‟If you want to meet The Watcher, you can find him in the library after twilight. He's usually running about causing problems in the day.”
Those were the parting words the Spellblades, Lua Orniter and Joachim Kerr, had left with Artria after she expressed a desire to meet with this Watcher that they travelled with. It also happened to be the time Lands Lord was allowed to roam the library, so she intended to visit under the guise of overseeing the lizardkin.
Not many visited the royal library at night. In fact, Artria doubted many visited it even during the day. Even officials tend to use the public libraries more for information. The royal library housed many 1st editions, which while great for a collection, housed many errors and mistakes corrected with time not present in current versions of the respective books. This meant the only real use of the royal collection was as reference and to cross-check historical records. Thankfully, that was enough for what Lands Lord and the Aleynonlian emissaries required.
‟Have you truly not met The Watcher yet?” Gwen asked. The queen had decided to accompany her after she had finished they day's meetings.
‟No,” Art replied. ‟I've only been back a few days. What kind of man is he?”
The queen was walking in front of Art, despite them heading to where the knight wanted to go. In the decades Art and Gwen had known each other, they were not one for formalities when alone. But walking in the open corridors of the keep meant a certain level of gesturing was required for appearances sake.
‟The Watcher is... interesting,” Gwen continued.
Art raised a curious brow at the back of Gwen's figure. ‟Interesting good, or interesting bad?”
‟Interesting maybe,” the queen replied non-committally. ‟You'll understand when you meet him.”
They approached the double doors to the library. In what was a rarity, there were two guards posted at the entrance. Their armbands were coloured a dark green to signify their duty as prison guards. It seemed Lands Lord had indeed been escorted there.
When the guards realized the queen was turning into the room, they saluted, and mechanically opened the door automatically. The monarch thanked them for their service and walked in formally. Art followed after, giving the two guards an appreciative bow of her own.
The royal library was one of the largest room in the whole keep. It stretched for most of the second level, reaching from the right end of the room where slit windows looked out towards the town, to a wall 30 meters across the floor that bordered the corridor behind it. Almost every feasible inch of the room was lined with shelves, saved for a person width of space between each furnishing to walk through. A lone round table sat in the middle of a slightly emptier reception area, surrounded by chairs.
Lands Lord looked up from the large tome in his hands from his seat at the table. ‟Ah, your royal highnessss and Lae Pendragon.” He stood up, tail casually sweeping the chair back. ‟I hope you're not checking in on me on my very firssst night.”
‟No, Sir Lands Lord... Sir Lord? Sir Lands?”
Lands raised a hand to halt her. ‟Landsss isss fine.”
‟Well, Lands,” Gwen continued. ‟I'm here to introduce Art here to The Watcher. Have you met the man yet?”
‟You mean the weird one?”
The queen nodded in confirmation.
A smile spread across the lizard's face. Art continued to find it disturbing, the way the sharp angular teeth pokes out from behind thin lips was similar to any other a race's evil grin.
‟Someone looking for me?”
Art jumped. She had not ‟jumped” in a long, long time. Spinning around to face the newcomer, her instincts told her someone powerful stood behind her, and she summoned her sword in a flash of light, stopping the point of the great blade just inches away from the man's face.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
‟Hello!” The face of a smiling man greeted her calmly.
His hair was onyx and ruffled. His facial features were lean and sharp, but otherwise unremarkable save for what looked to be the remnants of scars. His eyes were a dark chocolate brown that seemed to glaze over her. Tucked away casually into the pocket of his grey coat were his hands. Underneath the outerwear were black pants, a brown vest, and a white shirt. By all metrics he looked nothing out of the ordinary for a traveller, yet Art felt she should not let her guard down and he may the most astounding person she will ever meet. It was not anything he showed that made her think that way, but an aura that exuded.
Despite the weapon to his face, The Watcher continued to grin. ‟Is this how you greet everyone?” His eyes grazed over to the queen. He then stepped aside of Art's sword casually and hopped to Gwen. ‟Ooohhh! Queeny! Hey! Long time no see! Oh wait, I have a question for you, why is this place called a keep? Its size is definitely a castle, right?”
