Chapter 5: Royal Visit pt. 3

“Your Grace, if you will excuse us,” I said quickly. “Lord Stark, Aethon can make it back faster than any other, even with a second rider.”

“Your Grace…” Eddard started to say, the worry obvious in his voice.

“Go Ned, go!” the king shouted. “We’ll be right behind you.”

“Hold on tight, my lord,” I instructed. “Aethon, back to Winterfell, fast as you can.”

And that was fast. Twenty plus miles per hour in relatively dense forest was fucking terrifying, and I knew I’d likely survive the impact long enough to heal. Lord Stark though paid it no mind, all his focus on returning as quickly as possible to see to his son. Twenty some minutes later we reached Winterfell and thundered through the gates.

“Guardsman, where’s my son!” Ned shouted as we came in.

“The Maester is seeing him in your son’s room, milord,” the man answered.

Eddard literally ran to Bran’s room. Togo and I followed on his heels. As we came to the room itself, I told Togo to wait outside then followed Ned in. I wanted to try healing Bran. It might make my magic public, but I was willing to risk it if it meant saving his life. The Starks were crowded around the bed, Maester Luwin still seeing to Bran.

“Maester, how is he?” Lord Stark asked.

“As I was just telling Lady Stark, not well. His legs and lower spine are shattered, and the blow to the head has caused significant swelling. Even if he survives, and wakes, he may never be the same. It will be a miracle if he walks again.”

Damn. That was bad; if there was bleeding inside his brain… I needed to act immediately.

“If you’re not doing something useful, clear the room,” I ordered. A few servants left, but that still meant that there were a couple assisting Maester Luwin and the Starks themselves left over. “Maester Luwin, a word if you please.” He looked up from treating Bran, incredulous that I would interrupt him. Then he considered my sometimes superior knowledge, and came over.

“I think I can help,” I said softly. “But I won’t be using physical knowledge, if you grasp my meaning.”

“Magic, you mean? I don’t know of any that still works in this age.”

I grimaced. I hated blowing away even the fig-leaf that I wasn’t a mage.

“I can. You’ve seen Togo, and Aethon. I can attempt to use similar techniques to heal Bran,” I offered.

He frowned. “What would you say the odds were?” he asked.

“Honestly? Sixty to eighty percent. I can’t tell before I inspect him, and I’ve never tried to fix something so badly damaged,” I replied.

He sighed. “It’s better than anything I can manage,” he admitted. Then, he clapped his hands and spoke louder. “Everyone except for Odysseus, Lord and Lady Stark, please leave.” When people seemed to be waiting for something else, he spoke again, harder this time. “Now, please.”

Lord Stark looked at us, then nodded. “Do as he says. Don’t argue,” he said to his children. Below the window I could hear Bran’s wolf, still unnamed, howling and howling.

After the room emptied, I turned to Lord Stark. “I suspect that you are aware I am more capable than I admit,” I said.

He nodded. “You didn’t make much effort to hide it from us.”

“No, I didn’t. With your permission, I’ll use my skills to try to heal Bran,” I said.

“Why do you need our permission? Why can’t Maester Luwin fix him?” Catelyn questioned.

“The fact of the matter is, my Lady, that Odysseus represents the best chance for Bran, but it’s not a sure thing,” Luwin explained.

“You have my permission,” Lord Stark said as Catelyn broke down into sobs.

I walked over to Bran, putting my hands over his stomach and head. I used a small amount of Blue mana to scan his body. It was in bad shape. The brain was swollen and heavily concussed; there had already been some permanent damage in what I thought was short term memory. The bones in his legs and spine had partially splintered. I couldn’t simply add regeneration and mend the injuries. Instead, I had to put him back together.

I wasn’t sure whether I should start on the brain, or the legs. The brain might mean he’d wake up, and given the damage if he flailed about in pain it could kill him. On the other hand, if untreated, the brain could kill him first.

After thinking about it for a minute, I bit my lip. I needed to start with the brain, but I could hit him with a sleep spell. I’d never tested one before, since magic affecting the brain seemed risky, but needs must when the devil drives. I channeled up a mixture of Blue and White, forming into the shape of sleep/slumber/peaceful dreams, then poked it into Bran’s head. I watched it take hold in relief; it didn’t fuck anything up, and it looked to be stable enough to last a day or until I took it down.

