As she watched Jaheira leave, Lidia felt a little lost. For a moment, she was the girl stumbling alone through a dark, overgrown forest again, unthinking and wildly looking over her shoulder, wondering if the man in black armor would find her. And when she and Imoen had stumbled into the Friendly Arm Inn and met Jaheira and Khalid for the first time, that's who she had been. They'd been alone, scared nearly out of their wits, and badly in need of medical treatment. Lidia hated to think what might have happened if Gorion hadn't arranged this meeting. His plans, she noted, had a way of always turning up the results he wanted, but not through the methods he envisioned.
It had only been a year since then, true, but Lidia had put a lot of growing up into it. She set her jaw, closed her journal, and looked towards a growing source of flickering orange light about thirty feet distant. The source was a campfire that Anomen and Aerie had started while she and the others had been away. Yoshimo and Minsc had already joined them - she could hear their voices and laughs from here.
Lidia felt heavy as she walked: through her steps, on her eyelids, in her heart. She'd napped a bit this afternoon, but felt no more rested than before. The past few nights had been filled with broken fragments of sleep. She'd often had odd dreams, especially after Gorion's death, and these had now returned with a vengeance. The dream about the boat had featured in them for the past several days. Sometimes, the river of blood that carried this boat rose to take Ajantis, Khalid, Dynaheir, Gorion, and Imoen. More and more often, though, the dreams also had another persistent theme: Irenicus, and what he had been trying to unlock in her before she slipped his grasp.
She had not yet spoken to anyone about them. She wasn't entirely sure herself what they meant, whether they were the same kind of dreams that had granted her powers from the dark well inside her. Had Irenicus found some way to get inside her head? Or was it her mind, free to work in the twilight between sleeping and waking, trying to sift through the horrors inflicted upon her? Given that she remembered them as clearly as she could see things in the daylight, she was inclined to suspect that they were something more than dreams. And perhaps, if she could remove the will behind them, they would stop.
But, first things first, she had to get through the next tenday or so. She suspected that she'd need all the strength she could muster. She murmured a prayer to Ilmater in hopes of finding it.
As she approached them, Minsc was on his feet, regaling the others with the end of one of his favorite stories. "…And that is how we stopped a man with sinister intentions for the laundry and got a pair of golden pantaloons! But they were not very practical for the solemn task of swaddling our loins with garments of goodness. Boo tells me it was for the best that we returned them."
Lidia smiled a bit as she remembered the rest of his tale, and found an empty spot next to Aerie. "Boo's never steered you wrong," she said.
Aerie turned to her. "Where - where's Jaheira?"
Lidia considered for a moment what to tell them, but the wish or thought spoke clearly in her mind, as though aloud: no more secrets. At least, no more secrets that could potentially endanger the group, as far as she could guess.
"We were attacked by the Harpers," she finally said. "They were hunting us. She left into the wilderness, probably to throw them off her scent."
"What was that all about, anyway?" Yoshimo interjected.
She said, matter-of-factly, "Because of my heritage, this Harper in Athkatla wanted to seal me away. Jaheira and I objected, so he fought us and we killed him."
He stared at her for a moment. "How many have wanted to harm you on that account?"
She didn't return his glance, but stared into the flames instead. "Too many."
"And yet this group cannot find a decent battle," Anomen said, folding his arms. "These pathetic skirmishes of ours aren't worth the time I spend cleaning my weapons afterwards."
Lidia said, "Well, there's always the angry dragon just down the way. Though it'd be somewhat unfair to him - Firkraag only wanted to utterly destroy my reputation, not kill me."
Aerie vigorously shook her head. "No...no thanks. Even when he looked like a man, he...he.."
"Sorry, bad joke," Lidia said. She leaned back and said to Anomen, "The way I figure, if we don't run into more trouble than needed, I'm doing something right."
Anomen gave her something of a puzzled look. "Is it not our task to confront and defeat evil, wherever we find it?"
"No question about it!" Minsc declared. The hamster in his hand ran up his arm and to his shoulder, his cheek pouches full and heavy. "This village is in need of heroes, and we are heroes. It is a match that even Minsc can see!"
Lidia said, "'Step into the breach first, step back last.' When you live by a code that commits you to a fight until it ends, you quickly learn the value of choosing those fights carefully. It's a lot less simple without marching orders."
"Really?" Yoshimo said. "Because it seems to me we've joined an army."
"For the present," she replied. "And in doing so, we help to prove our innocence and defend this village from getting overrun by invaders. They've been through enough, from what I can see. Besides, it's what those knights would have done, if we'd never crossed paths."
Yoshimo shrugged his shoulders. "If you say so, though you ought not to be bound by guilt for the simple act of keeping our skins."
She thought for a long moment. "Defending ourselves was the right thing to do, though it was regrettable," she replied. "But I owe their memory a debt, and I intend to pay it. If you're willing to assist by standing ready with your bow, so much the better."
The Company's ears pricked up to meet the sound: a horn blast to the northeast. The noise bounded between both cliff faces.
The effect on the town was almost immediate. In every home, small lights flickered; dark figures emerged with torches. Near the burned fields, another horn called in reply, and then another, until the sound was lost in the night. Cries of alarm floated upwards, and in the center of the town, the shrill note of a bell jangled.
"Let's go!" Lidia sprang to her feet, turning abruptly towards a rustling in the bushes, peering in its direction. She saw something like a hooded figure in a black cloak staring back. Before she could shout an alarm, the figure quickly faded out of sight.