Hello, everyone! Here is the start of my story from Book 4 of the series. I hope any of you who are sticking through the stories so far are enjoying them. This book has some good elements of intrigue in the canon I am hoping to draw on, and I would appreciate your feedback on how it looks here.
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!
Cielis blew away all of Caleb's expectations. The scant few legends about it did not do it justice. A city in the clouds would boggle the minds of anyone Caleb knew on Earth. But this city was there, getting larger the closer the giant airship got. There seemed to be no limit to its size and scale, at least as far as Caleb could visibly comprehend.
Max Griffin, the apparent leader of the party sent to pick up Emily and her family by Cielis's rulers, was not blown away by their approaching destination. He moved to the airship's different stations with confident ease. By his orders, docking codes were sent to the city, along with information about the travelers and what accommodations could be set aside for them. Caleb had gained this information from one of the several gray-uniformed crew members; when asked, they had explained the situation while moving, looking as if they had somewhere just a bit more important to be than standing around and answering questions.
Caleb did not get upset by being treated so dismissively. He had done it before; he didn't like to be interrupted when doing a task. Whether running a lap on the track or completing a homework assignment, getting interrupted always threw Caleb's thoughts around like coins in a shaking jar. Still, it took the eighteen-year-old a long time to get his thoughts together, the hopes of getting the "Guardian Council" to help them get back to Earth one of his foremost priorities.
Unfortunately, getting clearance into Cielis was taking much longer than Caleb had thought. This wasn't like Kanalis where just one transmission between the vehicle and the gate got you in. Through the brief explanation Max gave to everyone just after they passed through the "jump gate", there was a whole sequence of multiple steps to be welcomed into Cielis.
Codes had to be verified, identities matched to records, the "jump gate" they had come through had to be safely closed again: so many little things were needed, and Caleb couldn't do anything to help. Not that Max, the older white-haired Duncan, or the rest of the crew seemed to mind their invited guests lazing about while they did their jobs. Caleb's memories of his grocery store coworkers during their summer shifts had a similar tone. Everyone kept their heads down and did their work efficiently, and that was good. Caleb was just not as happy being on the "not doing anything" side of the situation.
Settle down, Caleb told himself as he exited his temporary bedroom near the airship's stern and walked along the deck towards the bow. You will have plenty to do when you arrive.
When Caleb got to the bow, he gripped the railing in front of him tightly and looked at Cielis again. The airship's engines still roared with power, but the noise had lost its impact what felt like hours ago. Now that they had gotten closer, Caleb could see Cielis with better clarity. It was still overwhelming in scale, straight out of a fantasy book on Earth.
The buildings he spotted were wedged together with evident symmetry, everything kept inside a circular wall of stone and metal that looked to be hundreds of feet tall. And beneath the wall was the piece of the planet Alledia this city had risen on top of, unseen science or magic holding it aloft. Looking at the upper parts of the city showed a cluster of buildings with white walls, circular windows, and pointed blue spires.
The Council must be in those upper buildings. Even without taking any architecture or urban planning classes in his high school curriculum, Caleb could understand that the most important people in a city lived in the highest and most expensive buildings. It was like the United States' White House, or a castle in the Middle Ages; somewhere that the rulers could look down on their subjects and demonstrate their authority over them. How this council would treat new arrivals was a concern, of course, and Caleb had to force himself to not imagine their request being rejected or impossible to complete.
If there was a way to get to Alledia from Earth, there must be some way to get back to Earth as well. Caleb could not, would not, believe this trip was a one-way journey.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" a familiar voice spoke up.
Caleb turned to see Max Griffin himself walking towards him, his robes flowing back in the breeze and giving him a greater appearance than he first seemed. It also helped that he still had that expression of calm confidence.
"Hello, Max," Caleb said in greeting. "All your duties done to get into Cielis?"
"For the moment, Caleb. That is your name, right?" Caleb nodded in confirmation. "But then again," the black-haired Stonekeeper added with narrowing eyes pointed at some point in Cielis's cityscape, "Duty comes when you least expect it."
"You expected to pick us up, I'm sure. You came for us right after you received the beacon."
"Of course." Max's smile grew a few centimeters, his eyes sparkling with suppressed amusement. Whatever he was thinking about, he didn't say, instead walking around Caleb's backside and leaning forward a bit against the railing to look at Cielis again.