Then I took a White Mend Wounds, mixed it with a Life-force Imbuement, added a healthy dosage of Green Regeneration and a twist of temporal rewind from Blue, and stirred to get what I decided to call a Recover Damage. I pushed that into his brain and relaxed as I saw the swelling immediately recede, broken blood vessels fixing themselves as I watched. But that did mean I was temporarily tapped out on Blue, and at half-strength in Green and White.

I hoped it would be enough for the next bit. Using White, I restored the bones to their proper places, then used a dosage of localized regeneration to fix it up. As I finished the spine, I ran out of mana and was left sweating. I stood up, and went to get a drink from the water pitcher.

I chugged the water down, then gasped for air. The exhaustion was more in my mind and soul than body, but there was a degree of psychosomatic bleed-over. The Starks and Luwin were looking at me worriedly.

“So, good news. His brain’s fine now, he’s just sleeping. I’ve fixed up his spine, and in a few minutes when I’ve recharged a bit can get started on the legs,” I explained.

“Oh, thank the Gods,” Catelyn said.

“Thank you, Odysseus. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay this debt,” Lord Stark added.

“There’s no debt, Lord Stark. After you took me in, I’d do this for any of your family, but I’ll admit to having a particular soft spot for Bran.”

“Please,” he said. “Anyone who saves my son’s life, and further his ability to walk and ride, can call me Ned or Eddard.”

“Very well, then, Ned,” I said with a faint smile. “Wow, that feels weird.”

He snorted, then chuckled. It wasn’t really that funny, more a reaction to the release of stress from knowing his son would be alright.

I felt my mana bonds coming back online, so I stood up, stretched, and went back to sitting by Bran’s side. I continued to re-align his bones, healing them as much as I could as I went along. Finally nearly an hour later I was done.

“Alright, all done,” I said. “He should be fine, but may have lost some of his short term memories from just before he fell. Shall I wake him now?”

“Please,” Lord Stark said so I removed the magic keeping him in a peaceful slumber, then poked his cheek while Catelyn looked on vaguely disapprovingly until he stirred.

“Oh Bran, you had us so worried!” Lady Catelyn exclaimed as she hurled herself to his side and enveloped him in a hug. Ned bent over, and rested a hand on Bran’s shoulder.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked his son.

Bran seemed lost in thought for a moment, then answered. “I was… climbing the broken tower? Then I heard voices. I was just going closer to find out what they were saying, then I woke up here.”

Damn. Well, it seemed likely this wasn’t an accident. As the Starks caught him up, I went over to the corner where Brans clothes were piled. Maester Luwin had cut them off the boy to better treat him. Tangled in his harness was a length of rope. It had been cut on the end that should have led to the belaying equipment.

“Alright, two things. First off, for Bran. He needs to spend the next two weeks in bed, putting as little stress as possible on his body. His bones are currently held together with a wish and a prayer, and I don’t know if I can heal them if they break again. After those two weeks, he can get up but for two more weeks only to do some physical recovery, which I or Maester Luwin will oversee, or to go to the chamber-pot.” Bran didn’t seem very happy about that. “I’m sure Maester Luwin can find some good story books, and that your mother would be happy to read them to you, Bran.” Now he was a bit happier.

“Second,” I continued. “Bran’s rope was cut. His fall was no accident.” Lord Stark was literally growling in rage. I think I’d seen more emotion from him in the past hour than the previous eight months. “With your permission, Lord Stark, I’ll investigate the Tower. Togo may be able to catch a scent, and there are some techniques my home uses to identify criminals that might be effective.”

Eddard’s jaw worked for a bit. “Go. Tell Jory to assign four guards to the room, and four to help you, with the rest to go to full readiness. You can request anything I have that might help you.”

I shook my head. “That should be enough, if Maester Luwin would be willing to lend me a bottle of talcum powder and a fine brush.”

I could tell that Stark was curious, but he just nodded. Maester Luwin stuck his head out of the room, and sent his servant-assistant off to fetch the materials. He called Jory in, who received his orders with cool competency. A few minutes later, I had my talcum powder, my guards, and I was off to the Broken Tower.

After all, I had to figure out who was responsible for Bran’s fall before I could wreak my bloody vengeance on them.

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As I approached the Broken Tower, I saw a Stark man guarding the place where Bran had fallen.

