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"Leave. You are not welcome here."
Green eyes glimmered in the whirling storm of snow and wind, full of unease and quiet resistance.
They were small, their dark chestnut-brown skin wrapped in thick garments woven from leaves, vines, and other forest growth.
It was obvious at a glance… they were not human.
And yet, the words they spoke were perfectly clear to Clay.
That alone already set them above most of the people on the continent of Westeros.
To master not only their own ancient tongue but also the common speech of men… such a gift was far from ordinary.
Once, long ago, these beings had ruled this very continent. But their small, delicate bodies had proven no match against tall humans clad in bronze armor.
They had been pushed back, again and again, until at last the whole wide world left them only one place to call their own: the frozen wilds beyond the Wall, the forbidden lands where mankind dared not dwell.
At the very first glance, Clay recognized them for what they were.
The Children of the Forest!
A race spoken of almost entirely in the archives of the Citadel and in the bedtime tales of northern folk.
"You know who I am, then?"
Clay smiled as he spoke. His left hand subtly shifted into the sign of Igni, the fire sigil, while his right hand rested lightly on the hilt of the Valyrian steel sword at his waist.
If these creatures insisted on remaining stubborn, then he would test the truth for himself, discovering firsthand how the flesh and bones of the Children of the Forest differed from those of mankind.
The Children, who had long forgotten the experience of crossing blades with human warriors, showed no sign of vigilance in response to Clay's unmistakably aggressive stance.
Had he been facing even a half-trained swordsman of mankind, the man's eyes would already have been fixed on the movement of his hands, watching with wary precision.
Because once a hand tightened on a sword hilt, there could be no mistaking the intent. Everyone knew exactly what would follow.
After a long silence, the three Children who barred his way finally stirred. The one standing at their head opened its mouth and spoke slowly, almost grudgingly:
"You are dangerous."
Clay's brows drew together. What kind of reason was that supposed to be?
A sharp laugh escaped him, carrying equal parts mockery and scorn. "Me, dangerous? Think carefully. Who is truly the greater threat, the servants of the Cold God, or the man who has enough patience to stand here wasting words with you?"
"And what about that raven?"
The Children exchanged glances. Inwardly, they could not deny the truth of his words.
The frozen winds carried enemies everywhere, each one brimming with malice. Yet centuries of blood-feud with humankind left them with no ground at all on which to build trust.
"Lord Greenseer…"
One among them, a figure with a vacant, almost dazed look, blurted out as though by instinct, ready to answer Clay's question.
But before it could speak further, the more clear-minded one shoved him sharply aside.
The dazed one fell silent at once. The other fixed its gaze on Clay, holding it for a long, thoughtful silence before finally asking: "How did you find this place?"
Clay spread his hands wide. "The black raven you're guarding has scattered the Old Gods' power across the entire North. It fills the air so thickly it's almost impossible to breathe. If I hadn't come searching, I fear the living creatures of the North would soon freeze to death in their sleep, smothered under endless storm and snow."
At those words, the leader faltered, momentarily at a loss.
Of course they knew what he spoke of. They themselves were of the Old Gods' line. The magic they wielded was a weaving of green life and the ashen gray of the Old Gods, forever intertwined.
"Stand aside," Clay said, his patience wearing thinner with every moment. "That damned raven has stirred up chaos, and he owes me an explanation."
The three Children of the Forest still stood rooted at the entrance like wooden stakes, unyielding. Clay's patience was being gnawed away bit by bit.
Did they truly think Clay Manderly was a man so easy to trifle with?
"You cannot find Him," one of them finally admitted. "In truth, neither can we."
At last, the Children chose to yield.
Before the Greenseer had sunk into his long slumber, he had left them with a clear command: this one, for now, is not our enemy.
That left Clay momentarily stunned. What was that supposed to mean? Could it be that the Three-Eyed Raven was not even inside the cave at all?
The tallest of the Children spoke then, his voice low and solemn. "The Greenseer, in order to avoid the gaze of the Cold God, hides within the dreams of the Northmen."
"He wanders ceaselessly from one dream to the next, for it is the only way to remain hidden and escape the grasp of the final, ultimate evil."
