Chapter 6: The Dragon's Hoard

Chapter 6: The Dragon's Hoard

280 AC, Month of the Sun's Height

The Valyrian steel link was unlike the others. It was lighter than even the tin link, yet it felt more substantial, its dark, watery patterns seeming to shift and flow in the light. When Alaric attached it to his chain, it settled against his collarbone not with the dull clink of metal, but with a faint, resonant hum that only he could feel, a vibration that seemed to tune itself to his own heartbeat. It was not a piece of jewelry; it was a symbiotic artifact.

His new status was absolute. The fear and jealousy he had once inspired had curdled into something far more potent: a deep, superstitious awe. Acolytes and novices would fall silent when he entered a room, their eyes tracking him with the same wariness they might afford a caged manticore. They would press themselves against the walls of the corridors to let him pass, as if proximity alone might be dangerous. Even the Archmaesters treated him differently. They no longer saw him as a brilliant student to be molded, but as an unpredictable, semi-tamed force of nature that now resided within their walls. He was no longer playing their game; he had forced them to play his.

Archmaester Perestan himself escorted him to the restricted archives. There was no grand ceremony. It was a quiet, tense affair. The archives were not located in the main library, but in a heavily warded vault beneath Marwyn the Mage's locked chambers in the Ravenry tower. The door was a slab of weirwood, pale as bone and banded with black iron, with no visible lock.

Perestan placed his palm on the door. "The Archmaesters of the higher mysteries, and any who bear the Valyrian link, may pass," he intoned, his voice flat. He stepped back, and the door swung silently inward, revealing a darkness that seemed to swallow the torchlight.

"The Conclave has... stipulated certain conditions," Perestan said, not meeting Alaric's eyes. "You may study what you wish, but no texts are to be removed from this vault. You will be granted one torch per visit. How you use that time is your own concern." He handed Alaric a fresh torch and a flint and steel. "We trust you will be... discreet."

It was not a request; it was a plea. They had given him the key, and now they were praying he wouldn't burn the whole castle down.

Alaric gave a slight, formal nod and stepped across the threshold. The door swung shut behind him, plunging him into an absolute, tomblike blackness. The silence was profound. He struck the flint, and the sudden flare of the torch pushed back a small circle of the oppressive dark.

He was in a circular chamber, much like the one where he had faced the glass candle. The walls were lined not with wooden shelves, but with sealed stone alcoves, each one marked with a single, cryptic rune. The air was cold, dry, and carried the faint, sharp scent of ozone and ancient parchment. This was not a library; it was a mausoleum of forbidden thoughts.

<>

<>

Alaric spent his first hour simply exploring the vault. He ran his hand over the cold stone, his mind a whirlwind of excitement. This was the dragon's hoard he had sought, the treasure at the heart of the labyrinth. While other men coveted gold and gems, this was what he valued: knowledge that could break the world and remake it.

He chose an alcove marked with a Valyrian rune he recognized: dracarys. With some effort, he slid the stone seal aside, revealing a small collection of scrolls and codices. He carefully took one out. It was not bound in leather, but in what looked like cured, blackened dragonhide, rough and scaly to the touch. The pages were not parchment, but thin, flexible sheets of hammered metal, etched with elegant, flowing script.

He sat at the simple stone lectern in the center of the room, opened the book, and began the greatest act of plunder in his life. The torch flame danced, casting his shadow, huge and distorted, against the rune-covered walls.

His days fell into a new rhythm. He attended lectures as required, his presence now silencing any debate, his few, carefully chosen questions sending his masters into weeks of confounded research. He ate his meals in the common hall, sitting alone, the circle of empty space around him a testament to his new station. Martyn now actively avoided him, a constant, aching pain that Alaric compartmentalized and suppressed.

But his real life began at sunset, when he would descend into the cold, silent darkness of the vault. Night after night, he worked, his torch a single point of light in the vast darkness of forgotten history. He was not merely reading; he was a one-man intelligence agency, and Prometheus was his supercomputer.

