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I was reading The Neopian Times one dreary evening in
the dark recesses of my study, when a particular headline caught my eye. "Parsey,
Sage, Grows Wary of Crime." Mikalor Parsey had been a long-time friend of mine,
from the days when I still considered myself worthy of friendship. Though I
hadn't been to visit him in quite some time, I remembered well his vast library
of ancient tomes and scrolls from the Before Neopia era. In retrospect, I should
have probably visited his library before embarking on my crusade against Von
Roo.
"Hey, why the long face?" Colt asked, strolling
into my office with all the subtle grace of a Skeith having dinner. The young
Lupe ran a paw through his ruddy fur, and scrunched up his muzzle as he read
over my shoulder. "Parsey, Sage, Grows Wary of Crime. Catchy title. Kind of
reminds me of this song I heard once...." He lifted his muzzle skyward and began
to howl the tune. "Are you going to Meridell fair? Parsley---"
I reached up and clamped a hand around his face
to stop the errant noisemaking. "For the love of Shankly, please stop that forsaken
caterwauling. I'm trying to read this article." Colt whimpered apologetically,
and I released him, grumbling irritably.
"Well, it was a great song. So what's the deal
with this article?" he asked as he perched on my desk in the midst of my paperwork.
Colt King had come to me a few weeks ago now, for help with his lycanthropic
state. When the moon rose full, the normally laid-back Lupe became a ferocious
were-beast. Thanks to the iron-barred cell in my basement, this wasn't as big
a problem as it could have been. We'd formed a somewhat tenuous friendship,
Colt and I, as the weeks progressed, and he'd been helping me in my work.
"Well, if you would calm yourself and remove
your furry posterior from my papers, I could read it and tell you, now couldn't
I?" My brusque tone got him moving - he nimbly leapt down from the desk and
settled himself into a chair, tucking his tail under him.
"Now, let me read to you..." I began, but stilled
my voice as the door to my office opened again. She was standing there, half-bathed
in the light from the outer room, her lovely face crinkled into a frown at the
sight of me reading in the semi-darkness. Quickly she crossed the room and drew
a taper from the box to light the lamp in the window. Transfixed, I watched
her careful movements as the lamp sprang into life and illuminated her once
again. My beacon in the darkness, my angel... turned to me and graced me with
her beautiful smile.
"You'll go half-blind, reading in the darkness,"
She reproached me, gently.
"Not as if it matters now," I muttered, more
gruffly than I intended.
"Have a care for Colt's eyes, then, if not for
your own..." She scoffed, and patted Colt on the paw. He smiled up at her then,
and the tenderness in his eyes brought bile to my throat. Coughing back the
bitterness of my own jealousy, I wondered just how close the two of them had
become in daylight hours. Surely... surely they hadn't grown so close that my
hold over her was compromised. The past could not be so easily forgotten, or
cast aside like a discarded toy... By the time I calmed myself, she had drifted
out the door again, closing it behind her, leaving only the lingering scent
of her perfume to mark her passing. Scent like roses and violets, that I inhaled
deeply of, before turning my eyes to Colt, narrowing them slightly. He must
have sensed the anger there, for he drew back into his chair, defensively.
"So," I began, carefully, "What have you two
been up to while I sleep, hm?"
"Oh, you know... this and that..." Colt shrugged,
with an evasive smile. "So, about this article..."
"She is mine, Colt King. She always has been,
and always will be. Lest you forget that, I remind you now- I will not tolerate
my hospitality being taken advantage of, or you becoming overly familiar..."
"Hey... don't flip out on me, Gaelan!" Colt
gasped, "I know it must be hard... first with her being what She is, and you
being a Grarrl... and then the whole vampire thing. You must realise, however,
that She loves you more than anything. How can you doubt that Nei--"
"Don't you dare speak her name, cur!" I hissed,
reaching across my desk as if to strike him. "You are not worthy of having it
cross your lips!"
"I'm not worthy?" he snapped. "You mean you're
not worthy! You don't feel like you deserve her still - because of what you've
become, and you're taking it out on me! That's it, isn't it? This isn't about
me, or her... it's all about you and your insecurity."
I drew a deep, shuddering breath and held it
without releasing. His words stung me like a lash, but each one of them was
true. "My apologies," I muttered when I was again capable of speech.
"No problem, Gaelan, no problem..." Colt said,
tapping the article. "Let's get back down to it, shall we?"
I unleashed the rest of my anger by viciously
folding the Times, and read, aloud:
Sources
report that many recent robberies of libraries,
bookstores, and other knowledge repositories have
been
occurring all over Neopia. Various mythological
subjects have been the usual books taken - from
Paranormal Lupology to Beliefs of Ancient Pre-
Neopians. We consulted local Wocky sage, Mikalor
Parsey, about what measures he was taking to
protect his library from these terrible crimes.
"I'm
hiring the best guards available - from Skeith
Bodyguards
Inc., of course." With a slogan like
'We
will die for you!', we can all rest easy that Mr.
Parsey's
collection will remain secure for a long
time to come.
"I bet he's been robbed," Colt said, snickering.
"What makes you say that?" I asked, raising
an eye ridge.