There had been no malice in the man's movements, and so, Art had not registered that he had stepped past her and approached her queen. It took her a few seconds to even to realize what had happen.
‟G-get away from her!” She spun to face them.
Gwen calmly raised a palm to stop Art. ‟Calm down. This is The Watcher, as you've been told.”
Art looked to the man who was still childishly smiling at the lot of them. After a quick moment to calm herself, she dematerialized her sword in a flash of light and stood back up straight.
With a small bow, she apologised. ‟I'm sorry for my behavior, Sir Watcher. Being a knight trains us to be on edge.”
The Watcher pointed a finger at her. ‟That's not important now.” Then he pivoted his whole body comically to Gwen. ‟What's important is why this place is called a 'keep' and not a 'castle'.”
‟Why is that important?” Gwen asked.
‟Because everything is!”
As Art listened to the queen casually explain the history of the keep - of how it was once a castle torn down and rebuilt as a keep and kept that name as it expanded - Art could not help but notice the wariness in Gwen's movements. Her shoulders tensed slightly as she spoke to the strange man, never taking her eyes off him as if she was in a fight.
‟Okay,” The Watcher admitted. ‟So maybe that's not important.”
Gwen suddenly remembered, ‟Ah! I wanted to introduce you two. This is Artria Pendragon. She is the knight commander of the Knights of the Round.”
The man's eyes glimmered. ‟Arthur Pendragon, you say?”
Art corrected, ‟It's Artria, actually.”
He slunk over to her. ‟Are you a queen too? You'd make a good queen, I bet.”
She looked over to Gwen. ‟Why does everyone keep saying that? Did you tell him to say that? I'm not a queen.”
Gwen piled on, ‟At this point, you really should just embrace it.” Art gave her an annoyed glare.
Lands Lord piped in for the first time in the conversation. ‟I wouldn't pressure her into it if she isss uncomfortable.”
The Watcher stepped back from Art, Gwen, and Lands Lord. ‟Fascinating. The players are all the same, but the story, the plot, it's all new. How does it all connect? How does it diverge? Arthur. Guinevere. Lancelot. Have you heard of the Library of Babel? Or was it the Library of Basile?” The man was now pacing around them, taking glances at Art, Gwen, and Lands Lord respectively. He did not wait for their reply before continuing. ‟It's this library that contains all books that are four hundred and twenty pages long, consisting randomly of all the letters, commas, periods, and spaces in random order. Practically, this makes almost all the books complete gibberish.”
Art glanced to Gwen, who simply shrugged with a look that said, she had told her so.
The knight even sought out an answer for normalcy in Lands Lord, but the lizardkin simply told her, ‟He did thisss when we firssst met too.”
The Watcher continued to monologue. ‟But even if you could somehow gather up all the readable books with certain terms, like Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, would the story be the same? Would one page be an introduction and the next be Pulp Fiction?” He stepped to Lands Lord and met the lizardkin's eyes, staring as if trying to find mad answers in the cold blooded slit. ‟What story are you in? The Arthurian Legend? The blog of a detective? A script written by a five year old for a play? Fables? Fairy tales? Myth? Legend?”
Lands Lord could only muster a sympathetic smile. ‟I genuinely don't know, Watcher. But I do not believe I am fit to be part of any myth or legend.”
The man stood back straight and laughed. ‟Good answer, good answer. That's half the fun, isn't it?! Finding out your story. But don't worry, everyone's a legend in my book!” He began walking into the slits between shelves of the library, his hands floating over the spines of the books he passed by. Apparently the presence of the other three had slipped his mind. ‟Let's get back to work! Wait, where are the kids? Oh right, I sent them out to investigate. I'll just let them know when they are back.”
It was at that moment Art remembered all the descriptors used for the man and realized how true they were. He's The Watcher, and he was strange.