A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

treed
friends.
    A few moments passed before they heard a tuneless humming. Hodor arrived
half-dressed and mud-spattered from his visit to the hot pools, but Bran had
never been so glad to see him. “Hodor,

help me. Chase off the wolves. Chase them off.”
    Hodor went to it gleefully, waving his arms and stamping his huge feet,
shouting “Hodor, Hodor,” running first at one wolf and then the other.
Shaggydog was the first to flee, slinking back into the foliage with a final
snarl. When Summer had enough, he came back to Bran and lay down beside
him.
    No sooner did Meera touch ground than she snatched up her spear and net again.
Jojen never took his eyes off Summer. “We will talk again,” he promised
Bran.
    It was the wolves, it wasn’t me.
He did not understand why they’d
gotten so wild.
Maybe Maester Luwin was right to lock them in the
godswood.
“Hodor,” he said, “bring me to Maester Luwin.”
    The maester’s turret below the rookery was one of Bran’s favorite places. Luwin
was hopelessly untidy, but his clutter of books and scrolls and bottles was as
familiar and comforting to Bran as his bald spot and the flapping sleeves of
his loose grey robes. He liked the ravens too.
    He found Luwin perched on a high stool, writing. With Ser Rodrik gone, all of
the governance of the castle had fallen on his shoulders. “My prince,” he
said when Hodor entered, “you’re early for lessons today.” The maester spent
several hours every afternoon tutoring Bran, Rickon, and the Walder
Freys.
    â€œHodor, stand still.” Bran grasped a wall sconce with both hands and used it
to pull himself up and out of the basket. He hung for a moment by his arms
until Hodor carried him to a chair. “Meera says her brother has the
greensight.”
    Maester Luwin scratched at the side of his nose with his writing quill.
“Does she now?”
    He nodded. “You told me that the children of the forest had the greensight. I
remember.”
    â€œSome claimed to have that power. Their wise men were called
greenseers.
”
    â€œWas it magic?”
    â€œCall it that for want of a better word, if you must. At heart it was only a
different sort of knowledge.”
    â€œWhat was it?”
    Luwin set down his quill. “No one truly knows, Bran. The children are gone
from the world, and their wisdom with them. It had to do with the faces in the
trees, we think. The First Men believed that the greenseers could see through
the eyes of the weirwoods. That was why they cut down the trees whenever they
warred upon the children. Supposedly the greenseers also had power over the
beasts of the wood and the birds in the trees. Even fish. Does the Reed boy
claim such powers?”
    â€œNo. I don’t think. But he has dreams that come true sometimes, Meera
says.”
    â€œAll of us have dreams that come true sometimes. You dreamed of your lord
father in the crypts before we knew he was dead, remember?”
    â€œRickon did too. We dreamed the same dream.”
    â€œCall it greensight, if you wish . . . but remember as well
all those tens of thousands of dreams that you and Rickon have dreamed

that did
not
come true. Do you perchance recall what I taught you
about the chain collar that every maester wears?”
    Bran thought for a moment, trying to remember. “A maester forges his chain in
the Citadel of Oldtown. It’s a chain because you swear to serve, and it’s made
of different metals because you serve the realm and the realm has different
sorts of people. Every time you learn something you get another link. Black
iron is for ravenry, silver for healing, gold for sums and numbers. I don’t
remember them all.”
    Luwin slid a finger up under his collar and began to turn it, inch by inch. He
had a thick neck for a small man, and the chain was tight, but a few pulls had
it all the way around. “This is Valyrian steel,” he said when the link of
dark grey metal lay against the apple of his throat. “Only one maester in a
hundred wears such a link. This signifies that I have studied what the Citadel
calls
the higher mysteries—
magic, for want of a better word. A
fascinating pursuit, but of small use, which is why so few maesters trouble themselves with it.
    â€œAll those who study the higher mysteries try their own hand at spells, soon
or late. I yielded to the