Chapter Thirty Nine: Never Delay Payment.
Thirteenth Day of the Eleventh Month, 114 AC.
The stone leapt into the air, a perfectly shaped pebble of glistening black rotating in the air. It shined off the light of the noonday for two heartbeats before slipping from the air and back into my hand which surged with warmth at the embrace.
The feeling left again as I tossed it up again, repeating the cycle.
I had been doing tossing the stone for a while, again and again.
Clearsky's eyes followed the stone from where she rested her head beside me as she clung to the tower's roof. She snorted every time that the stone made contact with my hand.
My mouth tightened as well at the embrace, tongue pressing to the left of my mouth, falling unevenly against the gaps made by the baby teeth which had already vanished from my mouth. Two had already fallen in that particular breed of unwelcomed déjà vu.
I tossed and caught the stone again.
Déjà vu was the right name for it.
I did not remember losing them in my first life anymore.
Not that strange really, I thought to myself.
Toss and catch. Toss and catch. Toss and catch.
After all, I am remembering less and less while also recalling more and more.
I scowled.
Media in general, academic literature, the arguments of professors. And most of all those damned books. Every day they became starker, etched into the very core of my memory.
My experiences? My family? My name? Those were becoming more nonspecific by the day. How many cousins did I have? I had been close to them but now I can't even recall their names and faces.
I let go of my scowl and sighed. In what world is it fair that I cannot remember the names of my sibling(s?) but I have Roy Dotrice's 'AAAHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOs' stuck in my head?
There was no point in being upset about it but it was still bloody annoying.
The worst of it was the image it was very clearly making me adopt.
"I am becoming one broody bastard," I grumbled.
"As you say," Ebermen commented from his seat behind the ledge I was seated on. I heard to the crack of old paper as he flipped another page in a book about poisons and wine. "The source of this observation?"
"Just acknowledging that I look like a broody bastard," I snorted while tossing the stone.
Granted, 'broody' and dwelling on my dubious memory was still better than sleep and even sleep was better than dwelling at the unholy clusterfuck raging beneath me.
Arral's declaration had not been received positively.
Quite the opposite in fact, everyone was at each other's throats with threats and accusations as to whether the mad maester's claims were false or whether there was some sort of conspiracy at work. I suspected that even Lymon might prefer the former to be the case given the implication of the other option.
That glorified date-rape drug is the exclusive domain of the king, that was a deeply disturbing thing.
Jaehaerys had been pretty thorough as it turned out, the Mourner and a whole battery of dubious drugs and poisons had been outlawed during his rule and even possession of a number of them was grounds for 'harsh' treatment.
The Redwynes would be battered by the fine attached to be sure, the damage to their reputation would be even worse. The optics of the situation was essentially the grounds for never letting your heir within several hundred leagues of the Arbor.
But that was not Lymon's worry, even if it might very well be Manfred's.
No, the bigger worry was by far that it did come from King's Landing and what it could mean.
I knew that Mom and Rhae would be unhappy about their 'pet' houses trying to move away from the conflict, that had been an obvious concern from the start. But would they actually be monumentally stupid enough to go this far?
If they did, it meant that this was a message for both the Hightowers and the Valyrians.
'You are not allowed to leave', it did not even have to be Mom and Rhae themselves, it could have been any number of the jackals that pretended to care about them.
I did not throw the stone that time, instead studying it. There are plenty of lords and ladies who would be stupid enough to try an operation this remote and mis-managed as to catch Arral in the crossfire.
That gave me a glimmer of hope, they both knew Arral.
Mother had been delivered by the Maester and she had been taught by him for years, just as Ormund had. She probably had the same instinctive respect-bordering-on-fear of the man that all of his former pupils did.
And Rhae had spent enough time with him and read enough of my letters to at least be wary.
They would surely not be responsibl-
No, that's not right either. I admonished myself and dismissed that idiotically optimistic line of reasoning. They might have not known Arral would come, or they did and failed to account for him being caught up in it.
One thing that was really poking holes in theories about the Archmaester lying was the unmitigated havoc he apparently wreaked among the servants the previous night before being found in barrel in the kennels. The Ironborn madman (an admitted contradiction in terms) was eccentric but even he had limits, such as tying a number of servants together in their sleep and etching some sort of curse onto their undergar- there really was no sense in going into depth.
"It could have been a Green, a Black or a filthy Neutral," I sighed. "And we have no damned leads."
"Yet," Ebermen noted. "A Knight ought to differentiate between failure and a lack of patience. Lady Nessa has yet to reach a conclusion."
My nanny turned Adjutant had mobilized the bulk of my pendants in an effort to gather as much rumor as possible, given her requisition of all but Omeld and Morgan, I suspected that she meant to break a few legs if needed.
"As you say," I shot him a look of amusement as I usurped his phrase.
He snorted in return while Clearsky adjusted herself to rest her head next to the Shield and I turned away from the sun to face them while still regarding my rock.
