Year Gate

First Appearance and Context

Within the Mynster, the Year Gate is part of the clock-governed gate system. During a Decennial Apert at sunrise, the main weight’s cue was followed by two auxiliary weights descending to open the Year Gate and the Decade Gate; the moment drew cheers from those gathered for the rite. Daily, the main mechanism opens the Day Gate, but the Year Gate moves only on its annual cycle.

Roles/Actions and Affiliations

• Time-gated portal: The Year Gate opens on a one-year interval, synchronized to the great clock. In practice it is associated with the Unarian community’s annual opening and movement during Apert, aligning with paths into and out of the Unarian Math.
• Mechanical actuation: Its motion is coupled to the great clock’s works housed in the Praesidium and is visible in the chancel when the auxiliary weight descends.

Relationships

• Counterpart gates: The Year Gate stands alongside the Day Gate and the Decade Gate as part of the same family of timed portals, with rarer century and millennium gates completing the set.
• Maintenance: The mechanisms tied to the gate are tended by the Ita, who are said to clean and inspect the gear-trains, shafts, and escapements linked to the clockworks.

Descriptions/Characteristics

• Auxiliary weights: Four shaped weights ride on rails fixed to the Praesidium’s pillars—a cube, an octahedron, a dodecahedron, and an icosahedron. Each ascends incrementally when the clock is wound and descends only on its interval to open its respective gate. The cube weight serves the Year Gate.
• Observed actuation: At a decennial opening, two weights (the cube and the octahedron) were seen descending together to open the Year and Decade gates.

Current Status/Location

Recently observed in operation during a Decennial opening, with the Year Gate actuated alongside the Decade Gate at sunrise. Outside such observances it remains closed, advancing toward its next cycle as the clock is wound.