Century Gate

First Appearance and Context

The Century Gate is noted alongside the Year Gate and the Decade Gate when the concent’s waterworks and timed portals are described during an Apert. Water from an upstream aqueduct is routed to a pond near the Day Gate; from there, drains feed pipes and siphons that run toward the Year, Decade, and Century systems. Those lines remain dry except at Apert. In the same account, the mechanisms that opened the Year and Decade gates were seen to activate, while the Century system did not charge, underscoring its much rarer cycle. A bastion across the river houses these interval gates, reached by a stone bridge whose railing conceals a driveshaft. An extramuros industrial yard lies close by, reached by a slip cut from the river.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Timed portal in the same family as the Year Gate and the Decade Gate, governed by the great Clock housed in the Mynster.
• Associated with a long‑cycle opening on the order of a century; in practice it functions as the Centenarians’ rare outward portal.
• The mechanisms coupled to this and related gates are tended by the Ita.

Relationships

• Counterpart and longer‑interval peer to the Year Gate and the Decade Gate.
• Preparations for its rare opening involve controlled exchanges with the Centenarians via the Upper Labyrinth.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Location and actuation: Situated in an outer‑wall bastion across the river. A water‑driven wheel in the near‑bank tower turns a concealed driveshaft across the bridge to gear the gate’s hinge pins.
• Hydraulic feed: An aqueduct and buried pipework charge the system from an elevated pond; these lines to the Century Gate remain dry except at Apert.
• Clock coupling: Earlier observations within the Mynster describe a dodecahedron auxiliary weight that actuates this gate on its long interval, paralleling the cube (Year) and octahedron (Decade) weights.
• Nearby terrain and structures: A stand of page trees grows on the rise between the Decade Gate and the Century Gate. South of the concent and west of the river, a large roofed platform on stilts spans a canal with an adjacent machine‑hall; these sit near the Century Gate and are the largest structures in the immediate neighborhood, offering cover.

Current Status/Location

Consistent with its long cycle, the gate remained closed during the observed opening when the yearly and decennial systems were charged. In practical use it serves as a recognizable extramuros landmark; it has been used as a reference point for arranging a discreet meeting under the roofed canal works nearby.