Chapter 8
"Father always useta tell me that I talk twenty-four-seven, d'ye think I do, I don't, well nayway, he useta say thit a gril like me was neva bound to git a job cause he thought I was not smart enough, well I showed 'im didn't I" Shelaya had a small smirk on her face, this girl's constant chatter was very amusing, even if she didn't sound as though she had much smarts.
"Feyone are you sure my hair will hold up with just one ribbon?"
"Sure, yeah, why not?"
Shelaya was following the girl down some stairs, in the back way of the whole inn. The kept climbing down until they came to a basement.
It wasn't musty or anything, they walked through a couple of doors, a couple of hallways and so on, until they stopped at a door.
Feyone turned around "Alright, ye go in there okay, and jist keep walking forward, then turn right at th'branching, Do Not turn left, it's nunna yer business yet, yer not workin' 'ere so don't go poking yer kid's nose where it don't belong. I'll juts lock this door, there's another exit the other way, this door's suppowsta be locked, go on then" She pushed her through the now open door.
"Aren't you coming with me?" Shelaya asked, she was starting to get attached to this girl.
"No" Feyone pushed her through and Shelaya heard the lock click.
Shelaya swallowed, I hope I didn't fall stupidly into a trap. She walked very cautiously down the dimly lit corridor. She slid her retractable glaive from her back and kept it ready to flick open. Just in case
She walked on, and sure enough there was two branches.
Like a good little girl, Shelaya turned right, not even looking to her left. Her sense alert, she walked down that corridor, but stopped after a while. The corridor stopped, there was just solid wall, no door, nothing.
She looked to the sides, nothing, up above, nothing. Hmmm she frowned
She turned back, and walked back to the door that she had come in through, she pounded for Feyone, but there was no one there.
"What is going on?" She whispered to herself.
She walked back down to the branching and cautiously looked to the left. She could see a faint blue glow ahead, she decided to go towards it, since there was no other way.
Her eyebrows high up in her hair, she walked slowly to the light.
((((((((
Entering a brightly lit room with a high wall, Shelaya stepped in carefully.
A trap sprung, she hit the ground as fast as her legs could drop her.
Three arrows whizzed over head, brushing her hair, the last arrow, eerily, cut through her one hair ribbon that held the Creation that Feyone had made. Her butt length hair unbound, plummeted and tumbled down around her face and shoulders in waves. Damn, She thought.
She got up from her low crouched position and crept back again into the room. She crouched again and listened, no more traps.
She thought about turning back, but her stubborn side screamed out: Hey, there is no other way out, and come on, this is fuuuuun, adventure and all, and don't you wanna see what's inside the room ??? That convinced her, she walked into the room.
The room was large and airy, the ceiling very high, it was as big as an average house, a few square meters. There was a throne like chair at the far side of the room. And in the middle was a brick block pedestal, with gold paint drawn on the brick in eerie designs. She crept slowly to the pedestal, for what was on it was what had caught her attention.
On the pedestal was the biggest and brightest diamond she had ever seen. It was as thick as her thigh and as long as her hand. It glittered and sparkled and caught Shelaya's attention, like a mosquito to a lantern. And from inside the diamond, lay a sapphire, as big as a good-sized rock and as round as pearls, and it shone like the sun on a bright blue day.
She had never seen a jewel like this before, a jewel in a jewel.
She breathed in fascination and excitement. She wanted this jewel, really badly, now.
Her tongue was on the tip of her upper lip. She had forgotten all about the interview, she was concentrating, fully and absolutely on this gem, a few inches from her now reaching hands.
She looked at her hands, and slapped them down. What if there was another trap? A voice of reason asked her. She looked up and gasped….
There were dangerous looking knife-like spikes hanging from the ceiling, which she had overlooked before. Most definitely they were connected to the taking of the gem. The only gap in the ceiling with no spikes was above the throne and the pedestal.
Voices stirred in her head
Wait a minute, what happens if I do get the gem, how do I get out without no one seeing me.
It's so pretty
I won't need money for the rest of my life
It's so pretty
I'm only twelve
It's so pretty
How do I pull of showing this gem to society and tell them that I didn't steal it, Duh!
