ell, if the reason the Emperor brought me here was to keep the Court amused, I am certainly doing that, thought Kordas, as he moped in the rear of the afternoon Court in the Great Hall. Muted chatter swirled around him, like the perfumes that covered up the ever-present faint chemical taint in the air.
When he had been presented with the accusation that Isla was having an affair with Hakkon, he had decided to stretch his reactions out as long as he could. So he started with angry denials. He didn’t go so far as to challenge the person who had told him this over dinner to a duel—he really didn’t want to complicate the Plan still further with the repercussions of killing Prince Morthas of Halengard—but he flew into a rage and stormed out of dinner and tried to get an audience with the Emperor to demand he be sent home.
That would have been ideal, but alas, he couldn’t get that audience, and none of the dozen messages sent to the Emperor were answered. Nor was he permitted to bring a petition up at Court. He tried, but all the Court clerks refused his petition, and even the Dolls were forced to tell him that it would not be accepted. He continued to deny that Isla would betray him.
That ate up about four days of time, time he spent alternately shouting at people and shouting at the closed doors of the Emperor’s quarters.
Then he was presented with scryed records, and his first thought was that Isla was a brilliant actress, and Hakkon was pretty inept. She managed to make his flubbings look like the bumbling of a lovestruck dolt. That was ideal for the ploy, and he mused that it was also why he loved and valued Hakkon. The man simply didn’t have it in him to lie enough to be a danger, and he was much smarter than anyone might think.
Kordas locked himself away for a day, ostensibly to sob into his pillows—but actually to refine the Plan. And despite his anxiety, he did rest. Drugged tea helped. Wisdom from his father was, it is better to rest before exertion, than after. Sleep after exhaustion is inefficient, because it tries to heal body and mind at once; better to be well-rested, to be sharp-minded and react quicker, than to try to catch up or just drop where you stand. Good bed, deep sleep, big breakfast, and one could outpace anything except a Night Person. Their ways were mysterious and full of cats.
Kordas slipped away whenever he was not being scryed and Gated into the records complex. He had unprecedented latitude in using the City’s stores and resources, thanks to the Dolls. He’d begun, early on, by grilling the Record Keeper on what he could do as a Duke without attracting anyone’s attention. It was stunning just how bad the Imperial way of doing things had become. The Record Keeper revealed to Kordas that its function was not to interpret nor verify the origin of orders, but rather, to follow the authority of the seals—and the Record Keeper had full sets of seals. Talking quickly, Kordas prepared requisition forms via the Dolls—all of whom worked nearly blindingly fast when they wanted to—then sat at the Record Keeper’s desk, and had the Dolls turn away. By using the seals there, Kordas could impersonate a King, if he dared. The Record Keeper would turn around to find a stack of properly sealed orders to be carried out, and no Doll could claim to have witnessed anything awry. The materials requisitioned by the sealed order would be located, neatly packed, labeled, inventoried, and carried by Dolls to the so-familiar-as-to-be-unnoticed plain barges and boats that plied the canals of the City, with the inventory attached just inside the door. And off the barge would go to the refuge.
Kordas felt a genuine tingle of joy at stealing on such a scale. He knew it was wrong in general to steal, but this was for lives. He told himself that whatever he plundered from the Empire for his people were resources that wouldn’t be available to the Empire against his people. Audacity will win the day, he thought, and had the City Armory unobtrusively carted out “for offsite inventory and storage relocation” with the proper stamps, and replaced with identical, but empty, crates. Tons of combat-ready Poomers, Spitters, and the ammunition for them streamed to Valdemar, with no one but he and the Dolls aware of it. Boatloads of pellets in their secured crates accompanied them. All the boats looked the same with their raincovers on, and nobody cared what Dolls shipped. Hundreds of Doll-operated barges plied the canals every day. And so, without Courts, Kings, or commoners noticing or caring, the Plundering of the City was underway.
Better to be hung for a big deed than a small one, he thought. And, if I leave the City with a bare minimum of weapons, they won’t have reserves to defend themselves with, and they might panic. Panic was a good, useful option in a Court. The only supplies he let go out as usual were things that were expected on specific dates, such as ammunition and pellets going to the War. If those didn’t arrive as expected, there would be furious consequences.
