The Return of Daud

by Adam Christopher

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Part One: The Knife of Dunwall

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Interlude

  Part Two: The Collector

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  Interlude

  Part Three: The Homecoming

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Available from Titan Books

  Dishonored: The Corroded Man

  by Adam Christopher

  Available from Titan Comics

  Dishonored: The Wyrmwood Deceit

  by Gordon Rennie, Andrea Olimpieri, and Marcelo Maiolo

  Dishonored: The Peeress and the Price

  by Michael Moreci and Andrea Olimpieri

  ADAM CHRISTOPHER

  TITAN BOOKS

  DISHONORED: THE RETURN OF DAUD

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783293056

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783293087

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: March 2018

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Editorial Consultants:

  Harvey Smith

  Paris Nourmohammadi

  Special thanks to Harvey Smith, Hazel Monforton,

  Brittany Quinn, and everyone at Arkane Studios.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 Bethesda Softworks LLC. Dishonored, Arkane, ZeniMax, Bethesda, Bethesda Softworks and related logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of ZeniMax Media Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  PROLOGUE

  THE VOID

  4,000 years ago

  “It is a common story: A person has stopped breathing, pinned under carriage wheels or some other tragic happenstance, and is thought to be dead. But when the weight is removed—they make a quick recovery! But nonetheless, for a moment or two, this person was lost to us, lost to the world itself.

  And what did they experience while in this temporary death? Darkness? Nothingness? No, indeed not! They tell us, as so many before have, that they were in a particular place, and can describe it vividly. And who among us does not know this place?

  Have we not all seen it in our dreams? This place we share, in the farthest reaches of our minds. The realm where nothing makes sense, where one is at once both lost and at home. The Void.”

  —WHISPERS FROM THE VOID, by Barnoli Mulani Treatise on the Physical Existence of that Foreign Realm [Excerpt]

  The place is made of nothing but stone and ash, and is filled with nothing but the cold dark, and it smells of nothing but rust and corrosion, and it tastes of nothing but the sharp and sour tang of fear.

  The boy stares up into the sky—although that’s not what it is. There is no sky, just a blank curve of curling gray smoke, heavy and foreboding, that stretches from here to the end of the world. This and the two curling arms of shattered stone, twisting like the twin trunks of a petrified tree over the head of the stone slab on which he lies, are all the boy can see. The hands that grip the sides of his head are as solid as the altar beneath him and just as cold, and when he tries to turn his head, the hands just press harder, the fingertips squeezing his temples until he thinks his skull will cave in.

  So the boy stares up into infinite nothing above, the notsky that stretches above this forsaken place, this nowhere.

  The Void.

  The altar beneath him is cold, the stone so ancient it is more like metal, like it was carved out of a single lump of black iron, like the iron found in the hearts of fallen stars, the cold of it spreading through his flesh, soaking his very bones with a chill so deep it feels like he is lying on ice.

  He tries to move his arms, but they are tied. His legs are also bound by rope, so tight and so rough that with every movement of his body the fibers carve into his skin, the burning pain as unbearable as the cold of the altar. He flexes his fingers, but there is nothing to hold, nothing to grip. The many golden rings that adorn each digit click hard against the stone.

  But he did fight at first, struggling with all his strength as the cultists, their faces hidden in the deep folds of their lead-colored cloaks, carried him up the shallow stones and placed him on the altar. It was no use. There were so many of them, so many hands holding him, and while the boy was strong and while he writhed and screamed and screamed they held him with iron grips. He fought again as they tied him down on the slab, but all this did was exhaust what little energy he had left.

  With their victim secured, the cultists had moved away. The boy had looked up, watching the congregation as they gathered on either side of the stone steps, their heads bowed, hands hidden in long, drooping sleeves. The boy began to scream again, his chest heaving as he drew in deep lungfuls of icy metallic air, but the men just watched in silence. When the boy was spent, his head fell back against the altar and two hands grabbed at him, pushing his skull down.

  Now the boy blinks. If time passes here then he cannot count it, his mind fogged by the sickly sweet potions they made him drink and the colored sour smokes they made him breathe before bringing him to this awful nowhere. With the fight gone, his energy leeched by the desperate cold, the boy’s head begins to spin, so it feels like the Void itself is orbiting around him.

  He tries to remember his name. It is no use. He tries to remember his age—he is young, he knows that, even if he has lost count of the years of his life. Is he fifteen? Twenty? Maybe more. He doesn’t remember, and the more he tries, the more he forgets.

  Now he sees there is a man looming over him, standing at the head of the altar. The man turns and now the boy cannot see him, but he can hear him—the rustle of his cloak, the pad of his feet.

  And then another sound, the shrik of metal on metal. The man returns, a black shadow filling his vision. The shadow moves and something flashes in the boy’s vision, something held by the man high above his head. It is bright and bronze. The sudden blaze of unexpected color terrifies the boy.

