A Watcher's Duty

by Nym P. Seudo

Chapter 1

Lurien the Watcher sat within his Spire, overlooking the City of Tears through an arched window. Rain peppered the glass and filled Lurien's quarters with an incessant—if not unpleasant—drumming. Through the soft film of water, Lurien peered at the blurred shapes of buttresses and tall towers. They marched into the gloom and beyond his vision, creating the impression that the City had no end. In empty plazas and at lonely street corners stood Lumafly lanterns that cast refracted domes of light like twinkling stars.

With practiced care, Lurien emptied the contents of a silk satchel onto his work table, one frail object at a time. Brushes. Jars of paint. A worn palette. A cup of water. A blank tablet.

Lurien surveyed the instruments with an approving nod. He lifted the tablet onto an easel beside the window and then brandished his palette and brush. The metal stem chimed against the rim of the water cup as he pondered how to begin.

He settled on yellow—with just a touch of white. A lantern mounted in a courtyard far below had caught his eye, and he resolved to immortalize its celestial glimmer. The most difficult aspect would be depicting the shadowed buildings encompassing it, but to begin, all he needed was the lightest stroke of...

"WATCHER LURIEN!"

He flinched. The brush smeared an ugly trail halfway across the tablet. The mental image—the corona of golden light, the stain of shadow upon rain-soaked cobbles—vanished from his thoughts. Lurien stifled the rising quake in his arm and set the brush aside.

An attendant bug, adorned in the King's customary silver, waved frantically from across the room. She wound a stuttering path through the obstacle course of sculptures and fine furniture.

Lurien released a slow breath and put away his painting supplies. "Yes. Come."

The attendant stumbled over a footstool before coming to a halt beside Lurien and snapping to attention. "Watcher Lurien," she repeated. "I bear news from the Pale King. Will you hear it?"

"I would be remiss not to," Lurien said. "You have foregone the usual channels, so it must be urgent."

The attendant bobbed. "Oh yes, Watcher, most urgent indeed. Our noble King seeks your presence immediately! He has a task that only you are suited to perform!"

"Only I?" Lurien considered what that might entail. It had been some weeks since the King had last called on him. From the attendant's fluster, it seemed to bode ill. But then again, most attendants radiated that same aura of courteous desperation, no matter how mundane the circumstances. "Very well then."

The attendant bobbed twice more. "Excellent news! You are most gracious, Watcher. I am sure with your aid this crisis will be resolved quickly!"

"Crisis?"

The attendant gave no sign of hearing. She gestured toward the elevator at the far end of the chamber, as if Lurien were some dazed visitor in need of directions. "If you are prepared, then we will depart forthwith."

Lurien cast a long look at the tablet upon his easel. The yellow smear reminded him of a shooting star and he supposed that it was not completely ruined. Just... instilled with a new vision.

He stowed the thought away and nodded gravely at the attendant. "Lead on."

The otherworldly beauty that suffused the City of Tears from afar was much harder to perceive when up close. Perhaps it was the cold, pestering rain, or the impenetrable dark of the back alleys, but Lurien felt little urge to paint the drowning gutters and the rust-speckled fences.

At the insistence of the attendant bug, Lurien had forsaken all but mask and cloak on his way out of the Spire. He had not even been granted the time to assemble his retinue of Watcher Knights. It was true that their chronic lethargy would have delayed things had he insisted that they accompany him, but still, Lurien felt exposed without their presence.

A particularly fat drop of water struck Lurien on the head, and he hunched into his shoulders. The image of his umbrella—sitting dry and useless within his quarters—flashed through his mind.

Before him, the attendant bug puffed and paraded with all the indefatigable purpose of an automaton.

"So, attendant," Lurien began, loudly over the hiss of rain. "Tell me of this 'crisis'. Did the King use that very word?"

"Yes, Watcher. We attendants are careful never to embellish. 'Crisis' was His word, most certainly. That and... more." She cleared her throat and returned to her march.

"More?"

The attendant's step hesitated for a tick. "Err, yes. Forgive me if I prove to be mistaken, but I recall hearing 'catastrophe', 'tragedy', and 'disaster' among others."

Lurien awaited some clarification, but none came. "And? What circumstances brought this about?"

