Hello, everyone! Here is the first chapter of "A5", based on the "Prince of the Elves" story. As I had mentioned at the end of the "A4" story, I will be taking several different paths than what is shown in the books AND having Caleb take a separate route than Emily and Navin. This will be explained in more detail in the following chapters.

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!

Caleb woke up to darkness. The floating city of Cielis had not yet been lit up by Alledia's version of the Sun. This did not concern Caleb as he got up and dressed for an early-morning run. Keeping his routine the same each day helped keep him sane against the insanity that Alledia was turning out to be.

It had been months now since Caleb and the Hayes family—now his "honorary" family—had arrived at the floating city of Cielis. During that time, everyone in the family had settled into their own routines and roles. Some, like Navin and Emily, were still open to change and growth. Others, like Caleb and Karen, were more set in stone and wanting things to stay the same.

Caleb did not see much of his apartment's interior as he walked towards the front door, but he still felt the soft carpet beneath his feet and saw the silhouettes of the various walls leading to the small bathroom and kitchen he had for himself. The bedroom was the largest space there, providing enough comfort for an upper-class resident in the great city. For Caleb, it was a step into luxury, if he had been so eager to indulge in decorating it.

Luxury, huh? I've been here far too long to care about that.

Caleb dismissed the thought of furbishing his apartment as he opened the front door. Stepping out into a curving hallway situated like the one outside the former Guardian Council chambers, Caleb walked towards a larger door that connected the series of apartments to an outer street. Getting out into the street was a simple task; adapting to the streetlights and the thick shadows they cast on the walls took a few extra moments. Those shadows looked very large, reminding Caleb of a shadow he knew was still hanging over him.

The "Voice" of Max Griffin's amulet was out in Alledia. It existed beyond sight, able to spread its influence with no care for distance or obstacles. That was how Caleb viewed it, because he remembered its cold, mind-wiping touch in his head. He also remembered how it had whispered sweetened words while Max had controlled his mind.

"Worthless," had been the last words that Voice had said to Caleb, many months ago. It had also shown pleasure at meeting Caleb "face-to-face". Caleb worried it would have more to say to him if it came back.

Caleb inhaled, breathing in a chilled early morning air. He stretched each of his arms and legs once before starting to run. He quickly settled into a light jog, moving down from the high-rise areas to the middle-class apartment blocks near what he knew as the "Cilean Span". As he approached the crossing point between the two areas, more residents of Cielis came into his view. The number of people was too few to be normal for a city this size, even months after so many deaths. Isolation had its downsides.

One man carried a large sack on his back that rattled with various things. He saw Caleb and did not wave or give a greeting. Only when Caleb said, "Hello," to him did he grumble something resembling a greeting. Caleb moved along without comment, the greeting making enough of a connection. By the time he reached a long, curved pathway in open view, he had reached his stride. The Cilean Span had several open spaces and walkways between small parks or ponds that still looked beautiful after months of relative idleness or minimal caretaking.

The open sky was the best part of being in open spaces on a floating city like Cielis. What few clouds were around at this time of day hung near the city's edge or floated above the tallest building's tops as puffs of white in a greater brightening area. Rough weather seemed like a faraway fantasy.

Caleb's jogging route went in a lazy circle, passing between two large mounted walkways that connected to the larger airship docks and the Guardian Council's chambers. He did not look at the walkways for more than a few seconds, remembering the night Emily Hayes had cast a great pink bird into the sky. She said it had been a memorial for fallen Stonekeepers, young and old, that had helped keep Alledia alive when the great "Mother Stone" and its power was not as well known.

There were still things about Stonekeeper Caleb did not know. As he rounded the curving point of his chosen path, feeling sweat start to form on his skin, he remembered the powers of the "Corvid" faction and the greater "Resistance" led by folks like Leon Redbeard. Both those groups had little connection to Cielis now, but that could very well change in the months to come. Down on Alledia's surface, a war was still going on with the elves of Gulfen. Up here, the threat of war had led to a persecution and imprisonment of any elves or strangers. The Guardian Council had allowed those feelings to exist under their watch.

