Work Text:
Martin thought, the problem with the Abbey is that it is settling on its ignorance. It had accepted that it would never fully understand the Cosmos, the Outsider, the clot of mythos that clogged the Isles, the magic stench pulsing out from Pandyssia’s black heart. It had settled that it would never tread the jungle again, no more were the Great Trials of Witchcraft. The sermons didn’t come from the Abbey, but were brayed like the calls of mudlarks as the Overseers’ boots thumped against Parliament Streets’ cobbles. Even the Oracles had gone quiet. In these days where the Abbey was strongest; the world had grown a little faithless, and stupid. That was the problem.
Now is not the moment for a crisis of faith, Teague Martin warned himself as he gathered up the scrolls he’d found in the sub-level basements of the Flooded District. He’d hidden them there, under the apartment of a debt-collector who owed him a significant sum, and when he returned after the barrier broke, had found the water had lapped away from the shelf. It was curious, for although the room had had a level bottom, the filthy mirk had tilted to the other wall. Or so it had seemed; it had been dark below, his need had been urgent to leave before he was found. Sound travels distance over water, but furthest in an empty district.
The tenant blocks leaned in when Martin left, stone figures on the rooftop watching as he waded knee-high to the boat he’d commandeered. It had a woman’s name painted into the side, and he’d found it wandering the Wrenhaven alone. He heard hagfish bump against the boat’s paddle as he climbed aboard, savaging the oar, something larger stirred beneath. It scrabbled along the bottom of the boat, he saw the shape and looked away so he would not see it again. He had a knife. One could not talk to the Outsider, but one could kill him.
The prayer against witchcraft brimmed with devotion, and soon enough the overbearing shadows of the side street were behind him. The district opened up, and Martin took the west-way into the area of the clerk’s offices. There had been an old witch once, friends with a banker that worked here, who lived within the walls of his building. Theirs had been one of the first taken when the river rushed in, but the sunken place was tall enough that its chimneys and last corner of the attic poked hopefully out of the water, aspiring to air. Witches often hid things in chimneys, Martin knew, so it would be worth looking before he returned to Dunwall proper. There was time enough for that.
The moon sailed upwards in the purple sky, and the oar bumped gently against the creatures of the current. The edges of his trousers and dark coat were wet, so he’d have to change on the banks before he returned. He would be on-duty in a matter of hours, knocking on doors with the weight of the Scriptures heavy in palm. Squinting into kitchens, asking if that was a bundle of thyme tied with red string. ‘And what’s the problem if it is?’ ‘What’s the problem? The Seventh Scripture is the problem’ , then he’d turn to his companion. Throw the mother out on the streets, in front of all. And for what? It was like biting the god’s ankles. He wouldn’t feel a thing. He’d laugh. No, to take on the Outsider, you had to look him in the face, in the brimming black eye.
It was for that, he did this, that Martin would know him. For that his fists went soft over the rotting yellow spell-paper, for this he hunched his back and strained his eyes, smoothing over fragments which implored him to eat toads and spit blood.
His boat grazed the brickwork as he pulled up by the side of an old block of flats. From here, he would have to continue on foot, and so Martin re-adjusted his coat before disembarking. It was getting on for four now, but growing dark since the month was of Timber. He picked up a lamp.
Soom, somebody said.
Martin froze, and lifted the light up into the air, which was empty but for buildings, and the sadness of a wintering sky. The noise had been like wind breath, so perhaps it was that.
It was a deep sound, a voice niggled as he clasped the handle of the lamp, forging deeper into the district’s wet heart. It was a witch sound.
The old witch that lived here, Martin thought. His comrade Blecker had said that she’d taken a ship out to the Tyvian wastes, but he should have known that to be a load of shit. Witches didn’t leave their countries; once they’d rooted they were like willows. Going deep, sprightly and springly though a pain to pull out and ruinsome to foundations. The Banker’s witch wouldn’t have left – or if she had she’d have come back.
He said another prayer, quietly this time, and waded out to the marooned attic. In the bricks of the chimney, somebody had written: hex on ye. Under that, a skull.
Childish, and sure enough, the bricks moved aside to reveal a stash of liquor and cards, some shiny pearls and baubles. An urchin’s stash.
Martin dropped the things into the river, and pulled out a few more bricks. After a few moments, hair began coming up – greasy, smelling of engine oil and bloodish – and some little funny sea-smoothed glass and buttons upon buttons. At the bottom, rustling like mice, papers. Bless the fine witches of this city for their fixation with filing their spells. He stuffed them down his shirt.
Hhhoolm, hhhulllkissyl.
Martin started, hands twitching so as to send the thin phlegmatic bursts of light the lamp bore dancing. The sound had come from up, above and before – from the abandoned buildings, the magic groaning as though the house itself were breathing. This district had gotten dark so fast. What time was it? Why had he come?
