Chapter Text
Prologue
The steps of the Scribe's Tower numbered one hundred and twelve, and Pate had counted every one of them twice a day for the better part of three years. His knees knew the worn places where generations of acolytes had climbed before him, the seventh step that listed slightly to the left, the thirty-fourth where a crack had spread across the stone like a river drawn on a map. The weight of the document case pulled at his shoulder, and the afternoon sun fell through the tower's narrow windows in slanted bars that made the dust motes dance like sparks from a fire.
The Seneschal had sent him with letters for the conclave - letters that had arrived by raven that morning, letters stamped with seals he recognized and seals he did not. Pate had learned not to read them. An acolyte who read letters meant for archmaesters was an acolyte who found himself cleaning the ravenry for a year, and the ravenry smelled of bird shit and death and the particular misery of men who had disappointed their betters.
He paused at the landing to catch his breath. Through the window, he could see the Honeywine winding its way toward the harbor, and beyond it the great dome of the Starry Sept, and beyond that the sea, blue-grey and endless, stretching west toward nothing at all. The Sunset Sea, they called it. No one had ever sailed west and returned to say what lay beyond.
Probably nothing, Pate thought. Probably just more water, and then the edge of the world, and then the black between the stars.
He shifted the document case to his other shoulder and climbed the remaining steps to the chamber where the archmaesters had gathered.
The door was heavy oak, banded with iron, and it stood slightly ajar. Pate could hear voices within - Archmaester Ryam's dry rasp, Archmaester Ebrose's measured tones, and beneath them the murmur of others he could not identify. He raised his hand to knock, then hesitated. The Seneschal had told him to deliver the letters, not to interrupt. If the archmaesters were in council...
"- cannot ignore a lion when it bares its teeth," Ryam was saying. "Tywin Lannister has called his banners. The westermen are arming."
"As is their right." This voice Pate did not recognize. "A lord may raise his banners for any cause or none. It is not for us to judge the wisdom of it."
"The Stark woman seized his son." Ebrose, calm as ever. "Tyrion Lannister, taken on the kingsroad like a common brigand. If the reports are true -"
"The reports are true enough. We have had ravens from the Eyrie, from Riverrun, from King's Landing itself. Lady Catelyn has taken the Imp to her sister in the Vale, and Lord Tywin means to have him back."
Pate knocked, three times, firmly.
The voices fell silent. Then: "Enter."
He pushed through the door into the long chamber where the conclave met. Afternoon light fell through windows of leaded glass, casting diamond patterns across the great table where eight archmaesters sat in carved chairs of black oak. Pate had served at a hundred such meetings, had learned to keep his eyes down and his ears closed, but he could not help glancing at the faces arrayed before him - Ryam with his ring of yellow gold, Ebrose with his silver, Vaellyn the stargazer squinting as though even this muted light offended him, and at the far end of the table, alone, the one they called Marwyn the Mage.
Marwyn was watching him. The archmaester's face was broad and rough, more like a dockworker's than a scholar's, and his eyes had a way of looking through a man rather than at him.
Pate looked away.
"Letters from the Seneschal, Archmaesters." He crossed to the table and opened the case, spreading the sealed parchments before them. "Ravens arrived this morning from Riverrun, King's Landing, and Casterly Rock. And these -" He laid out three smaller scrolls, their seals less ornate. "From Seagard, Flint's Finger, and Blacktyde."
"Blacktyde?" Ryam's brow furrowed. "What business have we with the ironborn?"
"Maester Wendamyr writes from Lord Blacktyde's hall," Pate said. "I do not know the contents."
"No, you would not." Ryam waved a hand in dismissal. "Leave them. You may go."
Pate bowed and retreated toward the door, but slowly, adjusting his empty case, taking more time than he needed. The archmaesters were already reaching for the letters, breaking seals, murmuring to one another.
"Riverrun first," someone said. "If the Tullys are calling their banners -"
"The Tullys will do as the Starks bid them. Lord Hoster is ailing, Edmure is barely a man, and his sister is the Lady Stark. The riverlands will bleed for the North's quarrel, mark me."
Pate's hand found the door handle. He should leave. He knew he should leave.
"What of these others?" Vaellyn had taken up the three smaller scrolls, peering at them with his watery eyes. "Seagard, Flint's Finger, Blacktyde. All from the western coasts."
"Weather reports, most like." Ryam did not look up from the Riverrun letter. "Maester Vyman has been complaining of the autumn storms for a fortnight."