"I was much younger than you when I first saw this place." Max's voice turned nostalgic, if only lightly. "Of course, it was on the ground back then, so the experience isn't quite the same."
"I'm glad we made it here at all," Caleb reflected. "All the legends and books said it was impossible to find or get to." He smirked with his own amused thought. "Enzo is probably dancing with glee in the Luna Moth right now. Is there a tourist shop that he can go to? There are some folks he knows back in Nautilus, and—"
"There won't be much time for sightseeing, I'm afraid." Max's nostalgia was gone as fast as it had appeared. "The Guardian Council has plans for what is coming. The elves are moving with all they have, so we must do the same."
"You sound like you know about these plans already, Max." Caleb looked at the Stonekeeper with concern. "That's what you told Leon, right? And why you blew up the beacon when we were leaving?"
"I am a part of the Council's goals, yes," Max explained as he brushed the Stonekeeper amulet in his robe's collar, "but you are not seeing the full picture. The Council needs a new set of leaders, new minds to replace the old and dying ones currently there. I have the chance to become a Council member, but it is not certain I will be."
So, Max wasn't guaranteed what he wanted. That meant Emily wasn't certain to get what she wanted, either. "You had talked about "trials"," Caleb asked. "Do you already know what they are?"
"Now how would that be fair for Emily?" Max chastised with a smile while raising one of his eyebrows. "You have a lot of hope riding on her surviving what is to come, Caleb."
Caleb's hands gripped the railing even tighter. He couldn't look Max in the eyes as he admitted, "I don't want to see her hurt more than she already is."
Max said nothing at first. Caleb closed his eyes, hoping his statement was not being taken the wrong way. Finally, Caleb looked over to Max and found the boy looking right back at with… sympathy? That wasn't what he had expected to see.
"I admire your courage to keep a Stonekeeper safe," said Max. "But without a Stonekeeper's amulet, you will not be able to participate in the trials with Emily or myself. That is just how things are here. Cielis has many things to do and places to see in the meantime, though, so you will certainly not be bored during your stay."
"Good." If there wasn't any tourist place or souvenir shop – lots of big cities on Earth had those for travelers, right? – then at least he could see the sights like in Kanalis. The elves not being in Cielis and threatening their lives was a bonus. This place seemed safe, one of the safest places in Alledia because the elves were not there.
Even so, some fragment of Caleb's psyche told him this was still a strange place, a dangerous place. Was Caleb getting paranoid after everything that had happened in Alledia?
I've got to get home. Just keep telling myself that.
Max stepped back from the railing. "I'll send for you when we are ready to enter Cielis properly," he told Caleb. "I believe we'll be using the dropships, so you will get a quicker ride to where you need to be. Be ready for when we go, it shouldn't be too long now."
"Okay, thank you," answered Caleb. He watched Max walk out of sight to whatever duty needed his attention, slowly letting the tension in his clenched hands be squeezed out of him. But his heart hammered in his chest and his wrists ached with phantom stings where the Arachnopod had bitten him what felt like ages ago. Now, part of Caleb's worry was directed at Max and how he had taken Caleb's comments.
I shouldn't have been so quick to judge Max there. He knows the rules. Making him angry could get me in trouble with the Council, especially if he becomes part of it.
Caleb made a mental note to not question Max's capabilities in the future if he could help it; he was not sure he could always follow that rule, but he would try his best. Max was their guide, but not yet their friend. And the same could be said for Cielis; it was the place they wanted to get to, but that didn't mean it would welcome them without any suspicion.
A flash of a memory led Caleb to reach into one of his pants' pockets and touch the soft surface of the feather still tucked in there. Those "Corvid" probably don't have an agent in Cielis. It's been away from the world for so long, there's no way those raven-men would have gotten in there.
Considering how he had treated their messages, a break from the raven-people's gaze sounded great.
Caleb left the bow and went back to his temporary quarters. He had lost interest in looking at Cielis, and its greatness, for the time being.
True to his word, Caleb was escorted to the dropship hanger when the larger airship had gotten close enough to Cielis for their arrival. A man with a visible brown stubble on his chin joined a sharp-faced woman wearing the same color uniform to bring him there, walking on either side of him with silent authority. However, the only other passengers in the hanger were Trellis and Luger, both of whom had white collars around their necks that reminded Caleb of large handcuffs. The elves certainly looked unhappy to be wearing them, Trellis appearing more downtrodden than usual.