It's so pretty
She shook her head, she'd go to another country, the Bazhir, yeah, she'll go there and sell it.
As soon as she said Bazhir her head screamed and she groaned, not again.
A picture of her mother and her family was held in her hands, the dark beautiful skin glowed even in the drawing. Someone with talent had drawn this picture. The Bazhir people looked tough and steely and strong, and very admirable. She remembered thinking that she wanted to be like them. Her eyes roved over the picture, trying to find her mother. But she didn't know what she looked like! She tried staring at the women's faces in detail, but, the picture was much too blurry, she couldn't see the faces.
Damn!
She breathed and pulled herself up, her hair swung in her eyes.
She wiped the sweat off her forehead.
And looked back to the eye drawing jewel and, compulsively, she reached out again. Her brain was disconnected from the rest of her bodily functions momentarily.
This time, she touched the jewel…
And the sound of many giant slicing knives, falling down woke her up from her daze.
She knew that no matter how fast she ran to either side, she'd be skewered, so she did the best thing she could.
She grabbed the jewel and jumped on the pedestal.
The spikes fell down and embedded themselves in the ground with a frightening thud.
Still balancing her self on the pedestal, with spikes scattered in every inch of the room, as tall as herself and sharp from every angle. She heard a soft unravelling of a rope, and swoosh, she immediately crouched down and flat as she could on the small square pedestal.
A three metre long, razor flew horizontally over her head, hung by a rope.
She breathed, and sweated, her heart thudding so loud, that she couldn't hear her self breathe.
She was scared stiff, as stiff as a kid could get, but she sucked back the tears that were threatening to drown her.
Now that she thought clearly, she didn't know why she had reached, stupidly, for the gem.
Crouched, she looked around, not knowing how to get out of this mess, the spikes not leaving a millimetre of ground uncovered, the knife swinging back and forth, her sweaty hair getting into her eyes.
And now that she saw it, the new clothes that Lalasa had given her, she found that while she was jumping up on the pedestal, a spike had caught her left side and ripped the skirt-pants, leaving a wide gash in the material, running form her thigh to her ankle.
Damn, she swore again.
A whisper of metal against rock, made Shelaya jump again, then stand on all fours, a knife sharp as a needle, protruded from where the jewel had been before, threatening to impale Shelaya if she moved downwards an inch. She found that her feet were both starting to slip, because they were just balancing on the tow corners of the pedestal, on tip toe.
And the one hand, which was holding the jewel, was starting to slowly slide closer to the corner, which it was resting on.
The sound of diamond on rock, crumbling, scratching, Shelaya was slowly leaning closer to the knife, which was underneath her.
Her heart beat, her blood ran cold and her breath caught in her throat, she pressed her lips together.
She couldn't stand up, because she would be decapitated, she couldn't crouch or sit down, because she would impale her self, and she couldn't get off the square block, because she would be skewered.
Somehow Shelaya found the humour in her situation and she, unbelievably, started to laugh. Big gulps that made her feet and hands slip even closer to the edges of the b lock.
Her hair falling around her head and even touching the knife pointed at her belly was one of the other annoying things, that helped her chuckle even more.
She wondered, this was the first real, life-threatening predicament she had been in, and she would definitely be telling her grandchildren the story.
If she lived that is.
What now, stay this way forever? Her thoughts ran around cluttering up her brain, which was trying to stay alive, by getting a better grip of the block underneath her.
A slow clapping sound echoed through the room, one person. Clap-clap-clap- clap
Shelaya looked in up mid-laugh.
There, sitting on the throne, which she had vaguely looked at before, was a man.
He had strawberry blond hair and light blue eyes; he leaned casually on his comfortable looking chair/throne. Shelaya predicted that he was about 35 years old, not too old. His eyes looked sharp and extremely intelligent, but his mouth couldn't stay still for a few seconds with out smiling, she could see smiles lines creasing the area around his mouth.
He looked very handsome for a 35 year old.
But Shelaya was nevertheless surprised, and stupidly, she tried to hide it, making her grip slipped even more from the effort.
Strangely, after adjusting her grip, when she looked up at him, she did not feel in the slightest shy, like she sometimes did with strangers.
Her bluntness took over.
"I'd ask who you were, but I seem sharply engaged" Her wit also kicked in.