Tremors came and went all this time, and an urgent message came to Kordas from the Record Keeper while Kordas was deep down a storage bay: Foreseers were reporting new visions. The Imperial City, the Palace, all exploding in fire or consumed by lava. When, they weren’t certain, but the visions were reported from Foreseers at the far edges of the Empire, as well as locals.
These reports made Kordas feel the most apprehension of the whole operation, and he lit off via Gate to the Records Complex. Not everything a Foreseer predicts actually happens, but they can be good warnings to check things, and in my case—to check things that I have compromised. So long as his subterfuge with the official seals was between him and the Dolls, everything should be all right. But if the predictions were delivered to the Emperor in a timely manner, the Emperor would search on his own, and Kordas would surely be exposed. By stealing the martial supplies alone, Kordas had cemented himself as a traitor.
If anyone was left alive to come after me. If anyone knew I was behind it. If anyone could find me.
Kordas agonized over the decision as he read the dispatches. In his heart it felt very, very much like pulling a trigger to end a life. If the Emperor received the Foreseer reports, he might lock down the entire City. No one in or out.
“If any more reports like these come in, can you destroy them?” he asked the Records Keeper.
“No, my Lord. Many things we can delay, but these are urgent and must be delivered to the Emperor. That we cannot change.”
Kordas flew through his resourcefulness in his mind. Mis-labeling? Re-routing? Copying errors? Wait—“Can you hand over urgent dispatches to a human courier for delivery?”
The Records-Keeper answered quickly, “Yes, if they have a certification as an Imperial courier.”
“Then have all new dispatches delivered to my Herald, Beltran. Then it is his responsibility to see to it they reach the Emperor, and none of you are liable for what happens after they’re handed off to a courier.”
“That would not violate our directives.”
With a flick of his fingers, flames erupted at the corners of the Foreseer reports. “Oh no, look what I did.”
The Records Keeper nudged a trash receptacle toward Kordas, who dropped the burning papers into it. “We will have to report that sometime, my Lord. Delays or loss of official materials must be reported within one hundred days.”
Initially, the Plan was for Valdemar to escape the Empire, which has turned even worse since Father devised it. Then I twisted the Plan into getting the abused children out, and then the Dolls, and the truth prisoners, and supplies, and now I’ve found myself thinking about the innocents in the City, from blacksmiths to noodle-cooks. Father’s Plan is My Plan now, not The Plan. If the City will be annihilated, anything and anyone left here would be incinerated anyway, so—my conscience is clear about my secret sacking of the City. If the Emperor sees the Foreseer reports, though, he’ll be enraged with paranoia, unleash every hound he has—and he’ll discover the Plan. It’s all about what the Emperor reacts to.
He exhaled hard, because he could only come up with one solution.
It never stops. It only escalates.
Kordas resumed his performance the next morning. He stormed around Court abusing Isla and Hakkon to anyone who would listen. He channeled his very real anger at not being allowed to go home into feigned anger at them. In a few more days, anyone who saw him coming would hastily find something else they urgently needed to do.
Then he changed his tune again. He begged people to tell him how to win his wife back—or at the very least, get the Emperor to hear his petition to go home. He would bargain with anyone, which made him amusing again, as people gave him all sorts of absurd advice about his wife. No one, however, was willing to bargain with him for access to the Emperor. That was apparently one line they would not cross.
He kept that up for about six days more. Some of his desperation was real. It was perilously close to the day of the Regatta. He still had no good idea of how to protect the stubborn people who were intending, no matter what, to remain in Valdemar. The Record Keeper had been unable to give him any help either. In fact, the only other thing the Record Keeper had been able to advise him on was what to do about Merrin’s spies …
Which had been, quite simply, to take them prisoner and allow the Record Keeper to forge reports to Merrin from them. So the spies were cooling their heels securely locked in the never-used prison cells of the Valdemar manor. They were being treated well, and on the day after the Regatta, the spelllocked door would swing open. So that was all right.
But it didn’t help Kordas at all.
