Whispers in the Calm
Naruto entered the lecture hall with a bit of time to spare. The assisting acolytes were already there, preparing the hall for the Archmaester's arrival and following lecture, as were the novices and acolytes like him, here to learn and eventually earn their silver link.
He collected a small package of cloth from one of the acolytes proudly displaying their already earned chain, incomplete though it was, with a silver link right in the middle. In truth the ring was not fully silver, undoubtedly, to reduce the prize of the materials used, but the outside of it was, to display the subject of mastery in question.
When he tried Naruto could feel the difference in metals, where the outer shell of silver was instead replaced by an inner core of iron or brass or tin. However, in the end it was not the material worth of the ring that mattered but the knowledge it represented.
Reaching an empty desk Naruto claimed it for himself, placing the bundle he had been given on top and undoing the string binding it closed. Before he could take more than a cursory glance at the different things contained inside Archmaester Ebrose entered the hall.
Unlike Walgrave, Ebrose was only just beginning to grey, and his wits were in no danger of leaving him any time soon. Exchanging a few quiet words with the acolytes at the front of the hall he stepped forward and addressed the room.
"Healing of every sort is dependent on your specific patient, but that is more true than ever in the realm of medicines," Archmaester Ebrose began. "Tinctures, draughts, and potions, even teas, all work best when they have been adjusted correctly to the problem one is currently seeking to solve."
As Naruto listened to the greying Archmaester he carefully looked over the arrangement of herbs and plants in front of him. Herblore and medicine could overlap in certain regards and both of the lecturing Archmaester's possessed two rings belonging to the other discipline.
Tansy, nightshade, sourleaf, mint, pennyroyal, kingscopper, wolf's bane, mugwort, wormwood, nettle, liverwort, and others. Their effects varied but every single one had its use for some kind of treatment, if only in combination with other ingredients.
"Children can not yet handle many treatments, and the older your patient the more careful you will have to be again, for age weakens the body just as it first strengthens it. Yet simply assuming an older patient weaker than a younger one would be folly as well. Instead, you must judge for yourself every time, what dosage will be appropriate."
Ebrose held up a small vial filled with a thick white liquid.
"This is milk of the poppy. Many of you will have seen it before and may have even encountered its use. In appropriate doses it dulls pain and will quickly lead to sleep, allowing more extreme measures to be taken, should they be required, or simply for the body to rest."
"Yet too much of it can be fatal as well, as can overuse reduce the effectiveness dramatically. Its usage, therefore, should be considered carefully, especially where women and children are concerned. In certain cases, other treatments may then be the better choice, chewing on willow bark being one possibility for lesser pains."
The lecture continued then, moving from simple instruction to the mixing of different remedies, either by name or by the effect it would have when administered.
Mistakes were criticised and then corrected, so no one memorised faulty recipes or wrongfully connected ingredient to medicinal purpose.
Naruto paid careful attention throughout the process. He had made the decision to attend lectures for a silver link after his first few weeks of study in Oldtown, when it had become clear that his black iron link for ravenry would not take him long to earn.
He had no need for medicines himself, of course, or for any of the other things he was learning under Ebrose, but few things made him feel as useless as seeing others hurt or sick without anything he could do.
In Qarth Shiera had still been Quaithe to him, but when she had collapsed he had panicked even though he barely knew her, unsure what to do. The academy had taught some basic field care, but that was limited in scope, and Naruto could admit to himself that he barely remembered half of those lessons.
Maybe he would never be a great healer, but as long as he could do something, that was better than sitting there and worrying while feeling like his hands were tied.
Once the lecture had concluded Naruto was done with his studies for the day. But he had something else he wanted to do while he was still on Citadel grounds.
Leaving the hall, he made his way to the largest among the multitudes of buildings scattered across both sides of the Honeywine. The Citadel's library was its most precious part, as were the vaults beneath it, containing tomes filled with knowledge spanning thousands of years of history, all of them secured under its high vaulted ceilings.
Naruto thought it stuffy and cramped, and usually avoided the place as much as he could, but there were certain things that could only be found inside. Thousands upon thousands of books were kept in careful order, preserved from the distant past, and he hoped that he would find what he was looking for. It was long past time he figured out what a third eye was.
The library's thick oak doors were one of the few places on Citadel grounds guarded by armed men, two armoured men-at-arms with spears keeping unwanted visitors from gaining entrance into the valuable repository of knowledge behind them.
