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The Logistics of Good Living by Karmic Acumen

Books » A song of Ice and Fire Rated: T, English, Fantasy & Family, Brandon S., Rickard S., Words: 189k+, Favs: 1k+, Follows: 1k+, Published: Aug 20, 2020 Updated: Apr 28 412Chapter 22: All Dwarves Are Not Created Equal (VI)

A/N: This is the last of Luwin for a while. Next up, the World Reacts!

"-. 274 AC .-"

They put away their skis once they reached the Neck. Instead, they were met by a group of crannogmen who escorted them through the region on foot. Well, on snow shoes at least, though their escorts didn't seem to need them, being so small and slight that the snow supported their weight even without that help. They looked like soundless shadows in their oilskin cloaks as they moved amidst the dense thickets. Seeing them at work, Luwin could understand why some people thought they were kin to the Children of the Forest. Especially the youngest among them, the son of their head guide who was just ten years old. Not that it was true of course. Even if Men and Children could interbreed, which all credible sources agreed they couldn't, the blood wold have thinned so much since the Age of Heroes as to make the point moot.

At first it was less a marshland and more a boggy forest, with trees that looked half-drowned in frozen water and covered in pale fungus that glittered in the frost. The more they moved north, though, the more the foliage changed to shrubbery and slurry marsh. Luwin had passed through the region many years before, when he first travelled to the Citadel, but age and learning made it easy now to understand why the Neck could just as easily be called the Strangler. The black bog of the Neck divided the North from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. To the west was the large forest and a peninsula containing Flint's Finger, the Flint Cliffs, and Cape Kraken, while to the east was the Bite, the long bay of eastern Westeros dividing the North from the Vale of Arryn. North of the Neck were the Barrowlands, where ancient kings up to the very First King of the First Men were said to be entombed. And to the south were the Twins, Seagard, and the Cape of Eagles in the Riverlands. The Green Fork of the Trident originated in the Neck as well.

They didn't have to worry overmuch about some of the natural hazards, unlike any other seasons that got really troublesome for various reasons. They didn't get harassed by midges and bloodflies or any other stinging flies, for one. They didn't need to fear the bog waters that much either, since they'd have to break through the ice before they could drown or sink into the quicksands. But slipping on the ice was its own killer, and the place still held lizard-lions, snakes and dozens of varieties of huge plant life. They ranged from mild irritants like poison kisses, to not so mild predators that could melt the flesh off your bones. Not all of the beasts and plants hibernated or withered in cold times either, they were told. Not the whole way through. It all was quite important because they did not always stick to the Kingsroad. Or, really, the increasingly narrow causeway, as it was called there. The swamp had invaded it with every springmelt and summer floods since the Kingsroad was first built. The Reeds of Greywater Watch did what they could to maintain it, but nature did as nature willed.

Luwin imagined it was a mirror of the same process that saw a coniferous forest be steadily overrun by marshlands after the Children's failed bid to recreate the hammer of the waters, thousands of years before. On being asked, their guide confirmed it, and the small man's even smaller son regaled them with an in-depth lecture on the hows and whys. Quite confidently too. Despite his young age, Howland Reed already seemed to know everything about the deathtrap they unfortunately had no choice but to wade through. It explained why Lord Stark didn't mind him playing pathfinder, despite the strange face he'd made upon the boy's introduction.

Their progress slowed dramatically compared to their journey up to that point, but no one grumbled, especially after guardsman Bors told them what he went through after he wandered after a wisp during watch one night, on the way south. Which, the tiny crannog boy explained, was just the flash of swamp gas escaping through the bog and momentarily igniting.

"It's all the flint stones scattered about," little Howland told them. "They get knocked together by the burst. Long as you're not in the middle of it when they go off, you'll be fine."

"Yes," Lord Stark said with the air of one indulging an inside joke. "Mind you don't get gaslighted."

That was a strange word. Fitting as any other though, Luwin supposed.

They spent a whole day at Moat Cailin, which Luwin mostly slept away. Then they resumed their trek, slow and steady until they finally left the marshes and their guides behind, only then resuming their previous speed. Luwin tried to keep himself busy. Things with Marwyn were still awkward since he refused to teach him more of the Mysteries, even though the man never said Luwin couldn't go to him for anything else. He'd normally have sought out new books to read or maesters to study under. But Oldtown's libraries and lecture halls were far behind him now, and he'd grown as familiar as he was likely to get with his fellow acolytes. He approached Qyburn once, briefly, about him sharing some of his knowledge on health and healing. Instead, he found out how Qyburn earned his first Valyrian steel link.

"Once, at the Citadel, I came into an empty room and saw an empty chair," Qyburn told him with a strange look. "Yet I knew a woman had been there, only a moment before. The cushion was dented where she'd sat, the cloth was still warm, and her scent lingered in the air. If we leave our smells behind us when we leave a room, surely something of our souls must remain when we leave this life?" Qyburn spread his hands. "The archmaesters did not like my thinking, but Marwyn did, and he invited me to partake of a certain brew he'd developed. Well, two really. One made from some sort of leaf, the other made of some ground crystal mixed into a brew as thick as oil but colorless as water. I've no words for the journey my soul undertook, and I didn't quite get my answer as to what we leave behind when we die. Not the first time at least. What I did, however, was see into the world of things that are too small to see."

Qyburn had come out of a magical vision as an adherent of Maester German's much derided theory that disease was caused by tiny creatures invisible to the naked eye.

"I'll keep my heretical views for when I can prove them, I think," Qyburn told him wryly. "Wouldn't want to sabotage my already flimsy odds of making the seven, you understand."

Luwin ended up seeking out the members of their escort instead. And so he learned that Guardsman Tom was a terrible musician plucking at a lute that wasn't his at all. It actually belonged to guardsman Rys, who'd lost some bet or other to lend him his instrument and teach him how to play it. It had not gone well at all. He found out that Guard Captain Rus was Rys' older sibling and was possessed of a work ethic exceeded only by his sense of irony, which was responsible for Rys agreeing to that bet in the first place.

Luwin also got around to watching a training session from start to finish. It was during one of their rare, longer stops in the Barrowlands. It ended up turning into a chain of sparring matches where Mullin beat all but the most seasoned baker's dozen in Stark's retinue. In a row. One after another. At their own weapons. Without any rest in between.

"Others' tits," Bors muttered when Mullin's exhaustion finally got him to falter against one of the veterans of the War of the Ninepenny Kings. A big guard with dark hair and salty beard called Lyndon, armed with a mace. "Is he having us on, trying to be a maester? How'd he make it so long down south without getting knighted?"

