Hello, everyone! Here is the next chapter in A7. This is going to connect with the end parts of Book 7.
There will be other Author's Notes at the end of the chapter, just to let you know.
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!
In and out. In and out.
Caleb kept his eyes closed and breathed slowly, recalling his exercises on Earth. The memories of training with his teammates were not as comforting, so he kept their images and names on the outskirts of his thoughts. He also kept the names of people who were not near him right now a good distance away. This included Navin, regretfully; no word of his adventures had been said. It was an empty part of his mind.
That part of Caleb's mind was empty, yes, and vast like the Void. Images of that strange realm, filled with freezing fire and flashing lights, popped up in his mind's eye. It was in his body now, its touch corrupting his flesh and thoughts to make him more like itself. It hungered for him; things that used it hungered for him.
In and out.
Caleb breathed slowly and felt his mind slip into a semi-aware state. He felt the Luna Moth bob left and right as Enzo or Rico adjusted their flight path. He trusted them to make sure the craft did not crash into the sea. They did not need him to worry about them. This allowed him to delve deeper into his own thoughts.
The edges of Caleb's mind rippled. "Rippled" was the best word Caleb could use to define what he felt. Small waves of energy, of mental power, washed over his own thoughts. Something else, beyond what he could sense or comprehend, was making intense vibrations. And Caleb could pick them up with his mind.
Caleb's eyes tingled, enough for him to notice but not to cause him pain. The vibrations continued, more rippling coming from somewhere else in the Void or in the real world. The big question was obvious: Who, or what, was making those vibrations?
Caleb's body flinched when his mind picked up a particularly strong vibration. His brain translated the wave into certain sounds; quaking earth, an explosion, the echo of a scream. He decided he had seen and felt enough of whatever was out there. It was bad, and he should not focus on it any longer.
Caleb opened his eyes. He was back in his own body and mind on the Luna Moth. Cogsley and Dagno were here too; when Caleb began to shift his body around, they both turned towards him.
"Ah, ye're moving about, laddie? That's good." Even though Cogsley was not smiling, his voice sounded happy.
Dagno added in a loud, "Chee-Chee, Chee!" Resting on the robot's shoulder like a bird, it looked more content with being around Caleb than before.
"Enjoy yer rest?" Cogsley asked Caleb as he walked over to him. He stopped by Caleb's feet, out of range from being kicked.
Caleb carefully thought about what he should say. What he had just felt was something different, a potential sign of danger. Was it a sign of something to come? Was it even real, since it was coming from the Void? If he accepted it as a sign, would trying to take a closer look at it speed up his corruption?
All Caleb said to Cogsley was, "I think so, yeah."
"Good." Cogsley seemed to accept that without further insistence. "The storm's died down. We're moving back to the island but taking it slow. Ye can go outside if ye feel up to it."
Outside? Outside the cabin. That meant going onto the airship's deck and take in the surrounding environment. Being away from any sort of land, he guessed he would see sky and sea in equal measure. This had its own dangers.
"I don't know if I should," Caleb admitted. What if the Voice took him over and made him dive into the waters? What if it wanted Caleb to drown? Friends didn't try to kill each other unless they were no longer friends anymore.
Denial rapidly quashed that last thought. Caleb did not want to worry about something that could corrupt him at any moment. The Voice may hate him, but it could not totally control him. Vigo had helped him resist it; even if the elder Stonekeeper had been driven out in the end, it gave Caleb confidence to fight back for himself.
Vigo was someone Caleb would consider a friend. He did not need Caleb to worry about him. In fact, Vigo was probably worrying very much about Caleb. The teenager was not used to being on the receiving end of close attention.
"Go for it, lad," Cogsley suggested. "Ye won't know if ye don't try."
Caleb smiled, nodded to the robot, and slowly stood up. He felt he should try, even if it was not worth the risk in the end. He would be left worrying about it if he did not do it.
Walking out of the cabin door took some concentration, but the view outside was worth the effort. The Sun was setting, Alledia's sky lit up with orange and purple and red. Beneath that was the ocean, darker and quietly in motion. The Luna Moth's engines were running but not making an overwhelming amount of noise.
Caleb looked around and saw no one else had come outside with him. The ocean air was a nice thing to breathe in, and he took deep breaths while walking up to the railing. He clutched that metal object with both of his hands, trusting in its presence to keep him anchored to the current moment. His eyes, despite their changing colors, could pick up the various shapes of the clouds and the whites of waves around him.
Minutes passed in relative calm. The airship was not being tossed about or roughed up by high winds. The waters did not look threatening. The sky was slowly darkening as the Sun set below the horizon. This was a view Caleb had not see often, if at all, on Earth. His home was not near the sea or any large body of water in California.
The only thing that Caleb felt could make this moment better was if someone else were here to watch it with him. But everyone else was busy, so he could not have that luxury.
