The Return of Daud Read online

  “You’ll feel better soon enough, but I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop it happening again.”

  “What happened?” asked Daud. “Where are we?” He looked her up and down, but she appeared to be unarmed. There was no scabbard hanging from her belt, or any other sign she was carrying a weapon. “The Twin-bladed Knife—where is it? How did you get it from the Eyeless?”

  Billie pushed her tongue into her cheek, regarding Daud silently for a moment. Then she began to pace around the room. As Daud watched her, he took in more of the room—it was huge, some kind of dining room, but it was… deconstructed. The furniture was fixed to the floor, and parts of the floor were lifted at an angle. The walls were wood paneled, but along the far one, the paneling seemed to have slipped, revealing more of the metal superstructure beyond it. The ceiling there was lower, too—a great rectangular block seemed to have come partially down. There was a gap between it and the ceiling; Daud could see the gap led to another room, more furniture and expensive decor just visible. “We’re in the home of Kirin Jindosh,” said Billie, looking around, ignoring his question about the Knife. “Well, former home. The owner was an inventor, loyal to the Duke of Serkonos and his coup against the Empress, but someone—” here she let her lips curl upward, one part wry, one part sad “—a friend of mine, that is, changed his fortunes. Jindosh doesn’t live here anymore. Don’t worry, we’ll be safe.”

  Daud grunted in acknowledgement and tried to pull himself up off the couch, but as soon as he put weight on his left hand, he felt a deep, cold sensation—not the burning of the Mark of the Outsider, but something deeper, something that wasn’t in itself pain as such, but a strange, creeping ache that immediately made him feel ill. Light-headed, he fell back and shook his head.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  Billie came over to him and crouched by his side. “I’m sorry, Daud. It’s my fault. You’re sick. In fact, you’re—” She stopped herself and shook her head. “It’s always my fault,” she said, her voice a whisper.

  Daud sat up a little more, then waited for the room to stop spinning in his vision before he spoke. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, “and I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but the Twin-bladed Knife—I need it. You have to give it to me.”

  Billie stood back up. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

  “Billie, you have to. It’s important. I’ve been looking for it.”

  “I know,” said Billie. “And I know what you plan to do with it. But I can’t give it to you. It’s not time. It doesn’t belong here, and neither do I.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Billie sighed. “I mean I don’t belong here. I’ve come back, to try and fix everything, but it doesn’t work. I’ve tried and tried, but it always ends this way. No matter what I do.”

  “Come back from where?”

  “From the future—your future, anyway. About three years from now, give or take. Things aren’t good where I’m from, so I’ve come back to try and fix it. Except it doesn’t look like I can.”

  Billie paused, her eye—her human eye—locked onto Daud’s. He stared at her, then flicked his gaze to the glowing red ember embedded in her right socket.

  Finally, he spoke. “Is this something to do with the Outsider? Did he do this to you? Did he mark you, allow you to travel into the past somehow?”

  Billie frowned. “You know I can’t tell you.”

  “What does it matter? If nothing works, why not tell me everything? Do I succeed? Do I kill the Outsider?”

  Billie said nothing. Daud sighed and sat back on the couch, one arm wrapped around his middle. It hurt to breathe, although it at least felt like he could get a proper lungful now. He still felt tired, more than he ever thought possible, but his head was clearing. Billie watched him, apparently content to keep her secrets, grateful perhaps that he wasn’t asking any more questions.

  He had plenty, of course. But he believed her story. She was Billie Lurk. She had no reason to lie to him. Where the Outsider was concerned, anything was possible. She certainly looked older, and as for the eye, and the arm…

  He closed his eyes and thought back to the fight in the abandoned office. He remembered opening the door, seeing the Twin-bladed Knife on the floor, right by his boot. He remembered bending down, picking it up.

  And he remembered the cold, and the pain.

  He opened his eyes.

  “It was the Knife, wasn’t it?”

  Billie tilted her head.