"I honestly don't know." Mullin had never said where he came from. Hother had once mentioned that he used to have a Stormlander accent when he first arrived in Oldtown, but Mullin never offered information or answers when asked. Luwin didn't get the impression that there was any grand tale or tragedy behind it though.

Lord Stark had started giving Mullin some very peculiar looks too, but he was a fair bit off from actually interpreting the man's expressions reliably. The Lord began calling on Mullin more and more often too. Called him to ski at his side just behind the biggest, burliest four men-at-arms that always had the head of the column. Luwin wondered if the lord meant to poach him for his guard force, but he doubted it. The odds of anyone establishing an institution capable of successfully competing with the Citadel were ultimately very slim. Having just a dozen or so people to start with, only two of whom were fully qualified, only cut those odds even further. None of them could be spared from the effort, no matter how talented they were at their hobby.

Well, unless Mullin suddenly decided to switch to a martial path in life, but he'd made no sounds of such a thing.

It was shaping up to be a fairly dull end to their journey, which only deprived Luwin of distractions from his anxieties. He incited horror stories around the campfire to get some form of release. Alas, that started working rather too well by the end of their long dash across the Barrowlands. Particularly when they began trading dark rumours about cults and religions and Wendamyr shared with them the darker things he'd heard about the Church of Starry Wisdom. 'Docksite temple sacrifices' took an all new, sinister cant then.

Lord Stark happened to be supping with the rest of them at the time, which he'd been doing a lot more of since Moat Cailin for some reason, always with someone new sat to his right. The man inquired into the history of the cult, and answering somehow ended up being Luwin's job after Marwyn mentioned the information was probably freshest in his mind. Technically true, he'd gained his Valyriain steel link quite recently, to say nothing of his copper ones. Luwin was already regretting his grand distraction plan, but it wasn't like he could refuse Lord Stark's order, even if it wasn't phrased as one.

"In the beginning, the priestly scribes of Yin declare, all the land between the Bones and the freezing desert called the Grey Waste, from the Shivering Sea to the Jade Sea, including even the great and holy isle of Leng, formed a single realm ruled by the God-on-Earth, the only begotten son of the Lion of Night and Maiden-Made-of-Light, who travelled about his domains in a palanquin carved from a single pearl and carried by a hundred queens, his wives. For ten thousand years the Great Empire of the Dawn flourished in peace and plenty under the God-on-Earth, until at last he ascended to the stars to join his forebears.

"Dominion over mankind then passed to his eldest son, who was known as the Pearl Emperor and ruled for a thousand years. The Jade Emperor, the Tourmaline Emperor, the Onyx Emperor, the Topaz Emperor, and the Opal Emperor followed in turn, each reigning for centuries... yet every reign was shorter and more troubled than the one preceding it, for wild men and baleful beasts pressed at the borders of the Great Empire, lesser kings grew prideful and rebellious, and the common people gave themselves over to avarice, envy, lust, murder, incest, gluttony, and sloth.

"When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. He practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy, enslaved his people, took a tiger-woman for his bride, feasted on human flesh, and cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky. Many scholars count the Bloodstone Emperor as the first High Priest of the sinister Church of Starry Wisdom, which persists to this day in many port cities throughout the known world.

"In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night. Despairing of the evil that had been unleashed on earth, the Maiden-Made-of-Light turned her back upon the world, and the Lion of Night came forth in all his wroth to punish the wickedness of men.

"How long the darkness endured no man can say, but all agree that it was only when a great warrior—known variously as Hyrkoon the Hero, Azor Ahai, Yin Tar, Neferion, and Eldric Shadowchaser—arose to give courage to the race of men and lead the virtuous into battle with his blazing sword Lightbringer that the darkness was put to rout, and light and love returned once more to the world."

When he was done speaking, Luwin dearly hoped no one would mock him for regurgitating a book's contents like Marwyn had openly derided everyone up to his peers for doing. Fortunately, he got his wish. Not so fortunately, their party spiralled into a discussion about history and myth and forgotten stories that probably shouldn't have been forgotten at all, even if they were dark and sinister. The mass human sacrifice by the Children of the Forest to the weirwood trees in olden days, before the Pact and even the Hammer of the Waters that sunk the Arm of Dorne into the Narrow Sea. Garth Greenhand and the darker tales where he demanded blood sacrifice in exchange for good harvest. Nagga the sea dragon and the demon tree Ygg of Ironborn myth that gorged on human flesh before being slain by the Grey King. The mysterious race of men known as the mazemakers, who inhabited the isle of Lorath in ancient days but vanished long before the dawn of true history, leaving no trace of themselves save for their bones and the mazes they built. The Deep Ones and the sinister Old Ones they worshipped, whose oily, discordant echoes even now lingered in the great underground cities of Leng, whispered by statues of a faceless emperor with one eye shaped like a shining trapezohedron. The cult's most holy relic, Wendamyr claimed. If it was true, it had been lost long ago.

They were but archaeological mysteries twisted by myths of savage times into stories to scare children, but even so they filled Luwin with an inexplicable sense of foreboding that persisted all the way to Castle Cerwyn. The manner of their arrival neither dispelled it nor did it provide closure. It did, however, give him something extra to worry about.

They reached Cerwyn near midnight. They were fighting exhaustion well before then, all of them from the biggest guardsman to the smallest dog pulling the sleds. Lord Stark decided to push on rather than make a final stop so close to the keep. There was no pageantry when they arrived. There was no Lord waiting in the middle of the yard to welcome them. The castle spotters only saw them when they were almost at the gates due to the blizzard that kicked off. But their party was still ushered into the great hall as soon as the grooms took charge of the dogs. The great doors had long been barred, but a side entrance was open – they'd caught the last of the day shift just as the servants were leaving for bed, and Lord Stark decided that would serve well enough. Luwin was among the last to enter, having lagged behind everyone except the rear guard on the last stretch. Skiing uphill never got easy, even when you went zig and zag, especially when your legs already felt about to come off. Still, he made it, and he welcomed the warmth, with its light, its lingering smells of food and wine, and the reed pipes playing near the far end, next to the lord' platform. Squeezing around for a better look, Luwin was just in time to see Lord Stark gesture for them not to interrupt or disturb. Luwin was too dumbstruck to attempt such things regardless. Not by the sight of the Lord and his wife sitting with their back at the entrance. Not by the sight of their son playing a most curious set of reed pipes across the firepit from them. Or the unknown woman sitting nearby and watching the man with hooded bedroom eyes. Luwin wasn't even taken aback by the small boy next to the singer, even though he was covered in a grey cloak with white fur lining made for a man full grown. To have such a tiny anklebiter making notes on paper whenever the lordling hit a false note should have at least surprised him, but it didn't. No, it was the girl.

