A Bright and Near Future
Chapter I
KARNACA GAZETTE
17th day, Month of Harvest, 1854
COLLAPSE AT SHINDAERY PEAK
Residents of Karnaca were roused early from their slumber yesterday, as what appears to be a minor earthquake tore through the long-abandoned Shindaerey mining complex. The quake toppled much of the remaining aboveground structure, and residents of Cyria Gardens woken by the collapse described the sound as "fit to wake the dead", "deep and rolling, like thunder", and "like someone had cracked open the Void itself."
The Grand Guard have placed patrols along the lower mountain trails to prevent sightseers from attempting the climb to the complex.
"Shindaerey North Quarry is closed for a reason," says Captain Kiri Miloti, of the dangerous conditions on the mountain. "There could still be aftershocks or landslides, and nothing good comes from stirring up the past. Best to let what's buried stay that way."
While decades-old rumours of hauntings on the mountain spread through the city once more, there is no evidence to suggest that the recent quake was caused by anything other than seismic activity. In any case, readers are encouraged to heed Captain Miloti's advice, and stay clear of the volatile Shindaerey Peak.
•:•:•:•:•:•
2nd day, Month of Rain, 1854
The empress' birthday was always a cause for celebration in the seat of the empire, and this one was no exception. While the previous year had been a sombre affair - the usurper Delilah ousted only a few short months before - this year, the revels had an air of desperate cheer. People waved flags and threw confetti as if to say surely we're due a few years without some terrible upheaval or another? They seemed to be looking to the empress for reassurance as they joined the parade snaking its way through the streets.
Or perhaps Corvo was projecting, he reflected, watching out of the corner of his eye as Emily smiled and threw sweets to the children skipping past the royal viewing platform. Twenty-seven years old, and already with more secrets than any young empress should have. Corvo would never know every detail of what had happened during Delilah's short, brutal reign over Dunwall. Not for lack of trying - as Royal Protector, it was his business to know - but there were still some things Emily didn't speak of, some parts of the story she had left out, looking away guiltily whenever he pressed her.
A movement in the crowd below caught his eye - a slender form moving in and out of the tide of people. He let his gaze follow, taking care not to turn his head. Old instincts, honed from years of serving first one empress, then another. There it was again - a pale boy with dark hair, clad in black and moving through the throng with sinewy grace.
It can't be.
It was impossible, and Corvo knew it - it was broad daylight and there were thousands of people around. But he knew that shape, had followed it in his dreams all those years ago, spurred on by a consuming need to understand the powers he'd been given. And The Outsider had let him, privately laughing all the while. Then, after he had grown tired of the game, he had turned his attention to Corvo's daughter instead.
Him.
The pale boy turned, and he caught a glimpse of a furrowed brow, a pointed chin. Corvo inhaled sharply, and his vision narrowed to a needle-fine point.
Emily's exclamation of surprise went unheard as the lord protector leapt from the platform, eliciting gasps as people parted around him. Corvo caught a flash of pale skin in the crowd, and closed in.
The boy seemed to sense the chase even before he noticed Corvo bearing down on him and made a beeline for the other side of the street. Corvo followed, shoving his way free and bursting into the street, sending the stiltwalkers toppling into one another with shrieks of alarm. There was no time to apologise or rethink his decision, as the boy plunged back into the crowd. When Corvo shoved his way free, the boy was running as fast as his booted feet could carry him. Something isn't right, Corvo thought, even as he dodged food stalls and scattered startled revellers. Why would he run?
The boy rounded a corner, and his feet slid out from under him as he skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding a rail carriage as it sped past. Sparks trailed in its wake. He struggled to his feet, but Corvo lunged, and slammed him back down onto the cobblestones. He flipped his captive over, kicking and snarling.
"Let me go, you crazy old man!"
Corvo dropped him as if he were a burning coal.
It wasn't him.
He was too young - twelve if he was a day. He had the same dark hair and looked chronically underfed, but his eyes were bright blue and saucer-wide, the picture of innocence, as he let out a gasp of horror on realising who had captured him. "Lord protector! Please, f-forgive me-"
They were drawing attention now, with some people watching with interest, others staring with open hostility. The boy scrambled to his feet, his hands held up in a gesture of surrender.