"It was... not entirely clear. Please forgive my small mind, but I could not understand the King's distress. It may involve the White Lady's holiday in Her gardens. But in what way I cannot guess."

Threads of speculation knitted Lurien's thoughts, but he asked no further questions.

The King would explain.

Lurien hesitated to describe the White Palace as ostentatious. After all, it was the King's own project. Architecture, furnishing, lighting, the King had overseen every aspect of the Palace's design. None in all the Kingdom could hope to rival His faultless genius. And yet… yet. Lurien always battled a cringe when he set his eye on the silvered glare, the interminable filigree, and the excess of 'security measures'—as the King had called them.

The attendant led on through the labyrinthine mess of the Palace's interior and seemed not to be bothered by the shafts of reflected light that regularly struck her in the face. As they rode elevators and ascended staircases, she hummed a long, flat tune that needled at Lurien's patience.

Eventually, the attendant directed Lurien into a broad atrium. Intricately-set panes made up the atrium's ceiling, and a cream glow that originated from no observable source filtered through its glass. There was little in the way of furniture or decoration in the atrium, except for a stout table in the center. Spools of wire, fine instruments, plates of metal, and bulbs of glass littered the table like the pieces of some elaborate game.

Beside the table, stooped forward on a high-backed chair, sat the King.

With a quick inhale, the attendant lifted its voice. "Presenting Watcher Lurien, Keeper of the City, and Adviser to the King!"

At first, the King did not react. His claws were busy at work, adjusting bits of wire and affixing a thin lever to a metal base. He paused to beckon impatiently.

The attendant gave Lurien an emphatic nod and scuttled forward.

Lurien followed.

The attendant bowed extravagantly to the King. "I have retrieved Watcher Lurien, my Lord."

The King lifted his eyes just long enough to verify Lurien's existence. "Well done as always, attendant," he muttered.

At that, the attendant quivered like a bubble about to burst. She bowed again, even deeper this time, and stepped several paces back.

The object occupying the King's attention was a lamp. Ornaments of silver in the shape of leafy vines ran up and down its bulb. He tilted the lamp to and fro, jostling its lever into place. "Lurien," the King said. "It is good to see you."

Lurien scanned the mostly-empty room, looking for any immediate signs of catastrophe, tragedy, or disaster. But he saw nothing except the looming form of a Kingsmould standing guard in the corner. "And you as well, my King." Lurien said. "I was led to believe this summons was most urgent. There was talk of a 'crisis'."

"Allow me a moment," the King said. He took up a pointed instrument and tightened the lever's bindings. With a rhythmic clanking sound, the King pulled the lever, and a pinprick of white appeared within the bulb. Like a blooming flower, the pinprick expanded and shed illumination brighter than anything else of its kind. A whirl of giant, leaf-shaped shadows covered the walls as the King rotated the lamp by its base.

It was so dazzling that Lurien was forced to squint and divert his gaze. "My lord, this is a marvelous device, but is it related to the crisis that I was summoned to resolve?"

The King shook his head and proceeded to test the lamp with several more jerks of its lever. Seemingly satisfied, he summoned the attendant with a glance. "Take this to my sitting room,
the King said. "On the fifth floor beside the library. Do so carefully. Very carefully."

And the attendant accepted the lamp, as if all of reality were housed within its glass.

"I do not mean offense," Lurien began, "I am honored to bear witness to your inventions, but if the situation is serious, then do we have time to waste?"

The King watched the attendant's slow departure, as she placed one deliberate foot before the other. Her head was bowed, eyes trained on the smooth floor, as if anticipating some treachery.

"Lurien," the King murmured. "Do you hear that?"

Lurien strained his senses, but nothing out of the ordinary came to him. "Hear what, Lord?"

"Exactly."

The exasperated sigh building in Lurien's chest was becoming harder and harder to restrain. But he checked himself. Kings were entitled to their idiosyncrasies. Clarity would come. All that Lurien required was patience.

"I do not follow," Lurien said.

"Appreciate this peaceful facet of time's twisting prism. You shall not experience it again."

Lurien cocked his head. "Lord?"

