As the Whalers staggered in surprise, Corvo’s agents moved into action, shedding cloaks to reveal their own weapons—knives, swords, pistols. In the confusion the tables turned, and within moments the Whalers found themselves at the mercy of the Royal Spymaster and his men.
To her credit, Galia only winced a little at the sound, her eyes darting around the room as she watched her gang get rounded up. She turned back to Corvo, one eyebrow raised, the grin still playing softly over her lips.
“Very impressive,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the Ancient Music. “A neat little trap.”
Corvo lifted his chin. The game was up. The strange, discordant melodies had robbed him of his own powers—the burning of the Outsider’s Mark on his hand was a painful reminder of that, as the power fought against the interference, slowly but steadily draining Corvo’s own strength and mental focus. But he could stand it a little while longer, and it was worth it, because it meant that Galia was also powerless.
The balance was very much in his favor.
“Give it up, Galia,” Corvo said. “You’ve lost this one. We’ve got your men at gunpoint. At my signal your base on Slaughterhouse Row will be raided and your mystery friend will be in custody. It’s over. Drop the knife and I’ll make sure you’re well treated.”
Galia pursed her lips, but otherwise her expression didn’t change. She stopped tossing the knife from hand to hand, and instead held it firmly in her right, adjusting her fingers to get a better grip.
“Yeah, somehow I don’t think this is going to go how you’d like it,” she said, and she took a step forward. Corvo reached out, ready to grab her, to block the final, desperate swing of the knife.
He found his hand clutching at an inky, smoky nothing.
Galia was gone.
He spun around, too late. The Whaler was standing behind him—close behind him. It was impossible—she had transversed, blinked, despite the interference of the Overseer music.
Galia snarled, and stabbed forward with the knife.
22
BOYLE MANSION, ESTATE DISTRICT
15th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851
“What are you doing? Leave this house! Go back to your frozen wasteland, pale rascal!”
— THE YOUNG PRINCE OF TYVIA
Excerpt from a theater play
With a cry that could be heard over the Ancient Music, Emily leapt out of the crowd, the black sparrow mask still in place.
On the ballroom floor, Galia appeared in a puff of blue-black nothing, standing behind Corvo’s back. Her face twisted into a grimace even as Corvo spun around. In Galia’s hand, the long knife stabbed quickly toward the Royal Protector.
Emily was quicker.
She kicked out, striking Galia’s knife hand. The woman’s grip on her weapon was firm, but she staggered under the impact. Emily pushed herself between the two of them, and ducked as the Whaler brought the knife around again, then swung a right at Galia’s chin and was rewarded with a spray of blood and spittle as her opponent’s head snapped backward under the blow.
Moving with her target, Emily took a step closer, punching in low. Galia doubled over and Emily swung up with her other arm, cracking the Whaler under her chin with an elbow. Then she swept her left leg out, catching Galia behind the knee. The woman fell backward, using an outstretched hand to stop herself hitting the floor. Emily went in for a kick—
And struck nothing.
A cry behind her, audible above the weird music. She turned, but too late. Galia appeared between Emily and her father and kicked the Empress in the small of the back, sending her to her knees. Emily spun on the floor, twisting to avoid Galia’s fist, blocking two more attacks with raised forearms. Then she stood, swung, and missed as Galia ducked, then Emily threw out a kick.
Galia twisted to avoid it, then pulled her right arm back, the blade in her hand flipped around, ready to slice.
Corvo grabbed her arm from behind. She looked over her shoulder, snarling again, as he wrapped his arm around her neck.
Emily recovered and swung a punch at Galia’s stomach.
Again, there was nothing there to hit. Overbalanced, the punch thrown too far with nothing to stop it, she fell into Corvo. He caught her and immediately pushed her off, allowing her to be ready for the next attack while he whirled around, calling out to his agents.
They were already at work—all around the ballroom. As Corvo and Emily had struggled with Galia, the Whalers had got the upper hand against the costumed agents. And as Corvo watched in confusion, he soon saw how they had done it.
They were all in trouble.
