Hello, everyone! Here is the next chapter in the story. After what happened last chapter, this chapter will take place outside the main events of Book 4. Outside work is preventing me from updating this story more frequently, but I hope those of you who are continuing to read this are enjoying it.

DISCLAIMER: The 'Amulet' series is created and illustrated by Kazu Kibuishi, and published by 'Scholastic'. The author owns any original characters and custom elements included into the story.

Onward!


Lines formed inside a black void. Twisting pink paths conjured up an image that was familiar and yet alien; some sort of emblem or mark, shaped like a face but lacking anything a human would call a "face". The lines glowed brighter and brighter, and smaller motes of light in the distance answered as faraway stars.

Something chirped from inside the void. A bird, great or small, unseen and yet noticeably present. The lines did not attempt to draw it out or expose anything beyond their own emblem's surroundings.

Illuminated by the glow of the newly formed stars, Caleb saw a reflection of himself in a hanging full-body mirror. The reflection wore the clothes he had on the day before he left home to help the Hayes family move house. The pink light created shadows on the reflection, especially around his eyes. But there were no physical scars around those two objects, just a pair of large black circles. When Caleb saw them for what they were, he automatically yawned and shut the vision away for a moment.

Another chirp came, sharper than before. Caleb opened his eyes – why had they been closed before? – to see his reflection, the mirror, and the lines all gone. In their places was a different sort of blackness, accentuated by stones and a dampness in the air. A hard surface was against his back, instead of the softness of the bed he had laid down in. But there was light coming from somewhere Caleb could not yet see, electric light that reached down to his position.

What had happened? Caleb couldn't remember. His brain was enveloped in fog that was not going away easily.

"Never suspected we would have guests," something said in a hoarse man's voice from very close by. "No, not at all."

Caleb sluggishly turned over, realizing as he did so that he was lying down. The fog between his eyes and his brains went away as he stared into the new darkness, and he saw he was not alone. There was a large man against the far wall, someone sitting on the side of a ramshackle bed chained to a stone wall in multiple places. Beyond the bed, there was no other furniture or furnishings. Shadowed bars spread across the man, his bed, and the wall behind him.

The man was a giant of an individual; prominent yellow eyes and well-muscled arms and legs, partially hidden beneath a robe suspiciously like a bedsheet. But his most notable features were the elongated mouth mimicking a bird's beak, and the presence of black feathers across his upper body that ruffled with his every motion.

This person was a raven-man. One of the "cursed" people. Possibly even one of the "Corvid" agents. And he was looking at Caleb like he was a shiny bauble worth taking to his nest.

"He carries the scent of the earth." The giant stood from the bed and walked forward as he talked, coming close enough to Caleb that he saw the giant had no footwear on his taloned feet. The beaked face twitched to one side: a yellow eye stared Caleb head-on. "The planet Earth, yes. The All-Father came from there."

"What are you—?" Caleb stopped talking as the fog in his head continued to dissipate. "Silas Charnon?" he quickly asked. "Is he the "All-Father"?"

"The stranger is correct." The raven-man gave a bird's imitation of a smile and came a few steps closer to Caleb. The teenager backed up, trying to keep his distance. His hands and shoes – hadn't he taken those off, he wondered – pushed against the stone until his back and head bumped against metal bars. He looked behind himself and saw more of the same bars making up one wall of an enclosed room.

No, not a room, a cell. Caleb was in a prison.

"We are called Corbett." The raven-man clucked again with his introduction, the sound and the name getting Caleb's attention again. "In the All-Father's world, this translates to "Young Crow". But we are not so young anymore." A chuckle followed this, sounding to Caleb like there was a frog in the transformed man's throat.

Caleb was not amused as he looked further around the cell. "Where are we?" he asked. "Why am I in prison?" Peeking out through the bars, spaced apart too thin for him to push more than his arm and hand through, Caleb saw several rows of cells piled above his like floors in an apartment complex on Earth.

"Before we answer his questions, the stranger must tell us their name." The raven-man's language began making more sense to Caleb as he kept hearing it. Apparently, this man used "we" instead of "I", and "the stranger" instead of "you", among other quirks. Caleb hadn't heard anything like this in his high school cliques, but he did know something about lingo and strange languages.

