33
As Stigr and his warg companion, Levi the leviathan, were occupied securing the Braavos trade route, Erik had no choice but to travel the old way.
Without Levi towing them along the coast, the journey north became slow and methodical. The two ships hugged the shoreline, keeping the land in sight to avoid the open sea's worst moods. Even with favorable winds, progress was limited by the realities of medieval travel which included factors like crew fatigue, shifting weather, and the need to resupply fresh water and provisions.
In theory, the galleys could sprint faster. With full sail and oars, they could reach impressive bursts of speed. In practice, sustained travel was far slower. The crews needed rest, the ships needed shelter from storms, and the coast dictated the route.
They averaged the pace of a disciplined coastal voyage, roughly eighty to one hundred and twenty kilometers a day when everything went right. It rarely did.
Since Erik did not have access to his research laboratories and controlled environments, he turned his mind to a different form of preparation.
Preserving Knowledge.
He'd brought stacks of parchment, ink, and several bound blank journals that he'd made himself. The work was slow and tedious, but he approached it with the same seriousness he would give to any experiment.
He began writing.
Not advanced theories or speculative breakthroughs. That would be dangerous without proper testing. Instead, he recorded foundational knowledge from his previous world, school-level science and engineering, the kind of information that had quietly underpinned an entire civilization.
Basic physics. Principles of leverage, pulleys, pressure, and heat transfer.
Elementary chemistry. Purification, acids and bases, simple reactions, sanitation.
Agriculture. Crop rotation, soil nutrients, irrigation, selective breeding.
Construction. Load-bearing structures, arches, concrete-like mixtures, standardized measurements.
Metallurgy. Basic smelting improvements, alloy concepts, heat treatment, and quality control.
He wrote in careful, simplified language, stripping away jargon and replacing it with analogies that a medieval student could grasp.
These are seeds, he thought. Not weapons.
He paused once, quill hovering over the page, and leaned back in his chair.
Not that I have any intention of dying, he thought with a faint, dry amusement. But it is better to be safe than sorry.
He understood better than anyone how fragile singular points of failure were. Weirstad's future could not rest solely on his continued existence. If he fell, whether to assassination, accident, or something more exotic, the knowledge had to survive him.
He imagined the future.
The first students he would choose carefully, bright minds, loyal, curious, disciplined. They would learn from these books. They would teach others. The knowledge would propagate, mutate, grow. In decades, it would be taken for granted. In centuries, it would be tradition.
He dipped his quill again.
If I die, let the world remember me not as a miracle worker… but as the beginning of an era of understanding.
It took two full weeks before White Harbor's pale stone towers finally emerged on the horizon.
The first glimpse of White Harbor came with the sun at their backs, and for a moment Erik thought the city was made of light.
Its houses were built of whitewashed stone, their walls catching the pale northern sun until the whole city seemed to gleam across the grey sea. Steeply pitched roofs of dark grey slate cut sharp angles against the sky, turning the settlement into a mosaic of light and shadow. Even from miles away, it was clear that this was no chaotic sprawl. Streets ran straight and wide, cobbled in clean lines, buildings arranged in neat, deliberate rows. Order was not imposed here. It was tradition.
Then his eyes were drawn to the weird large rock formation.
It stood upright near the harbor like a sentinel, an impossible slab of stone rising from the sea. Erik's mind supplied the name instantly from memory. Seal Rock. A natural fortress dominating the approaches to the Outer Harbor. A ringfort crowned its summit, its weathered stones bristling with crossbowmen, scorpions, and heavy spitfire ballistae. Even at a distance, he could see the silhouettes of crews manning the engines.
The stone loomed fifty feet above the waters, its surface grey-green and slick with age and salt. Seals clustered along its lower slopes and ledges, dark shapes basking in the cold sun, oblivious to the martial crown above them.
As they drew closer, the structure of the harbor itself revealed its layered logic.
White Harbor was split in two. The Outer Harbor was broad and busy with merchant vessels, fishing boats, and coastal traffic. Beyond it lay the Inner Harbor, narrower but better sheltered. Massive city walls protected one side, while on the other loomed a darker, older presence.
The Wolf's Den.
Even from the water, Erik could feel its weight. The ancient fortress squatted beside the harbor, its walls thick and dark, a stark contrast to the white city beyond. Built by the Starks centuries ago, it now served as a prison, but its design spoke of war and fear. Stone towers rose at irregular intervals, windows narrow, gates heavy. The whole structure crouched like a beast guarding its territory.