Ambinata in siraxta

Cailon areuedons in nemesi

Satiion branon tosagiíet uo moudas

The young girl singing in Old Tongue to the reedy tunes. Of flying spears, great fires, destiny and dark wings that beckoned in forlornness, leading sign in the sky, flock of ravens looming under the clouds.

Exete 'os brane exete 'os

Etic laxsci 'os aidu laxsci 'os

Etic toage gariíon toage

Etic uregepe tunceton

Luwin heard the words and knew the words and could even make a good guess at what they were supposed to convey in translation, but he didn't care because all his wits had been shaken by the sight of her.

He knew that girl.

Luwin stood there staring until the girl's latest skipping twirl left her facing them and she stumbled to a halt with a squeal. "Papa!"

The boy shot out of his chair like a spinning meteor, swung his father's great cloak above him like the Lion of Night's own shroud, then swept it wide to catch his sister's feet on its hem just so.

Lyanna Stark faceplanted in the middle of Castle Cerwyn's Great Hall.

"Ha!" Benjen Stark crowed. "I told you so! I told you he'd be here tonight, but noooo, big sister always knows best! Well I was right!"

"I'll murder you!"

"Gasp!" Benjen Stark 'gasped' and threw the Stark cloak in her face like a funeral shroud, then jumped over her when she went under. "Dad, save me!"

"Get back here you little insect!"

The little wolf pup with his little grey eyes laughed at his shrieking his sister from where he bounced around his father's feet in his shadow.

Lord Rickard Stark lost his composure for the first time in Luwin's memory, bursting into laughter and kneeling down to embrace his two children. Luwin had eyes for none of it. The scene stabbed at him with the worst pang of homesickness he'd ever felt in in his life. He wanted to go home, back to the Citadel with its winding roads and sphinxes and towering bookshelves and observatories. But even that was ultimately secondary. His mind's eye turned backwards, to memory and fancy that had just proven to have been less fanciful than he ever thought.

He recognized the boy's laughter. He recognized the girls' face.

He'd not even set foot in Winterfell and he was already dreaming Starks.

"-. 274 AC .-"

That night he dreamed of stone buildings, cobbled streets and a butcher's cart rumbling past him down a familiar river road, five piglets in the back squealing in distress. Dodging from its path, Luwin just avoided being spattered as a townswoman emptied a pail of night soil from a window overhead, only to trip on a stone out of the dream's green glow into red sunlight. Streaks of red burned away the grey and green like a forest fire gorging on moss and fir pines. That was when the world suddenly fell from under him, or perhaps he was the one falling. Falling up into the sky as Oldtown took form around him, emerging ghostlike from the predawn gloom as winter melted into summer and sunbeams pierced the morning mists. Luwin had never seen King's Landing, but he knew it was a daub-and-wattle city, a sprawl of mud streets, thatched roofs, and wooden hovels. Oldtown was built in stone, though, and all its streets were cobbled, down to the meanest alley. The city was never more beautiful than at break of day. Luwin used to watch it from their cell's small window in the early hours, thinking it the grandest view he'd ever seen. It had nothing on the vista below him now, rapidly expanding to all corners of the world the higher he fell away from it. West of the Honeywine, the Guildhalls lined the bank like a row of palaces. Upriver, the domes and towers of the Citadel rose on both sides of the river, connected by stone bridges crowded with halls and houses. Downstream, below the black marble walls and arched windows of the Starry Sept, the manses of the pious clustered like children gathered round the feet of an old dowager.

And beyond, where the Honeywine widened into Whispering Sound, rose the Hightower, its beacon fires bright as wildfire against the dawn. From where it stood atop the bluffs of Battle Island, its shadow cut the city like a sword. Those born and raised in Oldtown could tell the time of day by where that shadow fell. Some claimed a man could see all the way to the Wall from the top. Perhaps that was why the Hightowers had built it so high up from the original fortress, that wide, squat labyrinth built of fused black stone. Or perhaps they just liked to rule their city from the clouds. If that was true, Luwin could well see why. The higher he got, the smaller things became until he was seeing just the sharp tops of white mountains and the grey pinpoints of castles. The land itself seemed to climb up the edges of the sky until they covered the heavens themselves, like the inside of a hollow world surrounding the sun that pulled him forward. And where there wasn't land, there were the seas, stretching out into the distance until even they tapered out into oily black horizons, sometimes smoothly, sometimes broken through by towering black fortresses and grey wastes filled with blight. He could even see the Wall now, and then around it to the forests beyond the closer he got to the red sun high up in the center of the sky, scorching the world below with flames that grew thicker and hotter as he plummeted upward and eastward, eastward, east-

Lightning struck him suddenly. The sky was clear but the bolt still split the heavens apart like the Storm God's own whipcord. A strong gale took him. The red haze around him was suddenly gone and he started falling back towards the ground. A distant roar sounded from the other side of the world as if screamed by an angry dragon. Then there was an eagle's cry, clawed forelimbs snatched him out of the air in a blur of feathers, and he felt himself pulled westward and northward with impossible speed until he was suddenly launched down, plummeting towards a massive keep with square crenellations and sharp towers that stuck out like spears into the sky and which he recognized on sight.

The last thing he saw before he fell below the horizon was the Hightower. The Hightower as it was before the Targaryens, he somehow knew with the certainty of the dream. Before the Targaryens, before the Andals, before even the First Men when it wasn't even called Hightower because it wasn't a tower at all. Oldtown was but scattered shipyards, the Raven's Isle was a pirate den, and the cries of newborn hatchlings reached him from the fortress labyrinth upon which roosted dragons, mighty and full grown.

Luwin came awake to the soul-deep certainty that none of what he'd dreamt had been allegory. Death was waiting for him, sitting across the pool of black water on the bone-white root of a great Heart Tree ancient beyond imagining. But even that vision was washed away under a billow of sea water taller than a hill. Luwin found himself sputtering wetly, face-down against a floor made of planks. They were laid fore and aft over beams and along carlins, their seams caulked and paid with tar. The shadows of three masts covered him, though there was no red sun looking to carry him away anywhere amidst the starry darkness of the sky. Looking up, he saw Death land cautiously on the ship's figurehead. It was a carving shaped like three small, shy, gentle-faced creatures with their hands and feet nailed to the hull, so white he didn't know if it was wood or bone. Then, footsteps came from behind him, stomp by stomp by stomp and Luwin realized the edges of the world were etched in the shape of a familiar trapezohedron.

"Let me be clear." Marwyn stepped in front of him, a sentry with the mane of a lion, his rod alight with pale fire and his whole bulk armored for war. "You will not spy on those I've claimed. You will not enter their dreams uninvited. You will use no workings on them without their consent and my consent. You will suffer these demands or you will suffer me."

