Karmic Acumen
Well-known member
Originally planned to see them reach at least Castle Cerwyn, but character and world-building proved quite verbose. Hopefully just one more Luwin POV section after this and then a South's reaction interlude.
“Maester!” Luwin staggered to a halt in front of the snow hut. “Maester Qyburn? Maester Qyburn!” Lacking anything to knock on, Luwin awkwardly clapped his hands at the tunnel mouth. The noise was swallowed by the winter wind as easily as his shouts. He immediately felt foolish. Then he belatedly spotted the guards standing watch just close enough that the snowdrift didn’t entirely hide them from sight and Luwin felt like twice the fool. It threw him from fretful distress so far into the abyss of panic that he got on all fours and crawled into the hut as fast as he could. “Maester Qyburn!”
Qyburn turned from the hearth in surprise, quill frozen mid-stroke over his journal or whatever it was.
Luwin froze like a startled hare right there on his hands and knees at the entrance. What was he going to do, spill all of his master’s secrets in the bosom of a total stranger? A total stranger who likes to cut people while they’re still alive? He’d not exchanged more than scattered greetings with the man, this was a terrible idea! Gods, he really was an idiot, he’d not planned any further than this!
Qyburn put his stationery away. “Come on, then. Come in.”
Before Luwin knew it, he was sitting by the fire with tea mug in hand eating roast chestnuts. He looked around in a daze. Qyburn had at some point moved to the other side of the hut and was putting together a bag of knickknacks. A wax plate for notes, a writing needle, a stack of papers held with iron rings, charcoal sticks, a measuring tape and various other instruments. Feeling like an intruder, Luwin looked away, though he’d have had to shut his eyes completely to avoid taking in the rest of the hut.
It was quite the place. For all that the maester was housed alone, the hut was actually quite spacious. There were two stools, two folding tables, two sets of bedding, two of everything really, along with half a dozen plank mats laid out for other bedrolls or bodies to lay down. But then, there would have to be, wouldn’t there? Qyburn had fallen into the role of camp physician. How many of the guards had passed under this same roof? How many more would? Had Lord Stark himself sat where he now sat? No, Qyburn would have gone to him, not the other way around. Unless Lord Stark wanted to make some point or other? How much of this was a test, really? And if it wasn’t, did that mean the man somehow trusted Qyburn more than he did his master? But how could anyone think Marwyn was any less relia-
“I’m guessing the Archmaester is off pre-empting potential future problems in his usual manner.”
Luwin choked and spat out the tea, coughing violently.
“Oh dear!” Qyburn balked, rushing back to steady him. “Oh dear, oh dear, I am so sorry young one.” He knelt down and began wiping him clean with his sleeve. “Perhaps things are not unfolding quite in their usual manner, has the Archmaester…? No,” the old man shook his head before Luwin could protest. “No, he’d never do anything that would send you screaming for help, especially not to a maester after what happened to you. And if it were our hosts who took some manner of offence, I’d have much richer company by now. Lord Stark is much more straightforward than most. In spirit at least.”
Luwin took a few halting gasps and went to put the mug down. He was shocked he hadn’t dropped it. “I should go,” he rasped.
Qyburn sighed, but smiled kindly regardless and pushed the cup back. “At least take the tea with you. Would be a shame to waste it.”
Luwin blinked in surprise and looked at the Maester. Was he not going to insist he stay? He suddenly had to smother a sharp pang of disappointment.
“Just bring back the mug after.”
Qyburn sounded outright fatherly but it only made Luwin regret his flighty decision all the more. He cursed his manners for backfiring on him too. Then he loathed himself for needing the succour in the first place. Bad enough he was a gullible fool, now it turned out he was also a craven. He nodded jerkily and rose to leave.
He was very surprised when Qyburn followed him out.
“I’ve one last matter to see to as well, nothing to worry about.”
Luwin watched the man disappear into the evening before going his own way, feeling foolish, embarrassed and twice as raw as when he’d gone in. The urge to flee to the safety of his bedroll was almost overpowering, but Luwin had just seen what happened when he succumbed to panic. Poor judgment was what. Poor enough to go running to the one person in their whole party that was still tied to the ones who’d consigned him to die in the darkness. It was an unfair comparison, but Qyburn had made it himself.
He decided to walk a full circuit of their latest camp, figuring he’d at least finish the tea before turning in. Even with the wind, the night was relatively mild compared to those before it. By Northern standards at least. He ignored the little voice telling him he was just stalling in the hopes that Marwyn would re-emerge from Lord Stark’s hut safe and sound.
Luwin held the wooden mug close to his chest, trying to preserve the warmth. It was a thick and solid thing, but delicately carved into the seeming of an eastern serpentine dragon wrapped around it like a sothoryi constrictor. The tip of its tail was the only part unwound from the whole, forming the handle. The whiskered creature gazed at him almost paternally through knowing, snake-like eyes.
He wasn’t even half-way into his walk when he saw Qyburn again. The maester was with the dogs when he found him, calling them over by name and feeding them treats while checking their paws, their teeth, the girth of their limbs, their weight and other features. Already he’d filled half the wax plate with annotations. Luwin thought back to what he’d glimpsed of the man’s chain. There had certainly been more than one link of brass in them. With each corresponding to one animal, it was far from unlikely that he knew the care and breeding of dogs among whatever other skills he’d gained over his long decades of life.
Too out of sorts to bother with discretion, Luwin creeped as close as he dared without disrupting the man’s work. The fog had cleared a fair bit and the moonlight was bright enough that even the light reflected off the snow was enough to distinguish some colors, at least when combined with the torchlight. Qyburn seemed to have a tic as well, tugging at his chain every time he finished inspecting or writing down something. Luwin let his eyes linger on it, counting each link as the man spun the chain. That he could do it so naturally was saying a lot, considering it was wrapped around his neck three times. The maester had forged the links in sets, making them easy to count, and even easier for Luwin’s jaw to slacken with each new metal sheen he spotted.
Two grey steel for blacksmithing. Two black steel for architecture and engineering. Four black iron for ravenry, which meant he could breed and train not just black but white ravens also. Four brass for animal husbandry, four antimony links for survival in the wilds, four mathematics and economics links of yellow gold, even four links of platinum for natural science. There were two red gold for jewelcraft too, perhaps he could finally award Hother the one he deserved? But there were the rarer links there too, which made Luwin feel rather inadequate the more of them he saw. Four white gold links in alchemy. Four zinc in languages. Two links in Valyrian steel for magic and mysteries that Luwin couldn’t even begin to guess at. Five links of lead in diplomacy and politics. Five. How genuine was his manner, really? Could Luwin even tell the difference if he knew? And the crowning work to beggar all that came before, the silver. Numbering six.
Six silver links. Six. Luwin didn’t even know you could go that high without being Archmaester of healing. It spoke to pushing certain boundaries that weren’t to be crossed. Not without consequences that only that lofty position could shield you from. Three silvers meant you knew and could administer every established cure and treatment. Four meant you knew the experimental ones. Five meant you’d proven at least one of said experimental procedures effective. And six meant that you’d found or created an all-new treatment of your own. Or otherwise advanced the knowledge of healing and the body. There was, in theory, a seventh link for those who discovered something so momentous that the entire field had to be redesigned. But that was just theoretical. Silver wasn’t like zinc, which you earned one of for every language you knew. Or brass, which you got for every type of animal you learned to breed better strains of. Seven silver links was a symbol of the unachievable mastery over life and death that only the gods could claim.
Ebrose had once tried to make the seven, Luwin recalled from his own learning. Through a treatise on humours based on records of the great spring sickness of 209-210 AC. It coincided with the man earning the Archmaester post, but the findings never held up. The treatments derived from it proved ineffective and even harmful on what ills and pockets of plague they were later attempted on.
That barely found purchase on Luwin’s mind though. Forty-seven links. Luwin doubted even Marwyn had so many, especially as he was just forty years of age instead of Qyburn’s fifty seven. Forty-seven links. Forty-seven! For all that Luwin himself had learned three links every year, he knew better than to think that was sustainable. At some point you started having to review your existing knowledge lest you fall behind and forget what earned you your links to begin with. How much had Qyburn forgotten? To have collected so many links in so many fields? And if he’d reached his fifties without forgetting most of what he’d learned, then…
“Well, that’s us done,” Qyburn told the last hound with a pat on the head. The dog licked his fingers. They certainly seemed to like the man. “Same time tomorrow? Good boy, now let me just-eh? Is anyone out there?” Qyburn hunched on himself cautiously, as if expecting a threat despite the army of killer hounds around him and the guards on watch everywhere. “Tom, if you or the boys are out to cause mischief again I’ll ask that-wait, Luwin? Luwin, is that you over there?”
“How are you not Archmaester?” Luwin blurted, his voice sounding unnaturally loud to his own ears. Looking around furtively as if he’d broken some law by speaking, he scurried over to the improvised pen which surrounded the various dog houses, made of snow blocks like everything else. “How are you not Archmaester? You could earn the links for every other field from skill crossover alone.”