"I apologise," Corvo said crisply. "I thought you were… someone else." Whispers rustled through the crowd, faces ducking behind paper fans as people turned to one another.
"...should be ashamed of himself, attacking a child…"
"Has he lost his mind?!"
They wouldn't say it to his face, of course - Corvo's skill with a sword, not to mention a certain escape from Coldridge Prison, were the stuff of legend - but they were right. He would have a lot of explaining to do later.
"Here." He reached into a pocket, intending to find a few coins by way of apology, when his gaze landed on a purse sticking out of the lad's pocket. Made of sea-green crushed velvet with gilt thread, it couldn't have been less likely to belong to the urchin.
They locked eyes. The boy tensed, ready to flee again.
"Go on," Corvo said stiffly, waving him away. "Stay out of trouble." The boy gave a bow - for the benefit of the crowd rather than for Corvo - and scuttled off, leaving the royal protector to recover the shreds of his dignity. Corvo straightened his collar and shirt cuffs, pointedly ignoring the people nervously eyeing him as he began the long, slightly sore walk back to the viewing platform, where Emily would be waiting to hear what he had to say for himself.
I know what I saw.
The figure in the crowd was him. Corvo would have sworn it under oath. The pickpocket had simply been unlucky, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps it was a trick - the Outsider was known for toying with the minds of men. Perhaps he wanted to remind Corvo that he was still there, still watching, for old times' sake.
Or perhaps he had lost his mind. Men had cracked under far less pressure than he'd had to bear. Maybe Delilah's magic had addled him. Or maybe the stories about the Void were true, and his mind was crumbling under the weight of the things he had seen and done.
Corvo shook his head, ran a hand through his greying hair, and wondered (not for the first time) if he was ready to think about retirement.
•:•:•:•:•:•
Growing up in the gutters of Dunwall, the docks had been the closest thing young Billie Lurk had had to a playground. Once upon a time, she stalked the dark edges of this district, pickpocketing anyone foolish enough to carry their money where she could reach it. After she joined the Whalers she kept to the roofs, looking down at her marks from the safety of Daud's little kingdom. Now, as she left the Knife of Dunwall bumping gently against its moorings, she felt as if her whole world had tilted around her. The rotting warehouses had been torn down and rebuilt, and the old customs office, with its chimney stack that offered the perfect vantage point, was simply gone. Torn out at the roots. It made her want to climb aboard her ship and never look back.
But Billie wouldn't leave - not yet. There was only one reason she had bothered to return to this grey slab of a city at all. She'd left him on these same docks nearly two years ago, with an unspoken promise that she would return. It was a promise she intended to make good on. With a little work and some luck, she would be able to scrounge up enough Coin for them to leave Dunwall and all of its cloying memories behind forever.
She gave the patrolling watchmen a wide berth as she left the docks behind and climbed the steps to the city proper. The skyline had shifted as industry spread through the city like a plague, but the smell of brine and day-old-fish never changed. The smell of Dunwall, sunk deep into the bones of the land.
The streets here were quiet. Most people were off taking part in the empress' birthday revels, she guessed, and those who were working had no reason to take any notice of her. It was just as well - with the way she was goggling at her surroundings like a tourist, she'd be an enticing mark for pickpockets. She drew her coat around her with her good arm and quickened her pace. She knew where she was going, even if she had never felt more like a stranger to this city in her life, and it was time to start acting like it.
"Fair coin for fair work!" a voice shouted as she passed; a tawny-haired young woman dressed in overalls, holding a sheaf of papers. She held one out to Billie, who took it and ran her eyes over it skeptically.
"Support the strikers," she muttered, reading the blocky print aloud. "Fair pay for the women and men who keep the wheels of industry turning. Huh." She raised an eyebrow and turned back to the woman with the flyers. "The Watch lets you hand these out?"
"Not exactly," said the woman with a crooked grin, "but I know how to keep an eye out for trouble." If that were true, she wouldn't be talking to me, thought Billie. The woman was clearly trying to suss her out, but her smile was friendly. "Name's Monty, by the way. You looking to make some money?"
Always. "Depends. What's the job?"
"The factory owners are sending strikebreakers to threaten our people. Reckon we could use some muscle on our side, too."
"Not interested." Billie turned away, but Monty nimbly fell in step beside her, tucking the rest of the flyers under her arm.
