Dishonored--The Corroded Man Page 2

  Two, that the Month of Rain was not only the most depressing time of the year—give me the Month of High Cold anytime, she mused—but the waterlogged, rain-soaked nights were probably the worst to be out running the rooftops of the city.

  Three, that her impending and quite clearly unavoidable death wasn’t the most regal end for the Empress of the Isles, and that her father was going to be very, very disappointed.

  A fourth thought—of Corvo standing over her broken body, not sad, but annoyed that she hadn’t managed what should have been a simple jump—was quickly knocked out of Emily Kaldwin’s mind as she hit the flat roof of the building, feet first. Her body, lithe and athletic, driven by reflexes honed and trained over the last decade, absorbed the impact of this misjudged jump by falling into a forward roll, the tails of her black coat catching in the puddles and flicking a spray of water up into the air.

  Finishing the roll, Emily paused, kneeling on the rooftop, balanced on her hands, the rain pouring off the peak of her hood and down into the puddle underneath her.

  One breath…

  Two breaths…

  Three.

  Well, that wasn’t so bad, she thought. Better to overshoot than miss entirely. And not just in the dark, but in the rain.

  Emily allowed herself a small smile under the hood.

  Not bad, Empress, not bad at all. Perhaps her father wouldn’t be so disappointed with how she was doing, if only he could see her now.

  She pivoted on her heel, then stood and walked back to the edge. The smile vanished from her sharp, angular features, replaced with a frown as she told herself to bloody well pay attention! Otherwise the next mistake really would be a fatal one.

  Yes, it was a long way down, and that was a stupid, stupid thing to try. She’d made it—just barely, thanks to her father’s training and her own endless hours of practice leaping around the castellated ramparts of Dunwall Tower, keeping herself well out of sight of the watchmen on patrol.

  Lightning flashed ahead, casting the silhouette of that tower into sharp relief. A moment later the thunder rolled, as loud as cannon fire as it echoed around the stone of the city. It was late—actually, early, the hours very small indeed—and with the constant downpour Emily suspected she was the only person who was out and about.

  Certainly she was the only person in the entire city commanding a view like this. Turning from the edge, she jogged up to where the building joined the next, the neighbor higher, its roof a jumbled collection of tiled surfaces assembled with all the precision of a child who’d had too much Serkonan honey cake.

  As she approached, Emily accelerated, then jumped to plant one foot on a windowsill, propelling herself up, bouncing against the angle of the wall opposite to go higher, reaching the next portion of roof and pulling herself up with her arms. She continued, using the planes and angles of the building—its windows, overhangs, ledges, gables—to push up and up and up, until after a few minutes she was standing on top of a small, square tower, the highest point, apparently, in this part of the city.

  She stood tall. Despite the deep hood of her tailcoat, her raven-black hair was still soaked. She sighed and pushed the hood back, rain washing over her face as she looked out over the thousand labyrinthine streets and alleys crammed with tall, narrow buildings built of dark Gristol granite or weathered brown brick, their gabled roofs reaching like jagged fingers toward the night sky. This was Dunwall, and this was her city, though that still didn’t sit easy with her.

  Then the lightning flashed again and she ducked down, wary of being seen. Her covert journey—from Dunwall Tower, across the rooftops to skirt the Boyle Mansion, then across the bridge named after her family, and finally over the narrow buildings that crowded the southern shoreline of the Wrenhaven River—was an exercise in secrecy and the state of mind that such stealth required.

  But she hadn’t been seen. The darkness had helped, and the rain, too.

  And she had been trained well. Ten years of hard work, of toil in the small hours when she wasn’t bound by her Imperial duties. Ten years of pain, of cuts and bruises and… well, quite a lot of blood, actually. For ten years she had been trained by the best, in fact. Trained by the Royal Protector himself, Corvo Attano.

  Royal Protector, and her father. Even though the years were creeping up on him, he was still the best spy, the best agent, and the best hand-to-hand combatant in the Empire.

