The king on the Great Wall

"Uh... no, there aren't many children of that age in the Nightfort, the guard confirmed, and no one he didn't know left."

"Then could it be that the younger brother of Duke Stark just evaporated out of thin air!?" Earl Karstark glared at Flint, "I heard that there are thousands of people living here, so it is impossible for someone to die when something happens. Let's all run to see Mormont, an old man, what's there to see!"

"Master Karstark was right. Later, we expanded the scope of inquiry to all residents of the entire fortress, and progress was made very quickly. When the incident happened, some women who were drying their clothes saw Mr. Bran and his party From the hall, into the kitchen where the Night's Watch had been quartered."

……

The kitchen, or "ancient kitchen", was an octagonal stone house with a broken vault but seemed generally in good condition.But the strange thing is, compared with the crowds and crowds of clan people everywhere in the Nightfort, this place looks very deserted.

Robb looked at the appearance of the ancient kitchen with some doubts, and asked, "With a little repair, it will be in better condition than most of the surrounding buildings and tents. Why is it not used here?"

"My lord, come in with me and you'll know."

So Iger and a group of northern princes followed the patriarch of the Flint clan across the almost flattened threshold, and entered the kitchen used by the garrison of the Long Nightfort 200 years ago.

The huge room was empty, and the only remaining furnishings were the huge brick oven around, the slaughtering benches lined with scars and stains along the walls, and the rusted meat hooks hanging from the beams above the head... The overall atmosphere was dilapidated and depressed.At the geometric center of the ground of the house, there is also a well that is a bit weirdly large. A crooked tree emerges stubbornly from the side of it overturning the floor. It protrudes from the hole in the roof, pointing gracefully to the sky. I don’t know whether it broke the roof or it chose to grow here because of the hole in the roof.

Robb didn't understand why at first, and waited for Toggenhen's explanation, but after taking a few more glances at the tree by the well, he quickly understood why the clansmen refused to use this nearly complete kitchen: "This... Is this a weirwood?"

***

The hot air floats upwards. Along the cold Great Wall, no matter how strong and safe the building is, a hole in the roof will not be able to treat people.The kitchen is a functional building, and if it is to be repaired and used, the tree growing in the center of the house must be cut down.

The weirwood has an inseparable relationship with the belief in the old gods in religion, and here, whether it is the people from the north, the mountain clansmen, or the people from outside the Great Wall who have just moved to the south of the Great Wall, they all believe in the old gods, and they refuse to chop fish Liang Mu seems to be excusable.

But...is it necessary to be so exaggerated?

Old Gods belief is closer to a religion of nature, and even the most devout Old Gods recognize the weirwood as a symbol of the Old Gods rather than the Old Gods themselves.Believers of the old gods will not regard the weirwood as a god like some extreme religions, and will not see any act of cutting down and harming it.On the contrary, because weirwood is strong and indestructible, its wood is an excellent raw material for all kinds of goods. It is very popular in the Seven Kingdoms - inside and outside the Great Wall. A bow or shield of beamwood is an honor—even in the middle of the Kingsguard meeting room in King's Landing, there is a weirwood table.

What's more, the weirwood is usually a very sturdy tree, with a large proportion of strong trunk and huge root system that twists and turns - but what about this tree?Its shape is slender, and its growth is not straight... The bark is pale, if it is not for the red palm-shaped leaves hanging, it looks like a bone arm without skin and flesh.This is clearly a deformed sapling of not many years old. Its body is so slender that there is almost no room for a human face to be engraved on it. It is not qualified to be a "heart tree". Would you rather live in those dilapidated and leaky huts or wooden huts and tents than abandon such a solid building?

***

Robb didn't dare to say anything else, but if a sapling protruded from the floor of the main castle in Winterfell, the Starks would not care whether it was a weirwood or not. They moved out of the main castle collectively to make room for the sapling.

"Are you thinking, it's just such a small sapling, why should it be taken so seriously?" Togenhen Flint seemed to see Robb's thoughts, and smiled: "No, it's definitely not A common weirwood, and quite possibly the oldest living heart tree in the Seven Kingdoms—"

"You can only be called Heart Tree if you have a face. Don't tell me that all the members of the Flint clan are masters of microcarving?"

