𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒, game of thrones

Chapter Nineteen

It was Jojen who fed the sticks to the fire and blew on them until the flames leapt up crackling. Then there was light, and Lyanna saw the pale thin-faced girl by the lip of the well, all bundled up in furs and skins beneath an enormous black cloak, trying to shush the screaming baby in her arms. The thing on the floor was pushing an arm through the net to reach his knife, but the loops wouldn't let him. He wasn't any monster beast, or even Mad Axe drenched in gore; only a big fat man dressed up in black wool, black fur, black leather, and black mail. "He's a black brother," said Bran. "Meera, he's from the Night's Watch."

Lyanna also realized this, the fat boy was a black brother from Night's Watch. "Hodor?" Hodor squatted down on his haunches to peer at the man in the net. "Hodor," he said again, hooting.

"The Night's Watch, yes." The fat man was still breathing like a bellows. "I'm a brother of the Watch." He had one cord under his chins, forcing his head up, and others digging deep into his cheeks. "I'm a crow, please. Let me out of this."
 
Lyanna was suddenly uncertain. Bran spoke, "Are you the three-eyed crow?" He can't be the three-eyed crow.

"I don't think so." The fat man rolled his eyes, but there were only two of them. "I'm only Sam. Samwell Tarly. Let me out, it's hurting me." He began to struggle again.

Lyanna gave a nod to Meera who was looking at her with question.

Meera made a disgusted sound. "Stop flopping around. If you tear my net I'll throw you back down the well. Just lie still and I'll untangle you."

"Who are you?" Jojen asked the girl with the baby.

"Gilly," she said. "For the gillyflower. He's Sam. We never meant to scare you." She rocked her baby and murmured at it, and finally it stopped crying.

Meera was untangling the fat brother. Jojen went to the well and peered down. "Where did you come from?"

"From Craster's," the girl said. "Are you the one?"

Jojen turned to look at her. "The one?"

"He said that Sam wasn't the one," she explained. "There was someone else, he said. The one he was sent to find."

"Who said?" Bran demanded.

"Coldhands," Gilly answered softly.
 
Meera peeled back one end of her net, and the fat man managed to sit up. He was shaking, Lyanna saw, and still struggling to catch his breath. "He said there would be people," he huffed. "People in the castle. I didn't know you'd be right at the top of the steps, though. I didn't know you'd throw a net on me or stab me in the stomach." He touched his belly with a black-gloved hand. "Am I bleeding? I can't see."

"It was just a poke to get you off your feet," said Meera. "Here, let me have a look." She went to one knee, and felt around his navel. "You're wearing mail. I never got near your skin."

"Well, it hurt all the same," Sam complained.

"Are you really a brother of the Night's Watch?" Lyanna asked.
 
The fat man's chins jiggled when he nodded. His skin looked pale and saggy. "Only a steward. I took care of Lord Mormont's ravens." For a moment he looked like he was going to cry. "I lost them at the Fist, though. It was my fault. I got us lost too. I couldn't even find the Wall. It's a hundred leagues long and seven hundred feet high and I couldn't find it!"

"Well, you've found it now," said Meera. "Lift your rump off the ground, I want my net back."

"How did you get through the Wall?" Jojen demanded as Sam struggled to his feet. "Does the well lead to an underground river, is that where you came from? You're not even wet . . . "

"There's a gate," said fat Sam. "A hidden gate, as old as the Wall itself. The Black Gate, he called it."

The Reeds exchanged a look. "We'll find this gate at the bottom of the well?" asked Jojen.

Sam shook his head. "You won't. I have to take you."

"Why?" Meera demanded. "If there's a gate . . . "

"You won't find it. If you did it wouldn't open. Not for you. It's the Black Gate." Sam plucked at the faded black wool of his sleeve. "Only a man of the Night's Watch can open it, he said. A Sworn Brother who has said his words."

"He said." Jojen frowned. "This . . . Coldhands?"

"That wasn't his true name," said Gilly, rocking. "We only called him that, Sam and me. His hands were cold as ice, but he saved us from the dead men, him and his ravens, and he brought us here on his elk."

"His elk?" said Bran, wonderstruck.

"His elk?" said Meera, startled.

"His ravens?" said Jojen.

"Ravens?" said Lyanna, confused.

"Hodor?" said Hodor.

They all said at the same time.

"Was he green?" Bran wanted to know. "Did he have antlers?"

The fat man was confused. "The elk?"

"Coldhands," said Lyanna impatiently. "The green men ride on elks, Old Nan used to say. Sometimes they have antlers too."

"He wasn't a green man. He wore blacks, like a brother of the Watch, but he was pale as a wight, with hands so cold that at first I was afraid. The wights have blue eyes, though, and they don't have tongues, or they've forgotten how to use them." The fat man turned to Jojen. "He'll be waiting. We should go. Do you have anything warmer to wear? The Black Gate is cold, and the other side of the Wall is even colder. You—"

"Why didn't he come with you?" Meera gestured toward Gilly and her babe. "They came with you, why not him? Why didn't you bring him through this Black Gate too?"

"He . . . he can't."

"Why not?" Lyanna questioned.

"The Wall. The Wall is more than just ice and stone, he said. There are spells woven into it . . . old ones, and strong. He cannot pass beyond the Wall."
 
It grew very quiet in the castle kitchen then. Lyanna could hear the soft crackle of the flames, the wind stirring the leaves in the night, the creak of the skinny weirwood reaching for the moon. Beyond the gates the monsters live, and the giants and the ghouls, she remembered Old Nan saying, but they cannot pass so long as the Wall stands strong. So go to sleep, my little Lyanna, my baby girl. You needn't fear. There are no monsters here.
 
