Day after day, week after week, month after month, Martuk's sentence passed quickly. He spent his time in learning, in exercise and in talking with his fellow inmates. How they had lived before being imprisoned shocked him. Most complained about the frankly luxurious accommodations as though they were little better than a hovel, but he'd never lived this well. It was very telling that this luxury was so mundane and pedestrian to these practitioners, it seemed people and the active especially lived better lives in this Realm than in his home Realm.

The loss of his freedom chafed much more than he'd thought it would despite that he was living in luxury none of his tribe could even have imagined. He'd always been free to do exactly as he wanted when he wanted, within the limits placed upon him by the spirits anyway. Even when he was starving in a gutter he'd been free. This regimented enclosed existence, always at the convenience of others, was not for him.

But until he was released all he could do was endure.

Thankfully today, after two long years, that need for endurance was set to end. His last parole board appearance had been two days previously and the board had been completely satisfied he was 'reformed' sufficiently to release him back into society under supervision.

He couldn't wait.

He still had to complete another two years of study but that would be done in what would have been unimaginable luxury just two years previously because money would never be a problem again. Madame Rebedilie had finally broken down the resistance her company had shown at employing not only a criminal but one who was currently incarcerated and still unlicensed. He was now under contract as a consultant on matters spiritual which came with a considerable income attached, he would not have to rely on the charity of others for his daily needs ever again.

When Officer Pickford came to escort him to the processing centre so he could complete the requirements for freedom he was waiting impatiently with gritty tired eyes but an almost insane amount of energy.

“Morning Talker, you look a bit tired. Couldn't sleep?”

“Morning Ted, yeah barely a wink all night. Too excited to be out of here.”

Smiling the guard said, “Completely understandable. Come on then lets get you processed out. Though I'm a bit hurt. So excited to get away from me, surely I'm not that bad?”

Martuk chuckled, “Nothing personal but if I never see you again after today, I'll be a very happy Oruc.”

The guard barked a laugh and motioned for Martuk to head to the processing centre.

Three hours of seemingly endless paperwork later Officer Pickford had brought him here to the main gate and said to wait before clasping hands with him. Then the guard nodded, turned and walked back into the main building Martuk didn't know if his jittering and twitching as he waited was nerves or excitement probably both because just the other side of that solid looking gate was his freedom.

An officer he didn't know came out of the guardhouse and opened the small personnel door set into the gate. Standing there holding the gate open he growled, “Well what are you waiting for? Get out. Haven't got all day to wait on you.”

Startled, Martuk realised he'd been standing there motionless for long minutes just staring out the open gate. He shot the guard an apologetic look but found when he did that there was a grin on the face under the rune-marked riot helmet, not anger. Smiling in return, Martuk walked out of the Parnagnaa Rehabilitation and Internment Centre and did not look back.

The day was grey with blustery gusts of wind carrying small particles, whether rain or snow he had no idea but they stung his cheeks icily in either case. Vasiliav, the capital of Kalstrasia, was far to the north of Gremant. The weather here was much softer than the harsh freezing winters of the plateau he'd called home but still cool enough he shivered as he walked out into it.

As part of his processing out, he'd been handed six silver platters and directions to the nearest bus stop and sus rank. The money was more than enough to feed him and get him to any city in Kalstrasia but he was staying in the capital as The Institute of Methods and Means was here and he was enrolled to start the final two years of his licensing course the next week. The IMM was recognised as one of the finest centres for magic in the entire Coalition, people came here to learn from all over the Realm, even from non-Coalition countries.

A very few even came from other Realms.

He'd just turned the corner and was out of view of the prison's gatehouse when a plain white van with blacked out windows pulled up beside him and he was falling to the ground with the spirit he had been using to carry himself banished. A hood was dragged over his head and a few pairs of hands grabbed him before he was dumped on the floor in the rear of the van.

As the van pulled out into the traffic a voice he didn't recognise said, “Gotcha, you fucking Baas prick. Can't find that Empire piece of shit but you... I knew where you were.”

Martuk felt a sudden stab of panic, the voice had a Polity accent.

He started thrashing around with his one good arm and felt a solid connection, hearing a outrush of breath, a groan and a deep thud as someone was flung into the wall of the van.

The same voice said, “Enough of that rebel, Kerati knock this fucker out.”

There was a short chant, but it was not a banishment, his new knowledge told him it was a death realm casting... one that would completely suppress his spirit and his mind. His panic became full-blown, these fools were about to remove the locks he'd placed on himself as a doorway. There was no way of knowing what was watching and could use him to enter this realm.

He shouted, “No! Don-” and everything went black.

******

When he regained consciousness, his worst fears were realised because he was a passenger in his own mind, sharing it with something that felt like an open wound filled with salt. He'd attracted one of the worst possible types of creature from the void around the Realms, a careful one or a smart one that knew it would gain far more power if it milked his magic for an extended period rather than greedily throwing his gateway open. But worst of all... he may have attracted a very smart spirit, one that knew it wanted access to this Realm and why.

The interior of the van was a slaughterhouse. The scattered parts of the people who'd been in here with him were that far separated he had no idea how many there had even been and the van itself was laying on it's side.