<>

<>

He found texts that would have driven lesser men mad. He learned of the intricate hierarchies of the fire mages of Qarth, of the shadowbinders of Asshai who could weave a person's shadow into a deadly servant. He read the personal diaries of a Valyrian sorcerer who claimed to have sculpted living flesh as a potter sculpts clay. He found star-charts from the earliest days of the First Men, charts that depicted constellations that no longer existed in the sky.

The most disturbing, and most useful, texts were those that dealt with the Long Night. The Citadel officially dismissed the stories as allegory, a cautionary tale about winter. But here, in the dark, the truth was written on scrolls of preserved skin and tablets of obsidian.

He found the annals of a maester from the Night's Watch, written three thousand years ago, who described the Others not as demons, but as a species, a form of life with its own biology and motives. He described their ability to raise the dead, their connection to the cold, and their eerie, blue-eyed thralls. And he described their weakness.

<<'They cannot abide the fire-stone,'>> Alaric murmured, reading a translation Prometheus projected into his mind's eye. <<'The dragonglass, a blade of it, and they shatter like ice in the sun. The Dragonsteel is death to them, but what that substance is, the Valyrians took that secret to their Doom.'>>

<>

<>

Alaric felt a cold thrill. He had no interest in saving the world from a second Long Night, but he had every interest in surviving it. The North, which he had dismissed as a bleak, unprofitable wasteland, suddenly became a region of immense strategic importance. Knowledge of the true enemy, and the means to defeat them, was a political and military asset of incalculable value.

His activities did not go unnoticed. One afternoon, he was summoned by Archmaester Vaellyn. The master of economics did not meet him in his formal chambers, but in a small, private observatory at the top of a lesser tower, a place filled with astrolabes and brass viewing-tubes.

"Acolyte Blackwood," Vaellyn began, gesturing for Alaric to look through a large, ornate telescope pointed at the bustling port of Oldtown. "Power. Some believe it resides in the sword, others in the favor of the gods." He tapped the brass telescope. "I believe it resides in information. To see what others cannot, to know what is coming before they do... that is true power."

He straightened up and turned to Alaric, his eyes, visible behind the golden mask, sharp and shrewd. "You have been spending your nights in the vault. You have been granted access to knowledge that has been hidden for centuries. I will not ask you what you have learned of... spells and incantations. I am a practical man. I am interested in practical results."

"Such as?" Alaric asked, his tone neutral.

"Prediction," Vaellyn said, his voice dropping. "The glass candle. You made it show you things. The maester who was blinded... Jellicoe's records say he went mad screaming about 'the fall of the sea dragon.' A year later, the Greyjoy Rebellion began. He saw it. You saw things as well. A storm at sea, you said."

"Fragments," Alaric said noncommittally. The vision had been of Euron Greyjoy's fleet, he was now almost certain of it, though Euron was currently in exile. Actionable intelligence for a much later date.

"Fragments can be pieces of a mosaic," Vaellyn pressed. "Imagine if you could control it. If we could predict the rise and fall of grain prices in the Reach, the discovery of new silver mines in the Westerlands, the outcome of a battle before the first sword is even drawn. The House that had access to such information would be unassailable. The Citadel, as advisors to that House, would hold the true power in the Seven Kingdoms."

Alaric saw the game clearly. Vaellyn wanted to use him as a magical stock-ticker, a seer to fuel his own economic and political ambitions. He wanted to be the power behind the throne, and Alaric was to be his instrument.

Alaric played along, a wolf feigning the obedience of a dog. "The process is... imprecise. Dangerous. It takes a great toll."

"But it can be refined," Vaellyn insisted. "With the right resources. I can ensure you have them. Whatever you need for your studies. Rare texts from the east, substances for your... experiments. All I ask is that you share any practical, useful insights with me."

It was a tempting offer. Vaellyn's patronage would be a powerful shield.

