Hello, everyone! Here is the next chapter of A6. It is shorter than the prior one, but it contains some important elements. So, here we go.
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!
When the sack placed over Caleb's face and head was yanked off, he found himself lying on his knees. Standing at either side of him was one of the muscular raven-men who had held him down in what Caleb personally called the "extraction chamber". Caleb tried to move and immediately felt a thick hand wrap around the back of his neck. He twitched reactively, feeling the pain of a few bruises newly dealt to him on his arms begin emitting steady pain.
Beyond the adjacent raven-men were several other men and women, all members of the Corvid group. Rows of computer hardware drives were stacked on top of each other, and at the far back of the space was a familiar pair of metal thrones. Huginn and Munnin sat on those thrones. Their bodies were still connected to the wires that ran all along the walls and ceiling. It seemed as if they never moved from those spaces.
Both Huginn and Munnin, the "Honored Brothers", looked down at Caleb like displeased kings or angry parents. Caleb was not in the mood to be chastised like how Miranda and Steven Morris—his own parents—did when he was a child. Huginn held Caleb's completed journal in his hand, his eyes skimming it over before shutting it with an audible thump.
"You have provided substantial information in this journal, Caleb Morris." Caleb noticed with concern how Huginn used his actual name instead of "Outsider" or "Brother". "However," Huginn continued, "you have breached our trust with your most recent actions."
Munnin looked at Caleb from a slouched position. He sported a softer version of the anger all the other present raven-men and women sported on their faces. Caleb felt like he was the subject of an interrogation. Huginn, sitting tall on his throne in contrast to Munnin's slumped posture, looked like the big bad cop leading the session. To Huginn's right was Revna, a pouch made of what looked like leather and sporting several zippers slung around her left shoulder.
Caleb took offense to Huginn's attitude, high and mighty just like how he was sitting. He was only human in his heart. "You lied to me first," he said back. "What you are doing to Corbett is not "rehabilitation" at all!"
"You are incorrect in your assumptions. We keep our methods secret for security purposes. This is something the All-Father commanded when—"
"Silas would not approve of this! It's inhumane!" Caleb tried to stand only for the hand on his neck to shove him back down. He grunted and stayed quiet for the moment.
Muninn raised his head to look at Caleb more directly. "Agent Corbett undertook grave risks to return to us," he quietly explained. "No doubt you saw what he did, what he gave, for yourself."
Thrown off guard, Caleb hesitated in his response. "I… I did." It was the truth; he had seen Corbett literally throw himself off the edge of Cielis. An ingrained and unspoken rule Caleb got from his parents was that telling the truth would be helpful. Corbett's new state and situation were hard truths to admit.
"Then you cannot say our efforts are insane or without reason." Munnin's eyes winked one after the other as he talked. "Agent Corbett has the energies of the Mother Stone inside his transformed body. We will have that energy for ourselves. Removing that substance is impossible to do painlessly."
That's what the tanks and needles are for. Caleb lowered his eyes down to the floor, questions still filling his thoughts as his bruises continued throbbing. "What will you do with that energy?" he asked next. "Will you make other agents like him? Or maybe," Caleb added while looking back up at the leaders, "you are just using him because he is a monster now. Because he isn't like you anymore. There's a word for that where I come from, and it is not a nice one."
Munnin nodded sagely. "Corbett is still a Brother and Agent. Transforming through Stonekeeper powers does not change that. We are not discriminating against him," he specified, using Caleb's choice of word in a different way. "He is still useful."
"Oh, so you'll put all those needles and binds on anyone here?" Caleb asked sarcastically while raising an eyebrow. "You'll drug them and lock them into tiny rooms? You'll try to get information out of them and never let them leave?"
Huginn and Munnin said nothing. Caleb rolled his eyes. "You guys are just like the elves," he grumbled, "tight-lipped and evil at heart."
Caleb got his ear boxed by the raven-man to his left for his remark. "Watch your words," that man growled through his beak despite being part bird. "You were treated fairly because the Honored Brothers wished it."
"Fairly. Fairly!" Caleb repeated, turning the word into an insult. "How is it fair to lock a human up against their will?" Caleb looked at the offending raven-man from the corner of his eye. "I did nothing wrong, and you have said you forgave my prior mistakes. Did you lie about that, too?"
