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.

And beyond the Watching Thing was The Place Where The Silent Ones Are
Never, close by the great road; which was bounded upon the far side by
The Giant's Sea; and upon the far side of that, was a Road which was
always named The Road By The Quiet City; for it passed along that place
where burned forever the constant and never-moving lights of a strange
city; but no glass had ever shown life there; neither had any light ever
ceased to burn.

And beyond that again was the Black Mist. And here, let me say, that the
Valley of The Hounds ended towards the Lights of the Quiet City.

And so have I set out something of that land, and of those creatures and
circumstances which beset us about, waiting until the Day of Doom, when
our Earth-Current should cease, and leave us helpless to the Watchers
and the Abundant Terror.

And there I stood, and looked forth composedly, as may one who has been
born to know of such matters, and reared in the knowledge of them. And,
anon, I would look upward, and see the grey, metalled mountain going up
measureless into the gloom of the everlasting night; and from my feet
the sheer downward sweep of the grim, metal walls, six full miles, and