by Kaleb Nation
“That’s a bit difficult from this position!” Bran said. Thomas didn’t seem to care. There was a collection of large freight trucks headed their way, and even though Bran was trying his hardest, from the passenger seat it was nearly impossible to even stay in the boundaries of the road.
The gruner, much to Bran’s dismay, had actually caught up with them. Thomas had run out of bullets, so he tossed the empty gun into the back seat and reached across to Bran’s side, pulling another gun from between his seat and the middle compartment.
“How many guns have you got in this car?” Bran demanded.
“Not nearly enough,” Thomas replied, shooting three more times at the beast. It seemed entirely unperturbed, as if the bullets merely bounced off its hide. It leapt forward in the air, slamming against the car with its body like a wrecking ball, and the wheel jerked in Bran’s grasp.
“He just dented the car!” Thomas roared.
The car sped onto a bridge, the gruner still right beside them. It slammed into the side again with a possessed roar, throwing the car against the railing and causing sparks to fly as metal brushed metal. Thomas tossed his useless gun and reached under his seat. He produced yet another gun, this one twice the size. The recoil of this one threw Thomas back against the wheel when he shot it, and Bran lost his hold. The car flew in and out of their lane dangerously. A truck had to swerve to avoid them as they rocketed over the bridge.
“Missed him again,” Thomas said as the beast lunged ahead and reached the window of the car. Its face was right in line with them, seething for air as it kept in pace with them. It roared and jumped at the window, but Thomas drew back just in time. It once again rammed into the car, grinding them against the guard rail.
Bran was thrown about in his seat. He saw the beast leap forward, snapping at the window and nearly reaching Thomas’s neck. Bran had had enough. Thomas was obviously getting nowhere, so with his free hand he reached behind the seat, pulling his mother’s wand free from the front pocket of his luggage. He blasted magic out of its tip toward the gruner. The powers hit the creature, and it was thrown from the car and into the other lane, where it was struck head-on by a passing freight truck.
Thomas grabbed the wheel and slammed on the brakes. One final truck passed on the other side of the road, narrowly missing them and then swerving to miss the body of the gruner, which sat like a black, hairy mound in the middle of the bridge.
“What do you think you’re doing, Bran?” Thomas roared. He slammed his fist into the wand so hard that it fell from Bran’s grasp. Thomas then spun the car around in a U-turn, sliding into the other lane and rumbling to a stop in the middle of the road. He leapt out, tearing the hat off his head and coming up to the creature. Bran jumped out the other side, the engine still running.
“That was magic!” Thomas shouted, stopping in the road and looking wildly at Bran. “You’re never to use magic in this car!”
“But look, he’s dead!” Bran shouted, gesturing to the creature. “He almost had us.”
“No!” Thomas burst, and his eyes were filled with such rage that Bran drew back, ready to defend himself.
“Never use magic to kill, do you understand?” Thomas said. He spun again, as if he didn’t even want to look at Bran’s face any longer. He still held the gun in his hand, and he waved it at the gruner, blasting one shot at its body, and then a second and a third.
“Look, it’s already dead!” Bran protested.
“It’s not the first time that one’s been dead, Bran,” he said, but he stopped and turned to the car and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt, putting the hat back on.
“Would you mind telling me what you’re thinking?” Bran demanded, but his father just walked to the car, reaching inside and grabbing a bottle of water. He downed a gulp.
“I don’t guess we’re in a worse position now though,” Thomas said, ignoring Bran. “Elsepth’ll be heading this way soon enough, once she gets a hold of Joris.” Thomas smiled. “And once he’s on board, the real killing can begin.”
“But now that you’ve completely broken our deal with them not ten minutes after making it,” Bran burst, “how do you think we’re going to get that piece of the map?”
He was beside himself with anger, and Thomas flashed a grin that made Bran even more irate. Nim appeared from the car at just that moment, unshaken by the ordeal in her present robotic state. Thomas nodded in her direction, and she flew to his side, and he said nothing as he went around to the back of the car and opened the trunk.
“You’re not going to answer me, are you?” Bran asked. “You know if I don’t get into the temple, you’re not getting the Key.”
“Oh really? I’d forgotten,” Thomas replied in a snarl. “Perhaps remind me of it once or twice or fifty times more. Maybe I’ll start to understand then.”
He drew the music box out of the trunk and started to turn the wheel. Nim leapt toward it, and Thomas opened the lid so that she could go inside. He slammed it shut and then placed it at the bottom of the trunk and reached for his computer bag, drawing a laptop out and starting it up. Bran watched silently as Thomas pulled out a thin wire and wrapped its exposed end around the metal handle of the music box.
“Watch closely,” Thomas said, and he pressed a few buttons on his computer. A program popped up, and Thomas punched a string of keys into it, bringing another window in front of the others. He clicked once, and it began to play a video. It was the very spot they had met Elspeth not fifteen minutes before.
“How did…?” he began, but whatever it was stopped as the window wavered a bit, and Thomas pressed another key. It began to fast forward through Elspeth getting out of her car and then speaking in a garbled noise.
