Letters to Uri Zandivar

A bundle of letters on fine paper, sealed with an unmarked wax impression. The handwriting is elegant and precise. None are signed with a name. The letters are addressed simply to "U."

17 Neth, 4715 AR

The visit went better than I expected, and you know I do not say that easily. You have built something real out here. I spent the journey home thinking about that.

I want to be clear about the shards I left with you. Everything I have removed from the treasury represents years of patience and careful work, taken in quantities small enough that the gaps would not register against the whole. Do not underestimate what that required. The remaining pieces were distributed as diplomatic tokens long ago and are now scattered across the world in the hands of people who have no idea what they are holding. Finding them will demand exactly the kind of reach and resource that your operation can provide. I would not have asked this of anyone else.

The key I gave you is not to be used. I need you to understand this as an absolute. Our patron monitors that threshold in ways I have not fully mapped, and any activation before we are in a position to act will draw his attention directly to Katapesh. Keep it secured. Keep it quiet.

The god within the ring has waited a very long time already. It will wait a little longer.

Write when you have something to report. Take care of yourself out there.

2 Sarenith, 4716 AR

Your progress with the Mwangi contacts is good. The tainted gold is a necessary component and I am glad the sourcing is settled. I have enclosed notes on the refinement process. Pass them to your craftsmen without attribution.

There is something I have decided you should know, even though you did not ask for it.

Our patron has been studying the ring for a very long time, longer than either of us has been alive. The details of what he intends remain beyond my reach (the deepest archives are still closed to me, and I will not press that boundary before I am ready), but I have observed enough to know that his interest is not passive. He is building toward something, and the ring is central to it. This is not a curiosity he is guarding. It is a project with an end point.

I do not know when his preparations will be complete. I know only that we must be in a position to act before he is.

I think about you often, working in that city without the benefit of knowing everything I know. It is not a comfortable thought. But I also know you are more capable than almost anyone I have met, and I have met a great many people on this island who consider themselves exceptional. Push where you can without compromising the quality of the work. We cannot afford to rush and we cannot afford to wait too long.

11 Abadius, 4717 AR

Absalom's abolition will cost you. I know. I have already begun quietly redirecting some of what I channel to your operation to compensate for the lost revenue. Do not put this in writing after this letter.

I have been thinking more about deterrents, and I want to share the conclusion I have reached.

Our patron is dangerous in ways that go beyond the obvious. If he learns of the work before it is complete, no position on the council will protect me, and nothing in Katapesh will protect you. We need leverage that functions as a genuine discouragement, not merely a delay. What I have in mind is this: the god within the ring is something our patron fears. The credible threat of its release, demonstrated by our control of the gates, would give even him pause. But credible means real. A threat without the means to carry it out is just a claim.

I need you to direct more resources toward securing the remaining portal keys. Not to use them. To hold them. Possession of enough keys to threaten a release is the deterrent we need. I am aware this introduces its own risks. I prefer a risk I can see and manage to the one we are currently carrying quietly.

I miss our conversations. The ones we had before all of this, when we were still only imagining what we might do. I do not say that to be sentimental. I say it because I think it is worth remembering why we started. Write soon.

28 Gozran, 4718 AR

The pace of the key acquisitions is not where it needs to be. I understand there are competing demands on your operation. I am asking you to prioritise this regardless.

Our patron asked me questions recently about the Triad's activities in Ravounel and below the Five Kings Mountains. I answered them to his satisfaction, or appeared to. He is not suspicious. He is simply attentive, as he always is, and his attention is never fully elsewhere for long. Every day the work remains incomplete is a day in which a single well-placed observation ends everything we have built.

I want the remaining keys secured before the year is out. I want the work itself complete shortly after.

I know I am asking a great deal of you. I asked a great deal of myself for years before I told you any of this, alone inside a city where a wrong word would have been the end of it. You have more resources than I did, and you have always been better at the operational side of things than I would be. That is why this works. That is why it has always worked, the two of us.

Do not let anyone slow you down. Report back.

9 Rova, 4719 AR

The adventurers concern me more than your last letter suggested they concern you.

They have taken the Citadel. They have moved through gate sites, acquired the key that was in Laslunn's possession, and demonstrated repeatedly that they are working with purpose and with some understanding of the ring. That is not an inconvenience. That is an opposing force, and opposing forces do not remain neatly contained simply because we are occupied with other things.

I also want to say this plainly: losing Laslunn is a more significant blow than the key alone. I know you managed her carefully, but she had reach and knowledge that did not exist only in what she carried. Assume more has been exposed than you currently know.

The work is close. I can feel it. Keep the craftsmen protected and focused. Keep the Vengegate key on your person at all times. It is the most important thing in your possession and the only one our patron has not yet noticed is missing.

We are nearly there. I need you to hold on a little longer.

9 Kuthona, 4719 AR

It arrived this morning.

I have read that sentence back several times because I still find it difficult to accept as true. After everything, after all the years of careful work and patient waiting and slow accumulation of what we needed, it is here. It is in my hands. It is exactly what we were promised it would be.

I want you to know that I could not have done this without you. I designed the plan, yes, and I will not pretend otherwise because you would see through it immediately. But you built the thing that made the plan possible. Everything that required reach, resource, and the ability to operate in a world that does not share our patience or our standards, that was you. I want that said clearly, even if only in a letter you will read alone in Katapesh.

When this is over and we are standing in Promise on our own terms, I intend to remind you of this moment. Hold it in mind.

The adventurers are still a variable I do not like. If they are active in Katapesh when you are ready to move, deal with them before you come through the gate. I do not want loose ends present when we make our move, and I do not want our patron, once he is brought to heel, to have anyone left in the field who might complicate the transition.

We are ready. Do not let anything unravel it now. Come home soon.