“Who is Creed?” Shon asked Vdekshi again, this time out loud. The minotaur’s facial expressions were so alien to Shon that he couldn’t discern anything from them, but the magic of his mind confirmed what Shon already guessed. Not a single thought or memory bubbled to the surface of Vdekshi’s mind when Shon had said the name, meaning that he didn’t know anything about the nightmare entity, or he was exceptionally good at hiding his thoughts, even from himself.

“I don’t,” Vdekshi began, but Shon cut him off.

“Never mind,” Shon said. “Something came in here a few moments ago and then left. It was something bad. Something really bad from some old nightmares that I thought I had forgotten. It wasn’t here for me though. It was here to talk to Gravine.”

They both looked at the green gem in the silver staff. Sickly green vapor was seeping out of the myriad of cracks along the stone’s surface. “Is that what’s causing this?” Vdekshi asked. As he spoke, his breathing began to become rapid and shallow. “Is that what’s giving Gravine the power to break his prison?”

“I don’t know,” Shon replied. “I wasn’t able to understand everything. I clearly wasn’t meant to be able to listen in to the exchange. But some parts of it got… loud. Like an argument, or a parent scolding a child who broke a serious rule. The loudest part was right after Gravine said its name was Creed. He was clearly not supposed to reveal that name.” Shon looked at the cracks, still spreading and multiplying. “I don’t think that Creed is trying to free Gravine. I think he might be trying to destroy him. Maybe that’s why Creed negated all the deals that Gravine has made over the years.”

“He did WHAT?!” Vdeskhi bellowed and stood up, and Shon couldn’t stop himself from reflexively flinching, as if expecting a physical beating. The minotaur looked larger and more menacing than anything he had seen in his life. Except perhaps for the poison dragon. Shon felt a stabbing headache. “He can’t do that!!”

As if in response, the pounding on the door to the sanctuary intensified. “Look, obviously he can and he did,” replied Shon. “Gravine made some big, serious oath to Creed, and when he broke it, every other oath of his broke down.”

Vdekshi fell to his knees. His breath was now coming fast and gasping. Saliva dripped from his open mouth, and then foam started to form around his lips. It was tinged with purple. “You don’t understand,” Vdekshi said through clenched teeth. “The first oath that Gravine made since his imprisonment was to me. His power is what sustains me. It’s what keeps the poison from consuming me.”

“The poison?” Shon watched the purple in Vdekshi’s spittle turn to a darker shade of purple. As the reality of the situation hit him, Shon stood up from his chair and backed away from the minotaur. The only word he could manage to say was, “How?”

“The monastery where I trained was built to safeguard many dangerous relics,” Vdekshi said, a purple tear running down his eye. “The prison of Gravine was one, the poison was another. We don’t know where the poison came from, but it was said that it could give one the strength of a hundred. One night we were attacked with no warning or provocation. Every monk but me was killed within minutes. Gravine convinced me that the only way for me to keep them from getting their hands on his power was to use the poison to fight them off.”

“It must have worked,” Shon said, trying to keep Vdekshi talking. He could feel the minotaur’s rage building with every hammering heartbeat.

“Far too well,” Vdekshi said. He made a sound as if he was going to retch, then he went on. “I hardly remember the battle at all. Only the screams and the cracking. I would have likely lost my mind, but that damned Gravine started siphoning off the power released from the deaths of the attackers, then he channeled it into me to bring me back to my senses. That’s when he made an oath to me that he would use his magic to keep the poison from killing me. That way I could still ensure that he wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. But in return, I had to make sure he had access to enough power to keep his end of the bargain.”

“That’s why you experimented with the poison on the dragon,” Shon said, wincing at the pain of the memory. “You were trying to find some way to survive the poison without needing to use necromancy anymore.” Shon then thought of the thick, purple scar that had been on Tarun’s arm until Seth had healed it. “And that’s why you’re so desperate to meet my friend Tarun. Because he somehow survived the poison himself.”

“Yes!” Vdekshi shouted, then pounded a fist against the floor, causing Shon to flinch again. “But then YOU had to send him on some foolish errand instead of having him come straight here! You ruined the best chance I ever had of being cured, and it was SO close!”

