“In the months since The Ancient One spoke to me, I thought he had chosen me because I’d been searching for a purpose. So I figured he thought he could use me for his purposes,” said Seth, walking quickly into the night while Tarun kept up behind him. “But I’m starting to realize there’s a lot more to it than that. And I think my clan plays as much a role in his plans as I do.”

“I don’t understand,” said Tarun. “I thought you knew almost nothing about your family until tonight.”

“That’s true,” said Seth, “but it seems clear that The Ancient One has known a lot about them all along. Including the magic that binds our souls to the land and to each other. I think that might be the real key to my mission here.”

“The way that Toj explained it,” said Tarun, “I thought that the enchantment on this land was made to grant power to the Sword of Wheat. Isn’t recovering the sword going to be the key to driving the evil out of this land?”

“The Sword of Wheat is a physical manifestation of the strength of the clan and our land,” replied Seth, “but the actual source of that strength comes from so many souls willingly bound to a shared purpose. Ultimately, the Sword of Wheat is just a tool. Take away the tool, and the strength that wielded it is still the same. Take away the clan, and the Sword of Wheat is no more powerful than any other sword.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Tarun, “but I trust you regardless. Just tell me plainly, are we going to try and recover the sword to free Shon?”

“Yes, if we can,” said Seth. He then stopped walking and turned to look Tarun in the eyes. “But let me be clear. Rescuing Shon is the priority tonight, not the sword.”

Tarun smiled. “And that’s why I trust you, Seth.”

“Good,” replied Seth, “because where I’m taking us next may not make a lot of sense at first.”

***

Standing among the headstones and statues just outside the East wall of the fortress, Tarun crossed his arms. “You’re right,” he said. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

Instead of continuing straight ahead towards the large front gates of the fortress, Seth had led them around to a path that took them to this old, overgrown cemetery. It had taken them half an hour to make their way through the path, and Tarun could not see any sign of an entrance. The sheer wall reached higher than any nearby trees, and appeared impossible to climb or get past in any way.

While they walked the trail, Shon had reached out to them with his mind again and updated them on his current situation. He was in a room with Vdekshi somewhere in the fortress, but Vdekshi was unconscious, Shon had no idea where in the fortress the room was located, and there was an uncontrolled mob of undead outside the door that were trying to break their way in to get to him, Vdekshi, and the staff. Also, Shon was now calling the minotaur Mendoji instead of Vdekshi for some reason.

Shon had tried to reassure them that he was alright and that the protective enchantments on the walls and doors seemed to be holding for now, but he couldn’t stop the stress and fear from coming across his thoughts, no matter how brave he tried to come across to the others. Tarun was worried they were running out of time, and this detour to the graveyard seemed like another distraction on a night when they couldn’t afford any more delays.

“Any chance you can explain to me how this detour treats Shon as our top priority?” Tarun asked Seth. “Those front gates looked daunting, but at least they offered a way in.”

“The closer we get to the stronghold, the more I can sense the strength of this place,” said Seth. “It’s hard to describe, but it’s like I’m remembering things that I never knew. Like, the knowledge is new, but also feels so familiar that it seems obvious in hindsight. Does that make any sense?”

“Not really,” said Tarun. Then he paused and remembered his experience with the vision he had seen and the words he had heard that morning when Seth tried to heal his mind. “No, I take that back,” he corrected. “I think I may understand after all. So what have you remembered?”

“If we try to fight our way past the gates and attack the fortress like invaders, we’ll never succeed in a hundred years,” said Seth. “But if I can successfully finish claiming my birthright as the clan patriarch, there’s absolutely nothing that will be able to keep me out.”

“So how do you do that?” Tarun asked. “And what does it have to do with these headstones?”

“I think something happened in the last three generations that cut us off from the clan,” Seth replied. “My father was almost incapable of telling the truth. Most of the time it was easier to tell what was true by listening to what he said and then believing the opposite. That’s why everyone called him Seth the Liar. And I now realize that he knew a lot more about all of this than he ever told me about. He even knew enough of my clan’s secret language to leave his own markings on the shillelagh before he died.”

He held up the shillelagh. “This was meant to be a record of my clan’s history,” he said, “and it was passed down from patriarch to patriarch to keep the record current. But my father never told me any of that. He only told me it was a record of our shame, and that I had to hold onto it once he died. I think it was his need to reject the family and our history that broke something in him that I never realized before. He had to constantly lie to himself about who he really was, and that made it nearly impossible for him to tell the truth about anything else.”

“But the lies stop tonight,” said Seth with resolve. Tarun wanted to interrupt, but it was clear that Seth’s words weren’t actually meant for him. “My father kept the truth from me, and those lies put up a barrier between me and my birthright. I’ve overcome those lies and reclaimed the truth, breaking down that barrier and moving past it.” Seth brought the shillelagh up, and then swung it down through the air as if striking some invisible object in front of him. “Shurrah to the lies.”

There was a shift in the air and the ground. It was so slight that Tarun might have thought he imagined it, but he could feel it in his own center as well. Dust fell off the wall nearby, and he could hear a faint grinding of stone from far away.

