The tune of Aliston had changed, as had the people. The heat still required daily naps to recover, but the evening had grown busy with the hammer of nails, the sawing of wood, and the march of boots. There was one more sound new to the port town as well: the moaning and begging of crucified murderers. Dozens of them lined the shore, well in sight of the main bazaar. They were tied up like animals, hung from the posts, and left for the sun and the birds. They cried out for mercy, but their pain was more a summons to join the new town guard.

The rule of punishment had been made simple. Only the surviving kin could pardon a killer. To the rest of the city, their suffering was a warning against rebellion and a reminder of the poison the city faced.

To a reader accustomed to a more peaceful life, such as a rural town with a high degree of trust, this must sound barbaric and cruel. Firstly, I must stress that one of the most important factors in preventing crime is the perception that punishment will arrive and it will be egregious. A slap on the wrist for murder, if someone just so happens to see it, would hardly stop killings. To be strung up until one’s skin blisters, until they lack the strength to keep the birds from pecking at their eyes and tongue as they beg for water, that is a nightmare to ponder.

And secondly, the static display was only part of the theatrics of control. Lucius had already brought back the rumor of the demon, a far grander prize than any land taken. In retaliation for his raids, the spirit of the smoke had wormed in through the dregs of society and driven them frothing mad. What should have been a shouting match became a stabbing. Cheats at dice became murders. Every degree of hostility that could be exacerbated was driven up and the change in violence could be felt like a change in the weather.

To prove that it had a source, Lucius regularly inebriated one of the prisoners. From his stolen satchel of kuku bud he would light a pile and have it thrust into the face of one of the waning killers. The smoke filled their lungs and a horrid necromancy gripped them. They would convulse and cough, spitting out bloody phlegm and decay as their eyes rolled up. Their bones would creak and their joints crack as they thrashed upon their bindings.

And then the spirit would speak through them.

“In all my years I can hardly think of another human so callous,” the spirit–whom Lucius had since learned the name Umbra–said. The intoxicated corpse of a man looked down at them from his crucified post, skin sallow and eyes rolled backwards. There were no convulsions of pain and no lisping from blisters of the mouth, as if the harm of exposure were immaterial.

“You haven’t known many humans,” Lucius said, standing before the mouthpiece with his arms crossed. He had on his steel regalia, polished and cleaned as if departing for war. More importantly, he spoke in Vassish. Umbra spoke in kind, half-obscuring their words from the onlookers.

“I have lived for centuries, skulking about the shadows at the edge of the world. I have seen wars and betrayal the likes of which you couldn’t imagine, child. You must think you’re accomplishing something by warring against my flock.”

Lucius listened and nodded. “You must think I don’t know you’re absorbing their souls. I might be cutting off your hands and feet out here, but for every man I kill I make you stronger, don’t I?”

Umbra hesitated. “Then why bother? You are only bleeding yourself out. You are no god, boy.”

He laughed. “Same reason I summon you every day. It’s all part of the theatrics,” he said, and swept his arm across the cityscape. “The people need to know there is an enemy, there is action being taken. With that comes will and conviction, and you can’t accomplish anything without those.”

Umbra did not move its sightless gaze from Lucius. “Do you not wonder why I answer these summons?” the spirit asked. “Do you not ask what I gain from it? Because I do not have to come here and speak with you.”

“You don’t come anywhere. You aren’t physically in this world, not yet.”

Umbra smirked. “The effort is there, and is best approximated as travel.”

“Shouldn’t you be talking with more grandiosity? More anger? Where’s the wrathful god of the storms? You sound like we’re having tea together.”

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“I am here, speaking with you, because it would be too much trouble otherwise to learn when you give in.”

Lucius barked out a laugh. “Likewise.”

“Soon enough you’ll be here asking to be allowed to leave, to take your friends and your gold and to climb aboard ships unmolested. You will be on your knees with tears streaking down your face because you will have finally understood what I am capable of.”

