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 12 : Reunion and Conjunction
Soaring above the battlefield, he saw the cavalry of his
foe's army rumbling below him on iron-shod hooves. The armies
clashed around the black, insectile tower in a whirl of combat,
weapon clashing upon weapon, arcs of arrows and hurled spears
flying through the air. Winged figures soared around the thorny
black spires of the tower, battling with dark, flapping shapes
and raining arrows down upon those foes upon the land.
He pointed his hand, and a wave of fire exploded outwards
from him, washing over the black-armoured riders that had been
charging the flank of the swirling mass of fighters a hundred
feet below him. The ground beneath what remained of the riders
and the twisted things that might once have been horses would
have been scoured, had there been anything left to scour in this
blasted wasteland.
It had only taken him a moment, but it was still too much of
a distraction. Flying wingless in the air a dozen yards ahead of
him, the silver-haired man with the burning eyes laughed and
raised a hand. Beams of black energy, dozens of them, shot like
spears from his upraised palm, the air screaming and peeling back
in their passage, unrolling the sky like a parchment scroll for a
moment before the gaps torn in the air closed.
Many were blocked. Some were not. He felt black knives
tear through his arms and legs, others slash through his chest
and stomach, still others pierce his wings. He gasped with pain,
but the wounds healed almost instantly, flesh and bone and muscle
growing anew seconds after he was hit. It depleted his power
slightly to regenerate, but he still was almost limitless in
terms of his strength.
He managed to parry a downward swing of the great
black-hafted glaive his opponent carried on his own weapon and
spun away through the air, turning and hurling bolt after bolt of
fire as he did. The silver-haired man laughed again and swung
after him, glaive raised, darting back and forth as he dodged.
A blast of pure cold, burning blue-white and turning the air
to motes of ice in its passage, hit him in the side, the source
somewhere far off on the ground below. The man shrieked and
turned to this new distraction, in time to take the razor-sharp
disc of his first opponent's weapon through his chest. The wound
it left as it returned to the housing of the weapon was deep and
bloodless, sealing almost instantly.
The silver-haired man's eyes blazed, and he brought his
hands together with a sound like thunder. He dropped from the
air like a stone, landing lightly on his feet on the ground.
A hundred warriors died with a stroke of his hand. Flesh
and bone simply exploded, blood soaking the blasted rubble of the
wasteland. The air around the silver-haired man was black,
rolling back in rippling waves to expose seething darkness
underneath.
"No..." the winged one above him whispered. He plunged into
a dive, weapon raised, power gathering about him, heat and flame
and the purity of light itself, a teardrop shaped aura of pure
energy gathering itself around and behind him.
He almost made it in time.
A moment before he would have hit, all hell broke loose,
quite literally. There was a sound almost like a snapping, and
then, everywhere about the battlefield and the immense tower and
the battling armies, the darkness came.
Slits like eyes opened in a hundred places, yawning gaps in
the fabric of reality, portals rent in time and space by the
sheer power of forces wielded in the combat. From them came the
mad laughter of something insane beyond any mortal comprehension
of madness, the shrieking howl of utter bloodlust, three voices
speaking in unison of the glory of destruction, and a hundred
other sounds, all of them terrible.
Things that might have been hands made of the darkness
between stars reached out from the chaos and grabbed all those
who fought, not caring what side they were on, desiring nothing
beyond to feed, to destroy. The screams of those drawn within
were unimaginable. There were figures leaping from the tears in
the air, their forms something out of a madman's nightmare,
shadowy, rough-shaped as if newborn, growing more solid with each
passing second.
He saw, out of the corner of his eye, a great grey shape,
blood streaming from its jaws, bounding across the ground towards
him, and then-
and then-
and the-
and th-
and t-
and-
fade to black
Slowly, as the sun rose over the mountains, the high,
piercing wail of an infant rose with it, echoing down through
cavernous halls of stone, a sound of utter and complete
isolation, and a loneliness so profound it was almost beyond
comprehension.
**********
The hut usually occupied by the Jusenkyou Guide and his
daughter Plum was small, cramped and crude, to say the least.
The one window was nothing more than a round hole with bamboo
bars, and the inside wasn't much better. Currently, the hut was
occupied by Plum and one of the uncommon visitors who stopped by
Jusenkyou, both sitting at the kitchen table.
"More tea, Mr. Customer?" Plum asked, standing up on the
chair in preparation to pour.
The cloaked and hooded figure across from her shook his
head, curling strands of blue-black hair the only visible
feature of a face covered by shadow. "No."
"Are you sure? It is a special blend, all the way from
Peking."
"I said no."
"Alright, Mr. Customer," Plum said as she settled back down
into the too-large chair. "I am sorry again that father is not
here to see you, but he is going around the villages to talk to
people about what happened with the-"
"Tell me what happened after the fight."
"The winged people went back home," Plum said. "They didn't
want to fight anymore. Ranma and his friends went back home
too, to Japan."
"These winged people, where do they live again?" the man in
the cloak asked, leaning forward and steepling his slender
fingers on the edge of the table.
"A big mountain to the south," Plum said, pursing her lips
and thinking. "Phoenix Mountain. There's a palace right at the
top, and all kinds of tunnels inside the mountain."
"Interesting," the man said. "What are they like?"
Plum shuddered slightly. "The men are like monsters. I
only saw one woman, but she was scary too, though not because she
was ugly. She looked more like a human, only with wings. They
use Jusenkyou to change into people to spy on us."
"And their king, is he really as powerful as the legends
say?"
Plum nodded. "You see how Jusendo mountain looks different,
Mr. Customer?"
"Uh-huh."
"Saffron did that in the fight."
"I thought it must have been an earthquake."
"Mr. Customer, do you know Ranma? You talk about him like
you do."
"Yeah, I know him."
Plum didn't catch the bitterness in the tone, and smiled as
she continued to talk. "He is very nice. He saved me when I
went to Japan."
"He's a sex-changing moron," the cloaked man muttered to
himself. "What was a little kid like you doing in Japan anyway,
by yourself?"
"I went there to get help," Plum said. "To take the
Jusenkyou map away from the winged people."
"How'd you know to do that?"
"A few days before they attacked my father, a man came and
talked to us about the winged people wanting to destroy
Jusenkyou, and gave us the map, saying we needed to take it away
from here. He dressed a lot like you. We didn't see his face.
When you came, I thought you were him again, but you talk
different. Father sent me to Japan to find Ranma and his
friends."
"Why didn't your father go with you?"
"He stayed here. It was his duty. He knew the winged
people would come for the map."
"A little kid shouldn't be running around by herself like
that."
"I'm not little. I'm seven," Plum huffed angrily.
"Whatever."
"Biscuit, Mr. Customer?"
"No."
"Tour pamphlet?"
"No."
"Would you like to sign the guest book? It is new, because
the old one got stolen by a horrible monster."
"Uh... No."
"Where are you from, Mr. Customer?"
"Around."
Plum wrinkled her nose at him. "You're not very talkative,
Mr. Customer."
"So what?"
"Like to make a donation to Jusenkyou Guide retirement
fund?"
Plum rattled the tin can with the coin slot in his
direction, a hopeful look on her young face. The Jusenkyou Guide
retirement fund also served as the fund for food, clothing and
anything else that she and her father might need.
"What the hell," the man said with something almost like a
sigh, digging into the folds of his cloak and producing a handful
of coins, which he proceeded to drop into the can with
rattling clinks.
"Thank you, Mr. Customer," Plum said.
"Look, kid," the man said. "I don't mean to say this small
talk isn't delightfully charming, but can you just tell me where
I can find the Spring of the Drowned Virtuous Man like I asked you
to before you started this whole story?"
Plum coughed and blushed slightly. "Well, you see, that's
why I was telling you that story, about the winged people..."
"What happened?"
"The Jusenkyou waters changed a bit," Plum said. "Some
springs came back in different places. Some springs didn't come
back at all. We're still not sure where everything is."