"No, what you see now is just the tip of a certain branch of this heart tree. The entire torso of this heart tree under the ground is huge and spans amazingly, absolutely beyond anyone's imagination!"

"It's buried under the ground, no matter how big it is, how can you see it?" Morse Umber snorted, "And, aren't we discussing the whereabouts of Lord Robb's brother? Do you think it's because we all believe in Old God, so you will be attracted by a big weirwood tree?!"

"I definitely don't have that idea! In fact, this largest heart tree in the Seven Kingdoms is really related to the whereabouts of Mr. Bran." Patriarch Flint pointed to the big well in the center of the house: "Witnessed three children and a horse Everyone who entered the kitchen reported that they never came out of it again, but we searched in this room, but we didn't find a second exit or any secret passage... Finally, we thought of this Well."

Could it be that Bran Stark jumped into a well?

Many people present were stunned, squinting at Robb and dared not speak, until Chief Flint made a series of inexplicable actions: he went straight to the big well, and under the surprised eyes and the sound of cold air, he raised his leg and stepped over Along the well, stand in the well.

"What are you doing!" Even if it was hateful to lose his brother, he wouldn't blame himself enough to commit suicide by jumping into a well.Arya, who had been obediently following her elder brother, screamed, but held back halfway through the scream: "Huh——"

That's right, under the watchful eyes of everyone, old Flint "stands" into the well.Many northern nobles, including Arya, were ready to pull people, but after he stepped in with his second leg, he did not fall down with a whoosh, but stood firmly on the inside of the well wall, Looking at the crowd, he shrugged.

Arya shook off Robb holding her hand, and ran over first, and then everyone crowded around and began to study the big well.

First impressions were right—the well was really big, a full four meters wide.The walls of the well are extremely thick, wet and covered with scale moss, and bottomless.A soldier of the Bolton family graciously handed over the torch. Under the light of the fire, everyone understood the reason why old Flint did not fall: there were stone strips extending from the inner side of the well wall to form a staircase, spiraling down. Even in the darkness, the light of the torch cannot reach the bottom.

The crowd watched for a while as if looking at some treasure, and Arya finally couldn't help being curious: "A well... why is there a ladder?"

Someone made a guess: "Probably because the Great Wall is too cold, the well water will freeze, so we need to send people down to break it frequently?"

"Oh." Arya blinked a few times, without questioning this obviously unreasonable statement: "Then Bran, did he go down this ladder?"

"At present, it looks like this." Old Flint nodded: "Do you want to go down and have a look?"

Guess what, but with Robb around, it'd make her mess up.

Arya was eager to try, but finally held back and asked instead, "Is there no water down here?"

Roose Bolton did not speak, silently took the torch from his confidant, and threw it into the mouth of the well.

The torch fell rapidly, and quickly turned into stars in the dark well, and hit the bottom after about two or three seconds, splashing out a cloud of sparks, and finally sank back into the darkness with a "bang".

Both the sound and the sight of the torch falling to the bottom confirmed Togenhen Flint's statement: there is no water under this well, and people can move under it.

The concern for his younger brother overcame his slight fear of the deep dark well, and according to what old Flint said, he or his clansmen had already gone down to see it, and the mountain clan had no reason to harm themselves, the guardian of the north.After hesitating for a moment, Robb nodded: "Lead the way, let's go down and have a look."

-

Chapter 297 The Black Gate and the Weirwood

Lord Karstark volunteered to be the first northern nobleman to go down the well, and Robb Stark stepped cautiously over the edge of the well and onto the stone.After walking down a few steps, he suddenly turned around as if remembering something: "Sir Rodrik, watch Arya, don't let her come down."

"Yes, my lord."

"Ah? Why!" The girl jumped up, and Robb Stark, who assumed the responsibility of the head of the family, seemed to be a different person, and he was quite cautious and strict in managing his younger siblings.What she didn't expect was that he hadn't forgotten herself even though she had behaved so well. "I miss Bran too, I want to find him too!"

"There is no reason, this step is not easy to walk, you slipped and fell, who will be responsible? I don't want my brother to be found, and another sister is broken!"

"I'll be careful!" Arya promised quickly, but seeing that Robb didn't change his mind at all, she turned her pleading eyes to Iger, hoping that he could say a few words for herself, "Master~~"

The parents of Stark's family are all here, what kind of onion is a night watchman, what position does he have to intervene in Stark's family education?Iger shook his head: "Your brother is doing it for your own good, be obedient."

