"Take me to it, at once."
"But Arrayan…"
"To help Arrayan," Wingham explained.
The moment the words left his mouth, Olgerkhan grabbed his hands and pulled him away from the wagon, tugging him to the north and the city. They moved at full speed, which meant the poor old merchant was half-running and half-flying behind the tugging warrior.
In short order, they stood before the dilapidated door of an old, three-story house, its exterior in terrible disrepair, dead vines climbing halfway up the structure, new growth sprouting all over it with roots cracking into the foundation stones.
Without the slightest pause, Olgerkhan rapped hard on the door, which shook and shifted as if the heavy knocks would dislodge it from its precarious perch.
"Easy, friend," Wingham said. "Nyungy is very old. Give him time to answer."
"Nyungy!" Olgerkhan yelled out.
He thumped the house beside the door so hard the whole of the building trembled. Then he moved his large fist back in line with the door and cocked his arm.
He stopped when the door pulled in, revealing a bald, wrinkled old man, more human than orc in appearance, save teeth too long to fit in his mouth. Brown spots covered his bald pate, and a tuft of gray hair sprouted from a large mole on the side of his thick nose. He trembled as he stood there, as if he might just fall over, but in his blue eyes, both Olgerkhan and Wingham saw clarity that defied his age.
"Oh, please do not strike me, large and impetuous child," he said in a wheezing, whistling voice. "I doubt you'd find much sport in laying me low. Wait a few moments and save yourself the trouble, for my old legs won't hold me upright for very long!" He ended with a laugh that fast transformed into a cough.
Olgerkhan lowered his arm and shrugged, quite embarrassed.
Wingham put a hand on Olgerkhan's shoulder and gently eased him aside then stepped forward to face old Nyungy.
"Wingham?" the man asked. "Wingham, are you back again?"
"Every year, old friend," answered the merchant, "but I have not seen you in a decade or more. You so used to love the flavors of my carnival…"
"I still would, young fool," Nyungy replied, "but it is far too great a walk for me."
Wingham bowed low. "Then my apologies for not seeking you out these past years."
"But you are here now. Come in. Come in. Bring your large friend, but please do not let him punch my walls anymore."
Wingham chuckled and glanced at the mortified Olgerkhan. Nyungy began to fade back into the shadows of the house, but Wingham bade him to stop.
"Another time, certainly," the merchant explained. "But we have not come for idle chatter. There is an event occurring near to Palishchuk that needs your knowledge and wisdom."
"I long ago gave up the road, the song, and the sword."
"It is not far to travel," Wingham pressed, "and I assure you that I would not bother you if there was any other way. But there is a great construct in process—a relic of Zhengyi's, I suspect."
"Speak not that foul name!"
"I agree," Wingham said with another bow. "And I would not, if there was another way to prompt you to action."
Nyungy rocked back a bit and considered the words. "A construct, you say?"
"I am certain that if you climbed to your highest room and looked out your north window, you could see it from here."
Nyungy glanced back into the room behind him, and the rickety staircase ascending the right-hand wall.
"I do not much leave the lowest floor. I doubt I could climb those stairs." He was grinning when he turned back to Wingham, then kept turning to eye Olgerkhan. "But perhaps your large friend here might assist me—might assist us both, if your legs are as old as my own."
Wingham didn't need the help of Olgerkhan to climb the stairs, though the wooden railing was fragile and wobbly, with many balusters missing or leaning out or in, no longer attached to the rail. The old merchant led the way, with Olgerkhan carrying Nyungy close behind and occasionally putting his hand out to steady Wingham.
The staircase rose about fifteen feet, opening onto a balcony that ran the breadth of the wide foyer and back again. Across the way, a second staircase climbed to the third story. That one seemed more solid, with the balusters all in place, but it hadn't been used in years, obviously, and Wingham had to brush away cobwebs to continue. As the stairs spilled out on the south side of the house, Wingham had to follow the balcony all the way back around the other side to the north room's door. He glanced back when he got there, for Nyungy was walking again and had lost ground with his pronounced limp. Nyungy waved for him to go on, and so he pressed through the door, crossing to the far window where he pulled aside the drape.
Staring out to the north, Wingham nearly fell over, for though he had expected to view the growing castle, he didn't expect how dominant the structure would be from so far away. Only a few days had passed since Wingham had ventured to the magical book and the structure growing behind it, and the castle was many times the size it had been. Wingham couldn't see the book from so great a distance, obviously, but the circular stone keep that grew behind it was clearly visible, rising high above the Vaasan plain. More startling was the fact that the keep was far to the back of the structure, centering a back wall anchored by two smaller round towers at its corners. From those, the walls moved south, toward Palishchuk, and Wingham could see the signs of a growing central gatehouse at what he knew would be the front wall of the upper bailey.
Several other structures were growing before the gatehouse as well, an outer bailey and a lower wall already climbed up from the ground.
"By the gods, what did he do?" old Nyungy asked, coming up beside Wingham.
"He left us some presents, so it would seem," Wingham answered.
"It seems almost a replica of Castle Perilous, curse the name," Nyungy remarked.
Wingham looked over at the old bard, knowing well that Nyungy was one of the few still alive who had glimpsed that terrible place during the height of Zhengyi's power.
"A wizard did this," Nyungy said.
"Zhengyi, as I explained."
"No, my old friend Wingham, I mean now. A wizard did this. A wizard served as catalyst to bring life to the old power of the Witch-King. Now."
"Some curses are without end," Wingham replied, but he held back the rest of his thoughts concerning Arrayan and his own foolishness in handing her the book. He had thought it an instruction manual for necromancy or golem creation or a history, perhaps. He could never have imagined the truth of it.
"Please come out with me, Nyungy," Wingham bade.
"To there?" the old man said with a horrified look. "My adventuring days are long behind me, I fear. I have no strength to do battle with—"
"Not there," Wingham explained. "To the house of a friend: my niece, who is in need of your wisdom at this darkening hour."
Nyungy looked at Wingham with unveiled curiosity and asked, "The wizard?"
Wingham's grim expression was all the answer the older half-orc needed.
Wingham soon found that Olgerkhan had not been exaggerating in his insistence that the old merchant go quickly to Arrayan. The woman appeared many times worse than before. Her skin was pallid and seemed bereft of fluid, like gray, dry paper. She tried to rise up from the bed, where Olgerkhan had propped her almost to a sitting position with pillows, but Wingham could see that the strain was too great and he quickly waved her back to her more comfortable repose.
Arrayan looked past Wingham and Olgerkhan to the hunched, elderly half-orc. Her expression fast shifted from inviting to suspicious.
"Do you know my friend Nyungy?" Wingham asked her.