So now he was moping around, talking to no one, brooding. He displeased Star by disarranging his appearance so that he looked a bit unkempt. He pushed his food around his plate at public meals, and refused far, far more dishes than he accepted. This was actually all to the good, in his opinion; he had been afraid that even with moderate eating he was beginning to get soft around the waist. People snickered openly at him, but avoided him with alarm, because he would get maudlin and immediately turn the subject of conversation to Isla, pleading with them to give him advice, then interrupting that advice to grow teary-eyed and dissolve into a wet mess.
But the desperation and depression were both very real. He didn’t have to feign those. He didn’t have to feign pacing the gardens night and day, head down, as he went over every ploy he had thought of and discarded.
Put everyone remaining in Valdemar under a sleep spell, until they are awakened by those storming the place to investigate.
And what if that took days? Worse, weeks? Those storming the place would find the dead, not the living. Three days without water would kill a grown man, and it would be a day or less to doom an infant.
Have everyone remaining locked up by the last to leave.
That was the one he was still toying with, but it was still perilous, even if he left the ones imprisoned with adequate food and water. And would they be believed? And what if they were questioned magically?
Have everyone left behind claim that a disease made everyone else run mad.
That wouldn’t be believed for an instant.
There were variations on all those things, but none of them would hold past the Emperor’s inquisitors coming in and applying real questioning.
Well, he thought unhappily, as he left the Court early and paced the gardens in the thin, smoky afternoon sunlight. At least I’m losing the weight I put on.
* * *
Delia would never have believed so much could be accomplished in so little time.
The vast combined herds of cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, and goats had been moved upriver to keep them from overgrazing the area around Crescent Lake. Smaller herds of each had been left to supply fresh meat for the common kitchens that had been set up around the Lake. Their owners and tenders followed them with strings of barges as the herds ate their way north and westward. Crescent Lake would have been full of barges from shore to shore if the slow migration to further safety hadn’t already started. The Gates disgorged barges and people on a regular basis all day and night long; Delia reckoned about fifteen thousand people had arrived, with barges they intended to live in trailed by barges of everything they could possibly cram inside from their homes, and as many supplies as they could manage. Entire farms and manors now stood mostly empty back in Imperial Valdemar; not even Lord Merrin’s farms had been spared.
Valdemar Manor was mostly stripped too. Counting on the fact that scryers would only concentrate on where Isla and Hakkon went, there was a narrow path of rooms that looked “normal”; everything else but heavy furnishings had been removed at Delia’s direction. All of the mages were here now, living two and four to a home-barge. So far, none of them had murdered each other.
Having them here, with the power nexus available to them, had made it a lot easier to solve many problems. Like where people were going to get flour; they had grain in plenty, but flour spoiled if it wasn’t used within three months. Two barges had been set up as mills, with several small millwheels powered by magic, instead of one big millwheel powered by water or wind. One of those was here at the Lake, the other at the head of the caravan making its way upstream.
Two of those rivers had proven to be dead ends of a sort … but only of a sort. Although the streams ended, it turned out there were settlements of people there. Isla and Ponu had visited each, used their magics to quickly learn the local language, and assured the local leaders that the Valdemarans intended no harm, and would soon be on their way.
And that … was where things had taken a turn for the unexpected.
Which was why Delia was mounted on one of the Gold Chargers, a three-year-old, which had been a bit of a feat, as big as the mare was. Her legs were practically splayed out on either side of the saddle; it was not comfortable. The Charger was tethered to the start of a string of barges that was just about thirty long. Ten of them held some of Squire Lesley’s prize pigs, including the Empress and her brood. There were another two strings behind her, and shepherds and herdsmen moving along flocks of sheep and cattle on the riverbanks.
They were all very near their destination, the settlement at the head of one of the two dead-end streams. The locals called this “the Brandywine” in their language, and their little village “Brandywine” as well.
The sun shone down hotly on the expedition, and the air smelled of fresh water and trampled vegetation.
Squire Lesley rode next to her on a fat cob. She looked down at him. “You’re sure you want to do this?” she asked anxiously. “You’ll probably never see your sons and daughters again.”
