Dishonored--The Corroded Man

by Adam Christopher

  “No,” Corvo whispered. “Not tonight.”

  He turned and headed back into the Tower, leaving the city and Emily alone with each other.

  EPILOGUE

  DUNWALL TOWER

  1st Day, Month of Clans, 1837

  “At least [the Royal Protector is] likely to stop any immediate threat to her safety, but a strong arm is not what’s needed against those who would undermine us. How will Corvo’s sword stop a poisoned wine glass or an explosive delivered by courier? It will not. There are many threats around us.”

  — FIELD SURVEY NOTES: THE ROYAL SPYMASTER

  Excerpt from the personal memoirs of Hiram Burrows,

  dated several years earlier

  Corvo jogged up the steps to the gazebo that stood overlooking the great ship dock at the waterside of Dunwall Tower. As he approached, he slowed.

  There was someone in the gazebo—someone wearing a regal black trouser suit, with a big white lace collar, her dark hair coiled high on her head. She was standing with arms folded, her back to him as she looked out across the harbor.

  Corvo blinked, his stomach pitching over. He stepped into the gazebo, and cleared his throat. The woman, startled, turned around, one hand at her breast. When she saw who it was, she relaxed, and laughed.

  “My Lord Protector.”

  Corvo relaxed too, and gave a small bow.

  “Callista.”

  She wasn’t wearing the regal black trouser suit of the Empress—she was wearing the simple uniform that identified her as Emily’s personal attendant. The lace collar was simply the fashion, and Callista’s hair wasn’t black, it was brown.

  Corvo shook his head, cursing his own mind for playing tricks on him.

  He was Royal Protector, Royal Spymaster. Emily had been restored to the throne just a month before, and already the young girl was showing aptitude for the role, seemingly enjoying the work while he, Callista, and the new High Overseer, Yul Khulan, helped guide her hand.

  There was no regency. There never would be.

  Not again.

  “Are you well, Corvo?”

  He blinked, then rubbed his forehead.

  “Ah, yes, sorry, Callista,” he said. “I’ve just been busy these last few weeks. Burrows left the Tower in a real mess. It’ll take forever to get things straightened out. Ah, how’s the Empress? She sent me a note to meet her here.”

  Callista smiled. “The Empress is doing very well. It’s amazing, the change in her. Ten years old, and already I can see a great future ahead of her.”

  Corvo nodded. “And for the Empire, too.” Then he pursed his lips, and took his daughter’s handwritten note from his jacket. “But I guess even an Empress needs to let off steam.”

  Callista folded her arms. “Hide-and-seek again?”

  Corvo laughed. “Looks like it.”

  “Corvo! Come on Corvo! Come on!”

  The young Empress’s voice carried on a breeze from somewhere to Corvo’s left. He turned, just catching sight of Emily as she darted down around the stairs that curved away from the gazebo, out of sight among the cliffs at the base of Dunwall Tower.

  Corvo sighed, and made a point of neatly folding Emily’s note and slipping it back into his jacket.

  Callista laughed. “Good hunting, My Lord Protector.”

  Corvo gave Callista a deep and elaborate bow, then turned and headed toward Emily’s voice.

  * * *

  Corvo stepped cautiously down the stairs as seagulls wheeled overhead. He looked around, almost nervously.

  He hadn’t been here for a long time. Not since that fateful day when he had returned to Dunwall after his tour of the Isles, the day he’d brought back news that the rest of the Empire was blockading the city, waiting to see if the Rat Plague would burn itself out. Jessamine had been devastated. Her authority had been questioned, her plans for the city laid to ruin.

  The day everything changed, forever.

  Corvo remembered these stairs well. Fresh off the boat, Emily had raced to meet him at the royal dock, and before he’d taken his report to her mother, the Empress, he had indulged the young girl in a game of hide-and-seek.

  It seemed so… so innocent, so harmless. An indulgence, yes, but he had been away and he knew that things would get worse before they got better.

  If only he’d had any idea of just how bad they would get. That, mere moments after playing with the heir to the throne, down by the stairs under the towering cliffs and sheer walls of the palace, their lives would be destroyed.

  Jessamine, murdered.

  Emily, kidnapped.

  And Corvo, branded a traitor—imprisoned.

  But they had survived it. It was hell, but they had survived it, and here he was, reinstated as Royal Protector—Royal Spymaster, as well, combining the two offices to ensure that no traitors could ever occupy such positions of power again. Not while he lived.

