Hello, everyone! Here is the next chapter. I have some things to say after this chapter is done, so I would appreciate you reading the Author's Notes at the end.
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!
The lift stopped. The doors opened. The rifle-bearing woman pulled Caleb out after her, walking fast and now seeming to care if he stumbled.
"The Stonekeeper trials will be ending soon," the woman told Caleb as they walked down the polished and pristine hallways of the upper chambers. Caleb had been here before, but the woman paid them no heed as she told him, "You will be staying here until then."
"Here" turned out to be a garden, a big one open to the sky above and around Cielis but also inside a circular set of walls. A few statues of people, frozen in poses of fear or sadness, were just in view beyond the borders of a large line of trees. Beyond the statues were more trees and smaller plants, pressed together to shroud the ground around them in shadow.
Why do I remember this place? This was certainly better than the prison, but something about it unnerved him just as much as when he had first woken up in that dark, dirty cell. It felt just as dangerous, just in a different manner.
The woman let Caleb go several paces into the garden, and then she drew out her rifle and aimed it at Caleb. "Do not leave this area," she explained to the fear-frozen boy. "After the trials are done, you will be judged by the new Guardian Council for your escape from Yarboro Prison. Perhaps you will be spared execution if that girl who came with you earns her place here."
Emily. Caleb remembered what Emily had said, how the girl had to undertake trials to earn a seat on the new Guardian Council. But Corbett had said the Council was already lost, been corrupted, or killed off by agents of the Elf King. Was Emily going to be a part of that corrupt group if she even survived the trials?
The woman lowered her rifle and backed up, keeping Caleb in her gaze. "We will be watching you," she warned. Caleb heeded the warning by walking to a nearby tree while still looking at the woman. But she did not attack him, and when she got to the arched stone entrance to the garden, she turned around fully and walked into the halls beyond just as quickly as she had come out of them.
Sitting against the trunk of his chosen tree, Caleb waited for the inevitable end to the Stonekeeper trials. Either he would see Emily alive or learn how she had failed and most likely died. The possibility of seeing the girl dead terrified him; the chance that she would never come back was even worse. So, to make sure neither of those came to pass, he didn't try to run away again.
Sitting in relative silence, Caleb's wandering eyes eventually drifted onto the most human feature of the garden, the stone statues. Their expressions were not comforting, frozen in anger or sadness instead of calm determination or warm smiles like similar statues on Earth would be. Caleb knew in passing from his Social Studies classes that statues of certain people were built to commemorate something special about them. What, then had these people done right? Or rather, what had they done wrong, that they were remembered like this?
Or, what if these were meant to commemorate the opposite outcome? Are these Stonekeepers who failed? Caleb shivered in his sweat-stained clothes and came up with another question: Will Emily be like this if she fails?
Caleb didn't want Emily to fail, not one bit. But he didn't see what he could do to help her succeed. She had grown beyond him, her amulet's powers drawing on that "Mother Stone" Corbett had said fueled all Stonekeepers' abilities. She had been able to use that power to defend her family, protect Charnon House, and fight off many dangers. She had become a hero to Alledia, as was supposedly her destiny.
Caleb did not feel connected to that destiny. That upset him more than the strain in his muscles from all his walking. The sense that his efforts, his hard work, was rendered worthless in the end connected to his deepest fears. He had worked to help her, and by extension everyone else in the Hayes family who had been roped into this adventure. What, then, would he do if everyone else didn't need his help?
Caleb shivered again, and his nostrils twitched at a new scent in the garden. Looking at the open space in front of him, before the stone statues, he saw the air start to warp and shift. Molecules of ambient air split open to make space for a whitish-green light. This light then shifted around them, becoming the barrier around the new space, and keeping it open like a gateway from some other place.