“That’s right!” Shon said, holding his hands out flat, trying to calm Vdekshi down. “They ARE close! You just need to hang in there a little longer and Tarun and Seth will be here. Just stay calm.”

“How?!” Shouted Vdekshi. “For decades the only thing that has kept the poison and rage away has been my oath with Gravine. Now that it’s gone, both are consuming me body and soul. My fingers are trembling with the desire to strangle you every time I hear you speak. I spent years of my life training as a monk to master my base impulses and reject anger, hate, and violence. But all of that training can barely keep me from killing you where you stand. What else do you expect me to do?”

Shon was terrified, but he tried to keep his voice calm and quiet, even as the pounding at the door grew even louder. “Please, Vdekshi,” Shon began, but then he stopped. Shon noticed something for the first time. Every time he said Vdekshi’s name, he could feel a new surge of anger radiate from the minotaur. The same kind of anger he felt from someone when he called them by the wrong name.

In an instant, Shon knew what he needed to do. He didn’t have time to consider the danger it would put him in, or what might happen if it didn’t work. Like following Solimar through the forest, Shon knew that if he stopped to think about what he was doing, he’d end up tripping over himself. Realization, decision, and action were all taking place in the same moment.

Shon stepped forward and gently placed a hand on one of Vdekshi’s horns. He didn’t have time to unspool his father’s filament, and he needed direct contact to do what he wanted to. The moment that Shon touched him, their minds connected, like he had with Tarun on the day he woke up in the healer’s hut.

All at once, things seemed to slow down for both of them. It was much quieter too. The pounding at the door hadn’t gone away, but it now seemed more distant, and the pace of it seemed to slow down from a cacophony of thumps and crashes to something that sounded deep, slow, and rhythmic.

Shon didn’t speak with his lips or the voice of his body, but in his mind he said, “Mendoji, you need to trust us now. You need to trust me.”

“How do you know that name?” The minotaur’s reply came not from his lips, but directly from his thoughts, the same way Shon had spoken to him. Like the rest of the world moving slowly around them, his expression and gestures could not keep up with the exchange of thoughts, but Shon sensed strong feelings of surprise, gratitude, and distrust all tangled together in the message. “Is that another name that Gravine revealed to you? Did he tell you to call me Mendoji? Did you read my memories to find the name and use it against me?”

“Nothing like that at all,” Shon replied, trying to convey a sense of calming assurance in his thoughts. “I didn’t call you Mendoji. I perceived that the name Vdekshi was not your true name, but merely the name that everyone calls you, except for yourself. When I told you to trust me, I tried to let go of the words and simply send the meaning to you. At the same time, I wanted to do the same thing with your name. I let go of the assumption that your name was Vdekshi, and instead just convey the thought that I wanted to address you by your true name. The name you call yourself. Your mind made sense of the message by putting them into words, which apparently included the word Mendoji for your name. You’re doing the same thing now, in fact. I don’t know how to explain how I learned your name, let alone put that explanation into words. Especially in a terrifying situation like this. So instead of trying to explain, I’m simply sending you my understanding of what happened, and I trust that your mind is making sense of it all, perhaps by putting it into words.”

Shon then added, “Though based on how long it’s taking you to respond, I assume all of that unfiltered information must have translated into a very longwinded explanation.”

“Indeed it did,” the minotaur replied, with a tinge of amusement in his thoughts.

“May I call you Mendoji now?” Shon asked. “It seems to be what you call yourself, and your thoughts seem to brighten and become a little more hopeful when I use that name.” Shon sensed the coming of a defensive reply and hastily added, “I promise I will never use that name against you or to intentionally hurt you. Not like Gravine did.”

“Yes, you may call me Mendoji,” replied Mendoji. The thought was accompanied by a great feeling of relief and hope. “It’s nice to know that Mendoji was still the name that I called myself, deep down.”

“Mendoji, I need you to trust me,” Shon said again. “I think I can help you survive the poison, and help myself survive your urge to strangle me and stomp me into the carpet. But it’s going to be tricky, and will require your full cooperation. If you resist, we both die. And we don’t have much time.”

