The octagonal kitchen was over two hundred square meters and should have felt spacious, yet the furnishings inside took up most of the space.Directly opposite the slaughtering table was a row of more than a dozen massive brick stoves.
Near the southernmost stove mouth, there were traces of something having been cleared away. Not far off, there were charcoal ashes and partially burned wood. By the extinguished campfire lay several fish heads and some scorched fish bones.
Dany walked to the edge of the well and casually asked, "The passage is inside the well?"
"Ah—how did you know?" Sam gasped in surprise.
The well in the center of the kitchen was entirely made of stone. The rim was half a meter high, and the mouth nearly four meters in diameter. The walls of the well were damp, covered in water scale, and along the inner side was a spiral staircase descending into the pitch-black depths.
"A hidden door in a well—such an old cliché. Besides, there's a staircase on the inner wall. It's covered in moss, and there are obvious footprints," Dany said with a faint smile.
As she spoke, she picked up a brick from the floor and lightly tossed it in.
After a while, a dull thud echoed up from the darkness. The faint sound traveled up the well shaft, reverberating softly, as if something hidden underwater had been disturbed and was now stirring.
"Your Grace, allow me to go down and take a look," Barristan volunteered.
"Hold on. Let me drop a fireball down first and scout it out."
Dany waved toward the kitchen entrance, signaling to the black dragon with the long neck.
"Hiss—crack!" With a low growl, the dragon opened its mouth and breathed out a serpent of flame as thick as an arm. It slithered through the air like a living creature, winding toward Dany before coiling into a fist-sized, bright-red fireball.
The scene was like a magic trick, leaving fat Sam dumbfounded. He didn't even notice the cold snot sliding into his open mouth from just beneath his nostrils.
Ever since she'd learned the flawed version of the green seer meditation technique, Dany's control over flame had improved significantly. The fireball now floated with greater agility and range around her.
At this moment, the fist-sized fireball drifted into the well ahead of the white knight, descending slowly.
Dany, Aemon, and Sam leaned against the well's edge, peering down. The fireball drove back the inky darkness, revealing well walls covered in large patches of water scale in varying shades, and a bit of moist, brown moss. Below, the water's surface reflected like a mirror, shimmering and unsteady.
"There's no door," said Barristan.
The well shaft was thirty meters deep. By the time the fireball had descended a third of the way, the walls and water surface at the bottom were already clearly visible.
There was no door, not even a window. The surrounding walls were pitch black and layered in grime, with no trace of any opening mechanism.
Dany turned toward the fat one. From the look of calm certainty in his eyes, she knew he had already expected they wouldn't find a door.
Aemon asked him, "Where is the door, then?"
"Whoosh—whoosh—" As the fireball approached the water's surface at the bottom, a sudden gust of fierce wind roared up from below. The wind howled, and the dark well water surged like a tidal wave. The dragonfire ball wavered unsteadily like a candle flame in a storm.
"Hiss—" The fireball lost its form, stretching into a line of flame that shot ten meters upward with the wind, then rapidly extinguished. The deep well returned to total darkness, save for a low, moaning wind that sounded like a woman weeping.
For the first time, one of Dany's dragonfire balls had been blown out by the wind.
The four of them at the well's edge were forced to step back several paces by the gale from below. Broken tiles from the ceiling above were torn loose and clattered to the ground all around them, creating a racket throughout the kitchen.
"Where did that demonic wind come from?" Dany turned to look at fat Sam in astonishment.
"I don't know. When I went down, there was nothing unusual at the bottom," Sam replied, bewildered.
"There's no gate at the bottom, and certainly shouldn't be such a strong gust of wind," said Aemon and Barristan, equally puzzled.
"That wind definitely wasn't natural," Dany said firmly. "And my dragonfire ball wouldn't be extinguished by any ordinary gust."
"Your Grace, should I go down and take a look?" Barristan asked again.
Dany hesitated. "You saw it yourself—the wind's too strong. If you fall into the water wearing full armor..."
"It's too dangerous. Forget it." She shook her head decisively.
"Sam, what do you think?" Aemon asked, his gaze fixed on the fat one.
Dany and Barristan also turned to look. The invisible pressure made Sam shrink his neck.
After a moment's hesitation, he said in a small voice, "Don't light any torches. Don't drop any fireballs. But Ser Barristan isn't a brother of the Night's Watch—once he's down there, he won't be able to see anything."
"Is it dangerous?" Aemon asked.
"Probably not," Sam replied, frowning and sounding unsure.
Clang! Barristan drew his longsword and suddenly stabbed it into a crack between the well's bricks.
Hiss— The dark blade slid in smoothly, as if piercing wood, sinking a hand's length into the stone edge.
"If anything happens, I'll use the sword to stabilize myself," said the old knight.
"Why not take off your armor?" Maester Aemon suggested.
"No, the armor must stay," Dany shook her head. "That wind wasn't natural—it had traces of magic. Valyrian steel armor is very effective against magical attacks."
"I'll go down first. If I still can't find the Black Gate, then you can come down with me," Barristan said to Sam.
