Hello, everyone! Here is the next chapter in A7. This one is shorter than the last, but I wanted to focus on a few specific scenes rather than a lot of separate elements. I also had to make a decision on who Caleb would stay with for Book 7's events. The result is in this chapter; let's get to it, then.

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!

"So, that's Gabilan?" Rico looked over at the unconscious elf lying against the wall with concern. Even though the assassin's body was tied up with cables, his presence alone was enough to make everyone else in there concerned. Any weapons on his person, including a gu

Cogsley, being a robot, showed the least immediate emotion when he looked over at Gabilan. "He's got the same bad look," he commented, "I'm sure of it." The robot's eyes slanted down on his metallic face, mimicking human eyes squinting. "But he looks so… weak."

Dagno added in a low growl, the helmet still around his neck. He stayed near the cabin's lit side, curled up in a small ball of scales and claws.

"Well, he can stay that way." Rico kept some of his earlier temper as he went to his brother's side. Placing two furry fingers on Enzo's neck to check his pulse, he glanced up at where Caleb sat. They held eye contact for a second, the earlier anger shown between them mostly gone.

"Ugh…" Enzo groaned as he started to shift around on the cabin floor. "My head…"

"Enzo!" Rico snapped his fingers back from his brother's neck, and then used both his hands to help the burlier cat-man stand up. "Are you okay?"

"I'll live." Enzo, his legs wobbling, roughly rubbed his head with a paw, and then put his cap back on its proper perch. "I heard some of what you were saying just now. That claw-thing the elf had really did a number on me."

"Are ye sure ye aren't hurt?" Cogsley asked.

"Well, I…" He stopped, his eyes narrowing in concentration. "Hang on, there's a gap where something should be." He looked all around the cabin, flinching when he saw Caleb and his changed face and eyes. "I should know who you are," he said to the teenager,
but I forgot your name."

Caleb blinked before he smiled at the burly cat-man. "My name is Caleb Morris," he formally said. "It is nice to meet you, Captain Enzo." If that was the only thing Enzo had forgotten, then he was probably very lucky.

"There is no need for pleasantries, boy," a hoarse voice spoke up from the darker corner of the cabin.

Everyone turned to the darkness. Gabilan was now awake. The wire cables around his body proved strong enough to keep him still, but his voice remained thick with venom as he looked right at Enzo. "You, cat-man, have had some of your memories stolen. That is what my "claw-thing", an extractor, does."

"It steals memories?" Rico repeated. "How does that work?"

"Open the extractor for yourself," Gabilan told Rico, his focus switching to the thinner cat-man. "There will be a chamber at the back, above the trigger."

"As if we'd fall for that!" Enzo huffed. "None of us are foolish as to…" Enzo turned while speaking and saw Rico was already holding the claw-pronged weapon in his hands, keeping the back end facing him. "Rico! Don't you-!"

But Rico had already flipped that space on the extractor back, opening the chamber. A small hiss of escaping air was heard, everyone except Gabilan staying quiet and watching Rico. The thinner cat-man looked inside, saying nothing about what he saw.

"Inside the chamber," Gabilan told everyone after a few seconds passed with nothing blowing up or screaming, "there is a blue cube. That is the solidified form of the stolen memories. Take it out if you wish."

"Hey, what's to say this isn't some trick?" Cogsley demanded from the elf.

"That's right," Enzo added. "It's from our enemies; it's not worth our time. Rico," he told his brother, "throw the weapon and cube overboard!"

"Do that," Gabilan swiftly warned, "and you will lose those memories forever. It will sink to the bottom of the ocean and join all the others."

Enzo moved with inhuman speed, getting straight in Gabilan's personal space. "There are others?" he slowly inquired. "Other memories you stole for your pointy-eared King?"

Gabilan straightened himself as best his bound body could. "There are many more," he told Enzo straight to his face. "They are what I have used to know of what truly threatens Alledia. It is far worse than you think."

"You are on my ship, elf. I decide what a threat is." Enzo put his trademark pipe between his teeth and continued talking. "I would love to toss you and your high-tech gizmo into the brine, but I suspect the Stonekeepers will want to speak with you first."

"They certainly will. They have probably discovered the ghosts that linger here; remnants of their own selfish desires."

"Look who's talking." Enzo stood back from Gabilan, seemingly done with the conversation. "Let's get outside, everyone," he ordered. "The others will be back soon, and we can display our catch."

