Summary: After the Throne of Bhaal, Imoen and friends travel on. Written Yuletide 2011 for Astarlia.

The rain drowned them, and beyond the dark clouds lightning whirled. Imoen brushed the wet rats' tails of her hair out of her eyes once again and sniffled.

"Do not ask again, Imoen," Jaheira said. "Sadly, we are not nearly there yet." She turned to face headfirst into the pelting rain, her iron staff upright by her side as if she leaned on it not at all to make headway against the wind.

The black mud glopped around Imoen's boots. She stepped too deeply and the stuff dribbled down from her ankles, cold and squishy over her feet. Maybe the big lug in front of her kept some of the rain off 'em; she couldn't tell. Minsc was big and cloaked and a black shape in front of her in a heavy cloak. Everything was black as midnight, the storm something fierce. Imoen glared up at the clouds, rain in her eyes.

Heya, sis, are you up there?

Her nose collided into a metal mountain. She stopped and pulled herself off Minsc, shaking down her hood.

"Hey, why'd you stop?" she yelled at him. Some path this was. An overhanging bough of tree didn't shelter her at all.

"Boo has smelt something, my witch," Minsc said, stepping around to face her. Imoen couldn't see where the hamster was on him. He was a wet dark shape, only the faintest of gleams in his wide blue eyes. "Something that may be evil."

"I want to go on," Imoen said, and realised it made her sound childish.

Eternal little sister, huh? Huh, sis? You up there?

"There's gotta be a cave or something we can wait out this rain!" Imoen yelled. "Rock overhang, tunnel, shepherd's hut, whatever-the-nine-hells! I'm your witch, Minsc, get on and take us somewhere dry, then it doesn't matter what-in-the-Abyss's about to go after us this time— Hear that, you big lug? Your witch just said, take us somewhere dry—" It pelted worse than ever. A large hailstone ricocheted off her head and fell to the ground. A second followed. Blue lightning split the sky far in the distance and thunder rolled.

"If there were something I should know," Jaheira said curtly, raising her voice above the rain. "I know the natural world. I know storms and trees. Come, let us move..."

"No," Minsc said, and grabbed both of Imoen's arms and pulled her close. She kicked him in his metal-covered shins. "I must protect my witch. I must protect my witch from the—"

"From the what?" Jaheira said, and lit the falling rain and hail with a golden fire that smoked and danced in her right hand. One of many of the endless dark cliffs that made up the southern border of Rashemen was visible behind her, rolling and rising and falling and rising once more. She blurred in and out. Imoen blinked rain out of her eyes and tried to escape. "I tell you I sense nothing! Am I blind, or are you enchanted, Minsc?" Nonetheless she swung her flames around in a circle, glancing forward and back.

"From this," Minsc said, and flung Imoen down for her to drown in black mud that filled her nose and mouth. But above her she heard Minsc's sword clash into something.

So ol' Jaheira? All wrong, then...

Imoen heard the druid's cry as she spat out the disgusting mud, and that stopped her tired bitterness toward all Jaheira's bossiness lately. Then she looked up, reaching into the Weave for illumination of what in all the Nine Hells this was.

'Least four figures in heavy cloaks, her flickering magelight caught. Heavy pikes ramming into Minsc's blade. Jaheira beating two off with her staff. Masked, too, pale featureless faces that looked like nothing in the dark. Imoen shouted out the words for lightning, wildfire, force-missiles, all at once because little Immy was the strongest now.

Heya, now, sis? D'you see me now?

Her chain of lightning flashed into four of them, a fifth she'd spotted at the last moment, perfect, convulsing their bodies. But nothing changed. Didn't seem singed from anything she'd done. Imoen the archmage reached for more spells, blast them into the Nine Hells, oblivion

Missiles soaked into the cloaked men like she'd aimed into mud. Jaheira's iron-skinned fist punched one in the face. The rain pelted too heavy to hear anything.

Then metal entered her back. She yelped, fell forward, and the stoneskin and fireball burst of her contingency flared open. Imoen drew her short sword and lunged back, trying to cut out the heart of these, assassins, bandits—whatever they were— She tried a chroma-orb from her right hand, and it fell against the robe and bled into the colours of it. The pike he carried swept above her head.

"Defend my witch! Defend my witch!" Minsc cried. He charged, and nearly forced Imoen into the mud again. He beat the man back, it—it—

Had to be it, Imoen thought, faceless masks in the dark. She brushed mud off her cheek. Another came too close to her—she heard Jaheira's yell—and out of instinct she screamed out an acid arrow, make them be all eaten—

Who says I'm not the Daughter of Murder too, sis?

But that didn't do anything either. Then in a flash of golden lightning she saw Minsc slice into one of the cloaks, deep and finally where the heart should've been, and the mask flew off.

No face, Imoen saw, stumbling in the mud. No face—white smoke below the masks—the cloak crumbling to dust. No sign it had ever been.

"Someone doesn't want us in Rashemen, huh?" she shouted to the storm. "Someone sent—stupid magical constructs, so pathetic—"

A mask whirled at her. None of her blasting spells were going to hit it, only make it stronger, like it was a magic golem, shapeless mass coming at her like a hasheakar sucking spells out of her body. Imoen ran behind Minsc. He beat it down, but it was hurting him, a wound on his stomach and the screaming battle-cry that meant he was desperate. Imoen saw pale mask after pale mask, three of them, swirling cloaks and weapons in the air. Her stoneskin was gone and something cut her. She screamed at Minsc not to strike there, not to let its smoke sweep by her and the faceless face blow through her flesh, but he wasn't hearing her and then it was darker than the storm.

She'd thought she'd dream of Dynaheir again. Or her sister. Nikothodes. Damn it.

It was all grey. Featureless plain, and when Imoen looked down into the abyss—

Imoen blinked, and the abyss still looked back.

It wasn't a dream. It was her head playing mean, bad tricks on her, endless grey desert. Her mind was muzzied and her head ached, and none of the ghosts and gods she usually saw were here to tell her she was doing the right thing—

Jaheira's hands kneaded the knots in her temples. Imoen woke up to a dead grey sky and carrion birds shrieking above her head.

"We have lost time, but we can again see the Sarkady road," Jaheira said, jerking her chin down to point to something fuzzy at the bottom of the cliff. Imoen lay on rough stiff stone; the bedroll was thin and her limbs ached, and there was a nasty taste in her mouth as if she'd eaten a dinner's worth of dust fluff.

"Gee, Jaheira, I'm okay, thanks for caring," Imoen spat out. Jaheira's expression did not change. "Hey, Minsc, what were those things you let get close to me? You're s'posed to be the scout!"

Easy there, Immy.

She made herself calm down. She'd still a small lump of cheese in her belt she'd saved for Boo. She whistled and clicked to get the hamster to come over. The small black bag was still tied neatly around its neck.

"They were no spirits," Minsc said, huge and cross-legged on the rocks by her. "They were bad spirits. No. That is too much of confusion. They were bad, and they were not the spirits of Rashemen, who shall be nice to Minsc's new witch and welcome her home at last. Beyond that, Boo and I are not sure. How can evil things have no butts to kick?"

"They were not natural," Jaheira said. "Feh. Usual enough for our enemies. Perhaps it was the remains of the slaver scum of Amn." She stood in a single, contained motion. "It would be more foolish to obey them. Walk on."