As an acolyte Naruto was granted access freely, though the same did not hold true with the some of the rooms and vaults further down. Those doors would only be opened to Maester's that had already sworn vows to the Citadel, or a few trusted acolytes that had attended lectures for a few years and were now close to doing so.
He passed the desk right after the doors, ignoring the acolyte sitting there to help with the search should it be required, already broadly aware what he was looking for. It was a voluntary duty, and a good way to get into an Archmaester's good graces outside of lectures, which was the reason most acolytes had for taking it, though the small wage the position gained helped as well.
The Citadel itself was overseen by the current Seneschal, a title on yearly rotation among the Archmaester's of the Conclave and decided by lot, but the library was headed by an additional, separate post.
The Master Librarian was technically no Archmaester and without a chain to show his mastery of the different subjects taught at the Citadel, but in the bowels of this building he outranked most everyone else, charged as he was with keeping order and acting as a guide in the search of specific knowledge.
Countless shelves filled the building's interior, reaching nearly high enough to scrape against the roof and small nooks held desks and chairs, where books and scrolls could be read, and sometimes deciphered, in peace and quiet. Additional rooms on the sides were reserved for use by chained Maester's seeking to immerse themselves deeply in the surviving records.
Deeper yet, near where some of the oldest records were kept, acolytes and Maesters were hard at work, to stand against the encroaching grasp of time and degradation. No matter the Citadel's efforts every record kept here would eventually crumble, handled carefully or not, and so the task of preserving those very same records through copying was ever present.
The library was sectioned very broadly by subject, marked with the respective ring at the beginning of the corresponding shelves.
Naruto walked past gold and silver, past iron, brass, bronze, lead, and pewter, until he reached copper. Perhaps he should have chosen the section marked by Valyrian steel first, but he could always do that after he had looked through these records without success.
He looked for some of the oldest records, or at least those dealing with times long since past, back before the Andals had come to Westeros, and First Men had lived everywhere here. The same First Men that, at least in the North, still prayed to weirwoods and the old gods.
Considering that the figure that had met him on the shores of the Isle of Faces had worn a weirwood mask, and that the island was a sacred grove of the old gods, it felt like a natural point to start.
Myths and Legends of the First Men, written by a Maester long dead whose name he could only half pronounce, was the first book Naruto chose to take a closer look at.
Finding himself the nearest unoccupied nook and lighting a candle, he set to work, carefully working through the great pages as quickly as he could. Much of what the author had written about was entirely irrelevant to him and was swiftly ignored for the many other things contained in the thick tome.
By the time Naruto had reached the final page he had not learned anything in regard to his actual goal, and so he moved on. Book after book he worked through meticulously, on the lookout for anything even resembling the concept of a third eye. Yet he found nothing.
Just as he was about to abandon his current approach for searching another section of the library, he found something. The book was ancient, probably one of the oldest in the entire collection, and it felt like even only a slight breeze would make the old pages crumble into dust right then and there.
It has long been understood that it was a custom of the First Men to give their enemies to the weirwoods in sacrifice after battle, yet I must stress that this was an adopted ritual, taken on in the centuries after they had arrived on Westeros.
Whether or not the mythical Pact happened as the stories tell it, there is some justification to the thought that this sacrificial behaviour was perhaps a custom taken on when the now nameless, original gods the First Men prayed to were abandoned for those of the Children.
After he turned the page to read the next passage Naruto found instead a jarring change in topic. Then he noticed the remains. Where the pages had been bound together only small shreds of parchment remained. It was not an uncommon sight among the oldest books in the library but that he found it here was somewhat aggravating.
But there was one option to explore.
Stepping out of the nook he was using Naruto looked around. Most other people in the building were just like him, acolytes looking for some piece of information, but there were those here to keep order, and to ensure that all the records were treated appropriately.
He found the Master Librarian a few shelves over, clad in identifying blue robes with white sleeves, checking a list he held against the books displayed in front of him. The man was tall and lanky, with a noticeably long neck only strengthening that impression, and paused his task only long enough to ask for a quick outline of the problem.
"I was perusing the archives for records of First Man rituals, when I happened upon a few heavily damaged pages." The first words of Naruto's explanation earned him a flinty look, quickly replaced by a genial smile.