“And yet you’ve somehow given us more time,” Mendoji replied. “All the world seems to move like a snail, except for our thoughts. From our enemies to the beating of my own heart, everything seems to have slowed down. I didn’t realize your magic could do that.”

“To be honest,” said Shon, “neither did I. I’ve only connected to someone else’s mind like this twice before in my life. The first time was with my friend Tarun in a healer’s hut, but there was very little going on so neither of us took much notice of the passing of time. The second time was with my friend Solimar.” The word “friend” flowed so effortlessly from Shon’s mind when describing the taciturn elf that it caught him unaware. A great surge of emotion and memories concerning the elf poured out from Shon before he could control it enough to move on.

“When I connected to Solimar’s mind, we were both focused exclusively on that moment,” Shon continued, his now raw emotions of grief and gratitude for the elf still seeping into the message. “So if time had moved slower then, I wouldn’t have noticed it.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Mendoji. Shon knew that if the Mendoji’s tears could keep up with his thoughts, the minotaur would have been weeping as he spoke. “I’m so very sorry that your friend died because of me. I had no idea how much suffering my experiment with the poison and the dragon would cause. I thought it was the only way.”

“You’ve been deceived into thinking there was only one way for a long time now,” Shon said. His thoughts were sympathetic, but also firm. “Gravine convinced you that using the poison was the only way to fulfill you duty as a monk, and then he convinced you that relying on his necromancy was the only way to keep him under control. Laronius convinced you that the only way to get Tarun and me to meet with you was to use force.”

“They were the only options I could see,” said Mendoji.

“Exactly,” said Shon. “None of us call see all sides. You need allies and peers you can trust, Mendoji. Not just servants and minions. Please. Trust me.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Mendoji.

“I want you to meditate,” said Shon. “When Solimar and I were tracking creatures affected by the poison, I noticed that their deaths were most often caused by violence, but sometimes it was simply the fact that their hearts couldn’t take the strain. They literally couldn’t survive their own rage.”

“Your solution is simply for me to calm down?” Mendoji was clearly feeling indignant. “After suffering with this affliction for decades, you think I haven’t considered simply meditating and controlling my emotions? Do you really think it’s that easy?!” Mendoji punctuated his last question by letting loose a string of memories of failed attempts to meditate and wasted hours of effort followed by the shame of another life lost to fuel another necromantic treatment by Gravine. Shon could tell that Mendoji’s anger was building, and soon it would be out of control, even linked as they were.”

“I WASN’T FINISHED, MENDOJI.” Shon boomed his thoughts across. If this had been a typical conversation, spoken out loud, Shon might have apologized and tried to walk back his words to explain he hadn’t meant any offense. But this was not such a conversation, and Shon did not hesitate to say what needed to be said. “I AM NOT YOUR SERVANT TO COMMAND. I AM NOT YOUR PRISONER TO SUBJUGATE. I AM NOT YOUR VICTIM TO BE PITIED. NOR AM I A BYSTANDER TO BE SHELTERED FROM A DANGER YOU THINK YOURSELF THE SOLE MARTYR OF.”

A stream of memories and emotions flowed freely from Shon as he shared his thoughts with Mendoji. His grief over Solimar, Krall, and Piggy. His admiration of Tarun, and his gratitude for his friendship. His concern and confusion over the mystery of his parents’ soul trees. His longing to return home to Uncle Grodin and finally tell him how much he appreciated all that he had done to raise him. His feelings of pride and confidence after beating Treshigan in a contest of magic. His overwhelming thirst and terror as he drank each bucket after eating the camel truffle. His dull aching sadness that still lingered all these years after learning that his dear teacher Empress had died.

The intent of this barrage was not simply to overwhelm Mendoji, though it certainly did. It shook the minotaur, causing the building rage to slip from his mind for the moment. But the effect was much greater and deeper than that. Shon had shared so much of himself and his moments of greatest triumph and loss, strength and weakness, that Mendoji finally saw Shon as someone as complex and nuanced as he was. Someone flawed, yet admirable. Not a teacher to submit to, nor a student to instruct, but someone with just as much chance for insight as he had.