Death unravelled until it blended imperceptibly with the night sky and was no longer there.

Luwin awoke in the quarters he shared with his old cellmates. Waited and watched for signs this was still a dream. When he tried to roll out of his body and only rolled out of his bed, he figured this was the waking world proper, finally. He slipped on his robe, put on the slippers the servants had provided, exited with the same amount of noise everyone else made when going to the privy, then headed to Marwyn's guest chambers as fast as he could walk.

He didn't expect Qyburn to be the one opening the door. What was inside he expected even less. There was no glass candle out and burning, no books of ancient lore scattered about, not even a gravelly voice cussing out everyone and their forebears over whatever had offended his sensibilities this time.

Marwyn sat with his back to the far wall, cross-legged on a red velvet cushion lined with gold embroidery. His ring was on his finger, his mask covered his face, and his rod rested perfectly level across his legs. Before him was a long, wooden tray bearing a steaming kettle surrounded by delicate tableware made of white YiTish porcelain painted with fractal patterns. On one side of the kettle was a steel jar filled with white crystals, while on the left was an incense burner. Three long sticks released meandering, wiry wafts of smoke that turned the air fragrant enough as to be pungent. A few breaths were enough to make Luwin feel lightheaded. Not that he noticed. His sight was entirely claimed by the wall itself. Or, rather, what was on it. A large, looming dreamcatcher resembling the web of some great, monstrous spider. Many charms, feathers and other things hung off its myriad treads, every strand so black they seemed to eat the light.

A throat cleared behind him, wrenching Luwin out of his stupor. Turning around, he blanched. "Lord Stark!"

"Acolyte Luwin."

"Yes, Luwin," Marwyn said, voice almost devoid of its usual rasp. "Stop blocking the man's way and come sit."

Luwin quietly went where indicated, at the foot of the tray to Marwyn's right. There was no cushion for him, but he recognized the setting from his studies of diplomacy and history so he decided to kneel rather than sit, directly on the ornate rug. It put him face to face with Qyburn who was kneeling on the Mage's left, keeping his head down and… brewing something?

"The custom would have all of us assume seiza," Marwyn waved at the cushion across from him, purple to his red and just as ornate. "But I know better than to ask a highborn to kneel."

With the ghost of sleep thoroughly banished, Luwin wondered at the set-up. On the surface it seemed like the YiTyish tea ceremony, but whatever Qyburn was making was not eastern green tea, and the arrangement was only vaguely similar regardless. The thought that one could ever be well served trying to import another culture in Westeros, especially the North, was also a fool's notion. So…

It's neutral ground, Luwin concluded. Marwyn wasn't acting like the petitioner here, but the one being petitioned to. Trying to assert dominance over a highborn of Westeros was a thoroughly fatal taboo, so Marwyn had designed a setting that maintained the degree of ceremony while making it as non-Westerosi as possible. Marwyn wasn't demanding authority, he was offering Lord Stark an invitation to recognize the fullness of his existing authority in his area of expertise.

The question was, would Lord Stark take it?

Rickard Stark waved his guard captain to stay outside and close the door. He glanced briefly at the white raven that had hounded Maryn's every step and was now flat on its back under the perch in the corner, twitching insensately. Then the man stepped forward to take his proffered seat.

"Long ago in Braavos I met a man called Benjen," Marwyn said, a hand over his staff and his eyes closed. "Dark hair, grey eyes, long face, twin sons not half as observant as he was of his surroundings and dealings. But when I came back from the Far East seven years later, it was he that had vanished, not his reckless, proudful get. He and his ever so farsighted nephew, never to be heard from again. In Essos at least."

If Lord Stark felt anything, he didn't show it. "Think you to have puzzled out my sorcerer's identity then?"

"Oh, I've known since Moat Cailin." He did? "The increasing frequency in the attempted visits and the easing of your own skinchanging made more than a few things clear. The rest had already come through in words and seemings. That all could speak more of my wit than anything else, though, so we can ask someone else their opinion if you wish."

Luwin carefully didn't react openly to being called upon to share the conclusion to this latest puzzle. Marwyn had only just given him the key. Was this his punishment for showing up uninvited? Or was his coming predicted after whatever that last dream had been?

"That won't be necessary," Stark said with a sigh.

Luwin was torn between relief and irritation at losing this chance to prove his competence, however unbidden.

"As agreed at High Heart, I've indulged the visitations as long as it was just me." The Mage opened his eyes. They were like bottomless pits of black behind the gleaming mask, pupils so wide there may as well be no iris around them at all. "You very carefully didn't vow to forbid or command him anything. Nonetheless, his trespass leaves us at somewhat of an impasse, if you follow me. One he is wise not to test me on. I may not be able to work spells, but in dreams I am mighty. And it's been years since I found a working I could not unravel."

"I will not apologise for putting you to test."

"You may wish to apologise to him then. Anyone else would have drained him dry with that wound of his."

Lord Stark did not reply.

"I'm honestly shocked he can skinchange at all, let alone cast his Thought so far from his Shape." Marwyn mused, not at all idly. "For a time I'd assumed the laughing pup was his fylgja, but it turns out it's not part of him at all." Fylgja. Old Tongue for follower, but in this case used to denote the attendant spirit of a person. Their totem. Marwyn had just implied Stark's sorcerer had somehow been deprived of his. Rather violently too, if the wound was as severe as he implied. Whatever it was. "You should be very grateful to whatever forebear bequeathed his hamingja unto you. Whatever it's been doing, that One-Eyed Raven is the only thing explaining why you're not drowning in miscreants." Hamingja. Fortune. The personal entity that could be split off and bequeathed on another person. In some traditions at least. "Well, that and whatever it was that asserted your will upon these lands. The difference is stark compared to when I was here previously. For that you have my sincerest congratulations. There is power in claim, and danger in infringing upon it as well. Rather like border disputes. That, at least, he and you both seem to afford the caution it deserves. There's certainly been no news from King's Landing about horses suddenly going crazy and trampling anyone important."

Lord Stark's hands clenched into fists atop his knees.

"Did you know Starks with any inkling of magic tend to disappear off the face of the earth? Across the sea at least." Marwyn lifted his rod from his lap and propped it against the web of dreams at his back. "It's good I got here first."

Lord Rickard Stark beheld the man before him, eyes like chips of ice. "What do you want?"

"I want to know you are the ruler, not the ruled."

"Is that so?" Lord Rickard seemed nonplussed. Seemed. "Is that it?"

