Dishonored--The Corroded Man Read online

  Rinaldo grimaced as he moved around to the second box. There was a body inside, all right—a desiccated cadaver in clothing that was opulent but faded, antique and dusty.

  But the body had been disturbed. It was incomplete, missing both arms, one leg… and the head. As he watched, a beetle, its carapace shining wetly, emerged from the mummified neck and crawled away under the body.

  He shuddered, unable to tear his eyes from the sight, wondering what had happened to the man. Some kind of accident that had torn off his limbs and head? He supposed it was possible. Surely the Boss hadn’t removed them. That was just… it was just wrong.

  Then Rinaldo turned his attention back to the tables. Up close, he could see what the bundles were, what the ceramic shards were.

  The bundles were body parts, brown and wet and oozing, the old, dead flesh looking more like moldering bread. There was a pile that looked like butcher’s offcuts, and in front of this, an arm, intact from shoulder to hand. The arm was pinned to the table, the forearm sliced lengthwise with more pins holding back the crumbling, soap-like flesh. Normally there were two bones in a man’s forearm, but there was only one remaining in this specimen.

  And the ceramic shards weren’t pottery, but bone. Human bones, most likely the skeleton from the first corpse, the inhabitant of the now-empty coffin. The bones were neatly disassembled and arranged, so that ones of similar sizes were grouped together. At the back of the table sat two skulls. One was intact, the other had a large circular piece missing from the cranium—in fact, nearly the entire top of the skull had been sliced clean off.

  Rinaldo breathed out slowly as he looked over the remains. The Boss—what, was he some kind of natural philosopher? That would make sense. They worked with bones, didn’t they? The way the skeletal remains were arranged, it was obvious they had been sorted. For study, perhaps?

  He moved to the third table, where the complex brass instrument sat. It was scientifical. Had to be. Rinaldo frowned at the device, then moved to stand behind it and looked down, through the concentric array of the lens.

  The device was trained on an ivory-colored object about the size of Rinaldo’s palm, which lay on a brass platform on the table. The object looked like it was made of several long pieces of bone, bound together to form an octagonal shape. The inside corners were joined by other bone fragments, like a crazy wagon wheel, the whole thing held together by shining copper wire.

  Rinaldo ducked his head around the apparatus to look at the object with unaided eyes. As he examined it, he noticed more of the objects stacked around the table—perhaps a dozen, all more or less the same size and shape, although he could see there was some variation in the bones that formed the internal “spokes.”

  What the ivories were, Rinaldo had no idea. They looked like something you might find in one of those ancient shrines that were still scattered around in inaccessible places, altars which were supposed to be offerings to some mythological nonsense.

  With a sickening feeling in his stomach, he understood why the Boss had wanted the bodies. He was carving these… these things, these trinkets, from the bones, and assembling them down here, on the table. The thought made Rinaldo uneasy.

  Death was nothing new to him, and he’d seen sights far more gory than the mummified remains of decades-old dead. But using the bodies to make these things? That felt… wrong. That was interfering in something that was supposed to be left alone. He couldn’t quite explain the feeling that grew in his stomach, a ball of cold, rolling and rolling.

  It was time to have a little chat with Galia. She’d been down here, she’d seen all this, and still she hadn’t said anything, not even to her old pal Rinaldo.

  Well, maybe it was time she did.

  Rinaldo cast an eye over the small stacks of carvings, and, careful not to topple them, he slid one from the bottom of a stack. As his fingertips touched it, he felt a spark, and he gasped, but then the feeling was gone.

  With the weird bonecharm thing in his pocket, Rinaldo retreated from the storeroom, re-locking the door behind him.

  9

  DUNWALL TOWER

  11th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851

  “It is said that the Office of the Royal Spymaster has existed for as long as there have been Emperors and Empresses. However, in the earliest days of the Empire, this position existed in secrecy.”