"That is not what we—" Huginn began.
"No," Caleb rushed to say while closing his eyes against a fresh burst of pain from his bruises, "I know the truth. You have lied to me about being people who care about outsiders. You keep everything to yourself, and you lock up anything that threatens your precious "information". All information is important to you, right? Only to you?"
Caleb opened his eyes and looked around the crowd. He saw Revna standing amongst them, near Huginn's side. She squared her shoulders and stood firm, clutching her pouch with one hand, but she said nothing.
"You did not see how Corbett was in pain?" Caleb continued as he looked to the enthroned "Brothers" again. "Did you not care? Is it like how you don't care about the Mountain Giant Syn, but are using her for your gateways?"
Both Huginn and Munnin expressed genuine shock to hear Syn's name be said from Caleb's mouth. Several short breaths, angry inhalations, came from the other Corvid in the chamber. What Caleb had just said caused them all to change their viewpoints about the situation.
"That was your original concern?" asked Huginn incredulously. "You left your assigned quarters for that? Not for Agent Corbett?"
Caleb merely stared back at him, refusing to say more. Huginn let loose a low croak, akin to a human's pained groan. He turned to face Munnin, the other brother's head still lowered. "We made a mistake, Munnin."
"Yes, Huginn." Munnin bobbed his head up and down, acting as if that fact was just coming to him too. "It is a rarity that we do not see the obvious."
Concern rippled across the faces of the Corvid agents. The "Honored Brothers" were wrong. This obviously seemed like a rare occurrence. Caleb smiled, relishing seeing them be knocked down several pegs. They were just human now, not super-secret keepers of information. Humans made mistakes, even "cursed" ones.
Huginn noticed Caleb's satisfaction with supernatural intuition. "This is not a laughing matter," he snapped, his earlier composure turning into visible anger for the first time Caleb had seen. "You are in no position to mock us."
Caleb chuckled lightly. "I'm sorry," he said with brutal honesty, "but how you treated me makes this very satisfying for me." That earned him another, harder, box on the ear from the same raven-man next to him.
"No more of that," Munnin told the aggressive agent. "We must deal with the consequences intelligently. This is not the time for barbarism."
The agent grunted and complied, his eyes simmering with anger. Caleb, ear smarting, did not blame him, but he still hurt from the punches.
"Caleb Morris," Munnin said directly to the teenager, "You are hereby revoked of your status as "Brother" of the Corvid. You will be imprisoned, and kept under quarantine, as an Outsider until we decide the method of your punishment."
Punishment. The sense of defeat connected with that one word made Caleb grit his teeth. Had he failed even after all this? Was Syn going to be locked away with him, forever? Would Emily, Navin, Karen, and all their friends never learn of his fate?
"Sister Revna." The raven-woman snapped to attention, kneeling before Huginn's throne as that leader called her name. "You will be the administrator for this Outsider's imprisonment. See that you do not fail a second time, and you will earn your redemption."
"I will not fail, Honored Brothers." As she rose after making this promise, Revna's eyes sparkled with multiple emotions. Caleb could see a lot of hate in her gaze, blended with a widened look of devotion. Caleb had seen his fellow track teammates exhibiting similar devotion when they were in the home stretch of a long run. In those moments, with your feet pounding the ground, they pushed themselves to the very end.
Caleb felt sweat slide down his skin. His clothes suddenly felt clammy and constricting. As he watched, his hands were brought together and a set of handcuffs were clamped around his wrists. What were they going to do to him that involved binding his hands like this? He figured he would find out soon, and he would hate it.
"You will regret this," Caleb warned every agent present, trying to appear strong even while being handcuffed and held tight like a prisoner on Earth. "When Emily and Navin Haye finds out what you did, they will destroy you. They are protecting this world from evil."
"And you are assuming we are evil?" Muninn slowly shook his head in what appeared to be sorrow for Caleb's line of thinking. "You are wrong, Outsider. We are working for the betterment of Alledia and its people. Everyone has secrets. Some of them are not meant to be discovered without proper cause."
Huginn gave a sharp wave towards the throne room's door, beyond the rows of stacked computers. The raven-men on either side of Caleb pulled him up by the shoulders as the hand on his neck finally let go. Revna strode up to them and immediately took command over her fellow agents. The men pulled Caleb along with them, allowing him to walk this time instead of slinging him around.
