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284 AC
It had been almost two months since I woke up. Two months since I received the news of the death of my father and my twin brother. Finally, today I was leaving Bravos and heading for an unnamed cove near Pentos where the company soldiers were waiting for me.
I turned toward Aly at the sound of a voice behind me.
"I hate being left behind."
Artos said, "I know, but someone has to stay here and clean up after us."
Aly "I can stand with you in the war, you know that."
Artos "Yes, I know. I don't doubt it and you know why you have to stay here."
Logistics and other bullshit. The same bullshit that kept me here for two months. Unfortunately, nobody could just say ''come on, let's go to war'' and lead an army into battle. Feeding and clothing soldiers was more difficult than leading them on the battlefield or creating miraculous battle strategies. At least in my opinion. Aly was as good at this as she was at wielding a sword.
When I least expected it, she hugged me. I was surprised for a moment, but I hugged her back.
Aly said, "Don't even get a nosebleed this time. I've already experienced the fear of losing you once. I can't do it again."
Artos "It won't happen again, I promise. See you after the war."
Aly "See you after the war."
I gave her a little kiss on the lips and then I left and boarded the ship with the help of a scaffold.
Artos "Come on you useless bastards, anchor up, we have a war to win."
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284 AC
At the sound of the door to my cabin, I broke my meditative posture and called out to the people at the door. "Come in."
The man who came in was my second-in-command, Jonal. Jonal was the son of a bastard from the north. As far as I could tell, he was an Umber bastard. He was a big, quiet man. His loyalty, his skill as a warrior and his ability to think strategically, unlike most mercenaries, made him stand out and make him my second-in-command.
Before I could ask what was going on, he started talking. "Lord commander, sir, there are ships coming in."
"Whose ships?"
"Our ships, as far as we can tell from their ensigns. The ships we sent ahead to the king's land."
So they failed to enter the city.
"Bring them to me to report immediately. I will come to join you shortly."
Jonal nodded in agreement and left my quarters.
I went into my mental library one last time. I honestly didn't know what to call it. I didn't realize it until a few days after I woke up. It was like a constant itch in my mind, and when I managed to scratch it, I found myself here in the library.
At first I was confused and panicked and tried to look for an exit, but I automatically went out. Eventually, through various experiments, I discovered that I only entered the library mentally, and when I was in the library, my body stayed in place and I was able to notice what was happening outside, even though I couldn't move.
The bad news was that I couldn't access the highest level of magic, the books were categorized from simple to difficult and I had to grasp the simpler spells before I could move on to a more difficult and complex subject, so I had to go step by step.
Now, as I understand it, magic on planetos is done using aether. Everyone needs a little bit of aether to cast spells.
There are two sources of aether.
First, there is an infinite amount of aether in a parallel plane called the Aether plane, and most godlike or demonic beings reside in this plane. Humans and magical creatures can connect to this plane and draw aether from it. Some people have an innate connection to this plane, but others can connect to it through rituals or potions. I was lucky, I was probably born with this connection thanks to the stark bloodline.
The second was the natural aether energy in the environment. This is the aether energy that exists in our world and it has two sources. The first is ley lines, we can think of ley lines as spiritual lines that pump energy from the aether plane into the Earth. The second is: magical creatures, every magical creature produces its own aether energy and releases a small amount into the environment, but there are a few like weirwood or dragons that produce more than they consume. Most species, like Children of the Forest or Giants, cannot even produce enough energy for their own needs and cannot even reproduce if there is not enough energy in the environment.
According to a book I found, after the long night, the ley lines were damaged and they went into a kind of hibernation. This caused a decrease in ambient aether energy. The decrease in ambient aether energy led to a decrease in magical species, which led to a further decrease in ambient aether energy, creating a kind of vicious circle. In addition, the reduction of environmental aether energy reduced the number of people born with an innate connection to the aether plane, and any creature that was not connected to the aether plane, that was magical only because of environmental aether, lost its magic.
Now a human mage builds up a reserve of aether energy in his body, this reserve is in the heart and like a muscle it slowly increases and gets stronger as it is used. It is also deeply connected to the strength of the body and mind. Weakening one of the three affects the other two. The easiest way to strengthen all three is through rituals, but I have to be careful with this, because a person can only perform seven rituals that will cause permanent changes in body and soul. Any more and the result is death at best. Some species, like the children of the forest, can do nine. Giants can only do five.
Now, while there are various ways of practicing magic, they all have one common requirement. It requires a physical medium. This can be inanimate objects such as runes, or animate objects such as weirwoods or direwolves or dragons. They can even be long rituals and bloodline abilities or mutational abilities.
For example, one can perform a ritual on oneself that allows one to create and control fire, or one can use a runic artifact to achieve the same effect, but if one does nothing but raise one's hand and use Aether energy by imagining throwing a fireball, nothing happens.
Another important effect when practicing magic is the state of mind. If the magician doesn't trust himself or thinks he's going to fail, he almost certainly will fail. I think this is at least one of the reasons why magic is disappearing in Westeros, because Westeros is home to many ancient noble families, and these families should be able to produce individuals with an innate connection to the aether plane through various bloodline abilities. The Maesters are mentally failing would-be wizards by telling everyone that magic is dead or that it is dangerous and unreliable.
Another reason is the Andals and the sacred iron they brought. Even I only found out about the existence of this iron thanks to the mental library. I don't know how the holy iron does it, but it has some kind of anti-magic effect. Not only does it break the spells it comes into contact with, but if it is swallowed by mages or comes into contact with them, it creates a kind of poison effect and prevents the person in contact from using magic for a while. Given how Oldtown surrendered to the andals without a fight, it would not surprise me if at least one group of faithful and maesters worked together to destroy magic. It is not hard to imagine how it could happen. A maester or priest secretly feeds powdered holy iron to a child who shows signs of magic. The child then grows up thinking that he can't do magic, and even if he doesn't swallow the holy iron anymore, he can never do magic because he mentally thinks he can't do magic.
Anyway, these are the problems of the future Artos, not mine. I have to go on deck now and talk to the men who are coming and then win a battle and put the head of a mad king on a stake.