The Whalers could transverse, blinking despite the torrent of grinding, discordant music that filled the room. There were more agents than Whalers, but they were no match for an enemy with supernatural powers, opponents who merely blinked out of reach of fist and knife alike, reappearing in new locations to take the agents by surprise. Several men lay dead on the floor, their costumes staining with blood as the Whalers slaughtered them. The screams of the guests were lost under the wail of the Ancient Music as they tried to flee the ballroom.
Corvo spun around. Emily was fighting Galia, but it was hopeless. The Empress swung at thin air, her enemy blinking and blinking again, leaving a series of still afterimages as she spun around and around in a haze of black smoke, leading Emily around with her, disorienting her, tiring her out.
Corvo rushed forward to help. He had to get the Ancient Music stopped—with it off, he would have his powers back. It would mean revealing them to Emily, but there was no time to be concerned about that now. Under the balcony, the musicians were at the mercy of the Whalers, the violinist—Corvo’s agent—attempting to protect them. Crucially, he stood too far away from the concealed switch.
As he raced toward them, Corvo was aware of a popping in his ears, then he was grabbed by two Whalers who appeared on either side of him, a third materializing and clubbing him on the back of the head. Corvo gasped and felt his legs go out from under him. He hung between the two Whalers, who dragged him forward to where Emily was kneeling, Galia’s knife at her throat.
Then, above the grind of the music, Corvo heard someone clapping. It was slow, mocking. From where he knelt, Corvo looked up to the balcony, as the man in the coat appeared, walking toward the railing. He looked out like a conquering ruler, and gripped the rail with both hands.
“My lords, ladies, gentlemen,” he said, above the noise. “I bring greetings from the north!” At this he laughed, seemingly at his own words. Corvo glanced at Galia, and saw the woman looking up at the man, a broad smile on her face.
“Tonight you are guests of the Lady Boyle, heir to one of the greatest dynasties this wonderful city has ever produced.” The man looked around, then stood to one side. “Please, give your regards to your hostess.”
The crowd gasped. Behind the man stepped an older woman with long silver hair, dressed in a white and silver trouser suit, with one hand wrapped around Lady Esma Boyle’s thin arm. In the other, the woman in white and silver held a small knife against Esma’s throat.
The whisper swept around the crowd. Corvo knew who the woman in silver and white was. The whole room did.
Lady Lydia Boyle.
The deceased Lady Lydia Boyle.
Kneeling beside him, Emily struggled against her captor. Corvo turned to her, ready to tell her to relax, to focus, to not give them any excuse, when he found his eyes drawn back to the balcony.
The man in the coat was looking directly at him, the gaze of his red goggles suddenly bright, sparkling, like looking into a fire. Corvo felt his limbs grow heavy, his vision flashing black and blue at the edges as he felt a strange pressure at the back of his skull. He tried to blink it away, but when he closed his eyes he saw shapes move behind his lids.
It was a similar feeling to the one that had struck him back at the slaughterhouse, when the man in black had peered at him there, but here it was stronger, closer.
And then the feeling was g
one.
Corvo screwed his eyes tight shut, reveling in the blackness, and then he opened them, and saw that the man was looking down at Emily. Corvo turned to the Empress. She was still wearing the black sparrow mask, but he could see the rise and fall of her chest as she sucked in air.
“Interesting,” said the man in the coat. He brushed past Lydia and her captive sister and headed down the sweeping stairs to the ballroom floor, the Whalers pushing masqueraders out of his way.
Or keeping their own distance, Corvo thought.
The man stepped over to the kneeling pair, his attention on Emily. Corvo focused, tried to concentrate, but the Ancient Music sucked at any reserves of energy he had left—the power of the Void, channeled through the Mark of the Outsider, slipping further out of his grasp the more he tried to concentrate on it.
Instead, he turned his attention to the man in the coat, and the Whalers. They were using bonecharms, they had to be—strange, unstable charms, the likes of which neither he nor the High Overseer had ever seen. Charms that decayed over time, burning themselves up as they channeled powers that were far stronger than he thought was possible. Powers like transversing. The Whalers could blink, despite the Ancient Music, which suppressed magic—but not the supposedly minor boons granted by bonecharms.