  “You said I’m sick,” said Daud. “But it’s worse than that, isn’t it? I can feel it.” Billie frowned at that and Daud chuckled. “I’m dying, aren’t I? It was the Knife. It did something to me when I picked it up.”

  Billie paused, then nodded.

  “All this time,” said Daud, “I’ve been looking for the Twin-bladed Knife, and even if I’d found it, I couldn’t have wielded it.” Billie watched him in silence. “I know,” he said. “You can’t tell me anything. You’re from my future.” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “You came to help me, only you’ve killed me, haven’t you? Because if you hadn’t come back with the Knife, I would never have touched it.” Daud laughed again, louder this time.

  “I’m sorry,” said Billie. “It’s my fault and I can’t fix it. When I came back the first time, it crystalized this moment, making it part of history. Now, no matter what I do, no matter how many times I try, I can’t change it. I can’t.”

  The pair locked eyes, then Billie looked away. Finally, Daud spoke. “I guess I’m going to have to get someone to help me with the mission. Someone I would trust with my life—or what there is left of it.”

  Billie stood. “I wish I could show you the future,” she said. “I wish I could show you what happens. But I’ve tried that too.” She sighed. “Nothing can change what is happening—what will happen. Nothing. I’m sorry for what comes next, but don’t worry. We will meet again, very soon. Trust me.”

  Daud nodded. “I do trust you. And you can trust me. I won’t say anything.”

  The cold ache continued to spread up his arm. He lifted his hand and flexed the fingers. The bones of his hand felt like dry twigs. Something was broken. Wincing with effort, he propped himself up again and he carefully pulled his heavy glove off with his other hand. Then he turned his naked hand over, rolling his knuckles as he examined his skin.

  The Mark of the Outsider was there, the familiar dull black symbol. But that wasn’t the only mark. His skin was covered with a tracery of black lines, as though his veins were filled with ink. He turned his hand over, the fingers of his other hand running over the marks as he traced them up his wrist. He pulled back his sleeve as far as it would go. The marks went up his arm. It looked like the skeletal structure of a leaf tattooed into his flesh.

  Billie pulled at the pouch on her belt. She extracted a vial of light-blue liquid and handed it to Daud. “Here.”

  Daud took it from her and examined the vial. “Piero’s?”

  “Addermire Solution. Does the same. More, even. Take it, and rest. No one will disturb you here for a while. Your strength will return, in time.”

  “But not completely.”

  Billie looked at the floor.

  “Where will you go now?” asked Daud. “Back to your own time?”

  She looked up and nodded. “I have a lot of work to do,” she said, then she turned around and moved to the center of the room.

  A blue light appeared, small at first, then growing larger, until a swirling elliptical vortex formed in the room. Daud could only stare as Billie looked over her shoulder at him, then turned and stepped into the vortex.

  And then she was gone, and the room was dark, and Daud was alone.

  Alone… and sick. It was a strange feeling—the Mark of the Outsider granted him a supernatural constitution, sparing him illness. This new feeling was disconcerting. Alarming.

  Feeling the panic build, he screwed his eyes shut and concentrated to center himself
.

  Then he opened his eyes, twisted the cap off the vial of Addermire Solution, and drained it in a single draft. It tasted sweet and clean, and he felt his mind clear and the strange, cold creep along his arm fade.

  He lay back on the couch and let his fatigue claim him. Before he closed his eyes, he felt inside his tunic and pulled out the black mirror shard. He held it in front of his face, and looked at his own reflection in the lantern light. He looked old and tired. As he tilted the mirror, he thought he saw a light, orange and red, and heard the roar of a fire, echoing down the ages.

  And then he was asleep.

  29

  UPPER AVENTA DISTRICT, KARNACA

  24th Day, Month of Harvest, 1852

  “Spending two years in the company of heretics, the insane, and those rare, black-hearted villains who were truly practitioners of magic, I can say with truth that I have seen such things as to break the minds of most. While the trials and burnings weigh heavily upon my heart, I must chronicle what has been a unique opportunity to witness the multifarious perversions that the Outsider bestows upon those who seek his black council.”