“I’m here to help,” Shon said, quieting his thoughts as he sensed the shift in Mendoji’s demeanor. “As a peer. As an ally. As a friend.”

“How?” Mendoji asked.

“I can amplify the effects of your meditation,’ said Shon. “In your memories you showed me that you meditate with incense and a humming mantra while sitting in a small room, right? I can form the smoke from the incense into the walls of that room. I can use your mantra to create a key to a lock that only you can open. In that room, you’ll be protected from the pain and rage of the poison. But that protection will only hold as long as you remain in that room I create for you. I won’t be able to lock you in against your will. You’ll be able to open the lock whenever you want.”

“And what will happen to me while I stay in this sanctuary you create for my mind?” Mendoji asked.

“To anyone looking at your body, it would appear you were in a deep sleep,” Shon replied. “You will continue to breathe, your heart will beat, though not with the intense pounding that you feel right now. You might drool. But you will have no conscious control over your body until you use the key to unlock your sanctuary.”

“At least, that’s what I think,” Shon added as an afterthought. “I’ve never actually done this before.”

“It seems you could have left out that last part,” said Mendoji.

“You forget that our minds are still linked,” said Shon. “If I think it, you hear it. Great for honesty. Less great for bravado.”

“Then it’s a good thing there’s no need for bravado between us,” said Mendoji. “Keep the staff from falling into the wrong hands. Protect my body if you can. I’ll focus on my meditation until you come for me to tell me the danger is past.”

“What if something happens to me and I’m not able to tell you when it’s over?” Shon asked. “If you don’t come out of your meditation on your own, eventually you’ll die of thirst or starvation.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Mendoji said. Shon could feel a smile in his words. “You’ll come back for me. I trust you.”

The first emotion that Laronius felt when the ruby ring on his hand shattered, was relief. The shattering ruby meant that he was no longer magically bound to obey his master, and so he was freed from the agony he had been experiencing for the last hour. 

Immediately after that relief, Laronius next felt a mixture of simultaneous shock and anger. He knew that the magical power imbued to the ruby was the only thing sustaining his continued existence as a vampire. Without it, his body would dissolve into dust in mere moments. And he was furious about it. 

It was so unfair. He had followed every command to the letter, never outright refusing or disobeying. Sure, he had found loopholes and told half-truths, but that was just how the world worked. Loyalty was an illusion, trust is for fools, and power is for those who are willing to take it. Why should he be punished for following the basic laws of reality? 

His milk-white skin began to become powder, and Laronius felt a rush of fear. How could Vdekshi have severed the oath so immediately? How could Gravine allow it? Why was he feeling so weak? 

As the necromantic power continued to recede, Laronius found that he was slowly floating towards the ground. Still spinning from his earlier plight with the conflicting commands, he put out a hand to steady himself against the floor and lower himself gently. The moment his hand touched the solid stone, it collapsed as if made of fine, white flour. Though he felt no pain, he recoiled from the sight, which caused the rest of his arm to break off from the jolt. 

A tear fell from his human eye, and as it streaked down his face, there was an odd sensation. Laronius carefully lifted his remaining hand and caught the tear on his middle finger. As he looked at the spot the tear had touched, he gasped. The finger was flesh and blood again. Human flesh and blood. And that transformation was continuing down to the rest of his hand. 

Laronius touched his face again and felt that the cheek where the tear had rolled down had also been restored to living flesh and blood. He could feel the heat flush in his cheeks at the next emotion he felt. Disgust. 

What kind of farce was this? What had that idiot Seth really done to him? Was this supposed to be some kind of chance at redemption? If so, Laronius would rather take his chances with crumbling to dust. He wasn’t about to return to the weakness of being mortal and vulnerable. He had no intention of shedding a single tear for what he had done or who he had become. He’d rather endure an eternity of torment than give Seth or anyone else the satisfaction of his remorse. 

