Chapter 30: Flaming Minds
109 AC, Driftmark
Gerardys sat in his laboratory in Castle Driftmark, thanking all of the gods, old and new, that he had the foresight to accept Laenor Velaryon’s offer and serve as his Maester. To think that he had met the heir to Driftmark in a tavern in all things, masquerading as a merchant in service of the Sea Snake. He knew then, immediately, that the boy’s mind had been sharper than Valyrian Steel, and would have likely spent hours debating with him, had he not simply left after giving him the offer to go to Driftmark.
It was akin to a gift from the gods themselves, which had presented itself to Gerardys. He had spent much of his time rotting on Dragonstone as an aide to an old Maester, who could barely read his letters, with no guarantee that he would even have a chance at one day serving as the Maester of Dragonstone, an empty fortress with no lord or lady to command, no servants, or anything of import.
Gerardys had been bored then, and thus often spent his time near the Smallfolk, tending to them. Healing had always been his passion, and he would admit that he received a thrill when testing new ideas as he helped the smallfolk, all to help him understand the mystery that was the human body. He only did it with the consent of the smallfolk, of course, and only as a last resort when traditional healing failed, but he had learned much from his time on Isle Dragonstone, though ironically little of it occurred while he was in his time in the fortress itself.
This had been him making the best of a bad situation, for he had been sent to this barren, empty land to make way for a Tyrell bastard to apprentice to the Archmaester of Healing. It was to be an ‘honour’, and apprenticeship to a Maester in a major castle ruled by House Targaryen, but he saw it for what it truly was, another way to set aside a competent, but less connected Maester, to one with noble blood in his veins.
Such was the way of the Citadel; names mattered more than knowledge, no matter what they touted to the rest of the world. It was a place where politics reigned, much like it had earlier, where access to books was restricted, and where novices and acolytes were chosen to further the influence of the Citadel as a whole, and that of the Archmaesters involved. Knowledge was often restricted, often arbitrarily, forcing younger Maesters to barter for it, or be left behind. Gerardys was sure that there was more to it, that these were only the secrets that he had been privy to during his time in the Citadel, for it truly was a secretive institution.
Currently, much of the Seneschal and the Archmaesters were under the control of House Hightower. They had always had a certain influence in the Citadel’s workings, but the royal marriage gave them unparalleled influence that they masterfully used to great effect, with the promise of increasing the Citadel’s power even further.
Truth be told, Gerardys still believed that his time in the Citadel was far greater than most; he still had noble blood, for he was the bastard son of a landed knight in the Riverlands, one who had paid the Citadel to take him as a novice during his youth, so as to avoid any issues for his marriage. As such, he was much better than the commoner-born acolytes, who often never rose to the rank of Maester. It was not a question of competency, for they would simply be denied more opportunities to show what they could do, as they rotted away as glorified scribes at most.
And so, when he had been banished, Gerardys had planned on slowly taking in some of the duties of Maester Volarik, the current Maester of the Dragonstone. He would allow the other aides to rest, while he subtly took over the post, and would continue to do so even should the old Maester die of old age. Perhaps he would wait until the next prince of Dragonstone was of age and cement himself as the Maester of the isle.
It would not have been his first choice, but it had been the best one given his other options. That was, at least, until he met Laenor Velaryon and the world was tilted on its head.
It took some time to acclimate to the wonders of Castle Driftmark, and now, he held a personal laboratory, a room specifically meant for his experiments.
There, the Painter Knight had shown him the secrets of the secret world that was invisible to our eyes, thanks to his invention of the small-eye. He had been shown the existence of creatures so small, and yet so important, that any healer would have. He had seen what lay hidden within blood, and how to combat them. He had seen wonders that the Conclave would likely decry as false or superstitious, despite the fact that he had seen it with his own eyes.
Germ theory, as Laenor Velaryon called it, was an undeniable advancement in healing, one that was greater than anything the Citadel had achieved in thousands of years. It changed everything that any learned man learned about diseases and plagues, and so much more.
And Laenor Velaryon had discovered it as a boy.
If that had been the end of it, Gerardys would have been the end of it, but some of his work regarding mechanics and numerals was beyond anything he had ever seen before, beyond that of an Archmaester, even. He had learned some of the notes that the young lord had left for anyone to read and had been overwhelmed by its sheer ground-breaking nature.
Gerardys had never been the most faithful of men; he had seen enough deeds committed in the Starry Sept that would horrify even bandits. However, there was no doubt in his mind that Laenor Velaryon was blessed by the gods in some way. The depth of his discoveries should have taken a learned man decades to be properly explored, and yet Laenor Velaryon had achieved it at such a young age.
And now, this remarkable young man had Gerardys working on mould of all things.
Of course, it was not as tedious as it sounded. Mould had been used for thousands of years in poultices that would aid in relieving swelling, but Gerardys realised that much of Laenor Velaryon’s methodology was based on trying to understand the very workings of the world as thoroughly as possible, and healing was much the same, as opposed to the usual trial and failure method.
It was how Ser Laenor had shown him how to create a clear liquid from wine, which he had called alcohol, which helped stop wounds from festering. It was a common practice to use boiled wine, but they had refined it so that they had extracted the product of this practice into his own.
