He turned around and stepped down.
“The final piece I needed, the final element of power,” Zhukov continued. “I spent a year searching for something like this. I traveled to Morley, Serkonos. Every isle in your precious Empire, and even those beyond.”
Emily lifted an eyebrow.
“Oh, yes, Empress,” Zhukov said. “I even set foot on the shores of Pandyssia in my search.”
Keep him talking, keep him talking.
Emily forced out a laugh.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Very few people have ever reached Pandyssia. Even fewer have made it back.”
Zhukov shrugged. “What you believe is irrelevant. I found what I was looking for. The information did not come cheap, or easily, but those I interrogated were useful in other ways, even if they didn’t tell me what I needed to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I filleted their flesh and took their bones.” He paused, then continued. “I am a sick man, Empress. My time is short and my need to feed is great.”
“What was the jawbone for?” she asked. “Shame you lost your fancy knife. Antique, was it? A souvenir from the old country.”
“You could say that,” Zhukov said. “Unfortunately, a sacrifice that was necessary. That artifact was from another time and place, a world that existed before this one, tethering me to it.” He gestured to the vat. “It was a tool that served me well, and now its job is done. I needed to unlock its power and pull on that tether, bringing that world closer to this one.”
Zhukov turned and clapped his hands together.
The four Whalers who had manhandled the jawbone into the vat moved around the other side, over to the wall, where the controls were for the pulley system—the one that held the frame. Unhooking the chain from the wall, one Whaler knocked a pin out of a geared wheel, while another grabbed the crank handle on the wheel and began to turn it.
The grinding of metal rubbing on metal, chains clanking and rattling, filled the factory as the frame hanging above the vat began to lift clear, pulling up whatever was in the vat. The thick white-yellow liquid clung to the object like honey, slowly sloughing off and falling back.
Emily squinted at the object, trying to work out what it was. It was huge, and perfect, a flat plane of bright brilliance, as clear as a window—twenty feet from side to side, the corners held in black iron clamps. The object was lifted high and it kept going, up and up and up, as if it would never end, as if the roiling vat was a bottomless abyss, as deep as the lair of the leviathan. Deep enough to hold the entire world.
As the object was raised, Emily stared at the reflection in its perfect surface. She saw the factory in reverse, she saw Zhukov standing beside her, she saw herself sitting, hands bound, against the other vat.
It was a mirror. A huge, flat, perfect mirror, the surface shining but somehow dark, black, like the reflection had a depth you could reach out and touch.
Zhukov nodded to himself, and then he began to laugh.
“Take a good look, Empress. Watch the world that is become the world that was.”
Emily frowned. The image in the mirror… did it flicker? Did it move slightly, from left to right? One moment Zhukov was standing to her left, then on her right, then on the left again.
“Balance is restored,” Zhukov said, “and revenge is mine.”
27
GREAVES AUXILIARY WHALE SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROW, DUNWALL
15th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851
“Restrict the Wandering Gaze that looks hither and yonder for some flashing thing that easily catches a man’s fancy in one moment, but brings calamity in the next. For the eyes are never tired of seeing, nor are they quick to spot illusion. A man whose gaze is corrupted is like a warped mirror that has traded beauty for ugliness and ugliness for beauty. Instead, fix your eyes to what is edifying and to what is pure, and then you will be able to recognize the profane monuments of the Outsider.”
— THE FIRST STRICTURE
Excerpt from a work detailing one of the Seven Strictures
Emily forced herself to her feet. At once, a Whaler she didn’t realize was there grabbed her arm, dragging her over to the middle of the slaughterhouse factory floor, where they pushed her down onto her knees again.
Zhukov said something, but she didn’t hear it. She didn’t hear anything or see anything other than the reflection in the mirror.
It flickered again, and changed. The factory was still reflected in its impossible surface, but the vast chamber was empty—she was gone, Zhukov and the Whalers were gone. The factory was dark, dead, weeds growing through cracks in the floor, and the rear wall—the towering rear wall that should have been behind Emily, as solid as ever, was a jagged ruin, like smashed teeth grinning at the city outside.
