To bargain a seat in the Small Council for himself proved not so difficult as Aegon had feared; perhaps the matter was that Viserys, left dragonless after Balerion's death, realized he could not keep track of this side of the vast Targaryen household. In the end, they created the office of Master of Ships for the sake of Corlys Velaryon, and dragons are far more important than ships.
Dragging along with the royal cortege was unbearable, especially when Vermithor was at hand, capable of delivering his rider to Oldtown in a day and a half. Therefore, having amused his brother with tales from Dragonstone and flown with his niece, Aegon asked leave to visit the Citadel and Uncle Vaegon.
Vermithor, naturally, recognized the city beneath him and, laying a circle of honor along the perimeter of Oldtown's walls, greeted the city with a loud roar. Lord Hightower last time asked Daemon to leave Caraxes outside the walls, but now the Bronze Fury out of old memory landed right by the Hightower, considerably frightening the guards and servants of the lighthouse-castle's masters.
As it turned out, being a dragonrider had certain disadvantages: it is difficult to remain unnoticed if instead of a polite knock on the door you enter the house through the chimney. Aegon had to spend half a day maintaining the minimum possible level of proprieties, allowing the Hightowers to welcome him as befits: introduction of household members, mandatory rest, then a ceremonial dinner with seven courses and seven Arbor wines—all this took time and strength. Furthermore, the Prince had to remain a guest in the Hightower, and not in his uncle's rooms as he originally wished.
He and Dennis reached the Seneschal's Court only toward evening; the office of the Citadel's head had closed, the last lingering scholars were leaving the Scribe's Hearth, a familiar meaty smell wafted from the kitchens, evoking not so much hunger as memories.
The Archmaester's house had not changed: the same porch, the same stairs, the same creaky oak door. Grasping the bronze handle, Aegon had to pull himself up, reminding himself that scarce a year had passed, not ten. And yet he crossed the threshold of his uncle's rooms a different man.
"Uncle Vaegon?" called the Prince. "It is us, Aegon and Dennis."
Silence answered them. Master and servant exchanged glances; Dennis shrugged and nodded toward the table, at the dusty stacks of books—Uncle constantly shifted his library from place to place, so usually dust did not settle on the upper folios. There was no light in any of the rooms, though dusk had long fallen outside.
Stepping carefully, Aegon walked forward, looking into every room. Uncle Vaegon was found in the one considered a dining room by the house builders, though both the Archmaester and his nephew rarely observed conventions. Vaegon sat hunched at the table and stared fixedly at a glass candle standing before him. His Archmaester's robe was open to the navel, exposing a narrow hollow chest on which all ribs could easily be counted. Looking closely, Aegon could not suppress a frightened exclamation: tracks of baked blood were visible on the pale skin. The sound of his voice seemed to wake Vaegon; he started and turned to his nephew. Pale violet eyes had clouded and sunken, and whitish stubble had grown on sunken cheeks—Uncle had never allowed himself such a level of neglect before.
With visible effort, the Archmaester parted dry, bitten lips and squeezed out in a hoarse voice:
"Light it..."
It was not hard to understand that he asked to light the Valyrian candle. Aegon, not entirely sure he could do it again, nevertheless took the artifact of the fallen civilization in his hands; the candle was different, not the one he lit at the exam—its curves and the pattern of twists differed noticeably, though the color remained the same. The tip of the candle and grooves along its entire length were covered with dried blood; evidently, Uncle had tried to light it but did not succeed.
Aegon ran his fingers along the sharp pattern, simultaneously cleaning off alien blood and letting the candle drink of his own. Finally, he wiped the sharp end with a pinch and, holding his breath, said:
"Dracarys."
As last time, nothing happened at first, and the Prince thought nothing came of it, however in the next instant the creation of Valyrian masters came to life: a spark glimmered, gradually flaring into a non-burning flame, becoming a beam of light, infinitely alien and infinitely beautiful. Aegon tore his gaze from the light with difficulty and placed the candle in the holder.
"I do not understand," Uncle delivered with some frenzied stubbornness. "This is impossible. This is a piece of obsidian, a worked piece of obsidian. It should not burn. It should not shine."
"If it gladdens you, Uncle," Aegon spoke softly, "I too do not understand how it is possible, and what I do."
"Then you are a brainless idiot. One cannot play with such things. If it burns from your blood... But why does it not burn from mine?! I tried to light it so many times!.." with these words Vaegon raised his hands, and Aegon saw that fingers, and palms, and even wrists and forearms were covered with a web of overlapping scars—old, already faded, and new, red, inflamed, and swollen. So, the Archmaester tried to repeat his experiment at the exam with old Owen; hence the bloody traces on the chest—evidently, when blood from fingers and palms did not work, Uncle tried venous blood, and then pricked his chest near the heart. Good that he had wits enough not to pierce it through.
"Dennis, build a fire and heat water," ordered Aegon, intercepting his uncle's hands. "Or better a bath. You have neglected yourself, Uncle, this cannot be."
"But the candle..." muttered Vaegon, unable to tear his gaze from it.
"If you wish, we shall take it with us," Aegon shrugged. "I do not think it fears water."
The unnatural flame decreased slightly in size but continued to burn even when Dennis lifted the exhausted Archmaester from the chair; evidently, the candle responded to Uncle's blood too, burning at the expense of what Aegon had not managed to clean off. Vaegon, like an obedient doll, allowed himself to be undressed, put into a wooden tub, and doused with hot water; Dennis dug up a loofah and began to carefully scrub bloody traces from Vaegon's skin. Gradually a flush appeared on Uncle's cheekbones, and he found strength in himself to strike up a conversation:
"You know, I held on for almost a month. A whole month. I even managed not to look at Owen at the Conclave. He drank himself to death, by the way."
