The Specter Key

by Kaleb Nation

  A wall made entirely made of crystal, like a towering stained-glass window, loomed before him. Its green light reflected on the water like a mirror, but what startled Bran the most was beyond the wall. For there, held captive behind its translucent surface, were the faces of thousands of people looking back at him.

  Chapter 31

  A Vision of What Was

  The faces gazed down at Bran, all eyes locked on the boy who had appeared before them. The green of the wall cast a strange shade across them so that the faces were misty, like looking through the steamy wall of a shower. He could see many pressed against the rock, though there were others behind them who were only smoky shadows, the motion of which revealed thousands of people stretching behind the wall.

  Bran could only stare at them with wide eyes. Their mournful gazes flicked back and forth between his face and his bag. So without taking his eyes off the ghostly faces, he pulled his bag off, reached inside, and drew out the Key.

  The forms dashed themselves against the green wall in a wild frenzy, pushing one another out of the way. Their mouths opened in shouts though he could hear no voices save for those his mind imagined for them.

  “Wait!” Bran said, holding his hand up, as they continued to scratch and claw against their prison, their empty eyes rolling in pain.

  “I’m here to help,” he said, his voice echoing through the empty cavern, but they paid him no heed.

  He looked around the cave again and saw that before him was a bridge. It was made entirely of flat stone and partly buried in the water, with barely an inch poking above the surface. It stopped a few feet from the other side. At the end was a circular platform, and in the center was a pillar of black stone.

  He turned his gaze back to the Specters, who fought and struggled to get to the Key, and then he started toward the bridge. The water on both sides was so still that when his shoes struck the stone, even that tiny impact caused little ripples. His pace quickened as he got closer to the pillar, even as the Specters’ fighting began to slow as their energies faded.

  The pillar was flat on all sides and solid like deep black concrete. It nearly reached his shoulders, and the top was engraved with markings that mirrored those he had seen in the room beyond the temple stairway: stars on the outside, then the moon, and the sun in the middle. In the center of the sun was a hole, inset with metal. It was a lock.

  “It’s for the Key,” he said aloud to Nim, realizing a second later that Nim was not there.

  “Nim?” he said, turning but finding that she had vanished. He hadn’t noticed her disappearance and couldn’t remember when he had last seen her. He knew she had come through the transora with him, but she was nowhere to be found.

  “Nim!” he called her again, louder, spinning and searching the cave for anywhere she might have flown off to. The cave was full of things that might have drawn her curiosity, but he felt for sure if she had gotten hurt or trapped somewhere she would have at least called for him.

  Looking up, Bran saw the Specters had quieted, their fighting had ceased, and they stared down at him, almost motionless. And then, right in their midst, for a fleeting second, he saw Astara.

  It was so quick that it was like the passing of her shadow. Unlike the others, her eyes were closed, and then she vanished once more.

  “Astara!” Bran shouted her name, and the Specters began to move once more. Bran was so startled at seeing Astara that he wasn’t entirely thinking straight, and jumping forward, he thrust the Key down into the lock like a sword.

  He clenched his teeth together, and he gripped the curved end of the Key, turning it with all his strength. It slid effortlessly in the lock, until it stopped and gave a click that resounded throughout the tunnel.

  The green gem in the Key glimmered, flashing once like a diamond in the sun, then fading. In that same moment, the glow of the crystalline wall that held the Specters vanished, so that he was left in darkness. The black was so complete that he could see nothing but the gentle glow of the Key, which stood atop the pillar like a candle, until it too faded. The pace of his heartbeat quickened as he felt magic begin to stir in the room.

  Then, as if Bran had been sleeping before and had simply opened his eyes to find himself back in a place that was all too familiar, the smothering dark gave way, and Bran was standing in the middle of Bolton Road. Flashing lights from police cruisers cast strange shadows up and down the house before him.

  It was like Bran had been plunged back in time, to the night Astara had died. This time, however, all the other people had disappeared.

  Then, as if she had been there all the time, and Bran had simply not noticed, Astara was standing before him. She was in the doorway of the house, staring at Bran, and she was so real, and it was so startling to see her again, that he could do little but stare back.

  “Astara…” he whispered.

  “Bran,” she replied, in that same soft voice he had longed to hear.

  “You’re here,” Bran said. “I’ve actually found you!”

  He started for her but found that his feet could not move from the spot. He looked back up at her with dismay, and her eyes were filled with sadness.

  “What’s the matter?” Bran asked. Astara looked as if she was about to cry.

  “You can’t save me, Bran,” she said. She did not move, only lifted her hand, and he saw that she was also rooted in the same spot in the doorway where she had died.

  “What do you mean?” Bran said with desperation. “I’ve come to free you and the Specters. They’ll give you back.”

  “No, Bran,” Astara shook her head sadly, and her hair fell over her shoulders. “You’ve been misled. Everything has been a lie.”

  There was so much torment in her voice that Bran felt his heart drop, and a stone seemed to form in his throat.

  “Don’t say that,” Bran choked. “I’m here for you. I’m going to free them. Then they’ll let you go.”

