Apologising silently to the unconscious man, he quickly took Jerri's phone from his inside pocket and dialled the KES number. Even on a locked phone it was always active.

A female voice answered, “Kalstrasian Emergency Services. What is your emergency?”

“A full fee citizen has been assaulted in the Grand Square, Stall J-6, Row D. Please send Medica and Guard.”

“Name of citizen and number if known?”

“Jerri Servider, I do not know his number.”

He heard the clacking of keys, after a moment she said, “Medica and Guard have been dispatched, please inform if the Guard will be required to extract the citizen by force or to protect him from further attack.”

“No, the attackers have fled.”

“Very good, eta is under a minute. Thank you for calling KES and if you're not a citizen think about becoming one today.”

He heard sirens, startlingly closeby but the guard had known for hours the Grand Square was a powderkeg. Not that surprising they'd had a response team nearby.

As he slid Jerri's phone back into his pocket he felt the sweetness of his magic being available once again taken from him. He wasn’t surpised because it was common for response teams to have a Mage skilled in blocking on them.

A large six wheeled armoured van pulled up with a growl of high performance diesel noise as it's strobes washed the area in amber and red light.

A voice amplified almost to the point of pain thundered, “FACE DOWN! ON THE GROUND!”

He immediately complied, laying face down next to Jerri without a moment’s hesitation. The guard were known to be very humourless and direct when called in like this. They secured everything in the fastest most efficient manner possible then sorted out the details later.

He felt rough hands place restraints on his wrists before he was searched, quickly and thoroughly.

One guard stayed with his knee pressed against his back holding him in place as green strobes added themselves to the flashing mess. Turning his head carefully to avoid making anything even resembling a threatening move he saw Medica personnel stretcher Jerri away. He relaxed, as much as he could with a knee pressing into his spine and the barrel of more than one automatic weapon ready to be aimed in his direction if he so much as twitched anyway, because Jerri would be fine.

Once the armoured Medica van sped off with sirens wailing and strobes flashing the guard who'd been kneeling on him stood and with a loud grunt hoisted him to his feet before walking him over to the curb and helping him to sit.

One of the helmeted, heavily armed and armoured guardsmen approached and took off his helmet. Behind the opaque faceplate with it's runic markings was the Captain who'd given him the reward just this morning.

The Captain ran his hand through his sweat plastered blonde hair and said, “Well, hello again. You seem to have had a very eventful day. Now please explain exactly what occurred in a clear and concise manner. By law I am required to inform you that one of my men will be using a spell to ascertain the truth of any statement you make, if you do not wish to speak to us at this time you will be detained until a lawyer can be arranged to be present. Do you understand?”

He said, “Yes, and I will explain.”

There was a visible relaxation in the surrounding guardsmen as he started talking, “I was hiding in the stall of my friend Jerri. For obvious reasons the Polity soldiers who have been around all day may have made it unsafe for me to be in the open, a short time ago a group stopped by the stall and heard him talking with me. They became angered and one of them attacked him. I feared for his safety so did what I felt I had to, to make him safe. Once they were driven off and Jerri was safe I called you on his phone. I was putting it back in his coat when you arrived.”

After listening to one of his men for a moment the captain said, “Why did they become angered?”

“Jerri is originally from the Empire and the Polity soldiers noticed. They reacted... predictably... for them.”

More murmured comments and then the captain said, “We are aware that you are magically active, you are also currently the host of at least one and possibly many spirits. You were not, this morning. Can you explain why? Be aware you are not registered as an active magic user. If you wish to make your explanation with representation present it will not be held against you. I must also make you aware active magic use without a licence is a serious criminal offence under the laws of Kalstrasia.”

“I was a Shaman before I was exiled to this realm, your mage will know what that means with my body and face as they are. I make no excuses for my actions and accept any punishment deemed necessary, I did only as I felt I must to save my friend.”

The mage leaned in and whispered something urgently. The captain, as weapons were drawn and trained on Martuk again, barked out a command, “Release the spirits you hold within you, now.”