Stunned, Caleb kept watching. Three beings made of the same light as the gateway materialized out of it, crossing over from whatever place had been on the other side into the garden. The light quickly dimmed, and then vanished, revealing the features and forms of these three beings. Caleb's face turned white as he recognized the people that had just appeared: Max Griffin, the old guard named Duncan, and another masked guard of Cielis. Max and Duncan did not wear masks, and Duncan's eyes were glowing the same color as the woman who had brought Caleb to this garden.
As Max looked around, Caleb realized too late that he was out in the open, easily noticed against the garden's greenery. And Max noticed him right away. But instead of showing anger, Max smiled in relief.
"There you are," Max said to Caleb. "Come here, please."
Against the rising voice in his head telling him this was a bad idea, Caleb got to his feet and walked over to Max and his accomplices. This is it, he thought. I'm going to be punished for escaping from prison. Why else would Max have come with an armed escort?
As Caleb got up to Max, he noticed the Stonekeeper was not wearing his previous set of clothes. He now had on a silver bodysuit made of multiple layers of fabric beneath thicker pieces of darker padding, like a suit of armor but more form-fitting. But Max still wore his amulet around his neck, his power still clearly visible. And his smile was unnervingly happy, a sinister sort of pleasure written on his face.
"Max," Caleb started to say when he got close enough to speak and be heard, "there's something I…"
Max raised a hand to cut Caleb off. "We can't talk right now," he then curtly remarked. "Just listen. Listen and obey to your instructions."
"I…" Caleb stopped talking, and then he stopped thinking about why he was not talking. The light from Max's amulet filled his thoughts. But Max's amulet was not glowing. The light came from inside Caleb's head, from his memories. The light encompassed his mind and then consumed it. There was no pain, but Caleb still felt the shift in his perspective like someone was physically moving him.
There was no Voice this time to go with the light, only Max's words spoken from a previously locked point in Caleb's subconscious:
"When I give orders, you will listen and obey them.
You will not question my orders.
You will not resist my orders.
My orders are greater than anything else.
You are mine.
You will listen.
You will obey."
Caleb's eyes became filled with the light once again. His posture shifted to stand at attention before the giver of his instructions. He did not care about the monotone nature of his voice when he told Max, "I listen and obey."
An unseen voice chuckled in Caleb's ears as Max nodded, pleased with the results of his plans. Then he turned to Duncan, the old guard's eyes glowing in the same way. "Send word to Len," Max commanded. "Tell him to pick us up in the gardens by the academy."
Duncan nodded and turned, raising a hand to one of his ears. Just then, a flash of something in the distance, at the garden entrance behind Caleb caught Max's attention. Immediately on seeing the flash, the Stonekeeper's smile dropped into a suspicious frown.
"Who's—?"
Two beams of energy, one bright blue like the open sky and one a brighter green like the garden's leaves, came towards Max and his guards. The beams just skirted around Caleb's body, slamming into Duncan and the other guard, and getting Max in the blast zone. The two armored men shattered into stone pieces upon being struck; whatever hold had kept them together, and alive, was completely broken in an instant.
Caleb did not react to his nearly being hurt, or the fact two humans had turned to stone and died in front of him. Max, meanwhile, did not break, or even kneel, from the attack, but it left him winded and incensed with rage. He quickly saw the source of the ambush coming out into view from the entryway, moving to attack him again.
Prince Trellis the elf from Emily's company, stood alongside an older man wielding a carved staff of polished wood along with a large rucksack. Max's rage grew even hotter upon seeing the man, remembering him from a time long buried and voluntarily ignored.
Growling a wordless curse, Max fired back at them both with his own power. A darker green sphere of energy flew from his thrust fist, flying past the motionless Caleb towards the older man. The man raised his staff up just in time to block the attack, yet he still gave a surprised, "URGH!" at the power being channeled behind it.
Max took a breath, considering the situation in a matter of moments and changing his plans. "Protect me, Caleb!" he shouted to the boy.