“My sons and daughters are smart and strong. I love them and they’ll be all right. They can always visit, right? The good folk of Brandywine are my sort of people,” the Squire replied. “When they asked if some of us would join them, and I got a look round the place, I honestly couldn’t imagine myself taking the long journey the mages are saying we should.” He sighed. “I’m too old for such things, and that’s the truth. Uprooting me and my pigs and piling everything into barges and making that crossing took more out of me than I ever thought it would. I’m ready to settle. And these good folk are ready to have us! It seems like providence, to me.”
Delia couldn’t argue with that. The elders of Brandywine and the other settlement, Oakton, had come down the rivers, taken a look at the Valdemaran armada, and had evidently very much liked what they saw. And, truth to tell, it was a good bargain all around. Some of the Valdemaran families got new homes immediately and would not face the great migration that was ahead of the others, and all of those families had at least one elderly member who was spared a grueling journey. Crescent Lake certainly could not support the whole population that had arrived, much less the ten thousand or so yet to come; there was a lot of discussion going on about who would be staying and who would be going.
And the locals got an infusion of new people, new herds, and folk who were no strangers to putting their hands to weapons.
This might be land mostly empty of people, but it was not empty of dangers. The Valdemarans had already encountered some of them—things born of twisted magic that were far more perilous than bears. And there were roaming bands of bandits as well, men who preferred to take rather than produce.
Beyond that—and the locals always seemed to point in different directions—was something called “The Pelagirs.” Marauding monsters, bears, and what was essentially an invasion of foreigners did not make the locals as sick-looking or pale as the word “Pelagirs.”
So two struggling villages were about to get what they needed to stop struggling and start prospering. And as a bonus there was about to be a large town within an easy distance of them. Granted, the “town” was going to take some building yet, but the people would be there, and their skills and tools.
The river made an abrupt turn, and there was Brandywine, with its cluster of thirty houses and its palisade of logs. Actually, all Delia could see from where she sat was the log palisade, the open gate, and a glimpse of a couple of wooden houses that were very different from the stone cottages of Valdemar. And it looked as if the entire village had turned out to cheer the arrival of the newcomers. They also looked very different from the folk of Valdemar; clothing was all of homespun, home-woven materials and colored with local, natural dyes.
All the Valdemarans had gotten the local tongue courtesy of Ponu, so at least there wouldn’t be any difficulty in being understood.
The river was just about to get too shallow even for the shallow-drafted barges, but the locals had prepared for that, building a pair of docks right at the point where the bottom of a barge would start to scrape gravel. Delia urged her mount up to the dock, and one of the locals—a handsome lad in homespun loose trews and a linen smock, with the reddest hair she had ever seen, deftly caught the rope she untied from the back of the saddle and tied up the string at the dock.
As she walked her mount away, the second string was pulled up alongside the first, and tied off to the dock and the prow of the first string.
Then the Tow-Beast pulling the third string splashed belly-deep through the water to the opposite side of the river, and another fellow waiting at the second dock caught the rope and tied the third string there.
And there was just enough room that if a fourth lot of Valdemarans decided to take up the invitation to settle here, there’d be space to wedge in a last string of barges, though they would be so tight-packed that you’d be able to easily walk from one bank of the river to the other.
As this was happening, Squire Lesley had gone to the second barge of the string, and with an apple and a cabbage was coaxing the Empress and her brood down a gangplank flung to the deck of the barge.
A murmur of admiration came from the crowd at the sight of the enormous sow, who had somehow managed to keep herself pristine in the barge, though the same could not be said of all of her piglets. She was not the only pig in the barge by any means, but she’d been given a partition for herself and her brood, while the rest milled in a herd in the rest of the barge.
“By the staff of Great Wethlen!” exclaimed a farmer who, except for his rough, brown clothing, did not look altogether unlike the Squire. “She’s magnificent! She’s a goddess incarnate! How ever did you manage to produce such a beauty?”
Squire Lesley beamed. “Now do you see why I wanted to come here?” he asked, looking up at Delia, as the piglets milled around his ankles.
“You and I, friend Less-el-lee,” said that same farmer, clapping the Squire on the shoulder. “We shall come to see if I have built you a house and an enclosure worthy of this paragon among pigs! Come! Come! And if you do not like it, then I shall slay myself in grief!”
“Hardly think that’ll be necessary, Aylar,” Lesley replied, with a gentle pat to the man’s back. And with that, they moved off, the Empress following the bribe of the apple in Lesley’s hands.