Qyburn gathered his things and set out for his hut, Luwin in tow. “I’m not certain it’s my place to explain that to you. Has Marwyn not touched on this yet?”
“Why does everyone treat me like an extension of him? I barely studied under the man before this whole mess!”
Qyburn thinned his lips at his outburst, not saying anything.
“I’m sorry, maester, it’s just… I’m so frustrated.”
“I can see that.” The lack of pardon was a lot more obvious than it once might have been. “To answer your question, it’s politics. As you said. I should have earned links in every subject just from the skill crossover. Assuming I didn’t decide against that recognition, which I assure you I did not, why would I be denied so many worthy extensions to my chain? The Archmaester post is as much a reflection of your knowledge as it is of your influence.”
It took a moment for the pieces to come together, then Luwin dropped his head and palmed his face with a groan. Because he clearly wasn’t sufficiently disgusted with himself already. Gods, how blind was he that even the politicking right under his own nose escaped him? To be declared Archmaester meant you had the most links in one subject and at least one link in every other subject. Of course other maesters and Archmaesters would hem and haw whenever someone vied for such a post. Why wouldn’t they squeeze every aspirant for personal favors? And what if they felt threatened? Marwyn had all but spelled it out to him and the others too.
“Try not to worry about it too much?” Qyburn awkwardly tried to console him. “It’s not exactly you it reflects poorly on, you know, that the Conclave doesn’t live up to its good name.”
“I appreciate the thought maester,” Luwin said, all but clinging to the tea mug. “But that doesn’t change that fact I apparently lack all shreds of discernment.”
“Now don’t say that…”
“I’m starting to think I should’ve just stayed home.” The words felt bitter on his tongue. “Become a tradesman like my father and be done with it.”
“That would have been a waste.”
“Would it?” Luwin found himself unable to withhold the tide of frustration anymore. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s best I went far away from the family business. I can’t imagine what I’d have done to match this selective blindness I seem to possess now. Maybe I’d have become the first trader to think coin somehow isn’t the lifeblood of commerce, that would’ve been a riot. Because I can’t imagine what else would be preposterous enough to match this.”
“Ah, but it isn’t.”
“What?”
“Coin. It is not the lifeblood of commerce.”
The three gold links in the pouch at his belt seemed to weigh more than all the rest combined all of a sudden. “I’m sorry, maester, but I don’t follow.”
“Time, Luwin. It all boils down to time. Coin is important, but not the most important or there wouldn’t have been trade at all before the first coin was cast. It’s time that’s important. It doesn’t matter if you get twice the gold for a deal if it takes thrice as long to strike it. Harbor fees have to be paid, guards hired, watchmen bribed, ships maintained…”
“Oh…” It turned out he’d not quite struck the bottom of the well of idiocy.
“And it goes even further than that,” Qyburn said, almost enthusiastic now. “The time you spend selling cargo for the perfect price is time you could have spent bringing forth another batch, or doing anything else to your benefit… this applies to everything, not just caravans and ships, but the grain trade, smallfolk labor, even war… Time is the true coin, Luwin. The universal currency that all things follow.”
“… I’ve done you a disservice, maester,” Luwin said glumly.
“I don’t see how. We’ve never spoken before this.”
“That’s part of it. I thought…” He trailed off as they came to a halt at Qyburn’s snow hut. “Well, I thought a lot of stupid things.”
“But?”
“You’ve the heart of a teacher.” Luwin immediately felt embarrassed at the admission and hid his face in the mug. Just one last mouthful of tea left. He wished it were more, if only to delay their parting. He seemed to have grown distressingly dependent on authority figures. At least Lord Stark would be happy, Luwin thought gloomily. “Thank you for the lesson.”
Qyburn seemed surprised, but then his nervousness and awkwardness seemed to evaporate. “You are most welcome.” He looked so pleased at that simple acknowledgment. Luwin wondered how long he’d been denied that simple thing. Come to think of it, he’d never seen his name on any lectures. If he really deserved to be Archmaester but they didn’t- “Then perhaps you’ll accept another lesson. One I actually mean to give this time.”
“Oh,” Luwin was so surprised he nearly forgot to give the man his cup back. “Of course!”
Qyburn accepted his mug, stood there looking at him uncertainly – wondering if he should invite him back inside perhaps? – then he nodded sharply and steadied himself as if to- “Then my lesson is this: don’t bother with prophecies.”
Luwin blinked, taken aback.
“I’ve no way of knowing what all occurred to leave you in this state, but I’m assuming at least some of it has to do with that dwarf woman at High Heart.”
“… I suppose?” He’d not seen this change of topic coming at all. “Marwyn says that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman who takes your member in her mouth and makes you moan from the pleasure only to then… well, bite your prick off.” Luwin looked away, feeling the heat of a blush fill his face. “Or that’s the gist of the quote he gave at least. Gorghan of Old Ghis, or so he says.”
“Indeed,” Qyburn said, pretending not to notice his embarrassment. “Did he explain why?”
“No.” Not that he had much time with the raven and Lord Stark and-
“I respect the Archmaester greatly, and his way of guiding one to truth and self-discovery is to be revered. But I disagree with him on this. Of those things he considers a pinnacle of insight one should strive towards, I believe some work better as foundation. Especially for people like you who are still building it. This, then, is the lesson: don’t bother with prophecies. The only ones fit to interpret them are those who make them. Or they would be, if they weren’t all driven insane by their own gift.”
Luwin blinked at the other man. “Alright, I think.”
Qyburn shook his head and looked stern for once. “Don’t just agree. There is good reason for what I’m telling you. Can you tell what it is?”
He really did have this in common with Marwyn. “My surety in my own reasoning has taken a rather harsh beating recently.”
“Then know this. Wherever prophecy comes from, it ultimately comes through in whatever portents and symbols the prophet understands. So, the dwarf woman. Unless you think in precisely the same way and understand the world through precisely the same terms and symbols and metaphors and half-remembered visions from your dreams, you’re not likely to get anything but poison by trying to use her foretelling for anything.”
“Oh, that’s what you meant,” Luwin finally understood what he was getting at.
“Quite so. Whatever information comes, wherever it comes from, it still has to translate in concepts the seer understands and works with. That’s not counting that we can’t even be sure she didn’t deliberately use oblique symbolism just to mess with us, being so old and starved for fresh entertainment. Take this passage for example. ‘I saw the Blind Seer walk beneath warm stars in lockstep with the son of the burned woman and the corpse cutter.’” Luwin forced himself not to react at Qyburn apparently not knowing the Blind Seer in question was right in front of him. “The son of the burned woman and the corpse cutter. Who is the burned woman? Is it any burned woman? If so, why single her out? Is it Jenny of Oldstones who was supposedly her friend and died at Summerhall? But then who is the corpse cutter whose son the Blind Seer will walk in lockstep with, whatever that means? Or perhaps the passage doesn’t even mean that? Maybe it means that the burned woman’s son will walk with the Blind Seer and a completely unrelated corpse cutter that never met any of them even once in their life. In which case it may as well be any necromancer or silent sister or maester or cannibal, or just some random brigand who finds pleasure in cutting up dead bodies.” Or maybe it’s you, Luwin thought but didn’t say. “Do you see my point?”
“I do,” Luwin answered, already thinking about the rest and how little time he’d spent not thinking about it all since High Heart. The god of whales? What did that even mean? A banner? A house crest? An Ibbenese whaling ship? And the king that was promised, promised by who? For what? It really was all just a downward spiral of madness, wasn’t it? “Thank you, Maester. I think I might actually be able to rest tonight.” It wasn’t even a lie. He felt lighter than he did before their conversation now that he no longer felt the need to dwell on the whole thing. Not that it was all or even most of what was currently stressing him, but it was a load off his soul.
“I hope I helped at least a little,” Qyburn said, clearly knowing the direction Luwin’s thoughts had gone. “Goodnight, Luwin. Be well.”
“Goodnight, Maester. Thank you again.”
Luwin thought to what he’d seen in the Glass Candle. If what Qyburn said applied to everything that came through another person’s mind, did that vision come through in portents and symbols Luwin understood, or those of the other party works by? The one that remotely ignited the candle through… soul sacrifice? What were those weirwood tears even supposed to be?
He slept poorly that night, but at least it made it easy to keep the fire going. Not that they needed it with so many warm bodies packed so close together. His dreams were brief and fleeting. The only one he could recall was a glimpse of Rickard Stark using that unusual hand drill to dig holes into the weirwood trunks at High Heart all the way into the ground. Luwin wasn’t sure that wasn’t just his tired mind conjuring memories though. Lord Rickard and his men had spent the better part of their first day there doing that. Drilling holes through the middle of the bone-white stumps and then digging through them into the ground below with those strange scissor-shovels they called postholers. And every time they were done, they’d drop new weirwood seeds inside and cover them with the same soil and wood chips they’d dug up.
Luwin wondered how many times others must have tried to replant those trees only for nothing to come of it. He wondered if those tools had been made just for that reason. By that child of the forest or whatever it was.
