Hedia glanced at her husband, wondering if he were prattling nonsense to mask his fear. He wasn't. Saxa thought he would see a painting of the capital of Lusitania. He saw what he expected, stagecraft, and he was delighted that it was so good.

She patted the back of his hand with a wry smile; he gripped her fingers in excitement. Obviously, he's seeing the same thing I am, so I'm not mad. Well, hellebore probably doesn't cure madness anyway.

The city was becoming more distinct and spreading to fill… To fill her field of view, Hedia had thought at first, but it was more than that: she was becoming a part of the city. She could see and touch Saxa and-she reached to her left and squeezed Alphena's elbow just to be sure-her daughter, but the unfamiliar towers and gleaming walls were equally real, equally present.

Men looked out to sea from the battlements. Most wore fringed tunics of unfamiliar cut, but a few were in flaring armor of the same fiery metal as the walls themselves. They didn't disturb Hedia: Carce was full of foreigners, barbarians-people who, instead of speaking in Latin or Greek, chundered words that sounded like bar-bar-bar to civilized folk.

Among the humans were glittering figures, manlike but not men. They were the glass men which Hedia had seen in her nightmare, them or their close kin.

The audience here in the Theater of Pompey was as delighted with the spectacle as their patron was. They stamped their feet and waved scarves and capes to signify their approval.

The demonstrations had started at the highest levels of the theater. Hedia suspected the spectators there had been seeing detail beyond what they had thought was possible, causing them to react even more quickly than the folk in better seats.