Where the cube had been was now a tremendous, fiery cross--a cross inverted.
Its upper arm arose to twice the length either of its horizontals or the square that was its foot.

In its opening it must have turned, for its--FACE--was toward us and away from the Cones, its body hid the Disk, and almost all the surfaces of the two watchful Stars.
Eighty feet at least in height, this cruciform shape stood.

It flamed and flickered with angry, smoky crimsons and scarlets; with sullen orange glowings and glitterings of sulphurous yellows.

Within its fires were none of those leaping, multicolored glories that were the Metal Emperor's; no trace of the pulsing, mystic rose; no shadow of jubilant sapphire; no purple royal; no tender, merciful greens nor gracious opalescences.

Nothing even of the blasting violet of the Stars.
All angry, smoky reds and ochres the cross blazed forth--and in its lurid glowings was something sinister, something real, something cruel, something--nearer to earth, closer to man.
"The Keeper of the Cones and the Metal Emperor!" muttered Drake.