“My grandfather took this ring from this cemetery,” Seth continued. He held up the glowing ring he had recovered from the banshee he had defeated less than an hour before. “His father had already lost his birthright to the clan, but my grandfather hadn’t. He wanted to impress my grandmother and convince her he was worthy of her love, so he came here for some token of proof about his claims of how noble and important his family was. But he wasn’t interested in doing what it would take to claim his birthright, or live up to the responsibility it would mean. He just wanted to take what he could get. That’s how he became Seth the Thief.”

Seth held up the ring next to his lantern to get a better look at it. A narrow beam of light shone out of the lantern and through the ring, landing on the face of a statue nearby. The statue was a life size sculpture of a man and woman with smiling faces and arms stretched out in welcome. They looked gentle and strong, and Tarun could easily see the resemblance that Seth shared with both of them. In the statue, the man had his left arm around the woman’s waist, and she had her right hand on his shoulder. At the end of the man’s outstretched right arm, they could see a simple brass ring shining on one of the stone fingers. On the similarly outstretched left hand of the woman, they could see an indentation where a similar ring had once been.

Seth walked up to the statue and placed the glowing brass ring on the woman’s finger. Tarun was worried the metal ring would grind and scrape against the stone as it moved past each knuckle, it seemed to slide on as smoothly and naturally as if it was being placed on a living finger instead of a statue.

“I’m returning what was taken unlawfully,” Seth said, taking a step back. “I’m not interested in taking a trinket or portion of my inheritance without earning it. I’m here to claim all of it, including the all the duties and responsibilities that it entails. Shurrah to the theft of that which can only be given, never taken.”

Again there was a shift in the world around them. This time it was more noticeable, and there was no mistaking it was real. In an instant, the accumulation of years worth of dust, grime, and moss fell away from the statue, as well as all of the headstones, plaques, and other monuments in the cemetery. The ring that Seth had placed on the statue stopped glowing, but just as the light began to dim from the ring, it reappeared in the grooves of a carving on a stone tablet in the middle of the pathway.

Seth and Tarun walked over to the tablet and saw that the carving depicted a long scythe. The blade and handle of the scythe were tied together by a stalk of wheat tied into a knot. “That’s the symbol of the clan patriarch,” said Seth. “The sword was formed from the blade of the scythe, and the shillelagh with my clan’s history was carved from the wood of the handle. The two are tied together by the wheat, representing our connection to the land and to each other. The clan patriarch is the only one with the authority to claim all three.”

Tarun was about to ask how Seth could be sure of all that, but decided the magically glowing stone at his feet was probably evidence enough. “So what do we do now?” Tarun asked.

Seth brought his shillelagh down to the stone tablet and gave it a nudge. It slid to the side as if pulled along some unseen track. Once moved to the side, Tarun could see the stone had concealed the opening to a tunnel beneath the wall. The opening appeared narrow, but large enough for Seth and Tarun to fit through if they removed their packs first. “Now we enter my clan’s stronghold and go find Shon,” Seth said.

As they removed their packs, Tarun asked Seth something that had been lingering on his mind. “You’ve addressed the errors of your father and grandfather,” he said, “Seth the Liar and Seth the Thief. But you also said you thought the problems went back for three generations. So what about your great-grandfather. Who was he? What did he do? What was his shame?”

Seth sat at the edge of the tunnel opening and looked down. “My great-grandfather was Seth the Traitor,” he said. “He was obsessed with becoming the clan patriarch so he could claim the Sword of Wheat for himself, and all the might that came with it. He eventually succeeded, but he betrayed every ideal the family held dear to get it. But he hadn’t considered that the sword would not only grant him physical strength, but strengthen his integrity and wisdom as well. He could not When he finally took the sword, he couldn’t justify what he had done with what he finally understood. So as his first and last act as patriarch, he banished himself from the clan.”

Tarun couldn’t think of anything to comfort or console Seth. Instead he simply asked, “So what will you need to do?”

“My great-grandfather put his own desires above the clan and used his position for personal power,” Seth replied. “I will need to prove that I care more about the clan than the sword.” Then he lowered himself into the tunnel.

***

As the undead continued to pummel the door and window of the sanctuary, Shon tried to tell himself that they were still just as sturdy as they were at the beginning of the night, and he was definitely not hearing any sounds of strain or rattling that were growing louder by the minute. After all, panic was not going to do him any favors. Instead, what he tried to focus on was the last message that he had received from Seth and Tarun. He now had something to look for that may point him towards a safe way out.

Shon had grabbed a candelabra and was carrying it around the room to look for the symbol of a scythe blade and handle tied together with a stalk of wheat. The truth was that Shon didn’t even know what that would actually look like, but he hoped he would recognize it when he spotted it. He looked behind furniture and under hanging tapestries. He pulled up rugs and moved chairs to look at the tiles on the floor for any designs like the one Seth described.

