GAH! School started! GAH! I strongly dislike school. Entirely too much work involved. Oh, and I'm writing this instead of doing my math homework, so you better appreciate it! *growls menacingly* and yes, yes, no need to tell me that the first part is a bad mish-mash of Indiana Jones, I already know, but I couldn't think of anything. Well, read on!

Ahh! Ahh! My keyboard just fell off the desk! Someone help! Ahh!

God, I'm a spaz.

The Trap

Kel and Neal were left alone, staring into the Treasury entrance. Kel glanced at Neal and caught him looking at her. Simultaneously, they shrugged, and started down the steps.

Automatically, Kel began counting the stairs. At 50 steps, there was no sign of the end, and it got a lot darker. Neal decided against using his Gift as a light, since he might need to be at full power for their escape. At 200 steps, the air was decidedly cooler. Both Neal and Kel shivered. At 400, there was still no sign of any door. At least, until Kel ran into one.

"Oof," said Kel.

"Good job! You found the door," Neal said, grinning. He walked to the lock and blasted the guard spell, scoffing at the easiness of the spell. Then, he picked the lock, and the door swung inward to reveal the Treasury interior. Removing his pick from the lock, Neal strolled into the open door, followed closely by Kel.

As soon as they stepped inside the door, three things happened at once: the lights turned on, the door slammed shut, and a voice started talking.

The light from the light-globes reflected off gilded walls that faded into a gold sheen in the distance; the room was too big to see the other side. It was filled with wealth: tens of thousands of gold pieces piled in heaps, gems of all colors, statues made from precious materials, and other unnameable items that glittered and gleamed with brilliance.

Of course, they noticed this in a fraction of a second, because the voice had began to speak.

"Congratulations," the voice said. "You have successfully made it into my Treasury. Now I have just one request: When you get to the Black God, tell him I said 'Hi.'" With that, the sound of well-oiled gears filled the Treasury.

Horrified, Kel and Neal looked around. Nothing in the Treasury was moving. The gear sound didn't stop. On a whim, Kel looked up, and bit her tongue to keep from screaming. Long iron skewers had begun to descend from the gilded ceiling, twelve feet above their heads.

"Do something!" Kel shrieked, her instincts getting the better of her.

"What's there to do?" Neal sounded frantic.

Kel looked up again. The spikes were six inches closer – only five and a half feet above her head. Her head spun, but in one small, calm, detached part of her brain, a comment slowly pushed its way to the front of her mind.

There has to be a catch.

The spikes must lower every time someone came into the Treasury, since there was no way for the walls to know who had entered. Being where the door was located, the catch had to be within running distance, or else the right person wouldn't be able to get to the catch before the spikes impaled them.

Kel whirled from side to side, searching for anything that would make sense. Neal was frozen, staring at the murderous lances that lowered relentlessly. Terrified, Kel looked up again. The skewers were only two feet away, and were they getting faster?

Tears sparkled in her eyes as she spun around. The sound of the gears echoed in her ears, and she wondered, panicked, if it would be the last thing she ever heard.

As she made her revolutions, Kel's eye caught on a statue. Unlike the others in the Treasury, it wasn't gleaming. It was carved out of ebony, and stood rather apart from everything else, looking forlorn and menacing at the same time.

Everything clicked in her mind. Kel bent over and raced to the statue, glancing at the spikes. They were only a foot away. Neal lay huddled on the ground, silently watching them. She prayed to the Goddess to slow their descent. The statue was growing closer, but the skewers were catching up to her back.

A point ripped through her tunic and left a dangerously deep jagged gash on the left side of her back. It began streaming blood, which trickled down her side and soaked into her tunic before it dropped onto the floor. Kel gritted her teeth against the pain and fell to the ground, crawling to the statue.

She reached the statue's feet. As she had known it would be, it was a statue of the Dark God. "Hi!" she shouted, numb with dread as she pressed herself to the ground, slipping in the blood from her wound.

Nothing happened. The spikes didn't slow down. She felt them press sharply into her back.

"I say 'Hi!'" she wailed, shutting her eyes and anticipating the pain.

The lethal points froze, just before puncturing her skin. The room was empty of sound. Suddenly, the gears started up again, and once more Kel readied herself, but instead she felt the lances withdrawing from her skin. She flipped over and looked up.

The points were receding into the ceiling, being covered by the gild paint. Behind her, she heard the sound of an opening door.

Forgetting her injury, Kel jumped up and thanked all the gods she could think of. Her next thoughts were of Neal. She looked to him from across the room. He was white, deathly white. He wasn't moving.