The call-up was startling when it finally came. Luwin didn’t waste time on the morning meditation or exercises or even helping with the cooking. He rose, left the hut before anyone else more than rubbed at their eyes and rushed straight for Marwyn’s, crawling inside without even bothering to call a warning. “Master Marwyn!”
Marwyn was mid-way through tying the straps on his jerkin and gave startled “Oof!” when Luwin all but plowed into him.
“You’re alive!” Luwin didn’t even try to stand up and hugged him around the middle. “I’m so glad.”
“For Others’ sake,” Marwyn grunted, hugging him back to steady him. “You left home far too young, I swear. Soon as you’re back I expect you to squeeze your parents for every hug and headpat you’re owed, you hear me boy?”
“Yes, master,” Luwin mumbled into the man’s belly, eyes moist from sheer relief. “Anything you want.”
“Want! Want! Want!”
Luwin flinched and looked wildly for the source of the call. He found it in the form of a familiar white raven. It was looking at him from a new perch right behind where the maester stood.
“Ignore it.”
Luwin allowed himself to be guided to a nearby stool but found that he couldn’t, in fact, ignore anything. “Master, what happened?”
“Lord Stark’s turned exactingly thorough in questioning the dreams and visions we’ve been having.” The archmaester peeled a sourleaf off a bale, shoved it in his mouth, and began to chew it as he always did. “He’d been calling on me for various things already, but now he’s right persnickety. Not entirely uninformed on portents and symbols either. Unwilling to trust me to mind my own business as of today too, can you imagine? This here bird’s gonna be spending most of its time with me from now on, to keep an eye on me.”
“You said you’d murder Lord Stark’s servant and you got a pet,” Luwin said flatly. “That’s it?”
“What, being watched at all times isn’t enough? I literally went and said I was ready and willing to murder on behalf of him and his, all out of the goodness of my heart. Any other highborn would’ve been won over right there. Instead, Lord Stark’s turned all suspicious and wary of my noble intentions! Had the nerve to say I’ve no business questioning who he trusts or not. Bah! Withholding information on whoever or whatever’s been working magic on his supposed behalf does not stand him in good stead. I’d not’ve let it go if I were on my own. He’d be mad to think I’d even consider it when I have you all to look after too. Oh, he feels protective towards this unknown asset? Well so am I towards mine, don’t you know. I’m not sworn to him, most of you still aren’t either by his own decision, and I’d bet on my judgement being better than his any day of the year!”
And he just goes and says so? Luwin looked uncomfortably between Marwyn and the bird watching them.
“Don’t get your bunghole in a pucker. Lord Stark doesn’t skinchange as much as you’d think. If I were a lesser man I’d maybe fret over the suspicion that he might be watching. As is, though, this here bunch of feathers is just a mildly useful drain on my supply of corn.”
“Corn! Corn! Corn!”
“Gotta say, though,” Marwyn reached into a pouch and held out a handful of kernels for the bird to eat. “It’s quite the thing to have the Warden of the North himself eating from the palm of my hand.”
The raven ate and ate the corn and did not reply.
“So…” Luwin tried not to show how light-headed he was becoming from the strange… non-resolution to everything. “Where does it leave us exactly?”
“Since Stark won’t tell me anything about his pet sorcerer or whatever it is, I’ve decided to follow your judgment and defer judgment until we actually know something.”
Luwin hoped he didn’t fail too badly at hiding how honoured he was that-
“Don’t push it down, boy. When you deserve to feel proud, feel proud.”
Oh…
“Work on that more.”
“Right.” The well-meaning rebuke only made Luwin feel embarrassed all over again though. “I can do that.”
“And I’m the God-King of Ib. You’re eons away from that sort of occult comprehension. We’ll work on it together.”
The occult was about pride? How had he not come across this in all his studies? “Right,” Luwin mumbled, not knowing what else to do but repeat himself. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “So what now?”
“Now we get ready for the road, what else?”
“Wait, so we just go on as normal?”
“Unfortunately,” Marwyn grunted, finishing kitting up and starting to pack the rest of his things. “Blasted highborn even had the nerve to change the terms of our private deal. Said he doesn’t trust me not to pull a runner once I get my end fulfilled. The nerve! I may not go out of my way looking for devils, but I’d never step out of my path to let one go by! Feh.” Marwyn spat a gob of red phlegm aside. It looked like a blood splatter on the white snow.
“… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bribery,” Marwyn said dryly. “Worry over you greenhorns aside, Stark didn’t get me to come along just on the merit of his frosty personality. He somehow knew or guessed enough about me to make the deal personal.”
Luwin still had no idea what Marwyn was talking about but he was done admitting ignorance for one day.
“Half the roof of my mouth is one huge, pus-filled carbuncle,” Marwyn said, easily reading him as usual, to Luwin’s dismay. “Can barely move my tongue without smacking into it. You think I chew sourleaf because I like looking like a sothoryi blood drinker? It’s fucking painful is what it is. Sometimes I tap it, but that only works when it’s really swollen up and it needs to be a fairly thick pin to do anything, which hurts like the Stranger’s own buggering. I believe you can see the problem?”
Somehow, the notion that Marwyn suffered from such a common ailment was the hardest thing to believe out of everything.
“Not that this dentistry Stark talked about is likely to be any gentler. Those tools look like something out of a Bolton’s randy fantasies, I swear.”
Wait, what? “… What’s this about House Bolton? What do you know about them?”
“Lad, I was out traveling for eight years and change. You think I didn’t walk about my backyard before I went off east? I’d never have gotten such a bug up my arse about firewater if I hadn’t visited the North. The Boltons realized long ago that coating their blades in booze makes their victims last longer before they caught the pus. A lot of things go into properly flaying a person, especially if you want to keep them alive more than their screams last. Not that I got to see or try for myself of course.”
“… That you can talk so blithely about this is absolutely horrifying.”
“And the world is better off for their passing, yes, yes. Don’t give me that look, boy! People paid in soul-crushing agony so we’d learn that dipping your knife in strong drink works something like Myrish fire, just not as well. Not until I perfected my firewater, which is actually better and I’ll have a grand old time throwing it in Myr’s face once I market it, seeing as that’s an option now. Ghoulish as some customs may be, you shouldn’t dismiss a potential avenue of progress just because the ones who stumbled upon it were sick fucks deserving to die in a fire. You may as well not extract arrowheads or amputate limbs or sew wounds shut because the ones who first figured out the make of the body got hanged as necromancers. Did you ever ask Qyburn how he earned his first link of Valyrian?”
Luwin desperately tried to keep up with every change in topic. “Should I have? All it takes is studying the known records and theory about magical practices, no?”
“That’s what I do with young and idealistic children whose sense of wonder wouldn’t survive the real world. Qyburn was almost fifty when he got the bug. Ask him why, and then ask him how he started on the path. It’s nothing like you believe.”
Was anything like he believed in this mad world? “I’ll remember to ask him.”
“Good. Well, that’s me ready,” Marwyn said, having finished packing his things. “I’m going to take apart this hut now. Unless there’s anything else that can’t wait, you should go break your fast and pack up as well.” Marwyn then began punching holes in the walls. It was its own form of training, supposedly.
“Well… there is one thing.”
“Go on then.”
“The answer is yes.”
Marwyn blinked and stopped with his arm elbow-deep in snow.
“You asked me if I still want to learn of the higher mysteries. The answer is yes. I want to learn everything you can teach me.”
“Denied.”
Understandable, he’ll just wish him a nice day and-wait, no it wasn’t! “What? But why?”
“The paths occult are walked with will, boy, not emotion. If you think I’ll mistake this emotional decision for conviction you’ve got another thing coming.”
Luwin sputtered and spluttered and whined and argued until the hut was in ruins around them.
“Enough,” Marwyn bit, spitting another gob of red.
Luwin shut up. Marwyn had never lost patience with him before. Ever.
“Were this Asshai, your attitude would get you enslaved and turned into cattle for the Houses of the Shadowbinders. You’re lucky I’m not actually an evil man and I believe enthusiasm like yours is to be cherished. But I will not accept that answer until I know you choice wasn’t made under duress.”
Luwin felt his frustration fill his insides all over again. “Master, look,” Luwin said, pushing down his bubbling anger before it made him say things he’ll regret. “I know I’ve not lived up to your standards. Or anyone’s really. I fell in with the wrong crowd. I needed you to rescue me from them. I haven’t done shit on this journey. I didn’t set out to learn anything about our party. I didn’t offer to be camp healer. It didn’t occur to me that I should look after the others, Hother and Mullin had to sort everyone else out instead. I’m one of the older acolytes in this mess and one of the most educated besides, but it didn’t occur to me that I should assume any responsibility. I’m ready to stop being that person. Please,” Luwin pled. “Believe me.”
“I do, lad,” Marwyn sighed, trying to shoo the white raven off with little success. “But as nice as that is, self-awareness is just half of what you need.
“I’ve found my center.”