The pounding outside was growing more intense and Shon was exhausted. As far as he could tell it was probably an hour or two after midnight, and the last time he had slept in the last two days was a couple of hours of rest on a cold dungeon floor. He wasn’t finding anything, and it was becoming harder by the minute to focus.

He decided to pull out his father’s wire from his hidden pocket again and reach out to Tarun and Seth again to see if they could offer him any more help. Instead, he picked up the thoughts of Laronius. He was surprised because the vampire’s thoughts had always been so hard to read in the past, but it seemed that this time he was deliberately sending a message to Shon. And since he had no way of knowing when Shon would mentally reach out again, Laronius seemed to be repeating the same message in his head over and over again.

“…the gem, and the staff to me. Do what I tell you and I’ll let you live. Resist and I’ll make sure you’re death is longer and more painful than you possibly imagine.” It was frightening to Shon how the thoughts of Laronius could be so cold and menacing while somehow so bored all at the same time.

“Once again, this message is for Shon, Laronius continued. “I know you’re in the sanctuary with Gravine and Vdekshi. Gravine has told me everything. You meddled in my affairs and caused me a lot of pain you little bald brat, and I’m going to return that pain on you a thousandfold once I get to you. I’m outside the door and I’ve taken control of the unruly rabble that had gathered here. They are now serving me with one purpose, to break down this door, even if I have to bring down the whole door with it. Meanwhile, Gravine is in there with you, using his ancient knowledge and immeasurable power to take apart your flimsy defenses from the inside. You only have one hope. Obedience. I can tell you where to find the leyline that can unravel these nuisance enchantments all at once. You must disrupt the leyline, open the doors, and surrender Vdekshi, the gem, and the staff to me. Do what I tell you and I’ll let you live. Resist and I’ll make sure you’re death is longer and more painful than you possibly imagine. Once again, this message is for…”

“You know, I can never take anyone seriously when they claim to offer something that I can’t possibly imagine,” interrupted Shon, hoping that his false bravado came through as genuine confidence. “Back in my hometown, a street vendor once offered to sell me a fried cake that was more delicious than I could imagine, and if he was wrong I’d get my money back. The cake was pretty good, but after I ate it, I used my magic to show him what I actually imagined the best fry cake in the world would taste like. Let’s just say I got my money back.”

“You’re just rambling because you’re trying to stall,” said Laronius. Though Shon could only hear his thoughts and not his voice over the deafening pounding, he could tell that Laronius was now speaking out loud.

Shon squared his shoulders. “Why wouldn’t I stall?” Shon retorted. “It’s clear that Mendoji set up these protective enchantments better than you’re letting on. After all, you’ve got an entire coordinated undead horde out there, and a self-proclaimed master of necromancy on the inside and you still haven’t brought it down yet. The only reason you’re offering me a deal at all is because you know my friends are on their way and your time is running out.”

Shon could actually feel Laronius bare his fangs and tense his body for a strike. “You choose to resist then?”

Fear and exhaustion were threatening to overtake Shon. But instead of breaking, he allowed that desperation and hunger to survive to drive him towards one more dangerous gambit, even though he had no idea what his next step would even be.

“Actually, I choose to make you a counteroffer,” Shon replied. The grin that Laronius gave at that comment wasn’t reassuring, but Shon pressed forward as if he hadn’t sensed the smug satisfaction. “Look, you know by now that I can read minds,” he said. “So you and I both know that there’s something in this fortress that you want far, far more than the staff and crystal.”

And there it was. It was only clear in Laronius’ thoughts for a flicker of a moment, but Shon had caught it. It was a mental picture of a sword leaning against a wall deep in the caverns below the fortress. The sword had images of wheat etched into the hilt and handle. The memory itself was etched with a desperate longing that Laronius couldn’t conceal.

“That’s right,” teased Shon. “I can give you the key to finally obtaining the Sword of Wheat, and it’s been in front of your stupid bloodsucking face this entire time.” And with that, Shon sent Laronius a mental image of how he pictured the symbol of the scythe tied together with wheat.

The effect was immediate. Laronius flew away from the hallway outside so fast that there was an audible pop from the drop in air pressure. The rest of the undead horde followed immediately behind, without leaving a single zombie to guard the door. Inside the room, the gem that imprisoned Gravine cracked and hissed as its prisoner commanded in vain for his servants to come back.

A moment passed where Shon stood dumbfounded at how effectively his bluff had worked. Then he blinked and shook himself. He silently hoped it wouldn’t prove to be too effective as he refocused on the magical wire in his hands.

“Hey Tarun? Seth?” Shon called out to his friends with his mind. “There’s been a change of plans and I don’t have much time to explain. If you can hear me, I need you to let me know immediately.”

Shon could hear Seth’s thoughts reply a moment later. “What kind of change in plans?” Shon could tell that Seth and Tarun were running along a tunnel somewhere below within the walls of the fortress, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.

“The incoming murderous horde kind,” Shon answered. “Hey Seth, you’re pretty confident that you and your lantern can handle Laronius, right? Because I’m kind of gambling on that bet right now.”