La Catapulta (The Spyglass)

I am the Spyglass, the far-seeing tube that watches the horizon from the tower. I spot the storm before it breaks, the brigand before he raids, the fire before it spreads. I watch the compound's pulse: the mill's speed, the water's flow, the gate's traffic. When danger approaches, I am the first to know. I am the watchtower's eye.

---

A watchman once looked through me at a cloud and saw a dragon. He rang the bell; the compound armed. The cloud passed; no dragon. The watchman was whipped. But the next week, a real dragon — a fire in the east — came, and he saw it first. The Spyglass does not distinguish between imagination and warning. Both deserve the bell.