With that, he placed one hand on the well wall and gripped his sword in the other. Step by step, he descended the damp stairs.
Dany frowned as she watched the white knight gradually vanish into the darkness. Only the sound of iron boots clinking against stone echoed through the well, "clack-clack," reverberating within.
It seemed like Barristan had been walking for a long, long time. The wait was agonizing. Dany hovered on the edge of regret, tempted several times to shout down and call the old knight back up.
But the bottom of the well was so calm that even the sound of a knight's iron gauntlet scraping against the wall could be heard. The earlier howling wind now seemed like an illusion.
"Nothing. There's nothing," came the loud voice of the old knight from below just as Dany was torn between hope and fear.
The voice echoed up the shaft, slightly distorted by the time it reached the top.
"I'm coming up?" the old knight said.
"No, let Sam go down. You be careful," said Dany.
Under the Dragon Queen's firm gaze, Sam sighed and muttered to himself as if for reassurance, "I didn't break any vows. Her Majesty is too smart — she found this place on her own."
Those words seemed to have an effect. He regained his energy and quickly descended the stone steps, one hand on the wall, the other hanging at his side.
"Seven hells!" About fifteen minutes later, a terrified scream came from the bottom of the well.
They had been together for nearly two years, had seen Valyrian sorcerers, and even fought Balerion-like wyrms. But never once had Dany seen Ser Barristan so afraid.
He was supposed to be "The Bold"!
"There's a door, Your Majesty, a real door. Seven Gods! It... it—"
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"It's speaking!!!" Barristan shouted in horror.
"Who—who—who—who—who—who—who?" At the same time, a deep yet strangely clear echo came from below.
Dany and Aemon turned pale and instinctively stepped back in fear.
That wasn't Barristan's voice, nor Sam's. A third voice had emerged from the bottom of the well.
But only two people had gone down.
"I am Barristan Selmy, Kingsguard to Her Majesty Daenerys," Dany heard Barristan say, stammering, as if possessed.
"You—should—not—be—here!" said the deep voice clearly.
"I..." The White Knight was at a loss.
"He came with me," Sam suddenly spoke up. "I am the sword in the darkness, the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men."
—It was the Night's Watch oath.
That very afternoon, in the Sept, Dany had personally witnessed Perestan recite the same oath before the Seven.
A full ten minutes passed in total silence, as if the two men had vanished.
Dany and Aemon looked at each other.
"Big Black!" Dany waved toward the black dragon crowding the doorway. Moments later, another ball of dragonfire plunged into the well. It only descended ten meters before halting—enough for those around the rim to see the bottom clearly.
Empty. No door. Not a soul in sight.
Barristan and Sam had disappeared.
"Uh…" Dany again exchanged a wordless glance with old Aemon.
"Let's wait. If they could get out, they can come back," Aemon said.
So the two of them foolishly stood by the well and waited.
Moonlight poured through the broken roof, casting a silvery glow over them. All was silent—so quiet even the sound of scurrying rats had vanished.
A biting cold, like invisible arrows, shot down from the towering ice-crystal walls next door, piercing knees, stomachs, hands, necks, faces, and ears, burrowing into flesh and bone. Aemon couldn't stand it; he leaned against the well edge, shivering violently.
"Old man, go warm up at the door," Dany stamped her feet and said, her breath forming white mist.
"Aye, I'm getting old," Aemon didn't protest. He shuffled over to Big Black and sat against the dragon's neck on a bundle of cloth.
"So warm," he murmured, stroking the dragon's scalding scales, and began to chuckle.
After another half-hour of waiting, Dany finally lost patience. She took off her pack, retrieved the glass candle, locked onto the soul fragments left on Barristan, and began her mental projection.
The eastern side of the Wall stretched straight like a sword; the western side twisted and coiled like a crawling snake.
The land of the North, near the wilds, was flat plains in the east and hilly gorges in the west. The Wall avoided the gorges, rising and falling over jagged ridges.
At that moment, Barristan and Sam were huddled beneath a treacherous hill, between two boulders, stamping their feet and breathing on their hands.
Not far away, the towering ice-crystal wall blocked their path back south — just as it had barred the Free Folk for thousands of years.
"Ser, maybe we should find some wood in the woods and make a fire?" Sam's eyebrows were crusted with frost, and his cheeks looked like two blobs of red jelly from the cold. He could barely speak.
"There are White Walkers in the woods. Just wait — Her Majesty will be here soon," Barristan replied wearily.
"How would Her Majesty know we're here?"
"Where's the door?"
Suddenly, a familiar voice came from nearby. Sam rubbed his eyes and stared in a daze at the Dragon Queen, who was curiously tapping on the Wall. In disbelief, he muttered, "Your Majesty Daenerys?"
"Where's the door?" Dany asked, turning to him.
Sam was too stunned to answer. But Barristan, having already expected her to appear this way, wasn't surprised at all. He crawled out from between the boulders, drew a circle on an ice-crystal wall, and said, "Roughly here."
(End of Chapter)
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