  “It won’t be enough,” Astara said. “The Key controls the Specters’ souls: whoever holds it holds power over them and the powers of their souls. Only the person who holds it can set them free.”

  It was strange how Astara spoke; it was layered as if her voice were mixed with others. When she spoke of “their souls,” he heard other voices replace it with “our souls,” as if while she was speaking, the Specters were as well.

  “But I have the Key,” Bran said. “I’ve brought it.”

  “Yes,” Astara said. “You can free them with it.”

  There was a catch in her voice that rendered Bran unable to speak.

  “And if you set them free,” Astara said, “my soul will be freed with theirs.”

  Her words confused Bran for a few moments, so that he could not understand exactly what she was trying to say. But then, it sank in. If Bran freed the Specters, then he would free Astara as well, and if she were freed, then she would pass with them.

  “How do you know this for sure?” Bran stammered, trying to fight against the surety with which she spoke her words.

  “I know nothing, Bran,” Astara said, and he saw the tears begin to roll down the side of her face. “I don’t even know what has happened here. But I am their prisoner.”

  She is our prisoner, the echo of the Specters’ voices resounded within Bran’s head, even when Astara’s lips had stopped moving.

  “Then I can’t do it,” Bran said. “I’ll find another way. I’ll find somehow—”

  “You have to set them free, Bran,” Astara said. “You know you must.”

  “But I can’t let you die,” Bran said, and he began to sob softly, his eyes filling with tears as she tried to reach for him.

  “I can’t go back home if you’re not there,” Bran said, choking on his words. “It just won’t be right. I can never just go back home and feel the same.”

  “But you’ve got to make the right choice,
” Astara said. “You know what you have to do, Bran. You can’t let me get in the way of that. You must set them free.”

  “I can’t just—” Bran started to say, but then a dash of blackness, like smoke drawing across his vision, blotted the world out from around him. As if he had fallen through a trap door, Bran found himself back in the cave underground, knocked to the side and hitting his head against the stone.

  “Mind if I interrupt, Bran?” he heard a sharp voice say, and he looked up. Standing over him, with one hand still clutching the Key she had removed from the stone, was Elspeth.

  Chapter 32

  A Betrayal

  Startled, Bran wasn’t even sure that he was back in reality once more until he saw Elspeth’s wand pointed down at him. And then Bran saw, standing not three feet behind Elspeth, holding a pistol ready to kill him if he made a wrong move, his own father.

  “How did you get here?” was all Bran could muster to say.

  “Is that the first thing you wonder, Bran?” Elspeth said. She waved her hand at Thomas.

  “You’ve seen the fairy,” she said. “You know what she can do. It was her powers that made you believe you had gotten away with stealing my part of the map.”

  Elspeth laughed lightly. “You didn’t once think that she might be leading Thomas and me here?”

  Bran was aghast, and he looked past Elspeth at Thomas, whose eyes showed neither regret nor shame for what he had done.

  “How could you betray me after all this?” Bran said. Thomas’s face still held no sign of remorse.

  “Was it all just an act?” Bran asked.

  “Unfortunately, it was,” Thomas replied. “I’m quite ashamed of you. Obviously you did not inherit my sense of judgment, for I fooled you easily.”

  Bran thought he had set up every defense against this man, but it felt as if his heart had been torn from his chest and split into pieces. Turning his head so he wouldn’t have to look at his father, he noticed that Elspeth was holding the Key.

  “No, you can’t—” he shouted, jumping to his feet and diving for her, but her wand was faster, flinging him up and throwing him against the stone bridge. He caught himself, but his mother’s wand went clattering down the bridge and rolled so that its tip was hanging precariously over the edge.

  “You didn’t think for once, Bran,” Elspeth said, “that all of this has been part of a great plan? You didn’t think at all that your father and I have been in league with each other, leading you along so you might get the piece of the map from Gary and put them all together and come here?”

  She smirked. “You’ve trusted far too many people, and believed too many lies. Putting this Key into the lock does not free the Specters. It merely removes the Key’s protections.”

  She looked down at it in her hands and smiled. Bran got up again to fight her, raising his hand to seize the Key with magic, but she barely had to flick the wand in her wrist to send him back again.

  “You can’t take the Key!” Bran shouted. “You have no idea what it does!”

  “Yes, I do, Bran,” she replied, in her low hiss. “I know full well whom this Key commands and how powerful are the ones controlled by it. Was I not part of the very Curse that enslaved them?”

  She drew her wand upward, and Bran was lifted from his knees, lurching forward through the air with his arms bent behind his back, until he was hovering inches from her face, clenching his jaw in pain.

  “It is you who does not understand their powers or their worth,” she hissed. Then she laughed. “You cannot free the Specters. If you hold the Key, you cannot command them to be freed, for your very command only extends your dominion over them.”

  “My mother left the Key for me to free them,” Bran hissed through clenched teeth. “She would not have done that if there was no way.”

  “If that was her intention,” Elspeth replied. “But if the bearer of the Key controls the Specters, why did she not free them herself?”