And yet there was nothing he could do to stop the spread of mortality that was now crawling from his hand to his wrist, from his wrist to his elbow, and from his elbow up to his shoulder to join with the flesh that had been restored from cheek to neck. On the left side of his face that is. 

Then came a familiar hiss. “If you’re so desperate to be rid of that pesky human flesh, why not pledge it to me?” asked the haunting voice of Gravine. “I assure you, I’ve got some ideas of how to make use of it.” 

“Pledge it to you?” Laronius said in a hoarse croak. “Why would I trust anything to you when you failed to keep your oath to me?” 

“Don’t think of it as a broken oath,” said Gravine. “Think of it as a clean slate. All bargains are now open to be renegotiated.” Gravine spoke in his same smarmy tone as always, but Laronius could hear something else in his voice too. Though it was barely there, it was unmistakable. There was desperation hiding underneath Gravine’s offer. 

Laronius smiled. “Well then I guess I’m willing to negotiate. What are you willing to offer?” 

***

As the last light of dusk faded away, Mutt realized that he no longer needed to hide from the commands of his masters. He couldn’t hear their voices at all. The rat mind that he shared a body with had done well in getting them away from the stronghold. They were now deep in the forest surrounding the fortress. Yet Mutt knew that distance alone could not account for the profound silence he now experienced. After all, he had traveled much further than this in the past and still felt the ever-present pressure of his masters’ commands. 

Now there was nothing. 

Was it possible the intruders had somehow killed Vdekshi and destroyed Gravine? The idea seemed absurd, but what else could explain the silence? Whatever the reason, Mutt wasted little time caring about the fate of his former masters, and was eager to take advantage of his newfound freedom. 

Mutt increased his conscious awareness of the rat’s senses. Hearing, sight, smell, and touch all  became more acute as he prepared to dominate the will of his host’s mind. Yet as he tried to assert his dominance, the rat whipped its head back and used its razor sharp teeth to bite its own back right leg. The sudden pain caused Mutt to wince and withdraw his consciousness, immediately dulling the pain, yet also crippling his ability to take control of the rat’s body. 

The message was clear. Mutt was not the only one who was eager to enjoy his newfound freedom tonight. The rat was done being held a prisoner in its own body, and if Mutt had any desire to do more than simply watch as the rodent lived out the rest of its life, he would have to be willing to treat his host less like a slave and more like a partner. At least for a while. 

“Alright,” Mutt thought, smelling kernels of wild wheat growing nearby. “Let’s find something to eat, and a safe place to sleep. We can work out the rest after that.” Mutt didn’t know how much the rat could understand his words, but it at least seemed to grasp his meaning as it scampered in the direction of the tall, hearty stalks. 

***

Existence as a banshee was both overwhelming and surreal for Treshigan. She was now almost completely blind. The moon and stars above her shone painfully bright, but on the world below she saw nothing but a black void more deep and oppressive than any despair she had ever experienced. At the same time, her hearing had become both glorious and maddening.

She was no longer limited to hearing with only her ears. Her skin and bones thrummed as she seemed to detect sounds from all sides. Even the individual strands of hair on her head and the threads of tattered clothing that floated around her in all directions, every strand and fiber seemed to shiver and quake with the sounds of the world around her, like brittle strings on an instrument about to snap. 

Coupled with her uncontrollable wailing, Treshigan found that her sense of sound gave her an understanding of her surroundings with far more depth and accuracy than her sight ever had. The echos of her screams bounced around corners and through thickets. The echos snapped back immediately against hard rocks, while spreading out slowly and dully through moss and sap. While sight had limited her to seeing only the outward appearance of a single scene in front of her, this new perception of sound and echos allowed her to perceive her world in all directions, and into the depth of each object the sound touched. 

It was all too much. 

Sight had been so blissfully simple. Her eyes had been able to focus on a single target at a time, and she knew where to direct her attention. Now the entire world cried out to her at the same time through her hearing, and the only thing that kept her tethered to any sense of direction was the commands of Gravine in her mind. 

And then that tether was suddenly gone. 

