Chapter 12: Visits
It only takes a moment to realize I'm in the Void again. There's a numbness, a feeling of something missing that comes with being here. Sight still works, and touch seems to mostly function. But hearing, smelling, and taste are all gone. As if something about this place turns them off. Or maybe there's nothing to sense. Maybe my ears don't know what to make of utter silence, mouth unsure of what to do with plain air.
At least the ceiling is where it was when I went to sleep, as is the bed and the rest of the room. After the surprise of the Void's numbing subsides, I sigh in irritation. The Outsider had better not make a habit of these visits. A proper night's sleep is hard enough to get without his interruptions.
I search my sheets to find Jessamine is gone. She must be hiding in whatever corner of the Void she goes to when not with me, hopefully safe there. I sit upright and swing my feet off the bed. The clothes I wore earlier, the ones hanging in the real world, are dry and on me. None of my equipment has returned, not even the sword. Damn. Not that I expect it to work on him, but it would be nice to at least have the option.
I stand and walk out the door of my bedroom. The stairway is now a mass of boards that seem to move on their own, making the window my exit. Outside is not the familiar workshop or river, but the Void: a blue nothingness with no horizon, no ground, no sky. Like being trapped in a cloud so thick, it seems endless. Light poles, fences, bits of sidewalks, and whales float by without a care for me. The leviathans seem happy. Here they fear no sailors or hunters, can swim any way they dream of. Why wouldn't they be.
I step out of the window and onto a bit of floating cobblestone. There is a path on my left leading to a staircase. I focus on the point just before the stairs and Blink to them, trying to calm myself. The magic comes as easily as it did before. At least I have that as an option, should the worst happen. I walk down slowly as I watch my surroundings. Bits of buildings have joined the floating sidewalks, but none drift close enough to connect. Some rotate in place, while others drift vertically, and a few don't seem to go anywhere. Logic and the Void do not go hand in hand.
At the bottom of the stairs, the stone levels out into a small platform. What was my room hovers a few feet above me, perfectly still. Instinct tells me he's here as I walk towards the plateau. He makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
I hear the first sound since I've woken up. It's different from the one Daud's assassins made when they traversed, more like water dripping onto a fire. It's still close enough to unnerve me as the Outsider appears. He looks young, not much past the age of enlisting. But the scowl he wears, the look of disapproval belongs on someone older. His clothes are brown or black, including his boots and fastened leather coat. The color only accents his white skin, dark hair, and onyx eyes. He floats before me, a few feet from the ground so he can look down on me with folded arms and a doubting look.
"Hello, Corvo," he says in a voice that roughly matches the age he appears. He speaks slowly, carefully choosing his words. "You were impressive at the Abbey. I see my Mark was useful."
"Useful, but not necessary. I would have been fine without it," I reply, staring back at him. The last thing he will get from me is thanks.
He smiles. Not much, but just enough to see. "I don't doubt it. But people make interesting choices when they have the power to accomplish their goals in any way they wish."
"You give your Mark too much credit," I glare. "All you did was save me the trouble of jumping or spying on guards through keyholes."
"How would you have saved the witch and her brother, then? Those slow sleeping darts? A fight with both guard and brother at once? Or perhaps throw the Overseer you had beside you, and hope his neck did not break when he landed?"
"Am I only here to be insulted, or is there a point to this?" I ask, attempting to sound uncaring. The black-eyed bastard has a way of getting under my skin. I don't want to give him the satisfaction tonight. Or this morning, whatever the time is in reality.
The taunting grin on his face fades a little, and he uncrosses his arms. "As I said, people make interesting choices. I thought you would enjoy seeing the result of one of yours. You did more to Campbell than scar him."
"Did you take his heart as well?" My anger is not hidden this time, and I don't care.
His smile is gone, expression neutral again. "Of course not."
"Then why do I have Jessamine's? Didn't she suffer enough when someone with your Mark killed her?"
Gritting my teeth, I pull her Heart from my pocket. She feels even colder in the Void, more mechanical than human. As if this place numbs her as well. "What did she do to deserve this?"
"Nothing, just as you did nothing to deserve your betrayal. But we have little control over the hand fate deals us."
"You made her like this. Don't hide behind some bullshit about fate."
He never flinches, never lets his face become anything other than indifferent. "I do not have to justify myself to you. She is there to guide you. I suggest you listen." He disappears again as the Heart begins to tick.
He's trying to push me to follow him. I may have hit a nerve confronting him, but I'm not sure. He seemed too prepared, too ready for the argument. I wish the damned bastard was easier to read.
