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The iron gate leading beyond the Wall groaned once more, its voice as bleak and desolate as the frozen winds that howled across the endless wilderness.
Clay did not waste a single heartbeat. Once he was certain that Jon Snow was in no condition to provide him with any useful answer, he made his choice without hesitation. He would cross the Wall.
For in the end, the root of this mystery could only be found in that strange being, the Three-eyed Raven, the creature that drifted through men's dreams with shadowed wings.
If he could find it, then Clay would finally know where the problem began, and where the truth was hidden.
He never doubted he would get his answer.
Brynden Rivers had long since broken the bounds of the bargain they once struck, exceeding it in every way. That alone was enough for Clay to demand answers.
And besides, he felt a restless, dangerous curiosity stirring in his chest. What would it look like, he wondered, to call upon the Igni sign and set Brynden Rivers' half-tree, half-man body ablaze?
He could almost picture the fire licking up through bark and sinew, the flesh smoldering into ash, the wood crackling in the flames. The thought lingered, yet strangely tempting.
"Let me ask you again. Are you certain you don't want any of us to go with you?" The voice came from Edd, Jon Snow's closest companion.
Edd did not know what had happened in Winterfell, but what had happened to Jon troubled him deeply. His gloom-laden eyes were heavy with worry. He had seen enough to sense that Clay was here to resolve some hidden crisis, and he seemed to know far more than they did. That knowledge, and that quiet certainty, made Edd want to follow him north, no matter what lay in wait.
Among the brothers of the Night's Watch, it was said that the lands beyond the Wall belonged to them alone. For anyone else, venturing out there was as good as dead.
Yet Clay rejected their company outright.
It was not out of arrogance, nor because he thought himself above them. He simply understood that this journey held almost no hope of return for any ordinary man. To take them with him would be nothing more than sending them to their deaths for no purpose.
There was no need to sacrifice them.
The heavy iron gate rumbled open, letting in a bitter, bone-chilling wind that made Clay tense instinctively.
Edd's eyes drifted to the horse beneath Clay. It was a warhorse, but its gaze was dull and lifeless, its head hanging as though half-dead.
When this strange calamity had first struck, every horse in the Night's Watch had collapsed at once, as if their strength had been stolen in a single instant. They had been left helpless, unable to ride, unable even to send riders out except to Last Hearth for aid.
Yet Clay Manderly had walked calmly into their stables and told the grooms to bring him one of the few mounts that still seemed to hold some trace of life. He laid his hand upon its head, his palm pressing lightly against its cold skin.
No one knew what he did. But before their astonished eyes, the beast that had fallen into a deathlike slumber, which no call or whip could rouse, stirred again. Its eyes fluttered, breath returned, and life crept slowly back into its limbs.
Clay had then ordered the grooms to feed the horse whatever could restore its strength most quickly. Once it could stand steady, once its muscles responded with even a measure of vigor, he mounted its back without hesitation and demanded to ride north beyond the Wall.
The Night's Watch had no reason to stop him.
After all, the last time the wildling threat had risen, it was this same Clay Manderly who had led the charge to put it down. By every measure, he could be counted as an old ally of the Watch, a man who had stood beside them in their darkest hour.
"Go back," Clay said, his voice even, carrying into the howling wind. "Tell Lord Commander Mormont this: whatever happens beyond the Wall, the Wall itself must be held. Guard it well, and do not allow anything to pass through."
Edd frowned, lines deepening on his face. He heard the words, yet he could not fully grasp the meaning behind them.
"My lord Clay, what exactly… do you mean by that?"
The only reply he received was the sound of hooves crunching into the frozen snow as Clay urged his horse forward, and beneath it, a low, chilling laugh carried off by the storm.
"Take it as I say it, and take it as you hear it."
His tone turned heavier, carrying a warning that chilled more than the snow.
"The lands beyond the Wall should already hold no living thing. If you see anything moving that comes toward you, don't hesitate. Kill it."
With that, he pressed his heels lightly into the horse's flanks. The warhorse, draped only with a thin blanket against the bitter cold, stepped forward. Its hooves sank into the snow with steady weight, and soon both rider and steed were swallowed by the storm, their outlines vanishing into the white blur of wind and frost.
"…What do you really know?"
Edd muttered under his breath as he watched Clay Manderly's figure fade into the endless snow.