Fearing that his lady would still be disobedient, Sir Rodrik put his hand on Arya's shoulder, and stepped between her and the big well.The girl stomped her feet in annoyance, shook her shoulders and did not move away, and turned her head away with a snort.

……

The stone strips protruding from the well wall are less than half a meter long, and there are still large gaps and height differences between them, which does look dangerous.According to Togenhen Flint, it was very slippery to step on at first, but he sent someone to remove a layer of moss and dirt on the surface of every stone on the entire staircase, which made it into the current state.

One by one, the northern nobles carefully stepped over the edge of the well and stepped onto this passage that seemed to lead to hell. As a half-landlord, of course, Iger couldn't wait on it. , stepped into it without hesitation.

The stairs are so narrow, as long as someone is going up or down, no one can walk in the opposite direction, but after actually walking, you will find that it is not as scary as it looks-I don’t know whether it is the design or the construction is too rough , there will be a stone indented at intervals on the wall of the well to form a groove, which just fills in the defect that there is no handrail on the spiral staircase, so that there is a place for people's hands to borrow strength. As long as they are close to the stone wall and used together, it is safe Sex is pretty guaranteed.

The footsteps of the people echoed among the damp stones, and the light leaking from the hole in the roof of the ancient kitchen gradually faded away, and soon became a dim mass overhead.

Every time it turns around, the surroundings become darker and the environment becomes more bleak... While the stone bars that make up the stairs are gradually shortening at an imperceptible speed, the circumference of the well is also shrinking continuously at a similar rate.Finally, when the four-meter-wide well shrank to about three meters wide, and the steps under the feet were as short as almost one foot long, the light of the torch shone on the dark ground at the bottom of the well.

Everyone went down to the bottom of the well one after another. Iger raised his head and looked up. The mouth of the well had become a distant bright spot like a full moon in the sky.

A black dot emerged from the edge of the "moon", and Arya's voice came from above, and was transmitted through the continuous reflection of the well wall: "Robb~ Robb~ Robb, master~ master~ master, are you all right? ~Are you all right~ Are you all right???”

"It's okay~ It's okay~ It's okay, don't come down!" Robb raised his head to report that he was safe, and began to look at the scene at the bottom of the well.

There was no silt as imagined under the feet, it was not known whether it was dry or frozen, it was quite solid, and under the light of the two torches that were taken down, only three sides of the four walls were illuminated.

To be precise, there are only three walls.

At the bottom of this big well, three sides are ordinary well walls, but on the other side is a rather spacious and tall tunnel, which leads to - as Togenhen Flint said, it may be the largest heart tree in the Seven Kingdoms.

That's right, everyone saw it right away without even needing old Flint's introduction.Because it was so conspicuous that it was hard to ignore—on the pale weirwood, there was a face taller than a person.

The face was pale, old, wrinkled, and looked more dying than Maester Aemon's frail state: the mouth and eyes were drooping and shut, the cheeks were sunken, the forehead was sunken, the jaw was slack... If a person keeps growing old without dying, he can live. In the last 1000 years, then his face probably looked like this.

"It's really big." Earl Amber only took a look at the wooden face from a distance, and realized that what Patriarch Flint said earlier was not an exaggeration... If the wooden face in front of him was really carved on a tree that was half buried in the ground On the main trunk of the weirwood, the small sapling protruding from the stone slab on the floor of the ancient kitchen above his head is one of the ends of its branches... The size of this heart tree can be described as terrifying.

And it is really possible to see that it has almost the same white color and subtle position as the "sapling" in the kitchen.

"Big?" Roose Bolton snorted, "Your focus is wrong, Lord Umber. That face is still dozens of feet away from us. At the bottom of this dark well, we shouldn't have seen it so far away." It—put out the torch."

The latter sentence was addressed to the two attendants holding the torch, and they obeyed obediently. When the orange-red light burning on the torch's head disappeared, everyone immediately understood what Earl Bolton meant by "wrong focus" .

The whiteness of wood does not come from the reflection of fire, but from itself!

This is a color like milk mixed with moonlight. The brightness is so light and weak that it can't illuminate anything in the passage except the door itself. However, it is so clear and recognizable against the dark background. It can't be an illusion.