The man chuckled. His fetching smile widened showing two rows of perfect, white teeth. Shelaya like white teeth, she grimaced at him through the curtain of hair on her face, she didn't know if he saw her expression, he probably didn't, couldn't even see her face
She heard him click his fingers, the swooshing sound of the large knife over her head stopped, the blade pointing at her stomach retracted.
She sighed with relief, assumed her crouching position, placed the jewel in front of her, and brushed the hair out of her face. His eyebrows rose a millimetre at her prettiness, she saw the slight movement, but being a child, she did not have enough vanity to take his eye brow twitching as a compliment.
"So you are Shelaya." His voice, deep and soothing, made her hair stand on end and melt into her skin.
"Yes." She was very frank about it too. She looked at him not moving a muscle.
He looked at her, a long, long while, she looked back into his eyes. His blue eyes taking her in, her green eyes blank, showing nothing.
The moment was interrupted by a rustling, like other people coming into the room, and Shelaya realised that there was door, near the throne, that she hadn't seen before.
A surprised voice "Leprechaun?"
Shelaya looked up to see the lapis lazuli eye owner drinking her in with those blue, blue eyes. Her eyebrows rose
"What are you doing here?" She blurted. A pause, and then the mirth and derisiveness crept into Shelaya's eyes as she remembered what had happened between them before, she saw him reading her expression and he had the decency to look away embarrassed.
She let go a small snigger.
"What are you?" He asked her back after regaining his cool.
"I'm here to get a job, but sorta got stuck looking for the interviewing room."
The man on the throne barked with laughter.
And Shelaya couldn't for the life of her understand why he was sitting on the throne.
"So," she said in conversational tones as she sat cross-legged on the block. "Who are you? What am I doing here? What is this? What is going on? And why are you on the throne? Why is that guy here, the one that tried to steal my dagger? What sort of job am I so eager to get into? Why am I so ignorant while everybody else knows everything?"
The man on the throne was smirking now, he held up a hand to silence her absolute boldness "You're hired" Quite frank.
Shelaya blinked "Okaaaaaaayyyyy" Her eyebrows rose again.
"Father always useta tell me that I talk twenty-four-seven, d'ye think I do, I don't, well nayway, he useta say thit a gril like me was neva bound to git a job cause he thought I was not smart enough, well I showed 'im didn't I" Shelaya had a small smirk on her face, this girl's constant chatter was very amusing, even if she didn't sound as though she had much smarts.
"Feyone are you sure my hair will hold up with just one ribbon?"
"Sure, yeah, why not?"
Shelaya was following the girl down some stairs, in the back way of the whole inn. The kept climbing down until they came to a basement.
It wasn't musty or anything, they walked through a couple of doors, a couple of hallways and so on, until they stopped at a door.
Feyone turned around "Alright, ye go in there okay, and jist keep walking forward, then turn right at th'branching, Do Not turn left, it's nunna yer business yet, yer not workin' 'ere so don't go poking yer kid's nose where it don't belong. I'll juts lock this door, there's another exit the other way, this door's suppowsta be locked, go on then" She pushed her through the now open door.
"Aren't you coming with me?" Shelaya asked, she was starting to get attached to this girl.
"No" Feyone pushed her through and Shelaya heard the lock click.
Shelaya swallowed, I hope I didn't fall stupidly into a trap. She walked very cautiously down the dimly lit corridor. She slid her retractable glaive from her back and kept it ready to flick open. Just in case
She walked on, and sure enough there was two branches.
Like a good little girl, Shelaya turned right, not even looking to her left. Her sense alert, she walked down that corridor, but stopped after a while. The corridor stopped, there was just solid wall, no door, nothing.
She looked to the sides, nothing, up above, nothing. Hmmm she frowned
She turned back, and walked back to the door that she had come in through, she pounded for Feyone, but there was no one there.
"What is going on?" She whispered to herself.
She walked back down to the branching and cautiously looked to the left. She could see a faint blue glow ahead, she decided to go towards it, since there was no other way.
Her eyebrows high up in her hair, she walked slowly to the light.
((((((((
Entering a brightly lit room with a high wall, Shelaya stepped in carefully.
A trap sprung, she hit the ground as fast as her legs could drop her.
