1388 – Uktar

"The blond unmentionable's late," said Peedie. She shot a look up at the tall, austere-looking elf next to her. "I'm not surprised. Fellows like him always want to make a grand entrance, however inconvenient it is for the rest of us."

The senior priestess from the House of the Moon in Waterdeep didn't reply. Peedie hadn't really expected her to. She was tempted to say something tremendously rude about the goddess Selûne just to see if that got a reaction. Or she could ask her about the naked moonlit dancing? Yes, that was better, and it would make a nice topic for a special pamphlet from the Deep Press. Readers would be queueing round the block, especially if she hired the right illustrator.

Something blonde moved in the left-most group on the far side of the lake. "Is that…" She narrowed her eyes. The grimness of the surroundings was only added to by the mist that hung determinedly over the water, though it was past noon. "…No, no…it's not him. It's a woman with the most incredible fur hat. Is it dyed? It must be dyed. There aren't any animals on Toril with fur that colour. Unless it's from one of the jackals of Anauroch…"

The priestess sighed.

Peedie waited for a few seconds, then nudged her leg. She would have been able to reach a little higher, but that was best avoided in polite social situations. Not that the priestess had made any obvious effort to be polite. "Do you think the Lord's Alliance will pay our expenses if this ends up in a bloodbath, or we get drowned in the Blacklake?"

"That's not my concern," said the priestess. No, it wouldn't be. This kind of cleric liked to pretend they had a servant to take care of the financial details; maybe she did. But the rich velvet cloak and gloves she wore, and which Peedie couldn't deny she envied, implied that she was capable of taking an interest in worldly matters on occasion.

Peedie didn't make enough on her assistant editor's salary to afford velvet clothing. Nor had she packed any of her thicker woollen garments. Naively, she'd thought that a place called Neverwinter would be warm, even at the year's arse end. In fact, it was just a tiny bit warmer than Baldur's Gate. That meant it was too tit-freezingly cold to be hanging around in the middle of a ruined city by the shores of a creepy old lake.

"Can I ask…?" began Peedie. A mistake to start that way. She should have known better.

"Will the question involve the words 'dancing' and moonlight'?" her colleague snapped.

"…maybe?"

"Then no. Certainly not. You should go and see how Marcus is progressing."

The pale young human was standing a couple of yards from the lakeside. He looked like an artist, his eyes flicking up to examine the view, and then down to the board that he held in long white fingers. But she knew that the board was there to support a list of names; Marcus was the closest she'd ever come to having a secretary. Well, there was Bern, though he was technically her boss, so didn't count…

"He's doing fine. Just look at him working away there, the poor ill-fed mousie."

In reply, the priestess flung her cloak over her shoulder before stalking away towards Marcus. It was almost as if she was avoiding her. Peedie smiled. After counting to ten, she followed.

"…everyone is accounted for, Serenar." That was the priestess's title, not her name, which was very long and very elvish. "Except for Lord Bann, Commander Darmon and Captain Veirs." He paused. "They will arrive imminently. They are waiting in the ruined Temple of Lathander to ensure that their appearance is marked by the other delegates."

Neither of the arbiters asked him how he knew. In the short time they'd all been acquainted, it had been very obvious that the young man didn't experience the world in the same way as other people.

"Where is this…Knight-Captain Khelgar?" The priestess looked around as if expecting a six-foot paladin to materialise in a burst of celestial light.

"Khelgar Ironfist is there. In the blue tabard." He pointed to the thick-shouldered dwarf standing at the front of the crowd on the right. He had a shaven head, as a well as a look of genial obstreperousness.

"A dwarf!" sniffed the priestess.

"Not many elves called Khelgar," said Peedie. "Mind you, it could happen. I've covered stories about cross-species adoption hundreds of times. I'm still waiting for the big one though. Literally. Somewhere out there is a dragon reared by gnomes. There's got to be."

