Dishonored--The Corroded Man

by Adam Christopher

  29

  GREAVES AUXILIARY WHALE SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROW, DUNWALL

  15th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851

  “From what we’ve gathered, the item possessed some occult power. It also seemed to come at a cost, however, afflicting the bearer in several unwanted ways as well. Whether the individual or cult responsible for the creation of the corrupted bonecharm made it that way deliberately, or whether their capabilities proved somehow inferior, is not something we know at this time.”

  — WARNING ON CORRUPTED CHARMS

  Excerpt from an Overseer’s report on black-market occult artifacts

  Zhukov backed away, raising his hands toward the oncoming pair. Emily was ready to fight—fight for her life, for her city, for Gristol and the Empire.

  For her mother—a mother she couldn’t save. History had to run its course.

  Beside her, Corvo moved with fluid ease. This was what they had trained for. He was a master at arms, her champion, her protector. She trusted him to the ends of the world and back again.

  Corvo fell first.

  Emily saw him drop from the corner of her eye, and she turned to him, the world suddenly moving in slow motion, the factory floor bucking and tilting like a whaling ship on a high sea. Corvo stumbled, and fell to his knees, then he toppled sideways, stopping himself from hitting the floor with the hand that held his foldable sword. Then he stayed in that position, and didn’t move.

  That was when Emily realized she wasn’t moving either. She was standing, or trying to stand, and she looked around, but her head felt as if it was made of solid stone, and when she did move it around, the world moved in an odd, sickening swinging motion. It was as if the factory had slipped its foundations and slid out onto the river, the top-heavy building listing as it began to sink and sink and sink and—

  Emily hit the floor on her knees, the pain sharp and exquisite, an electric burst that cleared her mind for a moment, sweeping away the fog and the sickening dizziness. She whopped a deep breath, and heard Zhukov laughing.

  He was walking backward, toward the mirror, still holding his arms out. Next to her, Corvo finally succumbed fully, his sword arm slipping out, letting his body fall sideways to the floor.

  Zhukov’s aura.

  The bonecharms.

  It was impossible to get near him, let alone attack him. There was nothing they could do.

  Emily pulled herself up, staggered over to Corvo, then fell back to her knees. She reached out for him, glancing up at their enemy. He was at the vat now, his back to the mirror. Emily saw him, saw his reflected back.

  Saw the smoke rising.

  Not from the vat, but from Zhukov—and it wasn’t because he was standing too close to the vat. No, the smoke was coming from him… or, more specifically, from inside his coat. It seeped out from between the double-breasted lapels, it rose in cautious fingers from under the collar, filtering through the tightly wrapped scarf to shroud Zhukov’s goggle-hidden eyes.

  Emily felt her stomach lurch, and the world flipped around. She collapsed on top of Corvo, the blackness behind her eyes spinning, spinning, spinning as Zhukov channeled his aura, stoking the disorienting energy until it washed over them. There was a crackle, and in Emily’s spinning vision she thought she saw a flame lick the front of Zhukov’s coat, as though using his power was burning him up.

  That meant he couldn’t keep the assault up forever. The question was, how long could he last? Emily could hardly think. Her body seemed to be a far and distant thing, a memory, the factory a dream.

  She couldn’t do it. It was too much. She wanted to die, and consciousness began to lose its grip on the world.

  Then she saw it. Corvo’s blade. He was still holding it, his sword arm trapped underneath him.

  But the blade itself was free.

  And within reach.

  Emily sucked in a breath that seemed too hard to draw, and she reached forward. The blade was either very close or a million miles away, she couldn’t tell, the way the slaughterhouse shifted and rippled. Her vision was surrounded by sparkling blue stars that roared in her ears with the sound of a forest fire, a cleansing inferno from time beyond time.

  Her fingers touched something.

  Cold. Sharp. Metal. Her fingers danced around the top, thumb hooking underneath. She squeezed, and slid her hand an inch along, and felt hot wetness and a dripping sensation.

  And then she felt the pain. Her hand was on fire, lighting her whole body up like fireworks on the first day of the Month of Earth. She gasped and let go of Corvo’s blade, holding her cut hand curled, unwilling or unable to work the frozen fingers.