Caleb tripped up on a loose stone. Righting himself before he fell on his face, he slowed his pace down and thought about happier things. His friends on Earth popped up, the track team he had been on in high school a prominent source of happy memories in his recent life. He could recall them all, save for the team's female captain. Thinking about her made his head hurt as a few brief images popped into his head.

A loud crunch. A scream. Then, silence.

It was the same set of images every time. Only in these past few months had they resurfaced in Caleb's head, like digging up a buried treasure. He chalked it up to being away from Earth and his "normal" life, trying to recall it while he was away.

Mom and Dad complained about having too many memories sometimes. He corrected himself a moment later: they complained about all the people they knew but had not talked to for years and years. Too many lines stretching into the darkness to grab hold of before they vanished from view.

Caleb pounded his grief at his concern for his mother and father's wellbeing into the ground he ran on.

Despite being isolated from the rest of Alledia, Cielis still had proper sanitation like any other large city. Caleb appreciated this fact with a cleansing shower after his jog, wiping away the accumulated sweat on his body. Afterwards, he put on a cleaner pair of underwear, some khaki pants, a long-sleeved green shirt with faded colors, brown socks, and a pair of brown boots with laces. Only the underwear was his own, the rest being donated clothes from a large storage pile that had been assembled for public use. The dead and lost still provided something for those living in their former homes.

With his morning run complete, and his after-run shower taken, the day was open for Caleb. Unless some immediate tasks required his attention, he was free to do what he wanted. He chose to head to a place he recognized in any world: a library. The Guardian Council chambers had a library to the southeast area, near the open "Garden of the Keepers" where he had seen those stone statues of failed Stonekeepers in prior trials.

Heading down there led to Caleb finding Miskit engrossed in browsing one of multiple stone bookshelves carved into the library's stone walls. The small robot gave a smile and wave to Caleb but did not leave the shelves to go to him. So, Caleb went over to Miskit instead.

"Hello, Miskit." Caleb's eyes drifted over the books, none of them catching his interest right away. "I thought you would be with Emily."

"She does not need me. Leon is with her and Trellis in the Garden, training each other."

Training had become a common pastime for those three. They needed to get stronger because of the real threat the Elf King and his forces represented."What about Navin?" Caleb asked next.

"Master Navin is still going through the Pilot Academy training curriculum." Miskit's paw picked out one book from the shelf and turned it so his beady black eyes could look at the cover. "He's certainly learning a lot, as are the other students."

Caleb nodded. From what he knew, Navin had joined the ranks of several mech pilots, each one a "Colossus" the size of Charnon House. Caleb recalled the look of the mobile houses—mechanical giants standing tall as multi-story buildings—from his time in Kanalis. But these robots were sleeker, more humanoid, and easier to use. Well, Navin said they were easy to control, but each one needed at least two pilots to be operational.

Caleb looked at the cover of the book Miskit had pulled out, the title "On Silver Wings" written around the image of a pair of white bat-like wings. "Did Silas program you with any knowledge of things like Charnon House?" he asked.

Miskit shrugged. "While I do possess knowledge of Charnon House's operation and how to maintain it, the Colossus mechs Navin is training with do not have the exact same parameters. Master Silas based the design of Charnon House off an older model of these machines when he was leaving Cielis."

So, Silas had repurposed that technology to make his own house. Just like the other mobile homes around Kanalis. That told Caleb this technology was at least understood across Alledia, if not exactly rebuilt outside of Cielis. Did that mean the elves had it as well? The elves had deployed a "mech" that was a smaller version of a walking house, armed with powerful weapons. Could that be replicated with the "Colossus" units?

A short clicking of metallic fingers got Caleb to look back at Miskit. "Excuse me, Master Caleb," the rabbit said as his metallic ears wiggled, "you were looking pretty deep in thought there. That's what you would say, right? "Deep in thought?""

Caleb quickly realized what Miskit meant, and what he was implying. "Yes, that's right." He scratched one his wrists around where the old Arachnopod bite used to be. "I, uh, I try not to do that often."

