“Oh, not again.”

Those were not the words Tala had expected Rial to say upon regaining consciousness.

He was bound at the feet with metal fetters and locked by the head and hands to the pillory, a long tall pole of rusted iron from which jutted a set of boards designed specifically to hold a person standing yet unable to move, positioned at a height that would force the spine into a curve that soon became excruciating. Some sadistic soul had proposed the idea to the council weeks ago, where it was refused. The next day, however, there stood this thing, erected in the centre of the hanging square in brazen defiance of the council’s wishes.

Maril had come to the square and stared in silence at it for some time, then left without a word. It was soon added to the list of punishments meted out to prisoners of all types.

Today the whole council was in the square, lined up somberly in front of what must have been over half the population of the city. The people clustered and jostled for a better view under the cold grey sky, punctuated by cries of pain as someone was stood on or crushed by the pressure.

“Now, boy, how did you get past the walls without anyone seeing you?” said Maril, stepping forward of the others and locking her gaze upon the captive. As she spoke a hush fell over the crowd.

“I really hate being bound,” said Rial towards the ground. It was clear he wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular.

“Do not mock me, boy,” said Maril.

She stepped forward and slapped Rial hard across the cheek, drawing blood from the swollen flesh.

Rial looked up as if noticing her for the first time.

“Mock you? No, I am not mocking you. When you have so clearly lost control, I am being patient with you.”

Even from where Tala stood, off to the edge of the crowd in a space of her own,[1] she could see that Rial was calm and completely serious.

“Really? You think you are in a position to say such things to me?” Maril replied.

Probably few others noticed it, but Tala could hear the tremble in Maril’s voice. Rial had shaken her, Tala knew. She just didn’t know why.

“Why are you here, Maril?” Rial was speaking directly to Maril, and the silence deepened further as others strained to hear. “Why am I here, like this?”

Maril’s voice redoubled in strength, seeking assurance through conviction.

“You are here to answer our questions. You are here because you helped those who would trade poison to our people. You are here because you should not be. Now how did you get past our walls?”

“The same way I will leave, but first I want to know; was this your decision?”

Rial twisted his head awkwardly to look first at the post to which he was bound and then towards the crowd. A murmur of angry curses and threats flew back at him in response.

“I…” Maril hesitated, words caught in her throat. “I…”

She followed Rial’s gaze towards the crowd, and gulped. Tala could see her hands shake, before she reached some conclusion within herself.

“Release him. This is not right. I shall not condone this.”

Maril stood taller as she spoke and her hands steadied. It was the same voice Tala had heard many times within the walls of the council hall, the one that commanded respect and often fear.

This time the only response she received was a shower of catcalls and jeers.

Maril turned from the crowd to Jarl, the man who had for months now been self-proclaimed jailer and warden of the prisoners. How he had come by the position Tala did not know, and now she realised neither did Maril.

The giant man’s scar-strewn face cracked a smile down at Maril, and he did not move.

Tala was suddenly aware how small Maril really was. Her air of authority and condescension had always hidden that fact but now, as Maril looked up into the cruel, cold eyes of Jarl, Tala could see nothing but a frail old woman trembling in front of raw, brute power.

Tala took a step forward, muscles tensing in readiness. The aura around Jarl reminded her of a coiled up snake, cool stillness threatening to turn in an instant to fatal strike, and she wanted to close the gap as much as possible before that happened. She faltered as she staggered over the pack at her feet.

She had forgotten all about it. Rial had dropped it as he was throttled by Karal, and the attacker had been too fixated on dragging the unconscious man to the square to pay any attention to such things. Tala had been left alone, in a swirl of contradictory emotions, to pick up the bag and investigate its contents.

She didn’t know what the dull grey lump of metal inside was, but it tingled to the touch. She took it with her when she resolved to go to the square. She owed him that much, at least.

“This is the mob,” said Rial loudly.

When Tala looked up at him he was staring back at her.

“It can’t be tamed. It can’t be contained. Not when you allow it to take hold like this. This is what happens when our individuality is subsumed.”

The crowd was not happy with this turn of events. It snarled. The other council members, looking old indeed now, turned to look wide-eyed and frightful at the people behind them then staggered back towards Maril and the pillory.

“They want to free this demon!”

Karal had appeared from somewhere, raising his fists into the air as he called over the crowd.

“This man, who would poison our families!”

Karal had spent every waking moment since the incident when Rial had left, months ago, haranguing any who would listen about both the vivinder and the man who had tried to ‘prevent him from carrying out justice.’ To hear it told, Karal had fought a raging berserker whose one ambition in life was to bring down the city.

There were plenty willing to hear this. Even the children had abandoned Trian’s stories for Karal’s, excited by the blood and horror he evoked of the people and the beasts outside.

Trian...

By some vagary of fate, at the same time Tala wondered where the man was her exploring gaze found him. He was far to the edge of the square, past the crowds and perched on a low wall, the walking stick that was now always at his side leant besides him. He was little more than skin and bones and she knew, having taken him in to her home when he could no longer look after himself, that he would be struggling to keep down bloody coughs.

She hadn’t told him Rial had returned, but somehow she wasn’t surprised he knew. She could see no trace of worry on his face; instead, it looked as if Trian was simply waiting.

Karal had whipped the crowd into a frenzy, and stones and whatever else they found within arm’s reach were hurtling through the air towards Rial’s face. In their wild anger, though, most sailed harmlessly past and the few that hit Rial hardly acknowledged.

“Ok Mead, I tried. You can activate now.”

