I have 18 reviews for four chapters. I think that's quite good. So super huge digi cookies for everyone…once I jam them into my processor! They won't fit. Stupid cookies!
Ok, enough rambling. Onwards to the bit you hopefully want to read.
Kel eventually regained enough willpower to push Dom away. They both sat down on the bed. Dom put his arm around her shoulders and she lent her head on his. Dom brought up the scroll and unwound it. Kel shuddered: every time she saw it, it frightened her more and more.
"Dom?" she asked, "The letters weren't like that, were they?"
Dom shook his head mutely; the letters were glowing a fiery red and "Hissing?" murmured Dom.
Kel hit him lightly over the head. "Shush, I'm listening."
"The letters, they're," he gasped, "Speaking!"
Kel said nothing but hit him over the head again, to win a pained response of "Ouch!" from Dom. Kel sat totally still like she had under the blanket; perhaps some form of Yamini meditation, thought Dom. Soon he too began listening to the hissing What Kel heard was as follows: "Az naz gimbatul az naz gimbatuluk zuuk larz fromd ulk far kaz atulu fazara muuk alahh!"
"But Kel," exclaimed Dom impatiently, "What are you listening to? There's nothing to hear!"
"Can't you hear them? They're talking to us!"
"Talking to you, Kel," said Dom doubtfully, shaking his head, "Talking to you."
After listening to the letters repetition several times she wrote them down. Dom looked down at the copy sceptically.
"You're absolutely sure you can hear all this?" he asked.
"Of course," she replied, "Would I say so if I wasn't?"
"Yes."
Kel sighed inwardly. Dom could be so, so, so Neal-like sometimes.
On the back of the scroll was Neal's scratchy, hurried handwriting.
"The original scroll code was fake, a diversion to guide us to some other point or purpose. I cannot see it yet but I do feel as though a great shadow is approaching. I fear for all our lives, not least mine. I have, however, located the language as that of the Acropolites, who lived in what is now Scanra, Tortall and Tusaine. The main city was "Necropolis stronghold", located in the north-western part o…"
Here Neal's writing trailed off, though the writing seemed as though he was attacked but had tried to continue, to give his friends some clue as to the whereabouts of the city and of himself, possibly at the cost of his own life.
A solitary tear made its way down Kel's cheek and inside her head only the hissing went on "We naz gimbatul az naz gimbatuluk zuuk larz fromd ulk far kaz atulu fazara muuk alahh!"
Kel blinked in surprise. Is it just me, thought Kel, as everything else seemed to be, or had the letters' rhyme changed slightly? And wait, rhyme? Who ever said it was a rhyme?
Two updates in one day! Come on, I gotta get a round of applause for that! I know, I know, all my chapters put together are still shorter than one of most people's, but at least I update quick and besides, I like short. I'm short so my stories can be too. All review please, even if you dislike it which I hope you don't.