Once more, he swept the lance's illumination beam across the room.
A long smear on the floor shimmered. Haral dropped to one knee, touched it. "Look! This is wet, and not with water! It's more like the blood of the coleoptera!"
A tremor ran through Kyla. "Then hurry! Quick! Spin the globe!"
The blue man straightened. Narrow-eyed, uneasy, he laid the lance aside. Then, bracing himself, he put his unwounded shoulder to the globe and heaved at it with all his might.
It moved a bare inch; then another.
He strained again.
Slowly, the great sphere turned. The edge of a slot cut in its under side came into view—a crack that widened as the globe rolled within the base, till an oblong orifice lay exposed like a tunnel mouth leading down into the footing.
Haral started to step back.
But, of a sudden, a faint sound came—the muffled ring of metal against stone.
Haral lunged for the light-lance.