Delia felt her eyes start to sting, and turned away, signaling to the other two riders that she was going to start her trip back to the Lake. They, too, were remaining; one with a Tow-Beast, and one with a Charger, a stallion and a mare, that would provide the foundation stock for heavy horses to help with plowing, something Brandywine did not have. Those who were remaining were going to live in their barges for the next year, but start new fields of crops that would not be harmed by being sown late in the season. That and the supplies they had brought should see them all through to next spring without difficulty, and even with abundance. This village had goats, not sheep, so the sheep being brought along were a welcome addition, and as was the small herd of cattle she passed as she urged her mount into a canter. And even more welcome were the herding dogs that had accompanied their masters. This was something the locals had never had, and included a mastiff-like breed that lived with the herds it guarded day and night, and had been known to successfully fight off bears.
They’ll be all right, she told herself, as the ponderous Charger ate up the leagues between her and Crescent Lake. Isla hadn’t told her as much, but she suspected that the arrival of peaceful strangers had come as a relief and a surprise—people didn’t build palisades for defenses for no reason. And Squire Lesley, who was in charge of this group of people who were mostly local to him, had his directions.
Make sure the Valdemarans stayed welcome. When in doubt, in a disagreement, side with the locals. Start dressing like the locals, and blend in as quickly as possible. Forget the language of the Empire; translate every book they had with them into the local tongue.
Assimilate. Assimilation was survival.
And should the very worst happen, should the Empire somehow track them to this refuge, bypassing the town that would be built on the shores of the lake—well, they all already knew how that would go. Every single Valdemaran who was about to become a citizen of Brandywine agreed. The Empire always followed the same pattern when it came to things like this. There would be an initial scouting party. And that scouting party should be welcomed with a great feast, at which they would be given far too much to drink.
And then they were to be slaughtered without mercy. Or perhaps poisoned. The Empire showed no mercy; it would be given none.
When enough scouting parties failed to return from a “primitive” location like this one, the Empire generally stopped sending them, giving it up as a bad investment. The Empire wanted places to conquer that had treasure and wealth worth looting, not a bunch of farms.
That rather bloody-minded thought actually cheered Delia up somewhat.
Now … if only Kordas was here.
* * *
Kordas stared at his breakfast and tried to muster up the enthusiasm to eat it. He’d spoken to Isla and things were going well—better than well—but he still had no answers for how he was going to save all of the people of Valdemar, not just the ones willing to escape.
He also had no idea how he was going to free the vrondi once they had escaped. At least, without killing them.
“Lord Duke,” Star said, interrupting his thoughts. “The Record Keeper wants to know if you have any orders for us.”
I still can’t believe how quickly people were able to pack up what they needed and leave, he marveled. Granted, they weren’t able to take everything from their homes. Furniture had to be left behind. Still …
Pack up, pack up …
Orders for the Dolls …
Something dawned on him with the force of a blow, and he looked up at Star. “Could I order the two remaining Innovator mages to move to other quarters? By which I mean, both living quarters and working quarters?” he asked, slowly feeling his way.
“Yes, my Lord,” said Star. “In fact, they have been complaining for some years now that they do not like where they are. Utility mages have better quarters, and they are envious.”
“Are there better quarters available to them?” he asked.
“Yes, Lord. It is merely that no one has given the orders,” said Star. “And they no longer have the ear of the Emperor. They have produced nothing new for nearly a decade, and he no longer cares to hear from them unless they produce something akin to the pellets or the Dolls.”
The idea practically exploded in his mind. “Then tell them their request is approved. Pack up their possessions and move everything today to their new living quarters. Tell them that because their working apparatus is so delicate and needs such great care, it will take a week to move it to their new working quarters. Tell them to rest and enjoy themselves for a week. Then pack up everything except what has to do with the Dolls and move it. Then leave it all packed, tell them in a week it is ready, but that they must decide how to arrange everything in person. By then, the Regatta will be over, and it won’t matter. Take everything that has to do with the Dolls, put it on a barge, and send the barge through a Portal—”
“—to your refuge. Understood, Lord Duke.” Star seemed pleased. “The Imperial reference libraries for summonings, banishments, and field magic await load-out and transfer. The books and scrolls alone number in the thousands. The experimental equipment from the other laboratories that survived the structural collapse have been in storage and are being crated. We know they were the precursors to our imprisonment processes. By having your mages look through the materials, they should find a way to release us!”
