place alive."
"Agreed." Jaime approached them both. "Jon, can you walk? It'll take all three of us to clear this rubble."
Jon nodded, though as soon as he made to move, he felt his throat constrict once more into a bad fit of racking coughs. He spat out more dust from his mouth, feeling his eyes go red with exertion. After a few moments, he stood up, albeit rather shakily. "I'll be fine." He croaked, his throat incredibly sore.
That was when he'd finally gotten a good look at his surroundings. They were in some kind of cylindrical chamber that was likely part of the sewers underneath Visenya's Hill. The stench of shit, guts, blood, and burning flesh was permeating the air, filling Jon's nostrils with its potent miasma.
There were no lights within this ruin, save for a handmade torch using a large bone and coiled rags dipped in… whatever was down here. No doubt, his father had lit it using the matches he usually carried with him.
They were at the bottom of the cylindrical cavern. It was mostly filled with chunks of masonry, marble, and stone, and far above by the top of the pit were two circular passages that carried the neverending flow of piss and human feces. Now, however, it was mixed in with human remains and ashes.
"How long have we been down here?" Jon asked, looking at his father and Jaime.
"We don't know." His father answered. "It might've been a day or a few hours. Hard to tell without any light." He said as he stood up. Jon widened his eye upon seeing the bloodstained bandage across his midsection.
Eddard tried to wave off Jon's concern, but the latter could clearly tell his father was in great pain. "That beam in the Sept. It barely scraped me," he said shakily, patting his side tenderly. "Nothing to worry about, son. Now, how about we focus on getting out of this place?"
His father left no room for argument as he picked up the torch and continued on down the hall.
Jon himself felt his nerves come to an all-time high. His father had been injured. It was serious, too. That was far too much blood for a simple scrape.
And Jaime's unconvinced look had also left little room to doubt it.
The Kingsguard had cut off a portion of his own white cloak, and that was the same bit that was now coiled tight around his father's midsection.
Jon knew, however, there was nothing they could do about it. Not while they were down here. Despite his father's likely grave injury, all they could do was find their way out and pray that a Maester would be nearby to aid them.
As such, Jon decided to follow Jaime and his father as they led him toward the great wall of rubble. He looked it up and down and then to the Kingsguard. "Where does this lead?"
"I don't rightly know," Jaime answered. "But going by the size of the blast, I believe the wildfire was placed deliberately underneath the Sept, or at least throughout Visenya's Hill. If it had been placed throughout the city, I doubt we'd be alive to speak of it." He nodded to the mound before them. "I'm guessing this might give us a way out toward the Street of Steel if it wasn't destroyed, or perhaps the Alchemist's Guildhall."
The Street of Steel! Jon prayed to the Old Gods that neither Tobho Mott nor his associates were harmed in the explosion. Then again, he wished the same for the Queen's children, and for all the innocent men and women who probably perished in the blast.
And here they were. Jon, his father, and Jaime Lannister, all stuck down in the sewers beneath the city. Without food, water, or blankets to keep themselves warm. Jon began to realize just how cold it would get in these sewers later on, especially without the torch to aid them. If they didn't find a way out now, it was only a matter of time before they starved or froze to death.
With the great mound of rocks and bricks before them, there was only one way out. The long and stony path.
Keep your head up and roll with the blows. Arthur's voice reminded him. There was no point laying about.
Time to get to work.
It had taken them a day to clear out the rubble.
They'd made out a small crawlspace by the top of the mound that extended just over twenty feet until it exited out into a much larger chamber on the other side.
When they began to crawl through, Jaime had gone in front, with Eddard taking the middle, and Jon following the two of them at the rear. They could only crawl on their hands and feet.
Jon had noticed his father's health deteriorating. At first, it began with an occasional coughing fit. His gray eyes were baggy and red-rimmed. And the patch of reddish-black underneath his bandaged midsection continued to flower ever so slightly as the hours passed by.
And yet, whenever Jon or Jaime told him to get some rest, Eddard Stark would go cold and proceed to work harder with inhuman strength. Somehow, he'd manage to will it out of himself and keep going.