"If you would point me to the record in question?"
Naruto turned, leading the way back to the space he had been using, his candle still lit, and the book opened to the correct page.
"Regrettable, as vandalism always is," the older man said, nodding, once he had inspected the damage. "Unfortunate as it is, you will not find a complete copy of this text anywhere in these shelves. Even our efforts at preservation are not without flaw. If you could specify your exact goal more directly, I may be able to point to other relevant works."
"I stumbled upon the concept of a third eye some moons ago, yet I had never heard of it before. I thought I may be able to find some explanation here," Naruto said, seeing little reason to dance around the issue.
"Hmm, 'third eye', you say?" the librarian asked, thinking aloud. "If I have encountered it before, I do not recall the occasion. If the connection to the First Men is without question, perhaps the section on the higher mysteries might lead to better results for you. Some accounts of old rituals and traditions may be shelved there instead."
Naruto's gut was telling him that something was up, and he usually trusted that feeling. "I will look into it."
He watched the Master Librarian leave his nook again, slightly narrowed eyes trained on his back. Usually, he tried not to immediately think the worst of people, but his Shinobi senses were tingling. Kakashi had always stressed looking underneath the underneath.
That in mind Naruto went back to work, browsing his current section for other possible leads. If the man was trying to hide something, for whatever reason, the suggestion of changing sections would lead to nothing, but there might be something to be found here, buried among hundreds of other tomes.
Slowly, a pattern emerged.
Whenever he felt like he was getting even vaguely closer to some kind of answer, something stopped him. In older records, pages were missing or damaged, while in newer versions the explanation ended quickly, before the conclusion Naruto was looking for could be reached.
Some of that he would have simply put down to age, the tomes he was searching for dealt with a time more than thousand years in the past after all, but all of it?
Admittedly, other sections, with no conceivable connection to his goal, were in a similar state, especially in the oldest works, and calling one a coincidence and the other intentional would be a bit too convenient.
Two more hours of searching yielded nothing on any third eyes, much less their meaning or any possible method to acquire them.
If there was something to be found, it was buried deep in these shelves. Working through all of them would take months, if not years. The history section of the library, unfortunately, was by far the largest.
Naruto spent the following hour looking through the suggested section on the higher mysteries, what books he found largely written so vague as to be entirely meaningless. Perhaps he should have expected that, considering his earlier thoughts and his first contact with the connected lectures, but he had harboured some hope, nonetheless.
Disappointed with the absence of success Naruto left the library and the Citadel as the day grew dark.
After the first months in Oldtown a routine had set in, his day spent in lectures or training, and sometimes the library, and the evenings often taken up by relaxing drink in one of the many inns all over the city.
He chose to do the same this time as well, finding himself a bench and a cup of cider, even if the day had been rather far from the ordinary and not exactly cause for celebration.
"No luck again?" Naruto asked after Myles had sat down with a disgruntled expression. The Quill and Tankard was as popular as always, the crowd of mostly acolytes drinking and eating what their coin could pay for.
"No." the younger student shook his head, frowning. "Walgrave has been getting worse, apparently."
"Well, there is always tomorrow," he said, trying to be encouraging for the younger man.
"Easy for you to say, you have your ring," Myles grumbled. He had been trying for two weeks now, to get the opportunity for an examination from Walgrave to finally earn his black iron ring for ravenry, but the old Maester had not been himself lately, even more so than usual.
"Oh stop being so glum about it. If Walgrave won't get better the Conclave will appoint someone else to do it soon. It's not like you are in a great hurry." Naruto signalled the nearest serving wench for another cider, already tired of the younger acolyte's attitude. It was getting old.
Myles intended to earn a full chain, with the possible exception of a Valyrian steel link, and that would take years yet. Most likely there would be someone else to judge novices and acolytes for their black iron rings by next week, should Walgrave not recover adequately.
It was certainly regrettable, but there was no changing the situation now, and especially not by complaining about it every day.
After the first taste of Cider Myles thankfully changed topics and began a discussion on the day's lecture under Archmaester Ryam with another acolyte seated at their table. Naruto did not attend the man's lectures, and could hardly share in their discussion, not that he had any wish to.
Mathematics had bored him to tears in the academy and that had been an incredibly small part of the curriculum. In the end he had learned his sums, leaving Iruka with many a grey hair no doubt, but subjecting himself to more of it willingly would not happen any time soon.