There was no mistaking it. This man had come with purpose. Everyone could feel it in the way he moved, in the way he spoke.
He had come first for Jon. When Jon could not speak, Clay had not hesitated for even a moment before turning his gaze northward.
It was clear… he knew far more than they did. Much more.
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The reason Clay did not simply rouse the sleeping men with his own magic was one he kept close to himself.
He had tried once.
The effort had drained him far too deeply, and worse still, it had produced no real result.
The bodies of those who slept were completely soaked through, saturated with the power of the Old Gods.
If Clay wished to wake them, he would have to pour his own strength into their bodies, forcing the alien power out piece by piece until not a trace remained.
But his strength was too precious to waste. He was heading north to seek the three-eyed raven, and every fragment of his power would be needed for that meeting.
In this cursed land, where even the air was soaked with the presence of the Old Gods, his magic replenished itself agonizingly slowly, like a candle flame struggling to hold against a storm.
So, to be safe, he abandoned the thought.
Even if he roused one or two men, they would not remain awake for long. The effort would burn away too much of his strength for too little gain. It was not worth the cost.
Behind him, the Wall loomed high, its crest already swallowed by storm and snow. What once stood as a shield, solid and unyielding, gave no sense of security now. The heavy mass of stone and ice seemed powerless against what lay beyond.
Clay knew, then, that he was on the right path.
The moment he stepped past the Wall, the power of the Old Gods surged against him. It came like waves of icy wind, slamming against his body again and again, trying to seep into his very flesh.
Yet his own magic, born of another system altogether, did not shrink before it.
On the contrary, the clash between them became a strange contest. His power bit into theirs, and in that struggle he devoured fragments of it, grey and dim forces that drifted through his magical sight like smoke from a dying fire.
Clay himself became like a ship upon a black sea, a lone vessel with an oil lamp swaying at its prow. From every side the abyss reached out to drag him under, but each time it failed, falling short of its prey.
And in that endless press of power, he began to sense something strange.
Within the tide of the Old Gods' strength, he felt not one emotion but two, completely opposed to one another.
One was hostility, a malice that sought to devour him whole.
The other, faint but undeniable, carried a plea, like a cry for mercy whispered through the storm.
IIt was as if he were standing before a mirror, seeing two reflections staring back at him, both born from the same source yet utterly different, one clear, one distorted, each pulling in its own direction. The more he walked, the sharper that contradiction became, splitting into two distinct currents that pressed against him.
Clay did not know the exact location of the three-eyed raven's lair.
Yet his magical sight pointed the way. As long as he moved toward where the power was thickest, he would be on the right path. He could never go astray.
So he walked deeper, and the haunted forest received him.
The heart trees reached out with gnarled branches like claws rising straight from the underworld. Every touch against him was icy and unyielding, hard as iron on his armor and skin.
Beyond the Wall, similar weirwood trees stood, but aside from the faces carved into them, full of blood and tears, Clay felt nothing.
South of the Wall, north of Neck, the power of the Old Gods had always radiated through the weirwoods, like towers broadcasting signals across the land.
Here beyond the Wall, however, the weirwoods no longer served that function. Something greater, something ultimate, waited just beyond them.
Lord Commander Mormont had given Clay a detailed account of Jon Snow's dreams.
From the appearance of the direwolf, to the cave hidden within the haunted forest, then through that long, wood-like passage stretching like the throat of some enormous beast, and finally to the strange vegetation that held both a direwolf and a raven within its shadows.
"Had your original body already reached its limit?" Clay murmured to himself, the question lost to the wind.
"So eager to transfer your consciousness into another?"
"Even as the vessel of the gods' will, you still fear death. You disappoint me."
He exhaled, and his breath formed a cloud that was instantly shredded by the snow, each flake sharp as a tiny blade, stinging as it struck. Clay's voice was low, muttering to himself from atop his horse.
Others might not understand, standing before such a symbolic scene in confusion. But Clay understood all too well.
The three-eyed raven had undoubtedly sensed danger. That was why it had accelerated the transfer of its will, the process by which it seized Bran Stark's body.
Yet somewhere along the way, something had gone wrong, which was why Clay now faced this bizarre and almost impossible scene.