She ran to him as tears of fear clouded her eyes, leaving a trail of blood on the floor. As she drew closer, she saw that his eyes stared blankly into empty space.

Upon reaching him, Kel fell to her knees and grabbed his shoulders, screaming his name and shaking him as her tears fell onto his shirt. For one terrible moment, he didn't respond.

But then, he raised his arms, and the blank look in his eyes faded into the Neal she knew. He pushed himself upwards. His face was still deathly white, but now she realized it was from fear.

Neal wrapped his arms around her, and they were wonderfully tight. She sobbed, and gasped out, "I thought— I thought—"

"Shhh," Neal calmed her, his lips against her hair. Kel buried her face in his chest and breathed in the scent of him, calming her down breathing. She raised her face to his and they kissed frantically. But Neal's arms moved across her back, and she cried out against his mouth. He pulled away.

"You— You're bleeding! You—"

She heard no more. White dots filled her vision, and she fell into a world of emptiness.

Kel wasn't able to relax in the emptiness. Green fire streamed into her head, pushing back the whiteness and the nothingness and drawing her back into the world of the living.

Kel opened her eyes. She was staring at a gilded ceiling. It took her a few seconds for her to remember where she was, and when she did, she turned and looked for Neal. He was lying next to her, looking totally drained. She nudged his shoulder. He came alive instantly, blinking at her.

"Turn around," he ordered immediately. Kel did so, craning her neck so she could see her left side. It had been made less deep and was already scabbed over — a few days worth of healing in several minutes.

"What did you do?" Kel asked incredulously. "That amount of healing should not have drained you. Are you okay?" she finished nervously.

"You forget," Neal said wearily, raising a finger to point at her. "There are shielding spells in the very stone. I had to raise them to heal you, which is why you're not completely healed — if I was unhindered, all you'd have left was a scar."

Kel sat silently for a minute, and when she spoke Neal could barely hear her. "When I ran over, I thought you were dead."

He paused before saying, "I know." Kel reached over and embraced him tightly, but he wouldn't let her just sit, which is what she wanted to do.

"I believe you've forgotten another thing." Kel looked at him blankly. "The reason we're in the Treasury in the first place?" When she still didn't respond, he made an exasperated noise and said, "The Fifth Stone?"

"Ah," said Kel. "You're right." They helped each other up, groaning. Kel felt her bones creak.

"Gods," said Neal, a bit of his humor returning. "We sound like an old couple." Kel laughed shakily.

"Let's find the Fifth and get out of here. We've already wasted at least fifteen minutes, and we don't know how much time we even have."

Neal nodded, then froze. "Um . . . how in all the Gods' Realms are we supposed to find it in all this wealth?"

"We'll just have to look for it. It looks like . . ." Kel reached into her belt pouch and pulled out the first Four, "this . . ." she trailed off.

"They— They're glowing," Neal faltered.

And they were. As Kel held the Four Stones, they shone with a clear steady light from their crystalline depths.

"That's it!" Kel said suddenly. "That's how we'll find the Fourth! They all probably glow when they're close to each other, so just look for something glowing . . . sort of," she finished lamely, looking at the brightly lit room. "Is there any way to turn off the light globes?"

"You might try the light button," Neal said smugly. He moved to the doorway and pressed a button in the wall. The lights went out. Far off in the distance, they saw a beacon of light matching the ones Kel held in her hands.

Neal's grin was reflected in the glow from the Stones. He walked towards the light, accompanied by Kel.

The Stone was a few minutes walk into the room. It was buried in a pile of gems, and the Stone stuck out like a sore thumb with its gritty texture and unpolished surface.

"We never would have found this if we hadn't gotten the lucky break of finding out they glow," said Neal. He started. "Do you think they glow all the time?"

Kel picked up the Fifth and added it to the pile in her hand. Immediately, the lights were extinguished, and the only thing they could see was the light streaming in from the door. "I guess that answers that question," she said, smiling. But the smile froze on her face.

It was just as well that the Stones went out, because the silhouettes of six men could easily be counted when they entered the room.

Oooh, cliffy! I know, I'm evil. but I figure it'll keep you reading. Anyway, I'm sort of tired, and in pain because I sprained my ankle. BUT. I wrote this for you. my faithful reviewers! *pats faithful reviewers on head* MOST SPECIFICALLY, those who have reviewed regularly, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I LOVE YOU DEARLY.

And, if you don't find this conceited and you're not too busy, I would love you even more if you told other people to read my story . . . *grins like a madwoman* ahahaha! Do my bidding, knaves! *coughs* um . . . right.

One more thing. I really really would like to beta read, so please please ask me to! That is all.