  It is a knife with two long, parallel blades that shine, reflecting a light that seems to be from elsewhere. A light that is bright and white and then orange and red, as though the knife is being turned slowly in front of a great fire even as it is held perfectly still by the cloaked man.

  The others gathered around the altar and down the steps remain silent, their cowled heads turned up toward the sacrifice.

  The man with the Twin-bladed Knife murm
urs something but the boy cannot hear it, his head now filled with the sound of a keening wind. The fear that fills him suddenly expands, and he feels like he has been dropped down a deep, dark well. His stomach rolls, his throat is filled with bitter bile, and he finds the strength to pull at the ropes again, one last time, as though it would make any difference at all.

  It does not. The ropes hold firm, as do the hands that grasp his head, forcing his chin up, his face now tilted back so he can see the face of the man holding the knife.

  The face of his executioner.

  There is a flash like lightning, although it is accompanied by no thunder, and when the boy blinks the tears from his eyes the flashing continues, and the boy doesn’t know if it is the Void or his mind or the impossible light shining from the knife.

  The boy screams.

  The blade sweeps to the side, held high in the air, and the man murmurs again.

  The blade sweeps across, low, opening the boy’s neck. His scream is cut short, replaced by a whistling gurgle. His limbs twitch, his fingernails scraping the hard surface of the altar, as it quickly becomes slick with blood.

  And then the boy is still. He stares at the nothingness above him as his life slips away.

  He dies.

  And something terrible is born.

  CHAPEL OF THE SISTERS OF THE ORACULAR ORDER, BALETON, GRISTOL

  14th Day, Month of Songs, 1851

  “Much has been said about the blind Sisters of the Oracular Order. In truth, their eyes function just as well as yours or mine. However, they do endeavor to become blind to distractions and frivolities. They will, if necessity bids them, walk among us, wearing richly hued blindfolds or otherwise covering their eyes. In this way they remain ‘at all times ready to see things clearly’.”

  —ON THE ORACULAR ORDER

  Douglas Hardwick, Historian

  The Cloister of Prophecy was a large, circular chamber situated in the very center of the Chapel of the Sisters of the Oracular Order, the hub from which the seven wings of the chapel proper radiated. The bright white stone from which it was built had been expertly shaped to form a mathematically perfect room, and the high vaulted ceiling gave the illusion that the Cloister was somehow open to the air.

  Arranged around a central dais were six rectangular slabs of black marble, each curved to match the arc of the Cloister wall. In front of five of the slabs five Sisters knelt on black cushions, their high-collared, silver-and-white tunics immaculate. Although their eyes were hidden behind red ceremonial blindfolds, the thin veils were merely a traditional, symbolic part of their uniform, rather than serving the purpose for which they were, perhaps historically, designed. As such, each Sister was able to focus their attention, unimpeded, on the member of their order who knelt on a red cushion on the central dais.

  By the sixth slab knelt a Sister unlike the others, dressed in a long black-and-red tunic. This was the High Oracle herself, Pelagia Themis, and for her to be attending the Ceremony of Prophecy in person was a rare event indeed. But she was here for a specific purpose—the Sisters had been in position for hours now, the Ceremony well underway and proceeding exactly as the High Oracle had planned.

  Which was… badly.

  Sister Kara frowned as she knelt on the central red cushion. She swayed on her knees, her lips moving soundlessly, as though she was reading something inside her head.

  “Sister Kara.”

  She jerked back at the interruption, nearly sliding off her cushion, and turned toward the voice of the High Oracle. Then she adjusted herself on the cushion, her knees burning in agony after so many hours trying—and failing—to read the Prophecy.

  “Yes, High Oracle?”

  “The gift of the Prophecy of the Sisters of the Oracular Order is a precious one, Kara,” said Pelagia. “We bear the Prophecy not just as a power, but as a responsibility, a gift that cannot be wasted. Much rides on the information we report to our brother, the High Overseer.”

  Sister Kara bowed her head. “Yes, High Oracle.”

  Pelagia nodded, then glanced to her left. “Ready again, Sister Beatris?”

  Beatris lifted herself off her cushion and leaned over the device on the floor next to her; a small, compact contraption of metal and wood, a long copper listening horn, pointed toward the dais and Sister Kara—an audiograph recorder. She tore the last section of punch card out of the slot on the side, then pulled a fresh section carefully out from the roll inside the machine and aligned the edge with the recording pins. Satisfied, she sat back down on the cushion, her hand hovering over the audiograph controls.

  “Recording ready, High Oracle.”

  Pelagia turned back to the dais. “Now, we’ll try again, Sister Kara. And we will keep trying until the complete prophecy is read.”