Something flashed in Caleb's vision, something like a falling star. The teenager looked up to the sky and clutched the railings. He braced himself, recognizing what was coming as his eyes burned with familiar pain.
Someone was watching. Now, they had begun to act through Caleb. He figured it was the Voice due to the pain in his eyes. He could not stop it from coming…
…and he opened his eyes in time to see hands and talons reaching for his throat. He sprang backwards, seeing the crazed visages of raven-men and women entering the clearing around him. Shadow Creatures, dozens of them, huddled over the collected mass of possessed humans. The humans drooled and jabbered out of long avian beaks, their eyes glistening red and white and purple.
Caleb recognized these lost souls as members of the Corvid. All those who had been possessed and were not killed by Syn's emergence, now grouped together, and acting for a single goal. There was no easy way out, there were many more of them than he could get past.
"Forgive me," he heard an older man's voice croak out from his mouth. "I must clip your wings." He then tensed his arms, clenched his fists, and charged…
…right back into his own body. He still felt the railing in his hands, his grip tight. He felt his feet pressed down on the airship's deck. He drew in a breath as his eyes surged with a hotter sensation…
…and saw people sitting around tables, eating food and drinking various liquids. He was in a restaurant inside some kind of airship, the space filled with people of all shapes and even inhuman sizes. The atmosphere was vibrant, and the view outside the large, curved windows revealed the true scope of this place.
The restaurant was in the sky. Caleb stood inside an airship, the host body he was in one person among potentially hundreds. A hotel in space, most likely. The closest thing on Earth that could match were large airplanes, but those did not have these types of accommodations.
Someone called out, "Waiter! I am ready to order!" Caleb's host body turned to the general area of where the voice had come from. He stepped toward one of the closest tables while drawing out a notepad and pen from the pocket of a fancy dress uniform…
…which he did not possess when the pain ended. "Stop it," he growled, "stop showing me these things. I don't want any more of this."
The pain came again despite his pleas…
…and he looked through a gap in a doorway into the room beyond. He watched, his body frozen and his heart thudding hard, as he saw a frail elven man inside the room. The man held a mask in his brittle hands, his face sporting only a mouth and ears to match his own species. The rest of his face was covered by an alien mark that dug deep into the grey flesh.
The mark made him gasp in horror. It was a permanent sign that made him question everything he knew about the man—a man he called "father" and "King" …
… and whose transformation left a sundering pain in Caleb's heart when the vision ended. It hurt him so much, he thought back to his own father. His hands squeezed the railing as the pain went away like a receding wave. Then, a moment later, it came back even stronger. He shut his eyes, breathing faster and faster but unable to relax.
A blast of cold air washed over Caleb's body. He braced through it, shivering while the chill increased to a frigid strike. Whispers of half-formed words rushed into his ears, even when he tried to mentally block it out. Flashes of color came and went in his inner eyes, bursting through the tingling pain of the Void.
Suddenly, Caleb opened his eyes. It was not his idea.
A shocked, "What…?" came from Caleb's lips when he saw he was now standing in a dark space with few twinkling white lights. One of those lights came up to Caleb and grew into a large tear in the darkness. White fire surrounded the image of a separate place from this darkness.
It did not take more than a few seconds for Caleb to realize he is looking at something already in progress. There was no sound, but he could see things very clearly. There was a cliff covered in snow, a large tree balanced on the edge. That told Caleb this was taking place in the winter. Above the cliff was a narrow road placed along the side of a mountain. A metal railing curved alongside the road, blocking anyone on the road from swinging off to a long fall into the darkness.
What got Caleb's focus was a car crashed against the railing. It was a car like those on Earth, confirming this was taking place on Earth. The front of the car was smashed—not fatally, the hood was not crushed in, but it was still badly damaged. The railing was broken from the initial impact, but the car had stayed on the road. Smoke was coming from the broken hood.
The front driver's door was open; just by it, a man was crawling away from the car on his hands and knees. Caleb could not see the man clearly, but he could see from the man's movements they had just come out of the car crash.
Caleb felt his eyes tear up. Amelia's death had felt like this to him. Why was he seeing this happen? No, why was he being forced to see this happen?
The scene continued. The man got to his feet and managed to not get hit by a truck driving by. The lack of sound made Caleb feel dissociated from what he was seeing. The man looked to where the truck had gone and saw another car come up around the corner. This car's headlights shone on the man, allowing Caleb the opportunity to see his features. He looked sickly, weak, and bruised from being in a car crash.
Caleb's nerves felt cold as he saw the oncoming car swerve to the right, towards the railing. It smashed through the railing as the man fell to the ground, hands over his face to block out the headlights' brightness. The car tumbled onto the cliff and snow, flipped onto its back, and slid along the ground. The slide only stopped when it slammed into the tree.