The elf ignored her. Marcus smiled, or seemed to. Peedie was small for a gnome, and trying to gauge the expression on his face was not unlike guessing the weather on the Cloudpeaks from her desk in the Gate. "If I see such a thing, Peedie the Pen, I will be sure to tell you."

"Aw. I'll give you a finder's fee if you do. Our readers lap up stories like that. Especially if the dragon wants to talk about its love-life and childhood trauma." An athletic-looking black human caught her eye; he was standing with folded arms a little apart from the three principal congregations. "He's not on the list, is he? What's his name?"

Marcus glanced at the solitary figure. "Aarin Gend. He worked for Neverwinter and Lord Nasher for many years."

Ah yes. She'd heard of him. Nasher's erstwhile spymaster who'd left city and liege lord after the Luskan war. So he was back in his old haunts.

"Aarin…he used to visit our temple when he was on business in Waterdeep…" For the first time, the priestess unbent enough to allow wistfulness to creep into her tone.

A gust of wind blew over them, smelling of rot and river estuary. This had been a beauty spot, once. Peedie tried not to let the oppressive sense of decay get to her. So what, a lot of people had died here? People died all the time. She'd reported on mine collapses and epidemics of marsh fever. For a while, it was very sad, but life went on – diverse, absurd, chaotic, and wholly delightful. And most of it would agree to be interviewed if she nagged it long enough.

A movement beside a tumble-down wall drew her attention. An old woman was leaning against it, out of habit rather than out of need, it seemed to her. A very striking old woman with long white hair and an aristocratic bearing. At any evening soiree, she'd be the most important person in the room, and know it.

Peedie was about to nudge Marcus and ask him about the stranger, but before she could move, the woman had vanished. Well, that was odd, and not at all alarming in any way. Detachments of the Flaming Fist and the City Guard of Waterdeep lined the bridge, while mages from Silverymoon had stationed themselves on the old viewing platform near the outer walls of the palace. Everything was perfectly safe, she told herself. And if it wasn't, she had some tricks up her sleeve. No honest pamphleteer ever travelled far without an invisibility ring or two, mainly in case they ran into the people they'd been honest about.

"Who is the old man in the litter?" the priestess said, clearly directing her question to Marcus.

"Lord Tavorick," Peedie replied quickly. "He's the last surviving councillor from Old Neverwinter. Neverwinter before Nasher, I mean. The old heap of bones might look as if he's already been embalmed, but from everything I've heard, he's still as sharp as a pin. They say he killed a demon with a fishing rod when he was in his eighties."

The priestess huffed in disbelief. "Servants' gossip, I'm sure."

"Oh no. It's true: I was there," said a high-pitched female voice. Apparently the fashion today was for attendees to appear and disappear at random. A tiefling with a flame of red hair had become manifest at Marcus's elbow. It had to be Neeshka. Her name was on the list of delegates. "I mean, it helped that the demon was trying to eat Casavir's arm at the time. Dumb thing to do, right? Way too much plate mail to be an easy snack. Plus, it didn't notice this old man aiming the point of a fishing rod at its eye, and so poof! Bye bye, demon."

Peedie just managed to stop herself from reaching for her notebook and pencil. Adventurers' yarns could be got for a hundred an ounce at home, but to be on the list, one had to be a person of some significance. Later, she'd make sure to sit down with this woman over a bottle of something strong.

"How's the arbiting going?" Neeshka didn't stop for an answer to the pleasantry. She reminded Peedie of Peedie. "I did some of that for the miners in Mirabar once. Didn't think I'd ever be sick of the sight of gold bars. Three days into the guided tour and I was ready to throw up over them. Bleurgh. Anyway," she said, refocusing on Marcus, "Himself wants to know the mood. Is everything okay, or is it time to skedaddle before the killing starts?"