"I am surprised you kept one," The Bull noted as he eyed the rock.
"Madman must have left it on my counter in the middle of his ravings," I suggested, welcoming the change of subject.
The stone was comforting and some part of me realized that it was probably not a good thing that it was.
I could not help but marvel at it as I starred into the deep pitch-black of it.
It felt so warm though, not even just 'warm' in the literal way.
It was warm like a good memory, like the tired success of finishing a spar with only a few bruises, warm like the embrace of mother and my siblings. Warm like Clearsky, warm like the reassurance of having Nessa and Ebermen with me. It was warm like Rhae's touch or Laena's smile the day before.
"Prince?" Ebermen sounded somewhat concerned as I whipped my head up from it with so much force that I almost fell back.
"What the hell?" I blinked and felt my eyes, dry as if they had been starring for a while.
I looked over to the concerned looking Shield and saw Clearsky shaking her head like a wet-dog might.
"You were silent some time," Ebermen noted.
"How long?" I breathed, the stone trembling in my hand, it felt warmer now. Not comforting but almost angry.
Why can't I let this thing go? I thought between breaths,
"A few moments," The Bulwer stood up and walked over to me. "You were not blinking however."
"Really?" I said while glaring at the now obviously-funky rock.
I felt the tug that time, a strange pull as if something was turning my head towards it. That I managed to tug my eyes away was a good sign.
I still can't let go. That was not good. The opposite of good actually. The exact opposite of good.
"Ebermen," I breathed. "Have Omeld and Morgan find Arral, please."
The Bulwer regarded me for a long moment before nodding and descending the stairs to dispatch the others.
I looked to Clearsky and I could see concern alive in her eyes as well, certainly fear.
"You too?" I smiled awkwardly. "I wonder what in the seven hells Arral was thinking?"
Clearsky snorted.
"Ya, I second the motion to shave him!" I chuckled awkwardly while trying to avoid the now distinctly uncomfortable feeling of my arm on fire. I started flinging my arm around in an effort to dislodge the damned thing while I spoke. "We could do that! Ha! Imagine, we can pull a Tyrion! Then we will be even!"
Why aren't you coming off? I literally tossed dozens of you into the ocean you clingy-piece of nefarious trash! I hissed as the pain flared again. Where the fuck is Arral?
I was about to shout for the Shield but then I remembered where I was through pain as I resorted to trying to slam the rock against the stone to pry it free.
"Can't shout," I whispered to myself through grit teeth. "There are enough suspicions, Can't make a spectacle."
As the flaring became worse I realized that the stone was not black anymore, it was not only getting warmer, it was getting red.
Brighter and brighter until it burned white and I could not look away.
My hands and eyes burned with it as it cracked down the middle.
No, not a crack, I realized too late as a slitted pupil of perfectly cold iron starred back at me.
Then the world went white.
...
I woke up feeling like my head had been run over, throbbing in pain my vision was fuzzy.
Where am I? A generic thought but the truth was that I did not feel the cool stone or warm breeze anymore.
So fuzzy that I could only see white.
Alot of white.
White and then grey.
I blinked a few times until I realized that the grey was focused in the same place.
Rubbing my eyes, I looked up again and the grey coalesced.
Oh, oh that is not good.
A steel line that split a horizon of indistinguishable white.
A tower of impossible dimensions without beginning or end.
I could not fathom it and I could not look away from it.
It came closer or I was walking towards it or both.
Each step made the tower wider, more distinct, every conteur and mark on its surface.
Some marks were smoked-toned and rippled steel. Others were glossy as if stone. Some sparkled like black ice. There were some like black glass and more had the gloss of metal-veined stone.
Dozens, no hundreds, thousands of different variants along its mass. Each was distinct but each was also kin to those around it, small reflections of the greater whole of iron.
The tower stretched and bulged, the screeching of metal and stone and ice and glass and coal and jade and so much more as the structure became almost like a lizard's eye.
And it was staring at me, holding me captive to its gaze.
I felt my guts coil, the blood drain from my face and my knees shake.
I could feel it.
I could feel it inside of me, inside my head.
Then I closed my eyes.
...
Tens, Hundreds, Thousands. They began to blur together as their memories were etched in the tower, not feeding it so much as returning to it.
Their fear remained behind, an imperfection worked from their steel.
Their words, their surroundings, their blood was all meaningless, forgotten before it could come.
Enki'Lugh the Earth-Weaver, Kobuliu the Coral-Beneath and more that my mind could not subscribe letters to.
But beneath them all, I heard Meraxes.
Although that name rung as false as all the others. A combination of meaningless sounds just like the tongues which they spoke.
Yet their feelings gave shape to their thoughts and words which were recognizable.
…
"You're scared?" A boy asked a girl.
"No," The girl stared at the ripple of the currents, trying to ease her fidgeting.
"Yes you are!" He shook his mane in insistence. He always took so much care about that that silly thing.
"Maybe I am," She admitted, dipping into the water to see it wash over her scales.
