A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

wouldn’t know who to ask, or how to ask him. I only have a little High Valyrian, and when they speak to me in Braavosi I cannot understand half of what they’re saying. You speak more tongues than I do, once you are stronger you can . . .”
    â€œWhen will I be stronger, Sam? Tell me that.”
    â€œSoon. If you rest and eat. When we reach Oldtown . . .”
    â€œI shall not see Oldtown again. I know that now.” The old man tightened his grip on Sam’s arm. “I will be with my brothers soon. Some were bound to me by vows and some by blood, but they were all my brothers. And my father . . . he never thought the throne would pass to him, and yet it did. He used to say that was his punishment for the blow that slew his brother. I pray he found the peace in death that he never knew in life. The septons sing of sweet surcease, of laying down our burdens and voyaging to a far sweet land where we may laugh and love and feast until the end of days . . . but what if there is no land of light and honey, only cold and dark and pain beyond the wall called death?”
    He is afraid,
Sam realized. “You are not dying. You’re ill, that’s all. It will pass.”
    â€œNot this time, Sam. I dreamed . . . in the black of night a man asks all the questions he dare not ask by daylight. For me, these past years, only one question has remained. Why would the gods take my eyes and my strength, yet condemn me to linger on so long, frozen and forgotten? What use could they have for an old done man like me?” Aemon’s fingers trembled, twigs sheathed in spotted skin. “I remember, Sam. I still remember.”
    He was not making sense. “Remember what?”
    â€œDragons,” Aemon whispered. “The grief and glory of my House, they were.”
    â€œThe last dragon died before you were born,” said Sam. “How could you remember them?”
    â€œI see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath. My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend . . . or . . .”
    â€œOr?” said Sam.
    â€œ. . . or not.” Aemon chuckled softly. “Or I am an old man, feverish and dying.” He closed his white eyes wearily, then forced them open once again. “I should not have left the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but
I
should have seen it. Fire consumes, but cold preserves. The Wall . . . but it is too late to go running back. The Stranger waits outside my door and will not be denied. Steward, you have served me faithfully. Do this one last brave thing for me. Go down to the ships, Sam. Learn all you can about these dragons.”
    Sam eased his arm out of the old man’s grasp. “I will. If you want. I only . . .” He did not know what else to say.
I cannot refuse him.
He could look for Dareon as well, along the docks and wharves of the Ragman’s Harbor.
I will find Dareon first, and we’ll go to the ships together. And when we come back, we’ll bring food and wine and wood. We’ll have a fire and a good hot meal.
He rose. “Well. I should go, then. If I am going. Gilly will be here. Gilly, bar the door when I am gone.”
The Stranger waits outside the door.
    Gilly nodded, cradling the babe against her breast, her eyes welling full of tears.
She is going to weep again,
Sam realized. It was more than he could take. His swordbelt hung from a peg on the wall, beside the old cracked horn that Jon had given him. He ripped it down and buckled it about him, then swept his black wool cloak about his rounded shoulders, slumped through the door, and clattered down a wooden stair whose steps creaked beneath his weight. The inn had two front doors, one opening on a street and one on a canal. Sam went out through the former, to avoid the common room where the innkeep was sure to give him the sour eye that he reserved for guests who had overstayed their welcome.
    There was a chill in the air, but the night was not half so foggy as some. Sam was grateful for that much. Sometimes the mists covered the ground so thick that a man could not see his own feet. Once he had come within a step of walking into a canal.
    As a boy Sam had read a history of