The path beyond the plateau is flat, but broken. I can hardly walk more than a dozen meters before I have to Blink to another stone, carriage, or wall. Jessamine's Heart continues beating in my hand, reminding me I'm heading the proper direction. Not that it matters, since The Outsider left no other way forward. That is assuming he has control over this place. The Void gives me the strangest feeling of intelligence. He may be the god of this place, but a voice in the back of my mind says even kings do not rule their kingdoms absolutely.
I Blink through a destroyed apartment, coming out in a floating gazebo. Several men, or illusions of them, stand next to a bloodied body and a note. Jessamine lays sprawled on the ground as she was when she died. Her eyes are closed, thankfully. Burrows and Campbell stand where they were when I was taken, but the guards are gone. Custis and Morgan Pendleton are behind the High Overseer, rubbing their hands in a laughably evil pose. Daud is dragging Emily by her arm towards the twins with a cold expression. She is reaching back towards where I should be in the scene, screaming for her mother and her protector. The final member of the group is a woman in a black costume. A noble, judging from the fine suit, decorated with artificial flowers and a black mask. She stands behind and to the left of the Regent, arms crossed and revealing little in her body language.
It takes a moment to piece together what I am seeing, what the Outsider wants me to see. Here are all who helped bring me down and who killed Jessamine. Only Daud held a blade, but the others either helped him or did not try to stop him. He's giving me the faces of those I should punish. These are the six who deserve whatever vengeance I bring down on them.
I fall to my knees behind Jessamine's body, where I was when the Watch took me. From here, I can see each of them perfectly. Daud's uncaring eyes, Campbell's and the Pendletons' dark pleasure in the suffering, Burrows' small grin at a plan working perfectly. The woman, whoever she is, seems to be trying to distance herself from this, and Emily is simply terrified. Five different reactions to the end of a life. To the death of someone who meant the world to me. Only one of them is innocent. Only one of them deserves anything but a blade to the throat.
I lean over the imposter Jessamine, and kiss her forehead. Her Heart genuinely beats in my hand, the most human she's felt since we arrived. I have to stop myself from trying to hold the illusion, from trying to comfort her like I did as she died. I could not move her when I was here last time, and I doubt this visit will be any different. Just as I suspect the note is the same sentence over and over again. "YOU CANNOT SAVE HER."
Instead of screaming my lungs out or breaking down, I stand. Not until Emily is safe. Not until these bastards pay for what they did. I wept in Coldridge: that will have to be enough for now. When I've kept my promise, I'll mourn Jessamine again, properly. It is not what she deserves, but it is the best I can do.
I walk past her body, and approach the woman in black. Her mask doesn't budge, as expected. There is nothing in her pockets, and little identifiable about her. The costume hides her flesh completely, and the porcelain mask's eye slits are too narrow to peer through. Nothing to help me figure out who she is. Why keep her identity hidden when the others are obvious...? Because I already know the others. Trevor confirmed his brothers tonight, and the rest confessed to me. The Outsider is repeating what I know, nothing more. He wouldn't be so nice as to give me more than a hint. So, there is still one member of this we have not unmasked. According to The Outsider.
The sound of his appearance warns me before he speaks. "All of the players are here. Everyone involved in this sad little show."
I turn to face him. He's past the edge of the gazebo, floating on nothing. "All of the knowing players," I say. "The guards, the other assassins: they were pawns."
"Barely aware they were being manipulated, if they realized at all. Not all of us are given a view from the outside, able to see all of the pieces in motion." No smile this time. Disinterested in every sense of the word.
"And even seeing them all, knowing what would happen, you didn't stop it. Didn't someone write about evil winning because good did nothing?"
"I gave out the tools to stop this freely. 'Nothing' can be quite arbitrary."
"And this is your version of helping? Cryptic clues, getting under my skin, pushing me to slaughter the ones who killed Jessamine?"
"Simply tools for you to do what you wish. But I will not make that choice for you. It's much more interesting to watch."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," I mutter.
He only nods. "Continue following her Heart. You're close." Another sound, another black cloud, and he's gone again.
The ticking in my hand says to keep moving forward, but down. I look over the edge, and see more platforms. The distance to each is minor with Blink's assistance. The end is visible from here, maybe a hundred meters below. Again, it's not like I have much say in this.
Getting down there does not take long, and the scenery changes little as I go. My stepping stones are all carriages in varying degrees of damage, but the consistency is welcome. It's easier to focus on that than the whales floating by without a sound. One of them is wounded, mortally. Butcher cuts rake its face and sides. A debate on the afterlife for humans and whales is not something I care to wonder about tonight.
The platform I could see from the gazebo that I thought was the goal is not, just another scene to examine. Only three actors this time: Campbell and two Overseers. One is standing guard, while the other kicks his leader down the front steps of the Abbey. Campbell is flailing, trying not to fall. If he were not frozen, I would give it three more steps before he tasted the concrete. The rough ground would not be kind to the burn on his face. I smile at the thought, wishing I could see it outside of my mind.