  The rain pounded the rooftop and Emily hunkered down, allowing herself a moment to think about her father. She was grateful for his presence in her life. Not just for his protection—the protection he offered her as Empress, offered her as daughter—not for his friendship and love and guidance, official and otherwise. But for his skills in the subtle arts of subterfuge, espionage, surveillance, and, of course, stealth and combat.

  Skills he had been instilling in her these past ten years—more, even. Emily smiled again. It was coming up to fifteen years since her coronation. Had it really been that long? Fifteen years since Hiram Burrows, self-appointed Lord Regent, was thrown from power.

  Fifteen years since Emily was restored to the throne left vacant by the murder of her mother, Empress Jessamine Kaldwin I. Her mother, murdered on the orders of the Lord Regent himself, part of a conspiracy that had run deep in Dunwall aristocracy, a secret circle that had finally been broken by Corvo himself.

  It felt like longer to Emily. A lifetime, really—and that’s exactly what it had been. She had been ten when her mother died. Now she wasn’t yet twenty-five, and she could still feel the pain of her mother’s absence, if she allowed herself. Most of the time, she allowed those memories of Empress Jessamine to sleep in her mind—she had to, because despite the tragedy she had to live her life and do her job.

  And what a job it was. Fifteen years now she had ruled the Empire with a firm and just hand, working hard to reverse the damage done by the Lord Regent to Dunwall and the rest of her domain. At the same time, she and Corvo had embarked on another, less public, project—the result of which allowed Emily to be here, now, crouched on a rooftop in the dead of night.

  With no palace walls to keep her prisoner, no protocol, no etiquette to bind her actions, her thoughts, out here in the open air, the city was hers. Here, now, alone, she felt she could go anywhere, do anything, and nobody would know a thing about it.

  Not even Corvo Attano, the Royal Protector.

  Because as far as he knew, as far as everyone at the palace knew—from the guards on the gate to the members of her inner court deep inside the ancient keep—the Empress was enjoying blissful slumber in her private apartments.

  Emily laughed, and though the rain lessened slightly she pulled her hood over her head again.

  Getting out of the Tower had been the easiest part. In her bedchamber there was a hidden door which led to a secret room, one she had discovered when still a child, before the death of her mother and before everything changed. She had kept the knowledge to herself, although she knew some older members of the court were aware of the Tower’s secret rooms and hidden passageways.

  In the large room beyond her bedchamber, Emily had built up an armory all of her own—not just weapons and protective clothing, hooded cloaks and caps and coats, but gold, too. Anything that might be useful on her new adventures.

  Her new adventures outside the palace walls.

  Although, truth be told, she hadn’t needed much of it. Ropes, grapples, crampons—they just slowed her down. She had taken to using a pair of fingerless gloves, the palm and the tops of the fingers padded, giving her an excellent grip while sparing her hands from the battering they would otherwise have taken as she traveled across the rooftops, leaping from ledge to sill.

  As Empress, it was her hands—perhaps surprisingly—that she felt most self-conscious of, but for good reason. Because as Empress, they were forever being kissed, or held reverently, or otherwise brought to close examination by friends and strangers alike.

  It was a strange life, and it wasn’t one to which s
he was quite accustomed, even after all this time.

  Emily glanced up, but this seemed only to encourage the skies to open more. Renewed, the rain poured down as heavy as a wool blanket. Yet even above the roar, she heard the Clocktower of Dunwall, over by the Estate District, chime the second hour of the morning.

  Emily turned to face the sound. The Clocktower was the tallest structure in the city, save for Dunwall Tower itself. For two months Emily had been exploring the city at night, crossing to the southern bank of the Wrenhaven River and then mostly keeping to this part of the city. Perhaps that decision had been subconscious, an effort to avoid being spotted by members of the aristocracy who mostly occupied the more fashionable quarters north of the river.

  But the Clocktower—now, the view from there would be spectacular, even in the rain. It would make a good climb, too.

  Another test to pass.