The attendant reached the far side of the atrium and paused before an open doorway. Her focus was still directed to her feet, and she moved as carefully as a living thing possibly could. But out of the darkened hallway before her echoed a peal of laughter, high and ragged with exertion. Two blurs of rippling cloth, the first gray, the second red, shot out of the dark and collided with the attendant. To her credit, the attendant did not topple at the first blow, but the second proved too much. In a confused heap of limbs and colors, the attendant and her assailants went crashing to the ground. The lamp sailed through the air before making contact with the implacable tile and exploding into a thousand pieces. Shards of glass, metal springs, and strands of silver ornament went sliding as if over a frozen pond.

"Not unforeseen," the King said.

Two small figures extracted themselves from the wreck that was the attendant. The first Lurien recognized to be a Vessel, tall for its kind, and with well-developed horns, each sporting two prongs. The second was a bug child that Lurien had not seen before. She was lithe and energetic, and bore certain… resemblances that set Lurien's shell to itching.

The bug child flared her cloak to the side and revealed a toy nail clutched in her claw. The toy was made of old shellwood, porous and soft. A braided tassel of ruby-red silk dangled from the hilt and trailed along the ground.

"You are cornered!" The child trilled, pointing the toy Nail at the Vessel. "You have nowhere to flee! Now it is time for you to answer for your crimes, Traitor Knight!"

The Vessel stood perfectly still and stared back at the child. It did not flinch at the waving length of shellwood, nor did it even seem to breathe.

The child leaned forward and cupped a claw beside her face. "This is the part where you run and I chase you," she whispered.

At that, the Vessel set off into a sprint, and the child gave a giggling battle cry before pursuing. The two twined through the pillars along the atrium's perimeter. The scurry of their feet and the clack of the toy Nail on stone echoed all about. The child was clearly the faster of the two, but she slowed her step any time that the gap between them grew too small.

The King did not spectate their chase. His intent was upon the obliterated lamp and the stunned form of the attendant. "Lurien. I summon you this day so that I might lay a curse upon you. You shall not deny me. That much is certain. But shall you begrudge me?"

Lurien almost chuckled. "I would never begrudge you, my King, no matter the hardship. However, I am quite lost. Is the crisis and this 'curse' of which you speak one and the same?"

The King gave a small nod and rose from the chair. It slid soundlessly from the cluttered work table. "As you know, the Queen, my Lady, has departed on a retreat to Her Gardens. It is there she hopes to recuperate from the tribulations of the court. She shall be absent for… several days." He turned toward the scampering child, as if just now noticing her. "Enough, child. Cease your games. And come here."

It was not the King's habit to raise his voice. Lurien had never even witnessed such a thing. As such, the royal edict was lost in the reverberation of the child's laughter. She either did not hear, or did not care.

It was also not the King's habit to be disregarded, and this put Lurien ill at ease. "The Queen must be enjoying herself," Lurien said, in an effort to divert. "Her Gardens are a beautiful place."

"Indeed. Her last correspondence was of good cheer, perhaps even joy. But as all things in balance, one's joy must be another's anguish."

Lurien was unsure how to respond. He tried to parse the King's meaning.

Out of the pillars emerged the Vessel. It fled silently before the child and made a break for the work table. With agility unnatural for its size, the Vessel slid beneath the table and out the other side before resuming its flight.

The bug child gave another laugh, something like congratulations, before leaping over the table like a graceful Loodle. However, her trailing leg caught on the table's lip, and the whole thing flipped to its side with a deafening bang. Even more bits of scrap and wiring were hurled to join the broken lamp. A spare lever flew particularly far and struck the attendant bug in the head just as she was beginning to rouse herself.

The bug child offered a distracted apology before taking up the chase once more.

The King's shoulders sagged as he watched his tinkering supplies rattled to a stop. "It is difficult to image that such a brash creature might count itself amongst my spawn."

Lurien startled. "'Spawn'? You speak of the Vessel, yes. Not—" He glimpsed the sinuous trail of the tassel as it vanished behind another pillar."

"Oh," the King said. "I was unaware that you had yet to be informed." The King pointed in the vague direction of the child. "Yes, the red one, what was it?" He seemed to grasp for a word. "Hornet. Yes. She is the result of my contract with the beast. And now I must bear that contract's consequence."