"I will consider it, Archmaester," Alaric said. "If my studies yield anything of... economic interest, you will be the first to know."

He left Vaellyn's observatory with a faint smile on his lips. He would feed the Archmaester trivialities, carefully selected tidbits of information that would enhance Vaellyn's reputation while keeping the true prizes for himself. Vaellyn thought he was grooming an asset. In reality, he was now just another one of Alaric's tools.

The deepest cut, however, came not from a political rival or a manipulative Archmaester, but from his own blood. He found Martyn packing his few belongings into a satchel one morning. His brother's three-link chain was already around his neck.

"What are you doing?" Alaric asked, a cold knot tightening in his stomach.

"I've requested a new room assignment," Martyn said, not looking at him. He was folding one of his robes with meticulous, trembling care. "I... I can't stay here anymore, Alaric."

"Because of me." It wasn't a question.

"Yes." Martyn finally looked up, and the raw pain in his eyes was like a physical blow. "I don't know who you are anymore. When we were children, you were my brilliant little brother. Now... you walk through these halls and men who have studied for fifty years are afraid to meet your eyes. You spend your nights in a black vault reading books that are bound in human skin. You talk of power and empires, and there is... nothing in your eyes. No warmth. No love. Just… calculation."

He took a shaky breath. "I came here to learn, to heal, to serve. I still want that. I will forge my chain, and I will find a place at some quiet keep, and I will live my life as a good man. I cannot walk the path you are on, Alaric. It leads only to darkness."

"It leads to security," Alaric countered, his voice hard. "It leads to a world where our family will never be victims again."

"There are worse things than being a victim," Martyn whispered. He shouldered his satchel and walked to the door. He paused, his hand on the latch. "I hope you find what you're looking for, brother. I truly do. I just pray that when you do, there is still something of yourself left to enjoy it."

He left. The door closed softly behind him, but to Alaric, it sounded like the slamming of a vault door, sealing him off from the last remnant of his past, human life. He stood alone in the small room, the silence a heavy shroud. For the first time since his reincarnation, he felt a genuine, cutting emotion. Loneliness. It was a weakness. He analyzed it, dissected it, and ruthlessly purged it. He had a mission. He could not afford the weight of a heart.

His work became his only solace. He returned to the vault that night with a renewed, ferocious determination. He would not just learn. He would master.

It was in the deepest, most heavily warded alcove that he found it. The book was small, bound in simple, unadorned leather. It looked like a simple diary. There were no arcane symbols on its cover, no aura of dark magic. But when he opened it, he saw that the first page was blank, save for a single, elegant sentence written in the ink of the Free City of Myr.

So, another has passed the test. I do hope you didn't break my candle.

Alaric froze. The handwriting was recent, no more than a few years old.

<>

<>

Alaric turned the page. The writing continued.

If you are reading this, it means the old fools on the Conclave were finally forced by their own laws to allow someone else to touch the toys. It means you are either very clever, very powerful, or very foolish. Perhaps all three. My name is Marwyn, and this is my private guestbook. You will find no easy answers here. The knowledge in this vault is a poison. A small dose can be an antidote; too much will kill you.

I am in the east, where the real game is being played. This continent is sleeping, dreaming of its past glories while the ice gathers in the north and the fire stirs across the sea. When you are done with these children's primers, when you have learned enough to realize you know nothing at all, then you might be ready. Seek me out. Or don't. The world has enough ambitious fools. Prove you are something more.

The book ended there. The remaining pages were blank.

It was a challenge. A gauntlet thrown down by the one man in the world who might be his intellectual and magical equal. Marwyn the Mage.

Alaric closed the book, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face. The ache of his brother's departure was forgotten, replaced by the thrilling promise of a worthy rival, a worthy goal.

His time in the Citadel was drawing to a close. He had plundered its knowledge, he had cowed its masters, he had his key. Phase one was complete.

Phase two—Essos—now had a new, primary objective. It was no longer just about amassing wealth and power. It was about finding a mage.