The cloaked man slumped slightly in his chair and groaned.
"You wouldn't happen to be saying that..."
"Spring of Drowned Virtuous Man gone," Plum said. "Very
sorry, Mr. Customer."
"Why didn't you tell me that right away?" the man snapped
angrily, rising slightly out of his seat. "You think I've got
time to waste talking to you?"
Plum cringed back in her seat. "Very sorry, Mr. Customer.
Father has been gone nearly a week now, I'm lonely, you are the
first customer since he went, I wanted to talk to someone..."
She bit her lip, eyes half-closing. "I was lonely. I'm
sorry."
"Ah, hell, I'm the one who should be sorry," the man
muttered, sitting back down in his seat. "I didn't mean to scare
you."
There was a moment of rather uncomfortable silence.
"Could I have another cup of tea?" the man said finally.
Plum stood up and poured him one, sniffling slightly.
"Thanks," the man said, taking a sip. "It's good."
"I made it," Plum said proudly, no trace of a sniffle
anymore. "My father showed me how to make tea really good."
"You got a mother, kid?"
Plum shook her head sadly. "He's not my real father. My
real mother and father died when I was only a baby. Jusenkyou
guides don't often marry, so they usually take in an orphan to
teach about Jusenkyou, to be the guide when they are gone."
She looked pensive for a moment, one of those oddly adult,
serious expressions that small children sometimes have. "I
wonder sometimes what my mother was like, and my real father."
"Well, I don't know about your real father," the man said.
"But I think your mother was pretty."
"Why?"
"Because you are too."
Plum giggled, covering her mouth with one hand. "Thank you,
Mr. Customer."
"I better be going," the man said, getting out of his chair
in one sinuous movement and starting towards the door, his tea
still mostly undrunk upon the table. His footsteps were light
as he moved across the wooden floor.
"Mr. Customer?"
He paused in the doorway. "Yeah?"
"What is your name?"
The loose stance of the man tensed, a tightening of his body
visible even beneath the folds of the cloak.
"It's not important to you," he said, and stepped out before
Plum could say anything else. By the time she ran outside to
call after him, he was already walking away far to the south, the
odd, translucent scarf wrapped around his neck fluttering in the
morning breeze.
**********
A person could, in theory, enter Phoenix Mountain from the
ground. There were a half-dozen stairways at the base, leading
up through a slightly complex maze of bending passageways to the
lower halls. If you made it past the collapsing stairways, the
wall blades and the ceiling darts, you could have walked up to
the locked doors that led into the area of the mountain where
the people actually lived.
However, if anyone without wings ever did happen to come to
the remote mountain where the Phoenix Tribe made their home, they
likely wouldn't have made it past the ground entrances. There
was one untrapped ground entrance, which was a small,
unobtrusive doorway behind a large outcropping of stone, but
every single one of the elaborate, phoenix-gated stairways, with
lanterns glowing palely along the walls, was trapped in one way
or another. Most dropped the stairway and any on it down into
the cavernous labyrinth that looped upon itself for miles beneath
the mountain. The records of when and why that labyrinth had
been built had long been lost.
The first untrapped entrances beyond the concealed doorway at
ground level were over a thousand feet up, small passages leading
into the mountain. The lower areas of the mountain was where the
majority of the population lived, those who farmed the fields
nearby or tended herds. There had been agriculture done within
the mountain once, grains and vegetables and fruits grown with
the waters of the mountain and the heat and light provided by
Saffron, but that had faded over a century ago when the spring
had begun to dry up.
It was to one of these that Kima came, gliding down from
above and landing lightly on the broad, flat ledge that stuck out
from the mountainside before the entrance. Even the lower areas
were mostly deserted these days; Phoenix Mountain was small, as
mountains went, but it still had room for a population vastly
greater than the thousand or so it currently had.
She shook her head. That was nothing new to think about;
they'd teetered on the edge of extinction centuries before she'd
been born. She walked inside, booted footsteps sounding softly
on the stone.
Inside, Phoenix Mountain was a veritable maze of flat stone
hallways, rough cavernous chambers, individual quarters and long
drop shafts to provide easy access to the upper or lower reaches.
Much of it was falling into disrepair, despite the best efforts
to keep everything intact. There was, she had to admit, simply
too much space for such a small population. It would have made
the greatest amount of sense to simply close off the lower
chambers and move everyone into the upper areas, near the palace.
She'd raised it once, at a meeting of the various noble
houses, and had been practically shouted down in indignation by
the other representatives. The caste system was rigid in Phoenix
Mountain; since all of the recorded history, no chamber which a
commoner lived in had been closer than a thousand vertical feet
to the areas in which the nobles lived. The difference was much
greater these days than that.
As she walked down the hallway, she began to hear the sound
of hammers upon metal, saws on wood, stone striking on stone.
This was where Loame and those under him did their work; the
forging of weapons, the construction of furniture, the shaping of
jewelry and ornaments. The few still able learned the
nearly-lost art of shaping the stone by touch and song alone,
without the need for tools and with precision finer than could
have been achieved by conventional means.
She was beginning to see people now, men and a few women in
the common dress of the mountain, knee-length tunics and pants.
They all bowed their heads and didn't look at her eyes when she
passed them; bearing and dress alone would have marked her as a
noble, and there were few who didn't know the distinctive
appearance of Lord Saffron's seneschal on sight.
She ignored them, and they her. It was tradition, though
not law, that a commoner did not speak to a noble unless they
were spoken to first.
"Where is Loame?" she finally asked one of the workers as he
passed her, tools dangling from his belt and a saw in his hands.
"He is in the upper halls, doing the last renovations for
the plumbing on the noble's chambers," the man passing her said,
casting his eyes at the ground.
She nodded and walked by him without another word. She
would see Samofere first, then; he was the most important anyway.
As much as what she'd seen in the past few days might have
changed the way she had to look at things, she still had her
duties to the people and to Lord Saffron. The maintenance of the
mountain was among them.
The hallway she was walking through now was tall and narrow,
with room for little more than two to walk beside each other.
Lamps glowed on the walls, softly flickering blue-white, the
long-burning oil found in small deposits in the lower strata of
the mountain providing the colour. It abruptly ended in a long
vertical shaft that led up and down at least five hundred feet in
either direction; small perches built of wood or outcroppings of
stone were scattered along the walls, providing a place to rest
for a moment if need be, while the occasional long bridge of
carved wood or stone spanned from wall to wall. Some of the
people stopped to talk for a few minutes upon one of the perches
before going their separate ways; the beating of wings echoed
throughout the mountain here, as the winged people moved either
up or down, accompanied often by the smaller shapes of the birds
that lived in the mountain.
Kima stood for a moment upon the edge, closed her eyes and
took a deep intake of breath. The clean smell of stone and air
was all about, and the beating of wings, and the voices of the
birds, the soft, fluting accents of the people speaking, the
vague shape of birdsong in the human voices.
Home.
She leapt, spreading her wings out, letting the air take
her, and then began to move upwards with powerful strokes of her
wings. The image of the phoenix was everywhere in the drop
shaft walls, geometric representations, carefully shaped
carvings, statues that flowed smoothly out from the stone, wings
raised.
Home.
Up she went, past the whirling flocks of birds, crows and
doves and owls and more, past the people chatting together on the
perches on the walls, until she came to the wide, tall gateway
that led into the hallway to the library. The gateway was a
half-oval shape, the lintel a long, serpentine dragon, the other
decoration common to the mountain, though not nearly so common as
the phoenix.
There had always been a quality of silence to the library
and the hallway that led up to it, something about it that seemed
to shut out the noise of the birds and the people. There was now
only the sound of water flowing, through the hidden channels in
the walls that were now again seeing use. The blue light of the
lamps flickered on the walls and ceiling as she walked, cast her
shadow behind her.
"Hello, Kima," someone said in a soft soprano voice as she
turned around the corner of the hallway, a stack of books in her
arms.