Caleb's hands clenched tightly around… nothing? When he glanced down at his hands, he saw he was only holding onto air. But he felt something solid there; it must be the railing from the Luna Moth. Somehow, his body was still anchored in Alledia. It was his mind that was in this space, his mind that was held captive by these visions. But Caleb could go back to reality if he just got through these flashes and strange scenes.
"I have something very important to show you." That was what the Voice had said before forcing one of those scenes into Caleb's head. This, he figured, was another attempt by it to cripple him. If he gave in, the Voice would take him as its "friend" forever. Caleb did not want that… at least, he thought he did not.
The scene had moved on when Caleb looked back at it. He had nowhere else to look to in the darkness. What he saw deeply surprised him—two versions of Emily Hayes. One of them, an older Emily with a glowing amulet around her neck, was racing through the snow to the car hanging against the tree. The other Emily was a younger one, clinging to the upside-down trunk of the car. Even though the younger Emily was dangling off the ground, she tried to heave it back down.
Caleb watched, horrified, as he recognized what he was being shown. Emily was running towards the scene of her father's death. David Hayes, the man who had died to save his family, was in that car. Emily was now going to try and save him. She was going to change the past.
The older Emily used her amulet's powers to grab the car and pull it away from the tree. The past version of Karen Hayes crawled away from the vehicle in surprise. The younger Emily stayed still as she saw David still in the driver's seat and alive. The power of Emily's amulet became tentacles of coiling, twisting energy. Like an octopus manipulating a held object, Emily flipped the car upright and carefully placed it down on a safe patch of snow.
As Emily's power faded from view, blue light flashed from closer to the road. Caleb looked down there and saw Trellis the elf standing by the railing. He wore simpler clothing than his former black armor, but it was clearly him. He jumped onto the snow, sliding and stumbling down the cliff with his arms held out for balance. He quickly managed to get his footing and approached the Hayes family and their wrecked car.
Caleb's eyes followed Trellis up to the car. They both saw the older Emily hugging David tightly, while the younger Emily stood by her mother several feet away. Trellis raised his hand towards Emily and her father, obviously saying something Caleb could not hear. The father and daughter looked back up to the road, and Emily's amulet flashed bright pink again. Trellis got closer, advancing on Emily as she grew angrier. The two exchanged brief words, Emily's eyes glowing the same pink as her amulet.
Suddenly, Emily's amulet burst with power and knocked Trellis back. Shockingly, this burst of power was made of bright orange fire instead of pink energy. Trellis fell on his back, a few flames left on his clothes. As he snuffed out those flames, Emily and David raced up the cliff to the road.
Caleb kept looking at Trellis as he got to his feet and called after the older Emily. Then the younger Emily said something to Trellis that got him to visibly calm down and nod back to her. Trellis turned away from the mother and daughter, but Caleb saw them both turn into tongues of blue fire and disappear. Trellis pursued the older Emily and her now-living father.
The scene shifted to follow Trellis' path. He managed to catch up to the older Emily and David, but Emily did not listen to the elf's words. Though Caleb could not hear what Trellis said, he could see the elf's concern and his rapid body movements. He was afraid.
The man who had first crashed his car against the railing was also afraid. But he looked only at David, not his enraged Stonekeeper daughter. David had a hand on Emily's shoulder, and whatever he said to her made her rage grow even stronger. It burned in her eyes and shone through her amulet like a miniature star. She showed more anger than anything Caleb had seen before. And why would she not be mad when she was staring at the man who had contributed to her father's death?
Emily's hair began to rise up and flap about her head. The amulet rose from her neck, the cord wrapped around it tugging against her body. She looked down from the target of her rage and tried to grab it with her hands. One hand was not enough, so she used both hands to clasp the amulet tight. Still, the light and fire it was creating shined through her fingers.
From how he saw what was going on, Caleb recognized a change in Emily. Her anger became pain, a pain like how Luger had felt upon transforming into a Titan. It looked like the same overwhelming power was afflicting Emily now. She was trying to keep it contained, but she was losing the fight.
Emily had lost control over her amulet.
A loud crack, like a gunshot, sounded in the darkness around Caleb. He ripped one of his hands away from the patch of reality he was gripping. Attempting to reach through the tear and grab Emily, to help Emily, his hand pressed against a solid surface. The images beyond it continued without him.
"Emily! No, no, no!" Caleb pounded his hand, and then a closed fist, against the tear. "Don't give in, Emily!" he shouted. "Don't lose control!"
It appeared Caleb was already too late. Emily, her eyes shining orange, turned to Trellis and said something to him. Caleb cursed his inability to hear what was going on, unable to understand the whole situation. How could he help someone if he was unable to be there, be in the moment with them?!
