The Book of Ligmoore
The plane started moving towards the runway and
a buzz of excitement filled the air. The plane paused at the end of the runway
and the engines powered up, they sounded more like jet engines to jumbo's. The
noise grew louder and I felt Taba pull at my hand. His big black eyes full of
worry, I took his hand and held it tight.
His eyes fixed in the seat in front and he
sank back into his chair. The plane leaped forward and Taba screwed up his eyes.
We tore down the runway gaining speed with every second. Within the next few
seconds the ground had fallen away and I felt the familiar feeling of flying
come flooding back to me. My heart rose and Taba opened his eyes, realising
we were up in the air. His grip loosened and he looked around, the ceiling way
tilted up at about forty-five degrees, we were climbing, and fast. I saw the
clouds rush past us as we rose, ReelBigKougraFish was practically jumping out
of his seat, Brain_stew had told me how he loved flying when we were waiting,
but for someone who flew this often you would have thought that it wasn't so
exciting after a while. But then again we were talking about ReelBigKougraFish
so to him anything was exciting. There were miles between me and my other two
pets; I wondered what they were doing and where they were.
"Just hang on," I whispered to myself, "I'm
coming, just a few more days."
The hours passed and Taba was calmer now,
we had watched the in-flight movie about a budding young Kiko that travelled
to the ocean floor. The highlight of the journey was when ReelBigKougraFish
had spilt his chocolate cake down him and had spent the next half hour gnawing
on his chocolate covered arm.
ReelBigKougraFish peered out of the window,
far below you could make out the brilliant yellow of the Lost Desert sands and
the Sakhmet Palace.
"There it is!" Cried ReelBigKougraFish, the
whole plane heard him and soon nearly every face aboard was glued to the windows,
staring down at the sands. The plane started to descend and the seatbelt sign,
again, flashed. The white fluffy clouds parted as we swooped down into them.
Taba seemed to be a little less worried about landing than he was about taking
off, but still he held my hand firmly. The ground was now rushing up beneath
us, the plane jumped as it touched down, we braked hard as we approached the
end of the runway. I watched as the other planes took off and landed around
us. Soon the plane stopped completely and we found ourselves back on the tarmac
again, picking up our bags.
Taba was grateful to be back outside again,
and so were we all, being cooped up inside a plane for three hours wasn't that
much fun. Brain_stew managed to keep hold of ReelBigKougraFish before he ran
of, and we walked out into the desert with the rest of the hoards of people
that were aboard the plane. The familiar sight of the Lost Desert flooded me.
I had not been back there for months and a lot had changed since then. The Petpet
shop had had a facelift and they had cleaned up Coltzan's Shrine. Also there
were two new stalls that had been opened: Osiri's Pottery and the Lost Desert
Battle Supplies. From behind us the whirr of a siren blasted out, and the people
parted as a Neopian Pound van sped past.
We decided to head for the food stall, as
we were fresh out of food and then go to the Shrine to see if Old Coltzan could
help us out. Luckily Brain_stew still had enough money to spare us for food.
The summer's sun warmed the sand beneath our feet, it wasn't such a long walk
from the airport to the food stall and as we approached we saw that was where
the pound van had stopped. There was a crowd of Neopians surrounding the food
stall. I looked at Brain_stew who had noticed the crowd as well. I turned back
to look at the crowd of people again, just as I did a great blast of bubbles
burst out and the people and Neopets cowered back. Brain_stew grabbed my hand
and ran forward, I followed close behind. We reached the crowd and Taba flew
over their heads to see what was going on.
The Neopian Pound were trying to capture a
blue Scorchio, but it was using its bubble shield to protect itself.
"Kathlon!" cried Taba, flying to his aid.
"Kathlon?" I whispered in disbelief, I pushed
through the crown and that's when I saw his weak and frail body trying to keep
his shield stable. The old yellow Techo, who was in charge of the abandoned
pets at the pound, rushed forward with a large net.
"NO!" yelled Taba, trying to defend his brother.
I skidded to his side.
"Kathlon!" I cried to him from behind his
shield, he looked straight at me. His eyes seemed blank, almost as though he
didn't recognise me, but somehow the message got through and he dropped his
shield, the bubbles popped immediately. I grabbed for him, I could feel his
weak fingers grasping at my arm, trying to hold onto me, but he was too weak.
He slipped to the floor and fell unconscious.
Brain_stew met my side and ReelBigKougraFish
helped Taba fend off the Techo.
"Stay with him." I told Brain_stew, he nodded
and I turned to face the fierce evil Techo. "Drop the net!" I ordered, "He's
mine." There was a short frustrating silence from the crowd followed by pointing
and whispering. The net dropped to the floor and the Techo eyed me evilly. His
gaze pierced me and I wondered how anyone could leave his or her pet with this
creature, anyone who could was as evil as he was. I stepped back to defend Kathlon,
afraid that the Techo would rush past me to get to him.
"You're not fit be an owner," snarled the
Techo, his voice chilled me to the bone, he sounded like some kind of mad professor,
as well as looking like one. "You've got some nerve coming back to Neopia after
abandoning your pets like this."
"I was hacked it wasn't my fault!" I retorted,
standing my ground. "They wouldn't believe it was really me so they wouldn't
let me back in again." His eyes narrowed and he straightened. It felt like an
eternity waiting, waiting to see what he would do, possibilities screamed in
my head. The Techo let out his breath in a grunt.
