Aemon

He was in a foul humour as he listened to the doorway being broken down. He had suspected that the room was there, he just didn't know where. Or, for that matter, why it had been bricked up. Castle Black had been searched from top to bottom for something – anything! – that hinted at filling in some of the gaps in their knowledge.

Along the way they'd found some old caches of supplies, more hobnails than could ever be used in a man's lifetime, some weapons that were now more rust than steel, several barrels of what had possibly once been preserved lemons, but which were now merely extremely nasty and a few small caches of coins dating back to the early Targaryens, which had many people wondering who had left them and why. They'd been used to buy more supplies however.

And then they'd found the bricked up doorway, in a room next to the library, behind a bookcase. He'd been coldly angry about this when it had been discovered and he was coldly angry now. Why had that room been bricked up? When? And what was in it?

He heard a clatter of bricks, a gasp of exertion from one of the men who were doing the demolishing and then a pause. "Maester Aemon? I can see inside now."

"Describe what you see – exactly."

"Wait, I need a torch." There was another pause. "By the Gods, it's dusty. Brick dust though. Not much other dust. Erm – there are chests everywhere, covered in what looks like… canvas? Yes, canvas. Wait, let's clear the rest of this doorway."

He heard a muttered conversation about the bricks, before there was a clattering and thumping, followed by some stifled sneezes. Then he heard footsteps and more muttering, before the footsteps returned. "Ten large trunks, Maester Aemon, and twenty smaller ones. All covered in canvas. They've been here for some time. And there's a seal on all of them, pressed into wax."

"What seal?"

"That of the Lord Commander. Wait… there's a slight difference. The tower looks different."

"Describe it exactly, if you please."

"It's larger… and the battlements are more extended. Five instead of three."

"That is the old seal, the seal of the Lord Commander when they were at the Night Fort. Is it on all the trunks?"

Another pause. "Aye, it is."

He sighed. "Very well. Bring them out and stack them in the library."

Floorboards creaked to one side and he turned his sightless eyes in that direction. "Who approaches?"

"A worried Lord Commander," Jeor Mormont groused as he walked up to him. Then he caught his breath. "These were in that room?"

"They were," Aemon said grimly. "Why the room was bricked up I do not know. Look at the Seals though, Lord Commander."

Mormont walked over, a sound of creaking leather and old bones. And then a huff of surprise. "I wonder why they were sealed up." There was the sound of shuffling feet as yet another chest was produced. "By the Old Gods – how many are there?"

"Ten large and twenty smaller ones, and that is just an initial estimate of the contents."

There was a pause and he sensed that he was being looked at closely by the Lord Commander. "You do not sound happy, Maester Aemon."

"I do not like the idea of vital knowledge that is hidden. I do not know what is in these chests. I do not like the thought that all of this will have to be sifted through, taking valuable time. And never before have been so ashamed of the loss of my eyesight. I am old! I am weak! I am useless!" He raged the words as he beat at the table next to him with a clenched fist. He was angry, more angry than he had been since the fall of his House. "The dead come and we flail and scrabble for scraps of information hidden by our ancestors! I am supposed to be the Maester of the Citadel and I feel ashamed!" He took a deep breath of air into his lungs and found his point of balance again. "Your pardon, Lord Commander. I did not mean to lose control like that."

The floorboards creaked as Jeor Mormont approached and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I feel your shame," he muttered in a low voice. "Never have I felt the shame I feel now as to how low the Night's Watch has fallen. But we still live and where there is life there is hope."

Aemon lifted his head. "Aye. You have right of it. I will need more assistants, men who can read. I wish that I had the expertise of Luwin and young Robb Stark, but we will have to make do."

"Men – and women – arrive every day. I will ask amongst them."

Another set of feet sounded on the floorboards, feet that stopped dead. "By the Seven! What have you found, Maester Aemon?" Alliser Thorne said, sounding astonished.

"Long hidden secrets," Aemon replied dryly. "Secrets that should not have been hidden. Perhaps. We'll need to open them all."

"Aye," Thorne said wryly. Then he paused. Aemon heard a crackle of parchment and then a rustle of what might have been a quill. "Lord Commander – this was found by a patrol this morning, by the gate."