Without warning, without reason, she was left entirely alone in this new and overwhelming world. For several moments she considered simply letting herself drift in the only direction that meant anything to her, towards the blinding light of the moon and stars. She tried to ignore the cacophony of sounds below as she floated upwards into oblivion. But even as the majority of sounds below her receded, one sound came into sharp focus. One grating disgusting sound. It thudded and squished and gushed in its loathsome rhythm. 

Treshigan now had something to focus on. She knew she needed to silence all the vile noise of the heartbeats below. 

***

Seth and Tarun walked though a field of tall, wild wheat. Seth used his shillelagh to push aside the stalks in front of him. The light from his lantern provided a narrow beam of light that illuminated the way right in front of them. The wind caused the top of the field to sway and move like waves on a pond. As Seth stepped through the field, he looked at the wheat, pondering on the story that Toj had shared with him. 

After all this time, had he finally arrived at the ancestral homeland of his father and grandfather? Had he finally found the land where his great-grandfather had been exiled for being a traitor? Would that same betrayal mean that he no longer had any claim or birthright here? Was it even possible that there could be any birthright still worth claiming in a land that had been subject to so much darkness and sorrow? 

A large boulder stood directly in the path that the light in the lantern was pointing them towards. Seth asked Tarun if he would help lift him up so he could get a handhold and hopefully find a clearer view from the top of it. As Seth got his footing under him and stood on top of the boulder, he saw the moon rise over top of the fortress they were looking for. It stood at the top of a nearby hill, and it was far larger than he had imagined, practically the size of a city. And yet only one window showed any sign of light or warmth. The rest looked dark and foreboding. 

Then the light in the window dimmed, as if curtains had been drawn. A moment later, green lights began to dot the walls of the fortress, as if a hundred torches had been lit all at once with some unnatural flame. In an instant, the wind ceased, and the stillness that followed felt ominous and intentional. The sound of the rustling wheat vanished, as if the sound of a nearby waterfall had been suddenly dammed. 

The eery stillness was broken by the sound of shuffling movement among the wheat in all directions. A shriek cried out somewhere overhead. Seth fastened the lantern to a loop on his belt that Mayor Marissi had sewn on for him so he would never again have to put the priceless artifact on the ground. Grasping his shillelagh with both hands, he lowered it down to Tarun and helped him climb up to the top of the boulder with him. 

“What’s going on?” Tarun asked. “I can hardly see a thing.” 

Seth unhooked the lantern from his belt and held it up again. This time, instead of a narrow beam of light in one direction, the lantern glowed brighter and brighter until the area around the boulder was lit as if it were noon on a clear day. The sounds of shuffling movements in the wheat multiplied and grew nearer. The sound of the screaming somewhere above became shrill and painful to their ears. 

Seth’s shillelagh began to grow warm in his hands, as if it had been baking all afternoon in the sun. Seth looked down and saw that the carvings etched into it began to glow with a white brilliance that should have been painful to look at. After so much time in the dark, by all accounts the bright light should have left his vision streaked and blurred. Yet on the contrary, his eyes became sharper after gazing at it. He looked up and found that he could see further than before and with greater clarity than he could recall at any point in his life. Even more astonishing, as he looked back down at his shillelagh he began to understand the carvings on it were not merely intricate designs, but words. And they were words that he could read. 

Seth was practically mesmerized as he turned the shillelagh over in his hand again and again, reading at last the history of his family that he had hungered for and dreamed of for so long. He followed the runes in a spiral, bewildered how he had never seen their pattern or meaning until now. The genealogy continued all the way until it landed on his clan’s great patriarch, “Friendly Seth.” A tear came to Seth’s eye as he witnessed beyond doubt that Toj’s account had been true. It was all true. 

Seth was brought out of his reverie by the urgent voice of Tarun. “Are you alright, Seth?” Tarun asked. Seth looked up and saw a surprised look on Tarun’s face. “Your eyes are… glowing,” said Tarun. “Did you mean for that to happen?” 

They were interrupted by the sound of a hiss as something unseen at the edge of the lantern’s light momentarily broke through before turning to ash. 

“Stay close to me,” said Seth. “I think we’re about to have trouble.”