Chapter 3

Ned

Ned found Robb in exactly the place he was hoping to – the Godswood. His son was sitting on the ground and staring at the Heart Tree, muttering something just under his breath as he did, something that Ned just couldn't quite make out.

He paused. He didn't want his son to bolt again, he had to reassure him, to get him to talk. But then he watched as Robb stood and walked over to the tree and knelt before it, putting his bare hand on the bark. His lips moved as he said something under his breath. Ned took a step towards him and then he stopped. Robb had closed his eyes and was speaking again, this time a little louder. Perhaps he was unaware of the fact that he was speaking his thoughts aloud, so fierce was his face and his pose. And then Ned finally heard snatches of it as Robb raised his voice a little.

"Who are you? Tell me how I can warn Father! Tell me what to do! Why was I sent back from the moment of my death?"

Who was who? Warn him of what? And sent back from where? Death? Ned felt the blood drain from his face. This was madness. He strode over to his son, hesitated for a moment and then placed a hand on Robb's shoulder. "Warn me about what Robb? And what's this about your death?" He asked the questions quickly and seriously.

Robb looked up at him and Ned hissed in shock. The pupils of Robb's eyes had taken on a strange red tint, not bloodshot but as if they had started to change to a different colour. Something sparked at the back of his head, some old tale that his great-grandfather had told him when he was just a small child. Something about the Old Gods. "Your eyes – there is red in them."

His son seemed to return slightly but then frowned again in concentration. What was he trying to do? Well – enough he needed to call him back from wherever he was trying to go to. "Robb…"

But his son interrupted him. "I must do this! I have to know! I need to know why I was sent back!" And he was starting to shake, Ned could feel it, but if it was his muscles that were shaking or his very bones he could not tell.

"You're trembling… Robb, what's happening to you?"

Something happened then. The face of the Heart Tree seemed to come alive for a moment. And then Robb, in a voice that Ned had never heard from him before, grabbed his free hand and said: "Help me Father."

Darkness appeared below him and he fell. They fell. He was too surprised to say a word and he felt something in his own bones now. Where they fell to or for how long he could never say afterwards, just that they fell. And as they fell he heard snatches of words, in the voices of Robb, Cat and others.

"Call the Banners." "Good, that means you're not stupid." "Why? Why, Theon?" "We will kill them all." "The King in the North! The king in the North!" "No. Not the Rains of Castamere."

And then it stopped. He was in darkness, Robb was gone somewhere in that darkness and yet somehow he wasn't afraid. And then suddenly he stood by a tree and watched as his son, dressed in plate armour as if for war, hacked at a group of trees, ruining his sword as the tears poured down his face. Ned wanted to go to him but could not – he was rooted in place as if he was a tree himself. Cat was walking towards Robb, tears on her own cheeks, but when she spoke to him Ned heard nothing. Instead he heard two voices, one old, reedy and querulous and the other deep and low, like rocks grinding against each other.

"Why them? What have you done? There was a prophecy!"The first voice seemed agitated.

"It was necessary. Too much has gone wrong. Too many voices are stilled. Your plan was not enough. You have forgotten much."

This seemed to annoy the first voice. "Forgotten what? Things were in place. The boy was finally with me! I had my replacement!"

Cat was no longer speaking to Robb, instead Robb was on horseback now, with GreatJon Umber and the pick of the North next to him. Their steeds were stamping in readiness and Ned saw Robb raise a steel gloved fist as he pointed forwards. Death and violence hung in the air and Ned could sense that men were about to die at the hand of his son. Where was this? What was this?

"Your replacement was just a part of the picture. You had forgotten that. We need the voices. We do not do this lightly. But it must be done. Otherwise the song will end and we will be no more. Prophecy can be re-written. You forgot that. And Heis awake."

The charging men on horseback passed from Ned's sight and now he saw Robb on a field of battle, surveying the aftermath. He was pale and there were shadows in his eyes, the shadows that came from having led men into battle and seeing some of them die.

The first voice seemed to be shocked. "Impossible. I would have felt him wake."

"He woke slowly. He was ever cunning. An animal, but even an animal can be cunning. Your ancestors lost a good man when he was… changedinto what he now is. The decision has been made in any case. It was necessary. Your successor will still come to you."