Marwyn stopped in surprise.
Luwin was surprised at blurting that out too. But he was even more proud at finally scoring a victory, no matter how small. “I’ve found it. It only took Lord Stark’s exercises to do it. I feel a warmth in my chest, a vibration up and down my spine and a glimmer of something behind my eyes when I breathe to a stop like he showed us. When I just stand still and focus inward.”
“Do you really?” Marwyn murmured, though his eyes were hooded with something far different than whatever Luwin had hoped to see. “If that’s true, then I’m only more convinced of my decision.”
“What? Why?” Luwin demanded. “What do you want from me?”
“Clarity and Will, Luwin.” Marwyn said as if the conversation was over, turning to kick around the blocky piles of snow his hut had once been. “Not emotion. Not even conviction. Will. If you ever reach the point where I need more than four words to destroy your entire system of beliefs, then I’ll consider it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I cannot work spells.”
The world scattered into its components pieces suddenly, then it abruptly snapped back into place and none of the pieces seemed to fit anymore despite being unchanged.
Marwyn turned to him with the gravest, darkest stare Luwin had ever seen. “Self-awareness is just one puzzle piece of several before you can make any claim of clarity. Awareness of the world. Awareness of others. Awareness of other’s lack of awareness of themselves. You’re still so very dependent on the spoken word too, for all of this. As prone to losing your composure and questioning your own beliefs as you’ve always been. Would you like me to throw out some more mind-twisters? Parenting is emotionally manipulating your children so they don't grow up to be savages, convicts or corpses. Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go fuck himself so elegantly that he packs for the trip. Artists use lies to tell the truth while Septons use the truth to tell lies. The Iron Throne can’t find its arse without mistaking one for the other, but it still stands today because the difference between brilliance and insanity is success. I could go on and on and on, but what’s the point? Any one of these statements is enough to get you bogged down in a downward spiral of arguments and counter-arguments, none of which you’d need to make without that sudden onset of self-doubt. Perfect for a Shadowbinder’s Vessel or a sorcerer’s slave. Not so much for someone who wants to be themselves for themselves.”
Luwin heard the words and the sense in the words and knew they held a message that should make sense to someone who heard the words in that order. But whatever the purpose in that speech… it went completely over his head. His ability to care about it had completely left him, along with his ability to care about everything else after those four words that preceded it. “You’re a fraud?”
Marwyn’s wan smile was that of someone holding back the brittle mien of disappointment in a student they’d put their hopes in.
Luwin immediately wished he could take his words back. “Master, I…”
“Ask me an honest question and I'll give you an honest answer,” Marwyn said, walking to his satchel and digging through it. “If you don't want an honest answer, let me know and tell me what kind of answer you want.”
Luwin tried to find words for… something. But he couldn’t. He found himself unable to even form a thought, let alone articulate something as complicated as a question.
Their meeting ended unceremoniously, with Marwyn walking over and shoving something in Luwin’s arms that almost made him fall off his feet. It was a dark bag of… something deceptively heavy.
“People seldom care what others think. They only want to know what happens to them,” Marwyn said, sending him on his way with a gaze that was as heavy as it was unreadable. “You are not exceptional enough to be different.”
Luwin left in a daze.
It was only when his feet took him to the firepit without any conscious direction that he learned what he was given. Not through any curiosity of his own, but because of everyone else’s. All the acolytes and guards and everyone partaking of the morning meal save Marwyn and Qyburn and Lord Stark himself, wherever they were. Guard Captain Rus was standing to the side with a plate in hand and barking orders. Guardsman Tom played his lute as badly as usual. Ryben was making ribald jokes. Hother corralled Luwin in his usual manner, only to stop in surprise after divesting him of his burden. The moment the tall Northman looked inside marked the end of fireside chatter and saw everyone staring in disbelief at the long, long, long length of chain that grew to take up the entire surface of the hastily cleared serving table.
Three links in mining and the same in ravenry. Four each in warcraft, jewelcraft and architecture and engineering. Five silver for healing. Five platinum in natural sciences. Five again in smithing. Six bronze in astronomy. Six copper in history. Six antimony links for wild lore and survival. Another six in mathematics and economics. Then there were seven in alchemy made of white gold and a full ten of zinc for languages. That was one link more than Luwin thought you could go. High Valyrian, Old Ghiscari, Dothraki, Lhazareen, Summer Tongue, Ibbenese, Rhoynar, Old Tongue, the man must know them all and maybe the Spell Langauge of Asshai, but even then it was just nine. And it couldn’t be explained through regional variation because you didn’t earn a link until you could at least get by in all sub-dialects.
“Lads,” Harmune said, sounding ill. “My humours are about to go into extreme imbalance.” The boy rushed out of their huddle and puked everything he’d just had for breakfast.
“Watch it!” snarled guardsman Rys, barely avoiding his boots getting soiled, but he didn’t do more than that. He was astounded too.
“Spank me rosy,” Ryben mumbled, for once ignoring the drama around him. “Old bastard must have gone and learned every language known to man until the world ran out of tongues. What, did he give himself a link in Trade Talk just to round up the number? How old is our oh so venerable Archmaester again?”
“Forty,” Luwin said flatly.
“We’re fucking chumps!” Hother said, squatting down on a stump disgustedly.
They really were. How many links a year did Marwyn earn? Because he’d obviously never stopped! And he’d even been out traveling for the past eight years, how much did his practical experience account for out of them? And how did he keep all that knowledge in order? Hells, did he retain even half of it? Seventy-four links! And that didn’t even count the individual links in every other topic taught at the citadel, which were all there as expected of his post. Luwin wondered if even those accurately reflected the man’s aptitudes and skills. He refused to believe that lone link of lead in diplomatic acumen was anything but deceptive.
When the last of their party finally assembled for their departure, there was not one eye that didn’t stare at Marwyn when the man came to retrieve his chain.
“I trust you’ve all had enough of an eyeful?” the squat man grunted as he stuffed the bag into his satchel. The valyrian steel rod on his back and the mask hanging from his belt glinted tauntingly in the morning sun. How many Valyrian steel links did Marwyn once have before he replaced them with those symbols of office? And how did he get them? Were they already there? Did he make them himself? “Don’t break your brains thinking too much about it. You’re better off asking yourselves why the hells we Archmaesters lock ourselves in our towers instead of going out and using all we know for something that’s actually useful. Pinnacles of the exceptional, hah! The pinnacle wastes of space in the entire world if you ask me.”
Luwin watched the shine of the smoky metal, then looked from rod and mask to the ring on Marwyn’s finger. The Archmaester liked to twist it when his hands weren’t otherwise busy, Luwin thought suddenly. He wondered if there was more than an idle tic to read into it. Wondered if he was mad to dwell on something so minor now.
He wondered why Marwyn suddenly decided to reveal the make of his chain, assuming it wasn’t just as a slap in Luwin’s face for so abruptly assuming the worst of him.
“Now you all listen to me,” the Archmaester said to the acolytes as if Lord Stark and his guards weren’t all within hearing distance. The white raven on his shoulder mirrored the way his gaze roamed over them. “No matter how this turns out, I’ll take care of you boys.” The man let his gaze linger half a moment longer on Tybald and Rhodry. Which would have been fine and likely passed without anyone else noticing if the two in question had been half as discrete as they were observant. “Alright?”
“I don’t want your pity,” Rhodry said.
“Then you’re a fool,” Marwyn flatly replied as if Rhodry hadn’t just screamed out that he was in a more vulnerable position than anyone else. “Pity is good and right. It shows there’s something wrong in the world that should be mended. It shows that you’ve earned the compassion of another thinking being. Pity rules the lives of millions. It’s why you’re still alive. It’s why I’m still alive.”
Rhodry looked like he wanted to say something else but Mullin’s hand on his head stopped him. For his part, Luwin wondered if Marwyn was referring to the prior night or something older.
“I’m glad that’s settled,” Marwyn said as if he hadn’t just set them up for a potential future conflict of loyalty between Lord Stark and himself. It was so easy to assume the worst of the man now, Luwin thought bitterly. “We’ll be in our new home soon. I wanted to make sure you knew to call on me when you need to. You’ve been relying on Luwin to act as spokesperson a tad much.” Translation: Luwin is not fit to be your spokesperson anymore. He hoped he was wrong to take it that way, but… “And Mama Umber will be there for you when I’m busy.”
Marwyn, it seemed, was so very much not upset over their disastrous conversation that he freely japed with the others.
“Fuck you, Maester,” Hother muttered.
“Now that’s no way to be rising in my esteem.”
“Rising? Esteem!?” Hother thundered like a man who’d just had all his expectations upturned. “You wanna see how well I can raise my case, esteemed Archmaester?”
“Umber, dear, I do get off on power but you don’t have near enough to be getting on with.”
Luwin boggled. So shameless! Not that it was completely outside his usual behaviour, but if Marwyn was like this now, what kind of creature would he be once he got rid of those bad teeth and gum sores that pained him so badly?
