Chapter 297
2021-01-06
Chapter 297 Black Gate and WeirwoodKarstark count volunteered to be the first North noble to go down the well , Robb Stark then also cautiously stepped on the stone bar across the edge of the well. After taking a few steps down, he suddenly remembered something and turned around: "Rodrik Ser, watch Arya, don't let her down."
"Yes, my lord."
" Ah? Why!" The girl jumped up, and Robb Stark, who took on the responsibility of House Head, seemed to have changed his personality, and he was quite cautious and strict in managing the younger brother and younger sister. What she didn't expect was that oneself had behaved so well, and he still hadn't forgotten about oneself. "I miss Bran too, I'm going to find him too!"
"There's no reason, this step is not easy to walk, you slipped and fell, who will be responsible? I don't want younger brother I didn't find it, and I broke another younger sister!"
"I'll be careful!" Arya quickly assured, but seeing that Robb didn't change her mind at all, she turned her pleading eyes again. Igor, I hope he can say two words for oneself, "master"
The parents of House Stark are all here, oneself is a Night's Watch, and what position does oneself have to interfere in Stark's family education ? Igor shook his head: "Your brother is for your own good, be obedient."
Afraid that his young lady would still be disobedient, Roderick Ser put his hand on Arya's shoulder, and stepped to the point between her and the big well. between. The girl stomped her feet in annoyance, shook her shoulders but didn't throw it away, and turned her head away with a snort.
…
The stone strips protruding from the well wall are only less than half a meter long, and there are quite a few gaps and gaps between them, which does look dangerous. According to Togenhenn Flint, it was slippery to step on at first, but he sent someone to remove a layer of moss and dirt on the surface of every stone bar on the entire ladder, and it became the current state.
One by one, the North nobles cautiously stepped over the well and stepped onto the passage that seemed to lead to Hell. As a half-landlord, of course, Igor couldn't stay on it and wait. He also stretched his limbs to warm up and stepped into it.
The stairs are so narrow that as long as someone is going up or down, no one can walk in the opposite direction, but when you actually walk up, you will find that it is not as scary as it looks - I don't know if it is a design In this way, the construction is too rough, and there will be a stone indented on the wall of the well every other distance to form a groove, which just fills the defect of the spiral staircase without handrails. Close to the stone wall with hands and feet, the safety is quite guaranteed.
The sound of everyone's footsteps echoed among the damp stones, and the light leaking from the hole in the ancient kitchen roof gradually faded away, and soon became a dim mass above.
With each turn, the surrounding becomes darker and the environment becomes more bleak... While the stone bars that make up the stairs gradually shorten at an imperceptible speed, the circumference of the well also grows at a similar rate. The range is shrinking continuously. Finally, when the four-meter-wide well was shrunk to about three meters wide, and the steps at the foot were as short as one foot long, the torch's rays of light shone on the dark bottom of the well.
As everyone descended to the bottom of the well, Igor looked up and saw that the wellhead had become a distant bright spot like a full moon on the horizon.
A black dot emerges from the edge of the "moon", and Arya's voice comes from above, through the constant reflection of the well wall: "Robb Robb Robb, master master master, you guys Are you alright alright alright?"
"It's alright alright alright, don't come down!" Robb raised his head to report safety, and began to look at the scene at the bottom of the well.
There is no imaginary silt under the feet, I don't know if it is dry or frozen, and it is quite strong, and under the light of the two torches taken down, only three sides of the four walls are illuminated.
To be precise, there were originally only three walls.
The bottom of this large well has ordinary walls on three sides, but a rather spacious and tall tunnel on the other side, leading to - what Togenhen Flint said, probably up and down the Seven Kingdoms. The largest Heart Tree.
That's right, it didn't even have to be introduced by old Flint, everyone saw it immediately. Because it is too conspicuous, it is difficult to ignore at all - there is a face taller than a person on the miserable Weirwood.
The face was pale and ancient, wrinkled, and looked more dying than the frail Maester Aemon: mouth and eyes slumped and closed, cheeks slumped, forehead shrivelled, chin slack... Always aging but not dying, living for a thousand years, then his face is probably like this.
