Waters Under Earth
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum
-harnums@thekeep.org
-harnums@hotmail.com (old/backup)
All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakukan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.
Waters Under Earth at Transpacific Fanfiction:
http://www.humbug.org.au/~wendigo/transp.html
http://users.ev1.net/~adina/shrines2/fanfics.html
Chapter 10 : Fragments of Emerald, Remnants of Jade
There was darkness first, and then there was weeping, and
then there was, after a moment longer, light.
Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked about. He was upon
his back, feeling gritty sand underneath him, and staring into an
empty blue sky. The sun was high, a shimmering white-gold orb,
and he blinked his eyes against the radiance as he slowly raised
himself up on his elbows and looked around. Dunes rose and fell
like ocean waves all around him, great boulders were strewn
about, and the air wavered in the haze of heat.
"Where am I?"
There was no water, only rock. Rock, and no water, and a
sandy road, a road winding among the mountains of the dunes.
Having nothing else to do, and no idea where he was, he stood and
began to walk through the wasteland of sand and boulders. Not
boulders, though, he realized now. Great chunks of shattered
stone, worn smooth by centuries of blowing wind, but here in
places still the tracings of some eidolon script, the curves and
edges of careful stonework nearly erased, the sign of human hand
and thought upon the stones, the design of sentience graven into
the fragments now nearly gone.
The weeping grew louder as he walked down the sandy path
between the dunes and the broken stones that once might have been
a city. He set a steady pace beneath the beating sun, with the
sand sliding under his bare feet and sticking between his toes.
He began to feel like he was being watched; sometimes, he
would turn his head rapidly about, after what might almost have
been a half-glanced shape flitting shadowy from behind a broken
building or a dune, but there was nothing there each time.
The path wound over the dunes, rising and falling, and after
some time walking, he crested the top of one and saw a small
figure huddled in the sand on her knees, dressed in a loose green
robe, cupping something on the ground between her hands. Her
shoulders shook, and her weeping filled the air.
"Hey, hey," he said as he scrabbled down, the heat of the
sand stinging the soles of his feet. "What's wrong?"
The girl looked back, and he saw a face that seemed too
beautiful and fine to be upon a child who could have seen no more
than ten winters come and pass.
"It won't grow," she said through her tears, a choking grief
in her voice. "I tried and I tried, and it wouldn't grow."
"What won't grow?" he asked, coming to crouch on his
haunches near her, hands on his knees.
She raised her cupped hands, and showed him a handful of
tiny seeds, green and brown flecks the same colour as her eyes.
"I've been trying for so long," she whispered.
"Well, this place is a desert," he said. "There's no water.
Plants need water to grow."
She shook her head. "No."
"But they do."
"This was once the most beautiful land of all."
"Not anymore."
He glanced around, and indicated with a sweep of his hands
the rise of dunes and the shattered stones. "Nothing's gonna
grow here. You better go find someplace else to plant your
seeds."
"But they must be planted here," the girl whispered. "They
must."
She grabbed his sleeve with one small hand. "Will you try?"
"Huh?"
She released his sleeve and grabbed his wrist, turning his
palm up, and poured the few seeds she held in her other hand into
his cupped hand. "Try planting a few."
"Look, it isn't going to-"
"Please. You must try."
Shaking his head resignedly, he dug a small hole with one
hand in the desert sand, really little more than a depression.
No more could be achieved, because the sand was dry and loose,
and would not hold the shape of a hole. He carefully put a seed
in and covered it up with the burning desert sand.
The girl smiled at him, and placed her hands over where he'd
buried the seeds, one atop the other. Sunlight flashed green in
the highlights of her hair.
"Grow."
It was said as command, with an utter confidence, with a
pure and simple belief that it would be as she said. He realized
he was holding his breath in anticipation, expecting something to
happen.
Nothing did. The desert sand remained barren; no seedling
sprouted from between the girls fingers, no plant pushed its way
through the sand to strive towards the sun.
The tears that had ceased for a while in her eyes began
again. "It didn't work."
"Hey, it's okay," he said. "Hey, come on. Don't cry.
Where are your parents, anyway?"
She said nothing, and that was answer enough.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Look, we oughta get outta here. Do
you know if there's a town or somethin' nearby, or..."
The girl shook her head. "No."
"How'd you get here, then?"
"I have always been here."
He could say nothing to that, for the conviction was
absolute, and something in his soul whispered it was the truth.
"Don't you have somewhere else to go?"
She shook her head again. "I must stay here."
"Why?"
"Because I must."
"But why?"
"Do you truly wish to know?"
"Yeah."
She reached out, and closed his eyes with the gentle
pressure of small fingers that smelled, ever-so-slightly, of
fresh-cut grass, though no grass could have grown in this place
for centuries.
(He floated, weightless, formless, above a forest ringed by
tall, sharp-peaked mountains, a forest that was beautiful as the
sun, with trees hundreds of feet high, the branches outspread,
the leaves emerald and jade, and then-
-perspective blurring,
he came down, seeing cities built of green glass like the
green of leaves,
crystalline streams of water that flowed from the sculpted
wood of living trees, carved in the shapes of fantastical birds
and animals, and he saw,
the great lake like a mirror, and the sun was reflected in
it, silver and gold, and the people in shifting garments of the
colours of the rainbow and now, again-
-the mad swirling kaleidoscope twist of rushing upwards and
again he was above the forest, and then, in the centre, he saw
the pillar of black fire explode upward, and it stretched higher
than the trees, as high as the mountains, higher still, as if it
might reach the sun itself, and then
it fell, spreading out, growing, like a shadow, a shadow
that burned and,
the screams were unimaginable, and the trees burst to flame
like torches and the sound of woodstoneglasscrystalflesh
exploding from the black heat, and the laughter shaking the very
skein of time, and then-
-back)
Gasping, he caught himself, hands on the scorching sand,
feeling as if he'd fallen from a great height. He looked at the
child before him, and realized he was weeping, for beauty lost,
because he realized that what he'd seen destroyed could never be
regained, could never, ever hope to be seen again.
"No."
He looked up. "What?"
"It can be again. Winter and spring and summer and fall.
What has been can be again. What has been will be again. You
should know this well, child."
And he looked at the girl again, as if seeing her for the
first time. "How?"
She opened her mouth, and sang, like a fountain splashing on
crystal shores.
*Will you search the misty mountains for the secret of the
rain?*
*Shall you sail upon the rivers, seek an ending for her
pain?*
*Have you heard the dark birds calling in the setting of the
sun?*
*Answer of me these three things, the duty is begun.*
Three questions, but to all of them there could only be one
answer. To answer to one was to answer to all.
"Yes," he whispered, from the deepest core of his soul, and
the answer echoed, resounded within him and without him, the
choice, the sheer vastness of it, terrified his soul and made it
exalt with the making of it.
"It is well," the child said, and she smiled at him, like
sister to brother, mother to son, lover to loved. "I put my
mark upon you."
And she kissed him lightly on the brow, and he felt himself
awake, as if from long, long sleep.
**********
Beneath the shelter of a scraggily tree, the grey-furred,
golden-eyed form that was Galm rose with a slow, languid
transition from the realm of sleep to the realm of wakefulness.