"But the dreamscape has slipped beyond control. The Greenseer may already have lost the path back, unable to find the way out…"
Clay's heart gave a sudden, jarring thump. In an instant, a thousand threads of thought clicked into place.
The truth was nothing like what he had expected. The whole situation had unfolded in a way entirely beyond anticipation.
At last, he understood what purpose the spreading power of the Old Gods served.
That raven was terrified of dying.
He had used the dreams of a million souls in the North as his escape route, weaving them into a shifting passageway through which he could flee the pursuit of the Cold God.
Yet, according to what the Children revealed, this messenger of the Old Gods' will had badly miscalculated. He had underestimated the raw, uncontrollable force of nearly a million human dreams, while at the same time overestimating the extent of his own command over them.
Now He had become…
A wandering shade!
A restless ghost adrift inside the dreams of strangers, unable to find the exit.
Brynden Rivers, Clay thought with a dark twist of satisfaction, so even you've lived to see this day?
No… worse than that. You wretched bastard. You useless burden dragging the whole side down.
Wasn't this the most classic fate of mages? To perish at the hands of their own spell?
Clay didn't know how exactly the Cold God had managed to fix its gaze on him, but the fact that the Bloodraven had chosen such a bizarre method to escape meant there had to be some logic behind it.
Still, all it did was make life harder for him.
Here he was, a man ready to carve a bloody path through the waking world, and instead he was being saddled with this mess…
He had so many curses boiling in his chest he almost choked on them, unable to find words fierce enough to vent the anger.
Forget it. Better to think first of how he might pull the wretch out, if it was even possible.
He remembered the words Jon Snow had once heard in a dream, spoken by the Three-Eyed Raven himself:
"It is not yet the time to open the gate."
Whatever that gate was meant to be, one thing was certain. From the way matters stood now, the ones trying to break it down were most likely the Cold God and His servants, and perhaps even those strange knights from beyond the world, whose arrival no one could foresee.
Even if, by some twisted chance, these beings had come to fling the gate wide in the name of bringing warmth, Clay could not, and would not, allow them to succeed.
What mattered most right now was finding some way to communicate with this treacherous old being.
With that thought, Clay stepped forward into the hollow of the great tree.
To his relief, the space inside was far larger than the cramped burrow Jon Snow had seen in his dream.
He didn't have to crawl inside on hands and knees in some humiliating posture.
As he descended further, the air grew less biting, the chill giving way to a temperature that was far more tolerable.
No wonder, he thought, as his eyes lingered on the garb of the Children of the Forest, clothing woven from leaves, vines, and bark. It was clear they were never meant to endure the fury of blizzards or the bleak expanse of snowfields.
Mystery solved!
So this was it… the venerable folk lived in the hollows of trees.
At the bottom of the cavern, thick fog pressed close and heavy, filling the chamber. Clay gathered magic into his palm and released a blast of the Aard Sign.
But unlike before, the fog did not simply roll back when struck. Instead, it hissed and vanished, like snow melting the instant it touches boiling oil.
Clay was not surprised in the slightest.
He knew well that this fog was no natural phenomenon. It was the magic of the Old Gods, condensed to such a density that it had taken on shape in the air.
When it collided with the alien force of his own magic, its inner structure unraveled, and naturally it dissolved faster than anything else could.
Behind him, the three Children of the Forest gasped aloud. In that moment, they understood. The man before them was perhaps even more frightening than the Cold God's own followers. The raw surge of power flooding from him left their hearts trembling with fear.
Clay paid no attention to what they were thinking.
Because the moment the fog cleared and revealed what lay beyond, he felt that his journey here had been worth every step.
At last he understood why the Three-eyed Raven had chosen this forsaken, desolate corner of the world as its own roost.
Before Clay's eyes rose a heart tree of unimaginable scale, its roots and trunk filling the cavern, its pale surface glowing faintly under the dim light of the surrounding luminous plants.
It was, without question, the largest heart tree he had ever seen in all his wandering across Westeros.
Compared with this giant, the weirwood at Winterfell was nothing more than a sapling.
He tilted his head back. The massive crown of branches vanished upward into darkness, lost in the unseen vault of the cavern's upper reaches.