A city on fire.
Somehow she could see it all, as the cityscape stretched away into the distance. The famous Clocktower was nothing but a jagged, broken shard, and the Wrenhaven River was itself a mirror, reflecting the glow of the inferno.
Dunwall was a ruin, every house, every building a shell. As Emily watched, walls collapsed like wet sand, sending plumes of dust lazily into the air, mixing with black, thick smoke that swam like ink in water.
And she saw Dunwall Tower. Her home, the Imperial fortress, a symbol to not just the people of Dunwall, of Gristol, but to citizens across the Empire.
Except Dunwall Tower was a gap-toothed, abandoned pile, the walls cracked and collapsed. The fire hadn’t reached it yet, but it would, soon. Already the only inhabitants remaining in the palace were making their fast escape.
Rats.
Thousands and thousands of rats. They ran and they swarmed, moving in a single, undulating wave, cascading over the rubble, over broken walls, through dead windows that looked more like the dead eyes of a dozen rotting skulls.
The Rat Plague had destroyed Dunwall. The Rat Plague had killed everyone, and now the city burned. Dunwall was dead, a footnote in history, a tragedy that rang like a funeral bell down through the ages.
“Balance,” Zhukov said. Emily flinched at his words, and she blinked. Suddenly the image in the mirror flickered again and she saw the factory as it was. She saw herself, and Zhukov, and the Whalers, and…
No. It wasn’t her. Somehow, in the middle of the factory, there was a throne—the throne. There was a woman sitting on it—an Empress—but she was older, her hair grayed and wild, her face drawn, the rings black and heavy beneath her eyes.
Emily recognized her. But it was not a memory, it was not the past. It was somehow now. The present. A present that had never happened, that could never have happened.
Because the woman on the throne had been murdered. Assassinated nearly fifteen years ago.
Jessamine Kaldwin I.
Emily’s mother, staring with dead eyes on a broken throne as the city burned.
Emily shook her head and squeezed her eyes tight shut. Behind their closed lids she watched as the shadows of a fire danced and danced. With her eyes still closed she lifted her head and she screamed.
She screamed until her throat was shredded, every bit of air expelled from her lungs. Then she fell sideways, her cheek hitting the hard, damp factory floor.
Good. That was good. The floor was cold and her cheek hurt and she focused on that pain, willing herself to concentrate, focus on what was real, what was here and now. Not on the games of Zhukov.
He was laughing, and she opened her eyes. The mirror was still there—now it just showed the factory as it really was, the mirror acting like a real mirror. Yet as Emily watched it, she saw its surface ripple, as if it was still, deep water caught in a gentle breeze.
She pushed herself up with her shoulder. Her head pounded, and then settled. She looked up at Zhukov, standing next to her.
“What are you?” Her voice was a dry, croaky whisper.
“My name is Zhukov,” he said, “and I am the Hero of Tyvia. For twenty years I served my c
ountry, and served it well.” He lifted a hand, palm up, toward the mirror, and then he curled his fingers, as if he was pulling something in.
Pulling in the past to the present, for Emily to see.
She looked again into the mirror.
She saw,
Trees, hills, mountains, snow. Tyvia, a land of beauty and bounty, the coastal regions of plenty surrounding a frozen, unforgiving heart.
She saw,
People, villagers, going about their business. And then horses, galloping, men in black riding in, slashing with swords, throwing blazing torches onto straw roofs, trampling women and children under their hooves in the cold mud.
She saw,
A man in green, appearing from nowhere, leaping onto a burning roof. He moved like lightning, jumping onto the back of a bandit’s horse, slitting the bandit’s throat before throwing the body to the ground. Riding, fast and quick and agile, his knife moving with equal speed and dexterity.
One against so many, and he won. The village was saved.