The parchment crackled again. "Ah," Mormont said thoughtfully. "Interesting. Maester Aemon, this is a message from Mance Rayder. He says that he visited Winterfell and has talked to Lord Stark. He says that the Wildlings will not raid anymore – but that we must treat with him most urgently. The dead are rising at the behest of the Others and the Wildlings are fleeing before them, burning their dead when they can. And… he says that he has met with a Child of the Forest."

There was a long silence. It was broken by Alliser Thorne. "I've been here since the fall of the Targaryens. I've seen a lot of things in my life. These past months… well, I've stopped wondering what I'm going to be surprised about next. Legends are coming to life before my very eyes." He paused. "There is a war coming like nothing we have ever seen before, isn't there? A war between the living and the dead. A war that we will have to win."

"Aye," the Old Boar sighed. "And if we don't… well, let us prepare."

A horn wailed from the distance and he heard Mormont shift on his feet a little. After three more trunks were pulled from the hidden room then he heard a thunder of boots outside, before someone burst in. "Lord Commander! The First Ranger has returned!"

"Thank the Gods," Mormont growled. "Bring him here at once."

Benjen

He was bone-tired, rather dirty and famished, but the moment that he cleared the tunnel and saw the faces of his brothers he grinned at them. He dismounted Wanderer as soon as he could and cast an eye over the horse. "You look in better shape than I feel," he muttered and then hauled off his saddlebags, before starting to unsaddle Wanderer.

"First Ranger, the Lord Commander wants to see you at once, in the Maester's Library," a panting man said as he ran up. He wasn't wearing black and Benjen had never laid eyes on him before, something that oddly gave him hope. "I can take your horse to the stables."

"Thank you," Benjen muttered as he shouldered his saddlebags, those precious, precious saddlebags. By the time he got to the Library he was almost shaking with tiredness, but he pushed it to one side. He'd made excellent time to get here.

As he entered he stopped and stared. There was a small mountain of chests, both large and small, on the floor. There was also a door that he had never seen before, behind the spot that had once held a bookcase. To one side he could the Old Bear, Thorne and Maester Aemon looking at a rather familiar, if dust-covered, shape. It was a small cage.

"-must be good for something, 'else why would they have locked it away with all those chests," Jeor Mormont was saying. "'Tis the oddest thing I've ever seen."

"Oh, no. I've got odder things on me," he said with a wry smile. "Far nastier too."

"Benjen!" Jeor Mormont smiled at him. "Thank the Gods you're back!" Then he looked him up and down. "You look like shit, man. When was the last time you ate?"

"Or slept, come to that," Thorne said with a thin smile. "Welcome back First Ranger."

Benjen tilted his head at the chests and the doorway. "What's all this then?"

"Secrets," spat Maester Aemon, with a bitterness that surprised him. "Long hidden for reasons we know not." He shook his head. "We were just pondering the meaning of this small cage, which was found at the back of a shelf. But what of your mission First Ranger?"

"I succeeded," Benjen said softly and noted how all three stiffened and looked at him, or in the case of Maester Aemon in his general direction. "I found wights."

There was a long silence as they all looked at him. All were pale. "Truly?" Jeor Mormont asked. "You have seen wights?"

He unbuckled one of the saddlebags and pulled out the canvas bag that contained the largest of the cages, before walking over to it and then placing the cage on the table. "Truly. Mind your fingers."

The Lord Commander and Thorne both peered at the head of the wight carefully. And then it opened its very blue eyes and hissed that them. Their reaction was everything that Benjen had anticipated – they both flinched back violently.

"Fuck!" Thorne muttered. "So that's… that's…"

"The head of a wight, Alliser. The head of a wight. And this-" He pulled out one of the smaller cages and placed it on the table next to the larger cage. "This is the hand of a wight."

The hand twitched and then scrabbled around the cage, almost as if it could hear his voice or sense his presence. This time the reaction wasn't as bad.

"Would mind describing what you are seeing?" Aemon asked drily. "As my own eyes are somewhat lacking."

There was a moment of silent tension and then the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch ran a shaking hand over his face. "A cage with a severed head of a woman. With blue eyes, as the old tales told. Eyes that open and shut, as does her mouth. A head of a wight. And the other cage… is of a severed hand. That still tries to grasp at things."

Maester Aemon nodded slowly. "Then we have our proof," he said slowly. Then he paused. "You said that they were in cages. Where did you get the cages from, First Ranger?"

