Dishonored--The Corroded Man Read online

Corvo grins again and he slits the throat of the prisoner—the High Overseer. The body falls to the floor and his blood spills out onto it, joining the blood spilled from the bodies that line the walls of the throne room, the entire Imperial Court slaughtered by the Royal Protector.

  And his Empress.

  All she hears is laughter. Her laughter.

  The lightning flashes and—

  Emily swallowed, the sensation hot, her throat on fire. She didn’t feel sick, as such, but… dizzy, disoriented. The world sounded like it was underwater. She was hot. She wanted to pull the mask off, to get a breath of air that was fresher, cooler than the air pulled through the respirator. But she couldn’t.

  So instead she swallowed again and worked at calming herself, willing her heart to stop racing in case it burst out of her chest. This time she remembered what she saw.

  She blinked, snapping out of her reverie as the Whalers began milling about, the leader in red and one of the others, his mask pulled up to reveal a black man with a big grin and chinstrap beard, starting to organize the gang into groups. Emily didn’t quite know what was going on—how much of the talk had she missed?—but she shuffled along with the rest and soon found herself in a group of about twelve.

  Feeling better, her head clearing, she glanced around and saw that the man in the coat had gone. Emily was relieved. There was something about him she didn’t like. It wasn’t just his appearance. It was as if there was something emanating from him, an aura, or a power. The man had a halo which made Emily sick and made her… see things.

  She licked her lips. It was ridiculous, wasn’t it? It was the heat, the chemical smell of the respirator. But still, she felt relieved that the man didn’t appear to be coming with them.

  A few moments later, the Whalers began filing out of the office and back down onto the slaughterhouse floor, then into a storeroom that ran parallel to the main workspace. The storeroom was filled with weapons. The gang moved through, selecting their tools, sheathing knives and strapping small crossbows to their wrists. Emily followed suit, taking a small crossbow.

  Be prepared, the man had said.

  Prepared for what? The house—Brigmore, Emily knew—was empty and abandoned. Yet the man in the coat, he suspected resistance, didn’t he? Did he know about Corvo’s plan to meet the opposition there, at the house?

  It was too late now. Emily was part of it. But at least now she’d find out what the gang was doing.

  As the Whalers headed out of the factory, she flashed back to the man in the coat and to what she had seen in the curve of his goggles.

  The vision of Dunwall in ruins, of herself not as Empress, but tyrant, and of Corvo, not as Royal Protector, but Royal Executioner.

  INTERLUDE

  UTYRKA, TYVIA

  Month undetermined, 1848—1849

  “I do not fear the Void, nor am I concerned with the spiritual sanctity of the weak. For I am now His herald, His chosen, having seen His sublime vault, where eternally He feeds upon the substance of the Void.”

  — CALL TO THE SPHERES, VOL. 3

  Excerpt from a work of fiction, final chapters

  The tunnel was long, and low, and pitch black save for the faint yellow light that danced ahead. It was far below the earth, a passage cut deep into the permafrost of the Tyvian tundra plateau.

  Zhukov squeezed forward, pulling himself through with his elbows, trying to find purchase with the toes of his worn-out boots. He was not a small man, but the passage, on the other hand, was tiny. Barely big enough for him to fit through. The thought that there was two hundred feet or more of ice and rock pushing down on him from above did little to improve his mood.

  A shower of debris hit him in the face and he stopped, spluttering, unable to quite pull his arms around to wipe the stinging salt out of his eyes. Blinking through the tears, he glanced up to see the boots of Milosch pushing at the passage walls ahead of him.

  “Hey!” Zhukov called out. His voice didn’t carry far at all, and it sounded like he felt.

  Trapped.

  He was just thankful he wasn’t claustrophobic. Because crawling in the ice tunnel, in the dark, wasn’t for the faint of heart.

  Milosch called back to Zhukov, but Zhukov couldn’t work out what the man had said. In fact, Milosch hadn’t said much at all since they’d started the journey. All Zhukov knew was that Milosch had found something, and that he thought Zhukov would want to see it.