"Did he truly?" Aegon was surprised.
"Yes. Started drinking right after your departure and smashed his temple on the edge of a table, slipping in a puddle of his own vomit."
"What a pity," muttered Dennis, pouring another ladle over the Archmaester.
"And who answers for the higher mysteries now?" inquired Aegon.
"Lupin of Red Lake. He is the eldest of all who received a link of Valyrian steel."
"Strange name," commented Dennis.
"Before taking vows he bore the surname Flowers. His mother, evidently, was a merry woman."
"Can he... do anything?" the Prince clarified cautiously.
"He can do fuck all," Uncle snorted. To himself, Aegon noted that since he began to be sarcastic and curse, it means he begins to come to his senses. "Just as useless a bookman as Owen and Hells know how many charlatans before him. He sought the substance thanks to which the masters of Qarth are allegedly capable of living for centuries."
"Found it?"
"Of course not."
"And you borrowed the candle from him?"
"The Citadel has four, he will not be the poorer. Moreover, I intended to return it. I read everything there is about them in all sections of the library. Read how it shines, how with its aid Valyrians communicated being tens and hundreds of leagues from each other. But there is not a line about how to activate it. I had to get Owen drunk so he would tell what you did. Then I reread everything again, this time knowing what to seek. And again found nothing anywhere."
"Because it is written nowhere," spoke Aegon, watching the light of the candle slowly dim. There was something wrong in that an obsidian candle—a mineral, stone in its essence—burned without fire, illuminating the room with its pale light, from which shadows thickened and blackened, while Dennis scrubbed with a loofah and poured water on Uncle sitting in the trough.
"Wrong answer," Vaegon suddenly grinned. "That we found nothing does not mean such records do not exist. It means such records are not in the Citadel."
"And in the Red Keep, and on Dragonstone."
"Then we must search better. In Essos the breath of Valyria is still felt."
"Do you wish to set off on a journey, Uncle?" Aegon raised eyebrows.
"I?! Never. I thought it would be you who would rush off. Especially since, as I heard, you now have a dragon. Congratulations. You avenged yourself on him."
"Wiped his nose," Dennis chimed in.
Aegon fell silent. He, naturally, thought about what he did on his last day of study in the Citadel, but could not say even to himself what pushed him to act thus and not otherwise. Whence was born in him the confidence that his method of sprinkling the glass candle with blood would work? He could not have read it—such a method is written nowhere. But somehow this thought came to his head. The Prince also thought that perhaps he would not find the answer to his question in Westeros, but then he gained Vermithor and thoughts of Essos drowned under impressions of flights. Now he became convinced that these thoughts had gone nowhere; he simply hid them from himself because he did not know what to do with them.
"Think you the Citadel will sell me a candle?" Aegon asked his uncle. The other in response only laughed with a hoarse, croaking laugh.
"Only if you give them a live dragon for dissection!"
"Never!" Aegon exhaled sharply before he had time to think. The very thought of leaving a dragon—even not Vermithor—in Oldtown to be torn apart by Maesters seemed to him terrible, sacrilegious and... treacherous. "They will get neither dragon nor egg."
"Then forget about the candle. You will have to seek them in Essos."
"Not a bad option, my Prince," remarked Dennis. He managed to mix soap lather and now, having smeared the Archmaester's face with it, took out a razor. "In the Free Cities everything is measured by money, and you are rich of late. Surely there will be some shopkeeper who has a bundle of glass candles lying under the counter."
Aegon only snorted at this.
"I shall have to pawn my brother's crown to buy at least one."
As if in answer to his smirk and disbelief, the light of the glass candle finally smoldered out completely and, blinking in farewell, went out. It became darker in the room than before; with his mind, Aegon understood that they had chatted too long and it simply got dark outside, but something inside him grieved that the light had gone. Dennis swore in a strangled voice—he had not managed to finish shaving, and his hands were soapy. Saying not a word, the Prince found the flint himself, struck a spark, and lit first a small lamp, from which he lit several ordinary wax candles. It became brighter, but this light seemed not half as bright as that which came from obsidian. Aegon felt roughly the same in King's Landing when, having flown his fill for the day with Vermithor, he was forced to transfer to a horse to return to the Red Keep. The sensations were... not the same at all.
Briefly thanking his master, Dennis quickly scraped the remains of stubble from the Archmaester's face and pulled him out of the cooling water.
"There now, my Lord," the servant said, as if addressing a sick man. "Now it is not shameful to appear before the King either."
"Ah, yes," Vaegon caught himself. "I heard my eldest nephew became King. How is he?"
"Getting used to it," Aegon shrugged. "He promised to take me and Daemon into the Small Council."
"You I can imagine there, but Daemon..."
"Me too," sighed the Prince. "But it is his right."
"Since when did a seat on the Council begin to be given by virtue of kinship?" the Archmaester frowned. "Although, Daemon Velaryon was the Conqueror's brother-in-law, and Orys Baratheon—half-brother."
"Our Daemon can be understood."
Wrapped in a found fresh robe and blanket, Vaegon padded with bare feet back to the dining room and, sitting on a chair, began to wait while Dennis emptied the bath and prepared something for supper. Aegon grinned, thinking how quickly people get used to good things.
"I suppose you flew earlier so as not to drag along with the whole court?" inquired Vaegon.
"Not only," remarked Aegon. "Also on business."
"To Owen? Or rather, now to Lupin?"
Aegon himself did not notice how a sly smile blossomed on his face. After all, Uncle was terribly predictable.
"No. To the High Septon."
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