Their departure was one of flustered faces, outraged squawks and embarrassed sputtering that only Luwin was too out of sorts to indulge in.
“-. 274 AC .-“
“Maester!” Luwin staggered to a halt in front of the snow hut. “Maester Qyburn? Maester Qyburn!” Lacking anything to knock on, Luwin awkwardly clapped his hands at the tunnel mouth. The noise was swallowed by the winter wind as easily as his shouts. He immediately felt foolish. Then he belatedly spotted the guards standing watch just close enough that the snowdrift didn’t entirely hide them from sight and Luwin felt like twice the fool. It threw him from fretful distress so far into the abyss of panic that he got on all fours and crawled into the hut as fast as he could. “Maester Qyburn!”
Qyburn turned from the hearth in surprise, quill frozen mid-stroke over his journal or whatever it was.
Luwin froze like a startled hare right there on his hands and knees at the entrance. What was he going to do, spill all of his master’s secrets in the bosom of a total stranger? A total stranger who likes to cut people while they’re still alive? He’d not exchanged more than scattered greetings with the man, this was a terrible idea! Gods, he really was an idiot, he’d not planned any further than this!
Qyburn put his stationery away. “Come on, then. Come in.”
Before Luwin knew it, he was sitting by the fire with tea mug in hand eating roast chestnuts. He looked around in a daze. Qyburn had at some point moved to the other side of the hut and was putting together a bag of knickknacks. A wax plate for notes, a writing needle, a stack of papers held with iron rings, charcoal sticks, a measuring tape and various other instruments. Feeling like an intruder, Luwin looked away, though he’d have had to shut his eyes completely to avoid taking in the rest of the hut.
It was quite the place. For all that the maester was housed alone, the hut was actually quite spacious. There were two stools, two folding tables, two sets of bedding, two of everything really, along with half a dozen plank mats laid out for other bedrolls or bodies to lay down. But then, there would have to be, wouldn’t there? Qyburn had fallen into the role of camp physician. How many of the guards had passed under this same roof? How many more would? Had Lord Stark himself sat where he now sat? No, Qyburn would have gone to him, not the other way around. Unless Lord Stark wanted to make some point or other? How much of this was a test, really? And if it wasn’t, did that mean the man somehow trusted Qyburn more than he did his master? But how could anyone think Marwyn was any less relia-
“I’m guessing the Archmaester is off pre-empting potential future problems in his usual manner.”
Luwin choked and spat out the tea, coughing violently.
“Oh dear!” Qyburn balked, rushing back to steady him. “Oh dear, oh dear, I am so sorry young one.” He knelt down and began wiping him clean with his sleeve. “Perhaps things are not unfolding quite in their usual manner, has the Archmaester…? No,” the old man shook his head before Luwin could protest. “No, he’d never do anything that would send you screaming for help, especially not to a maester after what happened to you. And if it were our hosts who took some manner of offence, I’d have much richer company by now. Lord Stark is much more straightforward than most. In spirit at least.”
Luwin took a few halting gasps and went to put the mug down. He was shocked he hadn’t dropped it. “I should go,” he rasped.
Qyburn sighed, but smiled kindly regardless and pushed the cup back. “At least take the tea with you. Would be a shame to waste it.”
Luwin blinked in surprise and looked at the Maester. Was he not going to insist he stay? He suddenly had to smother a sharp pang of disappointment.
“Just bring back the mug after.”
Qyburn sounded outright fatherly but it only made Luwin regret his flighty decision all the more. He cursed his manners for backfiring on him too. Then he loathed himself for needing the succour in the first place. Bad enough he was a gullible fool, now it turned out he was also a craven. He nodded jerkily and rose to leave.
He was very surprised when Qyburn followed him out.
“I’ve one last matter to see to as well, nothing to worry about.”
Luwin watched the man disappear into the evening before going his own way, feeling foolish, embarrassed and twice as raw as when he’d gone in. The urge to flee to the safety of his bedroll was almost overpowering, but Luwin had just seen what happened when he succumbed to panic. Poor judgment was what. Poor enough to go running to the one person in their whole party that was still tied to the ones who’d consigned him to die in the darkness. It was an unfair comparison, but Qyburn had made it himself.
He decided to walk a full circuit of their latest camp, figuring he’d at least finish the tea before turning in. Even with the wind, the night was relatively mild compared to those before it. By Northern standards at least. He ignored the little voice telling him he was just stalling in the hopes that Marwyn would re-emerge from Lord Stark’s hut safe and sound.
Luwin held the wooden mug close to his chest, trying to preserve the warmth. It was a thick and solid thing, but delicately carved into the seeming of an eastern serpentine dragon wrapped around it like a sothoryi constrictor. The tip of its tail was the only part unwound from the whole, forming the handle. The whiskered creature gazed at him almost paternally through knowing, snake-like eyes.
He wasn’t even half-way into his walk when he saw Qyburn again. The maester was with the dogs when he found him, calling them over by name and feeding them treats while checking their paws, their teeth, the girth of their limbs, their weight and other features. Already he’d filled half the wax plate with annotations. Luwin thought back to what he’d glimpsed of the man’s chain. There had certainly been more than one link of brass in them. With each corresponding to one animal, it was far from unlikely that he knew the care and breeding of dogs among whatever other skills he’d gained over his long decades of life.
Too out of sorts to bother with discretion, Luwin creeped as close as he dared without disrupting the man’s work. The fog had cleared a fair bit and the moonlight was bright enough that even the light reflected off the snow was enough to distinguish some colors, at least when combined with the torchlight. Qyburn seemed to have a tic as well, tugging at his chain every time he finished inspecting or writing down something. Luwin let his eyes linger on it, counting each link as the man spun the chain. That he could do it so naturally was saying a lot, considering it was wrapped around his neck three times. The maester had forged the links in sets, making them easy to count, and even easier for Luwin’s jaw to slacken with each new metal sheen he spotted.
Two grey steel for blacksmithing. Two black steel for architecture and engineering. Four black iron for ravenry, which meant he could breed and train not just black but white ravens also. Four brass for animal husbandry, four antimony links for survival in the wilds, four mathematics and economics links of yellow gold, even four links of platinum for natural science. There were two red gold for jewelcraft too, perhaps he could finally award Hother the one he deserved? But there were the rarer links there too, which made Luwin feel rather inadequate the more of them he saw. Four white gold links in alchemy. Four zinc in languages. Two links in Valyrian steel for magic and mysteries that Luwin couldn’t even begin to guess at. Five links of lead in diplomacy and politics. Five. How genuine was his manner, really? Could Luwin even tell the difference if he knew? And the crowning work to beggar all that came before, the silver. Numbering six.
Six silver links. Six. Luwin didn’t even know you could go that high without being Archmaester of healing. It spoke to pushing certain boundaries that weren’t to be crossed. Not without consequences that only that lofty position could shield you from. Three silvers meant you knew and could administer every established cure and treatment. Four meant you knew the experimental ones. Five meant you’d proven at least one of said experimental procedures effective. And six meant that you’d found or created an all-new treatment of your own. Or otherwise advanced the knowledge of healing and the body. There was, in theory, a seventh link for those who discovered something so momentous that the entire field had to be redesigned. But that was just theoretical. Silver wasn’t like zinc, which you earned one of for every language you knew. Or brass, which you got for every type of animal you learned to breed better strains of. Seven silver links was a symbol of the unachievable mastery over life and death that only the gods could claim.
Ebrose had once tried to make the seven, Luwin recalled from his own learning. Through a treatise on humours based on records of the great spring sickness of 209-210 AC. It coincided with the man earning the Archmaester post, but the findings never held up. The treatments derived from it proved ineffective and even harmful on what ills and pockets of plague they were later attempted on.
That barely found purchase on Luwin’s mind though. Forty-seven links. Luwin doubted even Marwyn had so many, especially as he was just forty years of age instead of Qyburn’s fifty seven. Forty-seven links. Forty-seven! For all that Luwin himself had learned three links every year, he knew better than to think that was sustainable. At some point you started having to review your existing knowledge lest you fall behind and forget what earned you your links to begin with. How much had Qyburn forgotten? To have collected so many links in so many fields? And if he’d reached his fifties without forgetting most of what he’d learned, then…
“Well, that’s us done,” Qyburn told the last hound with a pat on the head. The dog licked his fingers. They certainly seemed to like the man. “Same time tomorrow? Good boy, now let me just-eh? Is anyone out there?” Qyburn hunched on himself cautiously, as if expecting a threat despite the army of killer hounds around him and the guards on watch everywhere. “Tom, if you or the boys are out to cause mischief again I’ll ask that-wait, Luwin? Luwin, is that you over there?”
“How are you not Archmaester?” Luwin blurted, his voice sounding unnaturally loud to his own ears. Looking around furtively as if he’d broken some law by speaking, he scurried over to the improvised pen which surrounded the various dog houses, made of snow blocks like everything else. “How are you not Archmaester? You could earn the links for every other field from skill crossover alone.”