Tala didn’t have time to jump back as a soft orange light radiated from the bag at her feet, fanning out from a single point to engulf the raging masses, changing colour as it did so. Shouts of hate became cries of fear before being abruptly cut off.

A strange hush descended. Tala took a step forward, her own footfalls echoing in her ears, to stare around her.

Each and every person before her was wrapped in a translucent green glow that flowed like treacle over their features, enfolding them completely beneath alternating patches of light and dark. Karal, one hand held where it had been gesticulating wildly into the air, was frozen with open eyes staring upwards. It took a few seconds for Tala to realise he was still moving, just at an incredibly slow pace. His eyelids were slowly descending as his mouth formed a gasping ‘o’ of surprise or horror; Tala couldn’t tell which.

“Uh… could you get me out of this, please? I would ask Mead to do it but it’s best to conserve charge as much as possible.”

Tala turned slowly on her heels to look from Rial, still bound and locked to the pillory, to the pack by her feet. The fabric was somehow untouched by the torrent of energy pouring from it[2], hiding whatever remained inside.

“Um… If you let me out, I’ll let you use it?” said Rial, uncertainly.

“I could just leave you there and take it anyway,” she replied, not taking her eyes off the pack.

“Not a good idea,” said Rial. “Though if anyone could it’d be you, I’m sure.”

Tala gave up and strode smartly over to Rial, pulling open the latches that locked the boards in place. Rial stepped back and painfully pulled himself straight, bones audibly popping in his back as he did so.

“Thanks,” he said, massaging his shoulders. “It was a stupid idea, but I didn’t expect to end up like that quite so quickly.”

“You seem to have a talent for getting yourself into these situations.”

Tala turned at Trian’s words. The sickly man was hobbling slowly towards them, stick supporting his every step. He was smiling, and in his eyes some spark of his former vitality had returned. It was the healthiest she had seen him look in weeks.

Rial smiled back, but Tala could see the suppressed sadness when he looked at his frail friend.

“You knew he was here last night, didn’t you?” said Tala, realisation dawning.

Of course Rial had gone to Trian first. And, she had to admit, it was good he had too.

Annoyed at being caught off guard, and at the mischievous grin on Rial’s face, she tutted and walked towards the pack.

“So, how does this work?” she said, bending down in one quick movement to sweep it up into her arms.

The surprised shout from Rial and Trian faded as she turned to them, unharmed.

“I have… never tried that,” said Rial, watching in fascination as the orange energy flowed smoothly over her arms and shoulders to continue pouring over the strangely frozen crowd.

“If it can do whatever it does without affecting the bag, it was hardly likely to harm me,” said Tala.

She kept her voice level, and didn’t think she had given any hint to the fact that her heart was racing. She had been fairly sure, but…

Trian burst into laughter that quickly turned to a fit of harsh, rasping coughs. He was still laughing as Rial and Tala helped him over to the wall to sit.

“You do all this…” wheezed Trian, still laughing, “and she manages to surprise you more than you do her! Reminds me of old times…”

Rial chuckled along with his friend.

“Doesn’t it?”

Rial’s smile faded.

“And, just like then, we have to go.”

“Why didn’t… Mead do this… last time?” said Trian, his words coming with more and more difficulty.

“It didn’t tell me it could. The thing’s a trickster. It took me years to find out it could hold people in near-stasis without killing them.”

“And I explained it’s not stasis.”

Tala nearly dropped the thing in her arms. It spoke?

Rial turned to look at her. Something in his eyes told her he was watching to see what her next move would be.

She carefully placed the pack onto the ground in front of her, the flowing energy warping and sliding around her as she moved, and pulled the cloth mouth open to reveal the contents within.

She stood up again with the thing the others had called Mead in her hand, turning it over and over to inspect it.

The surface of the peculiar cylinder had four rough indentations that were clearly for grip, and the energy flowed from the narrow end in which numerous holes were apparent, but the sharp, vicious point on top was a mystery to her. There was no sensation of movement from the thing, no shifting weight as in any machinery she had encountered, and it was light. Exceedingly light.

“So it’s a weapon,” she said.

Rial did not reply. He was still watching her, she knew.

“My mother was not an open person. Life was hard to everybody back then… ha, it still is… but I’ve always remembered one of the only things she ever said to me that seemed… important. She told me…”

Tala looked up at Rial, then to Trian.

“She told me, ‘When you’re in hell, only demons can save you.’ I never knew what she meant.”

Her eyes fell back to the thing resting in her hands.

“This is no demon, though,” she said. “This is nothing so human as that.”

Rial laughed.

“I told you, Trian. I told you she’d see through it.”

“Quiet,” snapped Tala, throwing a glare at Rial that clamped his mouth shut. “You think this is some kind of game? You’re actually enjoying this, aren’t you? Of course you are,” she continued before he could reply. “You have this. Nothing can touch you. Nothing can threaten you. You let them hate you, you wanted them to turn into this…”

Her arms swept over the crowd, their expressions of fury not yet fully collapsed into fear.

“…so you could feel better than them. Tell me that’s not true.”

Rial stayed silent, cheeks flushing.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, voice cooler, “but you are going to explain everything. No more games, no more hinting at the things you know that I don’t. Everything. Understood?”

Rial nodded sheepishly.

Trian’s laughter echoed over the square.

[1] Tala never had to worry about personal space. Something about her steely stare and sharp knives ensured that.

[2] It never occurred to her to think of this flowing luminescence as anything other than energy, pure and raw. It was an intuitive conclusion, and she knew it was correct.