The Heart does not need to guide me to the final scene ahead. I have to Blink over a restaurant patio and across a few tables, but this trek is short. Three walls remain of a basement, the missing fourth letting me walk in easily. The room seems industrial: iron support beams stand near the corners of the room, and a chain hangs in the center. A staircase used to run up one of the beams, but lays in a crumpled heap. What guided me, what drove The Heart to tick is a rune on the floor.
Behind it stands Campbell, holding himself in a crouched hug. He still wears his red robes, but the remaining shreds of them are covered in filth. The blood leaking from his eyes makes it clear he has the Rat Plague. I smell rotting, but know it's only my mind assuming what should be there. He will be dead before next week, at the latest.
"Am I supposed to trust your illusions?" I ask as the Outsider materializes behind me. I don't bother turning. "The Plague takes days to get this bad, and nothing is real here."
"These are not illusions I have created," he replies. He makes no sound as he walks around me, then leans towards the sickened Campbell. "The truth is more complicated than you can know. But this is real, or it will be. Time is an odd thing."
I approach the still figure. He is in the middle of a cough, drops of spit and ichor floating in the air before his mouth. Again, I smell the rot and sickness in him. The blood on his cheeks is clotted and almost black. A creeping green is in the corners of his brand. I remember the first patients with the Plague before I left, and several others in Coldridge. Anyone at this stage was in unbearable pain, and completely insane. They reminded me of Herbert West's victims in The Reanimator. There are horrible ways to die, and there is the Plague.
"So this will be him," I assume aloud.
The Outsider nods, not looking at me as he circles Campbell. "What you saw was an hour ago. This will be… sooner than you expect. But this is the result of your branding. You spared him the blade, but he will still die. The only difference is the dishonor that followed him, and the pain he endured before the end."
I shrug. "I did not give him the Plague, and I spared his life at the Abbey. My hands are clean."
"Burrows did not intend to frame you: can the same be said for him?" The Outsider asks. "Your Empress's assassination, that had been his plan for some time. But your fall from grace was just a happy coincidence."
"Then his hands are still covered in her blood," I say darkly.
I would swear I see a frown appear on his face, but it is not there long enough for me to be sure. He turns to face me, onyx eyes matching mine. He's the same height as me when not floating. "You should remember this, Corvo. Revenge has many forms. Take the rune at your feet, and you will be in your dreams. I suggest you appreciate them."
As he disappears, I reach to the floor. The whale bone pieces are held together with some sort of leather scraps, crudely clung together into a rough circle. Etched and painted into it is a perfect replica of the Mark on my hand. It's warm to the touch, almost alive and vibrating. Not like Jessamine's Heart, not a pulse. More of a constant hum mimicked by the stinging nerves of my left hand. I hear a faint singing in my head. The more I focus on the words, the harder they are to understand. As if any of this will make sense.
I run my fingers on the rune, and it disintegrates into a fine dust like the ones before. The Mark burns for a brief moment. A voice whispers in the back of my mind, different from the ones when I held the artifact. It's clear, repeating a short sentence in a language I don't understand. But I know what it wants me to do.
Looking to Campbell, I raise my hand and repeat the voice. "Malae murum."
A black, swirling portal appears on the ground. Rats, a dozen of the massive new breed, scramble out of it. They act healthy, no telltale wobble or strange hissing to indicate the sickness. But they are hungry. They leap at the stilled Campbell, biting and tearing at his flesh. The statue does not move or show pain, standing perfectly rigid as they peel him down to the bone. They could be quite a distraction, should I need one. Or a convenient way to dispose of a body.
The Void starts to fade away. First the distant floating objects around disappear, then the walls of the room. The rats cease to exist a moment before the remains of Campbell. Eventually, so does the floor beneath me. Then the light blue of the Void becomes the comfortable black of my closed eyes. Let sleep and dreams help me forget this place.
Yes, I feel slightly blasphemous posting this on N7 Day, but I've been listening to the Mass Effect soundtracks all day, and I'll likely play some ME2 after this. Cut me a little slack. Happy Mass Effect Nerd day!
Anyway, I'm not going to lie and say Adam Jensen's "I didn't ask for this" line didn't influence this chapter. But it felt like a good theme and in character for him to have with the Outsider, so I rolled with it. Let's just say it won't be the last we see of the black-eyed bastard, and I did a ton of rereading the Dishonored Corroded Man to keep the Void as close to Arkane's vision as possible. If anyone sees anything that's a blatant violation of lore, just let me know. And I shall do my best to return with a new chapter soon, hopefully before December and the holiday rush. Cheers!