Jon knew firsthand that there wasn't a thing he could do to convince his father otherwise. And it killed him with each passing second as much as it did his father.
By the time they'd finished crawling out to the other side, Jaime had said that the large chamber had a drop of unknown proportions, as there was also very little light within it.
Jon crawled behind his father on his elbows and knees, ignoring the sharp scrapes against his skin, and the newly opened cuts along his forearms and kneecaps. He grit his teeth through the pain, along with the empty tug in his stomach, and the demanding hunger he felt. Then there was his dry throat to make matters worse.
They made their way out onto a ten-foot ledge that hung over the massive dark hole that led further down into the sewers. Jon squinted his eyes to the other side of the chamber on the same level. There was another ledge and a much clearer passageway than the one they'd been forced to climb through.
"There," he said, pointing to the other side. "If we could get over there, it might just lead to a way out."
"How?" Jaime asked tiredly.
Jon knew that jumping the gap would be suicide. It was easily thirty feet or more. He decided to scan along the walls of the chamber and see if there were any ledges they could grapple onto.
Sure enough, there was a slender railing along the walls almost two feet in width. They could walk along it to the other side!
"The catwalk." He said. "Looks wide enough for us to walk on."
Jaime saw what he was looking at, and nodded accordingly. He led the way as before, with Jon's father taking the middle, and Jon at the rear. One by one, they stepped onto the walkway and made their way slowly across.
Outside of Jon's vision, he began to hear the steady, quiet scuttling sounds of dozens upon dozens of rats moving around in the dark. Down in the depths below, he'd made out tiny red pinpricks in the dark moving in great massive hoards all in one direction, going back to where he'd awakened earlier. At least we're heading in the right direction, he decided. It was likely the rats were drawn to the stench of decayed flesh. Something for them to eat besides themselves. Getting away from them must've meant that they'd been heading toward some kind of exit.
About halfway along the catwalk, Jaime passed by a waterhole carved into the walls about waist high at their level. Likely some sort of drain for rainwater, Jon figured.
Yet, as it was soon his father's turn to pass it, Jon nearly jumped back as perhaps nearly a great hoard of furry black wings blasted out of the hole and into the chamber around them. Glowing golden eyes glared angrily at Jon in the dark, and thousands of horrible screeches echoed into his ears.
It took nearly all of Jon's willpower to not cover his ears. He reached forward and grappled his father, who had almost fallen back from the drain and pinned him to the wall.
Bats, Jon thought to himself after a few moments. Must've been a hoard in that drain pipe. He shook his head as the screams died down, refocusing on the task at hand.
As the bats dispersed into the chamber, Jon nudged his father forward along the catwalk. His stomach lurched as he saw his father look back at him and nod shakily, his face pale and sweaty by this point. He'll be fine. We'll get him to a Maester. He told himself. You're not going to lose him. Not like Arthur.
His father continued on ahead, helped by Jaime to move by the drain and all the way to the end of the catwalk. Then, they stepped up onto the ledge, where Jon soon joined him.
They soon decided to rest there, and promptly, easily, all three men fell asleep to the black waves that washed over their exhausted and spent bodies, shivering away in the dark.
It took them another day to make it to the end of the long circular tunnel, and one more to reach a box-like antechamber with old rusted iron grates in the floors.
The nights in the dark sewers grew colder with each passing hour. And the more distance they made, the more Jon Stark was convinced that this place would never end. While they still had his father's matches, they decided to use them sparingly.
They'd resorted to using stones to cover themselves, and as ineffective as it was, it did help a little. Yet as they warmed ever so slightly, they were reminded of the hungering pull in their empty stomachs, and of the screeching ache in their muscles.
The three men had long since forgotten why they were down there in the first place.
Now, they were only focused on survival. And without any food to eat or any water to drink, those hopes were looking rather desperate at best.
In the box chamber with the high ceiling, after having climbed through countless tunnels in the sewers, the three men sat around a dwindling, pathetic flame, each attempting to steal what warmth they could from it so they could have some semblance of peace.
Jon glanced over at his father. The situation had not improved in the slightest.