  — THE ROYAL SPYMASTER

  Excerpt from a historical record of government positions and ranks

  Emily knocked on the door of the chambers that now served as the dual office of the Royal Protector and Royal Spymaster, but there was no reply from within. She knew Corvo didn’t really like being stuck there, behind the desk, frequently complaining that he was supposed to be at the Empress’s side, not pushing paper.

  If only he was bloody well at my side now, she thought.

  But when the two Imperial offices had combined, the nature of his job had changed. He was no longer simply her protector. As Royal Spymaster, he had a network of agents to coordinate. With the combined titles came more responsibilities, and more of the hated paperwork.

  And sometimes that meant he needed to sit behind a desk, much to his annoyance. However, the office was empty. The door was locked.

  Checking that the corridor was clear, Emily reached down into her collar and pulled on the silver chain around her neck, at the end of which was a key—a skeleton master that would open any door in Dunwall Tower. She didn’t really like using it—and she rarely did—but the key came with her rank, and it had proven useful on more than one occasion.

  That didn’t stop it feeling like she was breaking and entering.

  As she turned the key in the door, she shook her head and took a deep breath. Emily was the Empress of the Isles, and Dunwall Tower was her personal property, and she could go where she bloody well wanted.

  At least that was what she told herself as she opened the door and stepped inside. She just hoped that she could find something—a schedule, perhaps—that would tell her where Corvo was. She didn’t want to have the palace guard running after him, if they didn’t have to.

  The office was a large, L-shaped room, the space dwarfing the furniture that sat in it. There was a big oak desk set at an angle against one corner, two deep armchairs in front of it, a high-backed chair behind. The desk was framed by bookcases on one wall and a huge landscape painting on the other which showed a bustling port city nestled at the base of a vast mountain, the rocky peak of which was split into two uneven triangular shards.

  The city of Karnaca, capital of Serkonos—Corvo’s reminder of home.

  On the other side of the room, opposite the desk, sat Corvo’s bed, normally hidden behind a set of ornate folded wooden screens. These screens had been moved and arranged more or less in the center of the chamber, shielding the spot where, Emily remembered, there was normally a table and couches.

  Emily glanced around, then moved to the desk. Corvo kept his workplace tidy, and what little was on the desk didn’t seem of much interest—some papers that looked like requisition orders, a letter from the High Overseer informing the Royal Spymaster that there had been progress in preparing something that wasn’t actually specified. It also apologized for a delay, again without identifying the topic.

  Well that’s not exactly helpful, Emily thought.

  She hesitated before checking the drawers, but she pulled them out anyway. More papers, but not much. Nothing that looked as if it had been touched in a while. Closing the drawers, Emily stood with her hands on her hips. She looked around the room, and her eye was caught again by the wooden screens.

  She walked over to them, then around them. She’d been right. The table was still there. Next to it were the long couch she remembered, and another couple of deep armchairs. Emily took a step closer.

  No, this wasn’t the table that was normally there. That one had been pushed away and sat over by the far wall, on it nothing but an audiograph player and a candelabra. Corvo had brought another table in from som
ewhere, a huge square thing that looked to Emily at least ten feet on each side, if not more. She looked down on it, and her jaw dropped in awe.

  On the table was a map of Dunwall, laid out in fine detail. She wasn’t sure of the scale—there didn’t appear to be any writing along the edge, or a helpful legend like in an atlas—but as she leaned over it she could see that every street, alley, and building was marked—even individual message boxes and horse posts.

  The map was breathtaking, a work of art. It was by far the most detailed, the most accurate map of the city she had ever seen. There were markers on it—little discs of carved wood, each about the size of an old penny. They were stained in four different colors—red, blue, green, and black—and were distributed around the map at specific points, with red and green tokens at city cemeteries, blue along both north and south banks of the river, and black scattered apparently at random.

  It didn’t take Emily long to figure out what they represented—they were the various Imperial forces working in the city—red and black for the Overseers and City Watch keeping discrete vigil at the cemeteries and graveyards, blue for the Wrenhaven River Patrol down by the water, and black, Emily guessed, being Corvo’s royal spy network. She looked up from the map, impressed, and blew out her cheeks. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw what was tacked to the back of the wooden screens.

