The Citadel, The Ravenry
"Eat your grain, Cressen. Eat, or the cold winds will come."
Archmaester Walgrave was having an argument with a white raven, and the raven was winning.
He didn't hear the door creak open. He didn't notice when Vala, the maid, stepped into the rookery.
"Is it time for supper?" Walgrave asked, looking up at her with milky eyes.
Vala stared at him the way a butcher looks at a pig before turning it into sausages. But her voice was sweet and false.
"Come, my lord. Supper is waiting. And a carriage."
"Is it mashed turnips?" Walgrave asked.
"Turnips," she agreed, taking his arm. He climbed into the carriage willingly.
...
Archmaester Vaellyn stood on the highest balcony of the observatory. He wore the bronze link, marking him as a scholar of the heavens. Though if you asked the locals, he was mostly a scholar of what the neighbors were doing with their clothes off.
He had his Myrish lens pointed at the Red comet. Even through the mist, he could see the bleeding star.
Then he saw twelve black dots dropping from the clouds like falling tears.
"What in seven hells…"
He tried to find them with his lens. He failed.
But being a man of curiosity, he found something else that interested him. His lens settled on a dark alley where a city guard was pressing a scullery maid against a brick wall.
Vaellyn adjusted the focus. "Fascinating," he breathed. "The bodies are aligning."
He watched until the guard finished. Then his hand slipped, and the lens moved right.
It settled perfectly on the open window of a brothel. A Lysene girl was washing herself in a basin.
"Drop the cloth! No, turn around, let me see the dark side of the moon!"
A hand tapped him on the shoulder.
Vaellyn yelped like a kicked dog. He spun around, clutching his robes over his groin to hide the bulge there.
"I was charting the comet! The Red Messenger! It brings omens!"
Vorena stood there. She looked at the Myrish lens, then at the brothel window, then at the bulge in his robes.
"The comet is in the east, my lord," she said dryly. "Your cock is pointing south."
"How dare you! I am an Archmaester! I demand…"
THUD.
....
"Am I earning my link, Archmaester?" Pate grunted.
Archmaester Heston was bent over a table covered with mineral samples. A young acolyte named Pate was behind him, thrusting.
"Oh, indeed," Heston gasped, gripping the edge of the table. "The pressure is truly magnificent!"
"Keep digging, boy!" Heston squealed. "I believe we are almost there!"
The door burst open.
....
POV: Jon Stark
My maids dragged the Archmaesters in like dead animals. Each old man was stuffed in a sack.
Vala dropped the first sack without care. It twitched. A muffled groan came from inside.
"Line them up," I said.
They placed the six sacks against the wall.
One sack was taller than the others, standing out too much. The maid who had dragged it shook it until it was the same height as the rest.
"Open the first one."
Vala opened first sack, containing Archmaester Walgrave.
"Where am I?" he mumbled. "Have the ravens been fed? Is it supper time?"
I knelt beside him. His eyes were cloudy with age. His breath was sour. This man had sat in the Conclave for forty years. He had served as Seneschal, the head administrator of the Citadel, more times than any other Archmaester.
I placed my hand on his forehead.
His mind was broken. The connections in his brain were damaged like broken bridges. Memories rotted in dark corners.
I reconnected the broken pathways.
As I fixed the broken parts, I changed how they worked. I found the parts of his brain that controlled trust, devotion, and loyalty. I flooded them with new connections. I cut his ties to the Citadel and made new ones that bound him to me instead.
"My lord," When his eyes opened again, the confusion was gone. "You have cleared the fog."
"Tell me what you remember," I said. "About the vault below the Citadel."
"We voted. Grey stones..... It was necessary. To close the door." He shook his head. "I cannot remember why. Only that it had to be done."
Walgrave's mind was too damaged. Time had eaten the memories.
I moved to the next sack.
Archmaester Vaellyn, he blinked up at me in confusion.
"What is this? Where…"
I grabbed his head.
His mind was sharper than Walgrave's. The memories were filed away like books in library. I tore through them, searching for information about the vault.
And I found it.
A memory of Vaellyn as a younger man, perhaps thirty years ago. He sat in a hidden chamber beneath the tower where the ravens lived. He was reading a book bound in cracked leather. The pages were yellow with age. The ink was faded but still readable.
The title was stamped In flaking gold: The Eye
The author was Grand Maester Munkun.
I pulled at the memory, trying to see the pages more clearly. The younger Vaellyn turned a page. I saw words written there:
"The door must be sealed. The key must be destroyed. For if the Eye opens again, we will not survive the gaze of the Host."
Another page:
"We poisoned Queen Aemma's tea with herbs that kill children in the womb. Six children lost. The line weakened. Otto's ambitions will finish what we started."
I needed more. I searched Vaellyn's memories for where the book was kept now.
I found only fire.
A memory of the Conclave after Robert's Rebellion ended. The old Archmaesters gathered in councile room. Munkun's book lay on the table. Theobald held a torch.
"This knowledge must not survive," Theobald said. "We did what was necessary. No one can ever prove it."
The book burned. The pages curled and turned black. The secrets became ash.
I released Vaellyn.
The knowledge now existed only in pieces, scattered across the minds of old men.
I turned to the next sack.
Archmaester Theobald. The Iron Link.
Vala cut the rope. Theobald rolled out, already awake.
"Do you know what you have done?" he spat. "The Hightowers will flay you alive. The Conclave will…"
I grabbed his face and drove my will into his mind.
I found it.
The memory of Munkun's book. Not fragments. The whole thing. Theobald had read it when he was young. He had memorized every word.
I dove deeper into that memory.
....
POV: Maester Munkun (Year 103 AC)
I was twenty six years old when Archmaester Ryam showed me the way to the Deep Vault.
"The path does not stay fixed," he said as we went down the stairs beneath the Citadel. "It shifts. The shape of the passages is unnatural. But there is a pattern to it. Learn the pattern, and you will find the way."
We walked for what felt like an hour, though I could not be certain. The passages twisted back on themselves.
Twice I was sure we had passed the same archway, but each time the carvings on the stone were different. My head ached.
"Do not fight it," Ryam said. "The stone does not follow the laws of the world above."
Suddenly we were standing in front of door.
Ryam took out a key made of black rock and moved it toward the door. Before the key reached the keyhole, the door opened on its own.
....