There was no light above, nothing to see clearly, only a sense of immensity pressing down.
Clay forced himself to keep his face steady, but it was difficult. This far surpassed even his imagination.
He was nearly certain now that this was the very core of the Old Gods' power north of the Neck.
"The Greenseer waits ahead."
One of the Children of the Forest glanced at the foreign god's emmisary who stood frozen in place, and whispered the reminder.
Clay made his way around several enormous trunks, each so thick that even with both arms spread he could not have encircled one.
And then, on the other side, he saw Him.
An old man, bound and pierced through by a tangle of roots and branches, his withered body almost swallowed by the tree itself.
He looked exactly as Clay had seen him the first time he met the Three-eyed Raven.
This was Brynden Rivers, the Bloodraven, once a man and now the vessel of the Old Gods in Westeros, a lingering remnant of an age long gone.
Once, his eyes should have blazed red, their fierce stare strong enough to meet Clay's gaze without flinching. Now, however, the head crowned with thin white hair lolled weakly to one side. If not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, Clay might have sworn the old man had already breathed his last.
The ancient figure seemed to be sleeping soundly. With every shallow breath, the leaves sprouting from the branches that entwined around him gave off a faint, sleepy rustle, swaying ever so slightly in the still air.
The sight made Clay itch to walk right over and kick him awake.
"You never tried to wake him? Do you truly have no idea what is happening outside?"
Clay turned back with a frown, his eyes narrowing as he questioned the three Children of the Forest who had followed close behind him.
"We tried," one of them replied softly, "but it cannot be done. Though we share the same source of magic with the Greenseer, all we can do is enter the dreams he creates for himself."
"To put it another way," another explained, "we can step into our master's room, but if he isn't inside, we have no way of knowing where he has gone."
Clay gave a slow nod. He understood what they meant.
So the Cold God was attempting to lock onto Brynden Rivers's location by tracing his consciousness. That explained why the man had scattered so many dreamers across the North to serve as his "bedmates."
Nearly a million dreamers. Nearly a million rooms. Go on then, Cold God, search them all. If you find me, I will admit defeat.
That was likely the logic at work.
After a brief hesitation, Clay asked, "Can you let me into your Greenseer's dream?"
As soon as these words were spoken, the three Children grew tense, their eyes sharpening with suspicion.
"What do you intend to do?" they asked in unison.
"What do you think? He is trapped in his own dream. I need to find a way to drag him back out."
"If he keeps sleeping like this, the North is doomed. Even if the Cold God resorts to clumsy means, sending wights to scour the land piece by piece, sooner or later he will find you, and then it will all be over."
"Beyond the Wall isn't that vast. Do you really think your little scheme is flawless?"
Clay's words carried not the slightest courtesy.
"You… you must not harm the Greenseer…" one of the Children stammered.
"I know. At most I'll slap him a couple of times, maybe pluck a few feathers off his damned raven form. Relax. If I manage to find him, I'll do whatever it takes to haul him back."
For a long while the Children of the Forest stared at him, whispering together in a tongue Clay could not follow. Finally, after much muttering, they clenched their teeth and nodded in reluctant agreement.
"The magic within you is not the same as ours. That difference should make it easier to wake you, once the time comes."
"Good. Then it's settled. Three days at most. No matter what, you wake me."
"…Very well."
The bargain struck, Clay felt no surprise.
The situation was obvious. They desperately needed someone outside their own magical system, someone unbound by the same limits, to try and fish the Three-eyed Raven out of his prison.
If they had the power to do it themselves, they would never have been forced to turn to him. As it stood, with the three-eyed raven trapped, they were left guarding him endlessly, waiting for the day disaster would come.
And sooner or later, the Others would come knocking. When that day arrived, these frail little bodies of theirs could never hope to stop the advance of the Cold God's servants.
If the Old Gods' chosen vessel were ever to fall into the Cold God's hands, the consequences would be unthinkable.
Neither side wanted to see that fate come to pass. And so, there was room for an alliance.
As for what would come afterward… that could wait until Clay dragged the man back from his dream.
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[Chapter End's]
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