"Hello, Lady Fanael," Kima said, bowing her head
respectfully to the youngest member of the royal family. Fanael
was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall, pretty in a delicate
way. Her wings were a pale grey, turning to sky blue at the
tips; her rich dress and jewelry were coloured to match, blue
silks, and sapphires mounted on bracelets and necklaces made out
of silver. She was younger than Kima by several years, the
great-grandaughter of the line begun the last time Saffron had
taken a mate over a century ago.
She was Helubor's younger sister, and as different from her
older brother as night from day. Kima could stand her, for one
thing. She was pleasant, and had somehow managed to avoid all
the arrogance the rest of the royals adopted. "More books for
the children?"
Fanael nodded, dark hair whispering across her shoulders and
back, flowing over her wings. She kept it long and unbound, with
a few silver chains braided into it. "I'm reading them the
Monkey King stories right now. They like those a lot."
Fanael spent nearly all his time in the nursery where the
children of the noble houses were raised communally. That was
where Saffron currently was, attended night and day by Koruma and
Masara.
"Human stories," Kima said automatically with a sniff, and
then regretted it.
"I find human stories fascinating," Fanael said. "All our
stories are just about Saffron. It somehow takes away from the
story when you know that the hero is a small child in a cradle a
few feet away."
"Most do not know," Kima said quietly. Saffron's true
nature was kept secret from the majority of the population, the
continual cycle of death and rebirth that gave Phoenix Mountain
both a royal heir and a king, again and again and again.
"I think it's wonderful that you had him moved into the
nursery," Fanael said. "He always seemed so lonely when he was
with us. I was ten when father brought him in and explained to
me about him. He was so peaceful, at first, such a nice, quiet
baby."
She sighed. "I think Helubor spent too much time with him,
frankly."
Kima frowned uncomfortably. "Saffron is the king."
"I know, I know," Fanael said. "But sometimes, he can be a
downright brat."
Kima laughed nervously. There was nothing else to do; only
one of the royals could get away with talking like that. "Does
he seem happy?"
"I hold him on my lap when I read sometimes," Fanael said.
"He seems very content. He never cries, you know, except when he
first wakes up."
"How does the rest of your family feel?" Kima asked after a
moment's hesitation.
Fanael pursed her lips and touched a slender finger to her
mouth. Her hands were nearly human, only a mild roughening of
the skin and a sharpening of the nails. The female inhabitants
of Phoenix Mountain tended to look less bestial than the men in
their natural forms.
"Mother doesn't seem to care on way or the other," she said.
"Helubor and father want him moved out immediately. Uncle Nakar
and cousin Laelle, of course, want the opposite of whatever
Helubor and father do. Grandfather..."
She sighed. "Grandfather doesn't talk much these days. His
illness has gotten worse."
Kima nodded. "I am sorry, Fanael."
"I think it will be his time soon," Fanael said a bit sadly.
She seemed to force a smile. "I must go now. The children
are probably waiting for me."
"Take care, Fanael," Kima said. She brushed the tips of her
right wing lightly against the other woman's as they passed each
other, a gesture of affection between friends.
She turned the corner of the hallway, and soon came to the
large wooden door that was the main entrance into the library.
She pushed it open with a creak and stepped inside. The library
always had that same smell of aged paper, ancient leather and
dust. It was among the oldest structures in all the mountain,
and the one which had always held the greatest sense of the sheer
age of the civilization here. The wooden shelves stretched row
upon row, reaching nearly to the ceiling. Tables were
everywhere, some occupied by people reading, commoners and nobles
alike. The library was open all the time, to everyone. No
matter what the hour, Samofere always seemed to be around; some
people said he didn't sleep at all.
There was the soft rustle of pages turning as she walked
around the stacks, looking for Samofere. The aura of age seemed
to press down upon her like a weight; the shelves seemed to hold
eyes within them, staring at her. Up above her head, the ceiling
loomed like a grey sky.
"Hello," a slightly scratchy voice said to her left.
"Hello," she said as she turned. Shiso was perched upon the
edge of a shelf high above her head, his huge dark shape wreathed
in shadow. He hopped off and glided down, heavy weight settling
onto her shoulder with a light grip of talons.
"Where's Samofere?" she asked the raven.
"In his office," the bird answered.
Kima nodded. "I know the way."
She wound her way through the mazelike stacks of the
library, going deeper and deeper into the past records of the
mountain, past shelves filled with crumbling scrolls and stone
tablets. The air grew colder, darker, dryer as she walked. The
sounds of the pages of books turning receded, and soon there was
only her footsteps. Finally, when it seemed as if she might walk
forever, she came to the far end of the library, a massive wall
of sheer stone with a closed door dwarfed by the immensity of the
rough wall.
The library had often seemed a kingdom unto itself. Saffron
might rule the mountain, and she might serve in his name, but
Samofere ruled in the library. She reached out a hand and
knocked on the plain wooden door, the sound echoing in the space
of the library.
"Come in, Kima."
She turned the handle and stepped into Samofere's office.
She would have expected it to be warm compared to the rest of the
library, but it was even colder. Goosebumps rose on her skin,
and she began not for the first time to regret the sparsity of
her flight uniform. It was fine for being outside in the sun,
but it tended to be a bit chilly inside the mountain home.
Samofere was behind his small wooden desk, glasses perched
on the end of his nose and wings folded over the back of the
chair, blue highlights gleaming on black feathers in the glow of
the lamps. He was writing in a large open book, occasionally
consulting a pile of scrolls on one end of the desk.
The office of the librarian was small and cramped with
shelves on every wall space that didn't hold a door. The
opposite end of the room held a small door that presumably led
off to Samofere's chambers. He was a commoner by strict
definition, but the position of the librarian gave him certain
powers. The new librarian was always chosen by the old
librarian from a new-born child, often only a few hours before
the death of the old one. Few of the nobles cared much for the
library anyway, and he was generally left alone to do as he
wished. The nobles consulted the law books, and the histories of
the mountain for tracing the convoluted lineage of their
families, but little else.
She found herself wondering how far back it had gone, how
many librarians before Samofere had watched for the signs, had
watched for the day when Saffron would at last fall. The library
was ancient, the position of the librarian just as ancient.
And now she was involved in this, by virtue of what she'd
seen. She could not turn back now, not after what had been
beneath Jusendo, what had been beneath the forest.
"Welcome back," Samofere said, not looking up as he made a
quick scribble with his pen in the book. "I have heard it went
fairly well."
She nodded, seeing Shiso bob his head in response on her
shoulder. The bird leapt off abruptly and perched on the edge of
the desk, peering down at Samofere's writing.
"You've mistranslated the tense of that verb," he said after
a moment. Samofere fixed the bird with a glare and shooed him
off the desk. The raven fluttered into the air to take a perch
atop one of the shelves.
"Please, take a seat," Samofere said.
Kima cleared the books from the small chair in front of the
desk and sat down, listening to it creak underneath her with a
vague sense of unease.
"Shiso has already told me of what has occurred," Samofere
said quietly. "I suspect you have more questions for me than I
do for you."
"Why didn't you tell me more?"
"More what?"
"You showed me the books, only a little. And then you took
me under Jusendo, and..."
She pounded her fist down on the desk abruptly. "Damn you,
you told me none of this. Our saviour. The one who will unite
the people of Jusenkyou. A human! A human, Samofere! Have I
gone mad? I helped to bring him back here. I could lose my
position, dishonour my family, dishonour the memory of my father
and mother..."
She stood up from the chair, angry for so many reasons,
towering over him. "Why? Why did I do it?"
"You truly expect me to answer that," Samofere said in a
soft voice. "I asked for your help. You gave it."
"We are dying, Samofere," Kima said as she sat back down.
"We've been dying for centuries. Saffron helps to hold it back,
but only a little. I never realized it until recently, but even
he is not enough. He can't stop children being stillborn, he
can't stop so many women barren from birth, he can't stop the
nobles from warring over scraps of power. He's a child, even
when he's fully grown. Heat and light are not enough."