“Exactly,” he said, and felt a little, a very little, relief. That was one problem out of the way.
“It shall be done today,” said Star. “The Record Keeper asks that I tell you that a Doll shall accompany the barge as well, to explain everything on the other side.”
“Good, good,” he said. And found a little appetite to eat.
“The Record Keeper reminds me that you asked about the source for magic power here, since the Imperial mages are discouraged from making pacts with Abyssal demons,” Star said after a very long pause while he revived his faint appetite. “The one below.”
Well, that killed his appetite again. But in a different way.
“I did,” he said. “But the Record Keeper never responded to me.”
“That is because the Record Keeper deemed it too dangerous. Too prone to discovery. But there is a brief window this morning, due to some unexpected demands upon the Imperial mages, when there will be no one but Dolls to note your passing. Would you still care to see this?” Star paused. “It is best seen, rather than explained.”
He shoved the tray aside and all but leapt up out of bed. “The sooner the better,” he said. “How should I dress? Just in case we run into someone unexpected.”
“This one will attend to that.” Star went to the wardrobe.
Soon he stood in front of the Portal, impatiently waiting for Star and the Record Keeper to gain access for them to this oh-so-mysterious place. Evidently not all Dolls were allowed access to it, which only made his curiosity itch the more.
Finally, Star signaled to him to hold up his bracelet to the Portal and say the words, “The Chamber of the Beast.”
The … Beast?
Too late now. He stepped through, into blazing red light and heat.
And realized immediately why the Record Keeper had been so reluctant to try to describe what was here.
Just to begin with, there was so much raw magic power in here that it almost scorched him until he shielded from it, and it took him longer than he liked to establish enough shielding that he was able to actually look at what he’d been brought to see.
Then, three more things had to be sorted through before he could make out anything.
The first was an ululating sound, but deep and sonorous, more felt than heard. He couldn’t figure out what it was, so finally he dismissed it to go on to the next thing standing between himself and understanding.
The second was the heat. Whatever was in the center of that room dumped heat like a young sun. In fact, it was probably the heat source that kept the entire Palace warm in the winter, provided the hot water for baths and the like, and provided cooking heat to boot. That was confirmed when he saw what could only be water-filled pipes lining all the walls of this chamber. Pumps powered by magic brought in cold water and took away hot water on a grand scale.
Then, the wards and spells guarding and binding what was in the center of the room created a kind of cage it was difficult to see through. Even with his physical eyes. There was so much power in here, with the spells that contained the mysterious object feeding on the power that the thing gave off, that, like in the cellars of Valdemar Manor, the spell-lines actually glowed physically.
So did the chained rune-plaques that surrounded it. He recognized what they were doing: they were binding something in place, but also hiding it, so that no one who was not physically in this room would be able to scry it, detect it, or see it in any manner.
Why?
But then he finally made it out.
And he couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
“This makes no sense to me,” he said aloud. “What is this thing? It looks like a lump of rock.”
“It is an Earth Elemental, Lord Duke,” Star said patiently. “One of the Greater Earth Elementals, but a young one. It was lured into a trap, captured, and hidden here a hundred years ago or more. This is the source of all magic energy used in the Palace, and most of the magical energy used by the Imperial mages.”
No.
“That’s not possible,” he said flatly. “No Greater Elemental can be coerced into providing anything. You can bind it all you like, but it will never, ever give anything up.”
“The Lord Duke is correct,” Star admitted. “But it will emit magical energy if it is wounded. It must, in order to heal.”
It took a long moment for the enormity—and the horror—of that statement to sink in.
“You mean that you bound it here—and now you are deliberately wounding it—in order to siphon off the magic it uses to heal itself?” he said in a strangled voice.
“We are not,” Star corrected, forcefully. “Humans are. This is a rare moment when there are no humans in this chamber wounding it. They have wounded it enough, and now it is healing.”