"Well, I'd also like a patch in that glass garden of yours to grow some raspberry jam trees. I'd prefer acuminata or mimosa, maybe some koa eventually, but I'm willing to settle for what's more expedient for now." Marwyn lifted the lid from the kettle. Inside wasn't any tea Luwin had ever seen, but a hot, thick, leafy brew of smell so strong that it made Luwin shiver. "There is a hard limit on what words can convey," Marwyn poured one cup and then another. "Those with weak selves can be made to believe anything by them, but I am not so suggestible and neither are you."

Across the room, Qyburn set down the second cup of clear oil he'd made from that crushed crystal and quietly stood to leave.

"You words say much," Lord Stark said eventually. "Those you don't voice say even more."

"I suppose you could also behead me," Marwyn mused. The idle tone made a sinister combination with the black void beyond the proverbial door to his soul. "Banish me perhaps, if you don't feel quite murderous enough for that. At the least you may have to leave me behind. Actively shielding is one thing, creating lasting defences around the selves of those with no occult power of their own is quite thoroughly impossible as things currently stand. I won't move from this spot willingly. Not without your guarantee that he won't infringe on my charges again."

Lord Stark beheld Marwyn, for a time. "I begin to understand why you vex him so."

"No," Marwyn said, utterly certain. "You do not."

The nobleman blinked in surprise, but did not grow wroth. "Perhaps not."

"Quite so," Marwyn agreed, satisfied. "I take it he's rather confused."

"… Increasingly so the more he tries to dream with you," the other man admitted. "He only lost time this way once before. I don't suppose you will provide an explanation?"

"I could." Marwyn picked up the two cups and held one out. "Or you could see for yourself."

Qyburn quietly nudged Luwin from behind and ushered him out. The last thing he saw before the door closed was Lord Stark reaching out to accept the offering.

Luwin wasn't told what Marwyn and Lord Stark saw or discussed, but their party spent one whole day and extra night in Cerwyn instead of leaving that same morning as had been the plan. It left him and the rest rather at loose ends, but he didn't mind. Even if it was rather bemusing when little Lady Lyanna came over and declared him to be her chaperone for the rest of their stay.

"Old Man Rob says I need one but his picks are all boring."

The real reason was that Benjen Stark had 'called dibs' on Luwin so Lyanna resolved to snatch him first as revenge. On finding out during noon meal, the boy sulked most adorably. Then came the evening feast and Benjan Stark proceeded to mock his sister loudly and openly for not being able to win at anything without cheating. It started a sibling's row that somehow ended with Lyanna Stark vowing to 'prove' her worth by 'winning at horror stories forever.'

What strange turns of phrase these highborn children used.

"Some say the Green Emperor still lives, forever lost to time and memory in the Morning Mountains," Lyanna Stark finished her tale, making a brave bid at leaning in such a way that her face was cast in shadow. "They say he lingers between life and death, beset on all sides in the city of corpses that lies where the river of ash runs howling through a narrow cleft in the mountains, between towering cliffs so steep and close that the dark waters never see the sun. Some say he's still there, alive out of spite for those he taught and raised, who turned their backs on him and flew across seas and mountains to build their own empire out of his legacy, one which they wouldn't have to share. Perhaps he still wallows there, skulking between the caves that pockmark the cliffs where demons and dragons and worse make their lairs, more hideous and twisted the deeper in you go into the never ending darkness at the shadow's heart."

The gathered menagerie of children 'oohed' and 'aahed' appreciatively, even Rhodry who'd been swept into the little lady's groove somehow. For a girl of seven years, Lyanna Stark knew many big words. Luwin wished Lord Stark the best of luck when she tried to abscond with the mummers in a year or three.

He looked to the side where Qyburn was rapidly recording everything on the latest sheet of the surprisingly high-quality paper the North seemed to have in abundance. "Having fun, maester?"

"Most definitely," Qyburn said happily, murmuring under his breath about myths and mountains and Asshai-by-the-Shadow. "The mouth of babes has ever been a most precious treasure trove of information. I hope to meet this Old Nan soon."

Luwin didn't begrudge Qyburn's feeling of vindication. He'd been the only one who didn't take offence when Lyanna Stark walked over and declared him their chronicler on account of being the only grownup 'creepy enough.'

"Old Nan, Old Shmam!" Lyanna Stark tsked. "This story's got nothing to do with her, it's all me!"

"Your pony, more like," Benjen muttered, leading to yet another chase up and down the main hall.

It was just the first of several 'sinister' tales, but Luwin's sleep that night was undisturbed and Death did not haunt him again.

"-. 274 AC .-"

Winterfell was an absolutely massive mountain of a castle. That much Luwin recalled despite the age he'd been when he was sent to become a maester. Any memory blanks had long since been filled via reading and hearsay as well. The ancient seat of House Stark was by all accounts a city unto itself, with an outer wall eighty feet high, an inner wall one hundred feet high, and a wide moat between them. The complex was a rugged, solid thing with square crenellations all along its rims, great octagonal towers with hanging turrets, and high-angled roofs covered in ironwood shingles that stabbed the sky like black icicles. Inside, beyond the two walls and the first of six wards, was the Great Keep, a monolithic castle complex all on its own, with off-shoots and walls and gatehouses. It was connected by a covered bridge to the armory, a keep in its own right, while on the other side was the Great Hall, which was said to hold eight long rows of trestle tables with room for five hundred people on the ground floor alone. The inner castle also played host to the Library Tower, where Luwin may end up making his home if Marwyn's predictions proved true. He wondered what it would be like. He only knew it had an outer staircase and a hanging bridge connecting it to the Great Keep like only the armory boasted.

That all wasn't even touching on the many other walls, towers, turrets and bridges hanging in the air, to say nothing of the Godswood, or the ancient shell keep where the Kings of Winter once resided, with its shapeless, rain-worn gargoyles and inner ward and the Broken Tower looming tall and forbidding.

Calling Wintertown a 'town' was a misnomer also, being instead a full city bigger than all others in the North save White Harbor, which it more than matched in winter and fall. Winterfell and Wintertown didn't come close to the scale of Oldtown even together, in size or population, but Luwin recalled enough of to know it beat King's Landing in most everything else. Far from being a den of filth and mud with slums and shanty towns every other alley, Wintertown instead had rows of small and neat houses built of log and undressed stone. Its streets could be muddy when there was no cold to freeze the ground as solid as the bone in your body, but they were fairly level and done in packed gravel here and there, where there would otherwise be particular risk of getting bogged or slipping. Finally, near Winterfell's main gatehouse was the main market square, full of wooden stalls for produce and goods and a well at its center, near the local inn and alehouse. From what Luwin remembered, it was called The Smoking Log.

All told, Luwin thought he knew what to expect of the place. He was even ready for Lord Stark to take the circuitous route that would see them avoid Wintertown entirely, to enter Winterfell from the Hunter's Gate instead of the main one.