He rose up, and realized with a slow thing approaching terror
that he was feeling something that he never felt before since the
pacts had been made.
The absence of prey.
She was not there, on the edge of his senses. He couldn't
feel the warm red pulse that told him she was still alive, nor
the black swirls that told him she was dead. He couldn't tell
the direction, the distance.
A low sound like a whine escaped his throat. Simple and
ancient as he was, this new thing filled him with an emotion as
close to fear as he was capable of feeling.
He almost called to Yoko through the link, but the
instructions ran themselves through his head. Go to Jusenkyou.
Find the prey. Find Ranma Saotome. Take him to the pools.
Kill the prey. Nothing about the prey disappearing, nothing at
all.
He was a hunter. He hunted. He was a killer. He killed.
He didn't know how this had happened. He didn't understand it,
and never could.
He rose, form flowing, from four legs to two. He pulled
four white feathers from his belt and looked at them intently.
He sniffed them, ran his tongue across them. The scent was
still there. But he couldn't sense the prey.
"Where are you?" he growled. "Damn you, where did you go?"
There was no answer, and again he stared at the feathers,
again he sniffed them, again he ran his tongue across them.
Again there was nothing.
"DAMN YOU, WHERE ARE YOU?" he screamed in frustration and
rage. He lashed out with a hand and tore chunks of bark and wood
from the tree. His other hand came around and slammed into the
trunk, snapping it in half. He vented his frustration on the
tree, and in a few seconds it was a shattered stump, fragments
littering the forest for a dozen feet around it.
A slight disturbance of the air behind him alerted him to
the presence of a living creature a moment later. He turned,
leapt and snatched the swallow from the air with a howl of rage.
Before he landed on the ground again he'd stuffed it into his
mouth with a crunch and swallowed it mostly whole.
Licking blood from his lips and picking feathers out of his
teeth, Galm sat down and tried to think. It was not something he
was good at.
After a while, he managed to put two random thoughts
together into something resembling a very basic plan. The first
was that he remembered the direction and distance the prey had
been when he'd begun to sleep the night before. The second was
that he would have known and remembered, even in sleep, if the
prey had moved.
The end result was his decision that this meant the prey was
in the same place. He couldn't feel her, but the memory of that
direction and distance was absolutely clear to him. So, all he
had to do was go there, and he would find the prey.
He felt very proud of his plan, and celebrated by digging up
a burrow of rabbits for breakfast before he set out at a fast
pace, sprinting at first on two legs, and then after about an
hour dropping to four and beginning to go even faster, a loping
pace that was swift and graceful, the fearful symmetry of his
body gliding silent and shadowed as he moved.
As the sun rose in the east, Galm threw back his head and
howled at it as he ran, as if in challenge to its light, and all
things that heard that howl, be they predator or prey, cringed in
fear ingrained deep in their souls, because all things have,
sometime in the past, known the terror that it is to be hunted.
All things except him. He was bound now, by the ancient
pacts millennia old, but one day, one day he would be free. So
was it written in the past and future, graven upon the memory of
time. One day, his bond would end, and he would hunt without
relent, and all things would be his prey.
**********
When Ranma awoke, he lay upon a pallet of smooth, warm
stone. A thin, soft blanket covered him up to his chin, and the
wooden walls of the room were flickered with the pale light
shining from the two glass globes high on one wall. The wood was
green, and the room smelled vaguely of cypress and pine. In one
wall a sliding door of narrow wooden frames with squares of thin,
opaque green paper between the frames lay closed.
He couldn't see any joins in the constructions of the walls,
and the corners of the room were smooth and rounded, seeming to
flow into each other. The room was small and simplistic, without
furniture or decoration beyond the stone pallet he lay upon and
the glass globes that held the light shining about the room.
After the momentary confused amnesia you often experience
right after you wake up, he remembered. Shiso's cry, the silver
moonlight of the underground lake, the pounding of the waves upon
the walls and shore. The dragon rising, hundreds of feet long,
sinuous and graceful and green-eyed, sparkling as if bedecked with
emerald jewels in the silver light.
The memory of the dragon was like the memory of the first
time you heard a beautiful piece of music, or the recollection of
the first glimpse of the face of one you love, or the first
sunset ever seen by your eyes. The memory of beauty poignant and
strong, and the inability to recollect entirely the sheer depth
of feeling equally strong, and the inability of memory adding
only to that remembrance of beauty.
With a sigh, he touched his hand to his forehead, slightly
embarrassed at the memory of his weeping, both at the very action
of it and at how good it had felt.
He rose out of bed, let the blanket slip from his body and
fall upon the pallet, and then realized he was naked. A quick
glance around the room noted the absence of any closets, dressers
or laundry baskets; a quick glance down noted that yes, he was
naked, and something else.
Beginning at the lower left-hand side of his abdomen, the
serpentine length of a green-scaled, silver-maned dragon lay
graven upon the flesh of his body in exquisite detail. The tail
curled slightly inwards towards his navel, and then the dragon
arched along the edge of his ribcage and passed along slightly to
the right of his sternum before the head finished an inch short
of his collarbone, mouth clamped closed with just a tiny bit of
ivory fangs showing, silver mane flowing down between the tall,
curving horns.
He ran his fingers across it in disbelief, watching as the
green scales darkened slightly under the press of his fingers and
then lightened moments later.
"Geez," he whispered softly. "How'd I get that?"
It was in that moment that the door slid open and Cologne
stepped in, a green blanket pulled up to her chin and hugging the
shape of her body. Her large dark eyes ran up and down him for a
fraction of a second, and then a sardonic smile broke across her
face.
"Nice tattoo," she said. "When did you get that?"
Ranma went crimson and franticly attempted to cover both
the dragon and his more sensitive bits at once using his hands
and arms, which meant that neither was given much concealment.
"Please close the door and go away," he hissed at Cologne.
Cologne nodded, still smiling, and began to slide the door
closed. As she did, someone else put a slender, taloned hand
upon the edge and stopped the movement. Kima's head poked around
the side of the door and peered into the room.
Ranma groaned and turned, making a frantic grab for the
blanket and hunching himself over to conceal as much as he could.
""
""
Carefully positioning the blanket around his waist, Ranma
turned back and pointed a finger at the two women standing in the
half-open doorway. "Look, if you guys got any comments, then
keep 'em to yourself."
Cologne raised an eyebrow. Kima's eyes widened, just
slightly.
"Did you understand us?" Cologne asked.
"Well, you were talkin' loud enough."
""
"Yeah."
""
""
""
"How..."
Unconsciously, he touched his hand to his chest, tracing the
image of the dragon underneath the blanket. "This is kinda
weird."
"When did you learn?"
He sat down on the edge of the stone pallet, the blanket
sliding slightly down his chest, exposing the dragon's head and
some of the length of its neck. His legs felt slightly weak, and
there was cold feeling in his stomach.
"What's going on?" he said quietly. "How'd we get here?"
"I don't know," Kima said as she stepped into the room with
Cologne following, still managing to maintain some noble air
while wearing only a blanket. "The two of us awoke in the same
room. It looked much like this, only with two beds."