"You just came from the docks. You got a ship? You'll need the refineries operating again if you want to refuel. There's a shortage of Whale Oil, in case you hadn't noticed." Billie had noticed - it was all anyone in Karnaca could talk about. Void forbid the aristocracy have to walk anywhere instead of using their precious rail carriages.
"So why would I help you? If the workers get what they want, the price of Whale Oil will rise even more. The bluebloods will never let you eat into their profits."
"Seriously? What about the workers? You've never had to work a twelve-hour shift, with a foreman screaming at you and a machine you can't take your eyes off for a second?" When Monty's gaze went to Billie's arm, her brow furrowed, the older woman understood. She'd taken one look at her and assumed she'd been injured in a factory accident.
"You have no idea." She let out a dark chuckle and shook her head. "Anyway, I'm too old for that shit. Go find someone else to fight your battles." She quickened her pace, and this time Monty took the hint.
"If you change your mind, I'll be here," she called. Billie ignored her, stuffing the flyer into her coat pocket as she rounded the street corner.
•:•:•:•:•:•
Whenever Billie needed to get information on a mark, or find out who was likely to need something smuggled into or out of the city, she went where everyone else went - which was where the booze was. Ferries chugged to and from the north bank and the Distillery District, carrying brightly costumed revellers fresh from the parade to the taverns and pubs that had flung their doors open to the tide of visitors. Billie tolerated their jostling and shrieking long enough to get across the Wrenhaven, before ducking into one of her old haunts.
Only it wasn't her old haunt anymore. It was the same building, but at some point it had gotten a fresh coat of paint and a new name; The Scrimshander's Folly. Elbowing her way through the knot of daytime drinkers, she made for the bar, where a harried-looking barkeep poured drink after drink. Someone was slamming away at a beaten-up piano, the untuned keys setting her teeth on edge. After two years in Serkonos, where the music was as sultry as the summer heat, the popular Gristol shanties and bawdy songs were an assault on the senses.
"What're you having?" The barkeep had to bellow over the noise of the punters, but Billie made him read her lips.
"Cider. The dry kind." He nodded and reached for the tap, and Billie carefully counted out her Coin, ignoring the impatient look he shot her. Finally, drink in hand, she skirted the crowd and found a relatively clear spot by the window where she could watch people float past, drunk on good cheer and desperation. She wondered if it was the same mood that had inspired the attempted beautification of the city - as if they could scrub away the bad luck that had plagued the Empire in recent decades by throwing enough Coin at it.
As Billie nursed her cider, her attention snagged on the two men at a table right next to her. They smelled like the tanneries, so everyone else gave them a wide berth, which suited Billie just fine. They had the weary look of men who had just finished a long shift.
"Heard Grimble nearly got himself mixed up in some trouble," said one of them, shouting over the noise.
"Keep yer voice down," his friend hissed at him. "Could be strikebreakers or Watchmen around. You never know."
"So, what happened?" the man pitched his voice lower, and Billie drifted closer, pretending she was trying to get a better view out of the window.
"He got taken for a sucker, that's what happened. It was that woman, wossername, makin' all them promises about more days off and better food, that kind of thing."
"What was he thinking? He knows better."
"He says he never even talked to her. Says he heard that lad they call the Storyteller spinning one of his yarns 'round the Cracked Bowl, and when he'd finished he was holding one of them pamphlets." He shook his head. "Stupid choffer was probably too drunk to remember."
Billie's lip curled. Storyteller, huh?
"A moment of your time, gents." They blinked up at her, taking in her missing arm, her eyepatch. They exchanged a glance full of foreboding.
"Sorry," said the more sensible of the pair, "we was just leavi-" he got up to leave, but Billie was quicker. She hit the back of his knee with the toe of her boot, sending him sprawling back into his seat with a thud. She ignored the protests of the man's companion as she pulled out a chair and sat down, letting the sleeve of her coat ride up enough to flash her voltaic gun at them. They looked around wildly, but no one was paying them any mind. Billie fixed a pleasant expression on her face - anyone who happened to glance over would be none the wiser.
"We don't want no trouble," pleaded the other man, holding his hands up in a pacifying gesture.
"No trouble. Not yet, anyway." Billie leaned across the table towards them and lowered her voice just enough to make them do the same. "So, tell me about this Storyteller."