That assumption didn't survive past the kingsroad.

The first thing they saw was the smoke. It rose in great pillars all along the southern edge of Wintertown, which seemed to have grown a whole extra circle of roads, stalls and workshops. It looked like construction on a whole new city ward had been started, one that surrounded half the town and curled eastward around the great hill. Its purpose was obvious from the edifices and craftworks already there. A fresh wall made of some strange, fused grey stone was being raised in place of the wooden one already there, to separate it from the rest of the surprisingly active city. Great furnaces as tall as houses ate coal by the shovel load and billowed smoke into the sky. Large shingled barns sheltered great boiling vats of something or other. Long arched canopies ate wood one whole trunk at a time, only to disgorge perfectly square beams or planks finer than anything he'd ever seen. As they got closer, Luwin could see mules tied in groups to spinning pillars. Whatever they did wasn't turning grindstones though. He could hear a long, sharp keen coming from within. The making of charcoal seemed to have at some point become its own industry also.

There was a lot of extra land marked for further expansion as well, by a wooden palisade that bordered an area big enough to be called a ward on its own. Even that space wasn't empty, having amassed a truly staggering supply of fresh timber that was even now added to by long-suffering aurochs and their loudly bellowing lumberjacks. And surrounding even that, all around the outskirts, were piles and piles of limestone and granite and many other types of stone, gravel and sand carted in from far-off places.

They stopped and took off their skis the moment they were within the outer perimeter. The roads had been cleared of snow almost completely just by foot traffic, and any ice had long since been sprinkled with sand. The sled houses were also emptied and sent on ahead, after which they proceeded on foot, watched and saluted respectfully by people wearing thick gloves and strange, hard hats of iron or ironwood. They were all eager to pay their respects and even more eager to get back to work the moment Lord Stark acknowledged them.

The new ward proved to be a fair bit farther away from Wintertown proper than it seemed at first glance. Luwin approved of the precaution but decided it was probably unnecessary, noise aside. The pattern of the winds was almost ideal for dispersing the smog away from the rest of the settlement, and Winterfell itself was higher up than the cloud of smoke and ash could actually lift. Eight thousand years later and Bran the Builder's choice of construction site was still proving lucrative in new ways.

Once they were in the town proper, Luwin decided to go and ask his sudden bevy of questions since no one else seemed inclined to. Fortunately, his escorts proved quite willing to answer. Guardsmen Tom and Bors in particular were very eager to boast about their home.

Luwin tried not to feel too staggered at their answers.

House Stark now made paper. And glass. And had established something called mass production, where they made iron at such absurd rates that there weren't enough blacksmitsh to keep up with. Arms, armor, iron tools at prices so low that commonners might be able to afford them without having to pool their coin, all were being made at increasing rates even as the standing orders grew and grew in number. Winterfell had even let word get out about all-new farming ways and machines that would be available come spring. And because that all wasn't enough, some no-name lumberjack was no longer a non-name at all because he'd stumbled over whatever Bran the Builder had used to make the Wall. Winterstone. But that apparently wasn't enough for one year, because someone, somehow managed to come up with summerstone to go with it. A fused grey stone made from sand, gravel and baked lime mixed in a slurry and poured into all sorts of shapes and sizes. Walls, foundations, sewers, aqueducts and even the road Luwin found himself traveling up right now. One of two, the other being in the Kyln itself, as the ward was called.

"They'll be ruined when spring comes and the ground softens, or so it's said," Bors told him. "But the Steward figured summerstone needed testing, and meanwhile the other work would go quicker. When the ground's not frozen enough to break your back digging it, they'll redo it properly, we're told. New sewers too. Underground ones."

"Nobody's been able to quicken steel making yet though, least not like the blast furnace," Tom said, winking at him. "That's a job for you lot, I figure."

"How is all of this funded?" Luwin couldn't help but wonder. "Domestic savings are one thing, but some hefty starting funds would have been needed for all of this."

"I figured it was all the coin saved off stuff we used to buy from the southrons?" Bors said uncertainly. Luwin had forgotten for a moment who he was talking to. The man wasn't even literate.

"Might be the ice trade too," Tom shrugged.

"Ice trade?" Hother pounced before he could.

"Methinks, at least. Turns out it's already damn warm down in Dorne and Lys, and they'll pay through the nose for a cool drink. Keeps food from spoiling too."

"Not to mention what ice cubes can get up to between the sheets," Bors muttered.

"Selling ice," Hother muttered. "What a crazy idea. Pa oughta love it."

"And not one whiff of magic in sight," Marwyn murmured low enough that only Luwin heard.

Traversing Wintertown was its own experience, with its sturdy homes, the street bereft of the mud of its past, and full houses everywhere Luwin looked. He counted many more buildings with business signs over their windows compared to what he remembered too. They each had notice boards next to the doors, instead of there just being one large one in the town square. Paper sheets with various drawings and writings were nailed to them most everywhere he looked. It gave a sense of permanency to Wintertown that wasn't there before. One sign in particular made him stare, above the door to a building twice as long as it used to be. It had been partly rebuilt to merge with the neighbor's house. Luwys & Hus. His father had built up their business? Even had a partner? One that wasn't even a smith! Thank the gods this wasn't the south or the guilds would have killed them both.

How many people were planning to stay when spring came? How much work was there to be had in winter that they could afford it? Weren't four fifths of the winter population farmers? Something must have already changed in the North for such a major shift in smallfolk prospects. Many of them were out and about even as they passed, especially the children. They were out in droves, loitering, running, gawking and playing some kind of game with paper cards. All of which might have been borne if not for the flying kites and paper 'airplanes' that brought half of them acolytes to a stop and threatened to send the other half into the sort of inventor's fugue mentioned only in myth.

"Don't you all stop and stare," Marwyn nudged Luwin forward. "There'll be time for that later."

It didn't help.

They reached the market soon after, right at the mouth of Winterfell's main gate. It was full of people peddling arms, armor, tools, trinkets, toys, jewels, backscratchers, hair combs, hair brushes, soaps, scented soaps (not to be confused with hair soaps, the woman insisted) and something called toothpaste which Marwyn broke ranks to go and buy three different jars of on the spot (along with a toothbrush the carver didn't even have to insist he get with it). Tools and parts for all sorts of work were on sale as well. Accessories that both looked pretty and had a practical purpose. There were clasps and buckles Luwin had never seen, treaded nails that made him think of Marwyn's glass candle, those safety pins were mighty clever too. And the paper. Paper was everywhere. Sheets, stacks books and journals, figurines and toys folded in many shapes and patterns, and garlands painted in bright colors for children to run with and tie to their kites to flutter in the wind.

