Dishonored--The Corroded Man Read online

  She frowned at the envelope, and slipped it out of the pile, holding it up to the light.

  Corvo and Wyman stopped their conversation and turned in her direction.

  “That time of year again, I see,” Corvo said. He smiled as he emptied yet another tiny beaker of coffee in a single gulp.

  Emily crinkled her nose as she turned the envelope around, reading the address of the sender that, like the writing on the front, covered nearly the entire back of the envelope in a hand that was barely legible. The last remaining Lady Boyle was getting old, she supposed. How many years had it been since Emily had seen her?

  Wyman leaned forward. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  She sighed and tossed the envelope onto the breakfast table, one gilded corner landing in a plate of pickled redjawed hagfish eyes.

  “What’s the point?” she asked, slumping back in her chair. “Every year the Empress—or Emperor, take your pick—is invited to the Boyle Masquerade. Every year, the Emperor—sorry, Empress—has to decline.” Emily shook her head.

  “But that’s the tradition,” Wyman said.

  Emily raised an eyebrow. “Tradition is an ass.”

  “Says Emily Drexel Lela Kaldwin the First, of the House of Kaldwin, Empress of the Isles,” Corvo said from somewhere behind the rim of his coffee beaker.

  “You know what I mean,” Emily said, folding her arms. “I’d have liked to have been able to go, even just the once. I would have, of course, if my mother was still alive. As an Imperial Princess and heir it would have been my introduction to Dunwall society, after all.”

  Corvo hrmmed. “You wouldn’t like it,” he said.

  Wyman grinned, turning to the Royal Protector. “You’ve been?”

  Corvo frowned. “Once.”

  “And?”

  Corvo shrugged. “It didn’t go so well.”

  Wyman laughed, then turned back to Emily. “What happened to the famous Boyle sisters, anyway? There’s only one living at the mansion now, isn’t there?”

  Emily nodded. “Yes, just one left now,” she said, picking the envelope up again, shaking the vinegary liquid from it, and finally opening it with a bread knife. She slid the card out, cast her eye over it, then passed it across for Wyman to take a look. Wyman took the card and read the text aloud in an exaggerated, formal accent.

  “The Lady Esma Boyle requests the company of her most illustrious Imperial Majesty, Empress Emily Kaldwin, for a masquerade ball to take place at the Great Hall of the Boyle Estate, on the Fifteenth Day of the Month of Darkness, 1851.”

  Corvo reached his hand out and Wyman handed the card over.

  “Lady Esma Boyle,” Corvo said quietly. “Last of the three.”

  “Lady Waverly is still alive, isn’t she?” Emily asked.

  Corvo nodded. “Yes, but she’s not in Dunwall. She hasn’t been since that business with Lord Brisby.”

  Wyman looked from Corvo to Emily and back again. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to fill me in on that one. Who’s Lord Brisby?”

  “A criminal, is what,” Emily said. “And Waverly too.”

  Wyman’s eyes widened in surprise, but Emily didn’t say any more, her features set. Wyman turned back to Corvo, who sighed.

  “Well, Brisby was a lord in the court of Empress Jessamine,” Corvo said. “He was obsessed with Lady Waverly Boyle, kidnapping her on the night of the Boyle Masquerade of 1837. He took her out of the city, back to his old family estate on an island somewhere. She hasn’t been back since.”

  “Good riddance,” Emily said. She folded her arms.

  Wyman glanced at Corvo.

  “And…?”

  Corvo frowned, then continued. “And Waverly Boyle was the mistress of Hiram Burrows.”

  “Oh? Oh!” Wyman said, quickly disappearing behind a raised teacup.

  “Yes,” Emily said. “Oh.”

  “A few years later,” Corvo said, “Lord Brisby himself disappeared—apparently he left on a ship heading back to Gristol, but he never got off the boat when it docked. There was a rumor that Waverly arranged for his disappearance, in order to take over his estate.”

  “And did she?” Wyman asked.