She saw,
A man in green, moving along a torch-lit passage, the flames throwing flickering light that revealed his face—a handsome young man, his eyes blue and bright like the ice of his homeland, a black beard, trimmed to a sharp point. This time there was not a knife, but a sword. He crossed the passage, entered a chamber, a great hall.
There was a long table, at which sat a man in a uniform surrounded by men in the same uniform. The men laughed. On the table were documents. Perhaps a map, perhaps something else.
They didn’t stand a chance. The Hero of Tyvia slipped into the room then slipped his sword through the neck of the nearest soldier. Before the others could even react, before the man could even stand, heads rolled on the wooden floor.
When the man in green left the room he left only the dead behind, the documents on the table curling with flames that soon lapped at the bodies then at the room, the curtains, the walls.
She saw,
A building—huge, like the Abbey of the Everyman, but wider, squat, like a fat spider sitting at the center of its web. An avenue, as straight as an arrow, led to the door. The avenue was laid with flowers—millions of them, in every color—and was lined by people cheering, clapping, applauding, while behind them, men in black-and-red uniforms watched, their faces expressionless, their eyes searching.
They were in the crowd, they were on rooftops, they were everywhere. Somewhere, at the back, on a quiet street, the men in uniform dragged people out of the crowd—people who weren’t cheering or clapping or behaving like the rest, and beat them with long truncheons before throwing them into the backs of iron wagons.
And on the steps of the citadel, a line of old men, their faces hard, unreadable, their uniforms identical to all the rest. In front of them, a man in green, with blue eyes and a neat beard and on his chest a red ribbon—a small thing, a square of shiny cloth, nothing more—waving at the crowd while one of the old men stood by his side, whispering something, telling the man in green to keep waving and not to stop waving and that he was doing a good job.
Emily blinked and the image flickered, stuttered. She drew in a breath and looked up at Zhukov.
He took a step toward the mirror, still holding his hand out, watching himself. The past. Emily knew that. She recognized the Tyvian citadel at Dabokva. She recognized some of the men on the steps—it was their local governing council, the country allowed a measure of autonomy under the umbrella of the Empire of the Isles.
The handsome man in green was Zhukov, that was obvious. The red ribbon his reward for his heroism and courage and service to the people.
“What happened?” Emily whispered the question, her voice catching in her hoarse throat. She was about to ask it again, thinking he hadn’t heard, but he answered first.
“The world changed, Empress,” he said. “The balance was shifted, and the world teetered.”
The image in the mirror changed again. Emily felt herself drawn to it, and then she shuddered, and felt cold and sick in the hot factory. She watched the images move in the mirror, playing out a scene she had replayed in her own mind, a hundred, a thousand, a million times over.
Dunwall Tower. The gazebo overlooking the harbor.
The day Corvo came back with bad news.
The day that her mother died.
Emily felt her chest tighten as she watched. She saw Corvo talk to the Empress. She saw the tears in her eyes.
She saw the Whalers appear, their murderous leader Daud with them. Saw their blades flash. Saw Corvo fight, and lose.
Saw them kill her mother.
Saw Corvo dragged away, beaten into unconsciousness.
Emily closed her eyes.
“I don’t understand,” she said, opening her eyes, forcing herself to look at Zhukov as he stared at the mirror. “What does that have to do with you and Tyvia?”
“It has everything to do with Tyvia.” Zhukov hissed, the rage palpable. Emily jerked back.
He threw his hand toward the mirror and pulled back again, tugging on the strings of time to show something else. The image shifted, back to the citadel. The crowds of people cheering or being arrested. The council honoring their hero. And…
No. This was different. The council was missing more than half its members, including the sour old man who had been whispering. Zhukov was there, but he was not in green, he was in black and red—the military uniform, distinguished only from the others by the red ribbon pinned to his breast.
Behind him, escorted by members of the City Watch—the Dunwall City Watch, in their ceremonial uniforms—was…
“No,” Emily breathed, not believing it.
Empress Jessamine. Looking as she had on the day she died. Young, vibrant, alive.