That was the sound. That was what he was hearing. The poor, damned thing had been hurt, and hurt, and hurt, and finally left to heal.
And it was crying, moaning in pain, weeping because it knew this was only going to happen again once it healed. And of course, it could do nothing about that. It couldn’t stop itself from healing, any more than he could, if he’d been slashed all over, then bandaged and left to heal.
He had thought he had plumbed the depths of Imperial depravity.
He was beginning to think, now, that he never would.
“And this is a young creature?” he choked out.
“Something like a child. Yes,” said Star.
He wanted to be sick.
“Others of its kind seek it,” Star continued. “They have for some time. They roam beneath the earth of the Empire, hunting for it. They know that the Empire has it. But thanks to the magics surrounding it—those chains and rune-plaques—they cannot find it. The nearer they come, the more the distraction. You may have felt them, from time to time—when the earth trembles for a moment. And you have seen the ongoing damage they do as they seek for their young one, in the City. That is their reaction, their frustration. Always near enough to sense, never near enough to locate.”
“This is wrong,” he managed. “I would—rather see demon pacts.”
“No, my Lord Duke,” Star replied. “You most certainly would not.”
* * *
Fortunately, his brooding and depression gave him all the excuse he needed to avoid going to luncheon, to Court, and to dinner, though several times during the day, Star covered the Valdemar badge on its hand, indicating that someone was scrying on him. He probably gave them pretty much what they were expecting, since all he did was sit and stare out the window, mostly not moving.
His gut reaction was I have to free it! But of all of the things he was doing, or wanted to do, this was absolutely the most impossible.
He was certain without bothering to ask that his rank as a Duke would not be enough for him to order the Dolls to free it. As for doing it in person, well …that was sheer insanity. The thing was surrounded most of the time by human tenders. How would he get past them? He certainly would not be able to order the Dolls to restrain them. And if he did manage to find another window when it wasn’t being tended between now and the Regatta, how would he keep it from killing him when he did free it? If he could?
I have more things to do than I have time, energy, resources, or … me. I have a hundred things to do, and only enough “me” to tend to fifty.
Granted, Isla and Hakkon were taking care of some of the remaining fifty. But he was the only one here.
“My Lord Duke?”
He looked up at Star, who had uncovered the badge on its hand. “My Lord Duke, it appears to this one that you are perturbed and upset.”
“I feel … stretched too far, thinned out over too many things, pulled so that I’m full of holes and if I take on even a little more strain, I’m going to snap,” he confessed to the Doll, and by extension, to all the Dolls.
Star remained silent. Probably because the Dolls could not think of any way to help him. Or maybe the Doll just didn’t understand what he’d said. He took it for granted that they understood human emotions, human frailties, human failings—after all, they had been observing humans for decades now. But maybe they didn’t understand him. Maybe they thought he was infallible, that he’d always manage a solution.
“I can’t do everything,” he said hopelessly. “I might not be able to do even what I’ve promised. I—”
Star stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “You have several significant flaws, including that once you are convinced you are capable of one thing of a certain scale, you are equally convinced you can handle more. You do not allow for their cumulative effects upon you. You are doing what you can.” Rose brought a tea tray and poured a half-cup, then added honey and two syrups. Patiently, Rose offered the cup to Kordas, and he accepted it using both hands because he was a little shaky at the moment.
Rose said, “Thanks to you, every Doll has a talisman that will take it to the refuge. Even the Record Keeper. And the hostages will be taken there as well. And everyone in your home who is willing to go will be there as well. That is three times as much as you had thought you could do. Chance and the future are uncertain; but these things are true.”
Star stopped him with, “We intend to empty the royal stables of horses. They will come with us.”
He stared at Star’s “face” in disbelief.
“So no matter what should betide, this much will be true. At the end of the Regatta, the Emperor will have no servants and no horses, and the entire Palace will be in disarray. No one left will know how to react. Most of the humans here scarcely know how to care for themselves.” There was no doubt of the contempt in the Doll’s voice. “And when the Palace is in disarray, what do you think the courtiers will do?”