A mile-long, thirty-foot wall stretched along the jetty that separated the two harbors, punctuated by towers every hundred yards. It was not just a wall. It was a statement. White Harbor had been built to survive sieges, rebellions, and winter alike.
Houses clung to the Wolf's Den like barnacles on a hull, cramped structures pressed against ancient stone, their residents living literally in the shadow of the old Stark fortress. Generations had grown up with prison walls as their skyline.
Erik leaned on the rail, eyes moving constantly.
Defensible port. Layered fortifications. Urban planning centuries ahead of most cities. Social stratification visible in architecture.
The crews fell quiet as they passed Seal Rock, eyes drawn upward to the weapons and men watching them. For many of them, this was the first time entering a city that did not feel like a frontier or a gamble.
This was civilization with memory.
As the ships slipped into the Outer Harbor, bells rang from distant towers. Merchants shouted. Dockworkers moved with practiced precision. Banners bearing the trident and merman of House Manderly snapped in the wind.
Weirstad was new, sharp, deliberate. White Harbor was old, layered with centuries of tradition, politics, and memory. Yet it showed that the rulers of these lands were wise and cared for tier subjects. It showed Erik that White Harbor was a place that could be worthy of his efforts.
The crew gathered on deck, many of them former sellsails and newly trained locals, their expressions a mix of anticipation and unease. They carried Weirstad's finest goods in the hold, but none of that guaranteed acceptance. Cities like this had seen wonders come and go, and they had learned to be cautious.
Erik watched the harbor traffic, cogs, fishing boats, merchant vessels from the south, banners snapping in the cold wind.
First impressions decide decades, he thought.
And I have waited six months to make this one.
Erik adjusted his coat and straightened his posture as the harbor chain lowered and the ships were granted entry.
White Harbor awaited.
They entered White Harbor not as emissaries of Weirstad, but as merchants of House Moredo.
The sails bore the sigil of Belicho Moredo's trading house, stitched in bold Braavosi colors. The manifests listed Braavosi ports, Braavosi goods, Braavosi contracts. On paper, they were nothing more than another pair of merchant galleys seeking northern coin.
Belicho Moredo had been more than cooperative. He didn't have a choice in the matter.
Not that he minds it too much, Erik thought as he watched the harbor approach. Ivar reported that he is making a handsome profit warehousing and selling Weirstad's goods through his networks. Most of his problems have been resolved and the rare product only he can supply to the citizen Braavos has raised his status and clout significantly
The medicine that kept his son alive was a leash, yes, but it was a leash attached to a golden collar. Moredo was not a fool. He understood that Erik's success meant his own enrichment, and so he pulled willingly.
The deception of saying they were from Braavos was unfortunately necessary for now.
The North and the Free Folk had centuries of blood, betrayal, and raids between them. Even a whisper that these ships came from a Free Folk city would have shut doors before they could be knocked upon. Worse, it could have drawn Stark suspicion or Manderly paranoia. Erik had no intention of explaining that a new power had risen beyond the Wall with technology, magic, and ambition.
Not yet.
So they hid behind Braavos, behind coin, behind paperwork.
The ruse was easy to maintain. The crews were a mix of former sellsails who were from all over Essos and newly trained locals who had learned the accents, mannerisms, and customs of being a sailor. Anyone who looked too closely would simply see another foreign trade expedition seeking profit.
Belicho Moredo already had a warehouse and branch office established here. It would be used to sell his wares here.
The harbor chain lowered, and they guided the ships toward the docks.
A dock inspector arrived in a fur-lined cloak, flanked by two guards with Manderly tridents on their shields. He stepped aboard with the practiced confidence of a man who had seen every type of merchant lie.
"Papers," he said in clipped Common Tongue, his accent thick with the North.
Erik handed over the documents. Sealed contracts. Cargo lists. Letters of trade from House Moredo, stamped and signed in Braavos. The inspector examined them carefully, comparing seals, checking signatures, questioning the quartermaster.
They went through the holds next.
Crates were opened. Samples inspected. Steel tools, glassware, preserved foods, textiles, and small mechanical curiosities. All exotic enough to justify Braavosi origin, but not so strange as to raise suspicion of sorcery or hidden industry.
The inspector nodded slowly, interest replacing suspicion.
"Docking fee," he said.
Coin changed hands.
Then more coin, passed discreetly, folded into the inspector's palm with a casual handshake.
"Good berth," Erik said quietly. "and no surprises"
The inspector's expression did not change, but his nod was immediate.
"You'll be placed in the Inner Harbor section reserved for foreign merchants of standing," he said. "Keep your sailor in line. No one will trouble you unless you cause trouble. "
Erik inclined his head. "We never do."