"I am not the one you were told to bring," Jojen Reed told fat Sam in his stained and baggy blacks. "He is."

"Oh." Sam looked down at him uncertainly. It might have been just then that he realized Bran was crippled. "I don't . . . I'm not strong enough to carry you, I . . . "

"Hodor can carry me." Bran pointed at his basket. "I ride in that, up on his back."

Sam was staring at him. "You're Jon Snow's brother. The one who fell . . . "

"No," said Jojen. "That boy is dead."

"Don't tell," Bran warned. "Please..."

Sam looked confused for a moment, but finally he said, "I . . . I can keep a secret. Gilly too." When he looked at her, the girl nodded. "Jon . . . Jon was my brother too. He was the best friend I ever had, but he went off with Qhorin Halfhand to scout the Frostfangs and never came back. We were waiting for him on the Fist when . . . when . . . "

"Jon's here," Bran said. Lyanna had forgot about it when Bran saw the Wildlings attacking Jon just before Summer and Visenya saved him. "Summer and Visenya saw him. He was with some wildlings, but they killed a man and Jon took his horse and escaped. I bet he went to Castle Black."

Sam turned big eyes on Meera. "You're certain it was Jon? You saw him?"

"I'm Meera," Meera said with a smile. "Summer and Visenya are . . . "
 
Two shadows detached themselves from the broken dome above and leapt down through the moonlight. Even with Summer's injured leg, he followed his sister who landed as light and quiet as a snowfall. The girl Gilly made a frightened sound and clutched her babe so hard against her that it began to cry again.
 
"They won't hurt you," Lyanna said, "They're both gentle as long as Bran and I are here"

Sam looked at Lyanna, "You must be Lyanna, Robb's twin sister... Jon said you all had wolves." Sam pulled off a glove. "I know Ghost." He held out a shaky hand, the fingers white and soft and fat as little sausages. Summer padded closer, sniffed them, and gave the hand a lick.
 
That was when Bran made up his mind. "We'll go with you."

"All of you?" Sam seemed surprised by that.

Meera ruffled Bran's hair. "He's our prince."

"and she's our princess" Jojen gestured at Lyanna as Sam and Gilly looked at both Starks
 
Summer and Visenya circled the well, sniffing. Summer paused by the top step and looked back at Bran. Visenya sat and looked as if she was waiting for Lyanna.

"Will Gilly be safe if I leave her here till I come back?" Sam asked them.

"She should be," said Meera. "She's welcome to our fire."

Jojen said, "The castle is empty."

Gilly looked around. "Craster used to tell us tales of castles, but I never knew they'd be so big."

It's only the kitchens. Lyanna wondered what Gilly would think when she saw Winterfell, if she ever did.
 
It took them a few minutes to gather their things and hoist Bran into his wicker seat on Hodor's back. By the time they were ready to go, Gilly sat nursing her babe by the fire. "You'll come back for me," she said to Sam.

"As soon as I can," he promised, "then we'll go somewhere warm."

When she heard that, part of Lyanna wondered what she was doing. Will I ever go someplace warm again?

"I'll go first, I know the way." Sam hesitated at the top. "There's just so many steps," he sighed, before he started down. Lyanna took the lead, followed Sam, Jojen followed, then Summer and Visenya, then Hodor with Bran riding on his back. Meera took the rear, with her spear and net in hand.

It was a long way down. The top of the well was bathed in moonlight, but it grew smaller and dimmer every time they went around. Their footsteps echoed off the damp stones, and the water sounds grew louder. "Should we have brought torches?" Jojen asked.

"Your eyes will adjust," said Sam. "Keep one hand on the wall and you won't fall."

The well grew darker and colder with every turn. When Lyanna looked, the top of the well was no bigger than a half-moon. "Hodor," Hodor whispered "Hodorhodorhodorhodorhodorhodor," the well whispered back. The water sounds were close, but when Lyanna peered down he saw only blackness.
 
A turn or two later Sam stopped suddenly. He was a quarter of the way around the well from Lyanna and six feet farther down, yet Lyanna could barely see him. She could see the door, though. The Black Gate, Sam had called it, but it wasn't black at all.

It was white weirwood, and there was a face on it.

A glow came from the wood, like milk and moonlight, so faint it scarcely seemed to touch anything beyond the door itself, not even Sam standing right before it. The face was old and pale, wrinkled and shrunken. It looks dead. Its mouth was closed, and its eyes; its cheeks were sunken, its brow withered, its chin sagging. If a man could live for a thousand years and never die but just grow older, his face might come to look like that.
 
The door opened its eyes.

They were white too, and blind. "Who are you?" the door asked, and the well whispered, "Who-who-who-who-who-who-who."
 
"I am the sword in the darkness," Samwell Tarly said. "I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers. I am the shield that guards the realms of men."

"Then pass," the door said. Its lips opened, wide and wider and wider still, until nothing at all remained but a great gaping mouth in a ring of wrinkles. Sam stepped aside and waved Lyanna through ahead of him.

This was it, they're going to the other side of the Wall, Lyanna never thought she would ever go beyond the Wall. She was afraid of stepping out, she was afraid that she might never come back, she stood froze for a moment until she felt something warmth touched her right hand. Jojen had taken her hand, the warmth of his hand made her realize that maybe as long as she is with Jojen, she will feel warm and safe.

Summer and Visenya followed, sniffing as they went. The door's upper lip brushed softly against the top of Lyanna's head, and a drop of water fell on her and ran slowly down her nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear. She and Jojen stepped into the cold together.

Jojen is my warmth, she reminded herself.