"I'm Caleb." The boy put a hand to his chest, accentuating the personal use of first-person tense. But Corbett did not seem to care. He also didn't care when Caleb did a double-take and saw he was wearing his outer coat. He was sure he had taken that off before he went to sleep.

This is freaking me out. What happened to me that I was put here?

"Caleb sees the obvious." Corbett raised his arms, exposing more layers of black feathers and stretching taloned fingers that were each as large as two of Caleb's fingers. "This is Yarboro Prison. Cielis's dungeons, finest and deadliest in Alledia."

The raven-man snorted and clacked his beak in attempted laughter. Again, Caleb wasn't sharing the amusement. Corbett continued: "The city has locked up any dissenters and rebels it can find, and they are adding to the number every day."

"But the elves haven't invaded here yet. They can't get through the Golbez Cycle."

Corbett slowly bobbed his avian head back and forth in irritation. "Silly boy. The elves here wear false skins of human flesh. They have already taken over the city."

"That's impossible!" shouted Caleb, objecting to the claim full-stop. "They'd have to defeat the Guardian Council!"

"They already have. And the disguised elves string the council members about like puppets. Cielis is already lost, Caleb. There is no doubt of that."

It sounded impossible to believe, but the proof became clear to Caleb as he reflected over his situation. The fog in his memories still held over the point when he went to sleep. Further back, he could remember the claims and denials he had heard from the Hayes children, their mother, and Max Griffin.

"I don't see Enzo, Rico, or Leon getting the same benefits."

"You need to take the larger picture more seriously. You're a Stonekeeper."

"Mom, I'm getting a bad tingly feeling about this place!"

"Mom, there is something seriously wrong with this place. You must see it, too."

"Part of growing up is being able to adapt, roll with the punches and get back up again. We've been doing that for two years now, haven't we?"

It was so complicated to put the pieces together. The Guardian Council, already sided with the elves against Alledia? The city guards, icons of authority, are arresting people based on false beliefs instead of facts? And what about Emily, Navin, and Karen; were they safe where they were? Why had none of them been arrested, too?

"Everyone I came with… they're in danger." It hurt Caleb's heart to say it out loud, or even whisper it at the bottommost cell of a prison complex, but his heart told him it was true. Just how much danger was something he couldn't tell, but there was a "bad tingly feeling" about the situation he could almost taste in the back of his mouth. The kids had been right to trust their instincts.

"If they are not already here," Corbett quietly stated, "Caleb's friends are no doubt being watched right now. But if they are smart, they will recognize the dangers and try to avoid or fight them."

"Hey! Hey, kid!"

Caleb's mind took several seconds to react to the presence of a new voice being heard. Someone was calling down from the row of cells just above his. It was a man, another prisoner in this place, that much he knew.

"Who's there?" Caleb called through the bars. He hoped he could be heard through the bars and the solid floors. Luckily, the unseen man responded quickly when prompted.

"There are two elves imprisoned here, asking for some boy named Caleb. They saw the guards bring him in a short while ago. They're asking where he is, since the guards came in here earlier tonight."

"Elves?" Trellis and Luger, it must be them! "Hey!" Caleb shouted while pressing his hands and face against the bars, angling his voice as best he could to project his words better. "My name is Caleb! Where are the elves right now?"

"At the top level, closer to the entrance to this block." The man paused to hack up something and spit it out. "Word has passed cell by cell to get to me. We haven't found anyone yet who matches, so you're the last shot. Speak quickly, before the guards catch on!"

The "last shot"? That wasn't a good sign. How many people were locked up here with him, fifty? A hundred? A thousand? If this had been asked of everyone else, they must have been asking for a long time. And they were still doing it! That was dedication; Caleb knew dedication in a physical sense during his long runs, but he could still recognize it in a social sense.

"Sir," Caleb yelled up, not able to see the person he was putting his hopes onto, "tell the elves how I helped them at the beacon to get into this city." Taking in a breath, Caleb then added another piece of proof: "I remember our journey through the Golbez Cycle. They know what that will mean."

"Sure, I'll send the word back." The man did not sound convinced, but he also did not sound dismissive. Caleb kept his ears peeled for the sounds of further conversation from above. This meant he was unprepared for the sensation of taloned fingers clutching his arm from behind in a crushing grip.