The rest of the hanger was large enough to contain two smaller orange "dropships"; the aircraft were resting on rails that led right out of the open hanger doors, each one having two propeller engines angled vertically inside their wings. These ships were also held by hooks attached to metal cranes on tracks that were in turn connected to the ceiling, providing a secure resting position despite the larger airship's movement. All around the airships were other people and a few strangely shaped robots; one robot modeled like a water cooler as tall as two men and walking on six mechanical legs meandered very close to the red-and-white warning stripes by the edge of the open hanger doors.
Choosing to ignore the obvious question about what that automaton was built for, Caleb instead let the two crew members guide him down a narrow stairway towards the two ships. When they were close to the ships, Caleb tapped the shoulder of the stubbled man.
"Excuse me, uh, sir?" The pilot turned towards Caleb but did not stop walking. "I, um, I don't see anyone else in the hanger. Where are Max and the rest of our party?"
"They're in the other dropship hanger," answered the man, his words curt and direct. "Both ships there are filled up, so the captain said you and the elves would be using these ones. We've got enough space for you, don't worry."
"The captain? Is that what Max Griffin is here?"
"Why else would he be ordering people up to twice his age around?" The man looked to a long row of windows above the open doors; a control center for the hanger, that was easy enough to understand. "He comes from a strong family line of city guards and officers. He knows what he's doing."
Caleb accepted this information. He also accepted taking the other dropship from Trellis and Luger; Max had said the elves were going to be watched in Cielis, so it would be better to keep them away from the party. The woman told Caleb to, "Mind the step," as he stepped inside, having to duck down to get into the small metal cabin inside. The pilots got in after him, taking the front two seats and pressing various buttons and switches on the control panels before them.
Caleb watched the pilots clip on what looked like a rollercoaster harness that they pulled out from the back of their seats and over their heads. He fell back behind his own seat and tried to copy their movements, and to his surprise it was very easy to get the harness out and over his head. But the bottom part appeared to be split in half, until Caleb realized the two halves were attached to the upper halves and came around as the entire object was pulled out of its resting place.
As the upper halves came down over his head, the lower halves clicked together like puzzle pieces; then the upper halves clicked into the lower halves with very little effort. Amazed, Caleb couldn't resist wiggling in his seat to test the harness's strength. His movements produced very little results, the harness proving strong and tight enough to hold his upper body in place for the ride to come.
"You got your harness secure, kid?" the female pilot asked. Caleb looked up, saw the pilot looking back at him through a rear-view mirror above the main windows of the cockpit, and nodded back. "Okay," she then said, "just sit still back there. This will feel bumpy, but only because we're dropping down instead of docking."
"Beginning launch sequence," the male pilot announced with the twist of a lever to the left of his seat. "Activating dropship engine."
A loud FWOOMPF came from the back of the airship as an engine Caleb hadn't noticed earlier came to life. The dropship quickly began straining against the rails, held back by the harnesses. The engine's roar became loud very quickly, about as loud as the larger airship's engines had been when it had started up.
"Launching in three… two… one…"
With a sharp roar, the harnesses were disconnected; the dropship shot down the rail like a speeding locomotive, passing through the open doors in the blink of an eye. Then they were airborne, the hanger walls turning into blue sky populated by a few clouds. Caleb had enough time to take a breath before the view tilted downward and the dropship began its descent.
The forces behind the drop, terms Caleb knew about but could not easily remember from his lessons in physics, demonstrated their power over his body during that drop. In real time, it was for just a few minutes; to Caleb's untrained mind, it felt like an eternity. Pressed back against his seat, the engine's roar becoming a shriek along with the rushing wind, and a telltale rattling of the dropship's exterior as it punched through air currents all collaborated in making the drop a terrifying experience.
Caleb had no will to look outside as the plane shot down towards Cielis, but he did notice when the drop ended. Once the pilots got close enough, the engine shut off as the two propellers in the wings whirred to life. The propellers' hums were a little quieter than the engine's roar, but Caleb focused on keeping the contents of his stomach inside him as he felt the craft lurch on a bumpy patch of air. Once he felt it was safe, he risked peeking out the window on his right side and saw the pilots had begun to level the craft out for their approach into the city.