Samofere sighed, a gentle sound. He put his pen down and
took his glasses off, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "I
always wanted to talk to you earlier. I always saw what you
would be, Kima. I wanted to talk to you ten years ago, when you
became seneschal."
"Why didn't you?" Kima asked.
"There was so much hate in you," Samofere said. "And it
hasn't gone away. You can bury it, but it hasn't gone away in
you, has it? You hate him, don't you? You hate Cologne as
well."
A moment's reflection. Shiso made a soft noise from atop
his perch on the shelf, a mirror of Samofere's sigh.
"No," Kima said finally. "I do not hate him. I do not hate
her either. I... respect them. They are fine warriors. Their
ideals are good. But..."
"But they are humans," Samofere said.
There was a long silence.
"When was the last time you cried for them before we came up
from under Jusendo?" Samofere asked finally.
Under any other situation, any other person, any other time,
she would have drawn her sword. But not now, not after all this.
"Three years ago," she said softly. "I think."
"Your father was a good man," Samofere said. "He died too
early."
"You think I do not know that?" Kima snapped.
"I am sorry," Samofere said. "I do not mean to upset you."
"Then you pick strange topics for conversation," Kima said
as she sat back down, the anger draining away from her.
"It was not your fault," Samofere said. "Nor was it that of
every person without wings. You cannot blame an entire people
for what happened."
"How can I not?" she said finally, voice edged raw by grief.
"I have to blame someone."
"Must someone always be to blame?" Samofere said. "Can a
terrible thing not simply happen because of random chance?"
"But how is that right?"
"Right has nothing to do with it. It is the way of the
world."
"Enough of this," Kima said. "You should go and talk to
Cologne. She requested you visit them. They are a few miles to
the north."
"I know the way," Shiso said quietly from his perch atop the
shelf.
"Kima..." Samofere said, then trailed off. He looked very
old in that moment, even older than he usually did. His dark
green eyes were sad beneath the white of his eyebrows.
He wanted to comfort her, she realized. Not to take
advantage of her, to get something against her, for what did he
care for the power struggles of the nobles? He wanted to comfort
her, and a part of her wanted to take it, but it was so small,
and there was so much else there with her, so much pride, so much
pain.
They sat there, young and old, noble and commoner, with the
desk between them and far, far more than that. There was little
that either of them could say.
Finally, she rose up out of the seat. "I'll be going, then.
I want to check with Loame on how the renovations are going, and
then visit with Saffron. I need to keep my eyes on what's going
on around the mountain."
"I will go to see Cologne, then," Samofere said. "Perhaps
you will come and join us later."
"Perhaps I will," Kima said as she stepped out the door,
closing it behind her with a creak. Most likely, though, she
wouldn't.
**********
The beach was small, and not particularly pleasant. It was
located on the eastern coastline of China, the Yellow Sea
stretching out away from it towards South Korea. It consisted
mostly of a lot of rocks, a few grains of sand where there
weren't rocks, and, currently, a half-dozen members of the
Chinese army who were patrolling from the nearby military base,
thinking to spot spy submarines from either North or South Korea,
or perhaps the tiny chance of an invasion force. The general
opinion between them was that this was simply something they had
to do to get a paycheck.
The leader peered out through his binoculars across the sea,
his automatic rifle slung back over his shoulder on a strap.
"Take a look at this," he said, passing the binoculars to
one of the men next to him.
The man looked and whistled.
"Is that not the biggest shark fin you have ever seen?"
Bored, the men took turns looking at the massive grey fin
turning slow circles about two hundred feet out in the ocean. The
consensus was that it certainly was the biggest shark fin they
had ever seen. Estimates were being made as to the size of the
shark that carried it.
Eventually, as often happens with the combination of boredom
and guns and a moving target, one of the men declared that he
could shoot it. The leader of the patrol was reluctant at first,
but finally gave in. The man clicked his rifle to single shot,
aimed and fired. Watching through the binoculars, the leader
declared a hit, seeing a blossom of blood emerge in the massive
fin, streaking red across the grey.
As the others decided to take turns, the fin dropped below
the surface of the ocean. The men sighed and resumed walking
around. The fun was apparently over.
Perhaps a minute after that, they saw a man emerge suddenly
from the ocean. Grey haired, dark-skinned and scarred, he wore a
grey vest and black pants. He was rubbing at his shoulder with
an expression of mild irritation on his face.
He shook water off himself like a dog as he climbed up the
rocky shoreline of the beach, waves lapping at his bare feet. He
raised his head and looked up at the patrol as the click of
safeties being removed echoed about the stillness of the beach.
"Halt," the leader called. "You have entered the territory
of the..."
The man kept walking.
"You are ordered to halt!" the leader called again, and
motioned to his men. Fingers tightened on the triggers.
"No," the man said, but he changed his path to start walking
towards them. He reached behind his back as if to draw
something, a grin breaking across his face.
They shot him, weapons chattering bullets through the air.
He fell down, riddled with holes through his chest, legs and
arms. There was surprisingly little blood.
The patrol began to walk towards the fallen body, lowering
their rifles to point at the beach.
The grey-haired man stood back up, shaking his head as if
to clear it.
"You know," he said almost conversationally in the few
seconds when the patrol was too stunned to respond. "You could
have lived. I can't do anything to you unless you stand in my
way. Once you do that, though," and here he cracked his knuckles
with a sound like a tree snapping, "I can do whatever I want to
you."
By the time they began to fire again, he was already in
motion, and they had been as good as dead when the first man had
shot at him anyway.
**********
Ranma laid the near-empty kettle aside on the grass and
looked around at the landscape. They'd made a small camp in the
crook of a mountain to boil water to change back to their regular
bodies. A dozen feet up the rocky slope behind him, a stand of
slanting trees cast a shadow across the still-burning fire and
the place where he sat. There were mountains everywhere, rising
all around, sharp-peaked and towering into the sky, stone giants.
They'd walked through a long, winding pass stretching north
and south to reach this spot; the area they'd made camp in had
been at the end of a short, hilly trail that had ended up against
the mountainside. To the southwest was the beginnings of a
forest of scraggily trees that ran alongside this mountain and
the one after it in a long line.
He estimated they were perhaps halfway between Jusenkyou and
Mount Phoenix. Cologne had finally declared this spot far enough
away from any prying eyes after perhaps an hour of walking,
during which the sun had risen higher. It was still early
morning, though, and the slight chill wind and his still damp
clothing didn't help. His shirt and pants lay drying by the
fire, and he had on a fresh blue shirt from his pack and blue
drawstring pants. His pack, waterproofed slightly, had come
through the trip from the pool in the Dragon Palace to the
Nyannichuan spring in fairly good condition, the contents at
least a little more dry than the clothing he'd been wearing.
Kima and Cologne had gone off a few minutes ago, one to
change back to her natural form, one to simply change her
clothing. He was alone with his thoughts, and he didn't like
that situation at all.
It had been only two days, perhaps three, since he'd left
his friends, his father and mother, behind on the mountain and
gone north to Ryugenzawa. But it seemed so infinitely long.
He raised his hands and stared at them. He remembered the
black shape of his mind, and the sound of Denkoko's neck breaking
under his fist, the gentle gasp of wheezing breath as her throat
collapsed.
He'd been willing to kill Saffron to save Akane. Thinking
of it now, he probably had, although he wasn't too clear on it.
The Phoenix Prince had revived, like his namesake, reborn as a
tiny baby. But Saffron had been something more and less than
human, a being with the mind of a spoiled child and the powers of
a god. He'd shattered mountains, regrown his limbs as Ranma
severed them with the Gekkaja.
Denkoko had been human, and though she'd seemed to be
hurting Akane, it hadn't really been Akane at all. But he hadn't
been in control, and he'd broken her arms before he'd killed her,
smashing her throat and snapping her neck like a twig with a
single punch.