Caleb's heart jumped into his throat when he felt a sharp point brush against the back of his neck. A growl that only a human could make came from just behind him. He didn't have to turn around to know it was Corbett behind him. For reasons undivulged, the raven-man was fuming where he had just been sympathetic to Caleb's plight.

"Caleb has collaborated with elves. He has helped them enter the city. Caleb will explain this, now."

Oh. Of course, it was about elves. The enemy of Alledia. Caleb's words played back in his head, and on the third repetition he started sweating and shaking with his hands wrapped around the metal bars. He wanted to rip the bars off and run screaming for safety.

Why, why, why had he openly said he had helped elves, the enemy, get into this city!? He was going to be executed for sure unless he gave an answer right away!

"It's not what y-y-you think Corbett." Caleb's voice automatically dropped to a stammering whisper out of sheer terror. "S-Some elves don't like what's b-b-b-be…" Caleb swallowed hard to clear his throat. "What's being done to this world."

"Caleb lies!" Corbett hissed his accusations like knives being sharpened. "The elves all serve their king, a monarch who hides behind a hollow mask. We know this over the years of our service in this city, why the people here despise them like us. The elves are all united in the same delusions of glory and conquest, and any disbelievers are erased forever!"

"T-Then what about the elves in here right now? Shouldn't they be d-d-dead already?"

"We have never seen an elf here, and we never shall. Unless Caleb, the stranger from the All-Father's world, wears fake skin himself." Corbett suddenly pulled Caleb back from the bars, his robe gone from his body, his giant frame allowing him to hold Caleb like a child against his feathered chest. "What, we wonder, are Caleb's real colors?"

The terror inside Caleb's body gained a momentary voice; Caleb's scream for help was cut short by a thick hand slapped over his lips. Breathing fast, his body reacted through muscle memory, but he could not remember when he had felt like this before. His thoughts were centered on the present rather than the past, namely that he was about to be cut open by a vicious birdman.

Driven to desperation, like in all the other life-threatening situations in Alledia, Caleb acted without thinking. This time, he bit down on the fingers holding his mouth closed, his teeth digging deep into the flesh.

"AGH!" Corbett's cry of pain proved Caleb had broken through to him. "Traitorous child! What other weapons are you hiding beneath these clothes?!" The hand that Caleb had damaged pulled away from his mouth and began digging for pockets in his clothes. This led Corbett to find only one thing of importance: a black feather given to him by other raven-men.

"Impossible!" Shocked upon seeing the feather, Corbett dropped Caleb to the ground before he sniffed the feather like a dog. His shock remained when he realized it was the genuine item. "Caleb has earned the Corvid's trust."

Coughing, Caleb got to his feet and kept his eyes on Corbett. The raven-man had his robe back on in a flash, but Caleb didn't care about the man's decency as he spat out what he assumed to be birdman blood. "Then you are one of them," he then spat at Corbett's face. "I thought so! You must be their agent in this city, like they had in Nautilus and Kanalis!"

"Yes, we are with the Corvid. And so is Caleb." Corbett looked at the panting boy with confusion, shifting between either eye to stare him down. "Perhaps we should have suspected that from the start. Caleb does carry the smell of the All-Father's home world. And if the Corvid are still alive…"

Corbett fell silent, keeping the feather in between two of his fingers as he walked over to his bed and slumped down on it. The bed creaked ominously from his weight but did not break apart. "We must think about this. Rest for now, Caleb, we will not harm you anymore."

Corbett's eyes remained on the feather as he spoke. Caleb looked at this man, a "cursed" person who was appearing as broken in the mind as the body, but also a supporter of the safety of Alledia's people. He decided he did not like Corbett; separated from the Corvid he apparently served, this man had become more like a monster than a man, something that crossed the line into insanity in Caleb's still-developing mind.

Corbett had acted friendly, and then murderous, and then amazed, all from the simplest of triggers. Caleb knew people on Earth who were short-tempered, but Corbett's reactions were beyond them. Beyond human, even. Were all the Corvid's agents like this, or would they become like this in time? Was this what Silas Charnon had planned for them?

Caleb's head throbbed. He stepped back, hands shaking again, and sat down against the wall with his head leaned onto the bars of his cell. The beginnings of tears formed in his eyes, but he closed them before he started crying. He focused on his breathing, the rhythm of his body, like he did when running. As Corbett continued to murmur, Caleb blocked out his voice and thought about happier times.

