Chapter 4: Links in a Chain, Keys to a Door

Chapter 4: Links in a Chain, Keys to a Door

279 AC, Month of the Stranger

A year in the Citadel was like a decade in the outside world. Seasons turned, news of conflict and courtly intrigue arrived on raven's wings from afar, but within the ancient walls, the only measure of time that truly mattered was the acquisition of knowledge, symbolized by the growing weight of metal around an acolyte's neck.

Martyn Blackwood now wore a respectable, if modest, chain. A link of silver for healing, one of copper for history, and another of black iron, earned after a grueling season of studying the ravenry and the art of sending messages. He was proud of his three links, each one a testament to his diligence. He was a solid, respected acolyte on the traditional path to becoming a maester.

His brother, however, was an anomaly. A phenomenon.

Alaric, now a boy of eleven, moved through the Citadel with the quiet, unnerving confidence of a master. Around his neck was a chain that was already heavier and far more valuable than those of acolytes ten years his senior. The yellow gold of economics gleamed beside the polished bronze of astronomy and the red gold of law. He had links of tin, lead, and pewter for the lesser subjects, but it was the precious metals, earned in the most challenging fields, that drew the stares. His chain was not just a symbol of learning; it was a statement of intellectual dominance.

The whispers followed him down the covered walkways and through the vaulted libraries. They called him the "Riverlands Prodigy," the "Blackwood Demon." Some spoke with awe, others with a bitter, curdling jealousy. Alaric heard it all, processed it, and filed it away. Their opinions were irrelevant, except as data points to be used in his calculations of the social environment.

"They fear you, you know," Martyn said one evening, as they sat in their small, spartan room. The air was cool, and the single candle on their desk cast long, dancing shadows on the stone walls. Martyn was polishing his silver link, a nervous habit he'd developed.

Alaric didn't look up from the star chart he was studying. It was a copy of a rare map of the eastern skies, one he'd been granted access to after earning his bronze link. "Fear is a useful tool, Martyn. It discourages distractions."

"It also discourages friends," Martyn countered, his voice laced with concern. "Leo Tyrell and his cronies look at you as if you were a viper in their bed. And Pate… he worships you, Alaric, but he's also terrified of you. Is this what you want? To be utterly alone?"

Finally, Alaric looked up. His grey eyes, which seemed to hold the cold light of distant stars, pinned his brother in place. "What I want," he said, his voice soft but unyielding, "is for House Blackwood to be more than a footnote in the histories of the Riverlands. What I want is to have the power to protect our family from the whims of men like Tywin Lannister or our own liege lord, Hoster Tully. What I want is to ensure that our children, and our children's children, will never have to scrape and bow for their survival."

He leaned forward, the candlelight carving sharp angles onto his youthful face. "Every link I forge is a key to another room in this fortress. And in one of those rooms is the knowledge that will give us that power. Friendship is a luxury I cannot afford. Alliances, however, are a necessity. Pate is an ally. Leo Tyrell is an obstacle. Do not confuse the two."

Martyn fell silent, his heart heavy. He loved his brother, but he was beginning to realize that the brilliant boy he had grown up with was being eclipsed by something far colder, far more ruthless. He was looking at a predator who wore the face of his sibling.

Alaric's cultivation of Pate had been a masterclass in subtle manipulation. He never asked for anything directly. He simply continued to be Pate's mentor and protector. He would guide him through difficult texts, offer him insights that would impress his masters, and subtly defend him from the taunts of the highborn acolytes. In return, Pate, eager to repay his only friend, became Alaric's unwitting intelligence agent.

"It was the strangest thing, Alaric," Pate said one afternoon, his voice a hushed whisper as they walked through the Citadel's gardens. "I was tasked with delivering some rare herbs to Archmaester Ebrose's chambers, the one who holds the silver mask for healing. And Archmaester Vaellyn was there, the one you impressed so."

"The master of the golden link," Alaric said, his tone casual, though his mind was instantly on high alert. <>

"Yes! And they were arguing. Or rather, Archmaester Ebrose was angry. He was shouting about 'unethical inquiries' and 'dangerous precedents.' And he mentioned a name." Pate glanced around nervously. "He mentioned Archmaester Marwyn."

"Marwyn the Mage," Alaric stated, his face impassive.