"This was the first room we checked," Cologne said.
Ranma shook his head. "Where are we?"
"If I had to take a guess," Cologne said, looking around
with a smile too knowing for her youth. "I would say this is the
palace of a dragon."
Ranma laughed, sounding slightly nervous. "Would make
sense, I guess."
Cologne came and sat down beside him, peering at the head of
the dragon near his collarbone with an intent look that made him
flush slightly. "Interesting..."
"Fireflies," said Kima from where she stood peering up at
the glass globes a foot or so above her head.
"Huh?"
"The globes are full of fireflies," she said, glancing back
at him. The blanket was cinched tight beneath where her wings
sprouted from her shoulders, and the white spread of her pinions
provided just as much cover as the blanket did, in truth.
"It doesn't seem to be a tattoo," Cologne said, running her
fingers across the dragon and pulling down the edge of the
blanket slightly.
"Hey, don't touch it," Ranma said, shying away. Cologne
simply moved closer and got a good grip on his shoulder with her
other hand.
There was a rapping sound from the corner of the room, as
Kima tapped the back of her hand on the wood. "Solid. It seems
to be entirely one piece of wood, but that's impossible..."
"It's as if the pigmentation of your skin has simply
changed," Cologne said, lightly stroking the dragon with a
curious expression on her face. "It gets darker with pressure,
and I'd be able to feel the signs of any needle marks."
Ranma groaned and stood up, carefully wrapping the blanket
tightly around his waist like a sash. "Look, do you have to
touch it to examine it? Where the heck is our clothing, anyway?"
"If we knew that, do you think would we be walking around in
these blankets?" Kima said sharply from where she was tapping on
another section of the wall.
Cologne got up and stood in front of him, then pursed her
lips and abruptly stretched forward with one finger stretched
out to tap him on the chest, upon the curling length of the
dragon. A small, bright orange spark blossomed between her
finger and his skin as she touched him there.
And then the dragon upon his skin began to writhe, form
flowing and shifting, scales darkening and lightening. The tail
curled, the head arched slightly, the coils twisted, the clawed
limbs moved in a sinuous rhythm, and the silver mane waved across
the defined muscles of his upper body.
"What the hell?" Ranma whispered.
After a moment, the dragon ceased to move, and was still
again upon his flesh, frozen in a subtle variance of the position
he'd first seen it in.
"Remarkable," Cologne muttered. "It seems to respond to ki.
Try channeling some."
Ranma nodded and reached without and within, for the
emptying fullness and impossible definition of that thing which
fueled the body and soul in battle.
And the first wave hit him like a giant's fist.
It was like hearing a hundred symphonies at once, watching a
hundred dramas, tasting a hundred different foods and knowing
each individual particle, each individual image and sound and
taste and touch and smell and something that reached beyond even
all that.
He staggered back and nearly dropped to his knees, the force
of it exploding through his very being, searing edges of pain
that carved out blazing paths through neurons and senses, that
made his heart beat and his blood burn. The dragon writhed upon
his body, twisting like a pennant in a strong breeze, scales
flashing in the light.
He opened his mouth and screamed silently. He felt as if
his eyes were going to burn themselves out of his head; image
overlayed image and it was beyond comprehension. Before him he
saw Cologne as he'd first known her, and he saw a small
dark-haired child, and he saw a beautiful young woman with dark
hair, and he saw that same woman ten, twenty, thirty, forty years
later and he saw it all at once.
And the dark birds sang inside his head, and their voices
were the abyss. He could level cities, he could uproot
mountains and raise them from flat plains. He could, and he
should, and he had, and he would, because he had the power to,
and power is its own-
"Is he alright?"
Turning at the sound of a voice-
And in that turning, a hundred different turnings bound up
in that one, he saw that it was Kima, and it was other women, and
some had wings and some did not, and they had a hundred faces, a
hundred sets of arms and legs and eyes, and the ravens cackled
and whispered her names inside his head, and then-
And then-
And then he collapsed to the ground beneath the force of
Cologne's finger slamming into the nerves of his neck and
shoulder. He felt blood pounding in his ears and nose, and
running from the side of his mouth.
Glancing down, he saw the dragon blazing upon his skin,
motionless as it had been before. He couldn't move his limbs,
only blink his eyes and nothing more.
Blink.
"How could he possibly draw so much? And the spirit knows
its limitations, yet he almost burned himself to a crisp."
Blink.
"Will he be alright?"
Blink.
"I think so. Let him rest."
Blink.
"Very well."
Blink.
"Uh-oh."
Blink.
"Something wrong?"
Blink.
"He just stopped breathing."
Blink.
"Well, do something. You know more about this than I do.
Medicine is not my range of expertise. I've put too much into
this to see him die, human."
Blink.
"How compassionate of you."
Blink.
"Look, are you going to do something or not? That's not a
good colour he's turning."
Blink.
Then, speaking, mouth opening, not knowing where the words
are coming from.
""
Blink. The impact of something pounding on his chest.
""
Blink.
And gasp. Draw breath. Let the room fade back, let the
faces of the two women bending over you swim into focus, let them
be only one set of faces again, blue eyes and dark, white hair
and black.
"What happened?" he croaked.
"Your heart stopped for about six seconds," Cologne said in
a casual voice. "You started speaking in Chinese. It was so
archaic a dialect even I couldn't understand more than half of
it. Something about bows and moons made of fire. And then you
started speaking in some language that even I've never heard of.
It was either that or gibberish, but gibberish sounds different
from real speech."
"What did I do?"
"You drew too much ki. It usually can't be done, because
the body's defences will automatically make you stop. You almost
killed yourself, Ranma. Don't try that again, okay? Be a little
more careful next time."
"I didn't do anything different than usual," Ranma muttered.
"Whatever was done to you that gave you that dragon on your
body, it did something else as well. Your ki potential is much
greater than before, but all your focus is gone. You're like a
river that's grown too big for the pathways of its banks."
He started to stand, then stumbled. Kima and Cologne each
caught him by an arm and helped him to his feet; his senses were
still singing sharpened through his body, and he was far too
conscious of the slight brush of their bodies against him as they
stood to either side of him.
"Are you well now?" Kima asked in a flat voice.
He slowly nodded.
"Let us go find our clothing then. And perhaps a way out of
here. I am anxious to return home. I have other duties beyond
running around with the two of you."
"Sleep badly last night?" Cologne asked with a glance back
at Kima as she stepped towards the door.
Kima shot her a glare and stalked by her, pushing the door
open and stepping out with her wings shaking slightly in an
agitated motion. She pushed it closed behind her and the sound
of her bare, taloned feet clicking on the wooden floor outside
was heard.
"We're going to have to do a greater investigation of this
later," Cologne said, tapping him hard in the chest. "Until
then, be careful about drawing ki."
"I thought this was supposed to help me," Ranma said with a
shake of his head. "Not make things worse."
"At least you learned a foreign language out of it," Cologne
said with a shrug. ""
"" Ranma muttered. The words sounded natural
to his ears, and unless he really listened, he didn't even think
much about the fact that he was speaking in Chinese.