  Zhukov waited for his guide to get a few feet ahead of him, hoping to save himself another face full of gritty, salty ice, and then set off again. For a few seconds he couldn’t move—he was stuck—but he breathed in and felt the walls of the passage ease around him. He pushed forward and moved a little. He breathed in again, acutely aware that there wasn’t the space for his ribcage to expand back to its normal size. The farther they went, the shallower the breaths he was able to take.

  He wondered how long it would be before their absence was noted. It felt as if they had been crawling for hours and hours, but the camp far above their heads was asleep.

  The two of them had been working in the salt mine at Utyrka for more than a decade. Even before he had been sent here, Zhukov had heard of the mine. Everybody in Tyvia knew about it, by reputation at least. It was the hardest of the labor camps, the destination of the worst, the hardest, criminals. Mass-murderers and serial killers, some of whom, it was said, were cannibals, too. And people like him—traitors, those who had committed perhaps the worst crime imaginable.

  Treason.

  And here in Utyrka, the harshest of the camps, they would be worked to death in the salt mine, in the close darkness, deep below the tundra.

  Except Zhukov actually liked the work. Yes, it was dark, but he liked the dark, and in reality they had ample light for their task, hewing the halite from the walls of the mine with nothing but a hand pick and drill. The salt was as solid as rock, of course, but Zhukov didn’t mind the labor. He used the work to keep himself strong, fit and in shape for when the time came.

  The time to leave.

  The salt mine was also claustrophobic, but that didn’t affect Zhukov either. It wasn’t so much the confined spaces—there were plenty of those, but the mine itself was mostly a series of huge caverns, some with ceilings so high they were completely invisible, disappearing into the darkness hundreds of feet overhead.

  Yes, Zhukov liked working in the mine. He had worked in it for years, patiently chipping away at the walls while those around him were broken, their bodies destroyed by the work, their minds destroyed by the feeling of entrapment, of the world crushing down, of the darkness closing in.

  Milosch had arrived at the mine a few months after Zhukov. After a few months more, he and Zhukov were the only two of the original mining gang left. Together they worked for years, and years, and years.

  And then, a few months ago, Milosch said he had found something. He and three others were sent to sink an exploratory shaft in a new area of the mine.

  When Milosch had returned, he had been alone. He reported to the camp leaders that the area was unsuitable and unstable, his two companions lost to a rock fall.

  The camp leaders had accepted his word. To Zhukov, he told a different story—the story of a tunnel, and not a natural one, either, but a passage carved out of the salt by hand, hidden at the back of a huge cavern. Zhukov didn’t ask what had happened to his companions, and Milosch never said.

  And then they waited. Two months. Three, just to be sure. When they were certain the camp leaders really had no interest in the shaft, Milosch led the way. They left their barracks at night, walking through the biting, deathly cold, to the mine. They went down, Milosch leading the way to his cavern, to the passage. It was, as he said—man-made, a square doorway cut into the salt. The passage beyond was broad, but soon it got smaller, and smaller, ending in a tunnel that was barely wide enough for a man to squeeze through like a snake.

  But Milosch was insistent. He had said there was something on the other side. Somet
hing he wanted to show Zhukov. Of course, it could have been a trap, but there were easier ways for Milosch to have gotten rid of him.

  Zhukov was known in the camp—he was famous, even. He had been there for years, longer than any of the camp leaders shipped in from the military academy to run the place. Some prisoners said he had been a Hero of the State, but none really believed that. The whispers, though, the stories. They were enough. The others left him alone, deferring to his seniority, if not to the legends that orbited the man.

  Except for Milosch. He was the same age as Zhukov, or perhaps a little older. He and Zhukov had formed, if not a friendship, then a kinship. Milosch never asked who Zhukov was, what he had done to end up in Utyrka, and he never told Zhukov what he was here for, either. Zhukov never asked, because he didn’t care—whatever Milosch told him, Zhukov wouldn’t have believed him. He knew how the camps worked.

  It was entirely possible that the man was a plant, an agent sent by the High Judges to kill Zhukov, to eliminate someone who was seen as a problem, an embarrassment, even hidden away here in the tundra. Zhukov was a problem because he was a survivor. He already suspected he was the longest-serving prisoner of any of the labor camps, possibly in the whole history of Tyvia. That was a problem. The High Judges were watching, and they were nervous.

