A Country Life

CHAPTER 9 - THE WATCHER

The fastness in which the Watcher resided was an immense dark edifice, its outer curtain wall two hundred feet tall and over thirty feet thick, forming a pentagon that enclosed a second, even higher curtain wall. At each corner of the outer wall a drum tower was home to enormous, massively powerful trebuchets that could easily throw a block of stone weighing thirty tons over a mile out into the sea, which surrounded on all sides the rocky island on which the fastness was built.

The island itself was formidable, rising a hundred feet up from the sea with sheer sided cliffs that were home to thousands of seabirds, whose guano covered the rock in a white, smelly, slimy mass that would make scaling the cliffs an almost impossible task for even the most determined invader, even without the deafening cries, sharp jabbing beaks and regurgitated half-digested fish that would be vomited onto anyone attempting such a climb. Even then, were a determined attacker ever to reach the curtain wall itself, they would find that it was made of material closely resembling polished granite, each block cut perfectly square with perfect precision, the joints almost invisible to the naked eye, and the face of each block perfectly smooth, affording no purchase at all. Attempting to enter via an assault on the main gate was also futile - the fastness did not have one.

Should the outer wall somehow be successfully scaled, then the attacking force would have to cross to the inner wall, which was not connected by any means to the outer by walkways or bridges. Between the two walls, hidden in the perpetual darkness at the bottom of the canyon, were a myriad of razor sharp crystal-grown spikes, waiting to impale anyone attempting to reach the bottom in search of a doorway, which they wouldn't be able to find anyway. Like the outer wall, the inner did not possess an entryway of any kind.

In the centre of the inner ward, a square keep rose up and towered over all, its battlements at the top of the structure another two hundred feet higher than the innermost curtain wall.

At the top of the keep, looking out of place among the huge scale and projection of brute strength that the fastness possessed, was a delicate, domed structure made of brick, wood and metal. It was an observatory, and within, the Watcher performed his duty to his masters, and watched and reported on those people he was told to gaze upon.

Within the dome of the observatory was a device that looked very much like a large catadioptric telescope, thirty foot long and five wide, mounted on a clockwork mechanism that controlled its motion. Its brass shone with a golden glow and the ticking of the clockwork regulator gave the otherwise silent room gave a warm, comforting feel.

The door of the observatory roof was open, filling the space inside with light from a sky that, like the fastness itself, defied reality.

At that particular moment, the Watcher was not using his telescope. There was currently no-one he needed to observe, so he was outside on the keep's battlements, surveying the seas around the fastness, as was his want when he had some free time. The enemy's war fleet that patrolled endlessly back and forth downwind of the fastness had grown larger recently, he thought. There were more triple decked first-raters too. And was that a hint of smoke, over there near the horizon? Could this mean the forces fixing their gaze upon him had achieved another developmental level? Perhaps the fleet of wooden frigates and line-of-battle square-rigged ships, standing off and on in rigid line-ahead formations, would soon be replaced by steam powered ironclads, dreadnoughts and battleships that could manoeuvre irrespective of wind and tide.

And another worry - the pace of development shown by the enemy appeared to be increasing and may very soon reach that of achieving heavier than air flight. An attack from the air would be much harder to repel than an assault by sea. He ought to begin preparing a defence against such measures. Perhaps some anti-aircraft guns and searchlights scattered about would do the trick. He might even skip that technological stage altogether and jump straight for surface to air missiles, but that could be counterproductive. He still didn't know whether his accessing the systems that would produce such items would allow his enemies to do the same.