"We had best catch up to her before she goes too far,"
Cologne said, sliding the door open and stepping out into the
hall, hair whispering across her back. Ranma shook his head,
decided that the blankets were far too thin to serve as adequate
cover, and made his first priority the finding of his clothes.
Kima was about twenty feet ahead up the hallway, walking
along at a fast pace. As in the room, there appeared to be no
point on the wooden walls or floor where you could see joins in
the construction. Walls flowed down into floors and ceilings on
smooth, rounded curves.
"This place is pretty weird," Ranma said as he glanced
around.
"We are dealing with a creature whose power goes beyond
imagining," Cologne said softly.
"Did you know about this before we came?" he asked as they
walked down the hall after Kima's retreating figure, passing by
a dozen more closed sliding doors identical to the one on the
room they'd left behind. At regular intervals upon the walls
were the transparent globes filled with the hundreds of dancing
lights of fireflies.
"I suspected," Cologne said. "No more than that. I had no
idea of the depths to which this would truly go."
"So did she do this to me?" Ranma said, touching the dragon
upon his flesh. "Did she... change me?"
"Quite likely," Cologne said. "From what little I
understand of the true nature of dragons, they are all capable of
changing living things in one way or another. They dwell in
lakes or rivers, and the magical nature of their bodies invokes a
change upon the waters which flow from there."
"Then Jusenkyou..."
Cologne slowly nodded her head. "In a way."
"Whoah."
He touched again the dragon on his body, and remembered the
silver light filling the cavern, and the beautiful creature that
had risen as if new-born from the depths. "Have you-"
"I have. Deep under Jusendo is the cavern which is the
resting place of Bajin Feng."
"Resting place?"
"Yes."
Something about the way the word sounded made him glance
over at Cologne, and then surprise slowly flowed through him at
the sight of pain upon her face, the shimmering of her eyes.
"Cologne, are you..."
"Yes, I'm crying," Cologne muttered ashamedly, shaking her
head and wiping at her eyes. "Do you think my heart's turned to
stone over the last century or that my tear ducts have tried
up?"
"I'm sorry," Ranma said after a moment. He couldn't handle
a woman crying, even if it was Cologne.
Cologne shook her head. "It's not your fault. You... you
could not understand."
Ranma remembered weeping at the lake of the dragon, and
silently thought that perhaps he did. But he said nothing,
because the thought that Cologne, with her old harsh soul even
amidst youth, might shed tears for anything was not one he could
deal with right now.
And there was a difference, perhaps. His weeping had been a
cleansing thing, a joy and a pain all at once. What was written
on Cologne's face was a sorrow so deep that it was almost beyond
comprehension.
Up ahead, Kima was waiting by two great double-doors of
red-gold wood, banded at regular intervals with panels of ivory
and jade and gold. Here, at last, there seemed to be something
that was an interruption of the smooth continuous flow of the
hallway, even if it was only the silver hinges of the two doors,
which went together to form an arched barrier that stretched up
twenty feet above their heads to nearly the top of the ceiling.
"So kind of you to let us catch up," Cologne said.
"The doors wouldn't open," Kima said with a frown.
Cologne shrugged and stepped forward to push at the point
where the doors joined. They budged not an inch, and she
shrugged and stepped back.
"You try it, Ranma."
He shrugged and moved to place his palm against one of the
doors. A feeling like an electric current ran up his arm; the
dragon on his skin shifted, just slightly, scales flashing in the
multifoliate pinpoint lights shining from the glass globes upon
the walls.
Slowly, with a sound like the leaves of a multitude of trees
whispering together, the doors opened and swung back, and from
behind them wafted the smell of sunlight and fresh air.
And beyond the now-open doorways, panelled with ivory and
jade and gold, was a garden so beautiful it hurt the soul to see.
There were beds of flowers and copses of trees, carefully raked
gardens of white sand that glittered like diamonds, seemingly
random arrangements of rocks that revealed themselves into
careful patterns through which streams of clear water splashed.
Between all those ran paths of soft, dark brown earth that
looked so fertile you expected any moment to see plants spring up
and flower into life, see trees sprout from the bare ground.
There was nothing that seemed as if it had needed to be
wrought by human hands, no walls or statues or fountains. The
arrangement seemed to have been crafted by some symmetry of
nature, some chance fall of seeds and water and stone that had
produced this stunning beauty.
Up above their heads, a great clear dome of green crystal
rose, and outside it the sunlight filtered through shining
depths of water, and was caught within that dome and scattered,
multiplied and made brighter, upon the garden below. Beyond the
enclosure of the dome, bright fish swam all around in splashes of
silver. Long-tailed birds soared in the air above their heads,
filling the air with the music of their cries and the bright red
and yellow and blue sweeps of their feathers.
"I guess it is true," Cologne said, looking up at the dome.
"The dragon palace beneath the ocean."
They walked inside, and behind them the doors closed
themselves with a soft sound of wood striking upon wood. The
wall which bordered the massive indoor garden was of the same
wood as that of the hallway, but it was almost obscured beneath
flowering creeper vines. They could not see the edge of the wall
to the left or the right or to their front, for in places trees
grew thickly and obscured vision.
"Look at that," Ranma said, pointing to where, amidst a
stand of tall, pointed cypress trees a small group of deer stood,
peering with something resembling interest at the three intruders
into their home. "They don't even seem afraid of us."
"More to the point, they don't seem to be afraid of that,"
Cologne said, gesturing to where less than ten feet from the deer
the tawny, black-striped form of a great tiger lay upon a bed of
grass and wildflowers, white belly exposed, powerful front and
back legs stretched out.
Ranma turned away, shuddering and squeezing his eyes tightly
closed. He took long, deep breaths, and his hands clenched
themselves into fists.
"Are you okay, boy?" Cologne asked.
"Is it still there?" Ranma whispered.
Cologne looked at the indolently lounging form of the great
cat. It yawned, exposing powerful fangs and a long pink tongue,
then closed its mouth with a wet smacking sound and rolled over
onto its back, before beginning to snore like a small jet engine.
"I don't think it's going to move any time soon," Cologne
said with a shake of her head.
Ranma glanced back at the tiger, twitched slightly and then
moved away down the path to stare at the lines raked into a bed
of white sand that lay in the shade of a tall, flowering cherry
tree. Blossoms were scattered upon the sand in random patterns
that caught the eye and held it.
"Has he got something against cats?" he heard Kima ask
Cologne.
"His father used to throw him into a pit of them covered in
fishcakes," he heard Cologne reply.
Ranma stood and stared at the fallen blossoms amidst the
bone-white crystal glimmers of the sand as he listened to the
voices of the two women behind him fade away to the edge of his
senses.
Cherry blossoms, scattered on white sand like blood on snow.
He missed Akane. He missed his mother. He missed the
person he'd been, before the fires had exploded in his head, and
the burning black-cored thorns of ice, before he'd killed a woman
amidst a landscape of trees rent by lightning, before he'd heard
the voice of a dragon amidst a silver glow like distilled
moonlight.
"Hey," he said, turning suddenly back as the thought struck
him. "Where'd the bird go?"
Kima and Cologne glanced at him. "The bird?"
"Shiso," Ranma said. "Where'd he go?"