The men moved quickly, forcing Caleb to keep up and dragging him along if he did not. Revna stayed just behind them, close enough that Caleb could hear her footsteps and the whispers she muttered every few seconds. Glancing back, Caleb also saw her fingering the pouch around her shoulder. The men holding him seemed agitated, as if this was not what they wanted to do right now.
Caleb had very little sympathy for their suffering; they had made him feel worse under false pretenses.
The small group traveled down new passageways, torches mounted all along the path. Caleb kept quiet, seeing the path was always going downward and seemed to curve a lot like a descending spiral. His mind kept busy by trying to figure out what was most likely going to happen next. He did not think they would kill him immediately; if they felt he could provide more information, he would probably be locked away like he had before. There would be tighter security, of course, but if he could call on Syn's help again, things would be—
A dull boom rang from deeper below. A agonized groaning echoed in Caleb's ears. The flames of the nearby torches flickered, and then a sharp gust of air from deeper along the path almost snuffed them out. The gust left the raven-men looking disheveled, but they did not seem shocked as light came back to the passageway.
Screams started coming from the darkness ahead, replacing the groaning with new noise. Footsteps rapidly came from below, along with sounds of biting and roaring. These sounds got everyone's attention. "What is happening down there?" one of the raven-men asked.
"Keep moving," Revna ordered from behind them. She then moved up ahead of them and took point as they went further down the path. They continued in silence, but the sounds from below did not stop; if anything, they grew louder and stronger. Then, as the path changed from a left curve towards the right, Revna raised a hand and stopped.
The raven-men stopped a few feet behind Revna. Caleb felt his wrists begin itching, and it wasn't from the chafing of the handcuffs. From the darkness ahead, there were glimpses of something black, feathered, and moving very fast towards them. Then they all saw another raven-woman, her body shivering violently, running towards them.
"Shadows!" the unknown woman screamed when she passed them by. "Shadow Creatures have breached the gates! All is lost! All is lost!"
The woman was gone before anyone tried to stop her. Caleb's mind lingered on the woman's panicked look and a thick mark around her neck. Several feathers were missing from that part of her body, exposing pale skin beneath. The marks looked like bite wounds, strong ones even without a clear sign of teeth marks. Birds did not have teeth but could still nip at skin with their beaks…
The muscled raven-men looked at each other. Caleb saw fear flicker in their eyes, too. "An invasion?" one of them asked to the other.
"No," the other man said, "this is too soon!" He looked down where the woman had run from. "We are not ready for them."
"What of the Outsider?" the first man asked while giving Caleb's shoulder a rough shake. "We will not have time to secure him before we are overrun."
"Peace, Brothers," Revna told everyone while turning back to face them. Her eyes had that same glint of determination Caleb had seen in the presence of the "Honored Brothers". "We will make time. Be swift, as the crow flies. So says the All-Father."
This appeared enough to convince the two men that things were going to be fine. Caleb was not as convinced, but his opinion did not matter to the Corvid anymore. They moved on together, the men still bringing Caleb with them and Revna leading them down into danger.
It did not take long for the threat of danger to manifest itself. Spilling out from both sides of a split in the path—one way leading up and to the left and the other down and to the right—were fleeing members of the Corvid. Men and women, all having the "cursed" characteristics of ravens and wearing similar sleeveless shirts and loose pants, ran for their lives. None of them stopped to speak or explain what had happened.
"The invaders have reached the cells." Revna announced this with a grim look on her face. "Or they are very close to them. We must move faster."
The men nodded and pulled Caleb along at an even quicker pace. They took the upward path, Caleb being so confused and turned around by now that he did not know where in this mountain headquarters he was going. All he understood what that he was not going to where the gateway he came through was, nor to where Syn remained locked up.
Passing by an open pair of metal doors on the side of the path revealed a shocking sight to the small group. Within were a pair of Corvid agents, lying on the floor next to each other with eyes frozen open. A pair of small bottles lay by them, and a pair of opened boxes meant for tiny pills lay open on the ground by their feet.
"Poison!" One of the raven-men holding Caleb whispered this in shock. "They chose death over fighting off the invasion. All truly is lost."