“A new dawn for Tyvia,” Zhukov said. “This was as it should have happened. Tyvia was ruled by a council of cruelty, the people not governed, but controlled, a yoke of iron around their necks.” Zhukov hissed and took a step closer to the mirror.
“It was criminal, and I saw it, so I became a criminal, too. I did what I could, working in the shadows, helping people where I could, but those who ruled—the so-called Secretaries of the People of Tyvia—they had spies watching me. Black-masked, nameless, stateless Operators, ready to act.
“They came for me in the night. But they did not take me to my death. They took me to the citadel, to the High Judges, the three who ruled. They recruited me. They said they understood what I was doing, that they had a plan to change Tyvia. Each of them had been forced to wait until they had reached their position, had acquired their power, before they could act. They told me they had been waiting their whole lives, working to enact change. They needed me to be part of that. To continue my work, fighting for the people.
“Tyvia was beset by bandits, by revolutionaries encouraged by the exiled princes who spent all their time and money in taverns, whispering, encouraging resistance to the movement that had toppled them from power. The people didn’t understand, and the High Judges couldn’t tell them, not yet. Revolution was the danger, anarchists the enemy.
“Oh, but the High Judges were on their side, the side of the people. Revolution was necessary. Change was required. The High Judges agreed with these dangerous ideas, supported them even, but they were working from the inside. In the meantime they needed me to keep the peace, to stop those who were plotting against them.
“Nothing could jeopardize the Great Plan.
“And I believed them. I was presented to the people as a hero—the first among equals, just one man—one man—who could keep the people safe at night. I was feted. Celebrated. I worked for the High Judges for years—years of my life that, I realized later, had been wasted. I was being used—a tool not of freedom, but of oppression. The change they promised was not coming, was never coming.
“I was the distraction, a symbol on which the people would fixate, allowing them to dream of better days that would never come, while the iron fist of the High Judges gripped tighter and ti
ghter.”
Zhukov spun around to face Emily. The image in the mirror faded, and the surface rippled as it reflected the real world of the here and now.
“I was contacted by agents from Dunwall,” he said, “servants of the Royal Spymaster. Dunwall, I was told, had seen what was happening in Tyvia, and wanted change—real change, not the false promises and charades of the High Judges. They saw me as the means to enact that change. I was on the inside. I had access, knowledge. I was to be a mole, digging my way through their secrets, gathering information and feeding it back to Gristol.
“And then I realized the possibilities. Dunwall was planning something—not a war, but something far more insidious. A slow takeover, retaking that part of the empire they had let fall too far from their control.”
Zhukov balled his hand into a fist, and he beat his chest with it.
“And I was the key! Without me, they could do nothing. Nothing! I was the center, around which the balance of the world would spin. There would be none more important than me, none more worthy to take Tyvia from the people who had betrayed it. The Secretaries and their High Judges would be no more. I would lead the people, as was my right. I had fought for them. Tyvia was mine, and with Empress Jessamine’s help, I would take that country. My country.” Zhukov’s fist shook as he squeezed it.
Emily swallowed a hot ball of nothing. She nodded, realizing herself what had happened.
“But what you didn’t know,” she said quietly, “was that there were those plotting against my mother. Planning on taking power for themselves.”
“Yes.” Zhukov nodded. “The assassination of Empress Jessamine changed everything. With her gone, the Royal Spymaster lost his interest in revolution, now that he had proclaimed himself Lord Regent. Perhaps it was his arrogance, believing that the whole Empire was now his to rule, ignorant of the state of Tyvia.”
Emily nodded. “They sold you out to the High Judges, in exchange for closer diplomatic ties.”
Zhukov inclined his head. “I was granted the ultimate gift of the people of Tyvia—freedom!” Zhukov barked a laugh, a single, harsh sound. “Freedom! Freedom from responsibility. Freedom from duty. Freedom from liberty. Freedom from freedom! They sent me to Utyrka, to the salt mines.”
Dishonored--The Corroded Man Page 25