"It isn't a problem to me, Mister Caleb." Miskit tilted his head slightly to his left with a warm smile. "Would you like to be left alone? The book I want is not here."

Caleb started to answer, but stopped when he felt a pressure growing behind his eyes. He cut his sentence off, told Miskit to, "Wait a moment," and looked up to the ceiling. The tingling continued, prompting him to quickly blink and rub his hand against his eyes. It was not irritating, but noticeable. The sense of something taking place on another floor above him formed in his head over a few seconds' passing.

Caleb swallowed. It's happening again. This same feeling… That "feeling" was something he had not told anyone yet, because he could not define it very easily. Every time he felt that pressure, he remembered how the Voice in Max's amulet had pulled him inside its power, making him see and feel what it wanted him to. That power was Stonekeeper energy, like Emily, Trellis, and Vigo used themselves. Caleb had been touched, deeply so, by that energy.

The Voice in Max's amulet had met Caleb "face-to-face". Caleb had been changed by it, but he did not know exactly why. The best summary Caleb had created for himself about these new sensations was that he could sense nearby Stonekeeper powers. Some kind of radar or notification always flashed or pulsed behind his eyes, or in his temples, ending in a dull warmth that was impossible to fully ignore.

Crucially, the pressure never tried to direct Caleb to go towards what he was sensing. He had always been able to turn away and go somewhere else, do something else, until the sensation had faded away. That, he figured, had kept him from going crazy; there had been many times he had felt the Mother Stone's energies be used in Cielis since Max had left.

Staring up at the ceiling, Caleb felt this time he would make an exception to his normal was going on up there, and he wanted to know what.

"Actually," Caleb said while lowering his gaze back down to Miskit, "could you help me find one of the Stonekeepers? I want to discuss something with them."

"I believe the Stonekeepers were all going to meet at the Council Chamber." Miskit then frowned in newfound concern. "I do not remember if what they said they were going to do there was private…"

"We can check on them," Caleb quickly said. "If it looks like they are slinging bolts of lightning at each other, then we'll run as fast as we can."

Miskit's ears flopped down to his head. "Your humor needs work, Mister Caleb," he deadpanned. But he followed Caleb out of the library anyway. They both knew where the Council Chambers were, but it would take a few minutes' walking along corridors and up pristinely carved flights of stone steps to get there. They both felt up to the challenge.

The Guardian Council's audience chamber, where the laws and governance of Cielis had taken place, carried airs of lingering authority. This was shown through the five thrones made of weathered stone sat in a curved row, the long steps before the thrones that went from one wall to the other, and the swirling mosaics carved on the floor. Despite the hole in the back wall that exposed the chamber to the outside air, and the fact the thrones were empty and cracking on the tops, the sheer volume of that space made Caleb feel small by comparison.

Emily, Trellis, Leon, and Vigo all stood close to each other before the stairs. Around them were other people, but they were made of blue flames that flickered in and out of sight. Each of these fire-people would only be visible for a short while before changing their position in the chamber without walking or vanishing entirely. Compared to them, the solidity of the three Stonekeepers and single "cursed" fighter was a comforting sight.

Emily was the first to notice the approach of Miskit and Caleb. "Something wrong, you guys?" she asked them.

"I think we've walked into something wrong here," Caleb replied as he looked towards the fire-people still moving and changing around them. "Should we leave you alone?"

"You can stay," Vigo remarked before anyone else could answer. "I think this is important to you as well." The elder Stonekeeper had a long wooden staff in his hands, similar in shape and length to Emily's own staff. He also had a monocle attached to the left side of a round cap he wore over his scalp, the lens currently not positioned over his eye. Other than these details, everyone in the room had clothing like when Caleb had seen them last, even after months had gone by.

Caleb moved close to Emily as he saw a man in long robes, unaffected by the blue fire around his body, slowly walk backwards across the chamber floor. "Earth doesn't have video recordings this advanced," he stated. "Where are the cameras?"