“Gladly. I will likely fall as I am crippled without their aid... but they will return. That door cannot be closed once opened.” He drove the spirits from himself and the captain caught him as he slumped sideways, unbalanced, with his legs useless once more. “Done. But they will return when I sleep, even if I am behind wards. Don’t fear their mischief even in my sleep I am the one in charge.”

After he was bundled into the warded transport cage in the riot van the mage leaned in and asked with a note of concern, “Why? Why would you do this to yourself?”

“Because Jerri was my friend when it would be easier to not be. I did only as I thought I must, to save a good man.”

*******

Martuk woke to the sound of rain beating on the wide window of his cell, even though there were no bars the wards woven into the windows and walls made the prison more secure than bars would have. Getting out of bed he stood and stretched, even now months later he still very much enjoyed the sensation of being able to do so effortlessly again.

He had been allowed to keep a single spirit within as it was considered a 'mobility device', a legal nicety his lawyer had found hilarious. A lawyer Jerri had provided, saying that he felt responsible for Martuk's difficulties with the laws of the nation. Martuk had disagreed with that reasoning because it was entirely by his own choice but he was willing to accept the help because he knew he didn’t know the laws well enough to make his punishment for breaking them fair.

Especially as the maximum penalty for unlicensed magic when used against members of the coalition army was death, a law intended to make dealing with any of the God Emperor's mages or creatures when they were captured very easy. Which it did, quite effectively too. But as all laws were it was too harsh when used blindly without mitigating circumstances.

Thankfully the lawyer Jerri had provided was one of the best in the country.

With the mitigating circumstances he was able to argue it down to a five year sentence. Two with no parole then three years supervised non-custodial as long as Martuk undertook the full licensing procedure while imprisoned which would take those two years plus another two at a university once he was released.

It was a fantastic outcome and Martuk was constantly amazed at just how ridiculously much it had cost. Jerri valued his life quite highly, it had also helped quite a lot that Kalstrasia valued their full fee paying citizens highly as well.

Moving over he waited by the door for the guard to start his daily routine, first with a visit to Madame Rebedilie. She was a Medium and like him a spirit talker but a student of a different method, she'd check to make sure he had only the allowed single spirit within. He hadn't been overly surprised to find that she was on the staff and not brought in just to deal with him, the spirits often drove those who talked with them to acts which broke the laws of the land if they felt it served their needs to do so. Even the generally benign and helpful spirits he'd previously dealt with, the monsters he now dealt with and held within would do it out of sheer malice.

The door to his cell swung open ponderously on silent hinges and Officer Pickford was waiting for him, he said, “Morning Talker, ready?”

“Morning Ted, sure am.”

They walked silently through halls that felt more like a hospital than a prison and a hugely expensive private hospital at that. This was the minimum security wing of the Parnagnaa Rehabilitation and Internment Centre, colloquially called 'The Pric' by the people likely to end up here because it was commonly thought you were screwed if you did. He'd heard conditions were very different in The Stack though, the high security, slab-sided, windowless pile of thick dull grey concrete that could be seen from everywhere in the prison, a constant reminder that if you didn't behave things could always get much worse. That was where the worst magically active criminals from Kalstrasia were housed, the true monsters the stresses magic placed on the mind created with such carefree abandon.

For the first few months he'd made these trips to the Madame Rebedilie's office handcuffed and in leg irons but now his continued good behaviour had brought privileges.

Martuk wasn't surprised when the door slid back as they approached, he'd seen the medium's helper spirits watching them very carefully as soon as they'd set foot in the hallway her office was in. They were recognisable as spirits to him but they were not the natural spirits he had usually bargained with. These were the spirits of people. Mediums straddled the boundary between Shaman and Necromancer in a way he wasn't quite comfortable with, in his traditions and methods the dead should be allowed their rest.

But to be fair many of the spirits who had come at his call as a crippled Shaman were also spirits of men, mean spirited, evil men and the ones that were not spirits of men were things of madness and corruption. But all of his own ‘helper spirits’ thrived on creating terror and disgust in any who saw them.

