For out of the thousands of coleopteran burrows that pock-marked the walls of this hidden crypt, a horde came leaping—a horde of great scarlet beetles that hurtled down upon Sark and his raiders before they could so much as turn. A living wave, they burst over the crewmen and the dais—clutching the aliens, bearing them down; yet holding them, not killing.
Haral found himself flat on his back, pinned there by two monstrous coleoptera. Kyla, too, lay prone, shaking under the touch of another of the beetles.
Haral twisted, looking for Xaymar.
Alone out of all the throng, she stood erect, untouched. A horde of the coleoptera had grouped themselves about her. Now they bent low in weird attitudes of genuflection.
The woman waved them back with a quick, impatient gesture. Swiftly, she picked her way to Haral.
The beetles that held him gave way before her. Gripping the blue man's hand, she helped him to his feet.
"You see, warrior—?" She lifted her hand in a sweeping, all-inclusive gesture. "I know what power means—a power greater than any the void has ever seen. I, too, have carved an empire: the empire of these silent ones, the coleoptera. To them, I am truly goddess. They are mine to command."
Haral swayed a little. Tiny waves of nausea washed over him, rising like vapors out of the pain flowing from his wound. With a sort of dull detachment, he observed that blood had begun to drip from his left hand's fingers once again.
A trifle thickly, he said, "I hear your words. But what good is your beetle empire? Where can it lead you? How far can you go?"
The woman called Xaymar smiled a smile that was old when this outlaw world was young. "Did you not say I held the key to your fate, blue one? The coleoptera are my workers and my warriors. Because I saw the role that they might play, I helped them gain the power of thought; so now they help me turn my dreams to destiny."