"He comes and goes as he wishes," Cologne said. "Most
likely he's gone back to China to bring Samofere tidings of what
has come to be."
Ranma nodded absently and turned his attention back to the
garden of white sand. So simplistic in form, so complex in its
beauty. He contemplated it for a few moments longer, feeling
something perhaps a little like peace, or as close to it as he
might ever hope to find after all that had happened in the last
few days.
**********
Through the bowl-shaped valley in the desert sands the
black-garbed figures moved, occasionally bending to touch the
slender fingers of their hands to the sands. Once in a while,
they would find something and pick it up to place in the large
pouch at their waists, after carefully dusting the desert sands
from it.
The wind howled through the desolation and stirred circles
in the sand. The skirts of the moving figures swirled about
their legs, and sent the shawls they wore flapping violently in
its passage, before it died down to little more than a muted
whisper.
Upon the rise of dunes, Tanzei took a sip of dark, sweet
water from the canteen and looked to the south, where the curving
spine of mountains that made up the Bayankala range stood, jagged
sentinels that divided the fertile valley beyond from the
wasteland to the north. Those were a good twenty miles away, and
they'd travelled ten miles this morning to come here. Now the
sun beat down harshly on the sand, causing the pale yellow-white
granules to sparkle in the light.
A few drops of water rolled down her fingers as she lowered
the canteen and fell to the sand, spotting it dark in places.
The heat was the worst in the early afternoon like this. When
evening came, she would take the two dozen girls she'd brought
with her and any artifacts they'd found back to the home in the
north, moving through the cool evening below the light of the
moon.
She reached down to the curved sheath of the dagger on the
yellow, corded belt of her dark dress and caressed the pale
moonstone upon the pommel with a gentle sigh, than turned away
with one last look at the peaks of the Bayankala.
She could feel the heat of the sand even through the hard
leather soles of her boots as she moved down the dunes to the
closest group of girls. Three of them knelt, black dresses
sweeping the sand, around something that lay in the middle of the
circle they formed.
"What have you found, girls?" Tanzei said as she came to
stand near them.
"I think it's part of a statue," said one of the girls.
Strands of fine, slightly curly dark hair emerged in places from
beneath the cover of the scarf wrapped around her head and
shoulders. "A hand, maybe. I'm not sure of the material;
alabaster, maybe, or marble. Something odd about the grain,
though..."
"I think it's pretty," the second girl said, and then
blushed at that. It was her first expedition out of the home;
Tanzei remembered hers, nearly thirty years ago, and how
desperately she'd not wanted to look too excited, and also how
she'd completely failed.
"Well, decide on who's going to carry it and get back to
work," Tanzei said firmly but gently, and stepped away to walk
towards the next group.
"Honourable Tanzei," a voice to her left said after a few
steps.
She turned to a slender girl, taller than her, with
gold-flecked green eyes and pale hair. "We have found something
important, honourable Tanzei. We... you should come and see."
"Of course," Tanzei said with a nod. The girl turned and
walked off, and Tanzei followed. Fifty feet away, another girl
beckoned with her hand, and the first girl cast an embarrassed,
apologetic glance at Tanzei.
"She's very excited," she said. "You know, it's only her
second time out, and..."
"It's only your fourth, dear girl," Tanzei said, with a
smile to take away whatever sting the words might have had as
they continued to walk.
"Oh good! You found her," the second girl said as they
approached. The reddish-brown of her hair glinted almost
metallically in the sun.
"Now, what's so important?" Tanzei said as she bent down to
examine the object at the girl's feet.
"I don't know why, but we just... had to keep on digging,"
the first girl said, brushing silver hair away from where it
clung to her sweaty forehead. "Deeper than we usually do. It
was under a lot of sand and stone fragments, but..."
Tanzei put a finger to her lips and the girl went silent.
"I'm sorry," the girl said after a moment. "I know we're
supposed to tell you if we're going to dig deeper, but..."
"It's all right," Tanzei said slowly, looking at what the
two girls had found. "Really, it's all right. You two have done
very, very well."
And as Tanzei gazed at the object lying in the sand, she
held back her desire to cry for joy to a mere shimmer at the
corners of her dark eyes.
At last, the third. They worked by threes more often than
not. There had been already the first two signs. This was the
third.
At last, at last, at last.
**********
For a short but pleasant time, the three travellers looked
upon the garden of the dragon palace, and revelled in the beauty.
They looked upon the perfumed stretches of flowers, the
arrangements of rocks and sand, the tall and graceful trees, and
upon the innumerable varieties of animals that lived there in
harmony. The garden seemed vast beyond imagining, and no matter
where it was they walked alone, there seemed always to be some
new thing to discover, some previously unseen flower or animal
that would emerge.
Ranma walked by himself, gazing upon the chaotic definitions
of the white sand, seeking answers, finding none. Overhead, the
colourful birds filled the air with their cries, but the only
voice inside his head was the half-remembered one of a raven.
Cologne walked also by herself and looked at the aged
strength and beauty of the trees. Looking into the sky at the
soaring birds swinging within the green-glass illumination that
shone from beyond the crystal dome, she remembered dark wings,
and the one to whom they belonged, and tried to forget.
And last walked Kima, by herself as well, remembering a time
when things had been much simpler than this. Above her the birds
soared, and the call in their voices was one of welcome to their
kin to her ears.
And after a time, each of them found a clearing in which
their clothing had been laid, cleaned and fresh, smelling vaguely
of the scent of morning dew and spring rain. Upon the branching
trees were hung their bags and weapons, and all else that they
had brought with them.
And, when she felt she had given them sufficient welcome,
the one whose domain this was subtly shifted the paths upon which
they walked, and brought them together again before her presence.
A few minutes after that had been done, the being known as
Galm crossed the borders of the forest of Ryugenzawa, and began
to move towards the spot that burned inside his memory like a
cold flame.
**********
Ranma walked down the solid, rich earth of the path that
wound amongst the garden, adjusting the collar of his shirt
slightly as he did. He'd found his clothes a few minutes
earlier, laid out in a clearing and cleaned to a standard that
would have made Kasumi jealous. He'd seen no sign of the two
women, except for once, when he glimpsed a large white shape
passing high overhead with a flock of birds that he thought
might have been Kima.
He still wasn't sure if he trusted her or not; she had
probably saved his life, or at least his freedom, when she
attacked Denkoko, but the past was hard to forget. Hard to
forget Akane diving into the bath and Kima emerging, hard to
forget Saffron's malice, either as a child or when he'd been
raised to his adulthood.
And yet he remembered as well as she held the infant Saffron
in her arms at the end of the final battle, guards behind her
with spears raised and arrows nocked to bows. There'd been
something like wary respect in her eyes, and then she'd turned
and led her troops back to Phoenix Mountain.
Up ahead, he saw a large copse of trees in a ring; the path
led between two of the trees into a meadow filled with
wildflowers that he could not see the full extent of yet.
He began to hear a female voice reciting, rich and pure,
silver harpstrings in the tone.