The throng of people parted before them, but the sights didn't. Neither did the smells. Not of sweat or smoke or metal, but of food. So much of it that it made Luwin wonder how packed the Smoking Log had to be for there to still be so much business out in the cold. There were stalls and hawkers and wheeled carts stocking up on meals to go. For the workers, they said. Some of the dishes, Luwin had never seen before. Triangular slices of flatbread called wedge pies, baked with cheese and sauce and topped with steamed greens and meat cuts. Apples and raisins candied in maple syrup, an all-new type of sugar made from sap. And then there were the 'little brans' or "brannies." Meat, cheese or some other filling stuffed between two slices of bread. They apparently got their name from their inventor, who happened to be Lord Stark's son of all people. Maybe not a lackwit after all.

"All that's missing is some good new drink," Marwyn pondered, looking mighty thoughtful. "I'm going to be rich!"

Finally, far off on the highest point of the hill still outside Winterfell, half-way between Wintertown and the Hunter's Gate, was the Water Titan.

This time, guardsman Rys gave the story. About a year past, the wintering youth of Wintertown had banded together in an attempt to make the biggest snowman in history. The effort grew increasingly ambitious and convoluted until it was more wood than snow and hollow on the inside. It ended up collapsing in a storm at some point into the second month of the year. But it only galvanized the youth to make a new one but better. So much so that they ended up asking their parents for guidance and advice. Combine that with winter-induced idleness, plus news from the keep that Lady Lyarra had fallen ill and House Stark could use a mood lift, and the effort snowballed rapidly into a serious building project. Then it somehow mixed with incipient plans for a water tower meant to deliver water directly to businesses and homes. Now, the skeleton of what would one day be a grand construction stood almost as tall as the outer wall itself. Craft masters had started using it as Wintertown's own journeyman challenge for everyone who studied any sort of trade under them.

Water piping. Yet another one of Bran the Builder's crafts at play. Luwin wouldn't be surprised if the water tower plans included hot pipes as a buffer around the main tank, to prevent it from freezing in winter. He voiced the idea to Marwyn, who seemed to approve of his line of thought, if not the thought itself.

"We'll strap some black steel to you yet. Not around the tank itself, that would be structurally unsound and redundant. Around the riser though, yes, perhaps pipes of hot springs water in a spiral, though digging under the moat and the walls to tap it might be impractical. Still, a boiler can serve in a pinch, and I know how to make some decent heat insulators," the Mage mused. "If they build the titan to look lifelike, that'll make for plenty of room to hide the workings. Won't work as is though. I can spot four weak joints in the framework even from here. Next big blizzard will crash it. Which they seem to expect, seeing as there's nothing but scaffolding within falling distance. We'll have to redesign it from the ground up. Still, not a bad way to kill time for a bunch of tradesmen and their brood. I bet Lord Stark indulged it for the lessons learnt. He'll be commissioning one inside Winterfell proper if he hasn't already, mark my words. That'll be our job too, I reckon."

Rather dangerous, Luwin thought, but who was he to judge anyone when it came to that? He'd risk danger too, if it led to something even half as inspiring as all this.

The Gatehouse of Winterfell was quite possibly the most defensible man-made fortification in the Seven Kingdoms, with many layers of battlements, especially ramparts and arrow loops overlooking the main entrance. Since Winterfell had two walls with a moat in between, that meant a secondary gatehouse behind the first, connected by two draw bridges, each able to be raised. Looking up, Luwin saw no secondary line of battlements facing the inside anywhere on the walls. He approved. It would ensure invaders would not find their position defensible even if they did make it to the top. The people on the inner towers would be able to shoot them dead with impunity, and the collapsible bridges would enable defenders to fall back and regroup. Each section of wall was protected by towers too, making it all but impossible to conquer the castle without capturing every consecutive wall section. Bloody business, to say the least.

It was near noon when they entered the inner castle. Luwin looked ahead, searching with his eyes for their mysterious sorcerer. The way Marwyn spoke of Benjen the Elder, he'd be a man full grown bearing Stark looks, possibly with a son or two in tow. He supposed it wasn't impossible that they were going to find someone else. A hedge witch, a Warlock of Qarth, a Red Priest even, considering the red sun Luwin kept dreaming about. Maybe it was Child of the Forest straight from the Age of Heroes like he initially thought too, but what were the odds of that?

Not good, it turned out. None of his assumptions proved accurate.

"Welcome home, father. Winterfell is yours. I've prepared bread and salt for our guests to bide under, until the issue of policy and charters is settled. Also, mother is with child, so there's that."

Brandon Stark was Rickard Stark in miniature, out to do his duty in the cold even though he was tired, grumpy and looking for all the world like he had better places to be.

"Thank you, son," Lord Stark said, putting a hand on his son's shoulder briefly but showing no more affection that that. "We'll talk inside."

How cold. The man had been so gladsome with his other two children.

They ate the bread and salt and then were shown by the castle steward – one Annard Poole – to the upper floors of the Great Hall, where they'd be hosted until their permanent lodgings were ready. Very good quarters fit for nobles. Lord Stark really was treating them as investments.

To Luwin's surprise, he beat Qyburn and Marwyn both in asking after the Lady's health and how soon they could get to work. To their vast reassurance, their suspicions were proven correct that Lyarra Stark's condition had been overstated. Unfortunately, that was as far as it went. While the Lady wasn't dying right that moment, she was quite far along to being wholly bedridden due to her increasing pains and bouts of weakness.

The steward left them and returned after they'd chosen their respective chambers – they each got one of their own! – then led them back out onto the grounds and to the northernmost, oldest past of the keep.

"This will be your headquarters. Our builders have already gone over it, and ratters have been sent to clear it and the tower of most of the vermin. Nonetheless, Lord Stark expects you will prefer to do your own assessment and redesign. He will provide a considerable largesse for the renovations, but his ultimate wish is for you and whatever organisation you establish to become self-sufficient. He expects a preliminary plan by moon's end. Naturally, this will double as a test to prove your competence. My son Vayon will attend to you from here on, but I must return to my duties. Good luck."

Luwin was not the only one who boggled at that news. A long time ago, decades years before Lord Rikard Stark had been born, a lightning strike had set afire the Broken Tower afire. The top third of the structure had collapsed inward, and the tower had never been rebuilt. Now they were being asked to rebuild it. And they were getting the First Keep all to themselves.

By the Gods, Lord Stark was really serious about this.

Luwin didn't know if he should be more excited or terrified.