  More maps and charts, showing different parts of the city at different levels of detail and scale. She stepped closer for a better look, recognized maritime maps of the river harbor, showing in closer detail the various islands and outcroppings at the river mouth. There was a map of the neighboring city, Potterstead, although far less detailed than the great map of Dunwall on the table.

  One in particular caught Emily’s eye. She peered closely at it, then had to step away and look over the whole parchment to understand what it showed. She realized it wasn’t a map, but a plan—a schematic of a large, symmetrical house. A mansion, clearly… something grand, but under repair.

  The plan was marked in two colors, showing the layout and proposals for repair, and the sheet was stamped along the bottom with permits from the city planning office. Emily peered at the stamps, trying to figure out the location of the house. It was somewhere in the Mutcherhaven District, outside the city walls, along the course of the Wrenhaven River.

  Casting her eye over the plans, she noticed there was an audiograph card pinned to the top corner of the board, along with a note in a handwriting that Emily didn’t recognize.

  BRIGMORE SURVEILLANCE REPORT

  10th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851

  Of course. Brigmore Manor—the old estate, several miles outside of Dunwall. Emily knew that the place had been long abandoned, but she wasn’t sure if it was even still standing. According to the permit stamps, though, something was left, at least, as the estate and house had been purchased in the last year or so and was being repaired.

  She glanced at the audiograph again. The note pinned to it was dated just yesterday. Intrigued, Emily took it and went over to the audiograph player by the wall. She slotted the card into the machine, then looked about again, walking around the wooden screens so she could see the rest of the chamber, instinct telling her to double-check that nobody—like Corvo, for example—had come in while she had been snooping behind the screens.

  She went back to the audiograph and hit play. The voice that rang out surprised her.

  “Jameson Curnow reporting on the situation at Brigmore Manor. It’s as we thought—there’s word going around that something big is going down at the house in just a couple of nights. We’ve got men out in the key taverns—the Randy Whaler, the Seven of Bells, even the ruins of the old Hound Pits Pub. Also at the Golden Cat. Plenty of chatter there—seems there’s a new group looking for more members—they’re offering good money, perhaps trying to attract those who were in the old street gangs, pull them out of the woodwork.

  “We don’t have any names yet,” Jameson continued, “and we don’t know what they plan to do, but talk is this gang had hit a graveyard, so we’re fairly sure it’s the same lot. The Wrenhaven River Patrol have done a good job—some suspicious activity has been seen at one of the old, abandoned whale processing plants on Slaughterhouse Row—the Greaves Auxiliary Slaughterhouse Five, to be precise. We have surveillance planned, but I advise caution—we don’t want them knowing we’re onto them. As you’ve suggested, let’s watch them and see what they’re up to. There’s got to be more to it than just robbing graves. If we catch them in the act, maybe we can learn what their real plans are.

  “I’ll file another report after I meet with Commander Kittredge again. They’re doing their best, but they’re not spies, that’s for sure. They get any closer they may as well just walk up to the slaughterhouse door and ask if anyone’s at home.

  “I remain your loyal servant, Jameson Curnow.”

  The audiograph clicked and the card poked out of the bottom of the machine. Emily looked at it, thoughts running through her mind as she considered what was going on.

  She was angry, but she was also excited. She’d made a number of discoveries. The first was that Jameson Curnow was a member of Corvo’s spy agency. He was her friend, her trusted advisor, but he also stuck to Corvo’s side, constantly.

  Well, that explained that.

  Had they really located the gang’s headquarters? There were plenty of hiding places in the city, given that there was so much construction and demolition still going on, even this many years after the Rat Plague. That they were using an abandoned slaughterhouse didn’t surprise her, although they must have chosen it for a reason. Did they need the space, perhaps?