Benjen sat down with a sigh. "A place called Overlook. By the Fist of the First Men. Originally built by Rangers of the Night's Watch, but long forgotten by us. Long forgotten indeed. I only know of it because I met someone who knew of it." He paused. "I am not sure what kind of man he is. Long lived for some reason. He now goes by the name of Coldhands, but… his original name, mad as it sounds, was Rickon Stark. Son of Edwyle Stark."

If the previous silence had been a long one, this next one was longer still. It was broken by Maester Aemon. "Edwyle Stark, if I have my genealogy right, died many centuries ago."

"He did. I have seen his tomb in the crypt of Winterfell."

"Then how the bloody hell can you have met his son?" Alliser Thorne asked.

Benjen shrugged. "He rode an elk and never showed the lower part of his face. He said that he had a duty to perform and that his watch was not yet done, that something had been done to him. I do not think that he is entirely alive, but he not a creature of the Others. He found the wights for me and helped me kill them. Oh – one of them was a brother of ours. Ser Willem Glover. His hand is not amongst the others I brought with me. We burnt his body. Fire kills wights. Arrows would be useless – the wights I saw had to be chopped to pieces and even then the pieces still move. Fire is best.

"As for Coldhands - he took me to Overlook, where I read the records there. They spoke of the Night's Watch starting to weaken, of fewer men being sent to the Overlook, of pestilence on the wall – and of a man called the Wanderer. I believe that it was Coldhands. The last Ranger at Overlook, until I arrived there, died at his post. Coldhands cremated him." He pulled the little box of ashes out of the saddlebags. "His name was Jojen Blackwood. I thought to send him on to his family."

The Old Bear's eyebrows, which had been arched as high as they could physically get, came down again like a pair of caterpillars falling off a branch. "The Blackwoods would appreciate that," he rumbled. "You trust this 'Coldhands' then?"

Benjen thought about this carefully. "Yes," he said eventually. "He knew that the Others were stirring. Apparently they know the Fist of the First Men all too well, especially as it is no longer defensible. The walls are unrepaired and Coldhands said that the caches are too well hidden."

"Caches? Caches of what?" Maester Aemon asked.

"My guess would be obsidian. I was also warned against approaching Craster. Coldhands said that he secretly worships the Others. Which might explain a few things now that I think about it. I always wondered what happened to all the sons he must be getting on those 'wives' of his. I've never liked the bloody man, there's something about him that puts my teeth on edge. Now I know. I think that he's sacrificing his sons. That would explain why he only keeps the women there around him."

"Hmmm," Maester Aemon said as he tapped a long finger on his chin. "There was a record in Winterfell that told of those who worshipped the Others in the Time of Heroes. They sacrificed babes to the Others. The First Men hunted down and slaughtered such men wherever they found them."

"We'll have to send a patrol to Overlook at reactivate it, to leave supplies there. And to watch most carefully. I think that patrols as a whole will have to be curtailed. With wights and Others around then it will be dangerous to send patrols out as normal. And yet we must know what's happening. What news of the Wildlings?"

The Old Bear pulled a slight face. "They come South, according to the latest patrols. And they left word from Mance Rayder. He has been to Winterfell, or at least so he says, and talked with Lord Stark. He wants to talk to us, to broker some kind of peace."

He nodded. "Wise of him. The Others threaten us both. And every fallen Wildling can become a wight. We must remember that."

Alliser Thorne pulled a face. Benjen watched him gravely. The man was bitter and sour all too often. But there was other metal in him. He could fight. And when presented with all the facts he could be surprisingly shrewd. "Doesn't feel right, allying with Wildlings." He sighed, looked at the head of the wight and then pulled a slightly different face. "Don't see that we have any other choice though. Not with these… things headed our way."

"I need to talk to Ned Stark as soon possible," the old Bear rumbled. "How many cages with pieces of wight did you bring us?"

"Six – the head and five hands."

"We'll send half to Winterfell and half to Eastwatch, to take ship for King's Landing and perhaps the Citadel. We need to show the South what's coming. Benjen, get some food, some sleep and a bath. You need to ride for Winterfell."

"And I will need some eyes to read whatever records are in these books." Maester Aemon's face lengthened for a moment. "Time is our enemy now, my Brothers. The Starks are right – Winter is coming."