The tiefling looked tremendously relaxed at the idea of a massacre. She was wearing a long jerkin of maple-coloured leather that had been neatly adapted to leave space for her tail. No weaponry was visible – none was allowed, except for that held by the guardsmen – but Peedie would have been shocked if Neeshka didn't have at least one knife concealed about her person. The bracelet she wore on her left wrist looked designed to be turned into a garrotte at short notice.

"All is…unsettled." A muscle twitched in Marcus's cheek. "There's no feeling of – treachery or double-dealing as yet. Except there -" Peedie followed the indication of one discretely flicked finger to where an expensively-coiffured human loitered near Bann's followers.

"Oh, that's alright," said Neeshka, grinning. "You know Torio. She's Luskan. She can't help herself."

"I'm Luskan." Marcus's brow furrowed in mock outrage.

"Only by about three miles." Neeshka clapped him on the shoulder. "And I like you anyway. What about Johcris? He's the one we're most worried about."

Johcris was a stone-faced mage, standing amongst Bann's supporters on the western shore. Another one from the list.

"He's…irritated at the delay. His daughter's unwell again, and he's worried about her. Nothing worse than that." Marcus rested his pen on the board so that he could rub a hand over his forehead. "But the mood in general is…fragile. No one intends treachery, but they expect it. They're scared. Some of them are very scared. That makes them dangerous."

"So we might all kill each other by mistake? Like that's never happened before." Neeshka shook her head, as if thinking fondly of happier days. "Time to report back. I bet they'll be thrilled." She paused, and added as a careless aside: "I once broke into that house and emptied its strongroom. Good thing I did, right? Imagine the kind of low-life amateur that would have walked off with everything after the Spellplague if I hadn't."

The mansion squatted in glum disrepair at the far end of the district. A crow perched on one of its crumbling chimney stacks. The comfortless vision made Peedie glad to revert her attention to the crowd gathered around the mist-covered lake. When she did so, she found that Neeshka had gone.

"You seemed very – accommodating – in your treatment of that tiefling, Marcus," said the priestess. This was not a good thing, was the implication. "When Lady Imoen recommended your services, she said that you were a neutral party."

The man's black eyes slid over them both. He seemed completely unmoved by the remark.

"I am a neutral party," he said, answering the challenge without heat, "because I have good friends in all three camps. Haeromos paid for my education, and arranged for me to go to Candlekeep." He singled out a white-haired old warrior from amongst the Uthgardt chieftains and Greycloak officers that composed the majority of Bann's people. "Brelaina is my wife's aunt, and her foster mother." This time he pointed to a dark-haired woman whose hand rested near her belt, where a sword might have hung in other circumstances. She was standing with the largest group, the new Council's party that included Tavorick and Sir Cormick, the Speaker of Helm's Hold.

"What about that gang there?" Peedie nodded to towards the southerners. They had to be one of the oddest collections of people she'd seen, including the irregulars of the Elfsong's taproom. There were lizardmen, dwarves, a couple of orcs, three – was it githyanki or githzerai? – looking as if they'd left their copies of Volo behind at their inn, auburn-haired humans built like oxen, an old elven druid, and a kobold. And now a tiefling. Neeshka had taken up position behind Khelgar Ironfist.

"A few of them saved my life when I was a boy," said Marcus. The tensing of his shoulders suggested that he wasn't going to be sharing any more of the circumstances with them. Happily, Peedie had already pumped a contact from Candlekeep for information about the seer.

The priestess was frowning at the list. "You've marked the southerners all as present, but I can't see Farlong or the warlock. I hope you haven't been cutting corners, Marcus." Peedie wondered if the elf provided religious instruction to small children very often. She had the voice for it. "We have a very important task today. The peace of Neverwinter could stand or fall according to our efforts."

It was a source of amusement and no longer one of astonishment to Peedie that the free-spirted Selûne had attracted someone like the priestess to her church. That was so often how life worked. For every inspired vagrant divine, there were fifty temple-bound clerics arranging to keep the wanderer supplied with food, drink, warm clothes and compensation payments for any holy misadventures. Or else delivering special private services for nobles and merchants with the coin to spare.