  The longer she stood by the audiograph, however, the more she fumed. Jameson’s report was a day old. In that time, she’d had two status meetings with Corvo, Jameson, the High Overseer, and Ramsey and Kittredge. None of them had brought anything to report, and Corvo had said that they were no closer to discovering the gang’s location.

  That was patently untrue, Emily knew that now. Corvo and his spies—including the oh-so-innocent Jameson Curnow—had known about the gang all along.

  That was it. Emily was furious. She swore, loudly, her voice echoing in the chamber. Then she paced the room behind the screens, rolling her neck, her hands on her hips.

  She closed her eyes, trying to figure out what to do. She stopped pacing, and when she opened her eyes she found she was looking again at the plans of Brigmore Manor.

  Brigmore Manor. Jameson himself said they had it under watch, and Corvo’s plan—whatever that was—was going ahead.

  So… that was out. Too much of a risk, and Emily didn’t have enough information. Wandering around a construction site outside the city seemed like a waste of time without knowing what she was looking for.

  She turned back to the audiograph, and thought a moment. She slipped the punch card from the bottom, fed it back into the top, and played the message through again.

  There. Greaves Auxiliary Slaughterhouse 5, Slaughterhouse Row.

  She knew where that was. And that was where the grave robbers were.

  It was time to put a stop to this—to act where Corvo apparently wouldn’t.

  Perhaps it was her anger pushing her, and as she stalked from Corvo’s chambers back to her own apartments, part of Emily knew it. She had been cooped up in the Tower for too long, the boredom and frustration driving her out of her mind. She knew this, too.

  But… she was capable. More than capable. She needed to find out what was happening in her city, and Corvo and his agents needed all the help they could get. Emily had seen the grave robbers, had taken their measure.

  She knew she could beat them.

  Which meant it was time to go out on an investigation of her own. To Slaughterhouse Row. To Greaves Auxiliary Slaughterhouse 5.

  It was time to get some answers.

  10

  GREAVES AUXILIARY WHALE SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5,

  SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROW, DUNWALL

 
12th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851

  “The Greaves Whale House grew rapidly, absorbing rivals until it dominated the trade. At its peak, the operation employed over 300 workers, not including the children who filled minor, and often tragic, roles. Those associated with the refinery were recognizable by their head-to-toe industrial leather uniforms and the masks they wore to protect against fumes.”

  — THE GREAVES WHALE HOUSE

  Excerpt from a book on well-established companies in Dunwall

  Emily reached Slaughterhouse Row without much difficulty, thanks to her rough knowledge of the positions of the City Watch, the Wrenhaven River Patrol, and Corvo’s spies, all courtesy of the big map in the Royal Spymaster’s chamber. When she encountered patrols, however, she was forced to double-back and take alternative routes, to duck and hide, high up on the rooftops as the searchlights thrown from the boats played across buildings on each bank.

  As a result, it took longer to reach the district than she would have liked.

  The Greaves Auxiliary Whale Slaughterhouse 5 was a huge building, as tall as it was long, occupying roughly the same acreage as a city block, its name and number a fading stencil painted high on the side. The back of the huge edifice protruded over the river, the facility possessing its own wharf and boat dock, allowing the whales to be maneuvered directly into the factory through a pair of massive double doors. Once they were inside, the oil would be extracted, slowly—and painfully—from the creatures who were still alive, their skin drying as they hung suspended in the frames above vast overflow vats.

  The thought did not please Emily, and, although she could never say so as Empress, she was secretly pleased that the whaling industry was slowly dying out. New power technologies were coming on line, thanks to the work of Sokolov and Piero, the two old scientists forming a reluctant and fractious—if rather successful—partnership at the Academy of Natural Philosophy.

  The industry’s decline was also responsible for the slow disintegration of Slaughterhouse Row. As she looked up at the towering side of the building, the once-proud company name now a dim palimpsest, Emily wondered how long it had been empty. Ten years? Maybe even longer. The place was intact, but decrepit.