"Yes," Caleb said in monotone, his eyes radiating Max's light, his truth. The mesmerized boy finally moved, darting in front of Max before spreading his arms wide. His body became a living barrier between the two other Stonekeepers and his charge. Moving in time with Max as the latter recovered his energies, Caleb kept as much of himself between his charge and the enemies as possible.
Trellis and the strange man noticed what was happening. Trellis narrowed his eyes as he searched for an opening through Max's new human shield. "Caleb," he warned the silent boy as his amulet began to shine again, "step aside or we will hurt you."
"No." Caleb's answer was bereft of fear, or any emotion whatsoever. He only saw and accepted the light that had given him instructions to follow. And he would follow his instructions to the best of his ability.
Behind Caleb, Max's amulet had begun to shine with its own power. "You're being controlled by Max's stone," the bearded man shouted at Caleb as he saw Max begin to exert himself. "Don't listen to him, boy!"
"I listen and obey," Caleb repeated. The instructions were all he needed to listen to. And Max was the giver of instructions, so he would obey Max. Max wanted to be protected, so he would do as Max wanted.
"Very good," the same unseen voice whispered in Caleb's ears. "Protect him. Help him. That's what you wanted, right?"
The sound of something large approaching in the air came from above the garden. Looking up, all the living people in the garden minus Caleb saw a smaller airship with twin propellor engines coming down to just above the garden's treetops. The center of the airship was open, revealing the presence of a few of Cielis's air-traffic soldiers.
A rope ladder was flung down from the airship, resting just by Max's position. He grabbed hold of it, his amulet still shining as it whispered new words to Caleb's receptive mind. "Sorry, old man," Max taunted his former acquaintance, "You'll have to do better than that to stop me! Caleb," he shouted to his servant, "follow me. We're leaving."
"Yes." Caleb kept his eyes on the enemy Stonekeepers, those who had attempted to hurt the one who was instructing him, as he went to the ladder and began to climb. Rung after rung, he followed Max to their waiting transport.
Before Max had gotten halfway up the ladder, Trellis' anger reached a boiling point. The elf snarled as his amulet glowed a fierce blue, its power ready to be used again. He fired a beam of blue energy at Max like a spear or an arrow. But the human saw it coming and waved his hand out beside him while still climbing. The beam struck an invisible barrier conjured by his motion and broke apart with no immediate effect beyond slowing Max down on the ladder.
As Max began climbing again, his concentration wavered. Below him, Caleb stopped moving altogether and tightly gripped the ladder. Caleb felt Max's gaze on him, but he did not look up to meet Max's eyes. He remained still as the aircraft began to move away from the garden. but not fast enough to Max's apparent liking.
"Fine, then!" Max shouted down to the people below, "If you want him so badly, you can have your worthless friend! Caleb," he ordered, "let go of the ladder!"
Caleb obeyed immediately. Falling backwards, he rapidly plummeted towards the ground while making no attempt to right himself in midair. The older man gasped as he got to his feet, and Trellis quickly sent a blue beam towards where he judged Caleb would crash down into the garden. Under Trellis's mental directions, the beam looped around itself and solidified, creating a large pad below Caleb that he subsequently crashed into. The weight of his body impacting the pad connected back to Trellis, who grunted and fell to one knee.
"Here," said the older man, "I'll help you!" And his amulet shined a grass-colored green as he sent some of his power to Trellis. The power flowed into the elf's body, giving him extra strength. He used this strength to keep the pad steady as he brought it slowly to the ground.
"The airship," Trellis growled through clenched teeth as he held Caleb up, trying to keep him from suffering any fall damage. "We have to stop them!"
"Too late," the man admitted. And he was right, the airship was already moving out of a viable firing range. Its ladder had been hastily rolled up, Max already inside and safe from harm. Turning back to Trellis, the man told the elf, "Set the boy down and we'll look at him."