  She clamped her jaw and forced herself to close the hand into a fist, felt the blood ooze and squelch, felt the agony arcing across her nervous system in jagged, zigzagging bolts. She wanted to throw up.

  Corvo’s blade was sharp. She had cut deep—and that was exactly what she had wanted to do. Because there was something more powerful than Zhukov’s aura of confusion, something that cut through the disorientation, the nausea. Something that overrode it—something primal, ancient. Simple.

  Pain.

  Emily stood, her head clear, her hand throbbing with every beat of her heart. She ignored both. She had to, and her body obliged, the adrenaline coursing through her system. She felt awake, aware, fast, agile, ready, like being dropped into an ice bath. Everything hurt, but everything was clear, pin-sharp.

  Zhukov lowered his arms, faltering, perhaps seeing or realizing that something wasn’t right. On the floor, Corvo groaned and rocked on his side. Zhukov’s concentration had diminished, the power he channeled lessening.

  Emily bent down, reaching underneath Corvo to yank his sword free, the blade streaked with her own blood. She spun around and lunged forward, sweeping the weapon out. Zhukov mirrored her movement, jerking backward, but not quite far enough. The tip of Corvo’s blade unstitched the front of his coat, popping buttons and dragging one lapel from another.

  Seeing that her opponent was unsteady, Emily lunged again, sweeping the other way. Another slice and the front of Zhukov’s coat fell open, the ragged halves of heavy wool sagging with the weight of the small objects that seemed to be sewn into the lining.

  They were roughly circular, like little pinwheels fashioned from bone and copper wire, and they were glowing, red and orange, like hot coals. A pall of smoke, trapped under the coat, rose up toward the factory ceiling.

  Emily righted herself, stabbed left, but Zhukov was fast, sidestepping once, twice, keeping himself out of the blade’s reach. He was unarmed, but as he moved Emily saw his hands cut gestures, carve sigils in the air.

  A wave of nausea hit her.

  She nearly doubled over, stumbling, her ears filled with laughter—her laughter, the laughter of an Emily who never was but that who might have been. She heard the snick of blade on flesh, the wet gurgle as another throat was cut for her entertainment by her murderous father, the Royal Executioner.

  She squeezed the injured hand and her head cleared, although her throat was still hot and raw. She stabbed with the blade but it was awkward this time, off-mark. Zhukov avoided it by jerking his body out of the way, allowing the cutting edge to slice the flap of his greatcoat.

  Twisting around, he pulled, tangling the blade in the thick fabric. Emily felt herself yanked forward, her sword hand trapped. Zhukov twisted again, pulling her sword arm around, and Emily had to go with the movement or have it broken.

  Crying out, she twisted as well, falling to her knees as Zhukov stepped over her. She could feel the heat from the glowing, corroded bonecharms, and she could smell something—something old, dusty, a mix of rotting vegetables and burning meat.

  She let go of the sword, but wrapped in the coat she couldn’t free her hand. She pulled, then grabbed at Zhukov with her injured hand. The sword clattered to the factory floor.

  Grabbing handfuls of his coat, Emily pulled herself up. Zhukov was strong, and bigger than her, but she was no weakling. She w
as a fighter. She had been trained by the best for most of her life. She knew how to use an opponent’s size, his strength, against him.

  But Zhukov was a fighter, too, and while Emily was able to resist the disorientation aura thanks to her injured hand, it was exactly that—an injury—a bad cut that slowed her down, the pain clearing her head but distracting her mind, the hand itself burning and lacking any kind of strength or dexterity.

  The fight became a struggle, the two wrestling beside the vat, the burning bonecharms clacking in Zhukov’s open coat. Underneath she saw he was wearing ragged green leathers, worn and dirty, rimed with salt from the years the Hero of Tyvia had worked in the mine.

  She forced Zhukov toward the vat, and he grunted as the backs of his legs caught the rim. Emily pushed again, but too late she realized that Zhukov had an advantage. He leaned away, then, using the vat itself as leverage, shoved forward, pushing the Empress off him. She fell, overbalanced, her hands scrambling at something, anything, to use as support.