The ships were guided to a prime spot along the inner docks, close enough to the city gates and merchant halls to be noticed, but far from the rougher foreign berths where theft and harassment were common.
As the gangplank was lowered and dockworkers began unloading, Erik allowed himself a small breath.
They were in.
First layer established, he thought. White Harbor sees Braavos. Next, it will see value. Then dependency. Then influence.
He stepped onto the white stone docks, the sound of the city rising around him.
White Harbor believed it was welcoming a merchant.
It had no idea it had just opened its gates to a city that intended to reshape the North.
---
Erik walked White Harbor alone.
Not truly alone as two discreet guards followed at a distance, dressed as merchants' retainers but he moved without ceremony, blending into the steady flow of dockworkers, traders, and sailors. He wanted to see the city as it was, not as it presented itself to envoys and nobles.
Whitewashed stone reflected the pale winter sun, giving the city an almost unreal brightness. The streets were wide and straight, cobbled with care, laid out with a planner's hand rather than grown chaotically over centuries like most cities he had seen in this world. Buildings stood in orderly rows, warehouses closest to the docks, merchant houses beyond, then workshops, inns, and residential quarters.
Intentional urban planning, he noted. That means long-term stability and centralized authority. Manderly influence is deep, not superficial.
He paused near a fish market overlooking the inner harbor. Dozens of stalls sold salted cod, smoked eel, crab, and river trout brought down from the White Knife. Fishermen shouted prices while middlemen negotiated bulk contracts with innkeepers and ship captains.
Food flowed into the city in predictable, organized streams.
Trade arteries are diversified. Sea, river, land routes to the south. A Resilient economy.
He watched coin change hands. Northern silver, southern gold, Braavosi bronze. Moneylenders sat at small tables near the docks, calculating exchange rates and extending short-term credit to captains who needed to unload before they could pay fees.
Financial services exist. That means merchants with influence, not just nobles.
Further inland, he observed workshops. Shipwrights repairing hulls. Tanners curing hides. Carpenters shaping beams for new ships. Blacksmiths forging nails and fittings in bulk rather than artisan pieces. This was an industrial city by medieval standards.
White Harbor is not just a port. It is a production node of the North.
He stopped near a merchant hall where banners of various houses fluttered: Manderly, Flint, Glover, Cerwyn, even a few southern houses. Representatives negotiated shipping contracts, grain imports, timber deals. Northern lords depended on this city to convert raw resources into coin and goods.
Economic choke point, Erik thought. Influence White Harbor, influence half the North.
Political power: House Manderly controls trade and naval defense. Stark oversight is distant. This city is effectively autonomous.
He walked to a quiet overlook above the harbor, where he could see Seal Rock, the harbor walls, and the fleets anchored within.
White Harbor's navy was not massive, but it was disciplined. Merchant vessels could be converted into warships. Crossbows and scorpions guarded the approaches. Chains could close the harbor in minutes.
Defensible. Hard to take by force.
He leaned against the stone railing and exhaled slowly.
Weirstad has technology, magic, and vision. White Harbor has legitimacy, networks, and history.
We don't need to conquer it. We need to become indispensable to it.
He imagined the progression.
First, exotic goods that sell better than anything else.
Then tools that increase productivity.
Then seeds, techniques, machines.
Then reliance.
Once their merchants depend on us for profit, their lords will depend on their merchants, and their politics will bend without anyone realizing it.
A gull cried overhead. Ships creaked against their moorings.
Erik watched the city with quiet satisfaction.
White Harbor was not an enemy.
It was a lever.
And levers, if placed carefully, could move kingdoms.
-------
After a few days of exploration, quiet conversations, and discreet observation, Erik finally retreated to his rented chambers with the beginnings of a plan.
He had walked the markets, listened in taverns, attended minor merchant gatherings, and when discretion allowed borrowed the senses of birds, cats, and dockside dogs to overhear conversations behind closed doors. White Harbor spoke freely when it believed itself alone. Merchants complained of tariffs. Artisans worried about guild politics. Minor nobles whispered about debts, alliances, and House Manderly's quiet dominance.
Patterns emerged.
He sat by the window, watching lanterns flicker along the harbor, and thought.
First step was the cargo delivery. That got us in, opened doors, started threads of obligation and curiosity, he reasoned. Trade is the slowest knife, but the deepest.
He tapped his fingers on the table, eyes narrowing.
The second step will be healing.
The plan was simple, almost elegant.