Three arrows whizzed over head, brushing her hair, the last arrow, eerily, cut through her one hair ribbon that held the Creation that Feyone had made. Her butt length hair unbound, plummeted and tumbled down around her face and shoulders in waves. Damn, She thought.
She got up from her low crouched position and crept back again into the room. She crouched again and listened, no more traps.
She thought about turning back, but her stubborn side screamed out: Hey, there is no other way out, and come on, this is fuuuuun, adventure and all, and don't you wanna see what's inside the room ??? That convinced her, she walked into the room.
The room was large and airy, the ceiling very high, it was as big as an average house, a few square meters. There was a throne like chair at the far side of the room. And in the middle was a brick block pedestal, with gold paint drawn on the brick in eerie designs. She crept slowly to the pedestal, for what was on it was what had caught her attention.
On the pedestal was the biggest and brightest diamond she had ever seen. It was as thick as her thigh and as long as her hand. It glittered and sparkled and caught Shelaya's attention, like a mosquito to a lantern. And from inside the diamond, lay a sapphire, as big as a good-sized rock and as round as pearls, and it shone like the sun on a bright blue day.
She had never seen a jewel like this before, a jewel in a jewel.
She breathed in fascination and excitement. She wanted this jewel, really badly, now.
Her tongue was on the tip of her upper lip. She had forgotten all about the interview, she was concentrating, fully and absolutely on this gem, a few inches from her now reaching hands.
She looked at her hands, and slapped them down. What if there was another trap? A voice of reason asked her. She looked up and gasped….
There were dangerous looking knife-like spikes hanging from the ceiling, which she had overlooked before. Most definitely they were connected to the taking of the gem. The only gap in the ceiling with no spikes was above the throne and the pedestal.
Voices stirred in her head
Wait a minute, what happens if I do get the gem, how do I get out without no one seeing me.
It's so pretty
I won't need money for the rest of my life
It's so pretty
I'm only twelve
It's so pretty
How do I pull of showing this gem to society and tell them that I didn't steal it, Duh!
It's so pretty
She shook her head, she'd go to another country, the Bazhir, yeah, she'll go there and sell it.
As soon as she said Bazhir her head screamed and she groaned, not again.
A picture of her mother and her family was held in her hands, the dark beautiful skin glowed even in the drawing. Someone with talent had drawn this picture. The Bazhir people looked tough and steely and strong, and very admirable. She remembered thinking that she wanted to be like them. Her eyes roved over the picture, trying to find her mother. But she didn't know what she looked like! She tried staring at the women's faces in detail, but, the picture was much too blurry, she couldn't see the faces.
Damn!
She breathed and pulled herself up, her hair swung in her eyes.
She wiped the sweat off her forehead.
And looked back to the eye drawing jewel and, compulsively, she reached out again. Her brain was disconnected from the rest of her bodily functions momentarily.
This time, she touched the jewel…
And the sound of many giant slicing knives, falling down woke her up from her daze.
She knew that no matter how fast she ran to either side, she'd be skewered, so she did the best thing she could.
She grabbed the jewel and jumped on the pedestal.
The spikes fell down and embedded themselves in the ground with a frightening thud.
Still balancing her self on the pedestal, with spikes scattered in every inch of the room, as tall as herself and sharp from every angle. She heard a soft unravelling of a rope, and swoosh, she immediately crouched down and flat as she could on the small square pedestal.
A three metre long, razor flew horizontally over her head, hung by a rope.
She breathed, and sweated, her heart thudding so loud, that she couldn't hear her self breathe.
She was scared stiff, as stiff as a kid could get, but she sucked back the tears that were threatening to drown her.
Now that she thought clearly, she didn't know why she had reached, stupidly, for the gem.
Crouched, she looked around, not knowing how to get out of this mess, the spikes not leaving a millimetre of ground uncovered, the knife swinging back and forth, her sweaty hair getting into her eyes.
And now that she saw it, the new clothes that Lalasa had given her, she found that while she was jumping up on the pedestal, a spike had caught her left side and ripped the skirt-pants, leaving a wide gash in the material, running form her thigh to her ankle.
Damn, she swore again.
