Filip lay in the muck of the Garden District, though whether for hours or days, he could no longer say. Time had become a viscous thing that slid through his mind without purchase leaving him to wallow in his own misery, a fever his only companion. In the rare moments when clarity returned to his mind, he heard the sounds of a city in its death throes. Screams, cries, laughter. Filip heard the range of human emotion in a never ending flow that did not dull his own emotions and fever dreams, instead adding to them.

In the height of his delirium, Filip tried to answer the calls. He tried to rise, to cry out that he was a member of the Night Watch and there would be no fear now, for a hero was among them. Even in his dreams though he would reach for his sword, and then the dream would become a nightmare as he caught sight of his right hand, a mangled, blackened ruin where the jailer’s blade had stolen his fingers. He could feel his very guts trying to escape him in those moments, his stomach heaving until there was nothing left except agony.

He supposed he had cried. He supposed he had begged for mercy. But there would be no mercy, no end to the tears. Not here, not in Marchand, and certainly not for him. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or dying now as he watched the sun move across the sky. As the darkness of the night came, so too did the darkness in his mind. His temples burned, he was so thirsty that when his tongue shifted it stuck to the roof of his mouth and felt like something foreign.

With nightfall came a chill that was somehow worse than the heat. It was a deep, intrusive cold that Marchand rarely knew, a frost that seemed to emanate from the stones themselves. Filip found his teeth chattering with a violence that made his jaw ache. He brushed the back of his left hand across his forehead and found only a searing, unnatural heat. He was a man divided; burning from the inside, freezing from the out.

Then too the night ended and the grey light of morning returned, though Filip did not know if it was the next day or a week later. He did not know where "here" was anymore, only the feel of the cold stones and filth below him, and the shadow of the Governor’s palace looming somewhere in the distance. Had he slept? He supposed he had, but there was no rest in it, no break from the fatigue that seemed to permeate deep into his bones.

Visions began to dance in the smoke. He saw the people of Marchand, but they were transformed. No longer were they the haggard wretches of the Garden District; they were revelers and lunatics. He heard the raucous laughter of a city filled with madness, and Filip did not know if they were the mad ones, or he. Filip dragged himself to his feet, breath coming in ragged gasps as he clutched his injured hand close to his chest. He could see it now, the hand had turned a sickly yellow around the stumps of the missing fingers and had swollen.

He staggered into the street as he drove his mind away from the ruin of his hand and onto anything his mind would latch onto. But his mind did not understand what he saw anymore; the world was a riot of color and smells unfamiliar to him. Bonfires were lit in the middle of the thoroughfares, fueled by the finery of the dead. He saw silk tapestries from the nobles, hunks of gilded wood, and the nobles themselves piled high and set ablaze. Monsters danced around the pyres, their shadows stretching long and cruel against the scorched and broken walls around them.

Filip blinked, his vision swimming. He was unsure if he had died and found himself in some strange afterlife, or if he had simply gone mad. Even as Filip watched the figures dance, they began to change, and he felt an unfamiliar ache take hold as he recognized the forms they took. He saw his siblings, their faces bright, laughing as they skipped around the fire. He saw his mother, her hair unbound, and his father, the wet cough that had plagued him gone from his chest.

Filip smiled, a pathetic, trembling thing. He knew this could not be real, but he accepted it for what it was. A final mercy from a mind that could no longer endure the truth. He reached out with his good hand, his mind searching for something to say, something that would undo the past horrors. He felt a cool dampness in his eyes and he blinked in surprise as he found tears there.

"Mother?" he croaked out at last.

The woman turned to face him. But it was not his mother. The cruel face that met his was a mask of grey, wrinkled skin with bottomless black eyes, and as the creature’s mouth stretched into a grin, it revealed rows of sharp, metal-capped teeth that seemed to absorb the firelight. A single gold ringlet rested above its wild white hair, a mockery of a halo.

The creature did not speak, instead, it let out a series of strange, bird-like clicks and chirps, a rhythmic, metallic sound that vibrated in Filip’s very skull.

Filip did not scream because he had no breath for it. His hand fell to his side, and he turned to run, but the street had become a labyrinth of bodies. He was jostled, pushed, and spun around. A man bumped into Filip and sent him reeling. He looked up, expecting to see the monster’s warped face, but instead found himself staring into the cold face of Lord Hoff.

“Finally something useful to tell me, boy?” the apparition sneered, leaning down until Filip could smell the rancid wine on his breath. The man barked a short laugh at his own comment, then turned as if speaking to someone else, but there was no one else.

“Take his hand, and then his balls. Clearly he has no use for 'em. Look at him, shaking and pissing himself. A child playing dress-up in a watchman’s coat.”

The figure morphed again, the fine clothes of Lord Hoff dissolving into the stained robes of the jailer. The man’s diseased skin began to peel away in great chunks, the red splotches on his face weeping a thin, pink fluid.

The jailer clutched at Filip, his cold fingers prying at Filip’s wrist. A carving knife materialized in the air, a sliver of polished steel that flashed before Filip’s eyes before biting deep into the meat of his hand.

Filip screamed as the agony washed over him again. He screamed, and screamed, but no one cared. Around him other figures flitted through his imagination, in and out of the bonfires smoke. No one stopped to help him; no one even noticed him as he fell to his knees, clutching his hand to his chest expecting the wounds to be opened anew.