  Her fingers vanished into something soft and hot, her hand sinking into coils of something furry.

  She hit the factory floor on her tailbone, pain shooting up her spine, down her arms. She shook her head, and then looked at the scarf in her hands. Beside her, the broad-brimmed traveler’s hat rolled a tight circle on its crown.

  Zhukov roared as he bore down on her, hands reaching out, jaw stretched wider than was possible for anything other than a cadaver. Emily gasped in surprise and in horror at the blackened, crinkled skin, the puckered, tight black lips and the black teeth within the gaping, lopsided maw. His skull was bald, the dark, crusted skin stretched tight and thin. Only the goggles remained, two great red circles, the thick leather straps that held them in place passing around his head, passing ears that were no longer there.

  The walking corpse that was the Hero of Tyvia screamed at Emily. It was an animal sound, a wet howl. He leaned over her, reaching for her throat, the open flaps of his greatcoat snapping everywhere.

  Reaching out with her injured hand, she grabbed for the first corroded bonecharm she saw. The charm hissed and steamed as it touched her blood, and, with a yell, Emily pulled. It sprang free of the stitching that held it in place, and it cooled immediately, collapsing into charcoal in her hand.

  Zhukov staggered, his blackened maw twisting in confusion. The hands that were reaching for Emily’s throat were no longer as close as they had been. Then he snarled, closing his fingers into a fist.

  The dizziness hit Emily like a runaway carriage, like a physical thing slamming into the side of her head. The room spun what seemed like a full three-hundred-and-sixty degrees and she felt as if she was falling, and falling a very, very long way.

  She blinked her eyes, and looked up, her head roaring. She could see Zhukov—many Zhukov’s, his image doubled, trebled, multiplied a dozen times, spinning around as if she was looking through a kaleidoscope, his disorientation aura at full effect, his bonecharms dancing with small, blue flames, his coat smoking.

  Squinting, she willed the world to come back to an even keel. She saw that one bonecharm was burning more than the others, the red coal flaring into white heat like a beacon. The charm he was drawing on the most. The one that granted him the power of disorientation.

  Emily closed her eyes and launched herself at it. She felt herself hit something, soft and yielding, enveloping. She felt heat, and the bonecharms seemed like scalding stones against her face. Then she fell, face down, and rolled on the stone floor, only stopping when she hit the factory wall.

  Her injured hand blazed anew with pain. She grimaced against it, her hand squeezing almost involuntarily around the object in her palm. The object that cooled, and cracked, then crumbled under the pressure, as light and as fragile as dry, dead wood.

  Turning over, Emily saw someone lurch up from the floor, roll his shoulders, his neck, bend down and pick up the folded sword. He flipped the hilt in his hand, and then raised it, the folding blade snapping out, pointing toward Zhukov.

  He was Corvo Attano. He was Royal Protector.

  He was father to the Empress of the Isles.

  The disorientation charm destroyed, the spell was broken. Corvo was freed from its grip. He stepped toward their enemy.

  “The story of the Hero of Tyvia ends here,” he said.

  At this, Zhukov laughed. He held his hands apart, and he gave a small bow to his opponent.

  Then he turned his back to them, and he ran into the mirror.

  30

  GREAVES AUXILIARY WHALE SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, SLAUGHTERHOUSE ROW, DUNWALL

  15th Day, Month of Darkness, 1851

  “The sun was setting, a bloody stain against the sky, silhouetting the charred ribcage of the slaughterhouse. The stench of burned meat—the flesh of men and whales—soured the air… [he] erupted from the ashes and timbers, his body wreathed in flame and rent with injuries that no mortal man could have survived. His shadow stretched out before him on the ground, and it revealed his true nature—a horned thing warped by heresy. A shape too terrible to put into words, my gentle readers. A sorcerer from the Void, without question… his heart… colder than Tyvian ice.”

  — THE KNIFE OF DUNWALL, A SURVIVOR’S TALE

  From a street pamphlet containing a sensationalized

  sighting of the assassin Daud

  Emily pulled herself to her feet, her good hand wrapped around the heavy chain that hung on the wall above her head. She glanced up. It ran up the wall to a pulley and gears, connected to another set of chains that hung across the ceiling, heading up to the top of the frame.