"As I have just told the others, Caleb, these are holograms." Vigo let that sink in for a moment before continuing. "The Guardian Council recorded images and scenes like this for later analysis. Stonekeepers can access the archives using our amulets. I have been up here all night reviewing the meetings." He looked at a silent conversation taking place between two men wearing the same sort of clothing—long robes that stretched down to one's feet and was braced by a metal collar. "It has been interesting to see what has transpired since I left this place."

When did he… Oh, right. Caleb needed a moment to remember what Vigo had told him before; Vigo used to work with the Council to teach new Stonekeepers how to use their powers safely, but left Cielis upon resigning from his position. The years since then had been spent with a loving wife and son, both of whom had died under separate tragic circumstances. Like the Hayes family losing David, in fact. Caleb also remembered Vigo having worked alongside Silas Charnon, the two being good friends before they both left the Council.

"Did you find out what happened to the Council?" Emily asked Vigo.

"No, not yet." Vigo sounded tired as he said that, despite having no physical signs of fatigue on his person. "However, I think this final recording is especially interesting to all of you. That's why I had called you three up here," he told Emily, Trellis, and Leon. "You two being here," he told Miskit and Caleb, "is a good circumstance."

"Happy to help, Master Light," Miskit told Vigo. Caleb just nodded and felt a twinge of embarrassment. He did not want to mention he had "felt" the urge to come up here because someone like Vigo was using their powers and Caleb had just happened to be close by. That would bring up lots of questions, unnecessary ones in Caleb's opinion.

As the watchers looked around, the people covered in fire went away. Then, stepping out from a previous moment in time, a young boy came into the chamber and knelt on the floor. His black hair was spiked upwards, the darker color contrasting with the lighter clothing and pale skin.

"Max…" The name was spoken aloud by Caleb, but everyone in the current time knew who this was. They could not forget the image of this betrayer so easily.

Max continued to kneel, and a second figure emerged into the recording. He was a man wearing the same kind of long robe and neck collar that the other recorded people had, along with round glasses perched on his nose. A a full mustache partially concealed his mouth, but it did not hide his stern expression. When he started to speak to Max, no words were heard by any of the watchers.

"Master Silas!" Miskit exclaimed. The robotic rabbit was the first to recognize who this recorded man was. This shocked Emily, Caleb, and Leon, but not Vigo or Trellis.

"My great-grandfather!" Emily looked at the recorded image in surprise, and then narrowed her eyes as she spotted something amiss. This created a flash of brown in her eyes as her pupils reflected a stray ray of light. "He looks… younger."

Caleb turned to Vigo, trusting him as the source to answer his questions. "Vigo, why does Max look the same as when we met him, but Silas does not?"

Vigo rolled his shoulders back. "This recording was taken fifty years ago. If I remember this correctly, it was around the time Max was exiled from Cielis by the Guardian Council."

"So, how is he still looking around my age?" asked Caleb.

"I suspect Max used the energies of the Void to keep himself young. That is a very powerful, and draining, ability."

"The Void…" Caleb repeated that name to himself. "Is that some kind of energy source, like the Mother Stone?"

"Max was able to command squads of stone statues without the Mother Stone," Trellis growled. "He wields plenty of power already, whether from the Void or not."

"The Void is a source of power, Caleb," Vigo explained, "but it is a whole dimension separate from this one. It's like a dreamspace for Stonekeepers; they can go there to view moments in the past, present, or possible future. They can even go there to communicate with other Stonekeepers across vast distances. But it is a dangerous place to stay for very long."

Trellis scratched one of the gray sleeves of his coat. "So, Max did not travel through time? I had heard that was possible with the Void."

"Time is not as solid in the Void as in reality." Vigo turned to look at the other two Stonekeepers in the room, his face grim. "Silas Charnon espoused that the Void could impact the real world, but he wanted to use the Void to change the past. His past, especially."

"Right," Emily said. "Great-grandmother Isabel meant a lot to him. When she died, he probably…" Emily did not finish the sentence, her own memories of her father washing over her despite more than two years of trying to recover from the tragedy. Caleb's heart reached out to her, but he did not know what to say in the moment.

