They stood there for a minute or so just to enjoy the spectacle: a shock wave spreading out from the middle like a ripple in a pond, eventually freezing to create the rim of a crater. Columns of steam rising up from the vaporized river. Rocks and trees raining down (both Thorakks and Reamde cast warding spells to keep from getting crushed by falling debris). The vast bubble of light and smoke gradually focusing into a column, the column resolving into a bipedal figure: a man with a long white beard, gazing about the crater somewhat in the manner of someone who has just turned on the light in his pantry and is looking for cockroaches. For—as Csongor now understood—this being had literally rode in on the comet, like a child descending a hill on a trash can lid.