Eddard Stark looked almost like a ghost in the small light of his flame. By now, the once-white bandage had almost completely been stained in an ugly brownish-black. He was burning with a bad fever, and Jon knew judging by the racking coughs he'd made in the last few days, that his father was dying right before his eyes.
No. Jon fought the doubting voice in his mind. Father always finds a way. He always finds a way to survive. That's what he does best.
And yet… Jon Stark could feel another sort of deathly chill within him. One that told him otherwise.
If they did not get out soon, they would all be food for the rats.
Jon decided to get a few more hours of shut-eye before they forged on once more. He let the black waves take him away again, taking him away from the continued pounding ache in his head, from his dust-choked lungs, and his exerted muscles and mind.
Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
Sleep.
By the fourth day, Jon's father needed to be carried.
As they made their way across a small bed of slime, slush, and shit, his father nearly fell over face-first into the shimmering black pool. Jon caught him just in time, having slung his arm under his father's shoulders and carrying him across.
Jaime helped as best he could by tearing off the rest of his cloak so as to make Eddard warmer, but at this point, the cold just wouldn't go away.
"J-J-Jon…" His father's voice was a shivered wheeze by this point. "Y-You n-need to l-l-leave me." He said as they trudged up onto the ledge. It was difficult-no, impossible to believe that the man Jon was carrying was once Eddard Stark, the Lord of Winterfell himself. "I-I-I'll only weigh you both down."
"No," Jon said with as much iron as he could summon. "You're going to live. We'll get you to a Maester, you'll get to see Mother and Robb, and Arya once this is all over. I'm not leaving you."
If there was one thing Jon was not about to do, it was to leave his own father to die cold and alone in the sewers beneath a shithole like King's Landing. His father deserved far better than that.
"H-Here," His father tried to reach into his doublet to remove his matchbox, but now it seemed too painful for him to exert himself by making even the slightest movements. "T-Take the matches. T-T-They'll keep you warm."
"No," Jon said again. "You're not dying here."
"I'm already dead, Jon."
"No. You're not dying. Not today."
His father went silent for a moment. Then, he simply coughed out a harsh laugh.
"Y-You're just as stubborn as your mother."
On the fifth day, they got their first glimpses of the outside world.
Their progress slowed significantly since Jon still carried his father in the tunnel. As such, Jaime made further advances down the tunnel so as to scout ahead. Occasionally, however, Jon would see the Kingsguard come back to check in on them and update them on how things looked.
By now, Jon figured they must've been somewhere underneath Fleabottom, or perhaps by the harbor judging by the stench of fish that now filled his nose.
That, and it was constantly getting colder and colder. Jon had almost wished he'd worn his heavy cloak by the time the Great Sept had been destroyed. At least he'd be far warmer now.
Yet, it was not his state of comfort, warmth, or even of hunger that worried him to the bone.
No, what chilled him right to down to his very core was the shape that his father was in.
Eddard Stark was no longer the self-assured, stony-eyed Lord of the North that he once was. Now, it seemed, he was practically an old man judging by the way he hovelled on his feet, and how he kept his right arm slung to his chest. His brown hair was now stained with dirt, dried blood, and shit. And his muscles looked rather contorted and strained. His beard had grown out, and his face was gaunt and pale. Where he'd been sweating earlier on, now his body had gone completely cold. It seemed, as the hours passed by, that Jon's father was also fading in and out of consciousness.
As Jon carried him further down the cold, dank tunnel, he heard his father murmur something to himself.
"I pr…" He said with a shiver. "I promise…"
Jon paid him no mind. We're so close to the end. I can feel it. Just focus on getting him out alive.
"I-I-I promise… L-Lyanna…"
Jon nearly stopped cold in his tracks.
No, now wasn't the time. He had to get his father out. And fast. Jon continued his pace. There was light in the tunnel now, natural light. And it was getting brighter.
His father continued to mumble to himself in the dark, meanwhile, Jon simply forged ahead. Carrying his father, holding him up, and taking one step at a time. Forget about your screaming muscles, ignore the pounding in your head. Just keep going. One step at a time. One, two. One, two. One, two. You're almost there. Keep going. One, two. One, two. One, two.
From the right turn in the tunnel came Jaime. He looked excited. "It leads out to Blackwater Rush! There's an abandoned camp!" He said.