Get to the boat, Martin, get to the boat. He told himself, he had to tell himself; like he were a panicking child. His new vest, that witch one made of ink and lies, rustled as though to try and out him. ‘Hey witch on the roof!’ it seemed to yell. ‘This OVERSEER is stealing; This OVERSEER is stealing from YOU!’
The lamplight swung its beams to and fro as Martin sunk back into the shallows of the flooded street, water sloshing noisily about his boots; off to tell tales. He was being snitched out to the Outsider for poking his nose into the district too late in the year; this place of water was his, probably, that was the Outsider’s thinking. Well, well –
Soom; this was close.
Martin had to get a hold of himself. He had to get back to the boat.
Rrasho-hhyehh, ftaah - yyee-ihstyyss.
The prayer came out again, quickly and not as quietly this time, with a bit of spit and hate behind the teeth. True, the witch had a point, he was trespassing, but something else had a point too; the knife in his boot. He saw a black figure on the rooftop.
“I’m leaving!” Martin called.
Soom; the figure disappeared.
Silence then; except for the heavy panting of his breath, drawn in and out between crooked teeth. It was white with cold, silhouetted against the night – stupidly dark now. It was late.
Ftaah; a witch crept up beside him, and Martin almost dropped the lamp.
The shadows seemed to suck in around the thing, which was short and wore clothes soaked in black colour. Its face had completely disappeared beneath an old whaling mask, even its eyes reduced to shining glass pools. Why was it wearing that? Surely it was detrimental – the witch couldn’t fix him with the Evil Eye, since the panels were almost tinted too dark to see through.
“Abbey man,” the witch had a low, slow voice. “What are you doing so far from the Abbey.”
The papers under his coat seemed to squeal like a pig as he took a step back, but if the witch heard them then it never made an indication. It waited for an answer.
“My financial records got washed away in the flood,” Martin said. “I was retrieving them.”
“Oh, why.” The intonation never changed.
“I love to pay taxes,” Martin replied, then raised his lantern. The panels in the whaler’s mask flashed. “I was just leaving.”
“Oh, were you.” The witch’s clothes dribbled water onto the cobblestones as it took a step closer. “Back to the Abbey, Abbey man.”
“Unless you’d rather I stay.”
There was a long pause, during which the witch seemed to completely zone out, and Martin wondered why he had not pulled out the knife from his boot when he’d first heard the sound on the roof. The heretic hadn’t been so stupid – in its hand, it had a big flat knife, serrations chattering along the blade. Fucking hell.
The Abbey advised speaking with witches, but this one seemed pretty stupid so he thought he’d try once more when it did not move. “To which coven do you belong, witch?”
“Witch,” the witch repeated.
“Witch of witch coven-?” he really was speaking with a fucking amateur. How humiliating if his life ends at the hands of Witch of witch coven. Blecker would laugh until he pissed his pants. Martin kept the lantern up and raised his voice. “Who leads you? Is it the witch from the bank?”
“Hmm. Have you not heard,” the witch seemed to get back a little animation, and Martin heard filth grinding under a boot as the heretic took a step closer. It was reaching for Martin’s light. “That witch is long gone, we rooted her right out, we rooted everyone-”
“We; your cove-”
“Abbey man, let me finish your question. You asked me my leader,” the witch said, impossibly long fingers stretching towards the lantern still.
“Back a little, witch –”
“If you’ll let me close, I’ll whisper the name in your ear. Turn out the light.”
Martin snapped; “Your lungs are lead and I see toads on your tongue: so are you stricken and sickened and lost! I say to you, heretic, that in the clutches of the Outsider only sorrow be found, and your heart is a heart of brine!”
The witch hissed and swatted at the air, as though bothered by a clutch of flies, buzzing about inside the mask even, and Martin’s heart leapt into his mouth as he raised up the light. “My hand is fire and may all the wicked who touch me burn: if you be a witch, my light repels you, if you be a spectre, my light repels you, if you –” An explosion of pain cut the prayer short, and he drew blood in his mouth biting back a shriek of ‘Fuck!”. The witch had lashed out with the blade which had connected with his knee; the blood was bursting wetly over the cobbles, and Martin’s hand jerked madly, sending the light strobing. The witch lashed out again, blade singing, fuck you witch, seeking to swallow them up into the night, fuck you heretic –
“MY LIGHT REPELS YOU!” Martin swung the lamp, “THE LIGHT OF THE ABBEY REPELS THE BLIGHT OF THE OUTSIDER-”
“Sssssssssssssshut it,” the witch hissed, and struck at the light, and then at Martin’s throat, silver metal biting into the black of his coat’s front. Another explosion, red, at his shoulder this time, and his arm bucked wildly, dropping the light which rolled away but mercifully it did not smash. The witch, freed from the hasty prayer, crooked its fingers as though hooking the air, and Martin felt the ground move from under him; he was snapped back onto his crumpling limbs, skull smacking against the filthy cobbles. Bang, wetness at the nape of his neck, fuck, imagine the state of the filth in this place, what were the chances of these cuts going septic?