Pate nodded vigorously. "Ebrose said that Marwyn had requested access to the 'Glass Candle' again. He called it a blasphemous relic and said that Vaellyn was a fool for even considering it. Vaellyn argued back, he said something about… about 'verifying a potential method of instantaneous communication.' He said if Marwyn was right, it could change everything, that the ravenry would become obsolete."

Alaric's mind raced, the information slotting into place with a satisfying click. The glass candles. The obsidian candles from Valyria that the maesters dismissed as myths or inert artifacts. He knew from his past life's reading that they were tools for scrying, for seeing across vast distances. Marwyn was not just studying them; he was trying to reactivate them. And Vaellyn, the master of economics and trade, a man who understood the value of information above all else, was intrigued.

"Interesting," Alaric said, his voice a calm counterpoint to Pate's excitement. "It sounds like the Archmaesters are more divided than they appear. Thank you for telling me, Pate. It pays to know the political currents of this place."

He patted Pate on the shoulder, a gesture of camaraderie that made the younger boy beam. He had just received a piece of intelligence of incalculable value, confirming a direct path of his research, and it had cost him nothing more than a few kind words.

His rivalry with Leo Tyrell, however, required a different approach. It was a festering wound, and Alaric knew that it needed to be lanced, publicly and decisively. The opportunity came during a lecture on jurisprudence with Archmaester Perestan, a man known for his sharp mind and sharper tongue. The topic was the complex legal history of the Dornish Marches.

Leo Tyrell, whose own family held lands bordering Dorne, saw an opening to display his superior knowledge and humiliate his upstart rival.

"Archmaester," Leo began, rising from his seat, his voice dripping with condescension. "While Novice Blackwood's understanding of northern law may be adequate, the customs of the Marches are a far more subtle and ancient thing. For instance, the principle of lex talionis, an eye for an eye, still holds significant weight in disputes between Marcher lords and their Dornish counterparts, a fact that many northern legal scholars fail to grasp."

He glanced at Alaric, a smug smile on his face. He had laid a trap, expecting Alaric to either be ignorant of the topic or to offer a clumsy rebuttal.

Alaric remained seated. He waited a beat, letting the silence in the hall build, before he spoke, his voice calm and precise.

"An interesting point, Acolyte Tyrell," he began, "but a fundamentally flawed one. You are confusing folk custom with established law. While lex talionis is indeed a cultural undercurrent, it has not been a recognized legal principle in the Marches since the reign of King Daeron the First, who, in the year 161 after the Conquest, issued the Marches Pacification Decree. I can cite the specific passage, if you like."

Leo's smile faltered. "The decree was largely ignored…"

"It was not," Alaric interrupted, his voice cutting like glass. "It was enforced by Lord Dondarrion of Blackhaven, who hanged three lesser lords of your own Tyrell bannermen for ignoring it. Furthermore, you are referencing a single principle while ignoring the entire legal framework established by the Treaty of 212, which codified the water rights along the River Wyl, the primary source of conflict between the Marches and Dorne. This treaty, which your own ancestor, Lord Damon Tyrell, was a signatory to, specifically replaced all prior blood-feud customs with a system of arbitrated monetary compensation, a system based on Valyrian, not Andal, legal precedent."

He paused, letting his words sink in. "Your understanding of Marcher law is not subtle, Acolyte. It is shallow. You have mistaken the gossip of your father's soldiers for the scholarship of this institution."

The hall was utterly silent. Archmaester Perestan, a man who rarely showed any emotion, was staring at Alaric, a slow, appreciative smile spreading across his face. Leo Tyrell stood frozen, his face a mask of crimson fury and abject humiliation. He had been so thoroughly, so clinically, dismantled that there was nothing he could say. He sank back into his seat, the venomous glares of his cronies now replaced with looks of pity and fear.

Alaric had not raised his voice. He had not insulted Leo directly. He had simply used knowledge as a weapon, and the result was devastating. He had made an example of Leo Tyrell, and the message to the rest of the Citadel was clear: Do not challenge me in my arena. You will lose.

With the social distractions managed, Alaric focused his full attention on his primary objective. He continued to forge links with terrifying speed. He earned the lead link for toxicology, the pewter for woodcraft, even the pale steel for smithing, spending hours in the heat of the forges, his mind precisely calculating the temperatures and alloys needed for each metal. His chain grew heavy, a physical manifestation of his relentless ambition.

