Chapter 349: Knowing the Enemy (Part II)
"There are many reasons, but the most direct one is simply—it's difficult to build," Bran replied without hesitation. "Almost all the meltwater from the Frostfangs enters the sea through the Milkwater, and the summer flow at the bottom of the Gorge is massive. A Wall built in the lowlands would be washed away; one built on the slopes would tilt and collapse before long. As for building on the mountain peaks... I wonder if the Lord Commander has done the math: the mountains on both sides of the Gorge exceed a thousand feet, higher than any point along the Wall. They are perfect natural barriers in their own right. If one were to actually start construction there, the difficulty would equal building countless Eyries. The labor and resources required would likely be on par with building another Wall altogether."
Egger was not satisfied with this explanation. "Then at the very least, patrol routes could have been carved out on both sides of the Gorge to facilitate the movements of the Night's Watch. The report I received from the men at the Shadow Tower is that there are no roads at all; everything has to be cut anew. Why is that?"
"There were roads once, but thousands of years have passed. They've long since slid into the valley floor during landslides and been swept away by the river. What was there is gone." Bran let out a long sigh. "Speaking of gaps in the Wall's defenses, I must tell you another piece of information long forgotten—remember what I said earlier, about how it's difficult for an Other to control wights from across the Wall?"
Egger remembered. Bran had said he would tell him the reason in a moment. Clearly, this was that moment.
"I'm listening."
"The Wall is more than a high wall that physically blocks wildlings and monsters; it is also a barrier in the magical sense. The Others dislike approaching the Wall, which has given people the impression that the Wall is 'anti-Other.' That isn't a delusion, but I want to add that being 'anti-Other' is merely a side effect of the Wall's function. The primary purpose of the magic woven within it is to screen out the power of the Great Other originating from the Land of Always Winter—that power drifting in the air that sustains the existence of the Others and their thralls."
"I can understand that, but wouldn't it have been better to seal off the Gorge as well? Surely you aren't saying the Great Other's power is heavier than air and sinks to the bottom of the canyon so it can't seep through?"
Even as learned as a Greenseer was, the concept of gas density wasn't in Bran's head. However, with the accumulated wisdom and experience of countless ages, Bran quickly grasped the gist of what Egger was saying and moved past it. "As Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, you should be familiar with the distribution of the nineteen fortresses along the Wall. Which one is at the very center?"
Egger nodded. He wouldn't be much of a Lord Commander if he didn't have a map of the Gift and the Wall in his head. "If we're talking about the numerical center, that would be Queensgate—it's the tenth castle whether you count from east to west or west to east. But if we're talking about spatial scale between the two ends of the Wall, it's Castle Black... Even when the Watch was at its lowest ebb, they kept that fortress as headquarters because the time it takes for patrols to reach either end of the Wall from there is equal, whether by ground or atop the Wall."
"A competent Lord Commander, exactly right." Bran nodded. "Then, if I weren't asking about the line of the Wall itself, but about the distance from the Bay of Seals to the Bay of Ice—which castle under the Watch's command is equidistant from the east and west coasts?"
Egger opened his mouth, and before he could even calculate, a faint answer emerged.
The westernmost tip of the Wall is forty or fifty miles from Westwatch-by-the-Bridge. Therefore, the fortress equidistant from both coasts had to be roughly twenty miles west of Castle Black—definitely not the adjacent Queensgate. Deep Lake further on didn't seem right either. Further west...
Egger's heart gave a sudden leap. The final conclusion was exactly the one he had sensed: the fortress equidistant from the Bay of Seals and the Bay of Ice was none other than the original headquarters of the Night's Watch, the site of the giant glowing heart tree and the Black Gate, and the very ancient black-cloaked stronghold where he and the young Greenseer were currently sitting.
"The Nightfort!" Egger blurted out. "Hell—that means when the Order was first established, the Gorge was indeed within the patrol range set by the first generation of high command!"
Bran's face was full of approval. "Exactly. And I can tell you that the source of energy that screens out the Great Other's power and repels the White Walkers is that very giant heart tree, deep within the Nightfort's section of the Wall, which has merged into one with the most powerful Greenseers throughout history. The stone foundations carved with ancient runes, pressed beneath millions of tons of ice, take its energy—which should radiate in a sphere—and constrain it within a certain dimension along the Wall. It shapes it into a magical wall similar in form to the physical one, but higher, wider, and thicker. The physical entity composed of ice and the 'soul' constructed by magic together form this ultimate barrier against death."
Egger was completely stunned. So that was it. Everything was connected: the Wall was not just the largest man-made structure in the world of ice and fire; it was the most spectacular magical artifact. It was a powerful barrier generator, and that super-heart-tree was the power core sustaining its operation!
