The Glass Candle

The North, Flint's Finger castle, great tower

After the castle council ended, Eddard also made arrangements for "Scar" Rickard and his two sons. "Great Bear" Brandon and "House Cat" Bran would remain in the castle to receive an "education" from Maester Albert and Eddard. After this council, all three had been thoroughly awed by Eddard's plans.

So when Eddard proposed keeping his two cousins there, "Scar" Rickard somehow accepted his "suggestion." They were all Eddard's blood relatives, and if they were "educated" properly, they would be of great help to him in the future.

Northerners were rather stubborn, and with their generally poor education, many had minds like blank sheets of paper. This made it all the easier for Eddard to reshape them, so that they would act entirely in accordance with his thoughts and ideas.

Although Eddard's knowledge of mathematics, physics, and chemistry was poor, when it came to ideological education, he believed he was certainly much better than the religious charlatans of this world. In this world that resembled the Middle Ages, many people generally lacked faith. That was not to say they did not believe in gods.

On the contrary, that was one manifestation of their lack of faith. Many of them went their entire lives without knowing what they were fighting and laboring for.

Eddard's "education," meanwhile, was simple: he wanted all his subordinates and subjects to strive for better lives. Only when the nobles and subjects under him enjoyed better lives would others understand that following Eddard was the only way to live well.

In Eddard's understanding, desire was the driving force behind human progress. It was precisely because he had given his followers hope for better lives that, driven by honor, duty, and self-interest, they would serve him and contribute to his reforms.

In the future, Eddard would raise the living standards of the residents near the castle several more levels, attracting more people to work toward developing his domain. Once their lives improved and they gained more benefits, even if Eddard did not want to contend for supremacy, those subjects of his who still wanted more would beg him to conquer and plunder.

At that moment, Eddard was handing a document he had organized to Maester Albert, who stood before him. The scroll recorded some of Eddard's plans and regulations for his domain, the most important of which concerned sanitation.

"Lord Eddard? I don't quite understand. These regulations you've laid down don't seem to exist in Oldtown! I really am curious where this knowledge of yours came from. Although I left the Citadel after becoming a maester, that doesn't mean I have no contact with it.

"I hardly think the noble lords of Oldtown would have the time or gold dragons to plan municipal improvements after the War of the Usurper. So I'm very curious-where exactly did this knowledge of yours come from?"

After saying this, Maester Albert looked at Eddard with an almost imperceptible smile. Yet when he met Eddard's gaze, he saw no trace of emotion, as though he were speaking to a solid rock.

"Haven't you already learned certain things, my dear Maester Albert? I imagine those fellows at the Citadel must have told you about me?"

Without pausing after those words, Eddard walked straight over to a particular chest he had brought back from Oldtown. After rummaging through it, he took out a crystal column that gave off a strange light. At the sight of it, Maester Albert stumbled back several steps in fright.

"Th-this... in the end... still..."

The sight of the strange crystal column left Maester Albert frozen in terror. He was muttering incoherently, as though he had seen some terrible monster. Yet after seeing Eddard's calm gaze,

He seemed to make certain connections, and those thoughts gradually steadied his emotions. "My dear Maester Albert, it is just as you suspect. This is a Glass Candle. It was both the greatest treasure I obtained at the Citadel and the crucial reason certain people poisoned me. The only reason I can still stand here safe and sound is that I gained its recognition."

At Eddard's words, a different gleam appeared in Maester Albert's eyes. After considering all sorts of possibilities, he collected himself and asked Eddard:

"Do you mean that all your changes came from th-this thing? B-but does m-magic really... really exist?"

When Maester Albert said this, his voice held a trace of excitement and curiosity. It was precisely because he did not understand the things Eddard had written that he associated Eddard's changes with magic.

Seeing that the other man had taken the bait, Eddard inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. After receiving the original owner's memories, he had taken a long time to adjust. After that, he had begun considering how to keep himself alive in this cruel world and successfully inherit the lordship.

Eddard had understood very clearly then that this was a world where the strong preyed on the weak. Bloodline, martial strength, wealth, and a little luck determined whether someone qualified to survive. Thus, after learning of the series of problems he would face in the future, Eddard had spent some time thinking seriously, devising ways to deal with potential problems as well as considering certain people he might have to face.

Of all these people, Maester Albert was the hardest to handle. If Eddard wanted to grow powerful in this world, he would have to reform his domain. When the others in his domain heard certain strategies of his, they would instinctively assume these were things he had learned at the Citadel in Oldtown.

Yet there happened to be a Maester Albert here, a man from the Citadel who maintained close contact with it. Eddard could still find excuses to cover up his earlier reform strategies, but once he became involved in certain deeper reforms and inventions, Maester Albert would inevitably notice some clues.

During the time Eddard claimed to be ill, he had constantly searched the original owner's memories, trying to find a reason to explain his unusual ideas. Fortunately, the original owner's experiences had been rather extraordinary, leading to the scene now unfolding.

In this cruel and primitive world, military force and knowledge were tools the nobility used to rule the common people beneath them. Since his predecessor had been away from Flint's Finger for a long time, Eddard had no fear that these relatives and subordinates would notice anything unusual. Maester Albert was his only concern. Although Eddard could also kill him and settle the matter once and for all, he had discovered in the original owner's memories that the Citadel was nowhere near as simple as it appeared.