  Kara’s blindfolded face tilted toward the floor in front of her. “I’m sorry, High Oracle. The prophecy is… difficult.”

  Pelagia pursed her lips. What Kara said was perfectly true—the Ritual of Prophecy was difficult, a skill that required years of practice and a lifetime of dedication. Not only that, Sister Kara was a novice, having joined the Chapel at Baleton only a year before. To be part of the Ritual for one so inexperienced was unheard of, but that was exactly why Pelagia was using her.

  What she hadn’t told Kara—or any of the others, for that matter—was the real reason for her visit. Because she wasn’t here to personally supervise a novice attempting her first prophecy. No. She was here to gather more evidence, data she hoped would confirm a theory—one that had occupied virtually all her thoughts these last few weeks.

  The Prophecies were being… well, interfered with. That was the only way she could describe it. Somehow, what the Sisters were seeing was not coming to pass—Pelagia had spent several months reviewing the prophecies sent to the High Overseer in Dunwall, even going back and listening to the original audiographs to ensure there had been no errors in their transcription, or manipulation of their content.

  But the facts spoke for themselves. Something was wrong—something that would have profound repercussions not just for the Oracular Order but for the Empire itself, if the root cause could not be identified and eliminated. The prophecies of the Sisterhood were used for a multitude of purposes and helped to steer great decisions of state. They could be used to declare war and peace alike, to aid in negotiations between the nation-states of the Empire of the Isles, down to planning crop rotations, fighting natural disasters and even predicting the weather. The fate of the world—the course of history itself—pivoted on the reports they fed to the High Overseer of the Abbey of the Everyman, Yul Khulan, who in turn reviewed the prophecies and disseminated the important information they contained to the relevant parties across the Isles.

  The Sisters of the Oracular Order were the most powerful group in the whole Empire.

  And interference in their work could not be tolerated.

  Which was why the High Oracle herself was here, in Baleton. The Chapel in the small city on the western coast of Gristol had never hosted the Order’s leader in its entire history. And that was why she had chosen Kara, the young novice, to read the Prophecy. Her lack of experience and training would, Pelagia hoped, reveal more about the mechanism of the interference, the novice’s unshielded, naked mind more open to see and read what the other Sisters—trained, experienced, disciplined—had long since learned to disregard, to tune out.

  So went Pelagia’s theory, anyway.

  “Yes,” she said. “The Ritual of the Prophecy is difficult. But, Sister Kara, did you expect anything else?”

  “I’m… I’m sorry, High Oracle.”

  Pelagia sighed. Around the circle, the five other Sisters knelt in silence, their own bodies, Pelagia had no doubt, screaming for a rest. But the five other Sisters were among the most senior of the Baleton Chapel. They were used to the discomfort. They were warriors and athletes as much as they were prophets, their bodies trained as much as their minds. Discomfort was a central part of their lives.


  “You have nothing to apologize for, Sister,” said Pelagia. “But if you wish to truly embrace our Order, if you wish to give yourself to it, wholly, then you must learn the Ritual of Prophecy. You must learn to reach out with your mind, dream about the Void, to see through it in order to read what the future will be. Remember, we are here to help. The seven Sisters are all part of the ritual, together. So concentrate, and reach out to us, draw on our strength to fuel your own.” Pelagia paused. “I am the High Oracle. I am here as your guide. Draw on my strength and read the future.”

  Sister Kara bowed her head, then lifted it toward the ceiling. “Yes, High Oracle. I am ready.”

  “Good,” said Pelagia. “Then we begin again. Sister Beatris, resume the recording.”

  Beatris nodded and depressed the activation lever on the audiograph recorder. The machine whirred into life, the gentle clicking of the recording pins sounding like distant rainfall as it bounced around the circular walls of the chamber, the punch card slowly crawling out of the slot on the side of the device.

  On the dais, Kara lifted herself up, then settled back on her haunches, resting her hands on her thighs. She rolled her neck and closed her eyes behind the red veil.

  “The High Oracle guides you, Sister,” whispered Pelagia. “You have nothing to fear. Let the future show itself.”

  The Sisters remained silent. The audiograph recorder chattered. Kara began to sway slightly as she drew short, sharp breaths between clenched teeth.

  “Relax, Sister, relax,” said Pelagia. “Open your mind and let the Ritual of the Prophecy steer you toward the light. Relax, relax, relax.”

  Kara rolled her neck again, then curled her fingers into fists. She stretched her neck back, her veiled eyes screwed shut, her face twisting into a grimace.

  The audiograph recorder whirred, and the Sisters—and their High Oracle—waited for Kara’s vision of the future.

  * * *

  Day passed into night, and the Cloister of Prophecy grew dark. As the seven Sisters knelt in position, another member of the order slipped in and lit the four old-fashioned whale-tallow lamps that stood at the compass points in the circular room then retreated, leaving the others to their work.