His nights were spent in the deepest parts of the archives, his mind a conduit for the torrent of information being absorbed by Prometheus.

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He knew he was on the verge of a breakthrough, but he was still locked out of the final room. He needed the Valyrian steel link. He needed to be tested by Marwyn. But Marwyn was gone, and the Conclave would never allow a boy of eleven to be tested for the higher mysteries.

He couldn't ask. He had to force their hand.

His plan was audacious, arrogant, and brilliant. He would write a thesis. A paper so profound, so unassailable, that it would shake the foundations of the Citadel's orthodoxy.

He chose his topic with surgical precision: A Geoeconomic and Metaphysical Analysis of the Doom of Valyria.

For three months, he worked. He synthesized everything he knew from his past life—geology, physics, economics, history—with the knowledge he had plundered from the Citadel's libraries. He used Prometheus to run complex models, to generate charts and forecasts, to create a paper of such scholarly rigor that no maester on the continent could refute its data.

But the paper did more than just explain the Doom. It used the Doom as a case study. He argued that the Valyrians, through their mastery of what he termed 'geocognition,' had built their entire economy on the predictable, stable energy of the Fourteen Flames. He showed, with chilling precision, how their over-exploitation of this resource, combined with a series of cascading magical miscalculations, led to an inevitable, predictable systems collapse. He explained the Doom not as a mystery or a curse, but as a mathematical certainty.

The final chapter was the masterstroke. In it, he argued that the same principles could be applied to Westeros. He analyzed the potential for a decades-long winter, the economic impact of the decline of dragon populations, the inherent instability of a feudal system reliant on a single, vulnerable line of succession.

And then, the hook. He wrote that his models were incomplete. The Valyrian equations contained variables he could not solve, variables that pertained to the higher mysteries. To truly understand the Doom, and to predict and prevent a similar cataclysm in Westeros, one had to study the very forces the Citadel had locked away. He concluded his paper with a simple, devastating question: "Is ignorance a worthy price to pay for safety, when the cost of that ignorance may be annihilation?"

He made two copies. One for Archmaester Vaellyn, the man of economics who would understand the brutal logic of his models. The other for the Conclave as a whole. He submitted them on a quiet afternoon and waited.

The summons came three days later. A silent novice delivered a sealed scroll. Alaric Blackwood was to present himself before the full Conclave of Archmaesters that evening.

He walked into the chamber, a high-domed room where the seventeen Archmaesters sat at a great, semi-circular table of polished weirwood. The air was thick with tension and the smell of old paper. His paper lay on the table before each of them. Vaellyn was watching him with a look of intense, avaricious curiosity. Ebrose, the healer, glared at him with open hostility. Old Archmaester Walgrave seemed to be asleep.

Archmaester Perestan, the jurist, acted as the speaker for the Conclave. "Acolyte Blackwood," he began, his voice devoid of its usual warmth. "We have read your... treatise. It is, without question, the most brilliant, audacious, and heretical piece of scholarship this body has seen in a century."

"It is an attack on our most sacred principles!" Ebrose sputtered. "It advocates for the study of witchcraft and deviltry!"

"It advocates for the study of truth," Vaellyn countered smoothly, "and for the pursuit of knowledge, which I believe is our most sacred principle. The boy's economic models alone are revolutionary."

The Archmaesters began to argue amongst themselves, their voices a rising tide of debate. Alaric stood in the center of the room, silent, patient, watching them. He had known this would happen. He had designed the paper to divide them, to force them to confront the contradictions at the heart of their own institution.

Finally, Perestan slammed a gavel on the table, silencing the room. He fixed his sharp eyes on Alaric.

"Your work has presented this Conclave with a dilemma, Acolyte. You are too young. Your ideas are too dangerous. And yet... your intellect is undeniable. Your chain is a testament to that. There is only one link missing from it that could possibly allow you to pursue this... reckless line of inquiry." He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a low, serious tone. "Tell us, boy. What is it you want?"

Alaric met his gaze without flinching. He let the silence hang in the air for a moment, savoring the victory. He had them. He had steered the vast, ponderous ship of the Citadel exactly where he wanted it.

His reply was quiet, simple, and utterly devastating.

"To be tested."