The Journals of Uri Zandivar

Five volumes, bound in red leather, each stamped with the Scarlet Triad's mark. The entries span twelve years. The handwriting is precise and controlled throughout.

Volume I

3 Rova, 4707 AR

The transition is complete. What Mengkare built as an instrument, I have rebuilt as an institution. The previous leadership had grown complacent, content to fulfil a narrowing mandate from a patron who was himself losing interest in their services. That era is finished.

I was raised on the Glorious Endeavor. Tutored in its principles, measured against its standards, praised when I met them and corrected when I did not. I believed in it for a long time. Then Mengkare sent me out into the world to find people worthy of it, and I did, and I watched him accept some and discard the rest. The discarded ones had no voice in the matter. Neither did the accepted ones.

I returned to Promise and raised this concern as diplomatically as I could. Mengkare called it wisdom. He gave me a seat on the Council of Enlightenment.

I understood then what my role was.

My sister and I spoke at length after my appointment. She remains in Promise, better positioned than I am and with more patience than I will ever have. She counsels patience still. I am learning to practice it. The Triad needs rebuilding first. Purpose comes after structure.

18 Neth, 4707 AR

A note on Mengkare's character, for my own reference.

He is not a cruel being. I want to be precise about this. He takes no pleasure in the suffering of those beneath him. He considers himself, at all times and without apparent doubt, to be acting in their best interests. He is possessed of extraordinary intelligence, extraordinary power, and a certainty about his own judgment that neither age nor experience has yet troubled. In combination, these qualities produce something more dangerous than cruelty.

He has been dominated twice by the Orb: once in his youth, once later, both times by human hands. He speaks of those episodes rarely, but when he does, the contempt in his voice is unmistakable. He abhors the idea of domination. He abhors the slave trade on principle. He has never appeared to recognise the obvious parallel between what was done to him and what the Glorious Endeavor does to the people of Promise, who did not choose their role in it and are not told the truth of what it is.

He is, in the end, a very powerful being who is certain he knows best. All the rest follows from that.

My sister is working to learn the specifics of his plan. Until she does, we plan around what we know. The Orb has reached him twice. He is not immune to the right tools. He is not immune to leverage.

Volume II

7 Pharast, 4710 AR

Hermea has reduced our stipend again. The message was courteous (Mengkare's correspondence always is), but the meaning was plain enough. The Glorious Endeavor no longer requires our primary service, and our patron sees no reason to fund infrastructure he no longer finds useful.

I had expected this. The only uncertainty was timing.

Our agents are already skilled at locating exceptional people. The fraction who meet Hermea's requirements is small. The remainder, capable and talented but simply not rare enough for a dragon's utopia, are wasted by any other measure of the word. They have considerable value elsewhere. The Pactmasters are pragmatic. The infrastructure already exists. The logic is not complicated.

I will not dress this up. I was raised in a city where honesty about necessity is treated as a virtue, and I retain that much from my upbringing. This is a means to an end. The end justifies it. If that reasoning sounds familiar, it should: I learned it from Mengkare.

He must not learn of this. His feelings about slavery are personal in ways that go beyond principle. My sister will manage his attention from her end. The operation will be kept quiet from ours.

We will not be slaves to gather slaves.

22 Sarenith, 4713 AR

The business runs well. Laslunn was a sound acquisition. Her terms in negotiation were unexpectedly firm, and I made a concession of seniority I would not normally have made, but she earns it. Her reach into Absalom, Cheliax, and the Darklands has expanded our markets considerably. The duergar below the Five Kings Mountains are a promising long-term relationship.

Ilssrah performs well in the field and requires management in everything else. Her restraint around merchandise is practical rather than principled (she understands that a damaged asset is a less valuable asset), but she requires periodic reminding that incidents which demand discretion cost more than they return. I have spoken to her twice. She listens without visible reaction, which is the best I expect from her.

The Pactmasters have shown no interest in our operations beyond their customary arrangement. As long as that holds, we have the room we need.

Volume III

9 Lamashan, 4715 AR

My sister visited Katapesh.

She brought three things: shards of the Orb, a portal key, and a plan.

The shards came from Mengkare's own treasury, removed over time with the kind of patience and precision she has always been better at than me. They are not complete. Mengkare distributed pieces of the thing as diplomatic tokens over the years, sent to powerful individuals across the world as gestures from Hermea. Finding those will be part of the work ahead.