Jon felt his pulse quicken. He continued his pace. That's it! Keep going. You're right there! Just at the end!
His heart nearly stopped when his father slipped out of his grasp and fell to the floor face-first. Jon scrambled to help him sit up against the wet stone walls. He sighed in relief upon hearing his father wheeze out a sharp breath.
"Ah…" His father smiled. "Cold."
Jon tried his best to smile. "Yes, father. It's cold. We're almost outside. Just a bit further now-"
"No…" Eddard said with a deep gulp. "I think this is it for me, son…" He coughed again, this time spitting up blood all over the floor. His blue lips were stained with inky red as he smiled at Jon. "I can feel it in my bones… You'll take them back to Winterfell when this is all over, right?"
No. No, no, no, no. "We've found a way out, father! We're right there! Just a little bit-"
"Listen!" His father's voice cracked the air like a stern whip.
Jon could only bow his head in silence. He did not wish to see his father dying before his eyes any longer. He couldn't bear it.
Still, his father continued. "Look at me, son. Look me in the eyes."
Jon didn't move his head.
"Look at me in my last moments, Jon. Please."
Jon had shakily risen his gaze, now level with his father's. There was a glassy look in those dark gray orbs. An almost peaceful resignation with what was about to happen.
His father somehow found the strength to cup Jon's face with both his hands. "It's all on you, son. When I'm gone… They'll all look to you. Your mother, Arya, Dyanna, Bran, Rickon. Even Robb. You must protect them at all costs. You must keep them together, be strong for them. The lone wolf dies…"
"But the pack survives." Jon finished his father's phrase. He wanted to stay strong.
Eddard nodded weakly. "Precisely…" He said with a gulp. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, father."
"Good."
His father suddenly coughed again, which was soon followed by a series of hoarse chuckles. "You know… Ashara and I were once worried that you'd stop calling us 'Mother and Father' when we told you…"
When we told you about Rhaegar and Lyanna. Jon smiled weakly and shook his head. "You two raised me. You'll both always be my father and mother."
"And we realized that as you got older…" His father coughed again. More blood this time. "But…" he trailed off. "I don't care which name you choose to wear, son." More coughs followed.
Shakily, Eddard continued. "It doesn't matter if you decide to be Jon Stark or Jaehaerys Targaryen. All that matters…" He trailed his right hand down to Jon's chest and pointed at the spot where his heart would be. "...you must be better than me."
Better? Jon didn't know how he could be better than his father. How could he be better than Eddard Stark? The Quiet Wolf himself? "But-"
"Say it, son." His father's voice was like cold iron.
Jon looked his father in the eyes and, trying to stay strong, uneasily nodded. "I will be better."
That seemed to satisfy his father greatly. Eddard Stark lay back against the wet brick walls of greenish-gray stone and smiled contently to himself. "Good…" He said. "Good."
Jon's heart nearly burst when his father slid away from the wall and over onto the floor again. Just in time, Jon caught him and cradled him in his arms. He wanted to say something. Anything, to keep the older man hanging on just for a little bit longer. Yet, he knew full well what was about to happen. "Can't you stay just a little longer? For me, father? Please?" He pleaded, but his words fell flat.
Eddard smiled warmly at him. The same smile he'd given him all those years ago when Jon had seen him speaking with the petitioners in the Great Hall in Winterfell. The same smile he'd seen after all those training sessions with Arthur. The same smile he'd given him after his return from Dorne or from Valyria.
It was that same fatherly smile that Eddard now compressed into five distinct words. Five words that would forever burn in Jon's mind.
"You've always made me proud."
With those final five parting words, Eddard Stark let go of his final breaths. His body stopped shivering as the dwindling fire behind his gray eyes had completely extinguished.
It was then that Jon Stark broke down.
As he hugged his father's lifeless body and rocked him back and forth, he cried out all the tears he'd been holding back, until there were none left to shed.
Within the city of King's Landing, in the confines of the Red Keep itself, two direwolves joined underneath the pale full moon in the sky.
Together, they let loose a loud, sorrowful howl.
And all throughout the night, the howling never stopped.