But when he opened his eyes, the hand was still there, maimed, yes, but no more than it had been. The jailer’s cruel face vanished into the smoke, and Filip was alone in the center of the street. The sound of the celebration remained, but now it was not a hallucination. The bonfires were real. The dancing was real. He blinked back tears that were watery and stinging from the pervasive smell of burning flesh

He turned his gaze toward the nearest bonfire. The figures were not his family,but nor were they the ghosts of his tormentors. They were just people. The common folk of Marchand, their faces smeared with soot, their eyes wide with the frantic insatiable lust of a populace that had realized they were now the masters. Filip stood, his legs trembling from the aches and pains of his fever. He wasn't sure he could trust his eyes, but he walked on, willing strength into his limbs as he moved. He did not want the fire, or the strange illness that had taken the city. He needed the comfort of darkness to collect himself, and watch.

“I don't believe you have the vigor to join them yet. Try some water first.”

The voice hissed in his ear, an ethereal tone that did not match the madness of the street. It was a cold sound, devoid of the heat of the mob or the madness of the flames.

Filip jerked at the voice, nearly falling flat as he spun. He found himself facing a tall, thin man who seemed to have materialized out of the very smoke, and who’s eyes glittered in the firelight as they watched him. The man wore the rough stained rags of a laborer, but the way he stood, the dangerous stillness of his frame, gave Filip pause. There was something in those eyes that sent a surge of fear down Filip’s spine. He wanted to run, to hide, but it was too late for either.

The man proffered a leather flask. Filip took it with a hand that shook, and only partly from the aches of his body. Still, as he felt the weight of the flask in his hand, he felt the dryness in his throat. He did not ask what was in it. He uncorked it and drank, the lukewarm water hitting washing away the grit and grime that he hadn't even known had been caked in his mouth. He sucked the flask dry in a moment, the liquid reinvigorating his senses and bringing with it a renewed, sharpened ache in his hand. The renewed pain tried to pull his attention away, but Filip dared not look away from the stranger.

“Got a name, boy?” the man asked.

Filip nodded, but did not answer immediately. His gaze swung over the scene of debauchery; men dragging furniture into the streets, women wearing stolen jewelry over their rags, the Governor's palace a flaming torch on the hill.

“What happened?” Filip’s voice shook more than he remembered, a hoarse whisper. He found a sliver of his old pride and clung to it, trying to steady his breathing. He couldn't fully suppress the pain, but it was a commendable effort for one who had been half dead an hour ago.

The thin man looked him over, gaze lingering on the bloodied Night Watch sigil on Filip’s coat and then moving to the mangled hand. He seemed to be weighing Filip’s soul in a balance only he could see. After what seemed an age, he joined Filip in looking over the revelry, voice cool and detached.

“The city has fallen to rebels and fools,” the man said. “The Governor and his halls have both burned, and now the people dance in the ruin. They think they have won a world.”

The man turned his eyes back to Filip. There was no anger in them.

“The people here, they believe they have done something grand,” the stranger continued. “But you and I know better, don't we? We know that there is something else, something far more dangerous than petty politics and disorderly conduct lurking in the shadows of Marchand. Something even more dangerous than a rebellion against the Emperor himself.”

Filip shivered, a coldness that had nothing to do with the night air racing down his spine. His mind flashed back to the courtyard filled with corpses and the dark figure with the metal teeth. Surely this man didn't know. Surely no one knew of the monster but him.

“Yes. The same,” the man said, answering the thought before Filip could even form the question.

A thin, predatory smile stretched across the stranger’s face. He pulled his lips back, and from his throat came a low, guttural clicking tone, a perfect, terrifying imitation of the monster Filip had met in the dark.

Filip reacted instinctively, pure terror coursing through him as he tried to escape, to run. But the man was faster. Even as Filip took his first desperate step, an iron grip tightened on Filip’s shoulder stopping him in his tracks.

“We have a great deal to discuss, you and I,” the man said.

Filip could feel himself being drawn forward. He tried to resist, his boots scuffing the cobbles, but beneath the fear, there was a burgeoning curiosity, and with it the fight within him bled away. It was strange, but in that moment he wanted to know more than he wanted to run.

The man let go of his shoulder and turned his back, walking forward into the night with a confident stride. He didn't look back to see if Filip was following; he already knew he would.

Filip stood for a moment in the flickering light of the bonfires. He could have run. He could have shouted for the rebels to help him, to save him from this being. He could have even tried to strike the man while his back was turned. But instead, he found himself falling into step behind the tall, thin figure. He felt like a moth drawn to a cold, black flame.

“What can I call you?” Filip asked, his voice hoarse.

The man paused mid-stride, tilting his head as if considering. He didn't turn around.

“You may call me Ash,” he said.

Filip felt a thrill run up his spine, a cold spark of recognition. The Emperor’s shadowed hand. The stories he had heard in the guard tower, the whispers of the man who could make entire cities vanish in a puff of smoke, they all coalesced into the figure walking before him. Filip tried to shake off the feeling, to tell himself that this was just another, that the name was merely a coincidence. But Filip watched the figure, and knew with an unshakable certainty that this was the man of legend. This was not only an Inquisitor, but the head of the Imperial Inquisition. It was in his movements, the look of his face, the cold confidence. This was not a man from Marchand.

For a moment the idea of being in his company was overwhelming, but to a boy who had lost everything, his job, his fingers, his city, it was strangely appealing. He was no longer a watchman of a dead city. He was something else.

Filip followed Ash into the darkness, leaving the screaming fires of Marchand behind.