At night, Ismila returned to her home. The lamps were no longer burning. She went to her room, but found no one there.

"Where did he go?"

Ismila decided not to look for her guest at night and went to bed, and immediately fell asleep. That night she had a weird dream. She was in the highlands, surrounded by four rocks whose bottoms were dotted with green dark-coniferous forests. Small hills stretched up ahead. And behind them, a couple of miles away, in this vacuum of natural calm, you could see a lake, the color of thick blue yogurt. She walked towards it along a small paved road; the clay ground was solid and dry. It was a clear day outside, but black rain clouds were already gathering on the horizon. After a few minutes Ismila went around the first green hill and suddenly heard someone playing the flute. She turned off the road and followed the sound, breaking the fallen branches of the fir trees under her feet. Behind the hill, an old man in a white robe and a long white beard sat on a hillock, completely not paying attention to her existence. Ismila was struck by the beautiful melody, sat down on the ground nearby and listened. When the old man had finished, he turned to her and asked:

"Did you like it?"

“Very.”

"It's the «Lonly shepherd»."

“A beautiful melody.”

"I think it's a little pathetic. Don't you think so?”

"I don't know. I think it's rather sad.”

“Everyone in this song hears something different.”

"Who are you?"

The old man paused, rubbed his beard, and stared at the dark green forest.

"Are you a God?"

Hearing this, the old man laughed and replied:

"There are no Gods in this world… And hardly ever were. We're all just people.”

Ismila turned away, looked at the lake, which seemed so close. Then she turned her head back to ask the old man to play some more melody, but he was gone.

She went back to the road and went on. When she reached the lake, she took a deep breath and felt her body completely relax. She scooped up a handful of water and drank it. She tried to see the bottom, but it didn't work. The lake sank deep into the bowels of the earth, growing darker and darker. With each passing minute, the clouds covered the dark blue sky with their shroud. However, the sun was still visible behind a thick layer of clouds, giving the entire landscape a bright yellow palette of colors. On the opposite bank, she saw a man with a black sphere flying next to him. Nevertheless, he was too far away to be able to make out the features of his face. Suddenly she heard him calling to her.

“Ismila, Ismila, Ismila!”

The voice grew louder and louder. There was a clap of thunder. She only had time to blink, and the man was already standing in front of her. It was Malum. He looked at her from under his eyebrows. She lifted her head slightly and saw a black sphere obscuring the sun. And the world immediately plunged into darkness.

“Ismila! Ismila! Ismila!”

She woke up in a cold sweat and heard a knock.

"Ismila," someone shouted from the street.

She went to the door, fumbled through her pockets, and went back into the room, picked up an iron key from the table, and went out again, while shouting "wait a second!" She inserted the iron key into the rusted hole of the patch lock, made four clockwise turns with a little difficulty, remembering once again that it would not hurt to lubricate it; the door finally opened, and Ismila saw one of the leaders of the militia squad standing in front of her.

“You'd better see this.”

"See what?"

"Come with me."

She quickly changed her clothes and went to the southern part of the city along the streets where she had walked with Malum earlier in the day. The man moved quickly, almost running, and she could barely keep up with him. Half an hour later, they both reached the South gate.

“We go there,” he said, and pointed to the east. “Just a little bit more.”

“There's nothing there.”

“Believe me, there is.”

When they arrived at the scene, Ismila saw a mass of frightened faces of the militias and three black bags with bodies inside.

“Who are they?” She asked the sentinel.

“Ordinary hard-working people.” Slightly stuttering, he replied. “I have no idea who is capable of such an atrocity. The first one to find them is the guy over there who's trembling near the wall.”

Ismila looked at the boy, who couldn't be more than fourteen. His appearance and mental state said only one thing, that this is definitely not his handiwork.

"I'll go ask what happened."

“Don’t. It's unlikely that this kid will be able to say anything at all, at least in the near future.”

"Why is that?"

“Believe me, the sight that we all saw here will easily shock even a life hardened veteran, more so a child.”

"What in the name of Vyshen’s happened here? Did you see it by yourself?”

“Yes. I did”

“So, talk, don’t drag it out.”

The sentinel remembered patrolling the street at night and hearing a boy's heart-rending scream. He ran to the sound and saw three men hanging head down from the baobab tree. Their feet were tied to branches, and their knees and elbows were pierced with sharpened wooden stakes. The skin on their faces was cold, in a dark blue shade, and their veins were swollen, as if they had been lowered into cold water, to the bottom of the ocean and held there until their brains turned to ice and their eyes explode from the pressure. The chest has been opened up with something sharp, and the entrails were hanging out of the hole. But the sentinel didn't mention the details, either because he didn't want to think about it, or because he felt sorry for his ruler's nerves. What he said was this:

“It looked like an execution. They definitely didn't die of natural causes. They were hung from this tree. Apparently, it was done at a time when the whole city was gathered at the festival. The kid was just coming home at night and fuck knows why he chose this road. Nothing good has ever happened on it for as long as I can remember. Well, he will think next time which way to choose.”

“What a mess.”

“That's for sure.”

“My guest is missing. He’s called Malum.”

“Yes, I saw him at the party.”

“And where did he go then?”

“I don’t know. You didn't order to watch him.”

They stood in silence and watched as the corpses were placed in drogues. In the light of the few torches, the undertakers, the militias, and the rest of the crowd looked like to be at death's door sufferers in a state of delusion, then the living people. The ferryman jerked the reins, shouting “Wo-ho! So then!” and a pair of horses dragged the loaded cart away into the darkness. Then the caretaker asked:

"Do you think he did it?"

“I don't know…”

"If you ask me, I think it's him. There are no such coincidences, think about it.”

"There are no..." she continued to answer thoughtfully. “But I have a feeling it's not that simple."

"As for me, it couldn't be simpler.”

Ismila continued to stand and watch into the outer darkness, as if floating on the river Styx to the far west. Everyone except the militias and the scared boy started to go home.

“So, what are we going to do now?” Asked the leader of militia squad.

“Look for Malum, maybe he got drunk and spent the night in some bar or hotel with some whores.”

“Yes, Milady.”

“Hell knows what's going on here!”

“This has never happened before.”

"A lot of things happened for the first time, but this ‘first time's’, for some reason, too often falls on my age. Anyway, I'm going to sleep, if I can sleep at all. Investigate and give me the report.”

“Should I see you off?”

“No need.”