  Decision made, Emily paused, willing the downpour to ease, if even a little. To her surprise, the elements appeared to obey her royal wish, the torrential downpour lightening again to a shower. Nevertheless, the rooftops would be treacherous, and she would need to take care. But there was time to get to the Clocktower and then back into the palace before anyone knew she was gone. In her mind she ran through her official schedule for the following day—no, for today—but there was nothing much on. She could afford to be tardy.

  Steeling herself, Emily stepped up the steep incline, her mind already plotting a route across the jumble of buildings and streets ahead.

  And then, with a smile, she drew her hood down and ran for the edge of the rooftop…

  PART ONE

  THE SLEEPING CITY

  1

  THE GOLDEN CAT, DISTILLERY DISTRICT, DUNWALL

  1st Day, Month of Darkness, 1851

  “There is an establishment within Dunwall called the Golden Cat. A bath house, I believe, though some say it’s a brothel.”

  — MISSING WOMEN, GOLDEN CAT

  Excerpt from a crime story, revolving

  around the Golden Cat

  Galia Fleet was having a good night, which was more than could be said for the drunken oaf rolling in the gutter in the alley out the back of the Golden Cat.

  Taking a swig from the bottle of Old Dunwall Whiskey, Galia looked down at the… what was he, exactly? His black velvet jacket had gold embroidery around the edge, which had looked fancier a few moments before, when it hadn’t been wet and caked in… well, in whatever it was the man had fallen into.

  The waistcoat under the jacket—unsullied by the gutter but stained with a tracery of vomit—was a rich, royal purple. It stirred something in the back of Galia’s mind. Did the purple mean something, signifying some high office? Or was her memory playing tricks?

  She shrugged to herself and sucked on the whiskey, then gave the man a kick with the toe of her boot. The moaning imbecile might well have been a royal ambassador from a far and distant land, for all that it mattered here. Because at the Golden Cat, names weren’t used, identities and ranks were not discussed. Everyone was as equal as the coin in their purse.

  Galia shoved the man again and he rolled with the movement like a bundle of linen just unloaded from a Horizon Trading Company skiff. He moaned and gurgled in the gutter.

  His weapon—a swordstick he so foolishly unsheathed while inside the pleasure house—lay in two pieces over by the back door of the Cat. That was a shame, she thought. It looked as if it had been a good piece, a vanity accessory for an aristocrat, but one that actually made for a serviceable weapon. Galia would have liked it for herself, had she not snapped it in two before picking the man up by the front of his purple waistcoat and throwing him into the muck.

  That stick would have made a good trophy, a nice addition to the collection of weapons she kept in her office. Being security chief at the Cat gave her a lot of leeway with Madame Steele, but even she, daughter of the old proprietor, Madame Prudence, might have raised an eyebrow at the small armory Galia kept locked away out of sight.

  As Galia eyed the broken stick, the alley swayed pleasantly in her vision as the effects of the whiskey started to take hold. Maybe she could give the weapon to her assistant, Rinaldo, to see if he could get it fixed.

  Ah, never mind. Too much effort, and she wasn’t entirely sure Rinaldo much approved of her little collection.

  The man in the purple waistcoat moaned again, tried to scramble to his feet, but all he succeeded in doing was getting his ass up into the air while his face was still planted in the gutter shite. Galia grinned, unable to resist such an invitation, and with a swift jab of her foot, the man went sprawling.

  “Maybe next time you’ll think twice before trying to impress our girls with your mighty weapon, eh?” Galia said, but she wasn’t sure the man was listening. He was puffing like a whaling ship, apparently unaware that he hadn’t yet attained an upright position.

  Galia sighed, hands on her hips, the buzz of the whiskey wearing down to cold melancholy.

  Is this really what it’s come down to? she wondered. Throwing anonymous noblemen out of the Golden Cat when they tried to get frisky? She was just thirty-five years old, and she liked to think herself in pretty good shape, but when the fog of the alcohol settled over her like a shroud—and settle it did, most nights now—she felt a good deal older.