He remembered that like it had just happened, and he didn't
want to remember it. There was so much unclear, so much he did
not understand. He had another language inside his mind, flashes
of memories of things he'd never done. He had a dragon scrawled
upon his flesh, and he had, according to Cologne, become nearly
tenfold as powerful in terms of ki as he had been before they'd
gone down into the Dragon Palace, although all his control was
gone. The one time he'd tried to draw any in at all, he'd nearly
died, body overloaded by the power. His heart had stopped.
He missed Akane, and his mother, and his friends. He even
missed his father. He missed himself and who he had been.
Someone coughed nearby, one of those fake ones you do to get
the attention of someone occupied with their own thoughts. He
turned to see Cologne, changed from the soaked robe of green silk
she'd worn before to a black silk top with blue flowers and pants
to match. There were similarities between her and Shampoo, more
visible now that she was dressed in an outfit so much like what
her great-grandaughter would have worn, comparisons in the lines
and definitions of facial features, the vivid eyes. But there
were differences; Cologne was more slenderly built, more willowy.
Shampoo had always moved like she had almost too much energy to
contain within herself; Cologne moved with a smooth grace that
managed to seem slow no matter how quickly she moved.
"Feeling better?" she asked as she sat down next to him,
legs folded and hands on her knees. Her pack and the long,
razor-tined fighting rake lay near his pack, the steel blades of
the odd weapon glittering sharply in the sun.
"Dry and male is better than wet and female," he said
quietly. "And that's about it."
"Kima went back to Mount Phoenix," Cologne said. "Samofere
should be here soon."
"Looking forward to meeting him," Ranma said without
enthusiasm. "I just hope Kima doesn't get any second thoughts
and decide to exact a little vengeance for her king."
"She would not do that," Cologne said.
"I wouldn't put it past her," Ranma said. "You shouldn't
either. I don't see how you can trust her, after what happened
to Shampoo. They made her into a slave."
Cologne frowned. "I know that, Ranma."
"I didn't understand why you stayed behind," Ranma said
after a moment. "Was it because of this?"
Cologne nodded. "Other things as well. Shampoo... it
seemed that she might learn a valuable lesson from it."
"What?" Ranma said disbelievingly. "You let them take her
because you thought it might be a good lesson?"
"Shampoo needed to learn what it is like to have someone
control you," Cologne said. "She needed to learn what it is like
to be devoted to someone because they have forced you through
some kind of magic, to have an affection for someone that does
not spring from true feelings. I knew they would not harm her."
"Why not?" Ranma asked.
"It is a cultural thing," Cologne said. "The surikomi eggs
are used as a form of punishment for lawbreaking. They are also
used occasionally when there is a need for outsider servants.
They are not used lightly, however. They are made using pieces
of shell from Saffron's egg after his transformation is made, and
the supplies are limited. It is a great dishonour, to yourself
and to your family, to mistreat anyone under your influence due
to one of the eggs."
"Kima never seemed to care much for honour," Ranma muttered.
"She didn't have any trouble dunkin' Akane in the pools and
taking her form to get the map and the Kinjakan back."
"Honour is, as many things are, a relative thing," Cologne
said. "It is different depending on where you come from."
"Whatever," Ranma said in a low voice.
"And you yourself, of course, have always been the pinnacle
of honour and fair play," Cologne said, the faintest edge of
sarcasm to her voice.
Ranma sighed and said nothing.
"Let us try experimenting with your ki again," Cologne said,
changing the subject abruptly. "This time, though, we shall be
more careful."
"Hopefully," Ranma said.
"Go slow this time," Cologne said softly. "Close your
eyes."
He did so, taking a deep breath. The air smelled of
morning, and sunlight, and the burning scent of wood upon the
fire.
"Hold your hands in front of you as if you are cupping a
sphere in them," Cologne said. Her voice was soft, musical.
"Feel it there. It is made of light, your light. The light of
your soul."
There was a tingling sensation in his fingertips, a
fluttering somewhere around his heart, a butterfly inside skin
and muscle. He moved his hands up as she said, and tried to feel
the sphere there. He thought of it, round, glowing softly blue,
light as a feather. Slowly, slowly, the butterfly within him
moved its wings. Slowly, slowly, the sensation of a pulsing
beat, in time to his heart, began to move up his arms.
His skin felt tingly, not unpleasantly. He caressed what he
seemed to hold in his hands; it felt like a current of
electricity under silk.
"Open your eyes."
He opened his eyes, looked at his hands. The sphere was
there, a misty shape made of blue light, the size of a baseball.
Tiny eddies of lighter and darker blue swirled within it,
whirlpools in the ocean.
"It is your light you hold," Cologne said. "It is all
possibility within your hands. But it is no longer light. It is
flowing, slowly, can you not see? Let it change, for you know
the way. There are tides within it, undertows, oceans. Let it
change, Ranma. Raise it above your head."
He raised his hands, slowly, the sphere cupped between them,
bobbing slightly. There was a silence overhanging his actions,
his mind, pervasive, all-encompassing.
"Let the light change," Cologne said. "There is moisture in
the air. Tiny molecules. Draw them in, Ranma. Draw them into
the light."
The pulsing beat of his heart became the slow roll of tides
upon the shore, raindrops upon a lake, the flow of a river down
soft green banks. His eyes watched as the sphere began to swirl
slower and slower.
"It is water now. Not light."
And it was, just for a moment. Water, cool and clean in his
hands, as if felt through a paper-thin sphere of glass. Then it
was only light again, and then it vanished. He sighed. "So
what does this do?"
"It's just an exercise," Cologne said. "It helps to get
control. You're very far away from being able to actually do
anything with that, but once you can hold it for longer, we can
move onto other things."
"Can't I start with something harder?" Ranma muttered.
"This is kid's stuff."
Cologne looked at him levelly. "You're right, Ranma. It is
kid's stuff. Because compared to me, you are a child. You may
be stronger than me, you may be tougher than me, you may have
enough ki in you to level a mountain if your heart doesn't burst
from the energy. You might even be faster than me under the
right circumstances. But in all-out fight, I can wipe the floor
with you every time. I know more than you do. I can do more
than you can."
"Hey-"
"Hear me out," Cologne said. "You are good. For your age,
you are incredible. But you are not the best. You can be much
more than what you are. I will help you. I will drive you hard,
Ranma, because it must be done. Because you must be as strong as
you can be to face what is coming. We must all be strong, or the
Dark will crush Jusenkyou under its heel and dance upon the
graves of her people."
"What is coming, Cologne?" Ranma said.
"Who knows?" Cologne said with a sigh. "The Dark hides
easily amidst the Light. It can look like your brother, or your
lover, or your best friend. Jusenkyou is protected, but not from
everything. The time will come when we must fight."
She tilted her head back and looked up at the morning sky,
blue and with sparse clouds. Dark hair spilled down her back,
black silk that shone in the sunlight. "Try it again. Hold it
as long as you can. We'll keep this up until Samofere gets
here."
Ranma exhaled softly, and cupped his hands in front of him
as he closed his eyes.
**********
Kima was still looking for Loame when she nearly walked
right over Xande. The ancient chancellor of the royal family was
easy to miss; a tiny, hunched old man with black-speckled white
wings and two long tails of hair speckled in the same way. He
wore the plain but elegant ceremonial garb of his position,
tapping his way along the floors of the palace hallway as he came
out of a door with his walking stick. As they often did, some of
the crows that obeyed his commands attended him; one perched on
his shoulder, the other atop his wrinkled skull, both regarding
her with beady yellow eyes.
"Hello, Kima," he whispered in his dry old voice. "You're
back, I see. Anything to report?"
"No, sir," she said. "The spy networks are quiet."
That was the nominal excuse she'd had for leaving the
mountain, a random check of those disguised spies they had in
human villages for information and to see how they were
fulfilling their duties.
"Good, good," Xande muttered. He seemed to trail off for a
moment, lose track of where he was. He had been much more in his
youth, she'd heard; her father had spoken of him with admiration
often. Now he was a tired old man, without children to inherit
his position. She never would have said it, but his mind had
taken to wandering in the past few years.