“I say to you, heretic, that in the clutches of the Outsider only sorrow be found, and your heart is a heart of brine!” Martin hissed, making to draw the knife out of his boot, but before he could the witch struck him back down; that blade, that filthy blade, pressed up against his neck. Then its hand reached over Martin’s head, to where the lamp had rolled. Martin saw the gap underneath the base of the mask, but it was too low to make out whether it was skin or bone that he was seeing – certainly, it looked fleshy enough, but what were those webby patches, like lichens or mould, creeping along the rubber seam?
“Your skin,” Martin drew a shallow breath, uncomfortably aware of the great weight of the witch pinning him to the street. Aside from his injuries, he could feel the press of the cobbles between his shoulder blades, and the bilge water seeping through the seat of his trousers. “What’s that on it?”
“So many questions, so many particulars,” Martin could feel the witch’s lungs inflating against his. “Did you think I’d forget, I haven’t got around to answering your first.”
“Which was that?” The knife in his boot had gotten up halfway before his untimely interruption; now with the heretic preoccupied with reaching the lamp, Martin scraped the heel of his boot against the stone, forcing the blade out of the back. His fingers danced perilously close, not quite brushing -
“Witch was that,” oh shit the heretic was making a joke. “Which was my witch, witch. That was what you said.”
“Oh, your coven leader, ah, yes, who has the pleasure of leading dear...?” The handle had a hole at the top, and he hooked his thumb inside; it was damp and warm.
“Your name first.” There was a crash just above his head; it seemed the witch had finally brought the lamp close enough to smash with the flat end of the thing’s knife. The action plunged them into wet sticky darkness, and the night became suddenly cold. He felt the thing shift and the whine of the blade’s edge grinding on the cobbles, bluntening. Oh, thanks.
“My name? Edmond Roseburrow, I’ve fallen on hard times,” delicately, Martin brought the knife up into his fist, and coiled it about the handle, it came up to the base of the heretic’s back. The panels of the whaler’s mask flashed.
“He’ll fall on harder,” the witch almost hummed. “He’ll fall on and on.”
Martin played fascination, but the amount of bull he’d heard from witches in his time meant this particular prophesy meant as much as the one where he was supposed to meet his end half a mile up in the sky. “Really?”
“Rea-lly,” the witch said, and the leather of its gloves creaked as it crooked its hands. “You talk well, for an Abbey man. I think I will eat your tongue.” It took the blade up and put its fingers into Martin’s mouth.
Martin jabbed his knife into the back of the thing’s thigh; when it recoiled he whacked the side of its skull to rattle whatever brains the Outsider had left, and stomped upon its face with an Abbey boot. It shrieked as the mask’s glass panels shattered inwards, but Martin saw its hands contorting, he stomped upon them as well, kicking the old witch blade away. The glass from the shattered lamp was still hot; he picked up a shard as his skin squealed, and rammed it into the mask’s fresh mouths; now he had the time to light the matches from the inside of his coat, though suddenly panicked they might be wet.
If the High Overseer being too cheap to buy the new Sokolov lighters kills me now, I’ll be back from the Cosmos to burn him alive, Martin thought as the first match sputtered, and the second snapped. The witch was still shrieking, clawing at its face, the leather coming away in strips as it yowled;
“Sooom fkaaarr ktaaah akhaash sooom –”
The match lit at last, and Martin cradled it from the bleak black of night, holding it aloft; “The light of the Abbey burns the blight of the Outsider, burn, witch, burn.” He ground it into the thing’s smoking face, and the heretic went up in flames, spontaneously, they erupted all over his body; singing horribly in green and blue and yellow, as when Martin had been a boy he had burned driftwood in these colours. The witch was still howling, weakly imploring the magic to come; ssoom. fkaar. soom. It probably wouldn’t, but the thing made such a racket Martin did not want to stick around to see if it, or any of its companions, did. He grabbed his knife and made his way to the boat, wrapping his coat closely as the papers inside his vest rustled. He heard the witch shriek; “Where is Daaaaud where is Daaaaud where is Daaaaaaaaaaud.” He assumed that was the witch’s coven leader. He had never heard of him. Martin wondered if he’d really killed the banker’s witch. He didn’t care. Fucking witch politics of lonely districts were none of his concern, not when his shift started – now.
Martin made it back into the boat, and found the oar where he had left it. He stuck it into the dark water, and pulled himself away from the bad place. The witch’s noises were beyond hearing now, and the moon above spun a cartwheel in the sky.