The journey from Highgarden to Oldtown took more than two days on horseback.
Many travelers preferred to push their mounts harder and complete the trip in exactly two days.
William was not one of them.
He cherished his warhorse.
After several years as a squire, his horsemanship was more than respectable, and throughout the journey he carefully controlled the pace, making sure the horse rested at proper intervals.
Even when he reached a village not far from Oldtown by the previous evening, he chose not to continue through the night.
Instead, he stayed there until dawn before setting out on the final stretch of the road.
As he rounded a mountain pass, a towering structure suddenly appeared against the distant sky.
A colossal tower.
Its summit blazed with brilliant fire, casting radiant light in every direction like a second rising sun.
The Hightower.
The tallest structure in the Seven Kingdoms.
A beacon guiding travelers through mist and darkness.
The moment William saw it, a strange warmth filled him.
It felt like coming home.
Strictly speaking, he had spent only a few months at Harrenhal.
By contrast, he had lived in Oldtown for six years.
Compared to Harrenhal, with its cold, oppressive aura, he much preferred this ancient city scented with flowers and sea breezes.
By the time the sun fully overwhelmed the beacon’s light, Oldtown’s mighty walls had come into view.
Beyond them stretched the Honeywine River, crowded with countless sails.
Ships came and went endlessly.
They carried the Reach’s produce into the city and exported goods from Essos and even more distant lands.
Large-scale trade traveled by water, while local merchants and farmers arrived by wagon, creating a bustling sea of traffic outside the gates.
William could do little except join the flow and move forward at its pace.
Oldtown was a maze.
Narrow winding streets.
Crowded markets.
Countless alleys.
Rows upon rows of stone houses.
Even lifelong residents occasionally lost themselves in its twisting labyrinth.
After entering the city, William simply loosened the reins and allowed his horse to find its own way.
Meanwhile, he leisurely admired the dazzling merchandise and endless streams of people.
Amid all the prosperity and noise, he found a peculiar sense of peace.
Following a road alongside the Honeywine toward the great stone bridge nearest the Hightower, he eventually turned into a quieter district.
The shops disappeared.
Pedestrians became scarce.
The city’s clamor gradually faded behind him.
Soon he arrived before a modest residence.
A small garden stood in front, its flowers and shrubs carefully trimmed.
Behind the greenery rose a three-story stone house with a simple, dignified appearance.
This was one of William’s homes in Oldtown.
Because he still had no idea when or how his father, Walter Whent, and his sister Minisa would eventually die, William had long searched for ways to keep them away from Harrenhal from time to time.
During his second year in Oldtown, he had used homesickness as an excuse and invited his family to visit him.
At the time, he had merely rented this well-located house.
Later, after winning two championships at his first tournament and shamelessly collecting enormous ransoms from defeated opponents under the guise of youthful innocence, he walked away with more than twenty thousand silver stags.
When he expressed a desire to purchase the property, Walter had been so delighted by his son’s victories that he generously gifted him thirty thousand silver stags.
In the end, William bought the house for fifty thousand silver stags.
Ever since then, whenever the family visited Oldtown, they stayed here.
William himself often used it as a private place to study magic.
Technically, as the squire of Ser Garth Hightower, he should have lived permanently within the Hightower household.
However, William trained tirelessly, thanks in no small part to the effects of the Recovery spell, and Garth was extremely satisfied with his progress.
At the same time, William cultivated the image of a scholarly young noble, constantly attending lectures at the Citadel.
As the heir to Harrenhal, he was also entitled to a certain amount of freedom.
Eventually, Garth simply turned a blind eye to William’s frequent absences.
The moment William appeared outside, a servant hurried forward and opened the gate.
“Welcome home, my lord!” William nodded.
“Good to see you, Ragnor.” Ragnor was in his thirties.
Both he and his wife came from across the Narrow Sea in the Free Cities.
They had worked in the house since William’s family first rented it and had remained ever since.
Handing over the reins, William headed toward the house.
Then he stopped.
Two men emerged from the doorway.
They wore robes covered in beads.
Their skin was unnaturally pale.
Their lips were stained blue.
Both were gaunt, with hollow cheeks and unsettling smiles.
Glop vat Votis.
Moken Rota.
His occult adviser and the man’s assistant.
By all rights, they should have been at Harrenhal overseeing William’s industrial development project.
After House Whent lost most of its lands, the size of its army inevitably shrank as well.