As Trellis took a few steps back, Emily screamed and fell to her knees. The energies around her and in her expanded rapidly, breaking through her clothes and flesh. Fire engulfed her, flaring up in tongues of orange, yellow, and red.
"Emily!" Caleb pounded the tear's surface even harder. His fist and knuckles hurt, but he kept trying anyway. "Emily!"
The fire swallowed Emily whole. A burst of orange light flew out in all directions, erasing all other objects and colors from the tear's viewpoint. The next moment, Caleb's body flew back from the tear as it broke into pieces. The darkness retreated before a gout of flame that erupted from what was once the tear and was now a large rip in the fabric of reality.
A shimmering, ethereal purple figure came through the tear, dwarfing Caleb in size as it flew at him. He recognized it for what it was: the Voice of Emily's amulet. It reached a ghostly hand out and smothered Caleb's head in a crushing grip.
Caleb heard a roaring in his ears. This helped him recognize that he was alive. Whatever the Voice had done had not killed him. He did not feel very grateful for that. If he was here, then Emily was still in danger.
Caleb's body stepped backwards until it pressed against a solid surface. His hands slapped against that surface and felt cold metal. He then cried out as his hands seared with pain. Looking at his hands, Caleb saw the fingers were bone-white. The nerves in his fingers had gone numb from overexertion. How long had he been gripping that railing, keeping it as his lifeline against the Void and the Voice's touch?
Caleb's legs proved capable of keeping him standing and walking around. The roaring in his ears turned into a higher-pitched screeching. He followed the noise, his hands bristling with pain, until he came around to the airship's prow. He saw Dagno perched on the rail and rapidly flapping its wings without flying.
"Dagno?" Caleb heard Vigo's deep voice from elsewhere on the airship before he saw Vigo come into view on the other side of the prow. "What's wrong, boy?" he asked the dragon.
As Caleb started to approach Vigo, they both saw what Dagno was so agitated about. Near the Luna Moth, a large patch of seawater was boiling and bubbling. A dim light was beneath the surface, and as they looked at the light it grew brighter and more defined. The bubbling grew stronger, louder, until a final bursting of water signaled the arrival of something from beneath the surface.
Excess water spilled from the body of some creature colored fiery orange. The water quickly evaporated from the rising form, revealing it to be a blazing phoenix. Two black eyes, dark as empty space, rested above a pointed beak; fiery talons snapped at the open air in between them. The great bird took in the sky and air with barely any noise.
Vigo clutched his hat to his head as a hot blast of wind whipped across the Luna Moth's deck. Caleb instead raised his arms in front of his face for protection. His hands felt like they were on fire as well, but his eyes were only on the great bird before him. He knew who it really was; the crushing sense of loss in his heart told him the truth.
The phoenix pumped its wings, expelling glowing embers as it ascended to the skies. It did not look back down at the creatures below.
"Emily!" Caleb shouted to the rapidly diminishing light in the sky. "Come back! We need you here! COME BACK!"
The phoenix named Emily did not heed Caleb's request. He felt the heat from her departure change into the cold air of the sea once again. He raised a hand to grab at Emily, hoping to reach her, and only felt air and pain from his fingers. Then the words of Father Adler's prophecy came back to him, sealing the moment in tragedy.
"I see you standing before a great fire, Caleb. Something priceless to you is burning away in that fire. If you try to save it, it is very likely you will die in its place."
The prophecy had come true. Caleb had not saved Emily from the flames. He had failed.
Caleb's eyelids twitched and fluttered, the black marks on his face pulsing beneath his skin. He gave a low groan and teetered backwards. Soft, furred hands grabbed him from behind before he fell onto the deck. Caleb looked up to see Rico staring back at him.
"Your eyes!" Rico exclaimed, horrified. Vigo came over next, kneeling by Caleb and placing one of his hands on the younger human's face. Carefully peeling back Caleb's eyes revealed what was new with them.
The teenager's eyes were now black as night, pupils and all. The corruption appeared to be total; what was left of Caleb's individuality was rapidly fading away.
Vigo cursed. "Get him into the cabin," he told Rico. "Then get Trellis out of the water. I saw him appear just after the phoenix came up. I will need him with me for this."
"Can we save Caleb?" Rico asked, not moving yet to do what Vigo had said.
"I hope so." Vigo's words became muted as he continued talking to Rico, giving out plans on what to do next. Caleb sank back into Rico's grip and became listless. He was unable to pay attention any longer.
Emily… I'm sorry…
Alright, that's all for now.
For the additional notes, I am debating as to whether ending A7 here and start preparing for the eighth book in the "Amulet" series OR have one more chapter to finish things for A7. If you have some strong suggestions, please let me know.
Once I make the choice, I will edit this document/chapter to remove the requests for suggestions.
As usual, any additional feedback and constructive criticism you give is appreciated.
Draconos is taking off!