Thus had the giants come, fathered of bestial humans and mothered of
monsters. And many and diverse were the creatures which had some human
semblance; and intelligence, mechanical and cunning; so that certain of
these lesser Brutes had machinery and underground ways, having need to
secure to themselves warmth and air, even as healthy humans; only that
they were incredibly inured to hardship, as they might be wolves set in
comparison with tender children. And surely, do I make this thing clear?
And now to continue my telling concerning the Night Land. The Watcher of
the South was, as I have set to make known, a monster differing from
those other Watching Things, of which I have spoken, and of which there
were in all four. One to the North-West, and one to the South-East, and
of these I have told; and the other twain lay brooding, one to the
South-West, and the other to the North-East; and thus the four watchers
kept ward through the darkness, upon the Pyramid, and moved not, neither
gave they out any sound. Yet did we know them to be mountains of living
watchfulness and hideous and steadfast intelligence.
And so, in a while, having listened to the sorrowful sound which came
ever to us over the Grey Dunes, from the Country of Wailing, which lay
to the South, midway between the Redoubt and the Watcher of the South, I
passed upon one of the moving roadways over to the South-Western side of
the Pyramid, and looked from a narrow embrasure thence far down into the
Deep Valley, which was four miles deep, and in which was the Pit of the
Red Smoke.
And the mouth of this Pit was one full mile across, and the smoke of the
Pit filled the Valley at times, so that it seemed but as a glowing red
circle amid dull thunderous clouds of redness. Yet the red smoke rose
never much above the Valley; so that there was clear sight across to the
country beyond. And there, along the further edge of that great depth,
were the Towers, each, maybe, a mile high, grey and quiet; but with a
shimmer upon them.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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