Trellis complied with his usual look of angry distaste at his hopes not being met. They both saw that Caleb wasn't moving, but he was breathing, his eyes wide open and glazed over. Trellis shook Caleb's shoulder, to no effect. The older man looked closely at Caleb's face as he regained clarity, taking in the boy's expression before he saw a slowly growing point of comprehension deep in Caleb's eyes.
"He's coming to. Don't worry," the man told Trellis before the elf could make a move, "Max's control is wearing off."
"It'd better be," the elf growled. "If not, this will get ugly quick."
"T-Trellis?" Caleb shook his head, his eyes regaining the clarity and features of a normal human. "What's going… what…?" He stopped as his memories came back to him in a torrential rush; how Max had controlled him, played him like a puppet, and how he had played along, all without a single moment of hesitation. And that voice in his head…
"Worthless…" That one word rang in Caleb's head, whispered by the voice he was thinking about, but it faded away even as he thought about it. In its passing he felt a crushing weight of sin and betrayal for his crimes.
"Oh, no, no-no-no," Caleb rapidly confessed, "please, I didn't mean to do any of that! It was Max, and his amulet, and the light, I couldn't stop—!"
The bearded man got Caleb to stop rambling out apologies by holding Caleb's trembling hands with his own gauntlet-covered ones. "Calm down, son," he quietly told Caleb. "It's over. Max is gone. You're safe."
"We need to find Emily," Trellis told the man while Caleb muttered more apologies to him and everyone else in their party. "If she can't escape the catacombs, she'll be in grave danger."
The man nodded, looking Caleb's shaking body over and not liking what he saw. "She should be able to escape by travelling through the Void. That's how they got to the catacombs at all. She'll probably come back to the place she left from." He broke away from Caleb to take a brief look at the garden, noting the statues and recognizing what they really meant. "Perhaps that place is right here."
"Then let's get searching," Trellis said. He looked at Caleb and placed a hand on his shoulder, which got the boy's attention focused on him. "Caleb," he slowly asked, "can you walk?"
"I…" Caleb's stress overloaded his speaking abilities, forcing him to swallow several times before he spoke. He felt fresh beads of sweat form and slide down his face and forehead, his head feeling far too warm in the morning heat. "Y-You just go ahead. I need to rest, please. Just… Oh, God, the light, so bright, so bright…"
Caleb fell silent, his mouth still moving to make silent words. He closed his eyes and shrunk down, hiding from the feelings of betrayal and hostility from his friends by trying to be as small as possible. It did not help him, but he did not want to admit it.
Trellis looked at the man with concern. "Can we leave him here? Alone?" He didn't appear to want to, but Emily's condition was just as great a concern.
"I brought some friends with me who know about your quest," the man answered. "They can watch him until we find Emily." The man pointed to the garden's entrance, where they had come from. "Let's just place him there so he'll be easier to spot when we come back."
Trellis did not appear to like this idea, but with the limited time they had he did not suggest an alternative. The two worked together to carry Caleb, Trellis taking his upper body while the man held Caleb's legs off the ground. Caleb didn't struggle in any way to this treatment, but when he was placed against the wall, he started forming words again.
"The light… the light… the Voice…"
Trellis's eyes grew wide. "Did he just say what I thought he did?" He put a hand to Caleb's forehead and felt his temperature; warm, but not so hot to suspect a fever-induced delirium.
The man nodded at Trellis's question while frowning deeply, his lips tight beneath his beard. "We'll talk about this later." And then they went back into the garden to find Emily Hayes and learn of her fate for themselves.
Alright, that's all for now.
I know this chapter was shorter than some others, but I have had several outside issues to deal with these past weeks, and I still have more to deal with into the near future. I have also been changing my plans for the future of this story, which means I cannot reliably post chapter and future entries into the series anymore. I will try to post when I can, but I am experiencing "analysis paralysis" on what to do next. Writing a larger series of books/stories is harder than I first anticipated.
I will finish this entry in the "Amulet" story for sure. In the meantime, any feedback and constructive crticism is appreciated.
Draconos is taking off!
