The Valley of Death is a cursed valley in the desert of Antiterra, about a hundred miles from the oasis, named by popular usage. It later became Kumal, “a territory of hope”.
| Type | Valley |
| Spanish entry | Valle de la Muerte |
Approach
It lies a hundred miles from the oasis, “or a little less”; those with teleportation cross without touching the sand. A recognized “zone that leads to the Valley of Death” gives access; from one camp the trip was estimated at twenty minutes to an hour. A salt lake lies nearby, desert beyond. Travelers cross counting “the dangers there were in the Valley of Death”. It is a place of obligatory passage and of military and political affairs; a visit three hundred years ago is recorded.
Description
It is “an exceedingly dry place” that lately showed “strange glows in the light of the red moon”. Plants “extinct 30 million years ago” appear mixed with later vegetation, such as Carboniferous. It is named as the scene of “the darkest tempest”.
Quarry and camps
An old quarry of “strange stone and memory” went unused because the place was cursed. Later an informant reported “mining activity, or of what kind”. The valley holds no cities but “torcos [turcoid] camps, or worse, of small hybrid creatures”, also called “turcoids or paulinos”.
The ivory pits
Below lie “the caves of the valley of death” and “the ivory pits”, where the angels appeared.
Kumal
“What was the Valley of Death, remember, became a territory of hope”: the valley came to be called, to contain, or to become Kumal.
Open questions
- Whether “strange stone and memory” is a stone that keeps memory, an odd stone, or two materials.
- Who laid the curse, what it is, and whether it outlasted Kumal.
- Who mines the quarry now, and by what authority.
- Whether the turcoids are a people, foreign troops, creatures or a slur.
- Whether Kumal is the renamed valley, a city in it, or a larger territory.
- Death personified, the Goddess of Death and the Book of the Law of Death share only the name with the valley.