As for why the raven had reached out in Jon Snow's dreams, it was because the ancient bloodline of House Stark was one of the most suitable vessels for the power of the Old Gods.
Time had long since lost all meaning in the storm, in the endless white.
All that surrounded him was snow, black trees, a leaden sky, and grey mountains stretching into the horizon. Nothing else existed here.
Clay had long since lost count of how far he had traveled, how many hours or days he had been moving through the blinding white.
But he knew, without doubt, that he was heading in the right direction.
Here, at his current position, the concentration of the Old Gods' power was ten times stronger than at the edge of Neck.
It was a place beyond human reach. If Daenerys were brought here, there would be no time and no way for Clay to save her.
Beyond him, and beyond any hope for ordinary men, the frozen wilderness marked the limit of human endeavor. Only the extraordinary, a world shaped by ice and fire and the rare exception of Clay himself, could penetrate it.
Then, suddenly, a faint whisper reached his ears.
It was barely audible over the howl of the wind, yet Clay's senses were sharp enough to catch it.
"Emissary of the Foreign gods… you have come…"
The voice came again: "Go… leave… do not come near me…"
At first, it sounded like the ramblings of a madman. But Clay knew immediately that it was Brendan Havel's harsh, broken voice.
What did it mean?
It knew he was coming, yet it did not want him to come?
Clay brought his horse to a halt, tilting his head to catch any further sound, trying to gather more information.
But the wind had picked up, tearing at his face and ears. The rustling of the trees filled his head, drowning out anything useful.
"You don't want me here? Fine, then I'll come anyway. Always following orders, always listening… where's the honor in that?"
Clay chuckled softly, a humorless sound.
At this point, there was no way the three-eyed raven could handle the situation on its own. If it tried, the entire North might as well be renamed the Sleeping Realm.
It clearly had no grasp of what was happening.
Clay pressed forward. He could feel it now… the moment he had come for was nearly upon him.
The cold around him was no longer simply the bite of ordinary winter.
Hidden within the power of the Old Gods, there was a faint, insidious chill of cold magic, barely perceptible yet deadly. That was what made this place lethal.
Perhaps only plants like the heart trees could survive in such an environment.
"Let's move faster," he murmured, urging his warhorse onward.
He reinforced the animal once more with an Axii Sign.
Controlling a creature as simple-minded as a horse cost him little magic. It was more than enough to resist the pervasive, creeping chill that sought to invade every fiber of his being.
After pressing roughly another thousand meters into the forest, Clay heard Brendan Havel's voice again, louder this time, filled with panic:
"Come save me! They're going to find me!"
"Leave this place! You'll bring them straight to me!"
Even in these two utterly conflicting statements, Clay noticed a common thread.
It was raw, unrestrained panic.
In his memory, the dead, guided by the White Walkers, had traced the three-eyed raven's lair. This one, Brynden, had completed his own ritual at the very last moment and had even killed a certain Hodar who should never have died.
The embodiment of mischief and ruin, that was him.
But now that he was panicking, Clay felt no need to rush.
As for whether the White Walkers would come after him, Clay did not really care.
As long as they did not attack him head-on like a cannon, the military tribunal approach worked perfectly. Simply thrust a spear his way, and that would be enough.
The bodies of the White Walkers were almost entirely composed of magic.
Against ordinary men, their icy armor forged from cold magic, along with their swords of ice, made conventional weapons nearly useless.
But place a sword of Valyrian steel in the hands of someone wielding a different magic system, and even the Night King would become a mere child.
Against Clay, they might as well have been inviting their own doom.
One well-aimed Igni Sign would teach them a lesson… or rather, teach them what it meant to be a ghost.
White Walkers were intelligent creatures. They would not dare provoke him until he had finished his business with the three-eyed raven.
Ignoring the increasingly polarized whispers that floated through the frozen air, he continued forward.
Following the almost visible traces of magic that threaded through the snow and ice, he finally arrived at the mouth of the cave Jon Snow had seen in his dream.
On the surface, it looked completely ordinary.
But once he opened his magical sight, the truth revealed itself.
A surge of gray Old God power poured out from the cave like a flood, suffocating and immense.
It was unmistakable. This was the raven's nest.
Clay paused for a moment, taking in the scale of the power before him, before pressing onward, ready for whatever lay within.
He thought.
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[Chapter End's]
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