*Choose pine trees and clouds;*
*Forget the dusty city;*
*Drink deep of the moon.*
*Your stomach may be empty*
*But better to fill your heart.*
He vaguely recognized the form, though not the particular
poem. Tanka poetry; they'd done some study of it in school,
although he hadn't paid much attention.
And now, into the meadow he came, and he was unsurprised to
see what awaited him. So much had seemed familiar lately, so
many things as if they had been done before with subtle
variations, like a long and beautiful piece of music that seems
to go on forever but that you never truly tire of listening to.
She needed no throne, for she carried in her more grace and
nobility than any queen or empress could have. Her seat was upon
the green grass by a large clear pool in the centre, kneeling in
her kimono of green silk patterned with white flowers. She
seemed to be speaking, quietly now, to a small brown squirrel
that stood on the grass before her. It chattered what might have
been a reply, then scampered off past her and into the
surrounding garden.
She looked up, the silky sea-green of her hair waving as if
in the passage of the wind, and then she smiled, deep green eyes
flashing in the filtered sunlight.
"Be welcome," she said. "Children of my sister, be welcome
to my home."
And he looked behind him to see Kima and Cologne standing
with a look of mild awe that he realized was probably upon his
own face.
"Your sister?" Cologne said finally, finding the words first
of all.
The woman nodded, hair falling across her shoulders and down
her chest in emerald waves. "You have all known the touch of her
waters. Two of you have gazed upon her. Be welcome."
She indicated before her a table laden with fruit and
steaming cups of tea that had not been there before, or perhaps
they had simply not noticed it. "Come. Sit with me, and we
shall talk."
"Are you the dragon?" Ranma asked as he made his way through
the cushion of grass and wildflowers towards the low table and
the woman who seemed the embodiment of all shades and objects
that are green.
The woman laughed, a surprisingly hearty, merry sound from
one so slender and delicate. "I suppose I might be. Perhaps I
am a woman who dreams she is a dragon, or a dragon who dreams she
is a woman. Perhaps I am both."
Seating herself at the table with her wings folded behind
her back, Kima regarded the woman in green evenly. "Why have we
been brought here?"
The woman smiled. "You came here. I did not bring you. I
only welcomed you."
"What's your name?" Ranma asked as he sat and grabbed an
orange from where it sat on the table, beginning to peel it as he
waited for a response.
The woman laughed again. "You may call me Inochi, if it
pleases you to refer to me by a name."
"Perhaps that is easiest," Cologne murmured, sipping at her
tea. "We thank you for your hospitality."
Inochi's smile was like the sun rising. "It has been so
long since I received visitors from my sister. Bring you a
message to me from her?"
Cologne shook her head. "She spoke not to me."
"Nor to me," Kima said.
An expression of sadness passed across Inochi's face for a
moment, and then vanished. "It is not time, then. But be
welcome, and take what refreshment you would. I will tell you
what I can."
"So what's going on, anyway?" Ranma asked as he sucked on a
sliver of the orange between his lips. "Can you tell us anything
about the Circle Eternal?"
Inochi shook her head. "I know not of them. I know what
has come before, but it is not my place to tell you all of it."
"Then tell us what you can," Kima said shortly. "I have no
patience for those who wish to speak in riddles or enigmas."
The woman in green turned her head to regard Kima. "Forgive
me. As I have said, none of my sister's children have come
before me in a very long time."
"Why do you keep on calling us that?" Ranma asked,
swallowing the last slice of his orange.
"Because it is what you are," the woman said softly, and
only to him. "I made you, but it was her who made you her own."
Then she smiled and looked about the table at three of them.
"I shall tell you what I can of what has gone before."
Her eyes clouded, deepening to a green so dark that it was
almost black, like shadows fallen over the summer leaves of
trees. Her smile faded, and when she began to speak it was like
the sound of leaves singing when stirred by summer breeze.
"Once there was a land that was so beautiful that those who
gazed upon it for the first time often found themselves with
tears in their eyes for a reason they could not explain. It was
a land of forests like emerald and rivers like diamond, and the
people who lived there had made a pact with the powers of their
land, and lived in peace and harmony with the forces of nature.
Their rulers were just and wise, and skilled in the arts of
magic. To the south were their neighbours, a great and powerful
clan of people whose men and women were fierce and honourable
warriors, the women most of all. Further to the south were a
people who were of the air and yet also of the earth, for they
made their home in the caverns of a great mountain yet flew with
the wings of birds. And all these people lived in peace
together, and their lives were rich in joy."
Her eyes shimmered, shone like dew upon blades of grass in
the rising dawn. "But so spring fades to summer, and so summer
fades to fall, and fall to winter. The pact was broken, and the
Ravager came, speaking in a tongue of lies the words of his
master. Long was he thought bright and good, for he was fair,
and the Dark hides most easily amidst the Light if it is fair.
But when the depth of his depravity was discovered, he and his
followers showed their true power."
Her eyes were indistinguishable from black now, and the
once-bright meadow was now cast in shade. Casting his eyes to
the ceiling, Ranma saw the green glass dome was the same black
colour as her eyes, muting the light, quenching it with the force
of her sorrow.
"They broke the land of beauty and shattered all that it had
been," she said finally after a long pause. There were tears on
her cheeks like frost upon the trunks of trees, and a cold wind
was blowing through the meadow, the scent of stagnant water and
decay upon it. "And they raised a tower like a claw to the sky,
and said that all the people would swear allegiance to them or
they would die."
The wind picked up, raked through hair and across skin like
talons. Overhead came a roll of something that might have been
thunder, and lightning flashed within the depths of the black
crystal the dome had become.
"It could not be allowed," Inochi said, the aching grief of
the memories in her voice a hurtful thing to hear. "War was made
against the Ravager and his legions, and into the wasteland that
had once been beautiful the armies of the three peoples walked.
Stricken with grief, the peaceful people who had lived through
the destruction of their land turned their magic, their mastery
of the flows of energy that made up life itself, to the cause of
war. More pacts were made, sacrifices given to the powers of the
land, and there were champions raised to battle the Ravager, for
he was mighty beyond imagining, and the powers of life and death
were as toys to a child to him."
Ranma realized he had tears in his eyes in that moment, but
he didn't care. Inochi's voice was like pain made into music, a
virtuoso of sorrow that was as unending as it was ancient.
"They learned the truth of power's cost," Inochi whispered.
"It was the only way. The powers came together so strongly that
the boundaries of reality itself were rent, and an evil older
than time was able to reach through. Nine-tenths of both the
armies died that day, but in the end, the tower was thrown down,
the Ravager was banished and his followers scattered to the four
corners of the earth."
Thunder rolled again above their heads, and the wind was
like the howling of a thing in pain. "And long after those days
had passed, word would come to be spoken. The time would come
when the threat of evil arose again, and there would be one to
come again, to bear the mantle of power upon his shoulders, to
again unite the people against the threat, because down through
the ages they had fragmented themselves again and again. He
would come not as one of them, but as an outsider."
Ranma realized the eyes of the three women were upon him.
"What?"
"Come now boy, you can't be that dim," Cologne said, her
voice sounding oddly throaty as if she were holding back tears.
Kima said nothing, but her blue eyes were cold as winter
ice as she looked at him.