Kordas was a third of the way into his tea, and could only murmur “Um …”
Star continued. “Those who are in possession of a talisman to return home—and most of them are—will flee to their homes and the comfort of their homes. The ones who are not will be useless burdens on the Emperor’s Guard corps and the few human servants. You have heard the Emperor speak. He is not a man much given to thought. He can order members of the Guard or the human servants to do many things—but if they cannot do them, these things will not be accomplished.” Star paused. “It is the opinion of the Record Keeper that before he thinks of anything else, the Emperor will see to his own comfort. He will recall those who used to serve here from the legions, weakening them ever so slightly—but more importantly, throwing them into some disarray. He will demand more servants from his nobles. All this will take time. The pellet-machines will have fallen silent. No more pellets will be sent to the southern war, and it will further slow to a halt. By the time there are humans minding the machines, some of them will have shaken apart. There may be explosions. No one knows how to mend the machines. The war is more important in the Emperor’s mind than anything else. By the time he turns his attention to the ‘who’ behind the disappearance of the Dolls, the trail we left will be cold, and evidence will vanish too. It may appear that you simply disappeared along with all the other nobles—after all, you have been clamoring to do so. It may be thought that the hostages decided to leave in the confusion as well.”
“I don’t want to keep the child hostages, I just want them to be forever out of—there. None of this is certain—” Kordas said, hesitantly.
“And none of it is impossible,” Star pointed out, and he suddenly got the impression that a great many of the Dolls had focused their attention on him.
There was a long silence.
Kordas finished the tea, handing the cup over to the awaiting Rose, and spoke to all of the Dolls through Star. “I just realized—I’m not sure I’ve explained to all of you why I hate this place. I want—it isn’t revenge on this City, it’s more like—I’m inside a hulking, poisoned, rotting monster that isn’t even aware it’s destroying itself with every footstep, it just keeps plodding along, causing misery and eating misery, instead of being put down in mercy. It feels like leaving it alive is an act of cruelty.” He rubbed at his temples. “Do you know what they’ve given up here, in the Palace? In the City? They’ve given up empathy. They’ve given up sentiment, fond thoughts of the little things that make life worth living, that make it special and wondrous and joyful.”
Kordas leaned in earnestly to Star, trying to pour his feelings out after so much tension. “Here at the Palace, everyone is well fed, and they gossip, and they present themselves as ‘acceptable’—but they’re joyless and without quirks, all the time, because those quirks could be questioned along with their loyalty. I’m the only one who sits at the tables and talks about things that I love that aren’t pointedly to the Empire’s benefit. I’m the only one who just talks about what they like. Everyone else—maneuvers. They keep what they love, and how they love it, hidden away so no one above them in rank can use it against them.”
He stood up to gesture more freely, and showed the back of his Ducal Crest. “This thing—the charm that I was given to protect my thoughts. It’s helped me survive here, in a way that they probably didn’t intend. I think into it, about Valdemar. About what I love about Valdemar. And then, sometimes, I imagine Valdemar as I’ve described it to you, becoming like this place. The quirks we love could be interpreted as seditious. Something like playing a war game on a table and having the Empire lose might be interpreted by a scrying mage as a sign of incipient revolt. The order comes from on high that the games are illegal now. Punishable. The inspiration of musicians and poets could be blunted by decree. The courting rituals we laugh over could be shut down because they are inefficient.” He picked at the loose paint and plaster around the window. “When a ruler gives up on empathy and sentiment, it is a sign of desperation. It means they’re paring away emotion in favor of efficiency and numbers and a twisted fantasy of a better life without the joys and burdens of caring about something outside of themselves. Contempt for kindness and generosity is the surest sign there is that someone has nothing else left to them but a horrible emptiness much worse than weakness. It’s an—anti-strength. And the dying monster plods along, unaware it’s rotting.”
Kordas faced Star fully again. “No one lives forever, but—in a very real way, everyone in that Court but me is already dead. It’s just a matter of degrees of dead. And I’m their fool, mocked for actually feeling. I amuse them with my trite and naive love of things. They see my talk as a display of an idiot’s weakness. But I’m more alive than all of them. That’s why we have to get our people out of here. Out of the Empire, your people and mine. I don’t say it lightly that, if it is a decision between what this system would make of us, and living with joy—the Empire will die before I let them take our loves from us.”
“And this,” said Rose, “is why we will follow you, even into doom.”