"It's alright, Emily," Vigo told the auburn-haired Stonekeeper. "Sometimes, personal desires and ambitions can cloud even the brightest of minds."

Emily looked over to Vigo, trying and mostly succeeding to keep her sadness hidden inside. "What did Silas do that was so wrong?" she asked.

"I do not have any recorded memories of Master Silas committing any crimes," Miskit put in. "Not that he would want anything like that in me, though."

"Silas's crimes were done before he made you, Miskit, or any of the other robots you have met with him." Vigo squeezed his staff with one gloved hand. "He encouraged young Stonekeepers to access and use the Void before they were properly ready. He did not know the dangers we now do about that place, or the prices those young minds would pay for him."

A chill wind whipped through the chamber from outside. The holographic recording vanished at the same moment, though not by the wind's effects. Everyone stayed silent, thinking about what they had just learned, while Vigo closed his eyes and showed his own sadness at remembering the darker side of an old friend.

Trellis was the first person to speak next. "The Void may be dangerous," he told Vigo with the fangs in his mouth clearly visible, "but I will pay any price to correct the mistakes of my ancestors."

This was news to Caleb: Trellis had never told him his history, or the history of the elves in general, beyond his hatred of his father, the Elf King. Vigo seemed to know what Trellis was talking about, though, and he shot the young elf's determination right down. "You don't know what you are saying," he told Trellis. "Stay out of this."

"You do not control me," Trellis retorted.

"He isn't trying to," Leon told the elf, speaking up for the first time with the attitude of someone addressing a long-standing feud. "He's just telling us what he knows. Every Stonekeeper can use the Void, for good or evil. That means everyone can be hurt by it."

"I know there will be pain," Trellis told Leon. "I have always lived with pain. And I am still here."

"Good for you," Caleb blurted out. "I-I mean," he stuttered when Trellis turned his look on him, "that means you are very strong and, uh, determined. You don't back down from a challenge. Yeah."

Trellis said nothing.

Vigo got everyone's attention by turning towards the broken window in the back of the chamber. "I do not know for sure how Max was able to keep his youth," he said while walking slowly up the steps, "but I remember him from fifty years ago. He was a student at the former Academy here in Cielis. We were classmates."

Emily followed Vigo up the steps, the most curious about what Vigo was saying. The rest of the group stayed close to the bottom of the steps, choosing not to keep up with them. "Do you think Max is smarter now than he was back then?" Emily asked Vigo when they were both standing by the large hole in the wall and looking out at Cielis's beautiful scenery.

Everyone was close enough to hear Vigo's answer: "If we are dealing with the same young man I remember, our troubles are only just beginning. What matters now is how far Max is willing to go to accomplish his goals."

Caleb rubbed a hand through his hair, nervous and worried about himself and the Stonekeepers here with him. Max was strong, they all knew that, but how strong was still not known. He used power for something he wanted, like Emily and Trellis did. Like Caleb did, too. The difference was what those desires were. For Emily, it was saving Alledia and returning home at the end. For Trellis, it was saving his race from the tyranny of his father. For Caleb himself…

The teenager looked at Emily's amulet, seeing that special, pink-colored object hanging around her neck like when she had first discovered it. The lines carved into its stone were not glowing, but he pictured the shadows behind them, where that Voice had come from with its cold touch and wide grin. I still would appreciate the power you have, Emily. But I don't know if I could use it safely. Can you?

Caleb feared that question would be answered in a way he would not like, no matter how he tried to make it seem good to himself. Was his mind being clouded by the desire to be a Stonekeeper like Emily, his obsession to make the Hayes children happy after their father's death? It seemed that was the case, and he did not want to confess it to anyone. Like his sensing of Stonekeeper energy, his desires were his dirty little secret.

Alright, that's all for now. As you saw, I had the events of Book 5 take place months after the end of Book 4. I did this to reflect Emily and Navin growing up over time in Alledia and having more chance to train. That may not have been Mr. Kibuishi's original intention, but it is what I am going to use here.

As usual, any feedback and constructive criticism you provide is appreciated.

Draconos is taking off!