“If you could do that to me, you would have already.”

“I was waiting for the right time.”

“You’re lying.”

“I wanted to put a knife to Aisha’s throat, but you sent her away.”

Lucius found himself lost for words. He gritted his teeth and snarled at the incarnation.

“I see everything in the Misty Isles. You knew that, didn’t you? Were I a human, one of you filthy apes, I would have been called a voyeur. You do so love that woman, don’t you? But, you sent her away before I could slip a seed of poison into her belly. Shame that. But, perhaps my attention is better spent on the short girl? What do you think? Governor?”

“Don’t even think about touching Kajsa again. Didn’t you learn your lesson?”

“The same could be said to you, Solhart. Didn’t you learn that everyone here is in danger?”

“That’s what the guards are for.”

“The guards are in danger too,” Umbra said, and cackled. At last, the body convulsed. A seizure gripped it and the prisoner’s body hung limp from the restraints. Drool slipped down his front and urine stained his trousers as death took him.

Lucius spat. “Cut him down and burn him,” he ordered.

Some of the new recruits that had stood behind Lucius moved forward to dispose of the body. The process had largely been for their benefit. They didn’t understand any Vassish, but the manifestation scared them. Adam No-last-name stepped over, ducking his head to whisper. “Things in the city are getting bad, m’lord.”

“That means we’re pressuring Umbra, doesn’t it?”

“It’s hard to say we’re winning when there’s a murder every night. Sometimes multiple. Not even half can be attributed to Kuku bud.”

“That’s something that happens. When there is crime in the area, people are more likely to be criminal. People are more stressed, they have less patience. Once we capture Umbra, everything will be fixed.”

“But there's the current problem. M’lord, I think something has to be done now.”

“We’re recruiting rapidly, aren’t we?” Lucius said, gesturing to the two locals carrying the body to the outskirts of town.

“Untrained soldiers can hardly keep the peace,” Adam said.

With a sigh, Lucius asked, “What are you suggesting?”

“I think you need to bring some of the northerners into Aliston.”

Lucius sneered and crossed his arms again. “The freed men? The ones who belong in prison? They’d be a bigger danger to the city than this demon.”

“Cherry pick the best of them, then. Do something before there are riots, m’lord.”

“No,” Lucius said. “I’ll find some other means of keeping the peace.”

Their hushed discussion ended as Lexa came running down the road from the mansion. She waved a hand without slowing and hollered for Lucius. There were a dozen reasons she could have needed his attention. The merchant Lupin might have returned, or word from Rackvidd. Perhaps a fire had broken out or Kajsa was able to walk on her own. Instead, she shouted, “They got Isalin!”

The old man was no more. His body wouldn’t have even been found if the culprit had not alerted the guards to the abandoned shed. They were still chasing him through the jungle, but his physical description meant little. Lexa assured Lucius that they would find and capture the man, but it passed the boy over. He vaguely understood the nuances of language she tried to convey, but telling him the equivalent of “he had an aquiline nose” did nothing but comfort him that his subordinates knew what they were talking about.

It was a shallow distraction from the gore.

The sequence of wounds could roughly be surmised from the flow of blood down one side but not the other. He had been stabbed through the armpit, likely taken unawares. A swift death which spewed his blood out quickly. There was no way he could have survived it while they butchered his body. The killer had made an absolute horror show of it, dismantling every joint and stretching out the limbs like a nightmare creature. His eyes had been removed and placed into his mouth, while his entrails had been piled into an altar beneath the abomination.

Lucius looked it over and tried to find some level of meaning. Some symbology or cryptic message. He had seen the languages of the entire world and I had taught him half a dozen ciphers. He had studied and hunted godlings and consulted on engineering blueprints. There was almost no subject of science, nature, or philosophy he could not have recognized. All he witnessed was savagery.

“Burn it,” he whispered. “Burn it down and I want an inspection of every property. If we can’t find the owner, it’s to be torn down for materials.”

“Aye, sir.”