  Her words sank into Bran’s mind slowly, until he realized just how true they rang. He had placed the Key in the lock, and nothing had changed. It was shocking to think that Elspeth might be right and all his efforts had been in vain.

  “And you and my father have been working together all this time,” Bran gasped.

  “You might have thought that was the case,” Elspeth said and spun from Bran with her wand out. Thomas—who had crept up behind Elspeth while she was distracted and aimed a pistol at her back—flew through the air, slamming into the black pillar. His gun fell away, and two tiny bursts of black substance flew from Elspeth’s wand, striking against each of Thomas’s wrists. In a second, he was bound to the pillar, his hands pulled back and stuck.

  “Should I be diverted enough to leave you to your own devices?” Elspeth mocked, as she looked at him, his eyes squeezed shut in pain.

  “All in your pursuit of ending Joris’s life?” she said. “Perhaps I should guess that my life is also on your list of vengeances?”

  “I’ll kill you both yet,” Thomas said, and his voice filled with scorn and hatred. Bran realized that Thomas had had his own plans all along, to kill Elspeth there.

  “I swore to hunt you both until you were dead at my feet,” Thomas seethed, his face going red with rage as he fought the bonds to no avail.

  “Well, unfortunately for you,” Elspeth said, “I shall be leaving you here to die in a cave.”

  She smiled again. “Does such a death ring familiar?”

  Bran, seeing Elspeth distracted, leapt to his feet.

  “Bilali feiro!” he shouted, the first magic that came to his mind. But Elspeth spun around, throwing him back once more and deflecting the ball of fire into the water, where it fizzled in sparks and disappeared.

  “You’re just as foolish as Emry was,” Elspeth said. “Both of you.”

  Bran crawled up again, so desperate to stop her that he continued to fight, throwing another magic her way—a bright yellow beam of energy from his palm. She was startled for a second but lifted her hand and deflected it into the wall of rock, so that it crumbled bits of stone that fell into the water.

  “Do you dare fight me?” she said, stepping toward Bran. “Is this some type of game, so that I might be forced to kill you quickly?”

  Bran rolled over, ready to do whatever he must to keep fighting her, seeing amusement in her eyes that he continued to struggle when her skills with magic could overcome his powers due to his lack of experience. But while her eyes were trained on him, Bran noticed a small motion from Thomas. His father had bent his head down and worked the buttoned flap of his shirt pocket open with his teeth. He then managed to pull something out of it and drop it gently upon the bridge.

  It was a flower.

  Bran wasn’t sure what was happening but came to his feet, and bringing both hands together he was able to combine powers, drawing air and dust from all around the room, launching them at Elspeth like an arrow. It was such a puny and unfocused move that Elspeth laughed and waved her wand in front of her face, chopping Bran’s magic so that it fell apart.

  “These magics are an embarrassment for one of your power,” she said. Bran was able to glance past her again and saw Nim sprout from the flower. Nim flapped her wings in determination, and though her eyes were free of the green glow, she crawled across Thomas’s arms like a bee and began to bite at the black paste that held him.

  She was so small that she could do very little at a time, biting some away and spitting it out, slowly nibbling her way though his bonds. Bran held his breath and quickly darted his eyes back to Elspeth before she noticed his preoccupation.

  “Will you fight me more?” Elspeth asked in arrogant invitation. “I took so much joy in killing your mother. Perhaps the son will provide more amusement?”

  “Or perhaps you’ll be killed by him,” Bran said to taunt her, trying to keep her attention on him.


  “I doubt that very much,” Elspeth said as she slowly approached him, wand out and ready for whatever he tried next. So he launched another pitiful magic at her, attempting to pull her feet out from under her. She stumbled for barely a step but caught herself and swung her arm, flinging Bran to the side, a loud slap across his body like a hand striking him. He shouted in pain and rolled to his back, his left side burning.

  “Another!” Elspeth taunted him. Bran saw one of Thomas’s hands come free, but Thomas held it against the stone as if it was still bound, as Nim started on the other side. Thomas’s eyes met with Bran’s for a moment, and his were filled with helpless fury, catching Bran by surprise. Thomas had showed little care for him before. Bran’s heartbeat quickened, sure that at any moment Elspeth would realize what was happening behind her back. So from the ground, he attacked her again, and she slapped him harder this time so that his face rolled over the edge of the bridge, and he was looking into the water.

  Pain screamed from his face, but he could see no bruise nor marking in his reflection. It felt as if Elspeth had struck him with the back of her hand.

  “Will you continue?” Elspeth said with another cruel laugh. Bran could not get to his feet, but he rolled over painfully. He saw Nim working furiously, and Bran’s palms were sweating.

  Nim finally bit her way through the other side and swirled up into the air. Thomas’s hands were free, but Elspeth spun with realization, slamming him back into the pillar again. Nim shot through the air like a bullet, diving at Elspeth and screaming in a monstrous hiss. She bared her teeth and sank them into Elspeth’s exposed neck.