Qyburn gathered his things and set out for his hut, Luwin in tow. “I’m not certain it’s my place to explain that to you. Has Marwyn not touched on this yet?”
“Why does everyone treat me like an extension of him? I barely studied under the man before this whole mess!”
Qyburn thinned his lips at his outburst, not saying anything.
“I’m sorry, maester, it’s just… I’m so frustrated.”
“I can see that.” The lack of pardon was a lot more obvious than it once might have been. “To answer your question, it’s politics. As you said. I should have earned links in every subject just from the skill crossover. Assuming I didn’t decide against that recognition, which I assure you I did not, why would I be denied so many worthy extensions to my chain? The Archmaester post is as much a reflection of your knowledge as it is of your influence.”
It took a moment for the pieces to come together, then Luwin dropped his head and palmed his face with a groan. Because he clearly wasn’t sufficiently disgusted with himself already. Gods, how blind was he that even the politicking right under his own nose escaped him? To be declared Archmaester meant you had the most links in one subject and at least one link in every other subject. Of course other maesters and Archmaesters would hem and haw whenever someone vied for such a post. Why wouldn’t they squeeze every aspirant for personal favors? And what if they felt threatened? Marwyn had all but spelled it out to him and the others too.
“Try not to worry about it too much?” Qyburn awkwardly tried to console him. “It’s not exactly you it reflects poorly on, you know, that the Conclave doesn’t live up to its good name.”
“I appreciate the thought maester,” Luwin said, all but clinging to the tea mug. “But that doesn’t change that fact I apparently lack all shreds of discernment.”
“Now don’t say that…”
“I’m starting to think I should’ve just stayed home.” The words felt bitter on his tongue. “Become a tradesman like my father and be done with it.”
“That would have been a waste.”
“Would it?” Luwin found himself unable to withhold the tide of frustration anymore. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s best I went far away from the family business. I can’t imagine what I’d have done to match this selective blindness I seem to possess now. Maybe I’d have become the first trader to think coin somehow isn’t the lifeblood of commerce, that would’ve been a riot. Because I can’t imagine what else would be preposterous enough to match this.”
“Ah, but it isn’t.”
“What?”
“Coin. It is not the lifeblood of commerce.”
The three gold links in the pouch at his belt seemed to weigh more than all the rest combined all of a sudden. “I’m sorry, maester, but I don’t follow.”
“Time, Luwin. It all boils down to time. Coin is important, but not the most important or there wouldn’t have been trade at all before the first coin was cast. It’s time that’s important. It doesn’t matter if you get twice the gold for a deal if it takes thrice as long to strike it. Harbor fees have to be paid, guards hired, watchmen bribed, ships maintained…”
“Oh…” It turned out he’d not quite struck the bottom of the well of idiocy.
“And it goes even further than that,” Qyburn said, almost enthusiastic now. “The time you spend selling cargo for the perfect price is time you could have spent bringing forth another batch, or doing anything else to your benefit… this applies to everything, not just caravans and ships, but the grain trade, smallfolk labor, even war… Time is the true coin, Luwin. The universal currency that all things follow.”
“… I’ve done you a disservice, maester,” Luwin said glumly.
“I don’t see how. We’ve never spoken before this.”
“That’s part of it. I thought…” He trailed off as they came to a halt at Qyburn’s snow hut. “Well, I thought a lot of stupid things.”
“But?”
“You’ve the heart of a teacher.” Luwin immediately felt embarrassed at the admission and hid his face in the mug. Just one last mouthful of tea left. He wished it were more, if only to delay their parting. He seemed to have grown distressingly dependent on authority figures. At least Lord Stark would be happy, Luwin thought gloomily. “Thank you for the lesson.”
Qyburn seemed surprised, but then his nervousness and awkwardness seemed to evaporate. “You are most welcome.” He looked so pleased at that simple acknowledgment. Luwin wondered how long he’d been denied that simple thing. Come to think of it, he’d never seen his name on any lectures. If he really deserved to be Archmaester but they didn’t- “Then perhaps you’ll accept another lesson. One I actually mean to give this time.”
“Oh,” Luwin was so surprised he nearly forgot to give the man his cup back. “Of course!”
Qyburn accepted his mug, stood there looking at him uncertainly – wondering if he should invite him back inside perhaps? – then he nodded sharply and steadied himself as if to- “Then my lesson is this: don’t bother with prophecies.”
Luwin blinked, taken aback.
“I’ve no way of knowing what all occurred to leave you in this state, but I’m assuming at least some of it has to do with that dwarf woman at High Heart.”
“… I suppose?” He’d not seen this change of topic coming at all. “Marwyn says that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman who takes your member in her mouth and makes you moan from the pleasure only to then… well, bite your prick off.” Luwin looked away, feeling the heat of a blush fill his face. “Or that’s the gist of the quote he gave at least. Gorghan of Old Ghis, or so he says.”
“Indeed,” Qyburn said, pretending not to notice his embarrassment. “Did he explain why?”
“No.” Not that he had much time with the raven and Lord Stark and-
“I respect the Archmaester greatly, and his way of guiding one to truth and self-discovery is to be revered. But I disagree with him on this. Of those things he considers a pinnacle of insight one should strive towards, I believe some work better as foundation. Especially for people like you who are still building it. This, then, is the lesson: don’t bother with prophecies. The only ones fit to interpret them are those who make them. Or they would be, if they weren’t all driven insane by their own gift.”
Luwin blinked at the other man. “Alright, I think.”
Qyburn shook his head and looked stern for once. “Don’t just agree. There is good reason for what I’m telling you. Can you tell what it is?”
He really did have this in common with Marwyn. “My surety in my own reasoning has taken a rather harsh beating recently.”
“Then know this. Wherever prophecy comes from, it ultimately comes through in whatever portents and symbols the prophet understands. So, the dwarf woman. Unless you think in precisely the same way and understand the world through precisely the same terms and symbols and metaphors and half-remembered visions from your dreams, you’re not likely to get anything but poison by trying to use her foretelling for anything.”
“Oh, that’s what you meant,” Luwin finally understood what he was getting at.
“Quite so. Whatever information comes, wherever it comes from, it still has to translate in concepts the seer understands and works with. That’s not counting that we can’t even be sure she didn’t deliberately use oblique symbolism just to mess with us, being so old and starved for fresh entertainment. Take this passage for example. ‘I saw the Blind Seer walk beneath warm stars in lockstep with the son of the burned woman and the corpse cutter.’” Luwin forced himself not to react at Qyburn apparently not knowing the Blind Seer in question was right in front of him. “The son of the burned woman and the corpse cutter. Who is the burned woman? Is it any burned woman? If so, why single her out? Is it Jenny of Oldstones who was supposedly her friend and died at Summerhall? But then who is the corpse cutter whose son the Blind Seer will walk in lockstep with, whatever that means? Or perhaps the passage doesn’t even mean that? Maybe it means that the burned woman’s son will walk with the Blind Seer and a completely unrelated corpse cutter that never met any of them even once in their life. In which case it may as well be any necromancer or silent sister or maester or cannibal, or just some random brigand who finds pleasure in cutting up dead bodies.” Or maybe it’s you, Luwin thought but didn’t say. “Do you see my point?”
“I do,” Luwin answered, already thinking about the rest and how little time he’d spent not thinking about it all since High Heart. The god of whales? What did that even mean? A banner? A house crest? An Ibbenese whaling ship? And the king that was promised, promised by who? For what? It really was all just a downward spiral of madness, wasn’t it? “Thank you, Maester. I think I might actually be able to rest tonight.” It wasn’t even a lie. He felt lighter than he did before their conversation now that he no longer felt the need to dwell on the whole thing. Not that it was all or even most of what was currently stressing him, but it was a load off his soul.
“I hope I helped at least a little,” Qyburn said, clearly knowing the direction Luwin’s thoughts had gone. “Goodnight, Luwin. Be well.”
“Goodnight, Maester. Thank you again.”
Luwin thought to what he’d seen in the Glass Candle. If what Qyburn said applied to everything that came through another person’s mind, did that vision come through in portents and symbols Luwin understood, or those of the other party works by? The one that remotely ignited the candle through… soul sacrifice? What were those weirwood tears even supposed to be?
He slept poorly that night, but at least it made it easy to keep the fire going. Not that they needed it with so many warm bodies packed so close together. His dreams were brief and fleeting. The only one he could recall was a glimpse of Rickard Stark using that unusual hand drill to dig holes into the weirwood trunks at High Heart all the way into the ground. Luwin wasn’t sure that wasn’t just his tired mind conjuring memories though. Lord Rickard and his men had spent the better part of their first day there doing that. Drilling holes through the middle of the bone-white stumps and then digging through them into the ground below with those strange scissor-shovels they called postholers. And every time they were done, they’d drop new weirwood seeds inside and cover them with the same soil and wood chips they’d dug up.
Luwin wondered how many times others must have tried to replant those trees only for nothing to come of it. He wondered if those tools had been made just for that reason. By that child of the forest or whatever it was.