"Lord Bolton is really thoughtful, and you can see its unusualness at a glance." Old Flint chuckled, "But if you get closer to it, you can find more extraordinary things about it."

I have to say that everyone was really interested. After standing at the bottom of the well for a few seconds to adapt to the darkness, they walked towards the big face together, preparing to study the reason why the wood glowed.But at this moment, an extremely frightening thing happened.

Wooden Face opened his eyes, the white eyeballs were still under the eyelids, and at the same time his lips squirmed slightly, and a sound came out.

"Who are you~ who~ who~ who~ who?"

Due to the distance from the vertical and hard stone well wall, the echo of the wooden face is much lower than that of the person shouting from the well, but it is still clear enough for everyone to hear...In this dark underground, everyone With eyes wide open and ears pricked up, this unexpected surprise frightened everyone. Even Iger, who was mentally prepared, had his heart skip a beat...someone even pulled out their weapons in an instant.

"What the hell is this?" Greatjon Umber took two steps back, swallowed, resisting the urge to draw his sword too.

"I don't know, but what is certain is that as long as someone gets within three feet of this face, it will do this - open its eyes and ask who you are." The Flint patriarch replied, "We have tried various I didn’t get a response for the answer, so guess what kind of code is needed to trigger the next step.”

***

Togenhen Flint had a stupid mouth, but a bright mind—of course, it may be that the wise men or staff members of the Flint clan guessed the truth correctly.He was right: to get a response from the wooden face, a signal is needed... and Egger even knows what it says: "We are the guards on the Wall, from the cold fire, from the light of dawn, from the horn that wakes the sleepers, from the The shield of the kingdom."

After a sworn night watchman brother recites this passage, the wooden face named "Black Gate" will open its mouth wide, slowly revealing a passage leading directly to the other side beyond the Great Wall.

This is a secret passage, a safe passage for people to quietly cross the Great Wall... More precisely, if Iger guesses - it is the back road prepared by the Green Prophet for his successors, specially for Bran: to be chosen Prepare for the situation in which the guardian of the deceased will not allow him to go north out of the Great Wall.

Thinking deeper, Iger can even boldly guess: this so-called door opening signal is just a cover.

In the original plot, Bran and his party escaped from Winterfell. After a long trek to the deserted Long Night Fort, they "coincidentally" encountered being turned into a cold hand while sleeping in the kitchen to avoid the wind and snow. Rescued by Benyan Stark, Sam and Gilly climbed up from the well through the Great Wall through this secret passage, and indirectly learned the secret code to open the door from them, so they arrived outside the Great Wall smoothly and continued their journey to find the Green Prophet .

This unbelievable coincidence is really unreasonable. If you think about it carefully, it must be the arrangement of the Green Prophet.

Then here comes the problem: in this timeline, the Ranger Expedition did not happen because of his own efforts to dissuade him, and all the sworn brothers who could open the door stayed in the fortress along the Great Wall... and the ghoul-turned Bunyan Stark can only wait at the other end of the passage, and cannot meet them through the Great Wall. How did Bran and his party pass through this wooden door and go beyond the Great Wall?

Thinking about it with your toes, Greenseer will naturally take steps to solve this problem.

He has been preparing for this successor for so long, how could he watch Bran and his party arrive at the Long Nightfort, but sit trapped in front of the black door—because they don't know the code, or they are not a night watchman, so they can't leave?

Whether it is to send another person to replace Sam, tell Jojen or even Bran the secret code through the dream, or directly open the door through magic control when they arrive at the door... For a place where the weirwood exists, it is the arrival of perception and ability For an extremely extraordinary existence, it's all a piece of cake.

***

Iger knew the password, but he didn't intend to reveal it—it was simple to make up a reason to explain that he knew the password to open the door, but if the door really opened... Robb Stark had a whim and wanted to take someone north to find his brother, Then do you accompany me or not?

"This...is a miracle!"

"How does it grow when it is buried in the ground and cannot be exposed to the sun?"

"That's not the key at all, it's time to ask why it glows!"

A group of people from the northern border waited for a few seconds, moved away and approached several times to confirm that there was no danger, and then began to chat about this unprecedented weirwood tree.

"There is one more detail, I want to tell you adults." Togenhen was not surprised by the gaffes of the northerners. When he and the warriors in the clan first discovered the tree, they were no different than these guests. They were more calm: "Have you noticed the relationship between the well and the orientation of this tree?"

