 Who is the Watcher?
But its outward perils could not compare with the Ryzgas themselves, who slept within, ready to wake and conquer.... For the flame that had sprung between them at the Truce of New Grass, she had challenged the feud of their peoples and had left her home, to follow him. Now, if her father and his kinsmen overtook them, it would be death for Var, and for Neena living shame. While she waited he spun a dream, attaching it to the crags that loomed over the pass, and to the frozen ground underfoot. It was black night, as it would really be when Groz and his henchmen reached this place; lurid fire spewed from the Ryzga mountain, and strange lights dipped above it; and for good measure there was an avalanche in the dream, and hideous beasts rushed snapping and ravening from the crevices of the rock. The Watcher was four hundred years old; beside him even Groz, who had always seemed so ancient, was like a boy. Var saw with some surprise that all the walls were sheathed in ice—warm to the touch, bound fast against melting by the Watcher's will. Behind them began a tinkling of falling water, thawed from the glacial ridges above to descend sheet-wise over the cave mouth, freezing as it fell into lengthening icicles. The Watcher regarded them with compassion as their eyes brightened and some of the shadow of weariness lifted from them. I would like to help you—but, you understand, I am the Mountain Watcher.
 Someone who has been granted the honor of watching over the mountain region
 Someone who has been granted the honor of watching over the mountain region  A man who was exiled from society because of violent tendencies  An old man who has retracted from society  An alien in charge of protecting the planet