From them came the crystalline murmurings.
Jade?
This stream jade?
If so then it must be in truth molten, for I caught its swift and polished rushing! It was no jade.

It was in truth a river; a river running like a writing across a patterned plane.
I looked upward--up to the circling peaks.

They were a stupendous coronet thrusting miles deep into the dazzling sky.

I raised my glasses, swept them.

In color they were an immense and variegated flower with countless multiform petals of stone; in outline they were a ring of fortresses built by fantastic unknown Gods.
Up they thrust--domed and arched, spired and horned, pyramided, fanged and needled.