Caleb felt soaked again as rain and wind snuck through the cloak and clothes. He shivered a few times, the cold too strong to mentally block out. Cogsley and Dagno watched him; the dragon was perched on Cogsley's left shoulder. Every few seconds, the dragon sniffed the cloak Gabilan had given him and grumbled at what it smelt. Nearby, Enzo and Rico had Gabilan between them, the elf still wrapped up in those cables but put on his own two feet.

Gabilan was not a quiet prisoner. "You are fools to trust the Stonekeepers," he told the cat-men. "They will be your doom. Especially the girl."

"Oh?" Enzo proved the more willing of the brothers to let Gabilan keep talking. "Why is Emily any worse than Trellis or Vigo? If they all get their powers from the same place, then they should all be equally dangerous, right?"

"The stones corrupt their users' minds. That girl is more infected than many others have been. She is hiding it inside herself."

Caleb had heard enough of Gabilan's condemnations by that point. "How do you know all of this," he asked the elf. "Were you a Stonekeeper before you became a killer?"

"I have seen what Stonekeepers do, boy." Gabilan looked at Caleb from the corner of his eye; beneath the darkening skies, he looked even more dangerous. "They become monsters. Alledia has suffered because of them. You are just a tool to them, like they are a tool to their true masters."

"E's a what?!" Cogsley grabbed Caleb's arm and squeezed in tight. "E's kidding, lad," he quickly told Caleb, "don't believe a word 'e says. You're nothing like what e' says."

"Cogsley," Caleb sighed, "look at my face and tell me I am still normal." The robot did so, while Caleb looked at the bald spot on top of Cogsley's metal head. Dagno gave a long, low, "Chee…" as if it were growling.

"Ye sure, Dagno?" the robot whispered to his dragon companion. The dragon answered with a rapid, "Chee-chee-chee!" as it wriggled on its perch. "But ye saw him at Cielis, remember? 'E was a friend."

The dragon tilted its head slightly to one side. It did not seem to like Caleb very much. Sighing, Cogsley told Caleb, "Don't mind it, 'e's just a kid."

"Then what do you think about how I look?" Caleb tried to not sound angry when he asked the question. He thought he understood why—Cogsley was trying to be optimistic, like he had back at Charnon House—but he was irritated as to why he could not feel that way himself. The fear of being imprisoned, or worse, by the Stonekeepers kept him on edge.

"I think ye can be fixed." Cogsley raised and lowered his shoulder that did not have Dagno resting on it. "So will Emily and the rest. Ye got people here who care about ye, lad."

"I hope so," Caleb mumbled. And at that moment, three figures wearing glowing amulets around their necks stepped onto the platform. Emily Hayes, Prince Trellis, and Vigo Light came forward, each of them looking solemn and… the best word Caleb could think of was aged. Mentally aged, not physically; their bodies were still the same ages as when he had last seen them.

Algos Island had not been kind to its visitors.

"Look who we found hiding in the cabins," Enzo loudly proclaimed as the three Stonekeepers got close enough for them to hear him. They all looked at the elf, water soaking through his bandages but not withering the force of his angry stare. Then, they looked at Caleb, who smiled, blushed, and waved at them all.

"Caleb?" Emily was the first of the Stonekeepers to speak. "Why are you…?" She stepped forward, and then her amulet gave a momentary flash of searing pink light. Emily blinked, understanding coming to her in seconds.

"The Void." Emily shivered. Her eyes glowed bright pink, and then faded to a darker fiery red. "Oh, Caleb, I—"

"Caleb's health will be addressed shortly," Vigo cut in with a brisk gesture towards Gabilan. "Gabilan is a bigger concern right now."

The elf grunted and shifted his arms inside his bindings. "How coincidental that you all are together. Or perhaps…" He did not finish that sentence, looking at each Stonekeeper in turn.

"Keep your distance." Vigo's warning seemed obvious. One elf, even an assassin, standing up to three Stonekeepers, did not have much chance of winning a fight.

"Why are you here, Gabilan?" asked Trellis. The younger, less wounded elf showed clear anger towards Gabilan, but his question sounded more confused than accusing.

"I am here for the same reason all of you are; to get answers." Gabilan did not show obeisance to his "prince"; the title did not seem to matter to him.

"Do you know what happened on this island?" Emily asked. "We saw ghostly images of the people here. Why do they fear Stonekeepers so much?"

"You happened." Gabilan leaned forward, even as Enzo and Rico pulled on his shoulders to keep him back. "People like you, unable to withstand your cursed amulets. Do you realize how dangerous you are to all of us?"

