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The Night Land

Page 27

Beyond these, South and West of them, was the enormous bulk of the

South-West Watcher, and from the ground rose what we named the Eye

Beam--a single ray of grey light, which came up out of the ground, and

lit the right eye of the monster. And because of this light, that eye

had been mightily examined through unknown thousands of years; and some

held that the eye looked through the light steadfastly at the Pyramid;

but others set out that the light blinded it, and was the work of those

Other Powers which were abroad to do combat with the Evil Forces. But

however this may be, as I stood there in the embrasure, and looked at

the thing through the spy-glass, it seemed to my soul that the Brute

looked straightly at me, unwinking and steadfast, and fully of a

knowledge that I spied upon it. And this is how I felt.

To the North of this, in the direction of the West, I saw The Place

Where The Silent Ones Kill; and this was so named, because there, maybe

ten thousand years gone, certain humans adventuring from the Pyramid,

came off the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk, and into that place, and

were immediately destroyed. And this was told by one who escaped; though

he died also very quickly, for his heart was frozen. And this I cannot

explain; but so it was set out in the Records.

Far away beyond The Place Where The Silent Ones Kill, in the very mouth

of the Western Night was the Place of the Ab-humans, where was lost the

Road Where The Silent Ones Walk, in a dull green, luminous mist. And of

this place nothing was known; though much it held the thoughts and

attentions of our thinkers and imaginers; for some said that there was a

Place Of Safety, differing from the Redoubt (as we of this day suppose

Heaven to differ from the Earth), and that the Road led thence; but was

barred by the Ab-humans. And this I can only set down here; but with no

thought to justify or uphold it.

Later, I travelled over to the North-Eastern wall of the Redoubt, and

looked thence with my spy-glass at the Watcher of the North-East--the

Crowned Watcher it was called, in that within the air above its vast

head there hung always a blue, luminous ring, which shed a strange light

downwards over the monster--showing a vast, wrinkled brow (upon which an

whole library had been writ); but putting to the shadow all the lower

face; all save the ear, which came out from the back of the head, and

belled towards the Redoubt, and had been said by some observers in the

past to have been seen to quiver; but how that might be, I knew not; for

no man of our days had seen such a thing

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