Inochi smiled at him, and again she spoke to him, only to
him, and he knew utterly that only he heard what she said. "You
quenched the dragon's fire, but you did not let it be
extinguished. The phoenix fell to you, his wings blazing like
the death of stars. I have marked you in my name, my champion."
Up above, the black crystal was turning again to green; the
wind has ceased to blow. Slowly, slowly, the light and life
seemed to be seeping back into the meadow.
"An interesting story," Kima said after a moment. "But what
of..."
And suddenly, above their heads came a sound like the
sundering of worlds. Cracks were appearing in the green glass
dome like forks of lightning, as if the weight of water had
suddenly become too much.
Inochi stood to her feet. "You must go now."
"What's going on?" Ranma asked. "We can..."
"You cannot help me against this," Inochi said, looking up
at cracking dome. "It will be well, but I cannot do what I must
while you are here and maintain your safety."
"But what is happening?" Cologne said. "Surely you can tell
us that much?"
"When the war against the Ravager occurred thousands of years
ago, certain entities broke through the barriers that had been
erected in a time immeasurably long past," Inochi said. "One of
them has entered my home, and I must drive him out or his
presence will destroy much of what I have made. You must go."
"Where?" Ranma said.
She gestured to the pool. "There. Dive in, and I shall
send you from this place."
"But-"
"GO!"
There were chips of green crystal falling down all about
them now like rain, and the dome seemed about to collapse at any
second.
"Go," Inochi said again, though more gently. "Please. I
will be alright."
Ranma paused, hesitant, seeing Cologne and Kima were
already moving swiftly towards the pool.
"Will we meet again?" he asked.
"If not in this place, then in another," Inochi said, and
she smiled at him, and he saw something in her eyes that made his
heart feel like a beam of sunlight inside his chest. "Go in
peace, my child."
And finally, he turned and ran, and dived with Cologne and
Kima into the shimmering pool, in which the green crystal fallen
from the dome glimmered like fragments of emerald and remnants of
jade, floating down slowly through the depths of water towards a
bottom that could not be seen, and the last thing he saw before
he hit was a reflection of his own face, and then the waters
turned dark like storm-clouds and rushed up towards him.
**********
Galm threw back his head and howled for joy, covered in
blood from head to flank. The body of a deer that had stood
nearly six feet tall at the shoulders lay at his feet, rent and
torn. He had found paradise; if he had not been compelled by the
pacts to seek the prey he was bound to, he could have stayed here
forever, or until he killed everything there was to be killed.
He bent his head down and began to gnaw at the flesh of the
deer, still warm, sweetness of life still in it.
As soon as the first rush of taste entered his mouth, he
felt as if he'd been kicked hard in the ribs a few dozen times.
*ABOMINATION*
The voice exploded in his head like acid through his blood,
and he howled again, in pain. He rolled and thrashed, snapping
and snarling, and then swayed to his feet, seeking the foe.
*ABOMINATION*
Again that voice, like great trees snapping and rocks struck
by lightning, a voice that felt like it might shatter his bones
from the sheer force of it.
*ABOMINATION*
A third time, ending whatever thoughts of fighting he might
have had, leaving only a mindless need to flee, something he had
never felt before.
*GET YOU GONE FROM HERE*
He ran, form blurring, between the trunks of the massive
trees. Branches snagged at him, roots tripped him, and the voice
screamed at him in pure rage and hatred.
Finally, beyond the edges of the wood again, he collapsed
upon the dirt floor, blood from the scratches of thorns running
down his sides, one ear torn from the snapped edge of a branch.
Panting, flanks heaving, Galm lay there for a moment, and
then he slowly, not with the fluid transformation of before but
with a pained grace, stood upright as a man, healed of his
wounds, and some of his exhaustion.
"Under their noses the whole time," he snarled, and then
laughed. "Oh, Yoko. You will be glad to know this."
And then there came a red explosion like fireworks inside
his head, a joy so pure it was pain. Scarlet swirled in front of
his eyes, pulsing spirals like whirlpools of blood.
The prey was back. Far away, very far. But it didn't
matter. The further away the prey was, the quicker he moved.
He would go soon. But first, he drew from his belt a long,
curved knife with a jagged saw-toothed edge to the inner curve of
the blade and a handle carved from bone that he knew to be human.
It was unadorned, very simple, impossible ancient, and very, very
sharp.
He drew it across his left wrist in a long slash, and then
clamped his mouth over the wound, tasting of his own blood and
the ancient power within it.
*Yoko,* he called at first.
And when he was done, he looked back at the forest and
smiled, showing his teeth. He would not be here to see it, but
he knew that when the time came, it would burn.
And then Galm dropped to all fours and changed, and began
again the hunt.
**********
The waters embraced him like a lover, drew him down into
their cold, dark depths and caressed his skin with fingers made
of black ice.
Down he went, and all was darkness but for him. The safety
and warmth he'd felt in Inochi's garden was draining away, bit by
bit, spiralling out of his body into the frost of the waters.
No cold he'd felt before had been like this. Not Hokkaido
with its snow-capped peaks, with its sharp blue sky rent by the
white-clawed rises of the mountains. Not the chill of his
clothing soaked with rain, walking beneath the shelter of thin
trees with his father, lightning raking the sky overhead. Not
even the cold of the ice inside his mind.
It was a physical presence of cold, invisible, undefinable,
immense. It was all around him, inside him, running through his
blood and the marrow of his bones.
And it was so dark, so unseeable. When had he last taken a
breath? Had he glimpsed sight of Kima or Cologne since they had
dived?
And then, the realization. He was not changing, his body
was still his own.
And down, down, down through the dark waters, endless fall
frozen in the diving shape, down, down, down towards the bottom
like a plunging spear.
Down, with the cold reverberating through him.
Thinking:
When shall it end? When shall the darkness end?
And another thought:
I am alone.
Alone and cold and in the dark.
He remembered other times, below waters. Diving into the
Orochi's pool after Akane, rushing up through the pipe of the
Phoenix Tap. His lungs had burned then, burned with the need for
air, but now they felt as cold as the rest of him.
Was this all there was, he found himself wondering. Would
he fall forever through this darkening chill, craving but not
needing air, never seeing light again?
Down, down, down, or perhaps it was up. Direction,
distance, those had ceased to matter some time ago. There was
only movement, and the cold.
And then, up ahead, there was light. A pinprick at first,
like far-off star, but as he fell, or rose, or whatever it was he
did, he saw the light blossom-
Swell-
Expand-
Blooming before him, like a tree made of stars.
And the light, the light opened to him and was all about him
and inside him and it was glory, beauty beyond imagining, warmth
and comfort and-
Darkness again, but only for a moment, as she felt her, her
now, head break the waters of the pool that lay in the valley,
with the trees swaying overhead and the mist of morning all
about, diluted sunshine splashed across the winding, serpentine
paths that led between the pools.
There was a bamboo pole in the pool, stretching up high
above her head, worn smooth by years of wind and rain. There
were other pools, hundreds it seemed, some barely seeming more
than puddles, but they all glittered the same in the early
morning sun like liquid diamond. The bamboo poles were spears in
the mist, piercing upwards through the haze towards the sky.
