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 34 : A Face Burns Through Me
I dreamed about you baby.
It was just the other night.
Most of you was naked
but some of you was light.
The sands of time were falling
from your fingers and your thumb,
and you were waiting
for the miracle to come
-Leonard Cohen
Roots seized at her hair, her shoulders, her legs.
Hard-packed earth drove aching shocks through her calves and feet
with each footstep - how long she had been running, she did not
know. Upon her body, the wounds of the battle at Watcher's Hill
throbbed with dull and repetitive pain. Side and shoulder were
soaked with blood now, and by the second she could feel herself
growing weaker, cold seeping through her limbs and dulling her
mind slowly towards unconsciousness.
But Shampoo ran on through the lightless tunnel, not even
able to see her hand before her or the confines of the walls.
Ran, because behind her came the sound of someone running upon
hard-packed earth. Constantly she feared a stunning collision
with a wall, or a broken ankle from low-lying roots. Yet though
the tunnel seemed to grasp at her, it never held her fast, and
her outstretched hands always seemed to find the wall before her
in time to turn away from it.
Time stretched on as she ran - into minutes, hours, days,
centuries. Time ceased to mean anything. How to measure time
without light? Slow as tar she seemed to move, slow as the slide
of glaciers. And someone pursued her in silence - did they pace
her, were they slower, how had they not caught her yet? Wounded,
weary, sorrowing, she ran.
The pinpoint of light at the end was slowly expanding. Had
she been running only for a few minutes? It could not have been
that little.
Crying; she was crying, she realized, sobbing like a child.
Dead, dead, they were all dead - names marched through her mind,
a grim procession of the slain: Hai Feng, Dai Jin, Gu Shou, Dao
Tai. Lang Bei. And not even the worthy deaths of warriors, not
even bodies to bring back to offer to the flames so that their
souls might fly free through the arc of the sky turned red by the
setting sun and beyond the clouds into the heavens - not, not
even that. Ripped apart, slaughtered like animals, _devoured_
like animals by those monsters...
Oh gods, oh gods of all her ancestors, the sounds of tearing
and the bright gouts of blood - was that true battle? Was that
the true face of death? No nobility in it at the end, only
terror and pain--
It could not be. She would not have it be. She was
Joketsuzoku. Life was battle, an opposition of force to force,
strength to strength. It was an act of will to make the tears
stop, but she did. Do not be weak, she told herself. No tears,
for tears are of the realm of children. You are the Maiden - do
not weep. And something tripped her, and her head slammed into
the earthen wall. A groan, a struggle to her feet, and then the
voice came from behind.
"" it said, ""
It was him. The giant with the sword, the one somehow more
terrifying than the winged monsters he had commanded, though he
but stood with hands upon the hilt of his blade while the battle
went on. His tone was light, amused - and how frightening that
was - but somehow familiar. How close was he? How close had he
been all this time? She could not place the distance of the
voice.
Fire in the darkness, so sudden a brightness it nearly
blinded, though it was but the tiniest of flickering flames. He
was perhaps a dozen feet away, holding up his light overhead in
one hand, his sword held dipped towards the ground in the other.
Each tiny link of his black mail was so brightly polished that it
reflected the light perfectly, so that he himself seemed to be
afire. The tunnel around him was, as she had guessed, a tangle
of roots sticking through rich dark earth. The roots themselves
hung all about like hair - she wondered that she had not injured
herself upon them.
""
It was in the way he said the name. A step closer, and his
eyes, so pale a blue - those together did it. It fell into
place; sickeningly, it fell into place.
Disbelieving, denying, yet knowing. ""
Another step, a long stride that brought him to tower over
her where she lay dazed. The flame from the silver dragon in his
hand burnished his hair into spun gold. "" he intoned sardonically. ""
She scrambled back from him, pushing herself with legs and
the single arm she could still feel. "" she whispered,
though she knew, knew with horrible certainty that it was true.
"" he said softly. "" A moment of distraction seemed to pass across his face;
perhaps the blue eyes shone with a little more brightness than
usual. Then there was another man where he had stood, and in
between there had been - something else. A vague shape like a
man, but all rawness and blank flesh, except atop the thing that
might have been a head were two abysmal pits of blue flame.
The armour and clothing had shrunk to fit the new body.