The 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch gained a new understanding of this ice wall that nominally belonged to him, but Bran's narrative did not stop. "And because the Great Tree is closer to the western end of the Wall, the anti-Great Other magic on the western half is stronger than on the eastern end. At the Shadow Tower at the far end, this power even uses the weirwood forests planted on both sides of the Gorge as a channel, penetrating outwards for dozens of miles like an invisible wall, plugging that last gap and extending even into the waters of the Bay of Ice. Except for the pitiful scraps that spill in from the high atmosphere or the far sea, the Wall keeps all of the Great Other's power beyond the border."
Those weirwood forests covering the mountains were planted to compensate for the inability to build a wall in the Gorge; their purpose was to complete the invisible wall that blocked the Great Other's power! While the Wall had a physical gap, on a magical level, it spanned the east and west of its latitude, keeping the energy the Others relied on for survival to the north, creating a paradise for the living!
Perfect, ingenious, and yet incredibly grand. For the first time, Egger was awestruck by the "deep beauty" hidden beneath the Wall's clunky appearance. His first thought was: In the original story, Daenerys losing a dragon to save Jon and ultimately destroying the Wall herself... it was truly unpardonably contrived and stupid.
After his silent curse ended, he felt a surge of pride. Having made countless targeted preparations with the benefit of foresight, and now possessing such a defensive line—if he still couldn't win this war, he truly was a waste. Why bother being Lord Commander? He might as well just drown himself in a puddle of his own spit!
However, Egger's acquired skepticism soon raised another question. "Then I have another concern—the Wall is difficult to destroy, but the weirwood forests are exposed. If the White Walkers destroy those woods, wouldn't they open a gap in the invisible Wall, in this continuous anti-Great Other energy field?"
"They certainly will." To Egger's surprise, Bran didn't dismiss the thought. "But I must emphasize again: that weirwood forest filling the Gorge only reinforces, rather than forms, the—well, 'anti-Great Other energy field'—a good term. As long as the Wall stands and the super-heart-tree is not destroyed, the magical barrier remains intact. Even if that forest disappears, the power of the Great Other can only slowly leak in through that weak point in the Gorge. South of the Wall, the Others will still be significantly weaker than they are beyond it. As long as you respond correctly, they can be dealt with."
That's good then.
With his last doubt resolved, Egger nodded in relief, but his mind moved too fast—he immediately recalled a deeper, long-buried question. "You keep speaking of the Great Other's power. What exactly is that damned Great Other... and for that matter, R'hllor! You say there are no gods in this world, so are they just two sorcerers like you, possessing even more powerful supernatural strength?"
After a moment of hesitation, the new Greenseer finally encountered something he couldn't answer. "That question, I'm afraid, I cannot answer. I have never met either of these two—neither in spirit nor in flesh. What is certain is that both indeed exist: they are powerful far beyond my ability to observe or test, yet they are absolutely not the omnipotent deities recognized by their followers. They are certainly not human; perhaps they are some higher-level alternative life form... My advice is this: stop making groundless guesses. Considering the possibility of the Great Other directly participating in this war is meaningless. If he acts, unless we count on that equally mysterious Lord of Light, no amount of preparation by the Night's Watch will matter—do you believe in prophecies?"
Again? How did a conversation about the Great Other suddenly jump to prophecies?
Despite being baffled, Egger had gradually adapted to Bran's storytelling habits. The topics seemed to jump, but in reality, they followed a hidden logic; he never just said whatever came to mind at random.
This wasn't an exam, so without overthinking it, Egger quickly gave a middle-of-the-road answer that was unlikely to cause trouble. "I think prophecies are the kind of thing you listen to, but don't take too much to heart."
Bran looked into Egger's eyes, shook his head as well, and offered a cryptic, thin smile. "Not entirely wrong. However, not all prophecies are the same. If we categorize them, there are at least three types. The first: curses and vents. If you believe them, they exist; if not, they don't. A typical example: you offend someone, and they prophesy that you 'will surely die a miserable death.' Regardless, all men die; in reality, no matter when you die, the cause will never be that prophecy. On the contrary, if you live every day in fear under the shadow of that curse, you might truly die young as predicted."
An interesting theory, Egger thought, nodding. He thought of the prophecy a witch gave Cersei—the one about her having a tragic second half of her life.
"The second type: predicting the direction of a situation based on logic, calculation, and reasoning, derived from having sufficient sources of information and a full understanding of the nature of things and the way the world works. Even if this type of prophecy isn't necessarily correct, it often has considerable reference value. If you ignore it after hearing it, it's a great waste."
Egger nodded again. The boy had a point; there was no shame in admitting it. "True... and the third type?"
"You must have heard the following: 'After the long summer, the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour, a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him.'"
"I have indeed heard it." Such a long passage, Egger honestly couldn't recite it all that perfectly. "The priests of the Lord of Light and the followers of the Red God spread it everywhere; it's one of the most widely known prophecies in the world—what about it?"
"This is the third type of prophecy. It appears to be a prophecy, but in essence, it is a warning, an ultimatum, and a declaration of war—from R'hllor to the Great Other." Bran picked up the water glass on the nightstand, took a sip, and began to interpret the prophecy in his capacity as a Greenseer.
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