Aye, even to the memories which were the possession of that
far future youth, who was indeed I, of his childhood's days, when his
nurse of that Age swung him, and crooned impossible lullabies of this
mythical sun which, according to those future fairy-tales, had once
passed across the blackness that now lay above the Pyramid. Such is the monstrous futureness of this which I have seen through the
body of that far-off youth. And so back to my telling. To my right, which was to the North, there
stood, very far away, the House of Silence, upon a low hill. And in that
House were many lights, and no sound. And so had it been through an
uncountable Eternity of Years. Always those steady lights, and no
whisper of sound--not even such as our distance-microphones could have
discovered. And the danger of this House was accounted the greatest
danger of all those Lands. And round by the House of Silence, wound the Road Where The Silent Ones
Walk. And concerning this Road, which passed out of the Unknown Lands,
nigh by the Place of the Ab-humans, where was always the green, luminous
mist, nothing was known; save that it was held that, of all the works
about the Mighty Pyramid, it was, alone, the one that was bred, long
ages past, of healthy human toil and labour. And on this point alone,
had a thousand books, and more, been writ; and all contrary, and so to
no end, as is ever the way in such matters. And as it was with the Road Where The Silent Ones Walk, so it was with
all those other monstrous things ... whole libraries had there been made
upon this and upon that; and many a thousand million mouldered into the
forgotten dust of the earlier world. I mind me now that presently I stepped upon the central
travelling-roadway which spanned the one thousandth plateau of the Great
Redoubt. And this lay six miles and thirty fathoms above the Plain of
the Night Land, and was somewhat of a great mile or more across. And so,
in a few minutes, I was at the South-Eastern wall, and looking out
through The Great Embrasure towards the Three Silver-fire Holes, that
shone before the Thing That Nods, away down, far in the South-East. Southward of this, but nearer, there rose the vast bulk of the
South-East Watcher--The Watching Thing of the South-East. And to the
right and to the left of the squat monster burned the Torches; maybe
half-a-mile upon each side; yet sufficient light they threw to show the
lumbered-forward head of the never-sleeping Brute. To the East, as I stood there in the quietness of the Sleeping-Time on
the One Thousandth Plateau, I heard a far, dreadful sound, down in the
lightless East; and, presently, again--a strange, dreadful laughter,
deep as a low thunder among the mountains. And because this sound came
odd whiles from the Unknown Lands beyond the Valley of The Hounds, we
had named that far and never-seen Place "The Country Whence Comes The
Great Laughter." And though I had heard the sound, many and oft a time,
yet did I never hear it without a most strange thrilling of my heart,
and a sense of my littleness, and of the utter terror which had beset
the last millions of the world. Yet, because I had heard the Laughter oft, I paid not over-long
attention to my thoughts upon it; and when, in a little it died away
into that Eastern Darkness, I turned my spy-glass upon the Giants' Pit,
which lay to the South of the Giants' Kilns. And these same Kilns were
tended by the giants, and the light of the Kilns was red and fitful, and
threw wavering shadows and lights across the mouth of the pit; so that I
saw giants crawling up out of the pit; but not properly seen, by reason
of the dance of the shadows. And so, because ever there was so much to
behold, I looked away, presently, to that which was plainer to be
examined. 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. Much, I know, had been writ concerning this Odd, Vast Watcher; for it
had grown out of the blackness of the South Unknown Lands a million
years gone; and the steady growing nearness of it had been noted and set
out at length by the men they called Monstruwacans; so that it was
possible to search in our libraries, and learn of the very coming of
this Beast in the olden-time. And, while I mind me, there were even then, and always, men named
Monstruwacans, whose duty it was to take heed of the great Forces, and
to watch the Monsters and the Beasts that beset the great Pyramid, and
measure and record, and have so full a knowledge of these same that, did
one but sway an head in the darkness, the same matter was set down with
particularness in the Records. And, so to tell more about the South Watcher.