  He had avenged the death of Empress Jessamine with his own hands, and had saved the life of Emily, the heiress—their daughter. Here she was, now Empress, playing hide-and-seek around the old stairs.

  Corvo took the rest of the stairs at a trot. He looked around, but there was no sign of his ward.

  “Ready or not, here I come!” he shouted with a smile. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he slowed, putting on an exaggerated, cautious approach, knowing she would be watching from some nearby vantage point.

  He walked up to the wall ahead of him, and leaned out over it, gazing down at the steep rocky incline leading to the Wrenhaven River, far below. A whaling boat was making slow progress out to sea. The huge cradle, designed to hold its precious cargo, was empty, waiting for the ocean’s bounty.

  In front of it, traveling in the opposite direction, a small skiff of the Wrenhaven River Patrol sped back into the city, its pilot merely a silhouette in the bright morning sun.

  Gulls squawked in the clear blue sky. Corvo glanced up. Savored the moment. The world was at peace, and the city was still, and the Empress—

  He heard her coming. A grunt of effort, her feet sliding in the dirt, but he didn’t register what she was doing until Corvo felt Emily jump onto his back, two legs wrapping around his middle, one arm grabbing him in a choke hold, the other…

  Corvo turned and stepped away from the wall, carrying her to a more safe position. He grabbed at the arm around his neck—Emily was actually pretty strong and was squeezing for all she was worth, but it had little effect, especially with the thick collar of Corvo’s uniform in the way.

  What he was more concerned about was the weapon Emily had in her other hand. They’d dueled with wooden sticks before, but not like this. As she struggled to stay secured to her father’s back, her free hand waved a wooden sword wildly in the air—a wooden sword with a decidedly sharp, wicked point.

  “Hey!” Corvo cried out, his surprise only half exaggerated. “What in all the Isles is the Empress of the world doing? Is this any way to treat your sworn and loyal protector?”

  Emily laughed. Corvo gave up on trying to free his neck, and instead grabbed hold of her knees. He felt her shift position, pushing herself up so she was sitting on his shoulders. Happy that she was more secure, he spun around on the spot as fast as he could. Somewhere above his head, Emily shrieked and laughed.

  He came to a halt, puffing for breath, and found the wooden sword held vertically in front of his face.

  “Do you yield, Hatter?”

  “Ah… Hatter? What—”

  “Yield or die!” Emily tightened her grip around Corvo’s neck.

  He chuckled and, not without some difficulty, reached up to pull the Empress off his shoulders. But she had her knees locked, and… well, she wasn’t a small child anymore. Corvo leaned forward, trying to persuade her to climb off, but the more he moved, the more she clung on. Eventually he overbalanced, and he found himself on his hands and knees.

  Only then did Emily jump off.

  Corvo laughed, shaking his head, and looked up. Emily stood in front of
him, peering down her nose with her chin raised, one hand on her hip, the other pointing the tip of the short wooden sword at his nose.

  “You are defeated!” she cried.

  Corvo lifted himself up off his hands, which he raised above his head, but he stayed on his knees.

  “Yes, oh mighty Empress, I am defeated.”

  Emily’s face dropped, along with the sword.

  “Corvo, you’re treating me like a child.”

  Corvo paused. “Ah, well, I regret to inform her majesty that she is, in fact, a child, and I humbly point out that her majesty should really be studying with her governess right about now.”

  “Corvo, you don’t listen. You never listen!”

  “I… all right, Emily, what’s this about?”

  “Don’t you remember?” She waved both arms—sword and all—around as she spoke. “I told you. I told you the day you came back. I said I wanted to be a fighter, just like you.”

  Corvo sat back on his haunches. Yes, that’s what she had said. He remembered now. He also remembered that it was just the kind of thing an impressionable young girl like Emily said all the time.

  She looked up to him. He was a role model and, he hoped, now that the throne had been restored, that life was getting back to some kind of normality, that he was, would be, a good one. But… he had to be careful.

  This young girl—not even eleven years old—had been through more than most people in their entire lifetime. She was coping well.

  But…

  Emily dropped to her knees in front of him, and looked up into his eyes.

  “I need you to teach me, Corvo. I need you to teach me everything about fighting. I have to be able to do these things for myself.”

  Corvo blinked. “What? Trust me, you don’t want to be a fighter, Emily. You’re Empress now. I’m your protector, and besides me, you have an entire army to command. You’re safe now.”