"Not yet," Revna quickly replied, but she stopped as they all saw two forms detach from the less lit areas of the revealed room. Dulled yellow light, like aged urine, flashed in the darkness as a sound like gurgling water rippled through the air.
"Dark Scouts!" the second raven-man gasped as his hands automatically squeezed Caleb's arm and shoulder. "The Shadow Creatures!"
The "Shadow Creatures" floated through the air to get closer to nearby sources of light. They looked like floating jellyfish or amoeba, colored blue with shades of purple. They had no mouths or noses, just two giant yellow eyes with slit pupils. Their bodies moved like smoke but appeared viscous and thick like oil. The gurgling sounds continued, coming from both these alien lifeforms.
Caleb's eyes burned as he made eye contact with the floating masses. They can use Stonekeeper powers! That made them far more dangerous to him, because they might be able to do to him what Max Griffin did on Cielis. He absolutely did not want to experience that again. When he tried to back up, break free, run away from this danger, he managed to get one of his arms free.
The raven-man who had been holding that part of Caleb's body was too busy looking at the Shadow Creatures to notice what had just happened. "Brother!" Revna shouted at the frozen agent. "Back away, now!"
The man did not listen. He looked petrified. Caleb suspected fear had gripped his mind and held it down tight. Caleb knew that feeling.
One of the Shadow Creatures dove at the vulnerable raven-man. The man gave a shocked "Augh!" as the entity's shadowy form enveloped his face and neck. Then he screamed, his voice distorted by the dark body coiling around him. He looked and sounded like he was in terrible pain.
"Brother Guntram!" The other raven-man holding Caleb in place let go of his charge to go to his fellow agent's side. "Let me-!" he began to plead, but the stricken raven-man shoved him back. Caleb, now free to move independently, took a few steps back but did not run away. Revna glanced at him, her body bent forward slightly and ready to spring at Caleb or her fellow agents at a moment's notice.
"No! Stay away!" The creature tightened its grip around Guntram's neck as he tried to speak. This action forced the raven-man to breathe in large quantities of its dark form. He kept speaking, and as he did, he became visibly enraged. "Stay away or I'll… I'll kill you!"
Brother Guntram lurched around, growling with his beak hanging open. With his head covered in semi-transparent shadows, he leapt at his fellow raven-man like a rabid dog unleashed. Saliva foamed up from his throat and dribbled out of his beak as both men fell to the ground. Guntram then bit into the neck of his fellow agent, his beak working like a vice to crush what it had caught. The bitten person gave a gut-twisting screech that sounded more like a squawk. Caleb did not see any blood, but the damage still looked severe. Apply enough crushing force to the neck and it can just—
A sharp tug at Caleb's shoulder, nearly ripping open his shirt, got him away from the second Shadow Creature before it could wrap around his head and neck. "Run," he heard Revna shout in his ear, "Just run!"
Caleb did so, the "cursed" woman switching her grip to his arm since his hands were still cuffed together. They both cast fearful glances back after they ran by a few more mounted torches, imagining the Shadow Creature just about to swallow them both into its twisted self.
"Stay still." She drew out a long silver key from around her neck; hanging in her hands, Caleb saw a metal chain threaded through the back end of the key. Revna quickly slid the key's longer front end into the upper part of the handcuffs and sharply twisted her wrists. With an audible "click" of metal,the locks snapped free and the handcuffs fell to the ground.
"You're—!" Caleb gasped out.
"I must." Revna interrupted Caleb mid-sentence, speaking quickly as she put the key and chain back around her neck. "We must flee from here. Now, you can better keep up with me."
Caleb had not expected this outcome. Was Revna betraying her leaders, or was this part of some greater plan? Revna still looked capable of fighting if Caleb tried to run away; she had also yanked Caleb out of the Shadow Creature's grasp. She had saved him.
Maybe she trusts me a tiny bit now. Sarcastic amusement made Caleb's shoulders shake for a moment. All it took was an alien attack to make it happen. Watching Revna closely, rubbed his wrists and risked giving the raven-woman a brief smile. She nodded back in return, no words spoken between them and yet still conveying important emotions.
They trusted each other, at least for now. That was what mattered.
Alright, that's all for now. Like I said, this was a shorter chapter, but things are ramping up.
As usual, any feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated.
Draconos is taking off!