Dorrik Ironmemory is the High Archivist of the Stonebound and one of the leading voices of the Deep Anvil Compact, which keeps the deep archives of the Blackspine beyond the reach of any empire and copies them from hold to hold against loss. Some of the records in his keeping do not agree with the official history of the Aethyr, and Dorrik knows exactly how much trouble that could cause.
Appearance
Dorrik is an old man, compact and slightly stooped, moving with the careful economy that marks great age among his folk rather than frailty. His pale, weathered skin has taken on the gray of the archive dust that settles into every line of his face. His silver-white hair and long beard are worn in two plain braids, tied off with small iron bands engraved with archive numbers. Behind a round lens of polished rock crystal, which he raises on a cord to read, his faded blue eyes are sharp and patient, and his long fingertips are stained dark with ink and graphite. He dresses as a working keeper, not a lord: a slate-blue wool robe, a leather apron for handling stone, and a broad belt hung with heavy archive keys, a small tuned hammer and a slim steel resonant fork.
What he believes
For Dorrik, truth only stays true if no single power can edit it. A record held by a state, he says, soon becomes evidence for that state and nothing else. That is why he refuses every demand for compulsory access to the archives, whether it comes from the Crown of Ash or from an ally. But he also knows that some knowledge can destroy as surely as it liberates, so every day he decides how much to release, and he has never pretended that silence is not a choice.
His place in the story
Dorrik is a master of stone memory: with tuned hammers and forks he reads the pressure a wall, a road or a tomb has borne, a form of testimony Stonebound courts accept under strict rules. His halls hold names, contracts and witness accounts carved into living rock, along with fragments of worked stone found in the oldest strata, older than any maker anyone can name. His records give weight to the work of his fellow Compact leaders, making Hesta Thunderforge's restrictions on the arms trade enforceable and Yrsa Flintvoice's treaties binding. They could also reveal where Keld Marrbreaker's metal went. Now the holds come to him asking who set the seal Brogar Deepdelver broke beneath the mountain. So far, Dorrik has released only fragments of what he knows.