Unfortunately, Alledia did not have as many happy times as Earth. And Earth was looking so far away at that moment.


At some point, the dark light coming into Yarboro Prison became brighter. It seemed daytime had arrived, but Caleb was not comforted by that fact. The prison's shadows stretched over him, pressing into his hopes and wishes for a brighter future. Breathing slowly as his thoughts walked on a mental pathway, he did not realize something was happening until someone started shaking his left shoulder.

Caleb blinked several times and turned to his left. Corbett was there, looking down at him with those piercing eyes. "Caleb," he quietly croaked, "we are ready to soar."

"What?" Caleb didn't follow what was going on. Corbett moved back and gave the boy room to stand up and stretch his arms. Feeling the prison's grime against his skin and clothes, he took another look at his cell. Then he did a double take at the sight of a hole dug into the floor, some of the stones there pulled out and set to one side. A secret passageway.

Corbett gave another chuckle at Caleb's shock at the sight of an escape route. "There are advantages to being locked in relative isolation. The path is ready for us."

Caleb smiled with joy. He was going to be free! He could help his friends! But then he realized that some of his "friends" were imprisoned here as well. "What about the other prisoners?" he quietly and excitedly asked Corbett. "Can they try to escape through here, too?"

"Not unless they have a death wish." Corbett gave Caleb a sharp glare to silence any thoughts of getting others to join them. "The guard executes all escapees they catch, regardless of their level of guilt. Letting others join us would put us at greater risk for death.

"No more arguments. You go first, Caleb, and we will follow."

Not willing to argue anymore, Caleb took a deep breath and lowered himself into the hole, dropping down into a narrow black hole and falling for several heartbeats. Then he splashed in a large puddle of water, underneath Yarboro Prison. The cold helped shock him to greater awareness, propelling his muscles so he could get out of the way before Corbett came down behind him.

By the time Corbett came down from the cell above, Caleb had started feeling the path forward with his hands while his eyes adjusted to the nearly total darkness. The raven-man's eyes glowed, pupils enlarged as he stared into the darkness as well. He looked more at home in it than Caleb, and not just because of the color of his feathers.

"Now we will lead, Caleb. Stay just behind us."

The underground passage Corbett had made connected, after a brief walk through a cramped passageway, to part of Cielis's sewer system. This had become clear quickly to Caleb through the ambient stench that pervaded the deep darkness around him. Small manholes gave small points of light every so often, showing narrow stone platforms on either side of a flowing stream of liquified waste products. Up above were the streets of Cielis; Corbett claimed they were beneath "Nimbus Square", one of several residential districts in the city proper. Beyond that bit of information, Corbett remained silent, and Caleb kept his mouth shut and a hand covering his mouth and nose.

Is this the right way? Well, it's the way Corbett's made to get out, so it must be the right way.

The use of sewers as a method of travel reminded Caleb of Kanalis and the Resistance headquartered there. Kanlis had provided underground passages, a luxury not available in Cielis for obvious reasons. And the stench here was worse than in Kanalis, as well.

The memories of Caleb's adventure in Kanalis's poorer districts came back for a few moments, but Caleb pressed them back before he was distracted by them. He had almost completely forgotten about the wolf-man Bole and cat-woman Suzie. They had not been with him long, but they had helped him in some way. He just hadn't remembered them well enough.

Caleb felt a sense of wrongness for forgetting someone for helping him. But he was only human, and humans didn't have perfect memories.

"Stop." Corbett halted just beneath one of the manholes, beams of sunlight revealing lots of dust hanging in the air. Caleb stopped just behind the birdman, glad that he was already filtering his breaths before he had seen how polluted this air was. Corbett carefully looked up at the manhole, through its cracks to see and sense what was going on above ground.

Corbett clicked his beak a few times. "Safe, for the moment." He then turned his gaze down from the manhole as he reached into his robe. "Still there, excellent." He didn't reveal what he was talking about before he started walking again. Caleb, curious but knowing their escape had probably been reported by now, obediently followed.


Alright, that's all for now. The next chapter will have more adventures not directly connected to Book 4, so stay tuned.

As usual, any feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated.

Draconos is taking off!