  —THE GREAT TRIALS

  Excerpt from an Overseer’s findings, by High Overseer Tynan Wallace

  “Is it ready?”

  The witch’s servant turned to his mistress, Lucinda, and bowed low to the ground, his ragged black cloak pooling out around him. Still bent over, he looked up into her face. He hesitated, afraid perhaps that he had somehow displeased her. He wrung his hands and nodded vigorously.

  “All is prepared, my lady,” he said. Almost crawling on the ground, he turned around and pointed toward the mansion that clung to the edge of the mountain on the other side of the chasm. “Daud sleeps in the old house. We have but to wake him and the trap is set.”

  Lucinda cocked her head, looking at the mansion. The sun was rising, the sky above bruised purple and orange.

  A new day. A new beginning.

  “I hope it was worth it,” said Caitlin. She was leaning against a low white wall, her arms folded. She stared at her feet, not willing to meet Lucinda’s gaze.

  Lucinda padded over to her, then reached down and lifted her head with a finger. Caitlin tried to keep her eyes away from her sister’s, but then she looked up.

  “I regret their deaths as much as you do,” said Lucinda.

  Caitlin’s lips were pressed firmly together. Lucinda knew the pain she felt—they’d lost two of their number at the Royal Conservatory, a substantial loss considering the coven had scattered after the capture of Breanna Ashworth. Caitlin had fled—Lucinda knew her sister felt guilt over that, but it had been a wise decision. Because yes, it had been worth it. Caitlin had found and recovered some of the lenses of the Oraculum, the Void-touched machine crafted by Breanna, working alongside none other than Kirin Jindosh.

  And two fewer witches actually made things easier. With each hour, Lucinda could feel the power slipping away from her. Sharing what little remained among the others was a serious drain, but now she felt she could hold onto the power just a little longer. The lines of ink across her body—more of Breanna’s work—burned and pulsed.

  She would need to. The trap would require every last scintilla of power she could summon.

  But she didn’t say that to Caitlin. She had not only lost two friends, but a lover, too. Killed by the man who was sleeping so close.

  She pointed at the mansion. “But we will have our revenge, believe me. When Daud wakes, he will be ours. It is only a matter of time.”

  Caitlin stared up at Lucinda, and then she smiled. She glanced at the prostrate form of Lucinda’s familiar, the twisted little man nothing more than a bundle of rags on the ground.

  “What about the final part?”

  Lucinda turned to follow her sister’s gaze. Then she moved over to her servant. She reached down to the cowering man—he looked up at her and jumped back, startled… and then, slowly, he reached out with his emaciated arm, the look on his face a mix of surprise and rapture.

  Lucinda pulled him up, stepping close, so close her body pressed against his.

  “Challis, you have served me well.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “You have done all I have asked of you.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “Without question.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “Then hear me, Challis. I have but one final task for you.”

  “Anything, mistress! Anything at all.”

  Lucinda looked down at him. Caitlin joined her side.

  “I was hoping you would say that,” said Lucinda. She lifted her hands, her nails growing into long, curved claws as Caitlin did the same.

  Challis’s dying scream echoed across the chasm and bounced off the towering walls of Kirin Jindosh’s mansion, before fading out over the city in the early morning.

  30

  THE VOID

  Time immaterial

  “You ask what the Void looks and feels like, if it can be measured like a real place. Here’s my answer: Don’t concern yourself with such matters. It is as real as anything I’ve ever experienced, but if you understood it, you’d know that such a statement makes as little sense as saying that I have been dead.

  The Void is unspeakable. It is infinite and it is nowhere, ever-changing and perpetual. There are more things in the endless black Void, Kirin Jindosh, than are dreamt of in your natural philosophy.