Estimating travel times or necessary supplies, that he could and would do, but working with numbers just for the sake of it? Trying to figure out something as useless as the size of the moon in the sky or the exact width of the bay? He'd rather die.
It was an issue he had with many of the subjects taught at the Citadel. Ravenry, herblore, and medicine involved much practical work: feeding or training the birds, identifying plants, learning to set a broken bone or clean a wound, things you learned and practiced with the Archmaester looking over your shoulder for mistakes.
Other subjects were not the same, unfortunately.
When Naruto had attended a lecture on warcraft he had been prepared for many things, but when the lecturing Archmaester had started explaining the mechanics of different pieces of siege equipment to the novices and acolytes in the room he had been a bit disappointed, nonetheless.
Even if he had later admitted to himself that it was probably good that someone knew about all of that, it did not need to be himself. In the first place he had no need for siege machines, not in war and certainly not in peace. Wasting his time learning about them anyway would be excruciatingly painful, and boring. Mostly boring.
Even if he was learning in the Citadel for now his interests largely lied elsewhere. What time he didn't spend in lectures was largely used on training but talking about that with the other acolytes and novices, much less the Maesters, was entirely pointless. These were 'knights of the mind', with little use for sword or bow or kunai.
In the end Naruto had noticed pretty quickly that he didn't really fit in here.
Oldtown was growing restless.
The year was slowly growing to a close, and yet the Citadel had not pronounced Winter's end. As far south as the city was most winters were rather mild, seldom bringing snow or frost, but the winds grew colder and the nights longer all the same.
More than half a year had passed now, with not even a hint of winter's grasp, and yet the Conclave remained stubbornly silent on the issue.
As he wandered the streets on the northern side of the Honeywine without a real goal in mind, Naruto wondered how the farmers in the wider countryside outside of the walls were dealing with the problem. He knew little of farming, crops, and keeping livestock, but even his limited knowledge was more than enough to understand that the seasons and weather controlled their lives in major ways.
Then again, maybe this far south it did not matter much. As far as he had learned the last winter had not brought any snow to the city and surrounding lands, and only further north had the cold been strong enough to freeze the water in the rivers.
Still, for now the weather continued to speak of spring, announced or not, and the markets were filled with people buying and selling a thousand different wares. Mostly, Naruto was only browsing, seeing if anything caught his eye, but there was one thing he actually intended to seek out.
Oldtown saw trade from far and wide, and the collection of different wares available in the markets was expansive, ranging from saffron hailing all the way from the far east to furs from White Harbour. Yet Naruto was looking for something that had undertaken a far shorter journey.
Tomorrow he would be nineteen, marking two years having come and gone after arriving in this world. His last birthday had passed him by with little fanfare, and the one before had been mired in the chaos of the war and his following arrival, but he could celebrate this one, at least a little bit.
"Wines! Wines! Red or white, whichever you prefer!" a boy near one of the stalls cried loudly. With the small distance between Oldtown and the Arbor, where much of the wine in Westeros was produced, ships arrived at least weekly to bring a fresh supply into port.
Naruto walked over and took a look at the available stock, the wooden casks branded with the grapes of House Redwyne and marked below that by the vintage contained inside. Even the smallest barrels far outstripped his needs in volume but stalls like this would happily fill a skin, and on some rare occasions even offered corked glass bottles.
"Young man, you seem someone who enjoys his wines. Come, come," the man behind the wooden stall said, and beckoned him closer. "A sweet white? Or perhaps you would prefer a red, sour or sweet? You need only look around, and find whatever your heart desires."
At Harrenhal Naruto had taken the chance to try many different wines, some of which he had enjoyed more than others. Arbour gold had reminded him a bit too much of the sweet drinks he had first tasted in Qarth, and he preferred a drier red, or even a sour Dornish vintage.
There was no sake to be found even in a port as large as Oldtown, so the fruits of the Arbor would have to do.
"I will have a skin of your strongest red," Naruto said, deciding, and produced the small purse of coins he always carried with him.
Sometimes he still dreamed about Konoha. About Sasuke and Sakura and Kakashi. About Tsunade and Shizune, about Iruka, Konohamaru, Shikamaru, Choji, Ino, Kiba, Hinata, Shino. About Lee and Tenten and Neji and Guy.