There was a saying in the mountain: the seneschal is the
King's sword, the chancellor is the King's shield. It was true;
she served Saffron as supreme commander of the troops, organizer
of the spy networks, and as the supreme controller of affairs in
the mountain. Xande was Saffron's advisor, babysitter and
servant. He was nominally her superior, but he usually deferred
to her in everything. He'd been of some help during the recent
fiasco with Saffron's transformation; his crows had led them to
Japan after the girl, and they'd brought Ranma's fiancee to
Jusenkyou.
It was sad to see, in a way. Many of the nobles treated him
without respect, knowing they could get away with it. He was an
old man; it would be his time soon. She was going to hate to see
the scrambling to fill his position from one noble family or
another.
"I'll see you, then," Xande said as he passed by her, steps
shuffling. One of the crows on his shoulder turned its head back
and looked at her balefully, then squawked with a somehow
accusatory tone. Most of the nobles could communicate with the
birds that were their kin in one form or another; Xande had
always been among the strongest, able to compel large numbers of
crows to obey his commands. She was best with doves and pigeons,
although the most she could do was get them to carry messages for
her.
Xande's gnarled talon came up and stroked the bird.
"Patience, pet," she heard him murmur as he walked out of sight
around a corner. "Patience..."
She glanced at the door he'd come out of and frowned
slightly. It led into Helubor's chambers. She sighed as she
stepped by; she'd hoped that the majority of royals being neutral
or in favour of Saffron's placement in the nursery would have
made him stop his protests. It seemed it had only shifted his
focus from her to Xande.
Up ahead, two uniformed guards came around the corner.
They spotted her and saluted with their spears, standing at
attention as they did so.
"At ease," she said, and they relaxed. "Have you seen
Loame?"
"He's working on the renovations to your chamber right now,
Lady Kima," the one on the left said, nodding his head slightly.
"Convenient," Kima said shortly as she passed by. The tap
of the guard's feet synchronized with the thud of their spear
butts on the floor as they walked in the opposite direction.
A few more bends and twists in the corridors of the palace
found her outside the gilded door of her chambers. The crest of
her family was upon the silver-banded steel, two golden
phoenixes, wings folded at their sides, bodies elegantly curved
into C shapes, each a mirror image of the other as they supported
a single scarlet sun upon their heads.
She opened the door and stepped inside. Her suite in the
palace was small but elegant, the room she entered first
consisting of a few wooden chairs around a large round table and
a large fireplace at the wall opposite the door. Stacks of
kindling lay next to it; even in the summer, the upper reaches of
the mountain could grow very cold at night. The mantle of the
fireplace held a few small figurines, carved in marble and gold
and jade. Phoenixes and dragons, something to give the room
character, if nothing more.
One of her two attendants sat in a chair in the room, an
unremarkably pretty young woman with the delicate features of a
noble and her dark hair done up in the traditional bun. The
billowing sleeves of her white robe rippled as she moved,
carefully sewing something Kima couldn't see.
"Welcome back, my lady," she said softly, with perfect
deference. The younger daughters of the noble families were
often set to serve higher-ranking nobles; it was a way of gaining
favour, and also possibly getting enough information to
blackmail the higher-ranking noble.
"Where is Loame?" she asked.
"The commoner is in the bathroom," the attendant said,
managing to put a sneer into the words despite no change of
expression or tone of voice.
Kima nodded and stepped by, heading for the bathroom to the
left. The door that led into that was wood decorated with red
and blue phoenixes, feathers intertwined. She turned the handle
and walked into the bathroom, the most prominent feature of which
was the large, square stone tub, easily six feet across both
ways. She'd always thought it too large; it took ages to haul
enough hot water to fill it. Loame looked up from where he was
examining the wall near one end of it.
"Forgive me, Lady Kima," he said. "I had meant to finish
before you returned. I am nearly done."
"Very well," Kima said. She stepped across the room to the
marble washbasin on the tall stone pedestal; two taps now
protruded from the wall, overhanging it, a golden phoenix head
and a silver dragon head. The mouth of each was open, and a
small button was atop each, silver for the phoenix, golden for
the dragon.
"The sink is finished, if you want to try it," Loame said.
He had a soft, almost melodic voice, unusual for such a big man.
His wide wings were brown in colour, his hair brown with a few
grey strands, hanging nearly to his shoulders. He was the chief
of the workers in the mountain, high among the commoners, but
still lower than the lowest noble. "The phoenix is hot water,
the dragon cold."
Kima depressed the button atop the phoenix's head with one
taloned finger, and watched as hot water, steam curling from it,
poured into the basin. There was a drain as well, she saw, and a
wooden plug on a silver chain attached to a ring on the wall
between the dragon head and the phoenix head.
"Very good," she said. "How did you work it out?"
"We essentially split the spring at the source point," Loame
said over his shoulder. "We carved niches for the Gekkaja and
the Kinjakan in the walls, then got them into place. The waters
join back again in the spring at the top of the mountain; we
already had the channels in place for water distribution, it was
only a matter of dividing them into hot and cold. When you press
the button, it slides a wooden divider out of the way and lets
the water pass by out of the tap."
"And the Kinjakan and Gekkaja can be retrieved if need be?"
"Easily."
She nodded approvingly, then pressed the button atop the
phoenix head again. The flow of water stopped. "A job well
done, Loame."
"Thank you, Lady Kima," the big man said in his soft voice.
"The bathtub is finished. It is like the sink, only on a larger
scale. Unless you have further need of me, I will be going."
"Very well," Kima said. "I am pleased with this, Loame.
You and your workers have the thanks of the entire mountain,
and of Lord Saffron."
"We exist only to serve Lord Saffron," Loame said. "And the
people. The ravens know our duty bound."
Kima felt her heart skip a beat. "What was that you said?"
"The ravens know our duty bound," Loame said, and he looked
at her, seeming confusion on his lined face. "The fire burns
away, the air disperses, the waters flow onward, but the earth
remembers."
He turned back to the bathtub and began to sing softly as he
traced his fingers over the stone of the wall. Kima stood there,
not knowing what to do, listening to that gentle song.
Loame straightened up and walked past her. His voice was so
quiet it was beyond a whisper. "Know that sign. It is ours.
The ravens know our duty bound."
Then he was gone, out the door. Kima walked over to the
bathtub and bent down, looking at what he'd done to the wall,
shaping the stone by his voice. It was the image of a bird,
wings raised and outspread to the sides, head cocked to look to
its right. The one eye visible was a round pool of stone so dark
grey it was nearly black.
And she remembered, in the cavern under Ryugenzawa, watching
the dragon twining in the air, the last sight before she slipped
under the great dark-eyed raven, feathers kissed with silver
light, in the same position between the horns of the dragon, and
how he'd seemed to be looking only at her.
She decided a long, hot bath would be a very nice thing
before going to see Saffron. She reached out and pressed the
button atop the phoenix's head, and watched the swirls of steam
rise into the air for a few moments before she began to run cold
water into the bath too, to keep it from being boiling.
Once the bath was filled, she stopped the water and gazed
longingly at the clear depths. She left her jewelry on the edge
of the sink, stripped out of her uniform and gauntlets and left
them on the floor, then sank into the hot water with a gentle
sigh, wings spreading out to the sides as she let the
all-encompassing, gentle clutch of the heat take her thoughts
away.
**********
Ranma held his hands out in front of him, the sphere of blue
light the size of a basketball, swirling madly upon itself. His
skin was made of needles, his blood was like lava. He'd held it
for nearly twenty minutes now, on the point between implosion and
explosion, wavering ever-so-slightly each way with each second
before finding his balance again, sweat beading his face.
Cologne was standing a feet steps away, watching and nodding
her head occasionally. He couldn't find room to speak, couldn't
find room to do anything beyond stand and hold the sphere in
front of him. His heart was pounding in his chest like a drum.
