The creature lifted a block of land greater than its own huge bulk, spun it end for end in its tentacles, and sent it crashing into the sea. The vision dissolved in spray.

Varus flinched instinctively, but the gout of water seemed not to reach the Tribunal. He had an impossibly good view of what was happening, but none of his other senses were involved.

"Master," Varus said, "if I knew what was happening, I would tell you; and if I could stop it, I…"

The words dried in his throat. Pandareus and, on Varus' other side, his family, were fading into a familiar gray mist which replaced the spray thrown up by the vision.

He was not moving, but reality shifted around him. He knew that he was walking through a foggy dreamworld in which other shapes and beings might pass nearby without him seeing them; but he knew also where he was going and who would be waiting when he arrived there.

Varus climbed up from the fog; it lay behind him in a rippling blanket, as though it filled a valley. The ancient woman sat under a small dome supported by pillars. Framing the top of her high-backed chair were two huge boar tusks.

No pig is that large! Varus thought. It would have to weigh more than a ton.

The ivory was yellow, and the tips had been worn by heavy use. He remembered rhat Apollonius claimed that Hercules sent the tusks of the Erymanthian Boar to Cumae.

"Why do you come to me, Lord Varus?" the old woman said. "The power is yours, not mine."

"Sibyl, I know only what is in books," Varus said, using her proper title. "Tell me what I saw in the theater."

Then, because he knew his body remained seated with his family in the Tribunal, he said, "Tell me what I am seeing."