But on the next day as they went, the aspect of the rock-sea about
them changed: for the rocks were not so smooth and shining and orderly,
but rose up in confused heaps all clotted together by the burning, like to
clinkers out of some monstrous forge of the earth-giants, so that their way
was naught so clear as it had been, but was rather a maze of jagged stone.
But the Sage led through it all unfumbling, and moreover now and again
they came on that carven token of the sword and the bough. Night fell,
and as it grew dark they saw the glaring of the earth-fires again;
and when they were rested, and had done their meat, the Sage said:
"Come now with me, for hard by is there a place as it were a stair that
goeth to the top of a great rock, let us climb it and look about us."
So did they, and the head of the rock was higher than
the main face of the rock-sea, so that they could see afar.
Thence they looked north and beheld afar off a very pillar of fire
rising up from a ness of the mountain wall, and seeming as if it
bore up a black roof of smoke; and the huge wall gleamed grey,
because of its light, and it cast a ray of light across
the rock-sea as the moon doth over the waters of the deep:
withal there was the noise as of thunder in the air, but afar off:
which thunder indeed they had heard oft, as they rode through
the afternoon and evening.
Spake the Sage: "It is far away: yet if the wind were not blowing
from us, we had smelt the smoke, and the sky had been darkened by it.
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