Like any other medieval city, White Harbor had no shortage of sick. The poor lived crowded near the docks, tanneries and slums. Many newborn children didn't survive to see their first birthday . Old wounds festered. Malnutrition left many weak and stunted. The city accepted this as inevitable.
Erik did not.
He would heal them.
At first, quietly and for free. He had already noted several beggars, dockworkers, and sickly children whose conditions were visible even to an untrained eye. He would approach discreetly, present himself as a traveling Braavosi healer with strange methods, and cure what the city believed incurable.
His price for the first would be nothing.
Only words.
Tell others, he thought. Let rumor do the work.
The poor would spread the story faster than any merchant caravan. They would speak in alleys, in taverns, in fish markets, in prayer halls. Soon, more would come seeking him out.
For them, he would charge a copper coin.
Not enough to burden, but enough to maintain appearances. A free healer was suspicious. A cheap healer was a miracle that could be believed.
He smiled faintly.
And then, the important ones.
White Harbor's wealthy had ailments of their own. Lingering injuries from hunts, infertility, chronic pain, failing eyesight, old battle scars. These were not discussed publicly, but Erik had heard enough through whispered conversations and borrowed ears.
For them, the price would be high in coin, but higher in influence.
And for everyone he healed, rich or poor, he would add something subtle. A mental nudge. A gentle inclination toward gratitude, toward protection, toward speaking well of the mysterious healer from Braavos. Nothing obvious. Nothing that could be traced. Just a bias, a warmth, a seed of loyalty.
Eventually, word will reach the Manderlys, he thought. And they will want to meet me.
House Manderly controlled White Harbor and much of the surrounding lands. They were pragmatic, wealthy, and deeply invested in the city's stability. A healer who could cure the incurable would be too valuable to ignore and too dangerous to leave unexamined.
This way, I enter their circle as an asset, not a threat.
He leaned back, eyes half-lidded.
The masses will see me as a miracle worker. The highborn will see me as a strategic resource. Both will see me positively.
And that, Erik knew, was the most powerful position anyone could hold in a city that was not their own.
-------
Dressed simply, Erik blended easily into the morning crowd.
He wore a plain green tunic, the cloth rough and well-worn, with a matching cloak that marked him as a modest traveling merchant or hedge-healer rather than a noble envoy. A leather satchel hung from his shoulder, worn and patched; its contents deliberately unremarkable to any casual glance. In his right hand he carried his trusted staff, its polished wood marked with faint carvings that could pass for decoration rather than tools.
He set out on foot, moving away from the cleaner stone streets near the New Castle and toward the crowded docks and tanners' quarters.
The air grew heavier there. Salt, rot, smoke, and wet leather clung to everything. Children ran barefoot through muddy alleys. Fishwives shouted prices. Dockhands cursed as they hauled cargo. And in the shadowed corners, the sick lingered.
Erik already knew where he was going.
The girl was coughing when Erik first saw her.
She sat on a pile of bundled nets near the tanners' quarter, wrapped in a threadbare wool cloak that did little against the damp cold. Her breaths came in rattling gasps, each one a battle. Her mother stood nearby, a gaunt dockworker with raw hands and eyes dulled by exhaustion.
Consumption. Or a winter lung rot. Either way, the city had already written the child off.
Erik approached casually trying to appear friendly.
"I am a healer," he said in a soft accent that was a mix of the Northern old tongue and Braavos. "May I look?"
The woman hesitated. "We've no coin."
"I am not asking for coin." He replied
"Then what do ye want?" She asked warily tightening her loose robes around her frail body.
"Have no fear" Erik said soothing "I ask for nothing. I do this to spread the blessings of the Old Gods"
"But I'm a follower of the seven?" She replied
"It matters not to me" Erik stated "All that are in need are welcome to the gift of healing"
Suspicion warred with desperation. Desperation won.
She knelt as Erik placed two fingers lightly on the girl's wrist, then her neck. He let his mind sink inward, not through an animal this time, but into the child's body itself. He mapped inflammation, damaged tissue, bacterial rot, immune collapse.
He rewrote it.
Cells rebuilt. Infection unraveled. Tissue healed as if rewound by months.
The girl shuddered once, then inhaled deeply. The rattle vanished. Her eyes widened.
"Ma?" she whispered.
The woman froze. Then she began to sob, clutching the girl so hard Erik worried he would need to heal bruises next.
"She's been coughing blood for two moons," she said between tears. "The maester said she wouldn't see the next."
"She will," Erik said simply.
He stood, dusted his hands and left without saying anything else
He did not need to hear the woman shouting after him. He already knew what she would do.
She would tell everyone.
------
The Dripping Gull was loud, smoky, and full of men who had seen too much sea and too little land.