  Corvo shrugged. “Have him killed? Nobody could find any evidence. But yes, she had his estate. She’s still up there, on her own. Doing quite well, I imagine, given how rich Brisby was.”

  Emily stood from the table.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I need to take a walk.”

  * * *

  She spent the day wandering around Dunwall Tower. With Corvo in the palace, she was finally free of her constant escort, and savored the isolation.

  As she stalked the halls, she passed courtiers who bowed and curtsied as she went by, turning to face the Empress as a matter of respect, the conversations suddenly snuffed out by her presence. Emily acknowledged them all, but it did little to help her mood, because she knew what they were all talking about. Some had even been holding their own red envelopes in their hands.

  The Boyle Masquerade.

  Eventually she found a quiet alcove and stood for a moment, gazing up at a larger-than-life portrait of one of her predecessors. She peered at the nameplate at the bottom of the frame.

  “Empress Larisa Olaskir, 1783 to 1801,” she read. “Huh. No masquerade ball for you, either.” Then she lowered her voice, adding a rasp in a vague, mocking impersonation of the Royal Protector. “But don’t worry, you wouldn’t like it.”

  She stood there for a moment longer, silently screaming in her head.

  After that she felt better.

  Then, on a whim, she headed for the Great Hall, and upon arrival instantly regretted it. The large space—usually reserved for grand events thrown for visiting dignitaries—was dominated by a table that ran the entire length of the chamber, big enough to seat two hundred people. But, as was tradition once the famous red envelopes arrived, for the next two weeks it would be turned into a tailor’s showcase and haberdashery.

  Half of the massive table was buried under acres of cloth from all over the Empire—bolts of colorful shot silk from Karnaca, rolls of heavy, dark velvet from Tyvia, woven woolen cloth from Morley with its characteristic fine-checked patterns. A half-dozen seamstresses and three male tailors—at least half of whom were contracted from Dunwall’s famous fashion district, Drapers Ward—bustled about the room, fussing over the fabrics and patterns. As Emily entered, they fell silent and turned to bow to her.

  She gritted her teeth, gave them a smile, and told them to carry on. She moved to the other side of the table and walked along it, her eyes drinking in the fabulous display.

  Beyond the cloth and fabrics she found a set of large, leather-bound folios, lying open. Emily wandered over to them and began leafing through the pages, her eye moving over the patterns for elaborate costumes—golden lions, purple peacocks, multicolored birds of paradise. Each design page was beautifully engraved with a color illustration of what the finished masquerade costume would look like.

  Beside the folios, at the far end of the table, were the masks. It was just a selection of what was possible, a demonstration of the fine craftsmanship—no courtier would ever wear a ready-made mask. On the contrary, the Boyle Masquerade was the chance to really show off, to go all out with a fanciful, custom-made outfit.

  Emily sighed as she picked up an elaborate headdress of a lion, holding it up to eye level. The face was a patchwork of yellow and orange corduroy, and the shaggy mane was shot through with gold thread.

  The ball would be magnificent.

  She knew that. She’d never been, but it was the same every year—two weeks of preparation at the court, and then for two weeks after the ball was over it was the only topic of conversation.

  And each year it drove her crazy. One annual event, one glamorous night of music and dance, a chance to relax and mingle with the nobility of the city.

  And she couldn’t go.

  She stared into the fake glass eyes of the lion—the real eye slots hidden in t
he folds of yellow beneath.

  She couldn’t go.

  Or… could she?

  Emily glanced down at the other masks on the table. There was a bear, a frog, a fox, and something with bulging, multifaceted eyes and long antennae that might have been a butterfly. There were also two bird masks—a blue and red creature with a long, curved bill that stuck out at least a foot from the nose of the wearer, and a smaller, more compact mask, a mask with iridescent black feathers and a stylized short beak. It looked like a black sparrow.

  A thought flickered into life. A thought she liked. She fanned its flames a little, feeling it grow in her mind.

  She could go to the masquerade, because it was exactly that—a masquerade. Everyone would be in elaborate outfits of all kinds, from simple half-masks or token efforts right up to the more complicated constructions on display here—masks that covered the entire head. Of course, she would have to keep the mask on the whole time, but if she did… nobody would know it was her.