"Hey!" Enzo barked. "She's asking the questions here!"

"Calm down, Enzo." Emily gave the airship captain a short nod. "This is important to him."

"There is something else important to me," Trellis then announced, taking control of the conversation. "I know you have taken memories from many people, as an assassin," he said to Gabilan. "Where are the memories kept?"

Gabilan glanced at Trellis for just a moment, and then turned his focus back on Emily. He told them both, "I will only show you where they are if you take me with you."

"That is out of the question," Vigo said before Trellis could voice his opinion. The older man looked as angry as Enzo now, staring down at the elf who stared back without flinching.

"Without my guidance," Gabilan insisted, "you will never find the cortex. I must come with you."

"What "cortex"?" Vigo quickly asked.

"It is a storage facility, sealed underwater. All the memories are there. I am one of the few who can access it."

Caleb looked at the rising waves and winds. It's below all of that? He remembered hearing about depth pressure in high school science, how you felt like you were being crushed the deeper you went. At the bottom, sunlight would not reach the sea floor, leaving it totally, utterly, dark. There were things down there that never saw the Sun.

Emily placed a hand on Vigo's shoulder. "We have to go there," she told him.

"No," Vigo replied, not looking back at her, "it's too dangerous. We can't trust him."

"I can trust him, and I will." With those words, Emily moved over to Gabilan's side and bent down to his face. "How do we get to the cortex?"

Gabilan appeared to calm down. "The docking platform is underneath the facility. A submarine is docked here that we can take, but it only has capacity for three people." Gabilan held eye contact with Emily, neither of them blinking. "The rest of you must stay behind and await our return."

"Only three of us?" Trellis repeated. "No, two of us, since you must be guiding the submarine."

Gabilan nodded to Trellis before closing his eyes against a heavy lashing of rain as it slammed onto his face. No one else spoke up in objection or agreement to the plan; no one seemed willing to at first.

"Trellis and I will go to the cortex," Emily finally stated. "The rest of you can stay in the Luna Moth. I assume it is refueled, Enzo?"

"The tank is filled up," Enzo said with a brief smirk. "Despite our intruders, the old girl is ready to go. Judging by this storm," he added with a grim look at the growing winds and waves, "we will need to fly off in a hurry."

"Emily," Vigo said worryingly, "This is too dangerous for just two of us."

"We can't fit anyone else into the submarine," Emily said while blinking quickly as a few droplets of rain got in her eyes. "Don't forget, the Guardian Council will need your guidance when it is fully formed. And Caleb needs to be cleaned of the Void's corruption."

"It would be better if we all had a hand in that," the older man suggested. "The Void may have rooted deep enough inside him that I would not be enough to remove it on my own."

"We don't have the time to take chances," Emily countered. "We have to think about Alledia, about the world. That is more important than one person's needs."

Vigo looked over to Caleb, knowing the teenager could hear what Emily was saying. Caleb just nodded along with Emily's words. Then he gasped and dropped to his knees as fresh pain blossomed inside his head.

"What's happening?!" Cogsley shouted.

"It's the corruption," Vigo answered while he raced over to Caleb. "It's spreading!"

Caleb barely heard them, and he did not see the black lines move further across his face, stretching down to his neck. He was occupied with a vision of something else…

…grunting and huffing as it ran underneath darkened skies. Heat billowed from nearby, fires springing from a destroyed farm. Two elves ran close by each other, but one looked back to see a monster wreathed in smoke. A giant elf with its body entirely on fire stood over the building's shattered remnants and looked down at the fleeing creatures. The elves seemed like ants to it, their home a simple mound it had kicked over for its own amusement.

"Brother!" The second elf, an older woman, stopped running and called out to her sibling in desperation. "Brother, we must leave, now!"

But the first elf did not move. Years of work was burning away, trampled by the footsteps of a god. The elf's golden-yellow eyes stared at the devastation as ash landed atop his uncovered head…

…which Caleb felt as raindrops as the vision ended. Opening his eyes slowly, he felt hands on his back holding him steady. Emily was kneeling in front of him, her eyes lit up with the pink glow of her amulet. She was close, too close.

Caleb twisted away from Emily's empowered gaze. Memories of Max Griffin and his hypnotism came back, along with the "Voice" that had called him "friend". The hands on the teenager's back kept him up, and the world came back to him in stages.

"You see?" Vigo's voice spoke from behind Caleb. "He needs our combined help, Emily. This must be fixed, now."