Officer Pickford stopped beside the door, outside, as Martuk went in. When he'd first come to see Madame Rebedilie he'd been surprised that the guard had stayed outside but now he knew it was for the guard's safety. As he walked through the door, the single spirit he held within, that monstrous thing of nightmares and insanity, it cringed in utter terror.

In his spirit sight misty tendrils flowed across the ceiling and down the walls from a clot of pure blackness in the centre of it.

A clot with a suggestion of thousands of eyes all blinking in strange, disquieting rhythms and he shivered as one of those tendrils caressed his face 'tasting' him. But for the protections a Shaman built within themselves as a matter of habit a small portion of his own spirit would have been taken, a tiny portion true but over time those small portions would mount swiftly.

As the door closed behind him he said, “Morning Madame. I see The Thing that Should Not Be is looking well. Fed it any good prisoners lately?”

“Hah! It wishes. You know as well as I do it's mischiefs would become unbearable with that sort of power. Yes I'm talking about you, you great ugly thing.” The last was said with fondness as a tentacle of misted black reached down and caressed the Medium's face. She reached up and patted it for a moment then said, “Shoo now, back to your watching while I make sure this one has no more than he's allowed, if he does your dinner is early.”

The atmosphere in the room took on a spine shivering note of eager hunger as the tentacle retracted.

Martuk shook his head and said wonderingly, as he had many times before, “We Shaman have generations of spirit learning behind us and I had never heard of anything like that creature, we were certain there was nothing that viewed spirits as prey.”

“The paths of wisdom tell us the truths that you cannot know all, as the all is very large and ever-changing.”

“Your words have great sense, as ever.”

“Hmmph, flatterer. Now, lets see.” Her eyes lit with misty blue light that pooled oddly on her cheekbones before flowing down her face and her voice was hollow as she said, “I can see you in there spirit. Know you are observed and behave yourself.”

He felt the spirit that was within him shrink back even further than it had at meeting The Thing that Should Not Be at the weight in her words. It knew it was marked and that doing anything inappropriate would not go well for it.

Martuk said, “I'm sure you can already tell but to be absolutely certain you are aware, this one is a new spirit. Not one of the swarm I gained when I made the call. They have finally failed in keeping me to themselves, I will now draw the hungry to me and sooner or later one of the true monsters of the spirit realm will catch my scent. I tell you this not only because I must by your rules but also because as a doorway anything that comes will bypass your spirit warding and some of the things that may come will be extremely dangerous. They could cause much mayhem if you were not prepared and ready.”

“Thank you for the warning and I will certainly mention your ready compliance to the Proctors. But do not concern yourself we are always prepared for an invasion by powerful and malevolent beings.” She shook her head, “Some of the prisoners here have made deals with far worse things than anything that dwells in the Astral.”

“After meeting The Thing that Should Not Be there, I wouldn't presume to say I know all but I wouldn't belittle the more powerful of the spirit realm's dwellers, especially not if they may hear. There are things of great strength and hunger lurking in the void around the worlds that are older than your race and mine. Some of them would view your spirit as a challenge and would destroy all people in this part of the Realm to deny it support, they are not often seen but they are out there...” Martuk paused for a moment with his eyes widened and looking around, then he chuckled faintly and continued, “Honestly I expected something to happen just then. Words such as that often draw the attention of those around the worlds. The spirits hear all and see all and all-too-frequently, say nothing.”

Madame Rebedilie shook her head slightly, “The differences between your Shamanistic practices and my own craft are fascinating. We shall continue this discussion in class this afternoon but, unfortunately my next appointment is due so we must stop for now.”

Reaching out to a small console built in to her desk, she said in a business-like voice, “Daily Interview with Prisoner Sigma-Lambda 76-68592 concluded at 8:24am, Prisoner's spirit swarm has lost control as outlined in Section 4, paragraph 1D. Prisoner was very forthcoming about this occurrence, to be commended. No other changes of note.”