"It's really big." Umber count only glanced at the wooden face from a distance, and realized that what Flint patriarch said before was not an exaggeration... If the wooden face in front of him is really carved in a certain tree The Weirwood trunk, which is half buried underground, and the small sapling that protrudes from the slate above the ancient kitchen floor is one end of its branch... The size of this Heart Tree can be described as terrifying.
And given its nearly identical white and subtle positional connection to the "sapling" in the kitchen, it's possible.
"Big?" Roose Bolton snorted, "You're focusing on the wrong thing, Lord Umber. That face is still dozens of feet away from us, and we shouldn't be at the bottom of this pitch-black well. See it from a distance - put out the torch."
The last sentence was said to the two squires holding the torch, and they did so obediently until the orange red rays of light burning on the torch's head Disappeared, and everyone immediately understood what Bolton count meant by "the focus was wrong".
The whiteness of wood does not come from reflected firelight, but from its own emission!
This is a color like milk mixed with moonlight. The brightness is so faint and faint that it can't illuminate anything in the passage except the door itself. And it seems so clearly recognizable, it is absolutely impossible to be an illusion.
“Mr. Bolton is really thoughtful, and he sees how unusual it is at a glance.” The old Flint laughed, “But if you get close to it, you can find more extraordinary things about it.”
I have to say that everyone was really interested. After standing at the bottom of the well for a few seconds to adjust to the dark, they walked towards the big face together, ready to study the reason why the wood glowed. But at this moment, a terrifying thing happened.
The wooden face opened his eyes, the white eyeballs were still under the eyelids, and at the same time his lips moved slightly, and a sound came out.
"Who are youwhowhowhowho?"
Because of some distance from the vertical hard stone well wall, the echo of the wooden face is lower than that of the well The people who shouted were much lower, but it was still clear enough that everyone could hear it... In this pitch-black underground, when everyone opened their eyes and ears, this was a surprise that no one expected. It scared everyone, even the mentally prepared Igor's heart jumped... In an instant, some people even pulled out their weapons.
"What the fuck is this?" Big Jon Umber took two steps back, swallowed, and resisted the urge to draw his sword too.
"I don't know, but it's certain that as soon as someone gets within three feet of this face, it does this - open your eyes and ask who you are," Flint patriarch replied. " We tried all kinds of answers and got no response, guessing that something like a code is needed to trigger the next step."
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Togenheng · Flint's mouth is stupid, but his brain is very clever - of course, it is possible that some wise men or staff members of the Flint clan have guessed the truth. He was right: to get a response from this wooden face, a code was needed...and Igor even knew what it was: "We are the guards on the Wall, against the cold flames, the light of the Morn, the horn that wakes the sleeper, the guardian Shield of the Kingdom."
After the passage was recited by a sworn Night's Watch brother, the wooden face named "Black Gate" opened its mouth and slowly Show a passage to the other end that is beyond the wall.
This is a secret passage, a safe passage for people to sneak through the Wall... More precisely, if Igor is to guess -- it's a back passage that Greenseer has prepared for the inheritors of oneself, specially designed for Bran like this: The chosen person's guardian will not allow him to prepare for the situation north out of the Wall.
Thinking a little further, Igor can even boldly guess that this so-called door opening code is just a pretense.
In the original plot, Bran entire group escaped from Winterfell, and after a arduous trek to the deserted Nightfort, and sleeping in the kitchen to avoid the wind and snow, "coincidentally" ran into a wreck. Sam and Gilly, who were rescued by Benjen Stark of Coldhands, climbed up from the well through the Wall through this dark passage, and indirectly learned the code to open the door from their mouths, so they successfully reached beyond the wall and continued their journey to find Greenseer.
This kind of bizarre coincidence is really unreasonable. If you think about it carefully, it must be Greenseer's arrangement.
