To the back of the Giants' Pit was a great, black Headland, that stood
vast, between the Valley of The Hounds (where lived the monstrous Night
Hounds) and the Giants. And the light of the Kilns struck the brow of
this black Headland; so that, constantly, I saw things peer over the
edge, coming forward a little into the light of the Kilns, and drawing
back swiftly into the shadows. And thus it had been ever, through the
uncounted ages; so that the Headland was known as The Headland From
Which Strange Things Peer; and thus was it marked in our maps and charts
of that grim world. And so I could go on ever; but that I fear to weary; and yet, whether I
do weary, or not, I must tell of this country that I see, even now as I
set my thoughts down, so plainly that my memory wanders in a hushed and
secret fashion along its starkness, and amid its strange and dread
habitants, so that it is but by an effort I realise me that my body is
not there in this very moment that I write. And so to further tellings:
Before me ran the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk; and I searched it, as
many a time in my earlier youth had I, with the spy-glass; for my heart
was always stirred mightily by the sight of those Silent Ones.
And, presently, alone in all the miles of that night-grey road, I saw
one in the field of my glass--a quiet, cloaked figure, moving along,
shrouded, and looking neither to right nor left. And thus was it with
these beings ever. It was told about in the Redoubt that they would harm
no human, if but the human did keep a fair distance from them; but that
it were wise never to come close upon one.
And this I can well believe.
And so, searching the road with my gaze, I passed beyond this Silent
One, and past the place where the road, sweeping vastly to the
South-East, was lit a space, strangely, by the light from the
Silver-fire Holes. And thus at last to where it swayed to the South of
the Dark Palace, and thence Southward still, until it passed round to
the Westward, beyond the mountain bulk of the Watching Thing in the
South--the hugest monster in all the visible Night Lands. My spy-glass
showed it to me with clearness--a living hill of watchfulness, known to
us as The Watcher Of The South. It brooded there, squat and tremendous,
hunched over the pale radiance of the Glowing Dome.