The thirteenth tape was fed into the altar, and the machinery began to 
whine, then to whir, and then to rumble. The images appearing above the stage 
flourished into wilder and more exotic forms than any they had seen yet, and 
watching the faces of the priest and the acolytes, Princess Nell could see that 
even they were surprised; they had never seen anything of the like before. As 
the minutes wore on, the images became fragmented and bizarre, mere 
incarnations of mathematical ideas, and finally the stage went entirely dark 
except for occasional random flashes of color. The Wizard had worked itself up 
to such a pitch that all of them felt trapped within the bowels of a mighty 
machine that could tear them to shreds in a moment. The little altar boy 
finally broke away and fled down the aisle. Within a minute or so, the 
acolytes, one by one, did the same, backing slowly away from the Wizard until 
they were about halfway down the aisle and then turning away and running. 
Finally even the high priest turned and fled. The rumbling of the machinery had 
now reached such a pitch that it felt as though an epochal earthquake were in 
progress, and Nell had to steady herself with a hand on the altar. The heat 
coming from back in the machine was like that from a forge, and Nell could see 
a dim red light from deep inside as some of the push-rods became hot enough to 
glow.