Finally, he felt as if he could hold it no longer. He
tried, clinging to it desperately for a few more agonizing
seconds, and then he let it fall away, sucked in upon itself. He
sagged, feeling exhausted.
"Not bad," Cologne said with a shrug as she approached and
handed him a canteen. He took a long swallow, grateful for the
liquid taste of it, if not for the lukewarm quality. "I think
you might actually be able to do something useful with it by
now."
"Like what?" Ranma asked, sipping more water.
"Like this," Cologne said. She raised a hand, palm up,
fingers curled slightly to face up towards the sky. A spark
bloomed there, silver in colour, and then it began to expand,
tinging with crimson as it did. In a second, there was a sphere
of red and silver in her hand, the surface madly swirling.
She took a step forward, brought her hand whipping down, and
seemed to almost throw the sphere underhanded like a softball.
It shot off like a bullet, leaving a trailing afterimage of
itself behind it.
Two dozen feet away, it impacted the mountainside with a
sound like a cannon going off. Stone fragments flew everywhere
as the sphere burst into a ball of crackling scarlet lightning,
and then imploded upon itself a fraction of a second later.
Ranma regarded with interest the man-sized hole blown in the
mountainside. "Not bad."
"That was only one," Cologne said. She didn't even look
winded. "I can hurl a dozen or so at once. It's a simple enough
technique for someone with a lot of ki and good control."
"Lemme try it," Ranma said. He felt more relaxed now, more
in control. He raised his hand, and felt the power, the sheer
sense of vitality, flow along his arm. A ball of blue fire
swelled in his hand, and he hurled it forward, letting it burst
from him, blossom, scream through the air in a high-pitched
whine, and hit the mountainside near where Cologne's missile had.
At that point, it promptly winked out of existence without any
noticeable effect.
"Ahh..."
"Why do you never ask how before you do something?" Cologne
lamented. "Just tossing it won't work. You need to strike a
balance in the energies, keep the burst contained at the core,
wrapped in a shell of negative energy that will be disrupted upon
impact."
"Huh?"
Cologne sighed. "You need to construct the ki sphere in a
certain way, so it blows up when it strikes something as opposed
to taking your arm off or just winking out."
"Right. How do I do that?"
"How do you make your fingers move, Ranma?" Cologne said
with a shrug. "I've pointed you in the right direction. You've
got to figure it out yourself."
Ranma reached back and gave a tug at his pigtail. "I'll
try."
"Good boy," Cologne said, patting him on the shoulder as she
moved away.
Ranma took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. He was
very tired, and that, at least, made it harder for him to think,
or to remember, which he didn't want to. He wanted to lose
himself in the Art, let it overcome everything else.
He stopped suddenly when he heard a harsh cry overhead, a
raven's voice. Looking up, he saw two shapes, both with black
wings, descending down onto the ground near him and Cologne. One
was Shiso, and the other an old man, white haired and
bespectacled, dressed in plain brown clothing and carrying a
wooden walking stick over one shoulder. His wings were sweeping
and black, an elegant contrast to the simplicity of his robes.
"Samofere," he heard Cologne say, softly, only to herself,
and there was so much in that one word, that name.
Samofere was not quite as withered as the squeaky-voiced old
man who'd served Saffron had been, but he came close. His
movements were careful as he walked towards them, Shiso perched
on his shoulder. He took old man's steps, tapping with the cane.
There was a sense of great calm to him, of serenity. He reminded
Ranma of a monk.
Then he spoke, and his voice was rich and deep. "Ranma
Saotome."
"Yes," Ranma answered, though it had not been a question.
"Welcome," he said, and smiled. He was stooped, but Ranma
could see he had once been tall. His eyes were dark green,
bright and sharp, magnified behind the round-framed glasses, a
young man's eyes.
There was sorrow in them, and Ranma realized the old man was
not looking at him but past him, to where Cologne stood, her back
to them, dark strands of hair blowing slightly in a gentle pass
of wind.
"We have much to talk about," Samofere said finally. "Let
us be seated."
He slowly sat down, folding his legs and laying his walking
stick across his knees with a soft sigh. Ranma sat as well;
after a moment, Cologne joined them. Shiso hopped from
Samofere's shoulder and began to strut in circles on the ground,
dark eyes brightened not in the least by the sun.
"I have heard all of what happened up until when you went
under Ryugenzawa," Samofere said. "Tell me of what occurred after
that."
"The dragon gave us welcome," Cologne began. "She has
marked him. Show him, Ranma."
Ranma sighed and undid the ties of his shirt, slipping it
off. A bit of the neck and the head of the dragon upon his chest
were visible now, though most of the length was still concealed
beneath his undershirt. At a nod from Cologne, he slipped that
off as well.
"Just don't go touchin' it or nothin'," he said. "I already
got enough of that from her."
"Interesting," Samofere remarked. Shiso squawked softly and
tilted his head forward slightly to look closer.
"It animates when he draws ki, or in the presence of even a
small amount," Cologne said. "Ranma, if you would."
Ranma put his hand up and concentrated. It was easy, now;
he'd been practicing for over an hour. A small sphere of blue
light blossomed in his hand, pale blue currents running beneath
the cloudy dark blue of the surface. The dragon twisted like a
kite in the breeze upon his flesh, writhing and shimmering. The
jaws opened a silent roar, and then slowly closed as he let the
sphere dissipate.
"This is not something unknown," Samofere said quietly,
pushing his glasses up slightly. "The use of ritual scarring or
tattooing to gain mystical powers is common amongst many ancient
tribes all over the world. Have you noticed a difference in your
abilities? Have you gotten faster, stronger?"
"Well, I can draw a lot more ki now," Ranma said. "But my
control's really shaky. Not sure about the strength or the
speed; I haven't tried to fight anyone since I got this. But I
was faster and stronger before, and a hell of a lot tougher, as
long as I was..."
He trailed away. "As long as I wasn't in control."
"Fear, stress, pain," Samofere said. "All of these can
bring out another part of us. It may seem an entirely different
person."
A lake of fire and ice, and a dark shape within the ice.
"What about all these other things I'm remembering?" Ranma
said. "I remember fighting foes I've never fought, doing things
I've never done, being other people."
"The Light has its champions," Samofere said quietly.
"Some, those who shall be among the greatest, may reach back or
forward upon the stream of time, the river of destiny, and they
may recall the lives and actions of those champions."
Ranma said nothing, his expression troubled as he put his
shirt back on.
"The dragon told us a story while we were in the palace,"
Cologne said. "I think you should hear it."
And she told him, in a soft voice, the same story that the
dragon had told them, of the land of beauty and the ancient pacts
broken, of the three peoples united against the one called the
Ravager, of the battle so fierce that the boundary of time and
space was torn apart, and nearly all who fought that day died, no
matter what side they had served.
When she was finished, there was silence for a few moments,
and then Shiso opened his beak and spoke, as if reciting
something long-ago learned.
*The ravaging shadow across the land lain*
*He rais'd his hand and all was slain*
*But the singular power was cloven in twain*
*And into the shadows the Light rode again*
Then he squawked softly and began to preen one wing, as if
ignoring them completely.
"I have heard stories of a similar kind," Samofere said,
glancing at the bird with a slightly exasperated look. "I need
to go back and consult my books, see what they have to say. I
am sure we will meet again, Ranma Saotome."
Then he glanced to Cologne, and Ranma saw how his expression
softened slightly. "Would you walk with me for a while, old
friend? I would speak to you."
Cologne nodded and stood up gracefully, offering Samofere
her hand. He took it in the gnarled talon on the end of his
right arm and allowed her to help him to his feet. The two of
them walked off to the south together, the slender, small women
with the dark hair and the stooping old man with the folded
breadth of dark wings trailing behind him like a cape
Ranma watched them go till they were out of sight around the
curvature of a mountain, and then turned his head to regard the
form of Shiso, still grooming himself.
"So, bird," he said. "What you got to say?"
The bird raised his head, regarded Ranma with one depthless
black eye, and spoke.
