Masks of Anarchy

Chapter 1

One of the most fascinating things about life is, I find, beginnings. The 'what' may be the meat of the matter, but every what is preceded by a 'why'. Why is this so, and not that? Why did such events proceed in such a way?

The what that I speak of is an interesting one. Fascinating, in fact, a few short weeks of anarchy and revolution when an empire hung in the balance, when the fate of millions was held in the hands of just a few. But why this happened, where it started, is a question that is difficult to answer.

Perhaps, you might say, it began with the whales and with Esmond Roseburrow, with the oil that which made Dunwall's fortune and poisoned the city. Perhaps it started with Hiram Burrows' plot against the poor. Perhaps it started when a man outside Dunwall's designated infection zone grew sick with a fever, on the day that it passed when he wept blood and stumbled from his home without a mind. Maybe it was the day Jenny Aching first put on her mask and ran through the night streets of Dunwall with a smoking pistol in her hand and blade soaked in a watchman's blood. Or perhaps it began with a shot fired by Lucas Cornell, a shot that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

These are all small reasons why the momentous events of Dunwall's most tumultuous weeks began. Why the major players took to the stage. There was one moment when the alchemical formula of these events were poured into a catalyst, a day when it all came to a head, when the blood of an empress was spilled, when an oath of vengeance was taken, when conspiracy came to a head, that all of these small whys came together in that one moment where the lever tipped on the fulcrum and everything changed.

Sit back, dear reader, and let me tell you a tale.

The whaling ship was a predator just like its prey. Huge, unwieldy, slow, lumbering, yet dignified and majestic in spite of this. Coasting along the Wrenhaven Estuary, a dying leviathan trussed up in its slaughter-harness, butchers scurrying across its body like flies.

For Corvo Attano, there was no stronger reminder that he was back in Dunwall.

The engine of the small boat he was in puttered as it made its way towards Dunwall Tower, hull cutting through the water and the technicolour membrane of industrial scum that smothered the river. He ignored the chatter of the driver and ship's officer who shared the boat with him, focussing his gaze on the city on the far bank, the squalid sprawl of brick houses and factories, grubby and tight-packed as a rat's nest. Behind him, on the near shore, the fortification of white stone that was Dunwall Tower rose up high, gleaming in the weak morning sun and stark contrast to the rest of the city.

"Mind if I ask if you brought back any good news on the plague, Lord?" the driver asked. "Been all we've been talking about back here in Dunwall."

"Classified," Corvo replied, his hand touching the left side of his breast where the letter lay in the inner pocket of the indigo coat he wore. "Empress' eyes only."

"Yeah, thought so," the man shrugged, the epaulettes of his City Watch uniform rising and falling with the movement. "Can't blame a man for asking."

He cut the engine as the boat drew towards a tower in the side of fortress-palace, drifting through the doorway in its side, leading out to the water. As the boat came through, prow bumping against the far wall, Corvo scanned the waterline on instinct, looking for places where potential intruders might climb up and into the palace.

"Ho there!" the officer called up. "Bring us up!"

"Getting her ready!" someone else replied, hidden from view by the long square pit between the entrance and the rest of the building. "Turning on the pipes...and she's rising."

Water gushed from pipes and faucets in the walls, spray splashing up from other side and causing the boat's three occupants to raise their arms to protect themselves.

"I hate this damn system," the driver grumbled as they rose. "Couldn't they just use a winch or something? Gonna stink of riverwater for the rest of the day."

Corvo remained silent, blinking away the spray that had collected on his lashes as the water elevator came to a halt. The room he had entered into was one he did not recognise, nor indeed did he recognise the tower that they had scaled in scant moments, something between a boathouse and a pumping room. With disapproval, he noted the lack of spotlights on the water around the building's base, the absence of armed guards and the fact that no challenge had been given; laxity had grown in his absence. He would take it up with Jessamine later; he knew that her response would most likely be to laugh and tell him that he hadn't changed a bit, but she would implement his recommendations nonetheless.

The guards on duty, clad in their distinctive domed helmets and indigo uniforms much like his own, saluted Corvo as he passed them, the Lord Protector returning the gesture with a nod as he stepped onto the white stone bridge that connected the pump house with the rest of Dunwall Tower. He had no time for formality, no time for anything else, simply getting the message to Jessamine as quickly as possible. He knew that today would be a busy day, that there would be much planning for the days and weeks and months ahead and that he would be needed-

The young girl dressed in white who appeared at the far end of the bridge cut off that train of thought in a moment. Although he was not a man who smiled often, Corvo smiled as she ran into his open arms, lifting Emily Kaldwin up as if she weighed nothing, whirling her around him and pulling her close for an embrace. She kissed him on his cheek, ignoring the rough stubble that he had lacked the time to shave off that morning, hugging him close before Corvo finally set her down.