Caleb looked over to his right, where Cogsley and Dagno were standing. They were watching something to Caleb's left. Upon turning his head that way, feeling some stiffness in his neck as he did so, Caleb saw Enzo and Rico in the process of untying Gabilan from his bindings. They were all still on the platform, then. Only a few moments must have passed.

"Emily!" Vigo became more demanding towards the girl. "Are you listening to me?"

"We must be going, Stonekeepers," Gabilan insisted as he briskly rubbed his arms and wrists. "Our time is short."

"You don't tell us what to do, Gabilan." Everyone looked to Emily as she stood up, her amulet flaring bright pink. When she turned to the elf assassin, his jaw visibly tightened. "Trellis and I are coming with you, as I said. Don't even think about harming us down in the cortex."

The power of Emily's amulet leaked into her voice, amplifying her words into a command. "You will take us to the submarine dock," she ordered. For a few moments afterwards, the only sounds were the roaring waves and the pattering of rain on the platform.

"As you wish." Gabilan's words were stone cold when he finally spoke, showing remarkable willpower against Emily's command. On the other hand, it seemed likely that he was just going along with what he wanted to do. "Follow me, and be quick."

Gabilan, Emily, and Trellis all moved quickly into the darkness of Algos Island. Vigo and Cogsley raced up with them after a few seconds of whispered correspondence between themselves. Meanwhile, Enzo and Rico got Caleb standing again as the amount of rainwater on the platform threatened to make them slip.

"We'll get you some spare clothes, kid," Enzo said. His pipe bobbed erratically in his mouth as he talked. "If the old-timer's coming back, he can help fix this stuff you're going through."

"Okay," Caleb said as he pulled the ends of his borrowed cloak around his cold, wet body. "And thank you." Enzo rubbed his shoulder for a moment in acknowledgement before the three of them walked together back to the Luna Moth's rope ladder. The ladder was now whipping around in the winds, and all three climbers made sure to be careful when using it.

Once they were all on the Moth, Enzo went to the piloting cabin while Rico took Caleb back to the rear cabin from earlier. The darker space had some warmth the outside did not, providing a tiny level of comfort. As Rico left to get spare clothes, Caleb found himself feeling surprised at how often he was relying on the help of other people. This was not like the "help" given by a teammate on the track; lives were at stake here.

Had things been this bad on Earth?

Caleb thought back to the worst moments he had had since coming to Alledia. There was the stress of Karen being kidnapped in the dark. There was the terror of the Arachnopod and the pain from its venom. There was the sense of regret when Emily and Navin went to Lucien—he had forgotten to ask about that—and he had went to the Corvid instad. And just now there had been the heartbreak of seeing Emily showing immense sadness for his "corruption" by the "Void".

Those were real feelings. In fact, Caleb realized, his obsession with making sure the Hayes family was happy had come from a similar, real feeling. Now, after months of time in Alledia, the family seemed more confident in themselves, if not happy. Their feelings about themselves and their lives had changed. The children had grown up, forced to by their situations, and they had come out the other end stronger for it.

Caleb did want to stay with Emily. Navin, and Karen, but they were not the same as when he had left them. Like himself, they had all changed.

Emily seemed… colder. Still passionate, but more in control of herself. With Silas's amulet around her neck, she had a lot to stay in control of. Leon's training had clearly paid off. But war did not seem like it was the answer she had wanted. What would she become when the war was over?

Navin, from what Caleb remembered of him, was more confident and collected. A "Commander" in an army was clearly what Navin wanted to be in the future. His actions in Kanalis revealed a deeper intelligence beneath his young appearance. But was he ready to lead people into war?

Karen was the easiest person Caleb could judge for himself. She knew her children were experiencing new things and seemed okay with letting them do so. Her reaction to Silas creating a "spy" group like the Corvid showed her continuing trust in her grandfather. Strange as Silas had been, Karen still believed there was some good in him. Caleb felt more like that himself than when he had first met that sickened Stonekeeper.

Now, each member of the Hayes family had taken their own paths. They had their own destinies and problems to consider. They were beyond Caleb's needs to protect them. Therefore, the next person he should help is himself.

Caleb managed to smirk as he tried to conserve his body heat. At least I don't have to face my problems alone in this world. That was a blessing; anything would be great to block out the words of that Voice in the Void. If people like Emily could control it, things would probably turn out okay.

I hope.

Alright, that's all for now. The next chapter will need some more time to get ready, as the place Caleb will be at is not described very much in the canon material.

As usual, any feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated.

Draconos is taking off!