Marwyn stepped into the study with the kind of awe he tried and failed to suppress. His eyes darted to the pit, to the glint of broken mirrors still lingering on the floor from my earlier work, to the vaulted ceiling that seemed higher than when he first entered. Castlevania enjoyed playing tricks on new guests.
"Sit," I said, lowering myself into the high-backed chair near the mirror pit and gesturing to the much smaller chair beside me. Marwyn obeyed, though he perched on the edge of his own seat like a student dragged before a master.
"You said you wished to hear of the higher mysteries," he began, voice measured but with an excitement bubbling beneath the words. "Very well. What I know, though it is fractured, is this: magic here is not dead, as the Citadel claims. It is weakened, diminished, a relic of ages past. But it breathes, and those breaths have been growing stronger by the day."
I leaned back, fingers steepled. "Go on."
"The strongest traditions left to us in Westeros are the oldest, those of the First Men and the Childre—"
I raised a hand to halt him before speaking. "I'm familiar with the peculiarities of skin changing and greenseeing. I want to know of the wider world. Of Essos, of Asshai, of Leng. This world is a beautiful place, and I want to explore it, and I hear you have done that already."
Marwyn took a few seconds to go over his words, and this time when he spoke, he had lost a great deal of the nervousness that had plagued him earlier. Instead, his eyes had a faraway look.
"You're right. I have walked the length of Essos and further, chasing whispers of what the world used to be like a long time ago. I have drunk the shade of the evening in Qarth, where the enigmatic warlocks of the House of the Undying reside. They are warlocks who still huddle in their glass towers, their lips stained with their excessive usage of the alchemical mixture.
The drink sharpens their sight, and through forbidden and hidden knowledge, they stretch their lives, though it leaves them half-mad and hollow-eyed. I once watched them summon visions through blackened fires. Some were tricks, but not all."
He smiled ruefully, most likely at a fond memory, before he continued. "They called me a thief of secrets and tried to bind me in a dream after welcoming me into their hold a night before. I cut free only because the spell was weak. Weakened, I think, because magic itself had been asleep. Now…" He trailed off, brows furrowed. "Now, when magic grows stronger with the red comet and your castle," he licked his lips in remembrance, "I'm certain those tricks would be much harder to escape."
I had almost forgotten about them, the warlocks of Quarth. By my estimation, we should be somewhere between seasons two and three. Which meant Khal Drogo was dead, and Danerys was either on her way to Quarth, or she had just escaped the warlocks. I made a note to try scrying for later
Marywn's eyes trailed to the mirrors in the fire pit as he continued. "I've held debates with the shadowbinders in Asshai, where even the stones sweat black and the air hums with poison. Unlike the warlocks, their spells are not tricks. They twist and pierce the fabric of the world itself and are drawn from a dark source that they would tell me nothing off, till i bound myself to them. I refused off course, still i laid witness to many of their sorceries. One of them, a woman with skin as pale as milk and lips stained blue, called fire from her own veins. Burned three of her fellows to ash in a debate on the roadside."
He shuddered, although judging by the glint in his eye it was not from fear, but from the memory of observing such magics. From the remembered awe he felt at seeing such sorcery.
I listened, unmoving, though if I had a pulse, it would be beating in joy right now. I hid my excitement, which was easy under Dracula's placid facade. Still, the thought of all this magic...
"In Volantis," he continued, "the red priests preach their Lord of Light, and I thought them frauds. Then I watched a priestess, a girl barely older than sixteen, lay her hands on a corpse and breathe words that should never have been spoken. The dead man coughed, sat up, and began to weep. His heart beat again. He was no wight, no puppet, and the girl was no Other.
No, He was himself, for a time. But he did not last. The flame guttered and died. Still, the fact it happened at all…" Marwyn shook his head slowly. "If that spark of magic returns in full, even death will no longer hold as it should."
I remembered the often said jest, Planetos was a high fantasy world playing as low.