Sailors clustered around ale jugs, trading lies, news, and exaggerations in equal measure.
"You hear about the healer?" a deckhand asked, eyes wide.
"Aye," a scarred oarsman snorted. "Heard he cured Old Thom's boy. Or was it Jory's cousin's pig?"
"He cured a child," the deckhand insisted. "Lung rot. Girl was coughing her soul out. Now she's running about like spring lamb."
"Aye, and I'm the Seal Rock," the oarsman scoffed. "Every city's got miracle men. Half are quacks, the other half are poisoners."
A sailor at the table leaned in. "House Moredo ship brought him," he said quietly. "Not some hedge-witch. He speaks High Valyrian proper. Carries tools I've never seen. Not magic. Something else."
"Magic's magic," the oarsman said. "If the gods wanted her healed, they'd have done it themselves."
A fisherman spat into a cup. "Tell that to her mother. Woman's been crying and praising him all day. Says he didn't even ask for silver. Just healed and walked away."
"That's how cults start," the oarsman muttered.
"Or how saints do," the deckhand shot back.
They drank in silence for a moment.
Then the fisherman added, "Dockmaster's wife sent a servant to find him today. Her knee had been bad since that winter fall. I saw her walking upright with a spring in her steps."
The table grew quieter.
"You think he's real?" the deckhand asked.
The oarsman stared into his cup. "If he keeps curing people, it won't matter what the whole bloody city will believe."
-----
In a quiet rented room across the city, Erik listened through a raven perched on a tavern beam.
He heard the doubt, the debate, the spread.
Perfect, he thought.
Rumors seeded. Curiosity growing. Skepticism keeping the story grounded. Interest climbing among the wealthy.
He leaned back in his chair, satisfied.
-----
The knock came after midnight.
Three soft raps, then a pause, then two more. Deliberate. Cautious.
Erik opened the door to find a man in dark blue livery trimmed with white thread. A silver merman clasp marked him as House Manderly. His cloak was drawn up, his face tense, eyes darting down the hallway.
"You are the healer," he said in a low voice. It was not a question.
"I am," Erik replied. "And you are very late."
The man hesitated, then stepped inside. "My name is Harwin. I serve in the New Castle. This visit does not exist."
Erik smiled faintly. "Then neither will my price."
Harwin stiffened but nodded. He turned and motioned into the corridor.
Two men emerged, carrying a covered litter. Inside, wrapped in thick blankets, lay a young man no older than twenty. His face was pale, lips tinged blue, his breathing shallow and uneven.
"Ser Osmund Manderly," Harwin said quietly. "Lord Marlon's nephew. He was injured in a riding accident three months past. The maester says the wound festered inward. He walks with pain, sleeps little, coughs blood some nights."
Erik knelt beside the litter, pulling back the blanket. He placed a hand over the young noble's chest, feeling the subtle tremors of failing tissue and slow internal decay.
The injury had never healed properly. Infection had turned into creeping organ failure.
"He will die within a moon, two at best" Erik said calmly.
Harwin's face went rigid. "The maester said four."
"He was optimistic."
Osmund stirred, eyes fluttering open. "Are you… the healer?" he whispered.
"Yes," Erik said. "And you are fortunate your family is cautious rather than proud."
Harwin swallowed.
Erik closed his eyes and worked.
He did not simply heal. He rebuilt. Bone microfractures fused perfectly. Scar tissue dissolved. Inflammation reversed. Internal bleeding ceased. The lungs cleared.
He also added something else, subtle as breath.
A sense of awe. Gratitude. A warmth toward the man before him.
Osmund gasped, then inhaled deeply. His eyes widened, and color rushed into his face.
"I… I can breathe," he said, astonished. He sat up slowly, then more confidently. "The pain. It's gone."
Harwin stared as if watching the gods descend.
Osmund looked at Erik like a man who had just been pulled back from the abyss.
"You saved me."
"Yes."
"You didn't ask for coin."
"I will."
Harwin stiffened again.
"For you," Erik said, turning to him, "one hundred gold dragons."
Harwin's eyes widened. "That—"
"Is cheap," Erik said softly. "For a Manderly heir."
Silence stretched.
Finally, Harwin nodded. "Lord Wyman will pay."
Osmund swung his legs off the litter, testing his strength. He walked, unsteady at first, then with growing confidence.
He stopped in front of Erik, then did something unexpected.
He bowed.
Not deeply. But sincerely.
"My uncle will want to meet you," he said. "He is need of healing as well"
Erik bowed in acceptance inwardly happy that everything was happening according to plan