In Westeros, the Three-Eyed Raven was like an omnipotent god who could even determine the fate of a kingdom. Yet as long as he had not transcended this world, he still drifted within an even vaster river of destiny.
The Three-Eyed Raven had not escaped the world. He, too, was bound by fate.
The same was true for R'hllor, the Lord of Light.
On this day, after drifting across the sea for several months, the Laurel Wind finally docked at the Oldtown pier.
Samwell Tarly of the Night's Watch held little Gilly's hand as they stepped into a dazzling, bustling world.
Along the docks, ships were lined up like scales on a fish. The streets teemed with people, travelers jostling shoulder to shoulder. Shops stood wide open, displaying exotic goods from every corner of the world.
The wildling girl could hardly take it all in.
"Wow, what a tall castle!"
Shielding her eyes with her hand, she gazed at the towering spire rising like a giant in the sunlight, her voice full of awe.
"I didn't expect a southern king to live in such a tall stone house. It's even higher than the Dragon Queen's castle."
A gray-robed maester stepped down from a carriage and pushed past the crowded dockworkers. He walked up to Sam, his sharp, mean little triangular eyes sweeping over the fat man before turning toward the wildling woman. His gaze turned critical and scornful.
"So you've been to Dragonstone and met Daenerys?" he asked coldly.
"Who are you?" the wildling woman asked warily.
Just from his words and expression, she could feel the strong, barely concealed malice radiating from him.
The maester did not answer her. He turned to Sam instead and curled his lip. "Samwell?"
"I am Samwell Tarly. Are you the maester sent to receive me?"
Once he confirmed Sam's identity, the triangular-eyed man said bluntly, "Where are your things?"
"What things?" Sam asked, puzzled.
"The oak chest you brought from Dragonstone, the one containing the wildling of the Ice Clan from beyond the Wall."
"Ice Clan?" Sam blinked. "Do you mean a White Walker?"
"There are no White Walkers!" the man growled. He glanced around and saw several laborers and sailors staring. He quickly pulled Sam into the carriage by the side.
"Have you not read Truth of History and Lies of the Ancients? White Walkers were lies invented by Northerners to exaggerate their ancestors' deeds. They were actually tribes of the First Men beyond the Wall, the Ice Clan, gifted with the ability to wield ice magic.
Just like the Valyrians have bloodlines attuned to fire sorcery, or the ancient Rhoynar who were born with water magic."
Sam's sweaty, round face twitched. "White Walkers are indeed made by transforming human infants, but they are nothing close to human. Once you see one for yourself, you'll understand."
The triangular-eyed maester lifted the four or five linked copper chains around his neck—the chain that represented history—and sneered. "Look at you. A mere apprentice, yet you dare posture before a maester trained in history?"
"Archmaester Perestan holds a doctorate in history, and even he says Archmaester Fomas, who wrote Lies of the Ancients, misled everyone," Sam muttered in frustration.
The thin-faced maester's muscles twitched. "Perestan? There is no such man. He was killed by Daenerys long ago. The one at the Wall is a fraud!"
Smack!
Sam could not hold it in. He slapped the triangular-eyed maester across the face.
"Wake up. Stop lying to yourself. I brought a White Walker across thousands of miles for the sake of the Citadel, not to argue with you.
The Long Night concerns the safety of millions across the Seven Kingdoms. If the Citadel refuses to warn the people, then it has no reason to exist." He roared the words.
"You hit me, and you dare talk like that…" The maester was furious, his triangular eyes nearly bulging into circles.
Sam shrank his neck, but then remembered Perestan's teachings: Maesters are treacherous. Always remind them who your father is, or they may take your life.
"My father is Randyll Tarly. What do you intend to do?"
"I—" The maester stalled, helpless, unable to vent his anger.
Then he caught sight of Gilly peeking through the carriage window and let out a cold laugh. Pointing at the wildling woman, he said, "As long as you keep a lover, you can forget about ever earning a maester's chain."
Sam blinked in surprise. "People still come to the Citadel to become maesters these days?"
Then he shook his head to himself. "But my father said that if I ever disgraced the family, he would kill me."
"Disgraced the family?" the maester repeated blankly.
"Yes. Becoming a maester is considered disgracing the family now. It's even worse than having a bastard child with Gilly," Sam answered honestly.
"Absurd!" the maester roared. "Then why did you write to the Citadel saying you wanted promotion? Were you mocking us?"
"The times have changed. Haven't you realized? Look around. The people on the docks don't look at you with respect anymore. Only contempt and disgust," Sam sighed.
"You're mistaken. They're looking down on you. You're wearing the black of the Night's Watch while walking arm-in-arm with a woman. Everyone knows you broke your vows. And Queen Cersei has already declared us innocent."
Sam considered this and decided he was no more noble than an oath-breaking maester. He did not argue further. He stepped off the carriage and found Captain Kukhulu, then retrieved the sealed chest from the secure hold.
Sam, along with Gilly and the White Walker, followed the triangular-eyed maester into the heavily guarded Citadel. They had not even reached the Seneschal's Tower when a group of strange warriors approached—men in leather armor, long swords at their waists, and maester chains around their necks. They ignored Sam's protests and forcibly seized the enchanted chest.
For the next two days, Sam was thrown aside. No one paid him any attention.
He went to the Seneschal's Tower several times, but always received the same answer: none.
