Below us the Shining One had paused⁠—spiralling, swirling, vibrant with all its transcendent, devilish beauty; had paused and was contemplating us. Now I could see clearly that nucleus, that core shot through with flashing veins of radiance, that ever-shifting shape of glory through the shroudings of shimmering, misty plumes, throbbing lacy opalescences, vaporous spirallings of prismatic phantom fires. Steady over it hung the seven little moons of amethyst, of saffron, of emerald and azure and silver, of rose of life and moon white. They poised themselves like a diadem⁠—calm, serene, immobile⁠—and down from them into the Dweller, piercing plumes and swirls and spirals, ran countless tiny strands, radiations, finer than the finest spun thread of spider’s web, gleaming filaments through which seemed to run⁠— power ⁠—from the seven globes; like⁠—yes, that was it⁠—miniatures of the seven torrents of moon flame that poured through the septichromatic, high crystals in the Moon Pool’s chamber roof.

Swam out of the coruscating haze the⁠—face!