Except the strange, charred charms, like the one Rinaldo had found, were different. That was why they were unstable. They granted far too much power, burning out in the process. Nevertheless, in using the bonecharms, the man in the coat, and Galia, and the Whalers, were all immune to the Ancient Music.
Corvo was not.
As the man in the coat got closer, Corvo could feel the disorientation, the burning cold that welled up inside him. Some kind of aura, a halo of confusion, of disorientation surrounded him like a protective field. The effects of another bonecharm.
The man in the coat stood over Emily and cocked his head, the big circular brim of his black hat exaggerating the movement.
“Well now,” the man said, “I must say, this is an unexpected pleasure.” He reached down, grabbed the beak of the black sparrow mask, and pulled it roughly up and off.
Emily blinked, blowing her hair off of her face as it billowed out from inside the mask.
“Good evening, Your Majesty,” the man in the coat said.
A gasp went around the crowd, which quickly turned into a jabber of conversation. The Empress of the Isles was here, at the Masquerade Ball. Years of protocol, of tradition, shattered. Even held at knifepoint, at gunpoint, the nobility of Dunwall sensed a juicy royal scandal.
Emily’s expression was firm, her mouth tightly closed. The muscles at the back of her jaw worked as she ground her molars, and her nostrils flared as she sucked in air. Her eyes were watering, but they were not tears. She wasn’t afraid—she was anything but. Instead, she was defiant, brave, bold.
And she was fighting. The man in the coat took her chin in his hand and tilted her head up as Emily swayed on her knees. His eyes. She was staring into his eyes, caught in that same weird disorienting aura.
Then her eyelids fluttered and she opened her mouth, letting out a breath that was more like a sigh, and she collapsed onto the floor.
The crowd gasped again.
Galia stood before her master, the long knife hanging from her hand.
“What’s going on?” she demanded. “You never said the Empress would be here.” She moved over to the collapsed form and reached down, lifted Emily’s head up by her hair. Corvo saw his daughter’s lips move, her eyes darting around behind the closed lids, but she didn’t wake up.
Then he jerked forward as Galia brought her knife to Emily’s throat, but he was pulled back roughly by his two guards.
Galia’s mouth twisted into a sneer as she looked over her shoulder at the man in the coat.
“Shall I kill her, Zhukov?”
Zhukov tilted his head this way and that. Corvo wondered what was behind the scarf, the goggles. Wondered what the man looked like, who he was. How he had managed to create—how he had even learned to create—his special bonecharms.
“No,” Zhukov said. “I think the Empress will be most useful in the next phase. Bring her.”
He turned on his heel, the tails of his great coat spinning as he walked back up the steps. At the balcony, he gestured to Lady Lydia Boyle, who still held at knifepoint the whimpering form of her older sister.
Galia pulled Emily up and lifted her across one shoulder, carrying the slight form of the Empress up the stairs without much difficulty.
On the balcony, Zhukov bore down on the two Lady Boyles.
“Leave her, Lydia,” he said. “I need you to show me the way.”
Lydia dropped the arm holding the knife. Lady Esma Boyle gasped behind her red mask, and slumped to the floor. Zhukov and Lydia ignored her.
Instead, Zhukov lifted both hands to the sides of Lydia’s head. Lydia stared up at the man, into his red eyes.
“Show me, Lydia. Show me the way to the vault.”
Lydia swayed on her feet. Corvo could see her lips moving, mouthing something over and over. Galia came up behind Zhukov, Emily still slumped over her shoulder.
“Show me the way!” Zhukov bellowed.
Lydia screamed. There was a crack, a puff of black inky nothing, and the balcony was empty.
Zhukov and Lydia, Galia and Emily, had vanished.