"Well, anytime someone says 'this can't possibly
happen', life tends to prove them wrong. So I bet this guy's been cleaned out
- when'd the paper come out? Friday?"
"When does The Neopian Times ever come out on
a Friday?" I snorted. "Editorial usually holds it up till Saturday, at least.
Still, it's been a few days... so we should probably go check. I'd like to see
my old friend Mikalor again, if nothing else."
I dimmed the light and gathered my cloak, wrapping
it tight around me for comfort more than warmth. I didn't feel the cold much
these days. Colt, with his thick fur, didn't seem to see the need to ever wear
more than a pair of pants and the occasional shirt (always a seeming afterthought)
despite the chill winds that frequently blew in the month of Storing. We stepped
out of the tower and walked in companionable silence through the woods, the
most prevalent sound being that of our feet crunching the dry leaves beneath
our feet. The usual night sounds of Whoots and rustling bushes with night predators
stilled at our passing, their keen senses advising caution at the approach of
the preternatural.
Even from a distance, I could see the sloping
walls of Mikalor's keep were jagged and misshapen. The sight filled me with
foreboding - and I dreaded what we might find within. Colt sniffed the air,
and laid his paw against my arm to still my footsteps. "Do you smell that?"
he asked.
I took a long sniff, but I didn't smell anything.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Magic..." he said. "Some sort of magic was cast around here. I smell bitumen
and sulphur, to be precise."
I blinked in surprise, having been unaware of
that particular aspect of my new friend's talents. "What spell are those a component
for, do you know?"
"An alteration... some sort of matter transference,"
Colt said, with a knowledgeable smile. "What? I do study, you know."
I chuckled wryly, and shook my head. "Sorry,
sorry... let us make haste towards the keep, then, and see what this is all
about." Swiftly we made our way through the tangled underbrush and onto the
path that lead up to the stone fortress. The large oaken front door was hanging
listlessly from one hinge, resembling a gaping mouth. Only darkness was within,
not even a sliver of light from a candle or torch to break its hold.
"Should have brought torches," I muttered, grumbling.
"Illuminous lux," whispered Colt, clapping
his paws together. A bluish sphere of light formed between them. He grinned
at my astonished look. "Maybe I did a little more than study." I was beginning
to realise I didn't know Colt King very well at all.
The ruins of the library were ghastly in the
blue light, more startling perhaps than they would have been with any other
colour. The pale azure cast shone across pages of vellum and parchment, torn
and ruined, scattered across the stone floor as if they were fallen leaves from
a desecrated knowledge tree. "Mikalor?" I called, my voice hoarse, "Are you
within?"
"Yesssss..." a scratchy voice hissed back from
the shadows. "Gooo awayyy frommm thisss currrsssseddd placcccce...."
"Okay, sounds good to me..." Colt said, starting
to head for the door, taking the light source with him. I clamped a hand on
his shoulder and turned him back around.
"Mikalor, show yourself..." I commanded. A shuffling,
scraping sound followed... and I prepared myself mentally to face whatever horror
had befallen my friend. Still, when he lurched forward into the light, both
Colt and I recoiled instinctively. Where before he had been a studious Wocky
with a kind countenance, he was now a creature of nightmare. His fur had turned
a sickly, mottled green and his back was hunched over. Eyes that had once sparkled
with intelligence now festered with a sickly yellow pallor, one sunken, one
bulging near to popping. "By Donna, what happened to you?" I gasped.
"They came for the tome..." he lisped, speech
seeming to be hard for him in his current state. "They took everything... left
me in this wretched state..."
"Tome? What tome?" Colt asked, feeling clueless.
"The Neonomicon.... the very text that contains
the spell that banished the ancient evils and created the world as we know it,
" I explained to Colt. "Apparently your studies haven't been all that thorough."
He shot me a glare that I smirked in response to.
"No... with my last power as a caster, I sent
it away... away to be safe. Out of their hands." Mikalor whispered. "Now...
if I only knew where..."
"You... lost it?" Colt snapped. "This big powerful
book that evil guys were after, and you just sort of sent it off without a forwarding
address?"
"I was rather under siege at the time!" Mikalor
snapped back.
"This isn't helping, either of you!" I yelled.
"Shut up and let me think! Do you know who it was who attacked you?"
"I wasn't sure at first..." Mikalor said, "they
were just some skeletal looking Zafaras. But then, I saw it - emblazoned on
one of their cloaks. The mark of Von Roo - the Count's crest, was embroidered
on the back. What Von Roo would want with the book... I have no clue. Gaelan,
my boy... I knew you would come. I couldn't leave. Not like this... I didn't
want anyone to see me. But I knew you'd come..."
"Gather what belongings you can salvage, and
come with us to my castle," I said, laying a hand on his gnarled shoulder. "No
matter your appearance, you are still, inside, my friend."
The End
Author's Note: The curious may visit Gaelan's Castle by clicking on his pet
page--but beware--Monsters lurk there. Colt can be found by looking up King_Colt.
Mikalor is Mikalor, and an unfortunate victim of the switching of the Wocky Halloween
paint brush style. As for She, well.... | 