Then here comes the problem: In this timeline, the Ranger expedition did not happen because of oneself's strong dissuasion, and all the oath brothers who could open the door were all staying in the fortresses along the Wall... and The ghoulized Benjen Stark can only wait at the other end of the passage, unable to meet them through the Wall. How did the Bran entire group pass through this wooden door to go beyond the wall?
As you know it on your toes, Greenseer will naturally take steps to address this.
He has been preparing for this inheritor for so long, how could he watch Bran entire group arrive at Nightfort, but sit in front of the Black Gate - unable to leave because he doesn't know the code, or he is not Night's Watch?
Whether it's sending someone to fill Sam's vacancy, telling Jiujian or even Bran's password through a dream, or directly opening the door through Magic control when they get to the door...for a place where Weirwood exists It's a piece of cake in terms of transcendent beings who reach the extremes of perception and ability.
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Igor knows the secret code, but he doesn't intend to reveal it - make up a reason why oneself knows the order to open the door is simple, but in case the door does open ... Robb Stark wants to take someone up north to find the younger brother on a whim, should oneself accompany or not?
"It's... Really Wonders!"
"How does it grow when buried in the ground without the sun?"
"That's not the point at all, okay? Ask why it glows!"
A group of North people waited for a few seconds, kept away from approaching a few times to confirm that there was no danger, and began to discuss around this never-before-seen Weirwood everyone talking at once.
"There is one more detail, I want to tell you adults." Togenhen was not surprised by the lost self-control performance of several North people. Oneself and the warriors in the clan discovered this tree at first. However, he was not at all calmer than these guests: "Have you noticed the relationship between the well and the orientation of this tree?"
Everyone stopped the discussion and looked back at the I came down to the bottom of the big well, and looked at the big face on Weirwood again, but I couldn't answer any of them - I walked down a few dozen meters through a spiral staircase, turned a dozen times, and it was in black paint again. Under the lacquer, everyone has lost their sense of direction.
After hesitating for a moment, Igor was the first to react: the Weirwood "sapling" on the kitchen floor is sloping to the south, if it is really part of this huge underground tree...
"We are now north of the bottom of the well?"
"Lord Igor was born as a Ranger, and he has a good sense of direction. Look again, how far are we from the bottom of the well?"
About ten meters, what's wrong? Igor squinted his eyes, and the other party was obviously impossible to ask a meaningless question... Without much brainpower, he realized the meaning of "direction" and "distance": this building, which was used as a kitchen by the ancient Night's Watch, was close to Next to The Wall, the distance to the foot of the ice wall is less than ten meters.
So...
"We're under the Wall now?" Igor's body shuddered. This is a detail that Flint didn't mention in the letter. If so, then this tree , I am afraid it is not just a secret passage so simple! .
"That's right! If this Weirwood grows on the ground, it must be at least a hundred feet tall, but it is now pressed under the ice wall, so...it should have a huge canopy, why? Isn't it all in the Wall?" Old Flint's words brought a hint of smugness, and he seemed to be proud of oneself discovering this first: "But then think about it, why is 'Wall holding down this Heart Tree' , instead of- 'It holds up the Wall'? At least this part?"
The North princes whispered, while Igor was already speechless in complete shock, Togenhenn Flint might be oneself Don't know what oneself's guess means...but as a transmigrator and Night's Watch, he has more information than the people in front of him. Almost instantly, Igor thought of an impressive key point in the original plot: the ghouls could not break into the Heart Tree where Greenseer lived, and those who forcibly entered would immediately fall apart and become corpses or broken bones.
Coincidentally, the intelligence provided by the wildlings shows that the Others and the dead they control do not like to be near Wall. And Night's Watch has also discovered something in the actual combat with these living enemies: the closer they are to the Wall, the weaker they are.
In the past, Night's Watch explained this series of phenomena with the general phrase "Magic is woven in the Wall", but today, Igor feels that oneself may have discovered the truth: the magic power of the Wall may come from the existence of magic power in the Wall. This or N super-large Weirwood trees under it...it is their existence, so that The Wall is not just a two-hundred-meter-high ice wall!
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(end of this chapter)