The rising continued out of the ground.
The pace of it increased as the mass cleared more of the surrounding soil, the resistance reducing as the shape emerged from the depth it had been occupying.
The altar was still on the surface — still glowing, still active — but the altar was now moving because the ground it sat on was moving, the flat-topped stone riding the rise of whatever was beneath it like the crown on a head.
The cracking was continuous now.
Not single events but a sustained, overlapping sequence of them, each one the sound of more soil giving way to the rising mass beneath it, the plainfield's surface breaking apart across the full ten-metre radius in the irregular pattern of material that can no longer hold its original position against upward force.
The shape of what was underneath began to show itself at the rising section's peak.
He observed it.
The width of the peak.
The specific curve of the mass as it emerged.