  Would they?

  Emily sighed. No, it wouldn’t work. She would have no invitation. They were all personalized, and each one needed to be presented to the footman on attendance at the door.

  Unless she could come to some arrangement with Lady Boyle? Perhaps the host could be in on the secret, and she could be let in… discretely.

  Corvo. He knew Lady Boyle better than anyone, and as Royal Protector, he would need to know, too. In fact, he could come with her as her escort, in a costume of his own. At least that was what Emily told herself. And the more she told herself, the more logical the plan became.

  She left the Great Hall at a trot, ignoring the bows of the seamstresses and tailors as she headed for Corvo’s chambers.

  8

  GREAVES AUXILIARY WHALE SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROW, DUNWALL

  11th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851

  “Bonecharms, a sailor’s blessing, they say. The carving itself is a practice from long back, passed from salty-dogs to greenhorns still getting their sea legs. In old times, sailors cut into the tusks of ice seals and into the arm-long fangs of bears that roamed the islets north of Tyvia. Once the whaling trade began, the practitioners began engraving the bones of those great beasts, rendering charms that sing in the night and grant some small boon, increasing a lover’s vigor or providing defense against pregnancy.”

  — BONECHARMS

  Excerpt from a book on sailing traditions and scrimshaw

  Rinaldo crept down the stairwell that led to the slaughterhouse’s basement storerooms, grateful that these stairs were stone, not the rattling, rusting ironwork of the galleries that ran a tracery above the factory floor. Here, at least, he could move without risk of being heard.

  He’d waited a few days before investigating, in the meantime working with the other men to clean out the biggest of the old whale oil vats, all the while keeping an eye on Galia and the Boss. The pair seemed to spend most of their time away from the others, either up in the old control room or down in the basement toward which Rinaldo was heading. He had watched them carefully and, picking his moment, had managed to steal an old set of keys from the control room cupboard. He only hoped that one of the myriad keys on the ring would work when he needed it to.

  He continued down the stairwell.

  Rinaldo really didn’t get it—who the hell was the Boss anyway, and what kind of hold did he have on his old friend? Galia seemed to be under his spell, unaware how plain creepy the man was, like a walking scarecrow. And to make matters worse, the man in the hat was revealing nothing—and Galia had the gall to defend that.

  For the other men, it didn’t matter much. They were hired mercenaries—this wasn’t exactly the greatest incarnation of the Whalers that had ever been assembled, but they did the work and took their coin and didn’t say much about it. Although they shared Rinaldo’s view of their strange new boss, they wouldn’t go near him. It wasn’t much of an issue, though—most of the time the Boss just stood behind the big windows of the control room, motionless, staring down at them. It was impossible to tell if he was watching the gang at work, or if he was even awake behind the scarf and goggles.

  Maybe he was moonstruck, Rinaldo thought. Or maybe there was no “maybe” about it.

  But for Rinaldo, see, things were different. He wasn’t in it for the money.

  Well, no, scratch that. He was in it for the money. In fact, he knew full well that was what motivated everyone in the world—coin. But he was also doing this for Galia. He owed her, and it was a debt he didn’t mind servicing, not one little bit.

  She’d found him, picked him up—hell, saved his life, of that he knew full well. And sure, he, in turn, had helped her. Their reunion after all those years had been the saving of them both—if he hadn’t wandered into the Golden Cat that random night, he would be nothing but a whisper in the Void now, doomed to wander it forever.

  So he was doing this for Galia, but she was giving him nothing, nothing, in return. No information, not a single notion about what was going on. She was just sticking with her new friend in the coat and the hat, telling Rinaldo to trust her, while slowly, surely, cutting him out of the picture.

  She’d changed. It was that man. That thing, he had a hold on her. Some kind of hold. What, and how, Rinaldo had no idea.

  But he was going to find out.