On the fourth day, he finally roared inside the tower: if Seneschal Theobald did not appear, or if he continued refusing to let Sam see the White Walker, then Sam would immediately go to the Hightower and request an audience with Lord Hightower himself.
Then the fat man got his wish and received a summons from the Archmaester.
"Seven above, why are there such deep and complicated tunnels beneath the Ravenry Tower?"
They had been walking for nearly half an hour through an earthen tunnel barely two meters high, narrow enough that even two people walking side by side felt cramped. Fat Sam was exhausted, struggling to breathe, his brain short of oxygen, and he felt light-headed. He braced himself against the dry mud wall, gasping for air.
A small, weasel-like boy carrying a kerosene lamp led the way in front. Seeing how hard the fat man was struggling, he didn't urge him on. Instead, he stopped and waited, saying:
"This is a newly built shelter. Do you know the Protector List? For the sake of gold dragons, mercenaries have gone mad, sneaking into the Citadel to arrest maesters and archmaesters.
"The consequences of an archmaester being captured are even worse. They would be paraded through the streets for all to see.
"How could any archmaester tolerate that? So they hired a group of townsfolk to dig a fortress under the Citadel. The archmaesters and maesters on the list work upstairs during the day and come down to sleep in the bunker at night.
"They sleep peacefully, no longer having to rest in armor or sleep with weapons within reach."
Thinking of all the twists and turns in the path he had taken, Sam suddenly understood. "So this means the bunker has more than one entrance?"
The weasel-faced boy nodded. "The ravenries where multiple archmaesters live are all connected to the bunker."
"Are we supposed to hide like rats for the rest of our lives?" Sam could hardly accept it.
"You get used to it. It's warm in winter and cool in summer. Quite comfortable, really."
"You live in the bunker too?" Sam asked.
"Lately we've offended Braavos and the Faceless Men badly. It's safer to live underground."
"The Faceless Men can change faces and become you or me. What good is a bunker?" Sam was unimpressed.
"You'll understand in a moment." The young apprentice smiled mysteriously and said proudly, "With Archmaester Walgrave's methods, no Faceless Man can infiltrate the bunker."
"The great writer Walgrave?" Sam asked in surprise.
He had been drifting at sea for a long time and had never met the newly risen literary master.
But Walgrave's classics were too numerous and too popular. Even though Sam had only stayed at the Citadel for a few days, even wildling Gilly had read the playwright's works.
She even dragged him eagerly to Quill and Tankard with a crowd of merchants and travelers to admire the former residence of "the Dreamfall Maiden" Rosie.
Sam had to admit, even though he had only seen Rosie from afar beneath a peach tree, when he lay on top of Gilly at night, certain shameful thoughts crossed his mind.
Rosie wasn't even necessarily more attractive than Gilly, yet after reading Walgrave's masterpieces, Rosie seemed wrapped in a halo, a dreamlike, intoxicating charm.
"He proposed building the bunker and designed it with his own hands. He said he would fight the Braavosi to the end, even if it meant waging a tunnel war."
Respect filled the apprentice's face, pulling Sam out of his wandering thoughts.
"But he died in the hands of the Faceless Men."
At that, Sam couldn't help sighing with regret, cursing the Faceless Men for dooming the world of literature to darkness before the real world had fallen into the Long Night.
"The bunker apartment prepared for the archmaesters had just been finished. They were about to move in, but…" The weasel-faced boy sighed in frustration.
Sam had recovered while they were speaking. He followed the apprentice onward and soon reached another corner.
At the corner was a small stone room with an older apprentice standing both inside and outside.
"It's Robb!" The older apprentice outside recognized the weasel-faced boy. He gave Sam a wary glance, then pointed at a copper basin on a wooden shelf in the corner. "Both of you, wash your faces."
Sam didn't understand, but he saw the boy set down the lamp, walk to the basin, wet his face, and pick up a bar of soap. He scrubbed his face roughly, especially the area where his skin met his neck, rubbing so hard his skin turned red.
Sam suddenly understood. No matter how skilled a Faceless Man might be, a false face could never withstand that kind of treatment.
He washed his own face as well and felt surprisingly refreshed.
"Archmaester Walgrave said that frequent hand- and face-washing also reduces the chance of disease. It's efficient, safe, and sanitary." After they left the checkpoint, the weasel-faced boy spoke again.
Sam nodded. "Your name is Robb?"
"Yes. I am Robb Frey, son of Rhaegar."
He even had a grandfather named Aerys.
The "Frey faction" under Lord Eel had once used his father Rhaegar as fish pie filling and served him to his grandfather Aerys.
"Oh… from Riverrun." Sam understood.
In a fifty-square-meter underground room, Sam met the representatives of the Citadel's archmaesters—and an Other locked in the stone chamber next door.
The bunker was only four or five meters underground. After all, they were hiding from assassins and thugs, not nuclear bombs.
A dozen copper pipes as thick as bowls ran through the soil, bringing fresh air and soft light into the room.
Sam noticed that it was neither stuffy nor dark, and the temperature was just right. It was genuinely very comfortable.
"Samwell?" A square-faced old maester stood up from behind an oval conference table. "I am the Archmaester, Theobold."
Before Sam could bow, he pointed to the stone cell beside them and said, "You're here to see Ser Ice. He's right there."
"Ser Ice?" Sam was confused. He turned his head and saw, in the small stone room separated only by an iron grate, a masked gentleman in embroidered robes sitting calmly in a wicker chair.
(End of chapter)
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