The call-up was startling when it finally came. Luwin didn’t waste time on the morning meditation or exercises or even helping with the cooking. He rose, left the hut before anyone else more than rubbed at their eyes and rushed straight for Marwyn’s, crawling inside without even bothering to call a warning. “Master Marwyn!”
Marwyn was mid-way through tying the straps on his jerkin and gave startled “Oof!” when Luwin all but plowed into him.
“You’re alive!” Luwin didn’t even try to stand up and hugged him around the middle. “I’m so glad.”
“For Others’ sake,” Marwyn grunted, hugging him back to steady him. “You left home far too young, I swear. Soon as you’re back I expect you to squeeze your parents for every hug and headpat you’re owed, you hear me boy?”
“Yes, master,” Luwin mumbled into the man’s belly, eyes moist from sheer relief. “Anything you want.”
“Want! Want! Want!”
Luwin flinched and looked wildly for the source of the call. He found it in the form of a familiar white raven. It was looking at him from a new perch right behind where the maester stood.
“Ignore it.”
Luwin allowed himself to be guided to a nearby stool but found that he couldn’t, in fact, ignore anything. “Master, what happened?”
“Lord Stark’s turned exactingly thorough in questioning the dreams and visions we’ve been having.” The archmaester peeled a sourleaf off a bale, shoved it in his mouth, and began to chew it as he always did. “He’d been calling on me for various things already, but now he’s right persnickety. Not entirely uninformed on portents and symbols either. Unwilling to trust me to mind my own business as of today too, can you imagine? This here bird’s gonna be spending most of its time with me from now on, to keep an eye on me.”
“You said you’d murder Lord Stark’s servant and you got a pet,” Luwin said flatly. “That’s it?”
“What, being watched at all times isn’t enough? I literally went and said I was ready and willing to murder on behalf of him and his, all out of the goodness of my heart. Any other highborn would’ve been won over right there. Instead, Lord Stark’s turned all suspicious and wary of my noble intentions! Had the nerve to say I’ve no business questioning who he trusts or not. Bah! Withholding information on whoever or whatever’s been working magic on his supposed behalf does not stand him in good stead. I’d not’ve let it go if I were on my own. He’d be mad to think I’d even consider it when I have you all to look after too. Oh, he feels protective towards this unknown asset? Well so am I towards mine, don’t you know. I’m not sworn to him, most of you still aren’t either by his own decision, and I’d bet on my judgement being better than his any day of the year!”
And he just goes and says so? Luwin looked uncomfortably between Marwyn and the bird watching them.
“Don’t get your bunghole in a pucker. Lord Stark doesn’t skinchange as much as you’d think. If I were a lesser man I’d maybe fret over the suspicion that he might be watching. As is, though, this here bunch of feathers is just a mildly useful drain on my supply of corn.”
“Corn! Corn! Corn!”
“Gotta say, though,” Marwyn reached into a pouch and held out a handful of kernels for the bird to eat. “It’s quite the thing to have the Warden of the North himself eating from the palm of my hand.”
The raven ate and ate the corn and did not reply.
“So…” Luwin tried not to show how light-headed he was becoming from the strange… non-resolution to everything. “Where does it leave us exactly?”
“Since Stark won’t tell me anything about his pet sorcerer or whatever it is, I’ve decided to follow your judgment and defer judgment until we actually know something.”
Luwin hoped he didn’t fail too badly at hiding how honoured he was that-
“Don’t push it down, boy. When you deserve to feel proud, feel proud.”
Oh…
“Work on that more.”
“Right.” The well-meaning rebuke only made Luwin feel embarrassed all over again though. “I can do that.”
“And I’m the God-King of Ib. You’re eons away from that sort of occult comprehension. We’ll work on it together.”
The occult was about pride? How had he not come across this in all his studies? “Right,” Luwin mumbled, not knowing what else to do but repeat himself. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “So what now?”
“Now we get ready for the road, what else?”
“Wait, so we just go on as normal?”
“Unfortunately,” Marwyn grunted, finishing kitting up and starting to pack the rest of his things. “Blasted highborn even had the nerve to change the terms of our private deal. Said he doesn’t trust me not to pull a runner once I get my end fulfilled. The nerve! I may not go out of my way looking for devils, but I’d never step out of my path to let one go by! Feh.” Marwyn spat a gob of red phlegm aside. It looked like a blood splatter on the white snow.
“… I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bribery,” Marwyn said dryly. “Worry over you greenhorns aside, Stark didn’t get me to come along just on the merit of his frosty personality. He somehow knew or guessed enough about me to make the deal personal.”
Luwin still had no idea what Marwyn was talking about but he was done admitting ignorance for one day.
“Half the roof of my mouth is one huge, pus-filled carbuncle,” Marwyn said, easily reading him as usual, to Luwin’s dismay. “Can barely move my tongue without smacking into it. You think I chew sourleaf because I like looking like a sothoryi blood drinker? It’s fucking painful is what it is. Sometimes I tap it, but that only works when it’s really swollen up and it needs to be a fairly thick pin to do anything, which hurts like the Stranger’s own buggering. I believe you can see the problem?”
Somehow, the notion that Marwyn suffered from such a common ailment was the hardest thing to believe out of everything.
“Not that this dentistry Stark talked about is likely to be any gentler. Those tools look like something out of a Bolton’s randy fantasies, I swear.”
Wait, what? “… What’s this about House Bolton? What do you know about them?”
“Lad, I was out traveling for eight years and change. You think I didn’t walk about my backyard before I went off east? I’d never have gotten such a bug up my arse about firewater if I hadn’t visited the North. The Boltons realized long ago that coating their blades in booze makes their victims last longer before they caught the pus. A lot of things go into properly flaying a person, especially if you want to keep them alive more than their screams last. Not that I got to see or try for myself of course.”
“… That you can talk so blithely about this is absolutely horrifying.”
“And the world is better off for their passing, yes, yes. Don’t give me that look, boy! People paid in soul-crushing agony so we’d learn that dipping your knife in strong drink works something like Myrish fire, just not as well. Not until I perfected my firewater, which is actually better and I’ll have a grand old time throwing it in Myr’s face once I market it, seeing as that’s an option now. Ghoulish as some customs may be, you shouldn’t dismiss a potential avenue of progress just because the ones who stumbled upon it were sick fucks deserving to die in a fire. You may as well not extract arrowheads or amputate limbs or sew wounds shut because the ones who first figured out the make of the body got hanged as necromancers. Did you ever ask Qyburn how he earned his first link of Valyrian?”
Luwin desperately tried to keep up with every change in topic. “Should I have? All it takes is studying the known records and theory about magical practices, no?”
“That’s what I do with young and idealistic children whose sense of wonder wouldn’t survive the real world. Qyburn was almost fifty when he got the bug. Ask him why, and then ask him how he started on the path. It’s nothing like you believe.”
Was anything like he believed in this mad world? “I’ll remember to ask him.”
“Good. Well, that’s me ready,” Marwyn said, having finished packing his things. “I’m going to take apart this hut now. Unless there’s anything else that can’t wait, you should go break your fast and pack up as well.” Marwyn then began punching holes in the walls. It was its own form of training, supposedly.
“Well… there is one thing.”
“Go on then.”
“The answer is yes.”
Marwyn blinked and stopped with his arm elbow-deep in snow.
“You asked me if I still want to learn of the higher mysteries. The answer is yes. I want to learn everything you can teach me.”
“Denied.”
Understandable, he’ll just wish him a nice day and-wait, no it wasn’t! “What? But why?”
“The paths occult are walked with will, boy, not emotion. If you think I’ll mistake this emotional decision for conviction you’ve got another thing coming.”
Luwin sputtered and spluttered and whined and argued until the hut was in ruins around them.
“Enough,” Marwyn bit, spitting another gob of red.
Luwin shut up. Marwyn had never lost patience with him before. Ever.
“Were this Asshai, your attitude would get you enslaved and turned into cattle for the Houses of the Shadowbinders. You’re lucky I’m not actually an evil man and I believe enthusiasm like yours is to be cherished. But I will not accept that answer until I know you choice wasn’t made under duress.”
Luwin felt his frustration fill his insides all over again. “Master, look,” Luwin said, pushing down his bubbling anger before it made him say things he’ll regret. “I know I’ve not lived up to your standards. Or anyone’s really. I fell in with the wrong crowd. I needed you to rescue me from them. I haven’t done shit on this journey. I didn’t set out to learn anything about our party. I didn’t offer to be camp healer. It didn’t occur to me that I should look after the others, Hother and Mullin had to sort everyone else out instead. I’m one of the older acolytes in this mess and one of the most educated besides, but it didn’t occur to me that I should assume any responsibility. I’m ready to stop being that person. Please,” Luwin pled. “Believe me.”
“I do, lad,” Marwyn sighed, trying to shoo the white raven off with little success. “But as nice as that is, self-awareness is just half of what you need.
“I’ve found my center.”
Marwyn stopped in surprise.