Moreover, during peacetime, a maester's unusual death might very well bring an investigation by the Citadel and House Stark. If the Citadel then sent a maester who knew Eddard well, he might truly be exposed.

Thus, after thinking it over, Eddard could only take out the Glass Candle, a relic of a magical civilization, intending to use magic to conceal certain changes in himself. The Citadel's Glass Candles originated in a once incomparably powerful magical civilization on the eastern continent of Essos: the Valyrian Freehold.

The Valyrian Freehold had once dominated Essos, renowned throughout the world for its magic, Valyrian steel weapons, and dragons. Both the Andals and the Rhoynar had fled to Westeros only after being defeated by the Valyrians. It could be said that the rise of the Valyrians had indirectly influenced the course of Westeros.

House Targaryen, the former rulers of the Seven Kingdoms, had merely been an obscure minor family within the Valyrian Freehold. House Targaryen had conquered six kingdoms in Westeros with only three dragons, yet at its height, the Valyrian Freehold had possessed nearly three hundred.

Yet this once vast and powerful force had been destroyed in the terrible "Doom." To this day, there was no complete, definitive explanation of how such an immense power had been destroyed.

The glowing Glass Candle in Eddard's hand came from the Valyrian Freehold before the Doom. According to his predecessor's investigations, certain learned forebears at the Citadel had specifically obtained it through an exchange with a sorcerer of the Valyrian Freehold in order to study magic.

At the Citadel, everyone who swore to become a maester had to spend a night keeping vigil in the cellar beneath the Conclave Hall, without carrying any source of illumination. At that time, the maester overseeing the examination would give the candidate a Glass Candle.

The candidate then had to spend the night in darkness unless he could light the Glass Candle. Originally, this had merely been a way for the Citadel's old hands to show off before novices.

Yet when it came to the original Eddard, the Glass Candle had actually been lit. The incident caused a sensation the following morning, but the Citadel's Conclave soon suppressed it, and Eddard's predecessor consequently had his elevation to maester canceled.

Afterward, an archmaester at the Citadel who studied magic, Marwyn "the Mage," took Eddard on as an assistant. It was also then that Eddard met Maester Qyburn. For a certain period, Eddard, Marwyn, Qyburn, and several maesters who studied magic formed the Society for the Study of Dragons and Magic, devoted to studying ancient texts and magic.

Over roughly the following year, Eddard's predecessor learned a great deal about magic. Because he could light a Glass Candle, many considered Eddard proof of magic's revival. This later caused quite a stir among the Citadel's maesters.

In fact, after searching his predecessor's memories, Eddard discovered that the Citadel had probably also put considerable effort into his coming north to inherit the lordship.

After all, in a sense, Eddard had already become one of the Citadel's people and should not, by rights, have been able to inherit a lordship. Moreover, given the temperament of Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, he would never have made trouble for the Citadel over a matter of inheritance, since he was a man who placed considerable importance on honor. Yet in the end, both the Citadel and Winterfell had delivered fully detailed inheritance documents into Eddard's hands.

After reviewing all the information in his mind, Eddard arranged his words and spoke to Maester Albert:

"Under the Glass Candle's guidance, my mind traveled to that distant age. There, I witnessed many historical events and saw the might of the ancient Valyrian Freehold's Dragonlords. I also saw how that immense city was built, little by little, and learned a great deal there."

Seeing the somewhat bewildered look in Maester Albert's eyes, Eddard breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed this theory had already affected some of Maester Albert's understanding. In that case, the things he did afterward would not arouse the maester's suspicions.

"My dear Maester Albert, I know you have always been taught not to believe in magic, because in your eyes, using magic is as idiotic as fighting someone with a glass sword. But surely you cannot deny the existence of dragons?"

At Eddard's words, Maester Albert recovered from his bewilderment. After glancing at the Glass Candle in Eddard's hand, he slowly said:

"Dragons are merely a kind of unusual creature. The Dragonlords of the Valyrian Freehold merely happened to learn how to tame them, just as we tame horses."

"That is merely knowledge you gained from books. You have never verified it yourself. Many works in the Citadel were written only after its learned forebears accumulated knowledge and explored things little by little. I have seen fire mages turn rocks into squares, and I have witnessed dragons hatching. All of it was just as the legends described. Besides, even if you still deny the existence of magic, how do you explain this?"

After hearing Maester Albert's words, Eddard directly refuted him. When he finished his final sentence, he also held the Glass Candle out before Maester Albert.

"Nothing is beyond study. I believe that as long as we grasp the principles by which magic operates, we can use it to bring happiness to our subjects. The Dragonlords of the Valyrian Freehold were too greedy and failed to put that useful knowledge to practical use. I, however, will put this knowledge to better use in developing my domain. And I will continue studying magic, because I hope to gain more power."

Eddard's words echoed ceaselessly in Maester Albert's mind, leaving him unable to find a reason to refute them for a time. In the end, Maester Albert could only give Eddard a long look before taking the scroll he had received from him and walking toward the door.