Another picture. A wedding? He could see faces that he recognised. Was that Brynden Tully? And Walder Frey, the old man who kept outliving everyone else. And Robb and Cat. Wait. Ned's eyes widened as the first crossbow quarrel was shot into his son, who jerked wildly. No. No, this could not be.

"How long must I wait?" The first voice said the words bitterly.

"Not long."

"Not long by your time or mine?"

"Yours."

Another quarrel hit Robb as he tried to stand. Blood was flying everywhere now as a massacre started, as men knifed other men under the grinning gaze of the old man at the high table with the eyes of a lunatic. No. His son was dying. He had to do something to stop this.

"Very well. Who will tell them?"

"We have picked out someone."

Another bolt. Ned wanted to scream his son's name, wanted to get to him, wanted to upturn the tables and use them to protect him. And then he caught sight of a man standing up and walking calmly towards Robb. Roose Bolton. Ned sighed. Roose was a good man. He would save Robb. If only he would move faster. Wait – he had a knife in his hand? And his eyes… his eyes were alive in a strange mad way, with a glitter and a look that Ned had never seen before. No. No, he would not.

"Tywin Lannister sends his regards." The knife went home. And blackness fell again.

When Ned opened his eyes again he was on his knees in a Godswood of stone. Everything was stone, the trees, the moss, the ground. Overhead the sky was overcast. And there were statues of men everywhere, dressed in a variety of armour. Some wore skins like the hill tribes. Some wore crude armour. And some wore plate, but an ancient variety. All held grounded weapons, with their faces turned down to face the earth.

Ned stood shakily and then took an equally shaky step. "Where am I?" He might as well have asked the wind, which was present.

"In a place where words mean something," said a voice and he turned to see an old man step out from the trees. He had to be the oldest man he had ever laid eyes on, dressed in robes like a Maester and with a simple belt around his waist. As he approached Ned swallowed. His eyes were the same colour as the sap of a Weirwood tree. "You are a Stark, are you not?"

"I am," Ned said. "I am the Lord of Winterfell, Ned Stark."

The old man looked him up and down and sniffed caustically. "So this is what my family has become. It is of no matter. You are a child and you have forgotten everything of consequence. A stone wolf indeed."

Ned blinked. "You are a Stark?" he looked at the old man again. Yes, there were traces of the Stark features beneath all those wrinkles.

"One of the first," the old man said firmly. "Words have meaning here. Names even more so. Stark. What does it mean?"

"It… it is our name," Ned said, confused.

The old man rolled his eyes in disgust. "No. You do not see. Stark. It means plain, the plainest of possible views. We always strip things down to the basics, boy. We see things as they are. Winter is always coming. That is the strength of our house. You have let them weaken that view."

"Them?" Ned asked, bewildered.

"The fools to the South, with their fripperies and their jealousies and their foolishness. Your eyes should be in the North. Winter is coming. And a mistake was made. Your son was not warned."

"Robb. Where is he? I was with him in the Weirwood. What happened?"

The old man growled. "Listen to me you foolish boy! You child! Winter is coming. That is why the Old Gods brought your son back. Back from his useless death in the South, back from the foolishness that killed so many good men of the North. Death marches on the Wall. Death – and worse."

Ned stared at the old man. Who was he? Bran the Builder? Garth Greenhand? Then he swallowed. "What could be worse than death?"

The old man smiled. "At last a good question. The Others are coming, boy. They are awake again. The North must be ready, but to do so the South must be at peace. Listen to your son and his tale of woe, listen to his tale of what went wrong. Prepare. You must be ready. They did this, they brought him back."

Ned felt the hairs on the back of neck stand on end. He was being watched by a great number of eyes. He could sense them. "Who are 'They'?"

The old man looked over his shoulder and then smiled. "See for yourself." And then he faded from sight, like fog on a hot day. Ned paused for a moment, looking at the stone trees around him. And then he turned. The statues were all looking at him, their eyes filled with green fire. They were old, he could tell just by looking at them, eons old. The stone beneath him splintered and then cracked and he let out a wordless cry as he fell into the darkness again.

When he woke he was by the Heart Tree again, sprawled on the grass as if he had been sleeping. Robb was still kneeling next to him, one hand on the trunk, his eyes closed in exhaustion. Ned swallowed and then finally croaked: "Robb."

His son jerked slightly and then opened his own eyes. "Fa-Father?"

He stood, slowly, feeling as if every muscle and bone in his body had been strained. "We must talk. Now. In my solar."