They all stood grandly and the thrones settled, and for a long moment nothing on THE Firmament Mountain moved but the snow.
It fell over the Plain of Accord, over the ring of golden clouds and the strange figures standing on them, over the Keepers waiting a pace behind each cloud. It drifted up toward the floating thrones of black glass and colossal bone and living leaf, and on the Immense Ones seated there it simply vanished, like flakes landing on hot stone.
Then Sir Moriarty rose!
He rose from his throne of polished instruments without any ceremony at all, eight tentacles uncurling, small neat spectacles glinting, and yet the whole plain turned toward him at once, every Root Bearer and every Keeper, as though he had rung a bell.
