The Doctrine of Eternal Night

”Behind the fire and between the worlds; in all the empty spaces at the end of all things we are there. The elements, light, life – these things are fleeting. Only shadow is eternal.” Fenley Ahlerton

"Before creation, darkness was all; it waits even now beyond the edges of Westeros. In time, the greatest of lights and the brightest of suns must dim and gutter. Day might banish night for a while, but night always returns. Darkness is the only true eternal concept. Figuratively and literally, darkness is the ultimate force- the final result of all efforts." from the Doctrine of Night

The Plane of Shadow neighbors and overlaps Westeros and each of the Elemental Planes. It is a physical shadow of Westeros, cast not by any illumination but by Elemental energies that bind creation together. The plane contains twisted reflections of everything that exists in the physical world. Mountains rise perverse and foreboding and structures stand clustered, warped and chaotic in dark communities. Color is a faded memory and replaced with shades of gray. The sky is an endless vault of black, with neither sun nor starts to break the gloom. Emotions are muted and less expressive. Only hunger, thirst, exhaustion and pain remain undiminished. 

'... the final result of all efforts.'

The following are Alhertons personal notes regarding shadow came after his return from Salt Shore a year ago when his usual refined script changed to the runic Umbral language that is only fully deciphered by magical means or at night under the light of the moon. 

The book contains basic information on the shadow plane (as described above) as well as the collected methods, suggestive somatic gestures, and vulgar syllables used to call dark folk from the plane of shadow (an evil act). 

Communicating with denizens from the shadow plane led Alherton to an encounter with the Night Queen who was a goddess in his eyes. She promised him immortality and a leadership role to play in her plans to bring the eternal darkness to Westeros. The introduction to the Night Queen was made in Salt Shore while visiting by Alyn Veleryon. 

There was no other choice for Ahlerton, he gave himself to the Night Queen willingly in a profane 'blood exchange' ritual. With his new immortality came divine knowledge, the very secrets of the cosmos that were until now out of reach. 

‘The Night Queen wants me to destroy the Goodsprings Touchstone.’ 

Further writings in the book indicate when Ahlerton returned to Sandstone, now a spawn of the Night Queen, he now had a hunger for blood. He changed course in his profession to chemistry and started feeding and conducting blood experiments on the flaskers. With nearly everyone gone from Sandstone, there was no one to object to his dark alchemy. 

Taking the White. Ahlerton's doctrine detailed how he used the shadow-sand to summon a dark folk from the plane of Shadow in an occult ceremony during each full and new moon phase. Various dark folk would answered the call.

Then using a flasker as an candidate, Ahlerton would mix a few drops of his immortal white blood into an extract and administer the vile infusion to the candidate in the presence of the dark folk.

The dark folk would examine the candidate as it reacted to the formula- each dark folk performed this task differently each as mysterious and alien as the next. Then the dark folk would either anoint the candidate and allow the transformation into a wight or deny the candidate allowing Ahlerton to feed off the candidate before it expired.

Notes indicate Ahlerton's methods in creating a wight only worked twice, each time it was with a male candidate (you fought and destroyed both success) each time a success occurred, it was during a full moon and with female dark ‘dancers’ as the inspecting dark folk. During new moons, male dark 'slayers' would answer the summons and would judge the flasker candidate unworthy. Ahlerton was still theorizing on gender specifics, maybe female candidates are necessary for male dark folk. 

Further writings indicate Boudas, Kayal, Shadow Oracles and Night Witches enjoy a place in the Night Queen's plan to bring about eternal darkness by conceiving Shadow Touchstones. 

The Lunar Calendar. There is a detailed lunar calendar and mathematical graphs in a detachable section of the Doctrine. The calendar charts full moon and new moon phases until the Winter Solstice. The graph tracks daylight hours down to a solution of 8- indicating there is exactly 8 hours of daylight on this upcoming Winter Solstice. Also noted here is the Winter Solstice, Westeros’ first day of winter this year comes during a full moon phase. 

What you know: 

According to legend, Thirteenth Lord Commander, lived not long after the Age of Heroes, sometime after the Wall was complete. 

Stories say that after seeing a beautiful white-skinned woman from atop the Wall, he chased and loved her under the light of a full moon. The Lord Commander brought her back to the Nightfort and after the unholy union, he declared himself Night's King and her his Night Queen.

The Night's King ruled the Nightfort as his own castle for thirteen years. During the dark years of his reign, horrific atrocities were committed, of which tales are still told in the north. It was not until Brandon the Breaker, the King of Winter, and Joramun, the King-Beyond-the-Wall, joined forces with the Guardians of Source that Night's King was brought down and the Night's Watch freed from their terrible reign. 

After his fall, when it was discovered that Night's King had been making blood sacrifices to the Night Queen, therefore all records of him were destroyed and his very name and title was forbidden and forgotten. But the Night Queen remained stronger than ever, eventually achieving her ultimate form. 

Total Recall: 

The conflict that followed, spanned all of Westeros with the last stand on sacred land north of the Wall, however as an eternal the Night Queen cannot be truly killed. Instead the Night Queen was cast out of her physical form and escaped into the icy oceans, evading the Guardians. Her connection to Westeros tenuous but still intact. 

In her defeated condition, she was left to drift for centuries at the bottom of the sea as disembodied shadow- cold, hungry, shapeless and evil. She eventually found a lowly sea creature, as a host creature where her essence began to regain some lost vitality. Soon she fed and shifted to a lamprey and the realization with each feeding came more strength, memories and new hosts. Finally the Night Queen encountered a race of underwater people. This is when her true strength and power began to return. She fed on the merfolk, taking a new host and generating bonded spawn; eventually attracting the attention of a new Guardian of elemental water, Mon. 

Mon, believing his strength was greater, pursued the Night Queen as her blood spread among the others of his kind. Undaunted, Mon fought his own people to extinction trying to destroy the Night Queen once and for all. However she was elusive and cunning, always shifting to a new host before the deadly heartstrike could be done. 

When the final conflict came in 12 BC, it was like a godbomb in the sea and both Mon and the Night Queen were thrown asunder. Mon was thrown towards the Torrentine in the Red Mountains of Dorne to eventually be discovered by Gabriel Dayne- without the benefit of his memories. While the weakened Night Queen drifted in the Summer Sea to be discovered by hapless and defenseless fishermen from Summerset.