  They were afraid.

  But, as he crawled through the tunnel, Zhukov decided that perhaps he wasn’t so sure. Maybe Milosch wasn’t an agent. Maybe he had been sent to the camp because he was a cannibalistic serial killer, and hadn’t killed Zhukov out in the open because he wanted to eat Zhukov’s brains in private.

  Or maybe he really had found something. Perhaps he wanted to show this wondrous discovery to the only man in the camp he could really trust.

  Zhukov.

  There was a shuffling, and another shower of ice and grit, and Zhukov felt a waft of cold, cold air in front of him. A moment later there was another face full of salt, and this time a gloved hand reaching to help him.

  Zhukov accepted the aid and, with Milosch’s help, he emerged from the passage. The chamber beyond was small, the light from Milosch’s whale oil miner’s lamp crackling blue as he turned the current up. The light reflected off sheer walls of ice and rock on three sides, the walls almost close enough that Zhukov could stand in the center and touch them with outstretched arms. The ceiling was invisible—Milosch pointed the light up and muttered something, but Zhukov wasn’t listening. Above them was just darkness. It could have been the open night sky, for all he knew.

  His attention was caught by the opposite wall.

  Milosch’s words trailed off as the man realized his companion wasn’t listening, and he clapped a heavy hand on Zhukov’s shoulder.

  “I told you, my friend, I told you,” he said, then he dropped his hand and he stepped toward the wall, the light of the lamp playing over the surface. “I had heard of such things, but to find one here—here!—of all places. It’s amazing. Truly amazing.”

  Zhukov stepped toward the light.

  The opposite wall of the small cavern was salt, and it had been carved by hand into two tall, fluted pillars positioned on either side of a shelf. Its surface was perhaps six feet wide and cut another four feet into the salt. The shelf, like the pillars, was elaborately carved and decorated with intricate scrollwork. The work was remarkable, the salt sculpted like the finest stone that graced the People’s Citadel back in Dabokva. How long the shrine had been here, Zhukov had no idea. Down here, in the dark and the cold, it could have been carved yesterday or a thousand years ago.

  Sitting in the center of the shelf was something even more remarkable—a knife. It was bronze, and had twin, straight blades, each twelve inches long. Under Milosch’s light the blades glittered, the glare they reflected catching Zhukov’s eye. He blinked, confused for a moment. It was a trick of the light, had to be, the way the reflected light wasn’t blue but a deep, fiery red, the way that when he closed his eyes there were shapes that moved behind his eyelids, that couldn’t possibly be afterimages, echoes of the light.

  Zhukov stepped up to the shelf and ran a fur-lined gauntlet over the surface of the icy salt. He could feel the cold, even through the layers.

  Abruptly he both heard and felt a rushing in his ears. Blood, pumping, like the sound of an ocean far away, a sea he hadn’t looked at for fifteen years.

  The knife glinted red, glinted yellow, glinted red again.

  The sound of a great fire burning, the roar of an inferno from across the endless gulfs of time.

  “Don’t you see, friend,” Milosch was saying, but it sounded as if he was talking behind a door, behind a hill, a thousand miles away, shouting into the wind. “This is an altar to him—the Outsider! That means his followers were here, once, and they’re not here now. There must be more tunnels, leading out, away from Utyrka.” Milsosch glared at him. “Hey, are you listening to me?”

  Zhukov nodded, the pressure inside his head reaching a crescendo as his hand reached for the knife. As soon as his fingers touched the handle, the noise stopped. It was so sudden, the silence so profound it hurt, rocking him on his heels.

  “There’s another way out,” Milosch said. “Listen, if we can find the other tunnels, maybe even through the mountains, we can escape. Traveling underground we’ll be able to get past the bears and wolves, and it’s warmer down here—only just freezing.”

  “Warm, yes,” Zhukov whispered. Not taking his eyes from the knife, he lifted his hand and pulled his glove off, then he reached again for the handle, his bare fingers curling around it. It was hot, and the heat traveled up Zhukov’s hand, up his arm, and flooded his whole body. Warm. Blood heat.

