Neiko's Five Land Adventure (Neiko Adventure Saga Book #1)

Chapter 21

A terrible racket awakened Neiko. T-bird was squawking and fluttering, and the cover on her cage was moving. She also noticed Quickstrike was missing. Neiko got up and uncovered the cage, and Quickstrike was stalking T-bird and ready to kill. "Hey, don't kill my bird!"

"I need something to eat, and it looks really tasty," Quickstrike complained.

"No, we're not going to eat the bird—I'll get you something." Neiko said putting her fists on her hips.

"Is it your pet cockatiel? What's its name?"

"Yeah, it's a cockatiel, and it's my pet; her name's T-bird."

Quickstrike looked at her startled. "You mean like the great T-bird, the wise cockatiel? But why doesn't she talk like we do?"

Neiko scratched her head. "What?! Well, she doesn't talk because she's a bird, duh! Does this wise bird talk? And where does she live?"

"She lives in Saudi with Tweety the Brilliant in Pitfall Plain. They don't live in cages or in the same place. Both of them are giants, and they are extremely wise."

Neiko bit her lip. "Is this Tweety the Brilliant a yellow and white parakeet by any chance? Is there a blue parakeet that lives in Occorom, and a blue and purple fighting fish named Ramses?"

"Why, yes! The blue parakeet is Babe the Magnificent, and Ramses the Betta is a jolly old fish and friendly. How'd you know?"

"Well, Tweety was the name of my parakeet that died about six months ago, and my cousin has a parakeet named Babe and a betta named Ramses.

This is really cool that our pets are just like your pals."

"Yeah, and about that stuff we talked about last night—I have more things I wish to discuss."

"Me too. Especially the part about Lydia forgetting and some of his habits around the fort."

"Yeah, a lot of the things surrounding Lydia don't add up, and he had plenty of chances to mess with her mind. I wonder if Dark Pharaoh magic has any type of mind control. I know that her 'forgetting' is too perfect especially since they saw each other while she lived with her foster father. Pharaohs have the ability to impose a trance so that someone will do their bidding if they refuse, but no type of memory erase, wild spells, or spell to change the memory."

"Oh, I think I get it. I think he may have erased her memory of those years he held her and all that so he wouldn't be exposed. Ajax believed him because Lydia backed up his story because she had no account of who he was, but there's one piece missing. He had to pull it off before he went before Ajax because she would have spotted him."

"Oh, I see. He had to do it like when she was asleep; later he came and made a request for her hand. Of course, he had no idea that was the one he was to avoid, and Lydia simply said it was not the man, so they fell in love and the betrothing part, and here comes Sandstorm showing that Ramses is evil and a Pharaoh. He probably did the same thing to Osiris by changing his memory and erasing the real memories of what happened. The Osiris incident must've happened before he found Lydia and destroyed the Saracens, but Sandstorm got a very good look at him. So he exposed him as being the son of Osiris who is the murderer of his people and family. And, of course, he carried her off the day before Sandstorm and Lydia's wedding and on the honeymoon."

"Well, when Phoenix returned, how did she remember him, unless Ramses thought he was dead and didn't bother to erase that."

"Probably so, and I think he did something to Phoenix to make him think he was someone else and not the same Ramses. So the rest of us think that the other guy is still looking, and Cheetor thinks he'll never find the guy that ruined his life."