His body took another bite of the arm he was holding and he felt the satisfaction and joy of whatever it was that had hijacked it, already he could begin to feel the barest beginnings of the lines blurring between his thoughts and the thoughts of this monster.

That blurring was the real threat if taken by something like this, eventually the stronger spirit would subsume the weaker and for all his power as a Shaman and all his skills he was no match for a true denizen of the Spirit-Realm in these circumstances. Any spirit handling he tried would be countered by his own damn skills, hijacked just like his body. He was done and he knew it, he just hoped the Guard could put him down before this creature killed too many but he could spare no sympathy for the ones in the van. Unmentioned take ‘em, they deserved it because he was certain they were not planning to throw a release party for him.

He heard his own voice with a snigger that had never been there before, smacking his lips as it said, “Tasssty, tasssty... don't try to hide your thinkingsss, I know you wake Shaman. It'sss been long since I've been free to chase the meat, the ssweet ssweet meat. But you didn't keep your body very well did you, it's all broken and bent. It needsss fixing, watch closely.”

He felt his magic touched and the gateway open, bands of crackling spirit energy circled his arms above the bicep and his legs even with his groin. They tightened, burning. Then he felt every second of the agonising pain as his limbs were burnt off, leaving cauterised stumps behind.

A pair of long dog-jointed legs and a pair of ape-like arms formed, attached to the stumps, both arms and legs were viciously taloned and bulging with muscle. Their skin was black and shiny looking, like flexible obsidian and the talons were an unnatural glowing white shot through with veins of brilliant purple.

He heard his own voice again, “Much better, your magic is ssstrong though and you can take much pain. Good. We're going to have sssooo much fun you and I, a grand feasst of innocentss. By the way your ssuffering was exquissite and... I want more.”

Bands of the same crackling force encircled his torso searing away strips of skin, leaving behind deep burns.

“Yess! That is what I needed, feel pain for me. We're going to kill hundredss, thoussandss of innocentss and eat of them all... and all thankss to you. Yess! That is the ssuffering I want, the ssuffering I need. More! I need more! Feel for me!”

He felt terror, he felt the agony of the wounds on his chest, but above all that he felt the shame that his choices had brought this about and the even greater shame that worse was bound to happen. All while the creature within his head flayed him with it's laughter.

His own voice was creamy with satisfaction as the creature said, “Deliciousss. Let uss prosssceed.”

The van had fallen on the side with the door, blocking it. The back of this van had been a tight squeeze for Martuk even before he'd had these much larger limbs so painfully and violently attached. He was sickened by the creatures joy at rolling around in the entrails and gore which liberally coated the 'floor' as it turned to kick the rear doors open.

It noticed his distress and very deliberately scooped armfuls of blood and guts over his body, cackling insanely all the while.

Once he was turned around, a single powerful kick and one door was forced open. Not much but enough that the creature could squeeze Martuk's bulk through, tearing more skin free and causing more pain which the creature enjoyed greatly.

There weren't many people about on such a cold blustery day but the few who'd gathered to gawk at the scene of the accident took one look at him as the creature stood up to it's full height and ran as though the Unmentioned were after them, screaming in terror.

Spotting one rather rotund figure who was running much slower than the rest, the creature said, “Let'ss get the fat one, sshall we? Easy to catch and the meat will be ssweetened by the fat.”

Dropping to all fours it bounded after the fleeing figure.

Taloned paw outstretched it hadn't even touched the man when he fell, grey as death and clutching his left arm. The creature cocked it's head and studied the suddenly still body, “Hahaha, they kill themselvess to flee me! That's four Sshaman the first of thousandss... and I see numberss five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten over there. I'll keep a count for you, it's the leasst I can do after you gave me ssuch a wonderful sstrong body once I fixssed it.”

Howling, it headed toward a stalled mini-van where a man and woman with four children sat gaping in motionless terror at the nightmarish aberration's rapid approach. An approach whose speed was bolstered by a thin thread of Martuk's magic.

It's talons had just touched the mini-van when Martuk felt his magic blocked, then he felt the monster in his head quail as it uttered a hissing wail of pure terror.

The Thing that Should Not Be had arrived.

The black blob of roiling mist wrapped it's tentacles around his body... then they passed right through it dragging a bestial form out of him. A form which took it's arms and legs with it and his now limbless torso fell to the ground with a thump, from his new prone position he had a front row seat to the destruction of the creature who'd abused him so badly. The Thing that Should Not Be pulsed darkly as it's tentacles tightened and relaxed, tightened and relaxed, again and again around the spirit. Relaxing much less on each pulse than they'd tightened by.

Within moments the spirit was compacted to less than a tenth of it's size. A blindingly white glare like the interior of a star appeared in the middle of the misty blackness and the remains of the creature were stuffed within before the glare disappeared.

Then The Thing that Should Not Be was reaching for him.

A prickly wash of instinctive prey fear ran through him and he fought mightily to to avoid blacking out but the abuses and stress caught up to him and for the second time since leaving the prison, grey faded to black and he knew nothing.