"These are not complaints of storms." Vaellyn had broken the Seagard seal and was reading, his lips moving slightly. "Maester Normund writes of... peculiar phenomena. Lights observed over the Sunset Sea. A greenish cast to the sky that persisted for the better part of an evening. Fishermen returned to port speaking of waves that came from three directions at once."
"Fishermen," Ebrose said, condescendingly. "Fishermen speak of mermaids and krakens and the Drowned God's daughters. I hardly think we need convene a conclave over the contents of their wine."
But Vaellyn was already opening the second scroll. "Flint's Finger reports much the same. Green lights on the horizon, low in the west, flickering like... he says like lightning, but not lightning. And the lodestones in the maester's study grew unreliable for several hours.” He paused, “Strange tidings indeed.”
That drew a moment of silence. Pate saw Marwyn lean forward, his heavy brows drawing together.
"Unreliable how?" Marwyn asked.
"The needle trembled, he says. Swung north, then west, then north again, as though it could not find its heading." Vaellyn set down the scroll and took up the third. "And from Blacktyde... More of the same. Strange weather, lights in the distance.” A stilted pause - “Maester Wendamyr writes that the Ironborn whalers have seen ships."
"Ships?" Ryam looked up now. "What manner of ships?"
"He does not say. Only that several whalers – fierce men he says, reported vessels on the horizon, very distant, of a kind they did not recognize. When they sailed toward them, the ships had vanished." Vaellyn set down the letter. "He thought it worth reporting, given the other... irregularities."
"Ironborn whalers seeing foreign ships they cannot catch." Ebrose allowed himself a thin smile. "If I did not know better, I would say they were making excuses for an unsuccessful reaving."
"The Greyjoys are quiet," Ryam said. "They have been quiet since King Robert crushed them. If Balon Greyjoy were building a fleet in secret, we would know of it."
"These were not Ironborn ships. Wendamyr is clear on that point. The whalers did not recognize their make."
"Ironborn whalers do not know the make of ships from Qarth or Asshai or the Summer Islands," Ebrose said. "They know longships and cogs and the occasional Tyroshi trader. A Volantene galley would look foreign to them. A swan ship of the Summer Isles would look like something from a fever dream."
Marwyn grunted. "And yet Volantene galleys do not generally sail the Sunset Sea."
"Nor does anyone else," Vaellyn said quietly. "That is rather the point."
For a moment, no one spoke. Pate stood frozen at the door, his hand still on the handle, knowing he should leave and unable to make himself move.
Then Ryam gathered up the Riverrun letter and shook his head.
"Strange weather and drunken fishermen. The western coasts have seen both before and will see both again. If Maester Patrek wishes to waste parchment on green lights in the sky, that is his affair. We have more pressing concerns." He tapped the letter before him. "Lords Brax, Marbrand, Serrett, and Tarbeck have mustered, and the strength of the West is gathering beneath Casterly Rock. Edmure Tully writes to Lord Tywin demanding answers and his intent. If the Riverlands burn, we shall have brothers caught in the flames. Maester Vyman serves at Riverrun, and there are a dozen more scattered through the Tully bannermen's holdfasts. Ebrose, you had best prepare letters reminding our brothers of their duty to neutrality - not that the reminder has ever saved a maester from a sack."
"Already done," Ebrose said. "Though if war comes in earnest -"
"It will come in earnest. It always does."
The archmaesters bent their heads over the Riverrun letter, and the matter of the western coasts was set aside, forgotten in the face of more immediate concerns.
Pate slipped through the door and closed it softly behind him.
He descended the one hundred and twelve steps slowly, his mind turning over what he had heard. Green lights on the horizon. Lodestones that could not find north. Ships that appeared and vanished like ghosts.
Probably nothing, he told himself. Probably just the autumn, and the storms, and the fears of men who spend too much time staring at empty water.
At the base of the tower, he paused. The sun was lower now, and the light that fell through the window had turned the color of old gold. To the east, the Honeywine wound toward the city, and the streets of Oldtown bustled with the ordinary business of the living. To the west, beyond the harbor, the Sunset Sea stretched to the edge of the world.
Pate looked west for a long moment.
Then he shouldered his empty case and went to see what the Seneschal required of him next. There was always more work to be done, more steps to climb, more letters to carry. The affairs of archmaesters were not his concern.
And yet, as he walked, he found himself thinking of ships that no one recognized, sailing waters where no ships had ever sailed before.