The Night Land

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.