Marwyn called on Hother to assist and quickly had the rest of them organised. From there, they set off to survey the grounds while the Mage and Mother Hen supervised and recorded their findings. They worked all through noon and past, snacking on little brans sent for by Vayon when they got hungry. They didn't even have to mention it, the young man seemed used to anticipating things like that. They were barely finished with the preliminary inspection of the grounds and the keep's ground floor when a runner came with the call for dinner. Before that, though, they were shown to the hot baths to clean and refresh themselves, unless there was anything else they needed?

"Actually, yes," Marwyn decided, using some contraption on the side of the stationery tray to drill holes into the papers they'd written. He then used one of the rings in the bottom drawer to clip them together and held them for Luwin to take. "Take these to Lord Stark, unless he only receives his own appointments?"

The question was directed at Vayon, who shrugged. "He can come with me and I can ask. Either he gets in or I get him back to you lot."

"That will work fine."

That was how Luwin ended up being the first Northern maester (to be) to see Lord Stark's solar from the inside. A large room that took up almost the entire top floor of the First Keep's summit. It was well lit from large windows on all four walls and furnished with solid furniture, cherry for the tables, oak for the bookshelves, ironwood for the desk and door. Luwin might have paid more interest to the interior if not for the effort he suddenly had to expend not to gawk like an imbecile.

"I understand you have something for me?" Lord Stark asked as if there was nothing out of the ordinary.

"… Yes, my Lord," Luwin approached and held out the papers, doing his best to ignore the curled up figure of Brandon Stark sleeping soundly in his father's lap. The great sword Ice was on the man's back, its strap keeping the lad securely in place. "Preliminary assessment of the grounds. The Archmaester would like to know if you have any particular preferences on record keeping."

"I see. You may sit while I go over this."

Luwin accepted the seat – not designed to make someone feel small or unimportant, he noted – and made his best bid at discretion. It was hard though. The child lord looked so different from earlier, the frown and tension gone even if the bags under his eyes hadn't quite started fading. He looked like a proper child rather than a short adult. Luwin decided to request the chance to check his health as soon as possible. For a lad of eleven, he seemed far too short. Hopefully he was just a late bloomer, but better not to risk it in case his diet needed changing.

The boy stirred half-way through his father's reading, yawned, slipped off his father and went to the privy, acting like he didn't even notice Luwin was there. When he came back, though, he wandered over and stared at him.

Luwin quickly felt awkwardness set in. "… Hello."

"You're not here to murder me too, are you?"

Luwin gaped. "What? No!" He didn't know if he should be more worried or affronted.

Brandon Stark looked at him for a while longer. "… I thought you'd be older." Then he walked back behind the desk, climbed up his father, nestled his head next to the man's heart and promptly went back to sleep.

Lord Rickard only paid his son as much mind as it took to secure Ice's strap under the boy's elbow so that he had a comfortable grip on his beard. To Luwin he didn't spare any glance at all, instead using a pen to make annotations.

Finally, Rickard Stark put the pen down and slid the stack of papers for Luwin to take. "It all seems in order, save for the accounting. I will have Annard instruct you in the use of double-entry bookkeeping. Otherwise, I expect to be consulted before you settle on any policy or vows. Especially celibacy, I want none of that."

That was a strange thing to go out of your way to mention. "May I ask why?"

"Because the vows clearly didn't work to curtail the Citadel's ambition and I believe that genius seed of yours should spread as far as possible."

Lord Stark had designs on his sex life. Luwin had no idea what to feel about that.

"Vayon will lead you to back to your fellows. If you hurry, there should still be enough time to bathe and refresh yourself before the feast."

There was indeed, and the water was pleasantly hot and abundant after so much time on the road. But the feast could barely be called a feast, being so quiet. The Lord and his wife were absent, the arrival of so many different healers seemed to cast a heretofore unseen light upon the seriousness of the Lady's sickness, and there were no young Starks to cause laughter and mischief.

When morning came, they gathered in the common room to wait. Soon, a servant came to fetch them for the morning meal, which they shared in the Great Hall with the steward and the rest of Winterfell's upper staff, though the Starks were noticeably absent once again. Finally, though, they were led to meet the man they'd work with on medicine at long last.

The room was large, with individual desks, work tables covered in various devices and sketches along three of the walls, and a large ironwood blackboard on the fourth, on which an entire process was written, half distillation, half alchemy from what Luwin could tell at a glance.

Then a small flock of ravens flew through the open windows, each one bringing forth a gift for each of them, name tags of polished weirwood scribed with their names. The spectacle made Luwin miss the entrance of their 'sorcerer' completely.

"Let me get all the important stuff out of the way so we can get to work. Humours are complete dogshit. Maester German was right about everything. Until one of you designs a farseer that can see small instead of far, you'll have to take my word for it that the process on this blackboard works for what I have in mind. I saw it in my visions. In case it wasn't clear, magic is real." The white mist cleared from the boy's eyes as the ravens left. "Will that be a problem?

Brandon Stark looked like he was defined by everything he didn't want to be. He looked old but didn't want to be. He looked tired but didn't want to be. He looked stressed when he wanted to be running and climbing up and down the castle. He looked like a child who didn't want to have needed his father to break the spine of the wold's oldest continuous institution just so he could finally grasp the chance to heal his mother and… and Luwin really shouldn't be getting so much information just from looking at him.

"No," Marwyn finally replied, fascinated and sage-like and his voice banished the strange mood that Luwin had fallen under with just a word. "That won't be a problem at all."

Brandon Stark. Brandon Stark was the healer. The failed alchemist. Brandon Stark was the sorcerer.

… Marwyn had given him the wrong puzzle key!

It was a good thing he ended up being so superfluous because he wasn't useful for much of anything that day, that's how furious he was. At Marwyn. At the situation. At his penchant for puzzle-making that betrayed him. At himself.

Qyburn cracked the process in two days, made the first batch of medicine in two weeks, figured out how to distill it in just one day with Marwyn's help, then came one extra month of work by all of them to set up a relatively reliable manufacturing process for deployment. It could have been much longer, but Lord Brandon had been working on the mold cultures for years and had several different cellars full to the brim with the right strain months before their lone predecessor showed himself a turncoat. Qyburn was sure the Lady could be prescribed the new treatment immediately, but Lord Brandon insisted they first test effectiveness and doses on a few well-paid volunteers. It worked out fine and led to the first witnessed case of Brandon Stark laughing when the whores of Wintertown found a new god in Qyburn for creating a way to heal the clap.

Luwin wasn't overmuch involved in most of it, being too busy going to meet the Lady and taking charge of her healthcare. He didn't begrudge it though, since he'd only have ended up feeling as useless as everyone else there. Qyburn really was a whole world beyond all of them.

Somehow, though, Luwin still ended up Maester of Winterfell.

Considering what all had happened in the lead-up to it, though, it was probably for the best.

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