  Sighing again, she swigged at the bottle held in one hand while she ran the fingers of the other through her short, greasy blonde hair.

  Where had the time gone? What had happened to the old days? The days when she was young; the days when she yearned for adventure—and for coin. The days when she wore the mask of her gang, and did so with pride. The days when she traveled at the side of her leader, doing his bidding, following his orders, helping him clean the city of cretins and collecting a profit in the process.

  At least that’s what Daud had told her, and that’s what she had believed. Back then, as a twenty-year-old novice assassin, she would have followed him to the ends of the world.

  There was a moment, too, when it seemed as if her luck had come in. Billie Lurk had vanished, and Galia had never been happier. She had never liked Daud’s little enforcer, and with her out of the frame, the chance arose for Galia to step in and show Daud what she was made of. To show him who really deserved to be his right hand, instead of that gloomy hardass.

  But then he disappeared, too.

  Soon enough, they all had. Sure, Thomas had taken over leadership of the Whalers, what was left of them anyway, gathering the stragglers and members of a few other minor gangs to form his own, new group, but—

  The man in the purple waistcoat sighed and slumped face down into the gutter. Her train of thought broken, Galia stepped over to him and, although thinking twice about it, bent down and rolled him onto his back. A drunk aristocrat was one thing. A dead nobleman, drowned in two inches of gutter water, was something else altogether. Attention the Golden Cat could ill afford.

  Not that the establishment was illegal. Far from it. The Golden Cat was part of Dunwall history—an entertainment palace of great renown, home to theater and burlesque, and the best tavern in the Isles. What went on between the patrons and the hostesses in curtained-off rooms was nobody’s business at all.

  The man in the gutter had passed out, so Galia, ready to give him the standard line about being barred, saved her breath and instead just killed the bottle of Old Dunwall. Maybe it was for the best. He’d wake up, feel embarrassed and ashamed, and hide himself at the court for a few days before desire and need got the better of him, and he came back. Only when he did, Galia would be ready and waiting. She’d be sure to extract payment before any transactions took place.

  Turning around, she headed back inside.

  It was late, the usual evening festivities winding down, the quiet murmur in the Cat punctuated by the occasional laugh and shriek of delight as the last remaining patrons sat and smoked and drank and spent some quality time with the hostesses. Walking through the main parlor, the walls festooned with gilt-frame
d mirrors and acres of deep-red velvet drapery, Galia counted the men passed out on the various pieces of sumptuous furniture, pipes hanging from unconscious fingers, the fronts of their trousers undone, their purses far lighter than they had been when they had arrived.

  This, she thought. This is what life is, now. And it wasn’t bad, not really. Galia was the first to admit that. Head of security at the Golden Cat sounded like a cushy job and, actually, it was. Things had been changing over the years as the city rebuilt itself. How long had it been since the Flooded District had been drained and reconstructed, becoming once again the throbbing financial heart of the Empire?

  A long time, anyway. That was the problem.

  Time moved on, but inside the Golden Cat it was like time sat still, caught in amber, never to move again. Business was good—it always had been. Before, when she had been a Whaler, the Cat had been… well, unsavory, really, the haunt of the Lord Regent’s officers and guards, travelers from other islands in the Empire drawn to the temptations offered within its walls.

  The fortunes of the Cat had improved along with those of the city. With the Rat Plague a distant memory, and free movement reestablished throughout most of the Empire, trade resumed, and with trade came travelers, foreigners, dignitaries. They brought money, and that wealth flowed through Dunwall, refilling the coffers, not just of the Imperial Court, but of the citizens, too.

  Freed from the oppressive yoke of the Lord Regent, the city was revived, rebuilt, and was once again prosperous. This prosperity found its way to the Golden Cat. Business couldn’t be better.

  Yes, life was good, her job was easy. Wonderful. What a joy. Galia lifted the empty bottle of Old Dunwall and peered at it with disappointed eyes, then headed over to the bar, ducking behind to extract another, unopened bottle. This she took with her as she disappeared through a curtained door, back to her office.