Everyone stopped discussing, looked back at the bottom of the big well that had just come down from above, and then looked at the big face on the weirwood, but couldn't answer a single one—passed a spiral staircase and walked down tens of meters, enough After turning around more than ten times, under the pitch-black again, everyone has lost their sense of direction.

After hesitating for a moment, Iger was the first to react: the weirwood "seedling" on the kitchen floor grew slanted towards the south, if it is really a part of this underground giant tree...

"Are we now north of the bottom of the well?"

"Master Iger is worthy of being born as a ranger, and his sense of direction is really good. Look again, how far are we from the bottom of the well?"

About ten meters, what's wrong?Iger squinted his eyes, and it was obviously impossible for the other party to ask a meaningless question... Without much brainpower, he realized the meaning of "direction" and "distance": the building that was used as a kitchen by the ancient night watchmen, immediately Next to the Impassable Great Wall, the distance from the foot of the ice wall is less than ten meters.

So……

"Are we under the Great Wall now?" Iger was shocked. This is a detail that Flint did not mention in the letter. If this is the case, then this tree may be more than just a secret passage! .

"That's right! If this weirwood grew on the ground, it would have to be at least a hundred feet high, but now it's being pressed under the ice wall, so... its supposedly huge canopy, doesn't it all grow on the Great Wall?" where?" There was a hint of pride in Old Flint's words, and he seemed to be proud of himself for discovering this first: "But thinking about it the other way around, why is it 'the Great Wall suppressed this heart tree' instead of-- What about 'It held up the Great Wall'? At least this section?"

The northern princes were whispering, while Iger was completely shocked and speechless. Togenhen Flint may not even know what his guess means... But as a time traveler and night watchman, he He has more information than these people in front of him.Iger almost instantly thought of an impressive key point in the original plot: ghouls cannot break into the heart tree where the Green Prophet lives, and those who forcibly enter will immediately fall apart and turn back into corpses or broken bones.

Coincidentally, the information provided by the savages shows that the White Walkers and the dead people they control don't like to get close to the Great Wall.And the night watchman also discovered one thing in the process of actually fighting these living enemies: the closer they are to the Great Wall, the weaker they are.

In the past, the night watchmen explained this series of phenomena with the general phrase "magic is woven in the Great Wall", but today, Iger thinks that he may have discovered the truth: the magic power of the Great Wall may come from the tree or N super-large trees that exist under it. Weirwood... It is their existence that makes the Great Wall not just a 200-meter-high ice wall!

-

Chapter 298

Iger approached the giant weirwood, touching it cautiously.

If you just look at it from the tunnel, you can’t tell that it’s a weirwood... The reason why Togenhen Flint swore that this is the largest heart tree in the Seven Kingdoms is simply because there is a huge human face carved on the wood. up—and in Westeros, only the Old Gods would do that on the weirwood.

In addition, there happened to be a weirwood seedling on the kitchen floor, which could support this conjecture, so no one doubted his statement at all.

As for the huge crown and root system growing in the ice wall, and the weirwood brought the Great Wall the power to resist the aliens, it is all association and inference.

……

But it's the same as Melisandre's feeling that Iger is the son of prophecy: many guesses that had no conclusive evidence, once subconsciously confirmed first, it will look like it no matter how it looks, and there will be evidence all over it.

Putting these factors aside, if we only look at the scene in front of us, there is actually another possibility: in front of them is a simple magic door with a human face carved on it, but the material happens to be weirwood, and a tree happens to grow on the ground above their heads. A misshapen weirwood sapling.

It's not impossible.

You can see the whole leopard from a glimpse, and you can know the sea from a drop of water.Iger tried to find more clues from the wooden door to prove...or disprove that it was part of a tree.If all goes well, he will soon be the commander-in-chief of the Night's Watch, leading the defenders of the Wall and the residents of the Land Grant against the natural enemies of mankind. It would be absolutely beneficial and harmless to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the "magic woven" in the Great Wall.

***

(I don't know if this glowing wood is radioactive?)

Iger muttered in his heart, and touched it for a while through the glove, but found nothing unusual.Thinking that a layer of fur could not protect against radiation anyway, he simply took off his gloves and touched it with his bare hands.