Ryam strolled into the dark vault as if he were ducking into a tavern for a pint of ale. I followed him close.
From the hallway the Deep Vault looked tight. It appeared as small as a broom closet. The moment I crossed the threshold the perspective warped.
The ceiling was lost in shadows high above. The room stretched out further than the torchlight could reach. The space was carved entirely from that oily black stone. It was the kind of rock that drank the light. It sat heavy in the stomach just looking at it.
There were rows upon rows of glass-like containers. They preserved specimens in a clear fluid that never seemed to cloud.
I saw the small withered corpse of a humanoid with bark-like skin.
"That is a child of the forest," Ryam said. He saw me staring at its large eyes.
There was the severed hand of a giant. It was grey and callous and size of a pig.
Further back the preservation grew more terrifying.
I saw a direwolf the size of a destrier suspended in a tank. A kraken's beak as large as a shield. A wyvern with leathery wings spread wide in death.
Dominating the center of the room was a skull suspended by chains of cold black metal. It hung there like a grim chandelier. Its shape was wrong. It looked more like some sea creature than a dragon.
Ryam set the torch in a holder on the wall. I saw that the walls were not smooth. They were covered in spirals that seemed to twist when I looked at them from the corner of my eye.
"Why show me this?" I asked.
"Because you have a mind for the higher mysteries," Ryam said. "And because the Conclave must always have someone who remembers. The world has forgotten what it is. We must not."
He paused. He gave me a crooked smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"And I owe quite a bit of gold to your father."
With those last words he left me there.
The smart move would have been to run. I should have bolted up those stairs. I should have forgotten this ever happened. I should have drowned the memory in a cask of Arbor gold until I pissed it all out.
But I didn't.
I came back. Night after night. Thirteen nights in a row.
I brought parchment with me. I made rubbings of those spiral carvings. I sketched the things floating in the jars. The place sat in my mind like a splinter I couldn't dig out.
On the fourteenth night things changed.
There was a light up ahead. It was not torchlight. It was coming from inside the rocks.
When I arrived it was at a section of wall I had somehow missed before. The carvings were cut deeper here.
I ran my fingers through those grooves.
Blood.
Old blood dried to a black crust. It was not ancient. Someone had done something here.
The next thing I knew my knife was already in my hand. I do not even remember drawing the blasted thing.
I pricked my thumb. I watched a drop fall into the carving. My blood was repelled by that rock like water on oil.
My blood was common Andal stock mixed with the Reach. It was nothing special.
But I knew whose blood might actually wake this thing up.
....
Eight months later.
In the past eight months I found a few more things. One of those is that the foundation of both the Hightower and the Citadel is the same construction.
"Maester, what is this place?" the young acolyte asked.
Terrence was assisting me. He looked nervous as he saw me taking out the vial.
The Iron Throne cuts His Grace pretty frequently. The maesters patch him up after. It wasn't easy to get the blood of a king. I had to trade secrets that certain maesters would kill to keep hidden.
"Watch," I said. "Write what you see. Do not say anything else."
I poured the King's blood onto those spirals.
The stone drank it. It sucked the liquid in with a greed that made my skin crawl.
The carvings started glowing with a pale purple light. It was the color of a bruise.
"Maester Munkun, what is happening?"
"Quiet."
I reached toward those glowing spirals. I touched them.
The stone felt warm under my palm. It was fever warm. It felt like touching infected flesh.
After a long moment when nothing happened I tried to pull back.
I couldn't.
The stone held me fast. Tiny pores opened against my skin. They started drinking my blood.
"Maester?"
"Write this down."
The color of the torch flame changed to purple. Shadows detached themselves from the wall like peeling paint.
Cracks started to appear in front of me in mid-air. It looked as if the world was made of cheap glass.
CRACK!
Things around me cracked open. I was on top of the Hightower.
I have been here before. I knew the stone beneath my feet.
However the sea might just be an illusion. The sea was black except for a few red patches in it.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
There was a figure standing at the edge. He was staring down at the sea. He had one red eye and the other was blue as a summer sky. His lips were dark blue. He looked like royalty from a nightmare.
He held a chalice of Valyrian steel filled to the brim with blood.
"Blood of the dragons," he spoke in a calm voice.
He laughed. It sounded like ice cracking across a frozen lake. He tipped that chalice.
Dragon blood moved into the dark sea like a serpent. It didn't scatter. It didn't dissipate. It just formed this thick glowing ribbon sinking down into the deep.
A shadow rose from below.
At first I thought it was mountains rising from the seabed. But it had tentacles. They were slick and colossal. They uncoiled from the darkness. They drifted upward following that trail of blood.
An eye opened down in the deep.
The Deep One attacked. A limb of wet god-flesh big enough to crush continents surged toward us—
"MAESTER MUNKUN!"
I hit the floor face-first. My nose exploded. The pain felt weirdly distant though. It felt like it was happening to somebody else.
"Blood! Maester, there is blood everywhere!"
Terrence was screaming his head off.
I touched my face. My eyes were crying blood. My ears were bleeding too. I was drowning in my own fluids.
"We have to get out of here! Let me help you."
"No!" I grabbed his robes with both hands. My fingers left red smears on the wool. "Your quill! Get your quill!"
"You are dying!"
I vomited blood. It made a hissing sound where it hit the stone.
"Write...Write it down, boy! ....The dragons. They are bait."
I still had a small amount of the King's blood. It would be enough to show a few Archmaesters what I had seen.
....