About Jiraiya and the old man, and even the flashes he had of his parents.
He would drink to them, as much as himself. Maybe everyone had come out of the war unscathed, maybe not, Naruto could not and would not know.
Exchanging coins for wine he turned to walk away, leaving the merchant to continue selling his wares to other customers. There was still time enough in the afternoon to spend a bit more of it walking around the city.
Naruto passed displays of fine silks and bolts of cloth, fruits and spices, pearls and gems, all of which he took in absently. Buying too much would only make eventually leaving Oldtown more bothersome.
His gut was telling him that there would be rain in a few hours, probably before the sun had set.
The next step he took turned into a near stumble, the breath driven from his lungs as if he had been struck in the chest. Something tugged at him, some desperate emotion he couldn't quite place. But whatever it was it made him think of Shiera.
Righting himself from the misstep that had been caused Naruto could not help but look around, though what he was expecting to see even he himself could not truly say. Shiera was far away, all the way in Essos, and out of his reach.
Shaking his head to clear whatever had invaded his mind, Naruto continued walking. Whatever had caused the shock to his system had disappeared just as quickly, leaving him slightly unbalanced and unnerved, if physically untouched.
The stall right next to him advertised finely made jewellery; rings, necklaces, and bracelets carefully displayed in small numbers. Most likely some local smith had made them all and was using the opportunity to drive interested buyers to his shop through the stall. Naruto knew little of jewellery but he thought them quite beautiful.
Unbidden his thoughts turned towards Ashara and the way they had parted at Harrenhal.
Archmaester Ebrose would see him soon, to judge him worthy or not of the silver link, and if he was successful that would earn him his third and final link. Perhaps he had spent enough time here, learning.
Turning towards the stall Naruto knew already that he had made his decision.
The winds had changed for him. Time to follow their call.
I hope you enjoyed chapter 28. I am currently working on 29 and 30, but I can't guarantee how much I will get done over the holidays. Ideally, there will be another chapter next week aswell but no promises.
Just like the last chapter in Oldtown this is a bit slow and calm, but there are a few things I want to handle before events around the rebellion become revelant again.
Once more a bit of learning in the Citadel and then a visit to the library and Naruto's thoughts on the other students and the Citadel in general. Grand Conspiracy or not, I think the fact that the Citadel is involved in suppressing certain knowledge and magic very broadly is pretty believeable. The easiest way to do that is to remove said knowledge from those that would look at it.
Does the Master Librarian, which is something I made up, know what a third eye is specifically? Probably not, but old First Men rituals, which is partly blood sacrifice, has roots in magic and sorcery, and so the specifics are eradicated with only broad descriptions surviving to give the image of scholarly interest.
Most conspiracies aren't revealed by a weird nutjob with a respected office explaining them to you as soon as you arrive. Arguably most Maesters/acolytes probably have no part in it, so getting actual contact with the conspiracy's effects is rare and difficult to pin down when it happens.
Unlike the show, the Citadel in the books is quite different. Chapter 26 made that pretty clear already, but I'll say it again here: it is basically just a university campus. It has little to do with the Hightower itself, much less is actually inside it.
At the end Naruto gets the recoil from Shiera in the last chapter. He obviously doesn't know what it is about or what caused it, but it affects him nonetheless.
281 AC is called the Year of the False Spring in hindsight, because it seemed like spring was beginning just before the Harrenhal tourney but the winter comes back at year's end. The whole extended season thing is sadly just a tacked on detail of worldbuilding George has done very little with, except to say that it is magical and relevant. Brandon Sanderson did some interesting things in regard to that in the Stormlight Archive and its storms, but there is nothing like it in ASoIaF.
Sudden winter is obviously bad news in a feudal society extremely reliant on agriculture. The Reach, Stormlands, and Dorne may not be as affected by this one, but supply lines across something the size of South America with medieval technology is a monumental task, especially with perishable goods. Even outside of just food, there are other ramifications.
One guest review mentioned my admittance of certain things happening as they do in canon soon. Unfortunately, I cannot reply to that personally since it is a guest review, but I will say this: Yes, I personally like Jon Snow as a character, which is affecting some of my decisions, but I also do not want to change everything about the story and canon events just for the sake of changing things. There will be changes, of course, but not everything will be different, especially when Naruto's power to make a difference is somewhat contained for now. Give me some time.
As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. Until next time.