Luwin was surprised at blurting that out too. But he was even more proud at finally scoring a victory, no matter how small. “I’ve found it. It only took Lord Stark’s exercises to do it. I feel a warmth in my chest, a vibration up and down my spine and a glimmer of something behind my eyes when I breathe to a stop like he showed us. When I just stand still and focus inward.”
“Do you really?” Marwyn murmured, though his eyes were hooded with something far different than whatever Luwin had hoped to see. “If that’s true, then I’m only more convinced of my decision.”
“What? Why?” Luwin demanded. “What do you want from me?”
“Clarity and Will, Luwin.” Marwyn said as if the conversation was over, turning to kick around the blocky piles of snow his hut had once been. “Not emotion. Not even conviction. Will. If you ever reach the point where I need more than four words to destroy your entire system of beliefs, then I’ll consider it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I cannot work spells.”
The world scattered into its components pieces suddenly, then it abruptly snapped back into place and none of the pieces seemed to fit anymore despite being unchanged.
Marwyn turned to him with the gravest, darkest stare Luwin had ever seen. “Self-awareness is just one puzzle piece of several before you can make any claim of clarity. Awareness of the world. Awareness of others. Awareness of other’s lack of awareness of themselves. You’re still so very dependent on the spoken word too, for all of this. As prone to losing your composure and questioning your own beliefs as you’ve always been. Would you like me to throw out some more mind-twisters? Parenting is emotionally manipulating your children so they don't grow up to be savages, convicts or corpses. Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go fuck himself so elegantly that he packs for the trip. Artists use lies to tell the truth while Septons use the truth to tell lies. The Iron Throne can’t find its arse without mistaking one for the other, but it still stands today because the difference between brilliance and insanity is success. I could go on and on and on, but what’s the point? Any one of these statements is enough to get you bogged down in a downward spiral of arguments and counter-arguments, none of which you’d need to make without that sudden onset of self-doubt. Perfect for a Shadowbinder’s Vessel or a sorcerer’s slave. Not so much for someone who wants to be themselves for themselves.”
Luwin heard the words and the sense in the words and knew they held a message that should make sense to someone who heard the words in that order. But whatever the purpose in that speech… it went completely over his head. His ability to care about it had completely left him, along with his ability to care about everything else after those four words that preceded it. “You’re a fraud?”
Marwyn’s wan smile was that of someone holding back the brittle mien of disappointment in a student they’d put their hopes in.
Luwin immediately wished he could take his words back. “Master, I…”
“Ask me an honest question and I'll give you an honest answer,” Marwyn said, walking to his satchel and digging through it. “If you don't want an honest answer, let me know and tell me what kind of answer you want.”
Luwin tried to find words for… something. But he couldn’t. He found himself unable to even form a thought, let alone articulate something as complicated as a question.
Their meeting ended unceremoniously, with Marwyn walking over and shoving something in Luwin’s arms that almost made him fall off his feet. It was a dark bag of… something deceptively heavy.
“People seldom care what others think. They only want to know what happens to them,” Marwyn said, sending him on his way with a gaze that was as heavy as it was unreadable. “You are not exceptional enough to be different.”
Luwin left in a daze.
It was only when his feet took him to the firepit without any conscious direction that he learned what he was given. Not through any curiosity of his own, but because of everyone else’s. All the acolytes and guards and everyone partaking of the morning meal save Marwyn and Qyburn and Lord Stark himself, wherever they were. Guard Captain Rus was standing to the side with a plate in hand and barking orders. Guardsman Tom played his lute as badly as usual. Ryben was making ribald jokes. Hother corralled Luwin in his usual manner, only to stop in surprise after divesting him of his burden. The moment the tall Northman looked inside marked the end of fireside chatter and saw everyone staring in disbelief at the long, long, long length of chain that grew to take up the entire surface of the hastily cleared serving table.
Three links in mining and the same in ravenry. Four each in warcraft, jewelcraft and architecture and engineering. Five silver for healing. Five platinum in natural sciences. Five again in smithing. Six bronze in astronomy. Six copper in history. Six antimony links for wild lore and survival. Another six in mathematics and economics. Then there were seven in alchemy made of white gold and a full ten of zinc for languages. That was one link more than Luwin thought you could go. High Valyrian, Old Ghiscari, Dothraki, Lhazareen, Summer Tongue, Ibbenese, Rhoynar, Old Tongue, the man must know them all and maybe the Spell Langauge of Asshai, but even then it was just nine. And it couldn’t be explained through regional variation because you didn’t earn a link until you could at least get by in all sub-dialects.
“Lads,” Harmune said, sounding ill. “My humours are about to go into extreme imbalance.” The boy rushed out of their huddle and puked everything he’d just had for breakfast.
“Watch it!” snarled guardsman Rys, barely avoiding his boots getting soiled, but he didn’t do more than that. He was astounded too.
“Spank me rosy,” Ryben mumbled, for once ignoring the drama around him. “Old bastard must have gone and learned every language known to man until the world ran out of tongues. What, did he give himself a link in Trade Talk just to round up the number? How old is our oh so venerable Archmaester again?”
“Forty,” Luwin said flatly.
“We’re fucking chumps!” Hother said, squatting down on a stump disgustedly.
They really were. How many links a year did Marwyn earn? Because he’d obviously never stopped! And he’d even been out traveling for the past eight years, how much did his practical experience account for out of them? And how did he keep all that knowledge in order? Hells, did he retain even half of it? Seventy-four links! And that didn’t even count the individual links in every other topic taught at the citadel, which were all there as expected of his post. Luwin wondered if even those accurately reflected the man’s aptitudes and skills. He refused to believe that lone link of lead in diplomatic acumen was anything but deceptive.
When the last of their party finally assembled for their departure, there was not one eye that didn’t stare at Marwyn when the man came to retrieve his chain.
“I trust you’ve all had enough of an eyeful?” the squat man grunted as he stuffed the bag into his satchel. The valyrian steel rod on his back and the mask hanging from his belt glinted tauntingly in the morning sun. How many Valyrian steel links did Marwyn once have before he replaced them with those symbols of office? And how did he get them? Were they already there? Did he make them himself? “Don’t break your brains thinking too much about it. You’re better off asking yourselves why the hells we Archmaesters lock ourselves in our towers instead of going out and using all we know for something that’s actually useful. Pinnacles of the exceptional, hah! The pinnacle wastes of space in the entire world if you ask me.”
Luwin watched the shine of the smoky metal, then looked from rod and mask to the ring on Marwyn’s finger. The Archmaester liked to twist it when his hands weren’t otherwise busy, Luwin thought suddenly. He wondered if there was more than an idle tic to read into it. Wondered if he was mad to dwell on something so minor now.
He wondered why Marwyn suddenly decided to reveal the make of his chain, assuming it wasn’t just as a slap in Luwin’s face for so abruptly assuming the worst of him.
“Now you all listen to me,” the Archmaester said to the acolytes as if Lord Stark and his guards weren’t all within hearing distance. The white raven on his shoulder mirrored the way his gaze roamed over them. “No matter how this turns out, I’ll take care of you boys.” The man let his gaze linger half a moment longer on Tybald and Rhodry. Which would have been fine and likely passed without anyone else noticing if the two in question had been half as discrete as they were observant. “Alright?”
“I don’t want your pity,” Rhodry said.
“Then you’re a fool,” Marwyn flatly replied as if Rhodry hadn’t just screamed out that he was in a more vulnerable position than anyone else. “Pity is good and right. It shows there’s something wrong in the world that should be mended. It shows that you’ve earned the compassion of another thinking being. Pity rules the lives of millions. It’s why you’re still alive. It’s why I’m still alive.”
Rhodry looked like he wanted to say something else but Mullin’s hand on his head stopped him. For his part, Luwin wondered if Marwyn was referring to the prior night or something older.
“I’m glad that’s settled,” Marwyn said as if he hadn’t just set them up for a potential future conflict of loyalty between Lord Stark and himself. It was so easy to assume the worst of the man now, Luwin thought bitterly. “We’ll be in our new home soon. I wanted to make sure you knew to call on me when you need to. You’ve been relying on Luwin to act as spokesperson a tad much.” Translation: Luwin is not fit to be your spokesperson anymore. He hoped he was wrong to take it that way, but… “And Mama Umber will be there for you when I’m busy.”
Marwyn, it seemed, was so very much not upset over their disastrous conversation that he freely japed with the others.
“Fuck you, Maester,” Hother muttered.
“Now that’s no way to be rising in my esteem.”
“Rising? Esteem!?” Hother thundered like a man who’d just had all his expectations upturned. “You wanna see how well I can raise my case, esteemed Archmaester?”
“Umber, dear, I do get off on power but you don’t have near enough to be getting on with.”
Luwin boggled. So shameless! Not that it was completely outside his usual behaviour, but if Marwyn was like this now, what kind of creature would he be once he got rid of those bad teeth and gum sores that pained him so badly?
Their departure was one of flustered faces, outraged squawks and embarrassed sputtering that only Luwin was too out of sorts to indulge in.
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