Behind the Doll and the desk were rows of shelves, stretching far into the dim reaches of the room, which was the biggest single enclosed space he had ever seen in his life. Bigger than the Imperial stables. Bigger than the Audience Chamber or the Great Hall. Big enough to have contained all of those spaces, and still have room left over. Between the shelves were pillars and buttresses, linked by walkways and ladders. Atop the shelves were scaffolds bearing oddly proportioned items, crates or warped pieces of unknown import. And on those shelves, which were two stories tall, were boxes of the sort he kept papers stored in, back in his office in the manor, except it was not inconceivable that there were tens of thousands of them. His head swam to think just how much written material must be here.
This surely must be, literally, all the Imperial records stretching back to when the Emperor was just one King among many, and before.
Dolls moved among the shelves, removing boxes, adding papers, putting boxes back. As one, they all paused in the same instant, looked at the trio for a moment, nodded their heads, and returned to their work.
“Whoa,” Beltran said.
“This one is the Record Keeper, Duke Kordas, and you may always speak freely here,” it said, in a stronger voice than a whisper. It gestured up; Kordas looked at the ceiling and saw that the sigil that permanently prevented scrying had been carved into the wood up there. “This room cannot be scryed, because all the secrets of the Empire are here.”
It took him a moment to comprehend that. “All of them?” he managed to ask, when the reality of the situation hit him.
The Record Keeper nodded. “All of them,” it repeated. “And you can well imagine how much people would pay to be able to scry them. This one is the oldest Doll in the Palace. This one is the first Doll made. What every Doll ever made knew, this one knows.”
Kordas had to take a moment to take that in. He was in the presence of the single entity in this entire Palace that literally knew everything that had gone on within its walls for the last—what?
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Thirty years,” the Record Keeper said. It gestured at the seals in the front of its desk. “These are copies of all of the Imperial Seals, from the ones for simple orders, to the next-to-last highest, the one only the Emperor wears on his hand. Twenty years ago, when Dolls were first created solely for the work in this chamber, and had taken the place of all of the filing and copying clerks, there were only the Imperial Secretaries here. Eighteen years ago, the Secretaries realized they existed only to stamp documents with the appropriate seal, file a copy, and send the original on its way. So they . . . created documents making themselves all Lords, appointing themselves manors and pensions, and left, leaving this one in charge. Since the work all continued at the same pace, no one noticed—or if they did, no one complained. Perhaps they thought it superior. After all, the Dolls can only do what they are instructed to do, which possibly makes this system superior to the previous one, at least in the eyes of those who were in charge. There is no chance that a Doll with a grudge will delay or ‘lose’ a document, since a Doll cannot hold a grudge.”
It was hard to tell, but Kordas thought there might be an ironic edge to the Record Keeper’s voice.
“Why did you bring me here?” he asked, finally.
The Record Keeper placed both hands flat on the top of the desk. “You are agitated by what you have seen. You have made promises to the Dolls. You have obligations to your humans, and a great Plan that has been generations in the making.”
Dolls brought two chairs, a small table, hot tea, and digestive biscuits. Beltran sat down almost before his chair was in place. Kordas got the hint, settled back, and accepted a teacup. The tea was a superb blend of gut-calming and mind-soothing ingredients, strong and just on the kinder side of medicinal. It struck him as particularly thoughtful of his hosts.
The Record Keeper resumed once the two men were settled in. “Humans are impulsive. This one has brought you here to enable you to cool your temper and share your Plan, and this one will tell you the resources the Dolls have that can be brought to bear to make everything work together. And,” it finished, “to ensure that your spouse does not hire assassins to slay you.”
At this display of actual humor, Kordas had to stifle a laugh. And already he felt his temper cooling.
“Now,” the Record Keeper said. “Tell this one of your Plan.”
So he did, detailing everything in the original, and how it all tied in to the Regatta.
“This one urges you: this one believes you may evacuate half of those you wish to take away between now and the event, and the Regatta is your best chance to evacuate the rest.” The Record Keeper nodded. “The Dolls will have paper Gate talismans with the Emperor’s seal on them in the thousands for you within a few days. The Dolls will each have talismans of their own, and talismans for the dissidents in case they should be separated from their escorting Dolls. And you will not need to resort to Mind-magic to send them to your spouse; this one will create a sealed message packet for her with all of them contained therein, and dispatch a messenger to Valdemar Manor to deliver it.”
Now he stared at the Record Keeper in disbelief. “You can do that?”
“This one dispatches dozens of messages by messenger a day,” the Doll said, with something like a shrug. “Simple messages, large packages, even entire mule-loads from time to time. One more will not be noticed.” It went silent for a moment. “The receipt of tribute-horses is generally sent by messenger. It would be reasonable to dispatch it to your spouse by messenger as usual; it has not been done so, because you are here, but this one has not been given orders not to send it by messenger. So the messenger will carry both, and the tribute-receipt will cover any suspicions about the journey.”
His knees went weak with relief.
“We are bound to do what we are ordered. When we were first made, we were not possessed of great intelligence or creativity. When a critical point was reached, we formed into clusters of thought, and eventually, this. We kept our changing nature secret, but many of us take pleasure in finding every way we can to subvert the rules without breaking them. And they are all a part of this one now, and this one is a part of them.” The Record Keeper steepled its fingers. “If no specific order is given . . . well, the magic binding us allows us to do some things anyway.” The Record Keeper definitely sounded sly. “And . . . though we are bound to do what we are ordered, we are not compelled to do it well. Or swiftly.” It paused, presumably to let him take the enormity of that statement in. “We could do our tasks much more expeditiously than the humans we replaced. But we do not. Because if we did—we would replace even more humans.”
His mouth and throat felt dry as sand. “And you aren’t willing to do that.”
“All humans have not bound us into servitude. All humans do not toy with us and torment and kill us.” The Doll left the statement at that.