Cologne looked at him from where she was treading water a
few feet away, damp hair plastered to her face and back, clothing
clinging soaked to her body. "Welcome back to Jusenkyou, Ranma."
"It's great to be here," Ranma said after a moment, pushing
wet bangs out of her eyes, brushing them back with her fingers.
Cologne laughed, just slightly and made her way to the edge
of the pool, carefully making her way out. "Are you going to
tread water forever?"
Ranma shook her head. "This... this is the Nyannichuan,
right?"
Cologne nodded where she stood, water dripping from her
sodden clothing upon the earth around the pool.
"I don't remember it being this deep," Ranma said as she
made her way to the edge of the pool, only feeling her feet touch
down on the soggy mud of the bottom a moment before she hauled
herself out.
"The change in the flows of Jusendo might have done it,"
Cologne said. She pointed out behind the Nyannichuan. "It used
to be over there, for one thing."
Ranma blinked. "Whoah."
"There you are. I was wondering where'd you'd gone to."
And turning, again, at the sound of a voice, heart racing in
her chest, inexplicable, unexplainable, that somehow she is here.
"Akane?"
Akane regarded her with a flat expression on her face. She
wore a heavy cloak of white material that seemed only slightly
wet; her legs and feet were bare. "Of course not."
And then she remembered, and fell silent.
"Well, we are here," Cologne said, glancing about between
the two of them, then looking up at the edge of the sun peeking
over the mountains. "And now?"
"I find some hot water," Kima said with Akane's voice. "And
get out of this human form."
"I am sure Ranma would like to change back as well," Cologne
said. "But Jusenkyou lies too close to the village of the
Joketsuzoku for my liking. Even if it is early morning, it would
be better if we were not spotted. You never know what eyes may
see or what ears may hear, and who it may go back to. We cannot
take the time to heat water yet."
The face that was Akane's looked angry for a moment, not the
hot anger Akane had often born upon her countenance, but a cold
kind of dissatisfaction, an expression that Akane never would
have had. Then she turned and began to walk away. "Fine. Let
us walk, then."
After a moment, Cologne shrugged and followed. Ranma gazed
after them for a moment, at the body of Akane given to another,
and then slowly shook her head and began to walk through the
morning mist that clung coldly to the damp of her clothing and
skin and hair.
**********
The out-thrust rock was on the lower part of one of the
mountains of the Bayankala range that enclosed Jusenkyou. It
stretched out like a finger pointing at the pools, and provided
an excellent vantage point to any who might want to observe three
people climbing out of the pools of Jusenkyou, then walking to
the south.
The problem was, the one who stood there now had arrived
roughly half-an-hour too late to see that. If he had seen them,
things might have ended up very differently than they actually
did.
He stood atop the ridge of land anyway, a cloak about his
body like the mist about the pools, gazing down upon the cursed
springs, sheathed in sunlight's early haze. After a moment, he
chuckled.
"Funny almost, isn't it?" he said to himself. "As much as I
hate the memories of this place, I seem to keep on coming back
here."
It didn't really matter to him much. He was back at
Jusenkyou for a reason. He had things to do here. He would get
them done, then get the hell out of here. The sooner the better.
He chuckled for a second time, a somewhat unpleasant sound.
This time, though, he was going to try and make sure things
didn't screw themselves up.
"Third time lucky," he said, and chuckled again. It was no
more pleasant the third time he did it. Then again, he was not a
particularly pleasant person.
**********
Tanzei stood about the table with four other women, all
wearing the same dark dresses with belts of yellow cord that she
did. The daggers they bore at their sides were straight rather
than curved, though, and were undecorated, while the pommel of
Tanzei's bore a polished oval moonstone the size of a small egg.
They were all older than she, but they deferred to her. It
had never been their part to question decisions made, only to
serve. To keep the memory, to keep the faith. To wait for this
day, down through the centuries.
The face of each woman was streaked with tears and bore a
broad smile. The last few minutes had contained a lot of crying,
a lot of embracing, and a fair amount of laughter.
"At last," one of them said. Those two words had been said
often in the past while. "Oh, at last."
The object on the table was the focus of their tears, their
joy, and their attention. It was a sword of exceptional beauty,
long and curved, the hilt a twining golden dragon from whose jaws
the blade emerged.
"We are sure, aren't we?" another said. That had also been
said a lot recently.
"Yes," Tanzei said. She reached out and passed her palm
through the air over the blade, and spoke a word of power. A
web of white light glowed in response, starting from where the
blade joined the hilt and reaching all the way to the tip. "We
are sure."
"Praised be," said a third.
"Yes," Tanzei said after a moment. "Praised be."
She reached out, almost hesitantly, and carefully lifted the
sword, one hand wrapped around the handle and the other balancing
the blade. She raised it up above her head and it caught the
light and amplified it, sent it sparkling in silver flashes
across the walls.
"We will send a messenger to Lord Kammael of the Musk in the
evening, when the desert will be cool," she said. "He must be
told. The Dragon's Blade has been found."
And for a third time, though none of them spoke them, those
words echoed through the room again, amidst the light cast from
the sword. After fourteen hundred years of waiting, the time had
come.
Praised be. Oh, praised, praised be.
**********
Galm stared out across the ocean from the edge of the cliff
he stood atop, as the waves beat against the jagged rocks at the
bottom. If he closed his eyes, he knew he would see the red
spirals of heartbeat and bloodflow again. He could feel her
moving only slightly, because she was so far that he'd have to go
about the same direction anyway no matter which was she moved.
He licked his lips, and carefully examined the feathers
again. His vague memories of his second birthing-day stirred
through him again at the scent; he'd last known it thousands of
years ago, back when he'd been free, before he'd been bound.
When he'd moved among the clashing armies and killed, not caring
which side, only revelling in the bloodlust of his existence.
He remembered pleasant screams, the feeling of arms and legs and
wings and throats under his jaws. Oh, to hunt like that again.
He looked out across the sea again, staring with his golden
eyes towards the vanishing point of the horizon, as the last of
the sun slowly set over the ocean like a dying thing.
"See you soon," he said. To his far-off prey, to the
setting sun, to something else, it did not matter. Only the
hunt. Only the kill.
He wasn't good at geography. He was fairly sure this was
the Sea of Japan. Japan was the name that people had given to
the land he stood upon now. Jusenkyou, which was very close to
where he'd been born, was in a place called China. That was
where he was going now.
The sun's rim dipped, the stars rushed out, at one stride
came the dark. Galm smiled; he hunted best by moonlight.
He stood for a moment longer upon the cliffs, then jumped,
twisting into a dive as he arced towards the water below, a grace
so absolute in his movements that it was terrifying.
He seldom needed to travel by water to reach his prey, but
the complete and total ability to reach them was a part of what
he was. Moments after he broke the surface of the ocean, a grey
fin, massive and sharp, rose up like a ship's sail from the
depths.
White sea-foam boiling in the wake of its passage, the fin
cut out across the ocean at a speed greater than any ship on
earth was capable of. Even years later, many different people
would offer many different theories, all of them incorrect, as to
exactly why the fish avoided that area of Wakasa Bay forever
afterwards.
(
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