Buildings swept by beneath them, along with pools of water and groves of trees and small statues interspersed between them all. There were narrow streets and dark clusters of buildings, but also wide bridges and bright plazas. One feature that caught Caleb's eye was the pair of archways stretching out at diagonal points from the central, blue-roofed buildings. Both bridges connected to a central space just in front of those higher places, and at the end of each bridge were large trees filled with bright green leaves. The shadows of the arches fell upon portions of the buildings below, coating them in even greater darkness.
Then Caleb looked again, his mind figuring out an odd sight. Where are the people? There should be people here! But the streets were bare, not a single soul out and about to see the dropship's passing. If they had heard it, they hadn't come out to watch.
The view did not last long, for the dropship was still travelling quickly towards its destination. As it came into a hanger larger than the one it had left, Caleb saw people waiting for them inside. Two pairs of glowing blue batons were held by signalers wearing goggles of the same color. Unseen landing gear was deployed by the pilots, the dropship's touchdown much smoother than the earlier plunge through clear skies.
"Drop successful," announced the female pilot once the craft had come to a complete stop. She then turned back towards Caleb. "Still with us, kid?" she asked him, and Caleb nodded back with a slow breath. He had gained newfound respect for solid ground and was eager to feel it beneath his feet again. He got his wish once he unbuckled his harness and slid himself free, but his sense of courtesy told him to let the pilots out first after they opened the cabin door. Once outside, Caleb rubbed his wrists and tried to calm himself as he once again stood in an unfamiliar environment.
I'm in Cielis. That much was clear. Now I just need to find Emily and the others, and we can speak with the Council.
Another man quickly approached the pilots, sporting the same uniform and cap as they did but having a scar along his left cheek that added some additional intimidation to his brown-eyed gaze. He looked annoyed with his situation, and when Caleb noticed the black-colored rifle in the man's hands he shut his mouth tight.
Guns were serious business; Cielis' officers were not taking any chances.
"The other dropships have landed," the new man informed the pilots with what sounded like an Australian drawl to his words. "Miss Emily Hayes and her family are being escorted to their quarters near the Council chamber." He turned to look at Caleb with the same level of anger. "The captain tasked me to bring this one to join them myself."
"Very good, Milo," the female pilot said, the act of calling Caleb "this one" not important enough to provoke a response. "We'll leave it to you."
"Follow me, then," Milo ordered Caleb, and he turned around without another word. Caleb didn't get to say goodbye to the pilots before he was forced to catch up with his new escort, and Milo did not stay around to show him anything in the hanger. They passed through a pair of sealed metal doors like airport gates on Earth, and then entered a curving hallway with cream-colored walls and polished marble floors that made their footsteps echo in their ears.
The extra noise in Caleb's ears matched the concerns he had about getting back with the Hayes and making sure they were okay. Milo did not show any care for Caleb's thoughts, and Caleb didn't choose to speak up about them as they passed through one passage after another. The journey stopped at a metal door with an ornate metal panel with buttons by it. Milo pressed one of the buttons, and a second later the door split in two to reveal the inside of an elevator with glass windows looking out onto a sunlit Cielis.
"Get in," Milo said, gesturing with the business end of his rifle. "This elevator will take us straight to the Council Chambers."
Caleb obeyed, Milo's rifle proving a very good factor in following instructions. Milo got in after him, but Caleb did not see what he did next because the view of Cielis took all his attention. He had never seen anything like it on Earth, never having the opportunity to look down on skyscrapers and high-rise buildings like this.
The elevator began moving upward with a smooth jerk; Caleb barely felt it register through his feet as he kept looking out at the greater city. To say he was impressed would be a severe understatement; he was blown away by the scale that the city presented now that he was within its borders. The glass windows gave him an unrestricted view of what must be home to thousands of people, all living in this safe space from war and the elves. But the streets Caleb saw were still empty, no human or animal or "cursed" person around.
"Amazing." That was the best word Caleb could come up with to describe Cielis. Behind him, Milo grunted and shifted his weight a bit.
"You're getting one of the best views in the city," the scarred man remarked. "Everyone who takes this trip acts like you when they look out the window. The chance of a lifetime, you could say."
Caleb silently nodded as the elevator continued climbing to its destination, drinking in the view, trying to retain it in as much detail as his mind could allow. When he got back to Earth, he wanted to include this place in the story so others could enjoy its beauty, too.
Alright, that's all for now. We've arrived in Cielis, but what role will Caleb play in what's to come?
As usual, any feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated.
Draconos is taking off!