"Crude," I murmured. My intellect went to dissecting the way such magic would've worked, alongside Rhollor himself. Could he be an aspect of summer as the Great Other was an aspect of Winter? It would make sense, two sides of the same coin, both with a propensity for bringing back the dead. "Crude craft, pulled from the marrow of gods. But if it works, that is enough, I suppose."
His eyes flicked to mine. There was a wariness in them. "Enough, yes. Their faith might be a twisted thing, but their god is real." Not that I had no doubt, still I saw no reason to interrupt again, as he continued. "In Yi Ti, they still remember the thousand-thousand temples, though the emperors bury it beneath jade masks and lies. I found scrolls in the ruins of Leng, written in a tongue older than Valyria itself. They spoke of beasts of shadow and cold that drank the life from armies. Beasts that sound too much like the Others in the frozen north."
I hummed in response before deciding to share what Bloodraven had told me. "It is no surprise. The Others ruled this earth long before humans did. They owned the world in totality, so as summer slowly drove them to the north, I can see how the oldest civilization on this world can retain its most ancient history." Last i checked, Leng and Yi Ti were supposed to be fictional Japan and China too, so it tracks.
Marwyn blinked surprised eyes, then after a second, he nodded along, taking confirmation and believing my words just like that before leaning forward, voice low. "Then there is Valyria itself. The former greatest bastion of magical knowledge. A land where magic is as common as mundane knowledge is in Westeros now. They were the peak of civilization and the fastest growing one. Even the God Emperors of Yi Ti had opened communication channels with them, in respect of how strong, powerful, and quickly they were growing... till the Doom."
He let out a tired sigh, sinking into his chair. "It is the one city I never managed to get a good look at. Oh, I traveled along the outskirts, the remnant colonial cities south of the Painted Mountains like Bhorash, Mantarys, and Tolos. However, that is all they were. Last remnants of a great civilization, with little to their names. It is one thing to speak of the magic of other lands, it is another to speak of Valyria and its mysteries, for travel there is impossible."
I smiled. Perhaps it was impossible for humans. However, I was as far from humanity as an ape was. I was not fully certain of the protections that covered the city, especially since my last attempt at scrying the broken city. I knew there were monsters there. I also knew the air there had to be some variation of toxic, at least according to fan theories. Probably some form of poisonous gases brought forth by fissures in the earth, which instantly kill those who breathe the air close to the ruined city.
I could hold my breath for hours, for days in fact. It didn't matter. I didn't seem to need air very much, if at all. And I was a monster in combat, coupled with Dracula's monstrous physical capabilities. Then there were his magical capabilities, which so far I had been careful in touching.
Unlike speaker magic, vampires drew power from their blood, from their accumulated age and knowledge. In that regard, Dracula was different. Yes, he innately drew magic from his blood like all vampires. His accumulated power and transformation had made him as magically potent as a dragon, but more than his blood, Dracula drew magic from somewhere else sometimes.
Chaos.
The mere mention of it brought a tinge of wariness down my spine. A sensation that reminded me that even the original Dracula had been extremely careful of it and had stuck to using his own blood as the source of his magic in the animated show, which once more brought to mind just how powerful he had been. Starving, using his own blood to fuel and channel his spells, yet he had beaten the trio of vampire hunters like whelps, and that was without touching this alternative source of magic.
"I shall be going to Valyria, and when that time comes, you shall join me," I pronounced at once, the sentence spontaneous.
Marwyn's head snapped to me so fast I wondered if he had broken his neck. He had not. "That's impossib—" He cut himself short as his boggled eyes met my calm crimson.
"You speak to someone who crossed worlds. You speak to me of impossibility?" I questioned with a raised brow.
"Of course not, it was a mere slip of the tongue. Forgive me," Marwyn replied, as he immediately shot to his feet and bowed his head.