  “Now,” Emily said. “But you won’t be around forever.”

  Corvo hadn’t expected Emily—his own flesh and blood—to say something like that. Though, at his core, her words teased apart one of his deep fears, that someday their enemies would come for her, perhaps even after Corvo was gone.

  “Emily, don’t talk like that.”

  “See?” she said. “Treating me like a child again, Corvo. I won’t have it!”

  “Emily, listen—”

  “No, you listen to me, Corvo. My mother died in front of my eyes, up there.” Emily pointed in the direction of the gazebo, somewhere above them. “I was there. And maybe if you hadn’t gone away, that wouldn’t have happened.”

  Corvo felt the heat rise in his face. What was Emily accusing him of? Surely she didn’t blame him for the death of her mother?

  “Emily, I know you’re still angry,” he said quietly. “And listen, I know what it’s like, believe me, I know. We can’t change the past. I miss your mother as much as you do. Don’t think that not a day goes past when I don’t wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t sent me on that errand around the Isles. What would have happened if I had stayed, if I’d… I don’t know… been more observant, paid more attention.”

  As Corvo spoke, he saw Emily’s eyes well with tears. To her credit, she held her expression firm, set, as she looked back at him.

  “But I was doing it for her,” he continued, “and I was doing it for you. I was doing it for the city, Emily.”

  “I could have done something.” Emily’s voice was a whisper.

  Corvo placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “No, you couldn’t have. You couldn’t have fought them off. They had orders to capture you, but who knows what they would have done if you’d tried to resist. And I’m here—right here, right now. I’m your protector, and I swear to you, I will never let you out of my sight. Not ever.”

  Emily said nothing. Corvo sighed, and went to stand up, when she spoke again.

  “And one day you won’t be here,” she said, “and the only person left I will be able to trust will be myself.”

  Corvo slumped back, and gave his daughter a sad smile. Someone so young, thinking such things. She had seen too much of the world, too much of its darkness. And now she was Empress, and she was expected to rule. An Empress at ten years old.

  “I want you to teach me to fight, Corvo,” she said again. “I want you to teach me how to be you.”

  If only you knew, Corvo thought. If only you knew.

  He sighed, and held his hand against his daughter’s cheek. His hand was so big, the skin rough, against Emily’s soft, pale face.

  Maybe… maybe she was right. Who could she trust, really? Perhaps one day things would be back to normal—whatever “normal” was—but the next few years, they were going to be difficult. There would be many who saw the coronation of a child Empress as an opportunity to make a move.

  “Well, I guess there’s no harm in teaching you a few things…”

  Emily’s face lit up, and she stepped back.

  “Here, today, a short lesson,” Corvo said. “More later, in the days to come. I know a place along the old waterfront, just east of Drapers Ward. We can make it our practice grounds.”

  “Yes!” the girl said. “That sounds very good. Now, wait here!”

  Corvo laughed, and shook his head as Emily darted away. A moment later she was back. In one hand she held her wooden sword.

  And in the other, a second—the old sticks they used to duel with, now whittled into something rather more dangerous. Corvo stared at it as Emily offered him the weapon.

  “I made you one, too!”

  Corvo laughed, taking the sword. He stood, and lips pursed, he hefted the weapon, seeking its balance as though it were a real blade of steel.

  “The finest blacksmiths of Morley couldn’t make a better sword, Your Majesty.”

  Emily gave Corvo a bow, then she straightened and held her own weapon out, her other arm raised for balance. She stood, knees bent, feet at ninety-degrees. The perfect en guard position.

  Corvo watched her for a moment. Emily frowned and relaxed, straightening her legs and lowering her sword.

  “I’m ready for my first lesson, Royal Protector. You may begin.”

  Then she returned to en guard.

  “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  Corvo dropped into position, and tapped the end of his wooden sword against Emily’s.

  Yes, this was a beginning, all right.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Adam Christopher is a novelist, comic book writer, and award-winning editor. The author of Seven Wonders, The Age Atomic, and Hang Wire, and co-writer of The Shield for Dark Circle Comics, Adam has also written novels based on the hit CBS television show Elementary for Titan Books. His debut novel, Empire State, was SciFiNow’s Book of the Year and a Financial Times Book of the Year for 2012. Born in New Zealand, Adam has lived in Great Britain since 2006.

  Find him online at www.adamchristopher.ac and on Twitter as @ghostfinder.

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