"Master?" said Varus as he jotted down details of the creature's legs. They were all serpentine, but some had scales, some had nodules like a gecko's skin, and the rest included a score of different surfaces and patterns. "It… Does it look to you as though it's growing larger as it proceeds?"

"Very well observed, Lord Varus," Pandareus said approvingly. "Note that the channel behind the creature is narrower than the front which his body is cutting now. Perhaps it's devouring the rock, do you suppose? Though that doesn't appear to be the case."

Varus could see his companions in the Tribunal, but the audience in the belly of the theater was either hidden by the vision of destruction or had vanished into the blur that extended from the visible margins. Except- Where the orchestra had been, the three strangers who accompanied Tardus were sharply visible. They glared at the creature as it tore its way through whatever stood in its way. The mixture of fear and fury in their expressions reminded Varus of caged rats, gnashing their chisel teeth in a desire to chop and gash in the face of certain death.

"Lord Varus?" Pandareus said without any hint of emotion in the words. He raised an eyebrow. "Is this your doing, I wonder?"

"No!" said Varus, angry for an instant. Then, when he had analyzed his response, he was embarrassed.

"I beg your pardon, teacher," he said. "I was afraid you might be correct. I am afraid you might be correct."

"You have mistaken a question for an accusation, my lord," Pandareus said dryly. "The teacher who failed to train you out of that defensive reflex is to be censured. Furthermore, my question was rather hopeful."

He gestured with his open left hand toward the vision. The monster was wreaking destruction at an accelerating pace.

"I'm quite certain of your good will toward Mankind generally and toward me in particular, you see," Pandareus said. "I would have been glad to learn that you had brought this thing into being; because if you did not, I have to be concerned about the intentions of who or what is responsible."