“This was all filmed from Nim’s eyes!” Bran burst with realization. Thomas nodded. Nim’s eyes had recorded everything he had done since getting her, allowing Thomas to following his every move.
“Isn’t that magic?” Bran managed to gasp out, because he could hardly say anything more coherent.
“Not in the slightest,” Thomas said. “It is entirely mechanical. The box reads the sensors connected to Nim’s eyes and brain, and these wires transfer those signals to my computer. No magic needed at all.”
“I might have been able to Comsar with her faster,” Bran returned.
“But your magic would have fallen short,” Thomas replied. “Even Comsar powers could not match with the ability of my sensors to do this…”
He struck a key, and the image froze. Thomas pressed two keys, and the image blew up larger until it filled the screen, and there was a precise and sharp image of Elspeth’s piece of the map.
“See?” Thomas said. “I had it figured out from the beginning. But were you about to listen to me? Of course not.”
He tapped a few keys, saving the image while Bran could do little but stand there. Curiously, he had a small printer in his trunk as well as many other gadgets that Bran did not recognize, and he only had to slide away a pile of handguns and bullets to uncover it.
“Think about it,” Thomas said as he worked. “What sort of deal were we making there? Give Elspeth the Key when we were down in the temple? She knows just as well as I do that once we’re there, and once you free the Specters, there won’t be any power left. Why would she even agree to something as stupid as that?”
“She was going to double-cross us,” Bran realized.
“Right,” Thomas replied. “It was too stupid of a deal for her to simply agree. Elspeth is far smarter than that. She had other plans, and I wasn’t about to fall into her trap.”
Bran felt a bit stupid for not thinking it through as much as his father had but consoled himself with the fact that Thomas had worked with Elspeth before. Still, even as Thomas closed the computer and opened the music box to set Nim free, Bran could not help feeling dejected.
“W-why are you doing this?” Br
an stammered. Thomas looked at him.
“Doing what?”
“Helping me,” Bran said. “What use do you even have for the Key?”
Thomas was silent as he slid the items in the trunk and closed the lid. He glanced at Bran, as if trying to see through his question.
“Imagine this, Bran, if you can fathom it,” Thomas said, wiping his hands against each other. “I loved your mother, though others might have led you to believe that I’m some sort of monster who led her astray.
“I was led to think that if both of us followed orders and did as we were told, we would one day be able to live freely while those around us did not. However, I discovered many years later that it was all a scheme by Joris, who was using us to make himself great amounts of money—ruining Emry and causing her death.”
Bran was dismayed by Thomas’s words. “You’re one to talk about ruining my mother, as if you had no part in it.”
Thomas narrowed his eyes. “So you’ll listen to Gary above your own father? You think I’m the only person who played a part in ruining your mother?”
“I believe what Gary told me,” Bran said.
“I did little corrupting of your mother besides taking her when Gary left,” Thomas replied, his jaw tightening. He set his fist lightly upon the car. “It was magic that led your mother wrong. It was magic and the manipulation of Joris and Elspeth and Baslyn. It was magic that led us all astray.”
He waved his hand. “We’re cursed with it, Bran! Can’t you see the death and destruction and evil that magic has caused? How many creatures have we killed with it? If not for magic, your mother would still be alive.”
Bran drew a deep breath but said nothing in defense.
“But,” Thomas said, calming himself slightly when Bran did not respond, “I can hardly wage war against something as invisible and formless as magic, so I am forced to wreak my vengeance upon more physical enemies: Elspeth and Joris. I cannot rest soundly until they have suffered the same fate that your mother did. If you had any honor within you, Bran, you would seek their murder just as deeply as I do.”
“Murdering them would make me no different than they are,” Bran said between his teeth.
“No matter,” Thomas said. “Not all of us think in the same way. I, however, cannot feel any peace until I see both of them dead. I’m haunted by images of Emry and the great deception that was drawn over both of us.”
Bran, as angry as he was, could not help but detect an unexpected emotion coming from Thomas. It seemed as if he were about to weep right there, though no tears shone in his eyes. Thomas hid it well, but even that slight change caused Bran’s anger to waver.
“You weren’t the only person who lost her,” Bran said, his voice coming out as a hiss. “I don’t remember anything about her. Gary had to watch her leave because he stood for something right. So don’t think for a minute that this has been hardest on you.”
Thomas looked away at that, as if Bran had hit him, and said nothing in reply. Bran stared at him with sharp and angry eyes. Thomas shrank under the weight of Bran’s words.
“Well, then,” Thomas finally said. “I suppose we have little choice but to go on working with each other if we want to make anything good come of this.”
“And what is it you propose?” Bran asked.
“A new deal,” Thomas said. “Or the first one, altered slightly. Joris and Elspeth will inevitably follow us, and they know where we’re headed. I have absolutely no intention of letting either of them claim that Key—or its powers—before you have freed the Specters and rendered it useless.”
“And what’s my part of it?” Bran asked.
“Very little you aren’t already accustomed to,” Thomas said.
“Just act as bait, for Joris and Elspeth?” Bran said. Thomas nodded.
“And that’s all?” Bran pressed.
