Who Blocked the Mountain Path?

[Nerdanel]

I noticed that when Covenant and Elena encounter the rockslide, it looks artificial.

Great, scalloped wounds stood opposite each other high in the walls...

I'm not an expert in landslides, but it appears to me that such things are rarely symmetrical. Note also that the loose rock blocks the only path to Melenkurion Skyweir and is in such a place that intruders would have to walk downhill on loose rocks.

So, who do you think blocked the path? The means are commonly available among powerful magic-users. The window of opportunity reaches from after Amok's making in High Lord Kevin's time to "not very recently". The motive is obscure beyong the intent to block the path. New Lords are out due to lack of information.

My best guess is that the place used to have a Doom's Retreat style Word of Warning put there by Kevin in order to protect the Seventh Ward. We know that Kevin could make highly durable standing spells. During the centuries someone, possibly a Haruchai, stumbled into it and triggered the avalanche.

[KAY1]

I'm going to have to re-read this bit to refresh my memory, but I would have thought Amok him(it)self would have been ample protection for the Seventh Ward. Of course Kevin may have wanted to prevent unwary travellers from accidentally discovering Damelon's Door, but the landslide severely hampered TC and Elena so perhaps not.
But, perhaps Kevin thought better of allowing access to the Ward and it was too late to recall Amok so instead caused the landslide to block the path?

Will re-read and maybe come to a better conclusion then!

[Romeo]

Good question. As I remember, it happened after Amok was taught the path by Kevin - but long enough before Covenant and Elena arrived that it had settled into a steady state.

Perhaps this is one of the loose strings SRD plans to tie up in the Last Chronicles.

[wayfriend]

It was natural. It was a narrow pass. The landslide on one side hit the opposite side hard enough to trigger another one there.

[Guest]

I always had the impression that it was a consequence of the Vortex of Trepidation created by Fleshharrower as he pursued the Warward. At one point in the journey to the Seventh Ward,

Spoiler

The day dawned cold and dull...torn fragments of wind flapped back and forth across the camp as Elena and TC ate their breakfast., and far away they could hear a flat detonating sound like the retort of balked canvas on unlashed spars...Elena said "This is not the weather of storms. There is pain in the air. The Earth is afflicted.

Check out pages 425/427 of TIW for the rest of the story elements.

I believe the Vortex loosened an otherwise old fall and made it dangerously active. However, I do not think Foul intended it to happen...he knows the Seventh Ward is not enough to defeat him and that the unknown consequences of using it were likely to aid him, and so would not have felt a need to try and block access to it.

Spoiler

Could Foul have predicted that loosening the landslide would lead to the marrowmeld sculpture that would trigger Mhoram's unlocking the secret of the Ritual of Desecration and his new understanding of the Oath of Peace? I think not. Rather,

I believe the slide to be SRD's vehicle to that necessary revelation and is independent of Foul's machinations.