Gerardys surmised that this experiment seemed to follow a similar path, as he looked in the small-eye, having separated different kinds of mould, and seen their effect on the spread of germs. It seemed that only certain kinds of it seemed to repel them completely, though a green-blue one in particular was quite effective.
Gerardys supposed that with this information, they might create poultices based entirely on this mould, which would be far more effective, though he had a feeling that Ser Laenor had greater things in mind.
Still, he moved towards the young lord’s own laboratory to report his findings, as he always had, and saw him staring at a glass vial with a glowing green liquid within. Wildfire.
The Painter Knight must have noticed his presence as he stood up and turned towards him, “Oh, Gerardys. Did I miss my meeting with the builders?”
“No, my lord,” the Maester immediately denied, “I just wanted to convey some of my findings regarding the mould experiment.”
“Ah, yes. You finished it faster than I expected. I’m sorry if I have been distracted lately. This little endeavour has been very… fascinating.”
Gerardys leaned forward, interested. After all, it was not often that someone tried to decipher the intricacies of Wildfire. The alchemist’s guild had always been a very secretive one, and their substance was often considered too volatile for any kind of practical use, but he would admit to having been curious to its properties.
Laenor Velaryon must have seen his excitement, as he smirked knowingly, “Do you care to see what I have uncovered so far?”
The young Lord had always been driven since Gerardys gained the honour of meeting with him, but this drive had intensified greatly suddenly. It had come almost accompanied by his sudden interest in Wildfire, where he had ordered a few jars from the Alchemists in King’s Landing.
And so, Gerardys answered, “Of course, my lord.”
The Painter Knight walked towards a table and grabbed a small piece of tin ore, while explaining, “It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that Wildfire combustion isn’t normal. For one, it leaves very little residue, and it spreads far too quickly for it to occur naturally. It can also burn for a while even while being snuffed out, where the material itself is spent, while the heat contained. However, the most interesting thing that I have noticed was that its temperature scales depending on what is being burned.”
The Maester tilted his head in confusion, “My lord?”
“It gets as hot as what it needs to burn. Here, watch…”
The young man put the tin ore in a thick clay bowl and carefully put a few drops of Wildfire on it and ignited it. Strangely, the green flames were quite subdued at first, and he saw metallic tin drop from the ore. He realised that the substance was not burning as hot as it had been, but only then the heat flared, as it began to melt through the stones with much greater intensity, before the drops burned themselves out.
Gerardys’s eyes were wide as he uttered, “Fascinating…”
This had never been something that he had ever considered. He doubted that others ever had, for that matter. He could already see many ways where this property of wildfire could be very beneficial for everything, but there was a great obstacle that needed to be circumvented: “If only it were not so unstable when suddenly turned hotter. Is there any way to weaken it?”
Ser Laenor shook his head, “Trying to dilute it with water doesn’t work, unfortunately, or with any other liquid for that matter. Blood also ignites it almost immediately. I believe that it’s the magic inside it that makes it more compatible. I suppose that another magical solvent…. Oh…”
The young Lord walked towards a table near the other side of the room, and he grabbed a jar filled with oil. He then put a small amount of Wildfire inside a clay container, its ominous green glow lighting up his face. He then hesitantly put the oil on it and held his breath.
To Gerardys’s surprise, the Wildfire’s glow lessened slightly, and the Painter Knight smiled widely, and he continued to pour the oil in, further stabilising it, while chuckling, “Ice and Fire, huh?”
As he witnessed this, the Maester couldn’t help but ask, “What is that?”
“That would be whale oil from the Shivering Sea, specifically near the islands of Ibben. Very interesting reaction, don’t you think?”
The young lord then took a vial with the new substance, which he poured on another tin ore, and ignited it. Just as it had previously, green flames appeared, also melting the tin, but when it was gone, the flames focused on the remaining stone. Only this time, the flames did not explode; they continued to burn, the heat becoming more intense as slowly, but it failed to melt the stone as the substance burned itself out.
Both Gerardys and his lord stared at this result with wide eyes, as they had finally stabilised Wildfire, and the younger man spoke up excitedly, “Do you know what this means, my friend?”
“What?” the Maester asked.
“It seems that we will need to speak with the Alchemist’s guild personally, and that means that we will be going to King’s Landing.”
Gerardys instinctively nodded, knowing that this was but the beginning of their foray into the mysteries of Wildfire. And now, more than ever, he thought that this was proof that his decision to agree to Laenor Velaryon's offer was the correct one, for he was sure that he had just witnessed history in the making.
AN: This story is still relatively new, so if you'd like me to continue it, please let me know in the comments what you think of the rewrite so far.
This chapter was pretty slow, but I think the story needed a bit of a breather before what comes next. I also thought that a mainly magic/science chapter was probably due, given how much I hinted at, and that Gerardys would have been a good POV to have, while also showing a bit of the projects that Laenor had him work on. As for the Wildfire idea, I just thought that it was a cool concept to write about, which gives me a lot of things to work around in the future, but I wasn't sure if it came out the way that I wanted it to. Still, I haven't really done something like this before in this story, so I wanted your opinion on it.
As I said before, I am planning on uploading more of this story (outside of normal uploads). I have a bit of a backlog of chapter drafts for this story that I’ll try to go through when I can. As usual, I don’t mind rewriting this chapter depending on your feedback, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.