“Guardsman,” I said, not recognizing him. He straightened himself respectfully. “Did you see anyone enter or exit the tower after Bran fell from it?”

“Yes, sir. Ser Lannister and a half-dozen of their red-cloaks searched it to see if anyone was inside; they didn’t find anything,” he replied.

Damn. Well, hopefully they hadn’t contaminated the crime scene in any significant way. It wasn’t like I had high fidelity tools or any experience in forensics though, so hopefully the clues were obvious enough I could find them in the first place.

Four hours later, and all I knew was that someone had been having sex somewhere in the tower. My crude technique couldn’t get anything better than a partial print, which I had no hope of matching without statistical analysis. I couldn’t figure out a spell to scan for DNA, and when I tried in my rage to sympathetically curse whoever was responsible for the semen traces Togo found, it merely disintegrated my link. I was pretty sure the curse didn’t work.

Scent wise, it was a wash – literally. The scent they wore was extremely expensive, and thus used by nearly half of all the higher court ladies as well as whichever servants could get away with filching it. I even tried developing psychometry or post-cognition, but couldn’t get more than faint impressions of passion from the one or a few minutes of my searching the room for the other.

In short, I had didly squat and hundreds of potential suspects to whom keeping their affair secret might be worth killing over. Short of using Bran to set a trap, something I wasn’t willing to do and his parents would likely reinstate flaying just for me for suggesting, I saw no solution.

I reported as much to Lord Stark, who wasn’t happy but decided to spread the word that Bran was awake, likely to make a full recovery in time, but couldn’t remember the minutes leading up to his fall. Meanwhile he was under heavy guard, and the loyal Stark servants were warned to beware attempts to poison him or other guests.

Eddard did reveal to me Lady Catelyn’s sister, Lysa Arryn’s theory that a Lannister was behind her husband, the previous Hand’s death. I warned him that given the Southern court, it was entirely possible that the death of Lord Arryn and the attempted murder of Bran were unrelated, just as it was possible the incidents did have some conspiracy in common.

The next few weeks were tense. The king was incredibly upset that someone would try and kill his best friend’s nine year old son. Frustrated at his inability to do anything constructive, he spent the time in something of a frustrated funk and snapped at those who caught his attention. Three weeks after Bran fell the main party left for the capital, and the servants breathed a little easier.

For my part in saving Bran’s life, beating Clegane, and showing off my archery skills, Lord Stark felt justified in knighting me. I swore my oaths at dawn in front of the Heart tree, as was accepted practice for what few Northmen decided to become knights. I picked a black silhouette of a horse archer performing a Parthian shot on a light grey background for my heraldry.

Lord Stark had further wanted to make me a noble, but I had no interest in administering a fief. Instead he wrote a warrant for me, allowing me to act as his emissary when I felt it necessary. That was a huge amount of trust; as his emissary, I basically spoke with his voice and authority as the Lord Paramount and Warden of the North. Considering he was about to be Hand… well, it was a lot of authority.

I spent most of those weeks camped out with Bran, keeping him amused so he wouldn’t go on a walkabout and ruin all my hard work. Also, between Togo and myself it would take a small army to get to Bran. I started to work on Summer, Bran’s newly named direwolf, making it grow faster, stronger, tougher, smarter. Basically the same upgrades I’d worked on Togo, though forgoing the gigantism due to lack of time and need.

By the time Bran’s month of recovery had passed, Summer was nearly three hundred pounds and could shred a handful of armored knights without issue. I made Bran promise to keep Summer nearby, follow his lead when it came to trusting people, and have the animal check all the food and drink before he ate it. Bran was just happy to have an excuse to get his mother to allow him to keep his pet in his room.

When Jon saw Summer’s developing physique, he quirked an eyebrow.

“What?” I asked somewhat defensively.

“I didn’t say anything,” he said overly innocently. “And I won’t, so long as Ghost gets the same treatment next.”

I just laughed, then agreed.

I still needed to figure out some way to give our furry friends a ranged attack though, because that would be fucking awesome. The only thing better than a massive, horse-sized, wolf-like companion that could easily shred knights was that same companion with a breath attack. Sadly I couldn’t get it to work in the time allotted, though I thought I might manage to give them a stunning bark or roar in the near future. Togo seemed excited at the possibility, and kept pushing me to the corner of Bran’s room where his desk was; I’d appropriated it for my own work on spells while I was staying with him.