Merchant

Tiffany eyed the merchant with suspicion. He was not, as they say, someone who looked particularly trustworthy, which was an important trait, considering that he was basically promising her something that, under most circumstances, should be considered to be so incredulous that it cannot be true.

He held it in his hands to show it to her. True enough it was a leather-bound tome with the words ``Necronomicon'' stencilled on top of it, its engravement betraying its once gilded form. The leather looked old, dry and brown leather, cracked in some places, but still old and well-kept. The corners were protected by brass coverings, and above all, she could almost sense an evil aura emanating from it, but she wasn't sure if that was just a hallucination.

``The gen-uine article dear miss! There can be no doubt about it! The Necronomicon, lost tome of the old Arabian necromancers, found some time back through pure serendipity, and now, in my hands to be sold to you,'' the merchant said, eying Tiffany carefully to gauge her reaction.

She betrayed little of what she was thinking. Years of hunting down ancient books of power from many a crooked merchant had strengthened her poker face. It was something that would come naturally, since the pedlars of such goods are often themselves either ignorant or merely shrewd, always wanting to extract the largest possible price they can from the unwitting. Ancient books of power were far and few, but their counterfeits and surrogates were plentiful, enough to feed the mouths of those who claim to have possessed the Real Deal.

She looked at the merchant dead in the eye for a minute. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable, he blinked and looked away.

``Alright the,'' Tiffany began, ``you claim it is the genuine article, let's us hope for your sake it isn't.''

Tiffany rolled her eyes upwards to reveal the whites and started muttering a series of nonsense sounding syllables. At first, the merchant was starting to laugh at her antics, but suddenly, he found that the book that he was holding had started to shake violently to the uttered syllables. He tried holding it in place, but the vibrations became more violent and in the end, he had no choice but to drop it to the ground.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 2014-03-26 18:25:55)