"I can't believe you're back!" Emily declared, smiling and bouncing on her feet. "What was your journey like? Did you see any whales? Were there pirates? What was Morley like, and Serkonos and Tyvia? Was there anyone with an eyepatch and a peg leg? Did you-"

Corvo held up a hand in an attempt to stem the flow of questions.

"Later, Emily," he said. "I promise I will answer all of your questions later."

"Right, right, of course," Emily nodded, enthusiasm barely faded. "I want to hear all about it, though. Can we play hide and seek, then?"

Corvo blinked; he had forgotten how Emily would sometimes jump from subject to subject with the same ease and swiftness as a veteran sailor clambering between ropes.

"Later," he said, the letter in his pocket like an anchor dragging him to duty. Emily's face fell.

"Promise?" she asked.

Corvo's finger traced an 'X' over his heart, and Emily smiled. In her eyes, that was as good a promise as an Overseer's oath taken in Holger Square, and with the reassurance that they could play her favourite game later, she took his hand.

"Come on," she said, hurrying along with Corvo in her wake. "Mother's in the garden, talking to that nasty old spymaster again."

It was a strange sight; a tall, olive-skinned Serkonan in the navy greatcoat of the Lord Protector, sword at his hip and an oil-lock pistol across his belt, being lead by the hand by a ten year-old girl in a white dress, towards the gardens of Dunwall Tower. There were a few guards that saluted him on his way, though they remained carefully expressionless at what they saw. Only one person on their route saw fit to address them.

"Corvo, back two days early, I see. This is certainly a surprise."

The countenance of the man who spoke was cruel, craggy features harsh and merciless as a sea gale, grand and intimidating in the crimson uniform of the High Overseer. His likeness was taking shape on a canvas before him, formed by the brush of the bearded painter at work, the famed inventor and artist Anton Sokolov.

"Campbell," Corvo nodded. "My work was done ahead of schedule. There was no reason to delay."

"In any case," Campbell said. "Welcome back."

The words were insincere, formalities and nothing else; neither Campbell nor Corvo had any love for each other, and the Lord Protector couldn't help but wonder what the High Overseer was doing at the tower. Having his portrait taken, of course, but that could have been done anywhere.

"Stop moving, Campbell," Sokolov grumbled from his painting. "And Corvo, welcome back from wherever you've been."

"All across the Isles," Campbell said. "Begging the other nations for aid."

"My elixir has that problem solved already," Sokolov said dismissively. "Now keep still, High Overseer."

"I'll leave you both to that," Corvo said as a farewell, letting Emily lead him on towards the garden.

"Is it just me?" she asked as they headed up the white steps. "Or does that painting not look much like Campbell?"

Any answer Corvo would have given died on his lips as they entered the small garden of Dunwall Tower. Beneath a domed pavilion supported by pillars of white stone, Empress Jessamine Kaldwin stood in argument with Hiram Burrows.

"They are sick people, not criminals," she was saying to her spymaster, a look of anger on her face.

"We have been over this before, your Majesty," Hiram said. "It moved past that point long ago."

"And what do you suggest?" Jessamine asked. "Besides, of course, mass murder of my people? That is not happening, Hiram; they are my citizens, and while there's hope of saving them there shall be no killing."

"Mother!" Emily called, hurrying to Jessamine's side. "Corvo is back!"

Jessamine glanced over her shoulder, and her face lit up as she saw Corvo, the Lord Protector bowing his head in acknowledgement.

"Spymaster, please leave us," she said. "And we shall not talk of this matter again."

"Of course, your Majesty, I suspect that we shall not," Hiram said, bowing low and stepping away. As he passed Corvo, he added; "Lord Protector."

"Spymaster."

With Hiram gone, Jessamine turned to the Lord Protector. There was eagerness in her eyes, tempered with a quiet, carefully concealed desperation, hope for a solution to the problem that was threatening to swallow Dunwall like a whale gulping down a shoal of hagfish. The look on Corvo's face as he handed her the letter quashed that hope even before she broke the seal.

Her expression darkened as she read, and after a moment, she let it drop on the floor.

"They're blockading us," she said. "They'll take no Gristol ships into their ports. They'll wait to see if we die of the plague or not, and they'll hasten the job by starving trade. I knew that this mission was a fool's hope."

She sighed a sigh that bubbled with frustration.

"Void take them," she said. "Every last one of the cowards."

"Mother, what's wrong?" Emily asked, tugging at the tail of Jessamine's jacket in worry. "Why are you sad?"

"I'm not, dear," Jessamine said. "I'm just...just tired after a busy morning, that's all."

The look on Emily's face showed that she believe that lie no more than she believed the sky to be pink, but she remained silent, resolved. Over the head of her daughter, Jessamine shot Corvo a despairing look, and the Lord Protector shrugged as if to say; "We'll work something out."

