49 Chapter 49: Warlocks Arrive

A few days after the arrival of Arianne, all hell broke loose within the castle for various reasons. First, Barristan Selmy had made it known that Cercei had cheated on Robert with her own family members, and that none of her children were Robert's true born.

When evidence was provided, Robert went into a rage, when he and the Kingsguard burst thru Joffrey's door, they found a Dornish whore tied up, hanging from the foot of his bed naked. She was shot multiple times with crossbolts, mostly her pelvis area and crotch as well as her breasts and arms, you could see that she had suffered greatly before she finally died.

Joffrey was naked himself, laying underneath her as he masterbated as he looked at the dead woman, recalling her pleas for him to stop. When they burst through the door, Robert became even more furious, that was one of his favorite whores recently, he had used her to get him by until he seduced Arianne.

Needless to say, Joffrey was beaten to an inch of his life by Robert, which the whole time Joffrey begged for his father to stop, only to receive a "I'm not your father you bloody bastard!"

Joffrey was thrown into the dungeon, along with any other Lannister within the castle walls. Robert then proceeded to go hunting, he made sure to bring Arianne with him, since he no longer had a son and he would be annulling the marriage with Cercei, he decided to wed Arianne himself.

He also took Quentyn as his new squire, and put out orders that Cercei, Myrcella and Tommen were wanted by the crown. He was extremely pissed that Cercei had escaped her captivity, an innocent guard had lost his life due to Pycelle blaming him for her escape.

Robert left the small council to handle the shit storm as he left with his Kingsguard and soon to be young beautiful wife to go hunting in the Kingswoods.

Tyrion Lannister had escaped Kings Landing with a small contingent of Lannister men who escaped the purge of the castle, they were heading back to the Westerlands by sea, they were helped by Barristan to escape since he knew they had nothing to do with what Cercei had done.

As a month went by, Cercei had arrived at Casterly Rock and denied all allegations of infidelity, claiming he only came up with those trumped up charges so he could wed a much younger woman.

The prophecy she was told as a child by the witch woman about her being replaced by a younger, more beautiful woman reverberated in her ears which fed her own anger. She also told Tywin about what Pycelle had done to her during her captivity, so began a round of reshuffling. Tywin's forces who attacked Goldengrove had been routed, instead of attacking a undermanned and unprepared castle, they faced a fully prepared army that manned the walls.

Now Tywin found himself in deep trouble, he was surrounded by the Riverlands and the Reach, and now he lost the crown, although he was in trouble he wasn't threatened. He still had quite a few forces he could muster if needed while still defending his coastal towns, plus the North, Riverlands, and Reach had all been quiet, staying defensive rather than offensive.

So Tywin decided to send envoys to both the Riverlands and Reach to at least come to a armistice agreement until the crazed Robert Baratheon could be dealt with.

As this was going on, in the port town of Old Town in the Reach, a ship flying a flag showing it was from Qarth in Essos arrived at the docks.

Only two cloaked individuals disembarked the ship, a man and woman both looked to be extremely beautiful, they spoke to no one and slowly made their way towards the Citadel. None bothered them either, as their clothes looked expensive so everyone assumed they were nobles.

As they walked they used their magic to search for any people with magical talent.

"This place is so empty with talents. There is no way what they say is true." The woman stated in High Valyrian.

"Not necessarily. These fools have been trying to stamp out magic for a long time, so of coarse we will not find those with any talent within their territory. Any who have had any would be found and killed already." The man answered.

"Such a waste. We should request they send them to us in the future, they can at least be useful, even in death." The woman said as she licked her lips.

"Very true, however if we can truly take possession of five Targaryen children and their dragons, then we will have an endless supply of magic. We have attempted thousands of times to hatch a dragon, but all that happens are the eggs shatter into stone, as if they were stone all along." The man responded.

"Yes, perhaps we will not only be able to breed the children, but also the dragons. I hear there are more boys than girls, why don't you allow me to have the eldest boy, I want to drain him completely." The woman said with a shiver of pleasure as she thought about devouring one of the boys.

"No. You can have the youngest. It would take too long for him to be able to breed, there are two of age currently, and another two that still have a little time till they would be able to be of use. The youngest still has several, so you can have him but not the others. I will get his dragon." The man stated sternly.

"Fine, he is around seven name days old so he is old enough to give me the pleasure of seeing his fear as I take his everything." The woman said with a chuckle.

They continued to speak and plan as they walked to the Citadel to get the information on where they can find the Targaryens. The Citadel had provided them with the information on the ages of the children but not of where they could be found.

The Citadel did in fact know, which is thanks to Catelyn Stark. Her letter sent with Septa Mordain had landed in their hands, it was intercepted by the Citadel, and rather than send it to Kings Landing, they kept it for now, they thought it may help the Warlocks. If it didn't then they could send it after the Warlocks were finished.

They also didn't want the church to interfere with their plans, should they bring back the Faith Militant, then not only would they attack Aiden and the others, but they would attack the Warlocks too. The Faith hated all magic, no matter if it was a healer who healed the sick and injured, or if they were dark magic users like the Undying.

Upon arriving at the Citadel the two Warlocks were brought into a meeting hall, one of the lower and newest members of the "Liberators" was the one to meet the two Warlocks.

Upon entering the room the two Warlocks removed their hoods, the young Maester was stunned by their looks. He had expected old and hideous people, but what he saw was the opposite, they were the most handsome and beautiful people he had ever seen. It was as if a god and goddess stood before him.

What he didn't know was it was all fake, it was a glamour spell. The Undying Ones presented themselves as beautiful wizards at the prime of their lives and full of power. In reality they are ancient and withered. Their flesh, lips, nails, and even the whites of their eyes are different shades of blue and violet-blue from drinking their shade-of-the-evening constantly.