“Once we’re at the temple, you can go in by yourself. I will wait outside and kill both of them when they arrive.”
“And what if they overpower you?” Bran said. “One’s a mage, and the other has gotten away from you before, I imagine. I don’t think either of them will go down easily.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Thomas said. “I can take care of them both.”
“Then it’s a deal,” Bran said. “You bring me there, and I’ll act as bait, and we never have to see each other again.”
Thomas tilted his head to the side at Bran’s last words, but he covered it with a nod toward the car.
“We’ve got a bit of driving ahead of us,” he said. “We should be off.”
Chapter 29
An Angel in the Desert
Thomas drove for two days, only stopping for a few hours of rest each night, pulling off the road and laying the seats back. He and Bran rarely spoke until the last evening.
“A few more miles, I would guess,” Thomas said. The road had taken them far out of the city, into a desert-like place with rocks and cactus and great hills of sand that blocked most of what was beyond. The sun had started to set, so that Thomas had to turn on the headlights as they drove. Where the hills sloped down, Bran could see the faint glow of a city far off to the west.
“Dansby,” Thomas said, when he saw Bran looking. “We’re actually closer to Dunce than we were in East Dinsmore, in a roundabout way.”
“Maybe I should stop by home,” Bran said. “Grab some snacks.”
“Or more bullets,” Thomas suggested.
“You need more?” Bran asked.
“A man can never have too many bullets,” Thomas declared. “Nor can he have too many firearms on his person at one time.”
“You plan on starting a war?” Bran asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” Thomas said. “But I’ll be able to finish one, if need be.”
“You think there’ll be a war sometime soon?”
“There will be a war,” Thomas replied after a deep breath, all sarcasm gone.
“And you know this for a fact?” Bran asked.
“Assuredly,” Thomas nodded. “It will be a war unlike any this world has seen. All of nature seems to be preparing for it. And those like you, who rely on magic, will wish they had been as those like me, who rely on things not.”
Bran did not know whether to take that as an insult or a warning, or just Thomas being less than serious, as he commonly seemed to be.
“And here we are,” Thomas said, removing any chance Bran had of pressing him further. Bran looked out the window and saw that they had come to a dip in the road with rocky sides. The road cut straight through, but Thomas stopped before the stones and pulled off the road.
“A few miles off that way is where it’ll be,” he said.
“We’re going to walk?” Bran asked.
“I’d prefer to call it hiking,” Thomas replied. So Bran climbed out of the car with his backpack, and Thomas walked around to open the trunk. He first took out a backpack of his own and then heaved a large wooden crate out, setting it gently onto the ground. There were two long ropes attached in a loop to the sides of the box and small ski-like protrusions at the bottom so that it would slide easily. Thomas put his pack on, wrapped the ropes over his shoulder, and started to drag the crate behind him.
“This way,” he said as he slammed the trunk. And so Bran and his father started off into the sands, toward the light of the setting sun.
The day had worn on; the air around them cooler than Bran expected. He didn’t think that this place could actually be considered a desert, more a very rocky and sandy place, which is very close to the definition of a desert anyway. Bran debated with himself on whether it was a desert or not until he felt silly. The sand and the rocks got old and boring very quickly, especially when both got into his shoes.
They trudged ahead with Thomas leading the way. Bran was thankful that his backpack held so few things, because Thom
as’s seemed to be rather full, though the man showed no sign of complaint. The crate slid lightly over the sand like a sled.
“What’s in the crate?” Bran asked.
“My sins,” replied the man amusedly, as the weight of it dragged behind him.
“Is that why it’s so heavy?” Bran asked. Thomas regarded Bran with a raised eyebrow.
“Unbearably so.” He heaved it forward. They stepped over rocks and came to high pillars of dark gray stone, made rough from sandstorms and wind. Thomas navigated around them, leading them straight on toward the sun, which was now only a tiny line on the horizon. Nim flittered back and forth until her curiosity about every lizard and fly was satisfied.
“Will you know the way when the sun goes down?” Bran said.
“No, we’ll be hopelessly lost,” Thomas replied. “And perhaps eaten by desert ronchins.”
“But I hear they prefer to eat adults over teenagers,” Bran said, having no clue what a desert ronchin was, but his father’s sarcasm was beginning to annoy him.
“Actually, they eat sand,” Thomas said, pulling the crate forward. “Suck it up through their snout like water through a straw. Such a curiosity.”
“Are you just making this up as you go along?” Bran said skeptically.
“Why would I make up a thing like that?” Thomas said, faking hurt.
“I don’t know,” Bran said, trudging along. “I can’t ever tell when you’re lying or telling the truth.”
“Oh, my poor aching heart,” Thomas said, putting his fist to his chest as if he were holding a knife. “You always think the worst of me.”
“Give me a reason to think otherwise,” Bran said.
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Thomas said plainly. “I could have shot and killed you a thousand times already in that car. Or I could have mixed in some uldiah leaf with your food and watched you burn up from the inside until you went mad.”
“Would you actually do that?” Bran asked.
“Would you do it to me?” Thomas replied.
