Maiden Isis, virgin Astarte she stood there, held in the grip of the Disk--like a goddess betrayed and hopeless yet thirsting for vengeance.
For all their stillness, their immobility, it came to me that Emperor and Keeper were at grapple, locked in death grip; the realization was as definite as though, like Ruth, I thought with Norhala's mind, saw with her eyes.
Clearly too it came to me that in this contest between the two was epitomized all the vast conflict that raged around them; that in it was fast ripening that fruit of destiny of which Ventnor had spoken, and that here in the Hall of the Cones would be settled--and soon--the fate not only of Disk and Cross, but it might be of humanity.
But with what unknown powers was that duel being fought?
They cast no lightnings, they battled with no visible weapons.

Only the great planes of the inverted cruciform Shape smoked and smoldered with their sullen flares of ochres and of scarlets; while over all the face of the Disk its cold and irised fires raced and shone, beating with a rhythm incredibly rapid; its core of incandescent ruby blazed, its sapphire ovals were cabochoned pools of living, lucent radiance.
There was a splitting roar that arose above all the clamor, deafening us even in the shelter of the silent veils.

On each side of the crater whole masses of the City dropped away.

Fleetingly I was aware of scores of smaller pits in which uprose lesser replicas of the Coned Mount, lesser reservoirs of the Monster's force.
Neither the Emperor nor the Keeper moved, both seemingly indifferent to the catastrophe fast developing around them.
Now I strained forward to the very thinnest edge of the curtainings.
For between the Disk and Cross began to form fine black mist.

It was transparent.