  Leave aside things beyond your reach, and be content that you are gifted with more insight than the common man.”

  —LETTER FROM DELILAH TO KIRIN JINDOSH

  Surviving fragment, date unknown

  Stone, and ash, and the cold dark.

  Daud looks around. He smells rust and corrosion. He tastes metal and the sharp sour tang of electricity.

  He is standing on rock, gray and dark and ancient. Gray clouds swirl above in an infinite nothing that surrounds him, surrounds everything. This nowhere, this no place.

  This Void.

  “Tell me, Daud, is this really how you thought it would be? Is this how you thought your story would end?”

  Daud turns and looks at him, the young man, his hair dark and short, his eyes small and black. The young man stands with his arms folded, his back to a rising glow, like an early morning sunrise. Except in the Void there is no sun, there is no morning, and the light is cold and bright and blue.

  The Outsider watches Daud, his expression unreadable, as he paces, circling Daud like a painter circling his easel.

  Daud stands, watching. He says nothing.

  “You think you are alone, Daud? You think you are the only one who is in pain? Running from a past you cannot forget, the memory of evil deeds a fire inside your mind—a fire that, no matter how hard you try, you cannot extinguish, not fully. The embers will always be with you, burning in the eternal night of your being.”

  Daud clenches his fists. He begins to walk, turning a circle, following the Outsider, keeping pace.

  “I have watched the world for four thousand years,” the Outsider says. “Can you even imagine that length of time? If you could, it would drive you from your senses.”

  Daud lifts his chin and speaks. “Is that why you do it, then?”

  The Outsider stops walking and stares at Daud, his arms tight around his body, his black eyes reflecting an orange light from long ago. He cocks his head.

  “Perhaps I have underestimated you.”

  Daud takes a step closer to the monster, to the source of so much turmoil, so many sadistic acts. But then the stones of the Void move, the architecture of the nothingness shifting, and the Outsider stands farther away, on a slab of rock that floats in the blue-black expanse.

  “You call yourself the Outsider,” Daud says, “but that’s not the truth, is it? You don’t observe. You meddle.”

  Daud holds up his hand, presenting the back to the Outsider. On his skin, the Mark flashes blue and white.

  Daud thinks he sees the Outsider flinch, but he i
s not certain.

  “How many have there been? How many have you branded with your mark? How many have become your tools—your property? How many have done your work for you, interfering with the world for your entertainment? How many have lived and died for you?”

  “You still do not understand.”

  Daud takes another step forward. His hand is still raised.

  “What’s it all for? Tell me that much. What do you want—what do you really want?”

  The Outsider cocks his head once more, and then he is there, in front of Daud, just an arm’s reach away.

  “You know, you were always one of my favorites,” he says, and he begins his pacing again. “You’re right. There have been many—so many names, so many lives. But lives that are so brief, fluttering out like a dying flame even before you realize how very short the time you have is.”

  He turns and steps toward Daud, who feels the Outsider’s black eyes boring into his own.

  “But you, Daud. You were different. I thought maybe you were the one. But perhaps I was wrong. Doubtful, but possible. In four millennia anything is possible, I suppose.”

  Daud grinds his teeth. He pulls in air through his nose—impossible air in this impossible place. He feels the Mark glow on his skin.

  The Outsider’s eyes flash, his expression flickers again.

  This time Daud is sure of it.

  The Outsider is afraid.

  Afraid of him.

  “You weren’t wrong,” says Daud, and now the Outsider frowns, and he moves, as though to take a step back before reconsidering and holding his ground.

  “I’m the one,” Daud says. “The one who’s going to kill you. Of that, I’m certain.”

  The Outsider turns back to Daud.

  “Daud, the Knife of Dunwall, one of the greatest assassins of his age. It is true that I will die, but it will not be by your hand.”

  Daud rolls his neck.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  He leaps forward, arms outstretched, a growl emerging from deep in his chest.

  The Outsider shrinks back, stumbles.

  Daud falls.