23
THE VAULT BENEATH THE BOYLE MANSION, ESTATE DISTRICT
15th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851
“It is in this dim luminosity that I can see them. The leviathans. The great whales. Here, in their domain, they move with grace and elegance. With purpose. They have approached the sphere repeatedly now, one almost touching the portal with her great eye. As I stare into the orb, it is clear to me that the thing is not mindlessly searching for prey, it is—observing me. It is curious. One by one they approach and peer in my window. There is an unnerving sense of intelligence in that gaze, devoid of malevolence. For a time they examine me, my predicament, and allow themselves to drift off to trace the broken cables along the sea floor.”
— THE DEEP WATCHERS
Excerpt from a natural philosopher’s journal
Galia opened her eyes and found herself, not on the balcony overlooking the ballroom, but in a dimly lit passageway made of old stone, the ceiling high and vaulted. Just a few yards in front of her stood a set of big double doors in heavy, dark wood, barely visible in the gloom.
She felt dizzy, sick, disoriented. Weak.
The Empress was a dead weight on her shoulder. Galia adjusted her grip. Then she took a slow, measured breath, willing her head to clear, willing the strength to return to her limbs.
“Where are we?” she asked, looking around. Zhukov and Lydia Boyle stood over by the doors. Lydia was singing, her arms outstretched as she danced a circle with an imaginary partner. Zhukov walked up to the door and laid a gloved hand against it.
“The Boyle Vault,” he said, not turning around. “Lady Lydia, you have done well, but your task is not yet complete.”
Zhukov pushed at the door, but it remained unmoved. He turned to face the woman. She stopped dancing, bowed low, then reached into her tunic and extracted a key with a long silver shaft.
Zhukov took the key and slipped it into the lock. He turned the key left and right and left and right, each time pushing the shaft further into the mechanism. As his gloved fingers touched the door, there was a final click. Zhukov withdrew his hand, leaving the key in place, then pushed at the doors with both hands.
They swung open and he stepped inside, Lady Lydia close behind. Galia readjusted the unconscious weight slumped over her shoulder and followed.
The subterranean vault was an immense, rectangular chamber, crafted from pale stone that had been carved into fluted gothic columns, which reached up to a high, fan-vaulted ceiling. Where tall windows would have been, had the building been above ground, there were merely stone archways, the mock windows filled in with stone of a different h
ue.
The architecture was epic and ostentatious, the room clearly designed to impress. Nevertheless, to Galia, it felt close, despite the cavernous space. The air was too still, the space too quiet. It felt more like a mausoleum, a tomb for the single, huge object which occupied the chamber, suspended from the ceiling by a series of iron chains.
Her jaw dropped as she stared up at the prize exhibit.
It was a whale skeleton, perhaps two hundred feet from nose to tail, the bones the same pale color as the stone of the vault. In life, the creature must have been impossibly large, longer even than the most impressive of the whaling ships that made their home in Dunwall harbor. The creature’s vast, flat skull formed a huge sloping wedge, itself forty feet long and fifteen high, while beneath this, the two halves of the lower jaw were two gargantuan, curved beams of ivory, thirty feet in length each. The crest of the animal’s spine arced up, the spinous process rising from each vertebra like a sail made of bone, the two symmetrical transverse processes sweeping out horizontally like wings. The pair of front flippers drooped down from the body, the tip of the finger-like bones nearly touching the floor of the vault.
Galia struggled to take in the sheer size of the thing. It was so big, it almost didn’t seem real. This was no ordinary whale.
“And so the Deep Watcher sleeps,” Zhukov said. He spread his arms out to the skeleton, then trotted down the short, fan-like curve of shallow steps that led from the main double doors to the floor of the vault. “A creature of myth and legend, leviathan of the boundless depths. A creature of power.” He turned around to face the others. “And a creature of magic.”
“Where did it come from?” Galia said breathlessly. She couldn’t help it—she was fascinated by the object. She knew about leviathans. She’d even met someone, years ago, at the Golden Cat. He was a natural philosopher—a First Researcher, whatever that was—who claimed to have gone down in a diving bell and encountered huge creatures, monster whales far larger than anything known to science.
Dishonored--The Corroded Man Page 21