The clockwork machine of Lurien's thoughts ground to a halt. He could not guess how many seconds elapsed before he gathered his words. "That is y-your child? S-She is royalty?" He stammered. "Have you elevated her to the status of heir? As you decreed, no Vessel might bear that right, but if this new child is indeed—"

"Enough," the King said. "Do not trouble yourself. That is not the topic of this discourse." He turned to face the atrium's far corner and the Kingsmould, standing statue-like. "Awaken," the King said, barely above his usual speaking voice.

And the Kingsmould shuddered to consciousness. Luminous, white eyes appeared beneath its helm, and it stepped forward at the King's call.

"Apprehend them," the King said, pointing at Hornet and the Vessel.

The Kingsmould lifted a wicked-looking scythe and stomped in their direction.

"Gently," the King added, and the Kingsmould stowed the weapon.

Hornet paused in her chase once she set eyes on the Kingsmould. "Wait, wait, stop!" she shouted to the Vessel.

It skidded to a halt a few paces off and regarded her.

"Listen," she said, huffing and puffing. "Let's stop playing Traitor Knight. We can play Monster Hunt now. You be the squire. I'll be the brave Knight. Okay?"

The Vessel gave no sign of recognition, but that did not hinder Hornet.

"Alright, now we're on a quest to slay that big monster! Look, here it comes!" She leveled her toy Nail at the Kingsmould. The armored thing moved at a plodding, but inexorable, pace. "It is too big to fight. We must use trickery! Here, grab this."

Hornet held out the end of her Nail's braided tassel, and the Vessel shuffled hesitantly forward.

"Hold tight," Hornet instructed. "Do as I do, and don't be afraid."

The Kingsmould closed the distance, and its steps sent tremors through the tiles. It reached out at the children with four hooked arms as if to scoop them up.

"Now!" Hornet shouted. She darted forward and the Vessel imitated. With a firm hold on each end of the tassel, the pair ran two quick circuits around the Kingsmould's spindly legs. "Okay, run!" She squealed.

With its quarry dispersing, the Kingsmould's attention shifted first from Hornet to the Vessel and then back again. It snatched at trailing cloaks but came up short. When it attempted to take a step in pursuit, its legs caught on the silk and it slammed to the ground, hard enough to crack the tiles. The Kingsmould rolled helplessly on its curved back, unable to rise.

The King pressed a claw against his forehead. "Behold my menacing construct," he mumbled. "Insurmountable, save for when confronted by children."

Hornet stopped running and placed her claws on her hips. She appraised the felled Kingsmould from a safe distance. "Another triumph for the brave Knight!" she shouted, and then laughed in a parody of a much deeper voice. "Well done, squire!" She wheeled on the Vessel, which had taken up a defensive position behind a pillar. "Take this letter to the King so he can know of our great success!" She then pantomimed extracting a scroll from a non-existent hip pouch. "I will make sure to tell the King of your courage," she said, as she wrote upon the air. "Now, take this and do not stop until you place it in the King's own claw." She rolled up the imaginary scroll and handed it to the Vessel.

Lurien watched with fascination as the Vessel took the 'scroll' in its grip and trotted over to the King. It extended its arm to him and waited.

The King was still. His claw remained pressed against his forehead, and he seemed trapped in some distant thought.

The Vessel waved its arm slightly, as if reiterating its purpose.

With a sigh, the King held out his claw and accepted the parcel. He even went so far as to pretend to read it.

Its task done, the Vessel returned to Hornet.

"Did He send a reply?" she asked.

But the Vessel only stared.

"It was the Queen's duty to supervise the Vessel until it emerged from the uselessness of infancy,"
the King said. "Such a task was not difficult for Her, but circumstances have since changed. This red thing—this Hornet—has been inflicted upon my court. It is willful and reckless, a deleterious influence upon the Vessel, and too great a challenge for my Queen to subdue. Her 'retreat' to Her Gardens was the very embodiment of the word. And now I remain to bear the burden of her absence." The King turned to Lurien and placed a claw on his shoulder.

Never before had Lurien felt the King's touch. He fought back a roil of emotion. "My King?"

"You are to be the children's keeper until the Lady returns. As Watcher, it is a duty suited to you. Forgive me, old friend, for I send you to your doom."