Asakazu was slight where the other had been bulky, and not so
tall. The hair was longer, dark rather than golden - but the
eyes, the eyes were the same coldness.
"" Flight was futile. He could kill her in a
second - the sword wavered in his grasp as if he read her
thoughts - and to stall him might be to live. What to live for,
she was not sure, but something. Surely from the wreckage and
slaughter, from this final betrayal of her heart, something might
be salvaged.
"" the Asakazu-thing said.
"" He
indicated them with a wave of the sputtering lighter. "<...were
not this colour. And there was a woman, much like you, a proud
and brave warrior. She betrayed me.>" There was no grief in his
voice, but there was the impression that once, long ago, there
might have been, as the image of a long-dead thing might remain
fossilized in stone. But as love fades quicker than hate, so too
grief fades in time.
The lighter went out. Before the afterimage of light faded
from her eyes, he sparked it again. ""
Shampoo saw with wild hope that the roots that protruded
through the tunnel walls were stretching, like snakes waking from
deep sleep, slowly twining round his ankles and creeping up his
lower legs. She was not alone in this - something, some power,
was with her here. Something had known her blood upon the
Watcher's Stone, and something had opened the ground below her
feet into this hidden place. That thought, like an oncoming of
daylight in this darkness: she was not alone.
"" she asked. The roots in the walls near him
trembled, as if in anticipation, like the palsied fingers of the
old, strong and dark and filled with ancient power.
"" The shapeshifter
rippled his shoulders in a shrug. "" A lie, perhaps, but a lie that he
surely believed of himself. "" And he let the lighter go
out. "<...it is time.>"
From the darkness, the sword in his hand swelled with silver
fire. The inner edge of the flame was an inversion of light dark
beyond black, and the roots of the tunnel lashed out as one single
thing, and Shampoo forced herself to her feet through pain and
loss of blood and ran. Behind her, cold light burned from the
sword, and a figure wrapped from head to toe in writhing ropy
fibres of roots howled with rage and blindly swung his blade from
side to side. Where its cold steel touched roots, they withered
and died in seconds.
Each running step drove a rusty knife into her throat and
lungs. The tunnel was warm, but she was cold inside as if she
ran through winter's heart. Blood loss might kill her sooner
than he could. Dirt showered down around her as the roots of the
trees above shifted and bound themselves into a wall behind her.
So close now to the light that she could see - and behind her
came a thing haloed in spikes far past the colour black. Upon
two legs it came - and perhaps it was without skin, and perhaps it
had the scales of a serpent or dragon, and perhaps what writhed
beneath the caul of maggot-white flesh stabbed with blue were all
the other faces waiting to come forth. The wall of roots melted
before it, fell to dust. Up ahead was stunning brightness - what
lay beyond she could not see, but now there was a cool and
cleansing scent amidst the odours of blood and sweat and raw
earth.
The tunnel began to widen out. Her pursuer came on,
howling with rage - his voice was a man's, and yet not. On the
edge of herself there was a vague sense of sorrow, of yet more
loss, but there had been nothing truly there to lose. Up ahead
the light was blinding, and a figure so tall it could not be
human stood illuminated from behind by it.
Shampoo stumbled at last, driven this far more by sheer
force of will than by any strength left within her. Even that
was gone now, and there was only the cold rushing darkness that
crept down from high inside her and kissed her with lips of ice.
She stumbled, tripped - and fell finally at the feet of the
tallest, oldest, kindliest man she had ever seen. His silk robes
were as an ancient ruler of China might have worn in times long
past, the colour of freshly-tilled soil trimmed with thread of
precious metals of gold and silver. Lines were sunk deep into
his face as faults within the earth, but his hair and beard were
an elegant silver-streaked black.
"" he said. His voice was a deep,
rumbling bass, yet so pure it was like music. ""
Eternally grateful, Shampoo finally allowed herself the
mercy of passing completely into unconsciousness.
**********
They faced each other over the unconscious girl.
""
the sentry said with gentle voice. ""
"" the Serpent replied, ""
"" the sentry asked with
genuine interest. The Serpent did not answer. ""
""
said the Serpent. His tones were very soft. Dropping the blade
of the sword so that its tip rested upon the earthen floor of the
tunnel, he let the black fires die around him and put back on the
Ritter-guise. Comfortable and most familiar, a reminder of what
he was now.