They use the glamour spell anytime they leave their tower, it allows them to get close to people, since if they didn't, no one would have any dealings with what the truly looked like.

"Greetings esteemed guests, we have prepared several things for you. First, here is one thousand gold dragons, as the currency used in Essos won't work here in Westeros. I also have a map here of the North, along with a letter from the Lady of Winterfell. She does make some fanciful claims, but it does state that the Targaryens do spend much time in Winterfell. Is there anything else you may need of us?" The Maester asked nervously, he witnessed the man begin to cast spells on the map while the woman cast some on Catelyn's letter.

"This will work, we shall handle your issues with those Targaryens, however there is one more thing that we want. Since you do away with with people who show the capabilities of magic, the House of Undying would prefer to purchase those you find here in Westeros, depending on their level of magic depends on their value. We can even set up a small buisness here in Westeros, all you need to do is bring us the person and we will do the rest." The man stated as he gathered the materials and gold.

"I shall put forward your fequest to my superiors, should you succeed in this task, we will discuss cooperation, if you fail in ridding us of the Targaryen threat than these discussions would be futile." The Maester stated firmly.

"Don't worry, we are the elite of the Undying. We specialize in battle, especially against dragon riders. It was us who killed many of the Old Valyria dragon riders during the war with the Valyrian threat when they first began attacking Essos." The woman said with a smile which made the Maester fall into a trance.

"Let's go, we need to head North. Winterfell is a good distance from here and we will need to sneak into the North to begin our investigation. The most dangerous would be this Aiden, we will focus on him, once he is in our hands the other's will come one by one at the very least." The man stated as he turned to leave.

"I think the best course of action would be to use a load of food to gain entry, we can sail up the western coast and use this Deepwood Motte as our entry point. It wouldn't take us very long to reach Winterfell from there, plus food is cheap so we can donate it to the Lord as a means to allow entry." The woman stated as they left the Citadel.

"Yes, from what information we have gathered those northerners are always in need of food. That would earn us the favor of the local Lord. However we will need to set the ship elsewhere when we leave, I doubt they will be too happy to see us loading our cargo for our return trip." The man agreed as they made their way back to the docks.

As they made their way to purchase enough food to fill their ship, back at Winterfell, things were looking up for the Starks. Not only were the lives of those within Winterfell improving but it was slowly expanding outwards.

Even Maester Luwin had a complete change in his thinking. Unlike the other Maesters of the Citadel, Luwin didn't hate those that could wield magic, he was one of the rare few that had studied it thoroughly.

When he was granted access to Kandor, he joined the children in their classes daily, he had learned advanced medical knowledge as well as chemistry. He had been skeptical at first, but after first discussing topics with Rhaenys and the other children who regularly visited, he began to truly want to see for himself.

Maester Luwin was a very curious man, he valued knowledge above all else, he was infact very close to the position of Grand Maester, the only reason he wasn't was due to the fact he didn't wish to be a Grand Maester. They had more responsibilities so therefore were limited on time to expand on their knowledge, unlike regular Maesters who had much more personal time.

Luwin soon became an enemy of the Citadel himself, he had began to send out what he learned to other Maesters across the realm, he had seen the faults of the current Citadel and it's practices.

Although the Citadel had a lot of knowledge, that was all they had, they haven't added to that knowledge for hundreds of years. There were minor improvements to technology over the years, but not much. The reason for this was simple, they restricted knowledge to a select few.

By doing so, you limit ingenuity and creativity to only a select few. The more people you have that share knowledge, the more people can discuss and come up with new ideas to improve.

Say you put the worlds smartest fifty people in a room, although they can come up with ideas, they would be limited. If you put a thousand learned people in another room, although they may not be as smart as the fifty, they have more cumulative knowledge and experience so they can have more points of view to find solutions to problems than the fifty.

Luwin began to advocate a schooling system for commoners, which was something that the North adopted first, as did the Riverlands. The Tyrells did also make an attempt but due to the Citadel having more control within the Reach they were limited on being able to implement such practices.

The Vale, Stormlands, Westerlands, and Crownlands ignored Luwin's suggestions entirely. They had more pressing matters to deal with.

Renly had made multiple attempts to ally with the Reach, even offering to wed Margaery to solidify an alliance between the Stormlands and Reach, however the only assistance he was able to gain was thru Loras Tyrell, who was his lover.

Loras had defied his grandmother and left Highgarden secretly with a small army of men who were loyal to him, he had tried to convince his sister Margaery to accompany him, telling her that she could be queen if she followed him.

To his dismay she didn't follow, it wasn't just because her grandmother had said not to ally with the Baratheons, or for the simple fact that she had already had a crush on someone else, but mainly because she knew Renly's preference for men.

Not many women would want to enter into a relationship with a man who preferred men, not because they had the preference, but because the chances of their union to grow into a loving marriage were slim to none.

It wasn't uncommon for even arranged marriages to start off loveless, but over time the couple would grow close and they would eventually grow to truly care and love one another. If the man or woman had no love or desire for the opposite sex at all, then the marriage would basically remain contractual their whole lives.

It can even put unnecessary strain on the marriage, not just internally but externally as well, especially in a noble marriage. There is always those who would seek to gain something from such a disconnect. They could use either husband or wife to slip into the house and wedge them further apart for their own gain.

The Reach was already at a disadvantage, more so than the North and Riverlands since they were isolated. The saving grace was they had Aiden's help, having access to Kandor had changed their lives for the better, Olenna felt more youthful and Willas was no longer a cripple.

Plus Tywin was on a warpath against Robert.