  He reached the bottom of the stairs and entered a short subterranean passage. The cement was damp and crumbling, and the door at the end of the passage, thanks maybe to subsidence or just general neglect, didn’t quite fit the frame—certainly not as well as it had when the factory was a hive of activity, the whale oil harvested hot from the living carcasses of the great beasts as they swung in their cradles above the overflow vats.

  Rinaldo slid up to the door. It was steel, with a wheel lock in the center, more like the door from a ship. Beyond, Rinaldo guessed, would be storage vats, and the metal door was designed to seal the room beyond in case of leakage. It was crooked, and there was an inch-wide gap between the frame and the middle hinge. Rinaldo slid up to the gap and looked through.

  He tried—and failed—to suppress a shiver as he saw what was inside the storeroom. Because Rinaldo was many things, and he’d done a lot he’d regretted, things of which he wasn’t proud, but, that was the life he had chosen. It was too late now to turn a new leaf, even if he wanted to.

  But grave robbing. That was… well, it was pretty low. Give him a knife, give him a target—give him a mission—and Rinaldo would carry out his orders to the letter. That was how it was supposed to work. As a Whaler, he had a purpose, something meaningful. But this? Looting the dead? Dragging their corpses back here for the wraith in the coat to do… whatever it was he was doing?

  That was pushing Rinaldo a little too far. Perhaps if he knew what they were doing, what they were working toward, then maybe he’d understand. Maybe he’d even be able to be more help than just being another one of the gang. Galia should know that.

  Had she really changed so much?

  No, she hadn’t. It was him. The Boss. The black-coated weirdo with his red glasses.

  It was time for answers.

  Unfortunately, as Rinaldo stared with ever-growing horror at the scene behind the door, he wasn’t sure he was quite ready for what he was going to find.

  The pressed steel door was nearly off its hinges, but it was still locked, the pressure wheel in the middle unmoving under Rinaldo’s hands. He stepped back, frowned at the mechanism, then reached into his tunic for the key ring. He extracted it, holding the jumble of keys with his free hand to keep them still and silent. Then he began to try them out.

  The second one worked. Well, that was easy. Rinaldo smiled and carefully stowed the ring back inside his tunic. Then he spun the wheel, and pulled the door open, careful not to make a sound. It was heavy and leaning, and it was difficult to move it without the thing squeaking. The Boss was up in the control room, but while Rinaldo had assumed that Galia was up there, too, he hadn’t actually seen h
er in a while.

  One thing he didn’t want to be was caught.

  The storeroom was lit dimly by the bluish glow of an electric oil lamp. The space had been cleared, the debris and detritus piled against one wall. At the far end of the long, low space were two huge, bullet-shaped pressurized tanks, studded with rivets as big as dinner plates, capped with giant wheel locks and covered in a mind-boggling array of valves and pipes.

  But this wasn’t what held Rinaldo’s eye. He stepped into the room, letting the heavy door swing closed behind him, and he looked down at the boxes on the floor. Four of the six coffins they’d brought in from their little graveyard raid lay in a line. The other two were up on trestles, and from his position by the door, Rinaldo could see that both were open. Curiously, there was little smell in the room—anything malodorous emanating from the caskets was hidden under the suffocating, dusty scent of decaying cement and wet metal.

  Between the two great oil tanks, three long tables had been built out of more trestles. The tables were piled with bundles of something that looked, in the blue light, to be cloth, and next to those, long shards that looked almost ceramic, pale in the light and apparently arranged in some kind of order. In the dim light, it was impossible to make out any details, and Rinaldo cursed himself that he hadn’t thought to bring a hooded lantern.

  On the far left table sat some kind of mechanical apparatus, with a series of concentric circles mounted on a brass frame, with a collection of levers spaced all around it. It was a lens of some kind—perhaps the tools of a clockmaker. Rinaldo hadn’t seen anything like it before.

  He frowned, and tiptoed up past the coffins to the trestle tables, his eyes drawn all the while to the two raised, open caskets. As he reached them, he took a breath and looked inside. The first was empty, save for a layer of sticky dust.

  The second, however, was still occupied.

  At least… it was partially occupied.