"I'm back now!" I yelled to him, "And I will
never leave my pets again, so you just go back to your pound," my voice dropped
and I took a step forward, forcing him back towards his van, "where you belong."
The Techo held my gaze for a few short moments, his eyes were different somehow,
they looked almost sorrowful underneath all that anger.
I had been told once that the Techo who ran
the pound was abandoned himself, he never got over it and to this day he has
held a grudge against all of Neopia, feeling that everyone was out to get him
somehow. My eyes softened as I retraced my last words, "where you belong." He
had obviously not had a caring owner since the day he was abandoned, he didn't
belong there, no one did. The Techo bent down to pick up his net, and turned
quickly back to his van, he clambered in and drove away as fast as he could.
I hated myself for saying what I did, and now I would never have a chance to
make it up to him.
The crowed soon dispersed and Taba dropped
down from the sky next to his brother. He lay his hand on Kathlon's shoulder
and shook him a little, a knelt down beside his unconscious form.
"Kathlon," I whispered to him, "Kathlon wake
up." His eyes twitched and flickered open. I gazed down at him in relief, Kathlon
reached out for my arm, he held it tightly and I helped to pull him to his feet.
He looked around in disbelief, Taba smiled at the sight of his brother, who
he had not seen in nearly a month. I pulled Kathlon into a tight embrace and
I felt his sharp but fragile fingers grip me tightly.
"I'm so sorry Kathlon," I said looking him
in the eyes, "I came as quickly as a could. I couldn't leave you all out here,
I just couldn't."
"You don't have to explain yourself to me
Amerock," Kathlon said, his eyes were soft and reassuring. Brain_stew's hand
fell on Kathlon's shoulder and he smiled down at him.
"It looks like we got here in the knick for
time, eh Kathlon?" Brain_stew said smiling, Kathlon nodded in agreement.
"Why did you leave the house?" I asked calmly,
holding his hands tightly. His eyes flickered to the ground and he shuffled
his toes nervously.
"You never came back so we spilt up and went
looking for you," he said quietly. I smiled at him and held his shoulders.
"I got back in as soon as I could, I know
it was a long time but I tried everything to get back in again, but I couldn't."
"It's okay," He said, he could always cheer
me up when something went wrong, and it was a great quality to have at a time
like this. "You're with me now, and we'll find Zutore then things can go back
to the way they were before." Taba smiled and pulled on my arm.
"We need to get to the food stall at some
point," He said, glancing over to where the food stall was. ReelBigKougraFish
seemed to brighten at this, he had eaten nothing for the last five minuets and
now he was starting to get hungry again.
We made our way over to the ever popular food
stall, hoards of people crowed it and we had a hard time getting enough food
for us before the shopkeeper had run out of supplies, however we did manage
to pick up two Grackle Bugs, a Baggus and a few Ummagines. We sat outside Peopatra's
Petpet shop, and I fed Kathlon the first food he'd had in a long while. Clearly
he had been living of a few scraps, as he was not in such a bad state as Taba
was when I had found him, there was more food in the Lost Desert to the Uni
meadows after all.
After we had eaten we made for Coltzan's Shrine,
as we had planned earlier that day. There weren't as many people there as I
had first thought there would be, usually you had to queue for a couple of minuets
before you could approach the Shrine, but today there were hardly any people
about. Brain_stew was the first to step up the large sandstone monument; a blue
glow came from the shrine and it swirled around ReelBigKougraFish and the suddenly
vanished. ReelBigKougraFish ran around in circles as a deep voice rippled through
the air.
"Thank you for coming here young Neopet,"
echoed the voice of Coltzan. "I hope this helps…" Brain_stew dipped his head
in thanks and then turned to ReelBigKougraFish.
"What happened?" He asked intrigued. ReelBigKougraFish
looked up at him then while still running round in circles he replied,
"I think he made me faster…maybe now I can
catch my tail!"
He continued to spin until he flopped to the
floor in dizziness. Brain_stew managed to pull him away from the shrine so that
Kathlon, Taba and I could see if Coltzan would help us. It had been a long time
since I had last visited the shrine and the experience had all but escaped my
memory. We stepped slowly towards the Shrine and almost immediately the air
above the shrine wavered and morphed into the face of Coltzan. He looked down
on the three of us and smiled.
"I think I know what you are looking for,"
he said smiling, "Use this to help you on your quest, I know it will come in
handy."
The face fizzled into thin air and I looked
about us, there was nothing there. Just as we where about to turn away, the
ground started to move slightly, then a bit more, until the sand beneath our
feet was shaking violently. I stared down in horror as the sand pushed up to
make way for something about to surface from the sandy depths. The grains of
sand rolled down the fast growing bump in the ground, until it didn't moved
any longer. Kathlon bent down and brushed the sand of the surface of the object.
It was a book, a very old book with a broken spine; it looked like one of those
books you might find in the last shelf of your library. One that no one has
laid eyes upon for the last few hundred years. He picked it up and handed the
book to me, it had a strange symbol of the front cover.
"What is that?" asked Taba. I scanned the
book and flicked through the first few pages, it was written in some kind of
ancient language of symbols and pictures, sort of like hieroglyphics, but different.
Brain_stew approached us from behind; he looked
down at the book confused.
"He gave you a book," he said, "Well…that's
good I suppose… but you would have thought he would give you a nice new one,
don't you?" I didn't answer; instead I looked down at the book. Why would Coltzan
give me a book I could even read?
To be continued... | 
