Eyes of the Living, Voice of the Dead
Fifteenth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
Drokha... they had a name at last, Waymar sighed in relief. It wasn't that he disliked investigations into the dark corners of the world. One could rightly name them more worthy than the battles of man against man for the peril was so often not against one king or one realm but against whoever might stumble over it, be they man or giant, Singer or kindly spirit. Yet something in him chaffed when following an uncertain trail, not knowing if it was the right one or a fool's errand. Ever since that day when he had first dreamed of the pale thing, like a man but not, the
Other, the young knight had known that there were things in the world that meant to do nothing but bring ruin and decay. Then had come the news about Heaven, it still didn't feel entirely real even after all he'd seen and done. Heaven was broken, and they were going to have to do something about it.
But at the same time as he took Vee's hand in his left and touched Riz'Neth's scaled palm with his right for the journey back to the Deep he could not help but be heartened by the sheer strangeness of the touch, by knowing how many had gathered to face the coming Night. Much was lost, but much remained.
***
Perhaps it had not been the wisest thing to take Yara with them to Sorcerer's Deep without sending word ahead that they were coming. When they had asked Hestior where Lya was the hearth spirit had asked 'which one?', likely meaning that she had managed to divide her soul among two bodies as she had hoped. Waymar was happy to hear that all her studying and hard work had been worthwhile, but this was truly not a conversation to be having with a stranger from beyond the Wall, even if she was a skin-changer and more than six-hundred years old by some strange wish-craft.
"Do you need help up north?" Lya asked seriously, pausing half-way up the stairs of the Shadow Tower carrying a black metal box that would not have been the least bit notable, but for the fact that it shook and rattled as something scratched and rattled on it from the inside.
"Not with the fight I don't think, Amrelath should be able to burn the bastard right proper this time around, we just need your help to find him."
"Is this enemy a mage?" Waymar's friend asked, the light in her eyes glowing brighter as was its wont when she heard something interesting.
Yara swallowed before answering. "Aye, a black-hearted sorcerer he is."
Lya nodded thoughtfully. "I'm coming with you." Neither Vee nor Waymar thought to gainsay her, of course. It was always good to have another friend watching your back.
***
The scrying mirror was a strange fit for the dilapidated house, though perhaps no stranger than those gathered around it all in a circle, each holding a tall black candle. "Let he known as Drokha once of Hardhome make himself known to me in silvered glass. Let mist unveil him and fire reveal him. May earth not ward him and wind carry his words to me," Lya proclaimed in the tongue of Old Valyria, for it must have been a
spell she had first learned from Viserys or Daenerys.
First the glass rippled like a still pond struck with a stone, then blackness passed over it like a veil. Like eyes adjusting to the dark shapes seemed to come into being slowly, strange and twisted lines that the mind struggled to string together in a way that made sense. Then Waymar managed it, and a small part of him wished that he hadn't.
The thing in the mirror bore no resemblance to the man Yara had described, for indeed it had not been a man in a very long time. A broken-toothed skull with a strange smooth hole bored between its empty sockets leered at the world from beneath a ragged cowl. A pair of great antlers grew from the thing's shoulders like boney claws reaching for the sky, while its own arms had turned withered and black, ghostly fire still dancing upon them. In its right hand it bore a staff topped by the head of a ram and bones upon its belt jangled as it stalked through rough-hewn corridors lit by nothing but its own balefire. Three fresh bodies, one belonging to a boy who could not have been more than eight years old, laid pale and lifeless against the stone.
"Fuck, that's the caves! He's going to..." Mance began angrily, looking as though he was about ready to jump into the mirror after the monster, as a lord should.
But before he could even finish speaking the thing that had once been Drokha turned to look right at them, its third eye blazing with blue flame. "
I See You," its voice wiggled like maggots in the ear.
Vee spoke then, a spell of transposition, and in a ripple of magic all were gone from the small hut in the woods to face battle once more.
OOC: I thought hard if I should push into the fight proper, but in the end what decided me was that I would rather do it from Mance's POV not Waymar's.
- forgot that function of Gate ...