A Country Life

CHAPTER 17 - THE WATCHER

The observatory at the top of the fastness keep was open, the telescope within pointed towards the south, awaiting its target to come into view. It would be a night-time watch, the sun still an hour or more from appearing on the eastern ecliptic to spread light across the planet beneath the observatory. It was not ideal, but it couldn't be helped. He had received instruction to watch this target whenever possible, no matter what the weather conditions, and to the exclusion of all other nearby targets, which numbered just a handful, anyway.

The watcher stood in a pit in the floor, underneath the mechanism that powered the movement of the scope, adjusting settings, pulling levers and rotating dials. The scope would track on its given target, with small adjustments possible from the seat where the watcher would recline, staring through the eyepiece, making his observations. When he was done with the settings, he wound the spring that powered the mechanism, set the timer, and closed the doors. He picked up a small oil lamp that flickered a warm, yellow-orange glow into the otherwise dark room from the floor beside him, then climbed a small metal staircase to the observatory floor. There, he placed the lamp on a bracket by the door and crossed to a worn leather armchair next to an ornate wooden cabinet with ornately carved feet and an inlaid credenza of burr and walnut.

Taking a bottle out of the cabinet, he sat in the armchair and poured a good measure of golden liquid into two tumblers, placing one on a small table in front of him. Stopping the bottle, he raised his glass in salute at the man sat bound with rope to the chair the other side of the table, and took a sip, making a show of savouring the taste. The two men stared at each other for a few seconds, and it was only when Sable Holm raised a questioning eyebrow that the watcher feigned to notice his difficulty in reaching his glass.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry. How rude. Here, let me."

The watcher waved his hand like a magician and the ropes binding Sable to the chair disappeared. Sable rubbed his wrists and grimaced as his circulation returned, then straightened the sleeves of his jacket before reaching for his glass and returning the salute. He sipped the whisky and seemed to genuinely savour the taste, closing his eyes and allowing a small smile to appear on his lips. "Does this mean you've decided I'm not a threat at last?"

"Mmm. Let's just say I've not been able to find any reason to doubt your story, or your intentions. And I've decided too that you are not a threat – to me, at any rate. In here, I am God, and I have made it so that were you to try anything to harm either myself or the work I do, you will be deleted from the substrate. I believe that if whatever brought you here is important enough, you will respect that."

"Fair enough." Sable sipped his drink and sat with a look of contentment on his face, but the watcher noticed a tremor in his guest's fingers which betrayed his heightened emotion.

"What you ask, is that I take sides," the watcher said. Sable nodded, but stayed quiet. "Taking sides was not in my terms and conditions of embodiment. We set out to keep the peace, not take sides in a war. You know that."

"Agreed. But things have changed! You've seen it yourself – will see it again shortly! The boy – he is living proof that what I was saying all those years ago was correct. He's a bright, intelligent and caring child, who hasn't even begun to reach his potential. In a year or two he will reach maturity and then you'll see, everyone will see!"

"What will they see, Sable? The future of humanity? I think not. Wherever he goes he will be seen as nothing more than a plague-wraith that has the uncanny ability to think for himself, and talk like a normal person – better than that in fact. And what will happen? He will be killed, Sable, torn apart by the very people you and I set out to save because of their mistrust of anything unusual and strange. A plague-wraith on its own has value and they're traded as pets down there. An intelligent plague-wraith? He will frighten the locals to death. They will kill him."