A whisper of metal against rock, made Shelaya jump again, then stand on all fours, a knife sharp as a needle, protruded from where the jewel had been before, threatening to impale Shelaya if she moved downwards an inch. She found that her feet were both starting to slip, because they were just balancing on the tow corners of the pedestal, on tip toe.
And the one hand, which was holding the jewel, was starting to slowly slide closer to the corner, which it was resting on.
The sound of diamond on rock, crumbling, scratching, Shelaya was slowly leaning closer to the knife, which was underneath her.
Her heart beat, her blood ran cold and her breath caught in her throat, she pressed her lips together.
She couldn't stand up, because she would be decapitated, she couldn't crouch or sit down, because she would impale her self, and she couldn't get off the square block, because she would be skewered.
Somehow Shelaya found the humour in her situation and she, unbelievably, started to laugh. Big gulps that made her feet and hands slip even closer to the edges of the b lock.
Her hair falling around her head and even touching the knife pointed at her belly was one of the other annoying things, that helped her chuckle even more.
She wondered, this was the first real, life-threatening predicament she had been in, and she would definitely be telling her grandchildren the story.
If she lived that is.
What now, stay this way forever? Her thoughts ran around cluttering up her brain, which was trying to stay alive, by getting a better grip of the block underneath her.
A slow clapping sound echoed through the room, one person. Clap-clap-clap- clap
Shelaya looked in up mid-laugh.
There, sitting on the throne, which she had vaguely looked at before, was a man.
He had strawberry blond hair and light blue eyes; he leaned casually on his comfortable looking chair/throne. Shelaya predicted that he was about 35 years old, not too old. His eyes looked sharp and extremely intelligent, but his mouth couldn't stay still for a few seconds with out smiling, she could see smiles lines creasing the area around his mouth.
He looked very handsome for a 35 year old.
But Shelaya was nevertheless surprised, and stupidly, she tried to hide it, making her grip slipped even more from the effort.
Strangely, after adjusting her grip, when she looked up at him, she did not feel in the slightest shy, like she sometimes did with strangers.
Her bluntness took over.
"I'd ask who you were, but I seem sharply engaged" Her wit also kicked in.
The man chuckled. His fetching smile widened showing two rows of perfect, white teeth. Shelaya like white teeth, she grimaced at him through the curtain of hair on her face, she didn't know if he saw her expression, he probably didn't, couldn't even see her face
She heard him click his fingers, the swooshing sound of the large knife over her head stopped, the blade pointing at her stomach retracted.
She sighed with relief, assumed her crouching position, placed the jewel in front of her, and brushed the hair out of her face. His eyebrows rose a millimetre at her prettiness, she saw the slight movement, but being a child, she did not have enough vanity to take his eye brow twitching as a compliment.
"So you are Shelaya." His voice, deep and soothing, made her hair stand on end and melt into her skin.
"Yes." She was very frank about it too. She looked at him not moving a muscle.
He looked at her, a long, long while, she looked back into his eyes. His blue eyes taking her in, her green eyes blank, showing nothing.
The moment was interrupted by a rustling, like other people coming into the room, and Shelaya realised that there was door, near the throne, that she hadn't seen before.
A surprised voice "Leprechaun?"
Shelaya looked up to see the lapis lazuli eye owner drinking her in with those blue, blue eyes. Her eyebrows rose
"What are you doing here?" She blurted. A pause, and then the mirth and derisiveness crept into Shelaya's eyes as she remembered what had happened between them before, she saw him reading her expression and he had the decency to look away embarrassed.
She let go a small snigger.
"What are you?" He asked her back after regaining his cool.
"I'm here to get a job, but sorta got stuck looking for the interviewing room."
The man on the throne barked with laughter.
And Shelaya couldn't for the life of her understand why he was sitting on the throne.
"So," she said in conversational tones as she sat cross-legged on the block. "Who are you? What am I doing here? What is this? What is going on? And why are you on the throne? Why is that guy here, the one that tried to steal my dagger? What sort of job am I so eager to get into? Why am I so ignorant while everybody else knows everything?"
The man on the throne was smirking now, he held up a hand to silence her absolute boldness "You're hired" Quite frank.
Shelaya blinked "Okaaaaaaayyyyy" Her eyebrows rose again.