The key is for Vengegate, a portal beneath Promise itself, the gateway Mengkare discovered under the island decades ago. It connects to a network of ancient elven gates, and within that network something is imprisoned. My sister's understanding of it is incomplete; she was unable to access Mengkare's deepest archives. What she believes is that the network holds a fragment of something vast and destructive: a divine presence, trapped since before recorded history, that Mengkare has been studying and intends to harness. She described what it could do if released in terms I found difficult to dismiss. Storms carrying every kind of draconic destruction at once, sustained across whole regions, driving any dragon within them to madness and violence. The kind of force that ends things. Mengkare has apparently spent centuries working out how to direct it.

She believes he intends to use it as a weapon. I believe Mengkare intends to use everything that is useful to him. The specifics matter less than the principle: the network is valuable, Mengkare controls it, and controlling Mengkare means controlling the network.

The plan is to reconstruct the Orb from its shards, then use it to dominate Mengkare. The reconstruction will require sourcing the missing pieces, craftsmen with the skill and discretion to attempt something Mengkare himself believed impossible, and certain rare materials. There are sites in the Mwangi Expanse where the ground carries traces of the same divine presence imprisoned in the network. Apparently it walked there once, long ago, and left something behind in the earth. That residue can be refined and used. We have made contact with parties who can source it.

I considered what she was proposing for most of a night. Then I agreed.

We did not come this far to remain at Mengkare's disposal.

15 Calistril, 4717 AR

Absalom has outlawed slavery. Laslunn had heard the rumours early enough to redirect some of our eastern operations before it became official, which softens the blow. It does not eliminate it. Several of our most reliable buyers are now driven from the trade entirely, and the loss in revenue is not trivial.

The longer concern is directional: if abolitionist sentiment continues to spread through the Inner Sea, we face a contracting market from multiple sides simultaneously. Cheliax remains open for now. The Darklands relationship needs accelerating as a hedge.

This is a constraint, not a reversal. The Orb is the priority. Revenue is what makes the Orb possible.

Volume IV

2 Desnus, 4719 AR

Reports from Breachill have gone quiet. Laslunn flagged this first and has begun investigating. The working assumption is that a group of adventurers operating out of that town took control of the Citadel above the ring last month. If that is correct, they now have access to at least one of the gate sites and possibly more. Laslunn believes she can use them as tools for her own purposes rather than moving against them directly. I have my doubts about that assessment, but she has earned the latitude to make that call.

The Citadel was always the most exposed of our positions. The real concern is the keys. As long as those remain with us, the network is not compromised in any way that matters.

28 Arodus, 4719 AR

I have been reviewing earlier volumes.

Mengkare built the Scarlet Triad to find people. We found them, brought them to him, and he assessed them the way a buyer assesses livestock at market. Those who met his standards went to Promise to live out lives whose true purpose was never explained to them. Those who did not were returned to the world or, once we began expanding our own operations, redirected to buyers who had other uses for capable people.

He called us scouts. He called the people we delivered recruits. He called Promise a utopia.

I grew up in that utopia. I was educated by it, shaped by it, sent out into the world by it. And now I am using its own methods to take it apart.

Laslunn is gone. The same adventurers, apparently. Whatever she intended to do with them, they did it to her first. The key she held is lost.

The final shard arrived from Ilssrah last week. The craftsmen have everything they need. The Orb is nearly complete. My sister is ready. Mengkare does not yet know what we have built. When he learns, it will already be done.

3 Neth, 4719 AR

Ilssrah is dead. The same adventurers, working their way through the Five Kings Mountains. A few days later, word came that Veshumirix had also been destroyed.

Ilssrah was a difficult person to work with and I will not pretend otherwise. But she was effective, and she delivered what we needed before the end. The key she held is gone with her.

Two of the three keys we held are now lost. I retain the Vengegate key. The Orb will be ready before this becomes a direct problem.

It has to be.

Volume V

17 Neth, 4719 AR

The repair work is complete.

Confirmation arrived this morning. The Orb is in transit to my sister in Promise. I cannot send it through Vengegate: using the amber bauble to take the short route through the gate while Mengkare remains uncontrolled is a risk I am not willing to take. It travels by other means and will arrive in its own time.

Once Mengkare falls into line, we won't need to worry about what he might think about our use of Alseta's Ring.

9 Kuthona, 4719 AR

Breachill's heroes are here in Katapesh. They arrived at the end of last month and have been working to consolidate influence among the guilds since. I have been watching them. Three days ago they disrupted the auction, which removes any remaining doubt about their intentions.

They should be our next targets. Once we are cleared to move, I will deal with them personally.