Chapter 8 6
It became unclear to me. What purpose does death serve? And if death exists, is life even necessary? What is the meaning of life? Perhaps the gods are wrong?
The moment that thought sounded in my head, I was frightened, for it was blasphemy, and divine punishment might follow. I waited, but nothing happened. Instead, somewhere deep inside me I felt a quiet satisfaction and a certainty that I was right. So the gods were wrong.
Exactly two years later a nightmare came to me in the night, and the night after that, and the night after that, and so it went every night without end. I dreamed of the greatest fortress-tower in the world, far taller than the Eyrie. Dark, sharp-crowned towers and iron walls rose from a rock encircled by a moat of lava, and a great bridge led to the gates. At the summit of the tower a fire burned without ceasing, but if you looked closely you could see an eye within it. The eye was wreathed in flame and its pupil was narrow, like a cat's. Every time it turned its gaze toward me, a terror beyond any words gripped me. I fled from it, yet I could always feel it watching.
More frightening still was a figure in a dark hooded robe, wearing a strange helm in the shape of a crown. It pursued me without fail, but never quite caught me. I always woke before it could.
My father and the maester said it was not real, only something my mind had invented, and that I should endure it and it would pass in time. I tried to endure, but I could not manage it. I began to sleep less and to spend more time in the sept, begging the gods for forgiveness, convinced this was their punishment. When I prayed to them I felt an inexplicable revulsion toward myself, but I smothered it quickly out of fear of worse punishment still. All those prayers and prostrations. No matter how much I asked, the Seven gave no answer. The septon said: "One must have patience," and "This is a trial of the Seven," and "The Seven will forgive you when they see fit."
Everyone told me to WAIT and ENDURE!!! I could not and did not want to. I simply wanted to sleep, but an animalistic fear would not permit it. I asked for help, and no one chose to give it. My father, grandfather Robar, my uncles, and even my brother, noble Eddard Stark, who waved me away because he was urgently needed in the North and had no time for me. Though I remember how he had sworn to help me in whatever way he could. His oath apparently did not extend to "children's nightmares."
I considered only Robert my true friend and brother. He, for all his boisterous nature, listened to me carefully. Then, in confidence, he told me about his own nightmare:
"Out of nowhere a storm broke loose. A two-masted galley was smashed apart in sight of my castle, and the sea swallowed my father's ship. I watched all of it and could do nothing. I kept hearing my father's and mother's screams, and at the end I saw their bodies with lifeless eyes. I stopped praying to the gods the very day my father's ship broke apart in our bay. I stopped believing in their mercy. The gods are cruel. That is what gods are. And I would tell you the same: don't wait on them for help."
Then Robert advised me to face my fears head on, the way real men do. I listened.
In the dream nothing had changed. The same tower with the fiery eye, and the same terrible figure. It came toward me. I went toward it. But at a distance of a few paces the fear took hold, and I squeezed my eyes shut and stood waiting.
A heavy, cold gauntleted hand came to rest on my head. I opened my eyes and stared up at the terrible figure in bewilderment. A second later it dissolved into a green light. The light began to pour into me. The pain was unbearable, and I woke.
My head ached dreadfully, so badly that Maester Bart gave me a diluted draft of milk of the poppy. Strange words began to surface in my mind, words I did not know. I asked the maester about them. He could explain some of them, but others he had never heard of, and supposed they belonged to another language.
For two days my head did not stop aching, and the unknown words kept multiplying. Toward evening a terrible word appeared among them: necromancy. Even without Bart's help I understood its meaning at once. Magic that confers power over life and death, the province of gods alone. And I knew immediately that I could use it.
If the gods would not grant what was needed, then it had to be taken for oneself.
That night, without anyone knowing, I crept into the family mausoleum. Looking at my mother's body, I understood that even in death she was beautiful. I felt joyful anticipation at the thought of seeing her again. I had missed her so much, especially the warmth of her arms and the ease of her conversation. There was so much I needed to tell her, so much to show her.
I extended my hand and felt a rotten foulness spread through my body as a sickly green light poured from my palm and moved toward my mother. The light entered her, and the body began to convulse, and after a minute it rose to its feet and opened green eyes.
Tears ran down my face from happiness. I threw my arms around my mother at once and began to tell her everything: my achievements, news of Father, of grandfather, of my uncles, of Ned, of Rob, all of it. But with every word I became aware of something wrong. And then I understood. My mother had not embraced me the way she always did. Frightened that I had done something incorrectly, I asked how she was feeling, but my mother said nothing. No matter what I asked or did, she only stood there.
Unable to bear it any longer, I cried out in desperation:
"Embrace me!"
She did, and I wept with despair. There was no familiar warmth or love in those arms, only cold and indifference. This was not my mother. This was only a body. With a cry I sent magic into her, and she fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
I was in a bad way. My body ached from sleeplessness, my soul from the vile magic and the wreckage of my hopes, and my mind from the hysterics. Walking back toward my chambers, darkness crept over my thoughts, and somewhere near them I lost consciousness at last.