But William intended to earn tremendous military glory during the coming War of the Five Kings.
A small army simply would not do.
A native-born lord of Westeros might have focused on acquiring more territory or expanding trade.
William’s first thought had been different.
Valyrian steel.
He believed the inability to forge new Valyrian steel stemmed from one crucial missing step.
Nobody could infuse it with magic.
He had tested fragments of Valyrian steel in Archmaester Marwyn’s possession and confirmed that he himself could channel magical power into them.
Therefore, he concluded that if the forging method could be rediscovered, producing new Valyrian steel should theoretically be possible.
Unfortunately, despite extensive research, access to Citadel archives, and the assistance of two warlocks, every experiment had ended in failure.
No Valyrian steel.
Only a collection of bizarre magical byproducts.
William had largely lost interest.
The warlocks, however, were ecstatic.
To them, creating objects infused with magical power, regardless of usefulness, was a monumental achievement.
It was also the moment William began suspecting that they already knew he possessed genuine magical abilities.
When the Valyrian steel project stalled, William naturally turned his attention toward industry.
Harrenhal’s five colossal towers offered an obvious opportunity.
House Whent only occupied two of them.
The remaining three stood abandoned.
Why not convert them into factories?
He immersed himself in research.
He studied engineering texts at the Citadel.
He consulted learned maesters.
He developed plans for water-powered and steam-powered workshops.
He even persuaded Archmaester Molas, an expert in mechanics, to participate.
The problem was geography.
Harrenhal stood on the northern shore of the Gods Eye and lacked a natural water source suitable for industrial power generation.
As a result, William began researching steam engines.
To his surprise, the Citadel had already experimented with steam engines centuries earlier.
The concept worked.
The problem was sealing.
No one had found a practical solution.
Then William remembered one of the strange magical substances produced during the failed Valyrian steel experiments.
It resembled rubber.
When tested, it solved the problem almost perfectly.
The success convinced him that the project was genuinely viable.
Archmaester Molas promptly lost interest the moment he learned magical materials were involved.
The warlocks, however, eagerly took over development.
William had initially doubted whether warlocks could contribute to scientific research.
To his surprise, they performed remarkably well.
Magic and technology, it seemed, were not as incompatible as many believed.
For years, a lack of money had kept the project confined to paper.
Only after William began earning enormous sums from tournaments did construction finally begin.
Fortunately, the groundwork had already been laid.
Walter Whent enthusiastically supported the endeavor.
Providing one abandoned tower might be considered recycling unused space.
Providing large numbers of workers represented genuine commitment.
Archmaester Molas and the warlocks personally traveled to Harrenhal to supervise installation.
According to their letters, progress had been excellent.
Reservoirs and channels had been built atop the Wailing Tower.
The lower levels had been converted into textile and smithing workshops.
Steam engines had been installed.
Production had begun.
Suppressing his curiosity for the moment, William approached the two warlocks.
“Glop.
Moken.
It’s good to see you.” “My lord.” Both men bowed respectfully.
Glop had known William’s true identity for years, yet still insisted on addressing him as “my lord.” Because their Common Tongue remained clumsy, William usually spoke to them in High Valyrian.
Over the years, his fluency had become increasingly natural.
After a brief exchange of greetings, the three entered the sitting room and took their seats.
William got straight to the point.
“So.
Did something go wrong at Harrenhal?” “No, my lord.” Glop shook his head.
“At least when we departed, everything was proceeding according to plan.
The steam engines continuously pumped water to the reservoir atop the Wailing Tower.
The textile workshop produced cloth of excellent quality.
The forge began using water-powered hammers to crush ore and shape armor.” Even his tone carried a hint of pride.
Archmaester Molas might insist that it was a triumph of mechanical engineering.
The warlocks knew better.
Magic had played an indispensable role.
William relaxed.
This entire undertaking was unprecedented in the Seven Kingdoms.
The possibility of investing vast fortunes only to achieve nothing had haunted him for years.
“If everything is going well, then why did you suddenly return to Oldtown?” Glop leaned closer and lowered his voice.
“My lord.
While exploring a sealed chamber within one of Harrenhal’s abandoned towers…” He paused.
“We found something.” From inside his sleeve, he carefully withdrew an ornate dressing box.
The craftsmanship was exquisite.
Slowly, he opened the lid.
Instantly, magical energy surged outward.
Cold.
Ancient.
Bone-deep and suffocating.
A chill raced through William’s entire body.