  “Zhukov?”

  He turned and Milosch backed away. Zhukov looked down and found himself holding the knife. It was warm. As he watched, he saw blood trickle out from between his tightly clenched fingers.

  Then, a whispering. Somewhere, over his shoulder. Someone standing there, behind him, a presence looming. A voice in his ear, a whisper, a song.

  Milosch frowned, holding his hands up.

  “Are you listening to me? I said there’s a way out. Zhukov? Zhukov, are you listening to me?”

  Zhukov nodded, and tilted his head, listening to the song, watching the fire dance in front of his eyes.

  The voice whispered. The knife sang to him.

  Told him everything.

  Told him what to do and how to do it.

  “Yes,” Zhukov said, nodding again. “Yes, there is a way out.”

  He took a step forward and plunged the knife into Milosch’s stomach. The other man’s eyes went wide, and he staggered, his legs going out from under him. Zhukov stepped closer, pushing the blades forward, holding Milosch upright. He brought his face close to Milosch’s, until their noses were touching. Zhukov stared into the other man’s eyes, watching the reflection of a fire from eons ago, watching the shadows dance in the flames, watching the form, the presence, standing at his shoulder.

  Milosch spluttered, his jaw working as Zhukov moved the blades inside him, twisting them, pushing them. Milosch coughed, spattering Zhukov’s face with blood.

  “Yes,” Zhukov said again. “Yes, there is a way out.”

  Then he stepped back and pulled the knife out. Milosch collapsed to the floor of the ice vault and didn’t move. His fingers released the lantern, which began strobing as it hit the floor at an angle, partially dislodging the small whale oil tank within. In the flickering light, Milosch’s dying eyes stared up at Zhukov, his mouth open in an expression of surprise and of fright.

  Listening to the whispered song in his head, Zhukov knelt by the body and got to work.

  PART TWO

  THE WITCHCHARMS

  11

  BRIGMORE MANOR, MUTCHERHAVEN DISTRICT

  12th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851

  “The adjacent streets are another matter. Bottle Street in particular, and the Old Dunwall Whiskey distillery, are currently controlled by Slackjaw and his Bottle Street
Gang. Not much is known about Slackjaw, except that he has been particularly active during the plague crisis. As part of his illegal business revolves around the distribution of anti-plague elixir, the Watch has been slow in cracking down on the operation.”

  — SLACKJAW’S BOTTLE STREET GANG

  Excerpt from a report on thuggish gang activities

  Corvo leaned on the windowsill and scratched at his chin as he looked out onto the grounds of Brigmore Manor.

  The night was cloudy, the rains thankfully staying away, and had that strange warmth that sometimes came to the city at this time of year, the last gasp of a good fall clinging on before the snow and real cold arrived. As the clouds swam above, moonlight occasionally broke through, casting an eerie pale light over the overgrown, swampy land that surrounded the house. Old trees, their twisted branches heavy with moss, crowded what open space there was, and here and there was the evidence of a once majestic formal garden left to rot—statues and balustrades poked out from thick, tangled ivy, while ornate bird feeders and low columned walls revealed the outlines and layout of perfectly symmetrical gardens now lost in the undergrowth. Wisps of fog drifted through the ruin.

  Corvo sighed. The terrain was rough, the grounds of Brigmore Manor offering plenty of places to hide and approach the house unseen. And while this played in Corvo’s favor—plenty of places to hide meant he had been able to secrete his own agents all over the estate—it also meant that their enemy had the advantage of cover, as well.

  “Nice night, eh? Eh?”

  Corvo turned to the man leaning on the window next to him. The room was lit by the moon only, revealing an empty chamber, the place stripped out in preparation for a rebuild that had already begun. New, pale floorboards had been laid down to replace most of the old rotting timbers, reflecting that moonlight back up into Corvo’s eyes and into the droplets of moisture caught in the bushy silver handlebar mustache of his companion.

  The mouth underneath that mustache was smiling, revealing big tombstone teeth. The man had eyebrows to match his facial hair, but his scalp was bald, save for an orbit of silver the man had grown long at the back, wearing it as a long plait that reached halfway down to his waist.