She shrugged her shoulders, "Death."
He snorted, a rude noise from the twist of his fins.
"Don't laugh!" She shouted while slapping him with her tail.
"We were always meant for this! Teacher said that fear only makes it worse!" He lectured, but she could hear the fear on his voice. She would have seen it in his dragon's nervous twitches along its vast gill-plates. "I am going to make it! I know I am! And you are the better student, so you will too!"
The girl coughed a laugh as he puffed out his mane in confidence. Her friend had always been too silly by half but she loved him for it."If the Earthbone accepts you, then maybe he will take me as well."
"The maybe we should stop lounging around up here and get to it!" He smiled, revealing his uneven fangs without a scale of shame.
The girl lived and the boy died.
But that is the way of things.
…
The man embraced his brother, helm striking against helm.
"I charge you with their care," He muttered.
"Of course," His brother had never been one for words but the tension in his eyes and the swelling of his throat made it clear. "It is unwelcomed duty. A brother alive would be preferable."
"It is not so easy a task," He shook his head while walking towards his mount, the great dragon resting in the steaming earth-blood that gave their cavern light.
"I am not so eager to take your place," The brother grumbled as he remove his helm and ran a clawed hand over his trimmed head. "Offspring are best left to their sire."
"Blessings have already been accepted," The man shrugged. "It would be cowardice to defer from payment."
"Pride is fine but some view duty as finer," The brother sighed and turned to observe the youths staring at them from the passages. "Go on brother, She-Who-Is-Blades awaits."
The man inclined his long neck one last time to his elder before climbing onto his mount and edging the great beast towards the caverns end as its four great limbs began to move forward.
The man served but he never returned to that cavern.
But that is the way of things.
...
The woman smiled as she ascended a stair of crystal, biting back the discomfort of the frozen flames around her.
For moon upon moon she had readied herself for the last steps.
Alone in the fallen forests.
Humming in monasteries adrift in the sea.
Forging her steel-laden ice with fire and water.
She had worked the imperfections from herself.
Yet her steps hesitated at that final juncture.
Would she be found pure enough? Refined so that the imperfections in her glass-like-ice were tolerable to her lord?
Each step felt heavier as she ascended, her feet feeling leaden and stiff as the fear gripped her.
It was only the steady clatter of her beloved mount's frosty breath that kept her moving up the stair as she circled outside the tower.
She grit her teeth and felt her breath become more and more wet as the heat grew, as of threatening to break her apart.
But she pressed on regardless.
She had to do it.
"Seven faces you have," she hummed to herself. "Lord of Crafts, Meraxes, Meraxes. Harden my soul like unmelting crystal."
She felt the tears well in her blue eyes as the heat became more miserable as she ascended to the pinnacle.
The woman never descended from the spire.
But that is the way of things.
…
"We all felt fear," Gaema smiled at me as she turned away from the gate she followed to her death. "But we all proceeded regardless."
But that was not Gaema, the voice was far too many.
"Great," I spit through nonexistent lips. "For all of you, really. If I had hands, I would be applauding. But I am not one of you and I am certainly not part of any weird and misguided pseudo-cult."
The vitriol in the words was childish but at that moment I could not muster anything else to put over the fear.
"Is that what you think?" The girl smiled brightly.
I tried to raise a brow, "You are making a terrible sales pitch, I want nothing to do with you or any of you. It was you that crammed those dreams into my head."
"Not us," Not-Gaema shook her head. "You were the one that called, you were the one that offered that child your blood. You were the one that practiced the rites, who honored the kin-bones and invoked the names your people wished to forget."
"Because you made a wonderful show of giving me only the positives!" I shouted back, I was baited!
"We showed you nothing," Not-Gaema blinked. "And you began the path of your own accord, did you think that power comes without sacrifice? Have you learned nothing from our mistakes? Is your steel so brittle? Do not shame yourself by leveling accusations you yourself know to be untrue."
I had nothing to say to that.
Even through my anger and fear, I could hear the truth of those words.
What is there to say? That I thought that I can just milk the situation to my benefit and not offer anything but a bit of work in return?
"You do not matter anymore than any one of us," She frowned. "Our order has been extinguished and reignited times beyond count, better steel take longer to work than we allow pig-iron among us."
I snorted to that, "Lovely, why do you need me then?"
"We are all needed," Gaema shrugged. "Whether the Lady accepts you or not, you must be completed."
"Completed?" I chuckled at the term.
"Did you think that the ritual was the end of it?" Not-Gaema chuckled in return. "That a blade is completed in an instant? No… No, your forging began from the moment your dragon accepted your blood, from the moment that you began pouring into each other like iron and carbon."
That made my teeth itch. "What?"
"Our Lady is harsh, but she is not unfair," Not-Gaema smiled. "So, we will complete the knowledge that you are missing."
That cannot be good.
"Finish your steel, Gaemon," The sacrifices warned. "For the world will discard unfinished steel."
And then I awoke.