I waved off the apology, then continued. "Every day, you will come here and speak to me of the magics of this land. Enlighten me to their usage, teach me of their ways. Of course, this shall be an exchange. This castle holds more knowledge than your Citadel has accumulated in its no doubt storied history. Not just magic but mathematics, linguistics, architecture, and engineering. There is a sea of knowledge open to you. Now you may leave."
Marwyn nodded his thanks once more and immediately backpedaled. The moment he closed the door behind him, I could swear he was skipping for joy, and the mental image of the forty-plus-year-old man, in his brown robes and heavy metal chains around his neck, skipping like a child brought a smile to my face. I looked up at the arch, and with a sigh, I stood up and turned away from the fire pit and to the hidden seam in the wall that had opened up back with the conclusion of my discussion with Marwyn.
"You've definitely had your fun at my expense, now onto my important things," I muttered to the castle as I walked forward into the heart of the castle. I had not been here since the last time I walked the path, worried and troubled by thoughts of a past life. A past life that seemed to be growing fainter and fainter with every breath I took.
I got to the floating cube that powered the castle faster than the previous time, and this time, there was a glow to both the cube and the pillar beneath it.
It had lost its dull, sluggish hue and glowed faintly. It was not the normally radiant and humming with raw, eldritch power cube that it was the first time I had seen it, but it was brighter than it had been the moment we got to the world for the first time.
I blinked, and my eyes flickered red. This time when I reached for the call, it was less instinct and more will. I stretched out my hand, resting it above the humming cube, and the castle responded instantly by once again pushing data into my thoughts.
Everything was green. Structural integrity: optimal. Heating systems: steady. Mechanical functions, primarily powered by steam and occult mechanics, were perfectly calibrated. Magic, however, was yellow.
Specifically, atmospheric and ambient levels. The internal reserves were as stable as they had always been, but that had never been the actual problem. The true problem had always been the magic in the world, the kind Castlevania fed on when transitioning or shifting, the kind it needed to reach into other dimensions.
It was still diminished, but there was enough magic in the world now. Not enough to tear and rip dimensions asunder to make way to a different world, but enough to rip space and travel to other places. Even without the usage of the mirror, I was no longer trapped in the North. I could hear a giggle at the back of my head. This was what Castlevania was teasing me about.
Interplanetary translocation: Online.
I smiled. "It seems like you'll be getting your wish faster than you thought, Archmaester Marwyn," I mused to myself.
x
It took Melisandre longer than she would've liked, longer than she would've preferred. Yet after long months of wrangling for her acolytes and mercenaries to journey with her, long months she had spent on the sea with slavers for company. Slavers, the only people brave or stupid enough to travel to lands beyond the Wall of Westeros.
It was a strange thing to find there was a desire for Wildling slaves among the nobles of Essos. The exoticness of the pale-skinned and bright-haired men and women of the far north was a strange commodity, yet one that the Dancing Belle and her crew were well suited to accommodate.
"Land ahoy!" a man screamed from his place in the crow's nest, Myrish far lenses in hand. Melisandre hugged her fur cloak tighter. The closer to the north of Westeros they had traveled, the stronger the cold blown in from the Shivering Sea had been. Yet it was not enough to stop her journey, not when her god had sent her forth on such a path.
The ship rocked and swayed with the motion as the captain turned the ship. Melisandre held the railing tight even as one of her acolytes staggered his way up behind her.
"The captain advises that we go beneath, Lady Melisandre. Otherwise, we're likely to fall overboar—" A spray of salty sea water caught the man in the face and got into his mouth, leaving him a spluttering and coughing mess that Melisandre gave no attention to. Instead, she spoke.
"Look ahead, acolyte. We make a holy journey to the land of our enemy. A crusade to determine the identity of one, and to check the spread of another. We shall not do such by cowering in the holds, but by facing them head-on with the belief that the Lord of Light watches over us. The Lord of Light protects." She finished with a gesture, and the man, devoid of any sea water in his mouth, murmured behind her.
"The Lord of Light protects."