*The veil was torn and darkness crossed*
*As air was rent by fire and frost*
*By bright lives slain and beauty lost*
*You learn the truth of power's cost*
"You freak me out sometimes, bird," Ranma said, knuckling
the raven's feathered head with something almost like a sigh.
"Only sometimes?" the bird said, as if insulted, and then he
made a pleased rumble in his throat as Ranma continued to stroke
his head, sitting there in the air of the coming afternoon.
**********
Cologne looked over at Samofere as they walked. He was so
old, she realized. He had aged far better than she had before
the renewal of her youth, but he was still over a century old,
stooped and bent, skin wrinkled like old parchment, hair sparse
and white where it had once been full and brown. He was laden
with age, bent by the weight of his years.
But his eyes were still the eyes of the boy she remembered
from that first day at Jusenykou, the eyes of the man who five
years later had taken her under Jusendo and shown her the true
heart of her home, the man who had been chosen at birth to be the
librarian, a few short hours before the old librarian had died.
And the duty his, that he'd shared with her, handed down
through the centuries, the origin lost to time. To wait for the
one who would come and be reborn in Jusenkyou's pools, who would
bring the finest one of Joketsuzoku's young warriors to Japan,
who would battle the heir of the Musk Dynasty and then save his
life, who would master the Orochi lurking in Ryugenzawa, who
would defeat the invincible Lord Saffron.
"You are more beautiful than I remembered," Samofere said
softly as they walked, breaking the silence. The sun was
approaching the highest point in the sky, beams dappling the
grass. "Reality fills in gaps that memory loses."
"You always flattered me too much," Cologne said, looking at
the ridged spines of the mountains on either side of them.
"Been a while, hasn't it?" Samofere said. "Since we met
like this."
"It became harder and harder to get away," Cologne said.
"Council politics being what they were, I couldn't risk being
seen with an outsider, least of all an outsider whose people
aren't supposed to actually exist."
"Nearly ten years," Samofere said.
"We had Shiso for messages," Cologne said.
"Not the same."
"I missed you, Cologne."
"I missed you."
A long silence passed, as they walked under the shadow of a
large stand of trees that edged off slightly from the long line
of the forest to their left. The leaves blew gently in the wind,
green in summer. Green like the dragon rising from the silver of
the lake, green like his eyes. What was there to say, Cologne
realized. What could you possibly say, after a century of these
same conversations?
"How is the boy doing?" he asked.
Change the topic, then. That always worked. "He is
progressing quickly. I will push him as hard as I can."
"I received message from Lord Kammael of the Musk," Samofere
said. "They have found the Dragon's Blade."
"Another sign falls into place," Cologne murmured.
"You tutored him in his youth, did you not?" Samofere
asked.
"For a few years after he was married," Cologne said. "He
was wed to a cousin of mine, after he came to the village and
defeated her. The father usually teaches the son, but his
father died when he was very young. He learned a lot on his own;
I helped to refine his technique."
"You met his son, did you not?"
Cologne nodded. "Prince Herb. He is a dangerous one. I
could see it in him."
"So was Kammael in his youth," Samofere said with a soft
sigh. "The Musk are honourable, but they are not kind... their
rulers have certain difficulties. It is part of their lineage,
their bloodline."
"Why does everyone think them extinct, anyway?" Cologne
said. "That was the boy's belief when he came to Japan, that I
would not even know of his existence. I played along with him,
but he didn't tell me anything I didn't know."
"Why does everyone think my people a legend?" Samofere said,
and shrugged. "The Musk choose to isolate themselves, as do my
people."
"As do mine, in many ways," Cologne said.
"We are all of us divided," Samofere said. "Amongst
ourselves, amongst each other. We are all slowly dying."
"Kammael is with us, then?"
Samofere nodded. "The Musk have their own memories of the
way things once were. The king is privy to certain secrets that
are not shared with those he rules."
"That is always the way it is with power, is it not?"
Cologne said.
"Do you know what the nobles of my home do when Saffron is a
child, when he does not provide heat and light for the people?"
Samofere said, a hint of sadness creeping into his voice. "They
tell those below them that it is because Saffron is displeased
with them, and demand just a little more obedience from them, a
little more work. That is the way it has been for centuries."
"Does no one know the truth?"
"I think many do," Samofere said. "But people will believe
what their eyes tell them is false because they want to believe a
thing is true, or because they fear the consequences of not
believing, or because they fear it may be true and they are the
ones who are wrong."
"Is there something wrong with believing in something
because of faith, then?"
"Faith is a thing in and of itself," Samofere said. "It
does not spring from fear, or from being forced to believe a
thing. You must come to it your own free will, or it is not
faith at all."
He shook his head. "Might we sit for a moment, Cologne? I
grow weary."
Cologne, who could have kept up the pace they were walking
at almost forever, nodded. "I was feeling a bit tired myself."
"Lying never did become you, Cologne," Samofere said as he
sank down to the ground, spreading his wings slightly. They were
still gloriously beautiful, silky-black and shining, the other
remnant of his youth beyond his eyes.
"I..."
"It is a sad thing, is it not, to be young again when one
you knew in youth is old?" Samofere said.
And what, in truth, could she say to that but silence?
They sat for a few minutes, watching the slow drift of
clouds in the sky. Finally, Cologne reached over and touched his
arm, frowning inwardly at how thin it felt beneath the cloth of
his robe.
"I should get back to Ranma," Cologne said. "It has... been
nice to see you again, Samofere."
"Help me to my feet, would you?" Samofere said. Cologne
gave him a hand up, feeling the rough pebbling of his taloned
hands, like sandpaper. They'd been smooth in his youth, and now
they were gnarled like an aged tree.
"We should be in the same spot for the next day," Cologne
said. "I will move us around, of course. Shiso knows how to
find me."
"That he does," Samofere said softly. "Fare well."
He spread his wings, darkly gorgeous, deep purple highlights
along the edges of the feathers, and took to the air without any
of the slow difficulty of his walking.
Cologne wanted to watch until he was out of sight, but found
herself unable to. She turned, and began to walk back to the
north, as the sun and clouds moved by overhead.
**********
When Galm crossed the border of Jusenkyou, about a mile
south of Phoenix Mountain, his presence was felt by six
different people. He'd moved far faster than Yoko had expected;
killing humans gave him power for a time, and he'd crossed over a
thousand miles of China in a few hours since he'd slaughtered the
men on the beach. He hadn't been in China all the time, though.
Sometimes he'd been visible to human eyes for a moment, a grey
blur seen out of the corner of your vision that was gone when you
looked at it, a tingling sensation in the middle of your back
that made you glance back and see nothing. For most of the time,
though, he'd been slipping in and out of the boundaries, crossing
miles with a single step. He could do it, if he had enough
power, and the prey was far enough away.
Of the six who felt him, three were far across the ocean.
All three smiled when they felt the mild tingle of his passage,
two for one reason, one for another, all three for what they
believed to be a fulfilment of their own ends.
Three who felt him cross were nearby, and one felt it as a
vague sense of unease, a chill running down his spine.
Another who felt it gave a sharp cry and awoke from sleep in
a cradle of stone, wailing for a few long minutes before he was
calmed by the gentle voice and soft words of one who was his kin
by long descent, despite appearing far older than he.
Another felt it as a wave of inexplicable fear that sent her
sagging against a stone wall for a moment, grateful that there
was no one else in sight to see this moment of weakness.
Galm felt nothing when he crossed. He was outside the power
of what protected Jusenkyou, and he could not be stayed, or even
felt by it, and neither could he feel it.
When he crossed, two very old friends who could have been
more once were parting, a young man was sitting in silence with a
raven for company, a traveller cloaked and concealed was walking
south along a mountain trail in a bitter mood common to him,
and a woman who was more confused then she had been in a long
time was going to make a visit to the child who was her king.
As the clouds move to gather for the storm, as the winds
move to gather for the hurricane, sometimes so do people gather.
Such a gathering was about to take place, and the damage would be
no less. (
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