"Farlong's there," Peedie volunteered, enjoying the glare she received in return. "She's chatting to the head of the Elk Tribe in Bann's group. And if the warlock you mean looks mostly human and has these glowing tattoos, then he's lurking at the back. You'll need to use your powers to spot him. He's cast some kind of invisibility spell on himself."

Peedie touched her amulet of true seeing, and felt a little smug. Even without its help though, it was clear that the crowd on the lakeshore were growing restive, tense. Farlong was one of only two people to have crossed the group boundaries. The other was the kobold, and that was because he was trying to sell kebabs and ballad papers from a double-sided tray that hung from his scrawny neck. The lines of guardsmen from the Lord's Alliance were starting to shift uneasily and look around, pikes clasped in leather gauntlets.

"Anyone feel that we're getting to that point where someone fires their crossbow by accident, and all hell breaks loose? Reckon it might, too, with a warlock and a tiefling on the scene."

The Serenar pulled her cloak more tightly around her. "I trust in Selûne."

"Yeah," said Peedie. "Not her time of day though, is it? This had better not go paws-up and nose to the sky. Zombies make for rubbish copy. I tried doing a feature with some once, and all they wanted to talk about was uuuuuuurgh and yeeeuuuuuuuurgh. It's hard to stretch that sort of material over a column, let alone a full side. Anyway, that kobold -"

"-Deekin -" Marcus supplied.

" – Deekin. He has the right idea. Kebab while you can, I say."

"No one's buying his kebabs," Marcus observed.

"How could they?" said the Serenar. "If this were the ruins of Waterdeep, any nourishment would choke me…the horror of this place…"

"It's just some ruins," said Peedie. "Believe me, I've seen worse round the old school at Ulcaster." On one level, that was true. On another…she wasn't going to admit it, but there was something distinctly, specially awful about the remains of Neverwinter. They were recent, for one thing; until a few years ago, this had been the heart of a bustling, wealthy district. A hundred or so mages had swept that all away in a few hours of madness.

"They're coming," said Marcus. "Listen."

"What for?" asked Peedie. "I can't hear -"

Then she did hear. It was the clip-clop of hooves.

Way above her, Marcus laughed softly. "It's like a wave," he explained to them. "The indignation coming off Cormick and a few of the other old Watch hands. They want to shout that horses and horse-drawn vehicles aren't permitted in the Blacklake District between sunrise and sunset."

Bann was unmistakeable. She wasn't good at estimating human ages but put him in his twenties or thirties. His blonde hair suggested youth; the lines on his forehead spoke of experience. He was riding a snow-coloured horse. The long moustache, and the circlet round his brow, as well as the Eye of Tyr sewn onto his breast, all seemed perfectly calculated to revive memories of a young Lord Nasher Alagondar. After spending weeks tracking down portraits of Neverwinter's late prince for a commemorative issue, she reckoned that she was as well-attuned to the cultivated resemblance as any of the delegates.

Bann's mounted escort consisted of two more human males, one dark-haired and handsome in the boyish way of his kind, and the other older. A grey patch covered his right eye. His silver hair was combed neatly to the side, and he wore a long cream overcoat in a style that had been old-fashioned when she'd still been learning her letters.

Numerous helpful hands reached out to hold their horses, and help the riders to the ground. The older man walked with the aid of a cane.

"Lord Bann, called Alagondar. Darmon, once of the Nine. And Captain Rees Veirs. That's everyone," said Marcus.

Peedie didn't wait to confer with the Serenar. She walked up to the shoreline, where the water lapped against a narrow beach of black sand, and held up her right hand, the thumb and little finger folded down, and the three larger ones upright, in the agreed gesture. A moment later, and the priestess joined her.

The delegates were present. The ceremony could begin.