  The frame that held the mirror.

  She looked across at the vat. Zhukov was running toward the mirror. He had almost reached it. For him, it wasn’t just a mirror but a door, a portal.

  An escape route.

  Moving quickly, on pure instinct, she unhooked the chain from the wall, knocked the locking bolt out of the geared wheel, and then let the chain go.

  Gravity took over. Released from the lock, the chain shot up to the pulley mounted up on the ceiling framework, the gears screaming as they spun. The chains leading up to the top of the frame whipped tight as they were dragged toward the ceiling, then they ran off of the gears and licked across the factory in opposite directions.

  Emily ducked just as one end flew toward her, cracking like a whip across the brickwork just inches above her head.

  And then the mirror fell.

  Zhukov slid to a halt, gaping as the huge surface dropped, sliding down into the vat. Behind him, Corvo ran toward his target, ready to make the kill. Then Corvo himself stopped, and leaped to one side as the mirror, off-balance, swung forward and down.

  Zhukov bellowed something, but with the grinding roar Emily couldn’t hear what it was. He remained where he stood. It was too late to move out of the way. The sheet of glass, metal—whatever magical substance it was—came down right on top of him. He raised his arms over his head, as if that would offer any kind of protection.

  The mirror smashed, exploding across the factory floor in a million shards. Emily gasped and turned away, crouching tightly to avoid the flying shrapnel, the sound of the glass breaking as loud as the walls of Dunwall Tower crashing down in the visions she’d had.

  The silence that followed was somehow louder, more shocking. Emily’s head rang like a clocktower bell.

  Then the ringing faded, replaced by a dull, low rumble. She lifted her head, and looked over her shoulder. The vat was still there, the contents softly bubbling, the surface thick, viscous like cooling caramel, lapping at the sides of the vat as it settled after the falling mirror had disturbed its convective churning.

  “Emily!”

  She turned fully around now. Corvo was walking toward her, brushing glass dust and tiny shards off himself. The pieces of the mirror, some as small as daggers, others as large as windows, lay across the factory floor, the smallest fragments glittering like diamonds. It was difficult for him to find a safe pathway.

&nbs
p; Of Zhukov, there was no sign—he was somewhere under the largest pile of shattered mirror, in the space just in front of the vat.

  Emily reached an arm up as Corvo drew close. He grabbed it and pulled, and she cried out. Corvo loosened his grip and ducked down to crouch beside his daughter, one arm reflexively moving around her shoulders, the instinctive gesture of a father to a daughter. Together they rose, Emily holding the hand against her chest.

  “Are you all right?” Corvo asked, then he saw the blood trickling down Emily’s wrist. “You’re hurt. We need to get you back to the Tower, now.”

  Emily shrugged. “I’m fine, really. It’s not bad.”

  She held her injured hand out, palm up, and uncurled the fist. It stung like nothing in the world, but she managed to move the fingers, waggling them a little to show her father that none were broken. Corvo winced as he examined the wounds, but Emily felt herself grin.

  “I’ll live.”

  Corvo smiled, then he turned to survey the wreckage in the factory. Emily stepped forward, carefully tapping at a large shard of mirror with the toe of her boot. The factory was still lit by just the glow of the vat, and the color was different now, the light dimming from the brilliant yellow-white to a warm orange glow. Emily stared down at the fragment at her feet.

  “His body must be under there somewhere,” Corvo said. “He looked pretty bad, like he’d been burned in a fire. He must have been in constant agony.”

  Emily frowned at the fragment. She tilted the edge of it with her boot, and found herself staring at her own reflection. She was dirty, bloody, tendrils of black hair floating free in front of her face. She reached up and tucked them behind her ears.

  “Did he tell you what the mirror was for?” Corvo asked. “Or what he was planning on doing?”

  Emily nodded. She had a lot to explain. She opened her mouth to speak, but at her feet the fragment of mirror seemed to flash blue, reflecting not the light of the vat but of something else.

  She gave a yelp of fright, and jumped back. The fragment clattered back to the floor.