"Dreams?" Haral muttered. "Dreams indeed! They say you've lain here sleeping a thousand years."
Xaymar laughed softly, tauntingly. "And why do you suppose I slept so long, blue warrior? Believe me, it was not out of boredom. No; I, too, like you, reached out for power. But first I had to fill my legion's ranks. I needed time for my coleoptera to breed and multiply, in preparation for my day of conquest...."
She paused, and the jewels with which her veil was set seemed to gleam so bright that Haral closed his eyes against them. Once again the air of nameless menace he'd felt before crept through the crypt.
Xaymar's voice came as from afar: "We shall ride together, warrior, you and I! You've saved my life, and you have a will that matches mine. I've longed this thousand years and more for a man like you to share my dreams...."
The words went on and on, but Haral could no longer hear. The sickness in him grew. He knew of a sudden that he was going to fall.
Words and more words—an incoherent jumble. He was toppling now, yet there was nothing he could do to stop it. In great, languorous spirals, the floor of the dais was roaring up into his eyes.
But as it approached, somehow, it grew dimmer ... dimmer ... dimmer....
Then new words came. Or, rather, old words, thundering out of the black sack of his memory.
Kyla's words:
"Each night she took a different lover—and then, at the dawn, at her command, each one was slain!"