"Mother," Emily suddenly spoke, breaking out of her embrace with Jessamine and pointing to a rooftop. "Who's that, over there?"

In the distance, dark figures figures flitted over the tiles of Dunwall Tower's roofs, moving from one place to another with unnatural speed. Every movement seemed swift and certain with an undeniable malice, and Corvo's expression darkened as he saw the darting figures.

"Get behind me," he ordered, drawing blade and oil-lock. "Who in the Void are these-"

He was cut off when one of the figures appeared before him. Somehow the trespasser materialised from empty air, a figure in a gas mask and dark rain slicks arriving as if from the Void itself. Some men may have stopped at that moment, shocked by the impossible sight, but Corvo raised his pistol and fired the moment the attacker came into view. They reeled back in a cloud of black ash and from the side of his vision Corvo saw another enemy lunging for him.

Wheeling around, flipping the grip of his pistol in his hand so that he held the barrel, Corvo dodged the stab and smashed the firearm's butt into the throat of the assailant. They toppled to the floor, choking and wheezing, and Corvo ignored them as he turned to face a third, dodging a slash that would have taken his head from his shoulder. The Lord Protector grunted in pain as it scored a red line across his arm, parried the assassin's backswing and slammed his own blade into the man's gut.

Another stab sliced towards him from nowhere, Corvo whirling out of the way of the blade even as it sliced a red line across his side. His response was to slash across the attacker's throat, head flopping back with a spray of viscera as windpipe and tendons were severed.

No mortal force could have stopped Corvo Attano that day; even as fresh attackers appeared around the Lord Protector, he fought, blade weaving around him in an arc of graceful lethality. He was like a machine, a machine of terrifying precision and grace and fuelled a terrible determination to protect Emily and Jessamine with his life.

What stopped Corvo Attano was no mortal force.

Something grabbed him, an invisible hand that picked him up and pinned him to a pillar. He couldn't move, vainly attempting to struggle against the eldritch power humming in the hands of an assassin in a red coat. He couldn't even open his mouth as another figure, a killer without a gas mask, ripped out of thin air, blade in hand.

"Get back," Jessamine yelled, pushing Emily behind her. The assassin reached for Jessamine, and she slapped him away. The killer's free hand, encased in a glove of black leather, grabbed her wrist.

Blood spattered on the white stone floor of the gazebo as his blade stabbed into her midriff. Emily tried to break free but the killer who had Corvo pinned grabbed her around the waist, hoisting her up as the girl kicked and struggled.

"I've got her Daud, let's go!" the assailant said, a woman's voice audible even beneath the mask.

The man who had killed Jessamine glanced up at Corvo, and the Serkonan made a vow that the next time he looked upon that man's hard features, he would bury his blade in his heart. "Leave him."

The power holding Corvo in place abated, and he collapsed to the ground as the killers disappeared. Scrambling on his hands and knees, he hurried to where Jessamine was fallen, scooping her up in his arms, fingers scrabbling for a pulse as he muttered barely-audible denials. There, a beat, faint and feeling transient as a summer snowflake. She lived, she breathed. There was hope.

"Corvo," she managed to breathe, eyelids fluttering open. "Corvo, you need to...need to find Emily. Keep her safe. You're the only one who can...help her. Please."

Her eyes closed, the final beats of her pulse fading. Corvo tried to speak. He tried to form words, tried to say something, anything, make some final farewell.

The man who had been duelling with the skill and lethality of something born of the Void mere moments before, hadn't a single word to say.

When he looked up, he stared down the barrel of a musket. He blinked in surprise, at the Watchman who held the weapon and the platoon of his comrades who had fanned out around him, the maws of their pistols and muskets all gaping at Corvo like hungry predators. There were two more officers of the watch behind him, pistols in one hand, swords in the other, and behind them, Thaddeus Campbell and Hiram Burrows.

"He...he killed the Empress!" Burrows exclaimed, the tone on the Spymaster's voice so shocked that it could have been genuine.

"Her own bodyguard as well," Campbell added. "Ironic."

"Arrest him! Arrest him at once!" Hiram ordered. "Take him to Coldridge, immediately!"

Perhaps Corvo could have made it out of that situation. He was a seasoned killer, a veteran of combat, swift and lethal as a bolt from an arc pylon. Perhaps he could have fought his way free, dodged and rolled and evaded the bullets and blades, made his escape into the intestinal tangle of Dunwall's streets. A Corvo Attano who was not numb with shock, who had not seen his world crashing down around him in a single cataclysmic moment, might have achieved this. The Corvo Attano who lay on his knees, steeped in the blood of himself, assassins and the Empress, was not this man.

The hilt of a sword crashed against his temple, and darkness swallowed him like the Void.