The sentry's dark eyes were sad under his thick and greying
brows. "" he said softly,
after a time. ""
The Serpent spat upon the dirt floor, narrowly missing the
girl's still body. ""
"" the sentry questioned, touching a hand to his heart.
The Serpent threw back his head and laughed, cold and
bitter. ""
""
""
""
The Serpent smiled like his namesake. ""
"" the sentry said bluntly. ""
The smile faded quick as it had come. "" the
Serpent snarled. He half-raised his sword. ""
"" the sentry replied.
The Ritter-guise was huge, for a human, but the sentry himself
was over a dozen feet tall, and now he stepped forward until only
a few feet lay between them, and the girl lay behind his towering
form. ""
"" The Serpent edged forward slightly. He was
naturally wary of the first ones; they were not human and had
never been, and their arts were old and strange. "" And killing the Grey Smith had nearly left him
entombed under a mountain.
"" the sentry repeated. ""
Something clinked and glittered in his hand as he brought it
forth from within his robe, a twisting shape of silver that was
almost invisible but for its bright glitter in the light
streaming from the gateway behind him. ""
"" the Serpent whispered. ""
"" the sentry replied. "" He raised the slash of silver
overhead in one hand, to hurl it, perhaps to bind and catch even
the mightiest and most beloved of the Dark - for such as this had
it been shaped so long ago.
"" the Serpent snarled. "" And, spinning on his
heel, he turned and stalked back down the tunnel. This he would
not risk, and there were more important things, he told himself.
The sentry waited until he faded from sight, and then bent
and lifted the girl into his massive arms as easily as if she
were a newborn child.
She murmured something in her sleep. ""
Grief-stricken, for he had known all that had gone on atop
Watcher's Hill, the sentry patted her head gently with one
immense hand. ""
There was no reply. Cradling her against his shoulder, he
gestured with one hand, and from far down the tunnel, an earthen
rumble and a sliding of rock began. Then he bore the Maiden, who
had again asked of him for aid in the name of the ancient
compacts between his people and hers, back into the glowing
circle of light, so they two passed for now out of the the pain
of this world and into another.
**********
There was at first the mountain. Tall and sharp, the upper
peaks were strewn with clouds, obscured from sight of the ground
below. The mountain - it had a name, but that escaped her. Home
it was called in the mind, at the most fundamental core from
which all other thoughts spring - from the centre of being. Her
body felt clumsy and incomplete, and through this she knew that
it was a dream, and yet not. While she dreamed, the meaning of
the dream escaped her.
In the shadows a figure stood nearby. No; not just in the
shadows, though a hulking spherical boulder beside him cast
darkness down upon him. The light was drawn from him, cast out.
And she knew him, though not in the proper way, but this
body was hers, was hers, but the mind, all feelings, madly
confused. The figure turned, touched his fingers to the stone,
and it split and fell in two pieces as if cleaved apart by a
blade. Shadow-figure knelt, and in one hand he held a beam of
light thought it seared his palm, and in the other hand a ball of
darkness was cradled almost lovingly. With fingers of fire and
shade he scrawled his name into the rock in kanji elegant and
ethereal as last night's mist; flickers of shadow intertwined
with a blaze like fire. Beneath it he put her name, and it was
written all in light, so bright she could not bear to look
directly upon it.
Then he closed his fist around the darkness and opened his
hand to let the beam of light fly free. He wiped his hand
across the names, until they were torn away by slate-grey flame,
and only the burning print of his hand remained. And the earth
cried out, and he rose and said her name and not her name and the
earth cried out and the waters wept blood--
Akane woke up with tears in her eyes. Aches and pains
competed for possession of various parts of her body - ribs,
leg, stomach, head. Currently, the head was in the lead in terms
of how much it hurt, but the others were close behind. The
dream, already half-fading in her mind, was gone almost
completely beneath the all-too physical pain and nausea.
She was in a dark place. A narrow slash of light coming
from beneath what must have been a door illuminated little, and
the window high overhead showed only a dark sky with few stars in
between the gaps of iron bars; through it came the distant sounds
of many people moving about and talking outside. The floor
beneath her was rough wood, and as she sat up from lying on her
side, injuries protesting all the while, her nose rankled at the
odour of sweat and otherwise.
Someone snored softly in the darkness nearby; the sound
startled her, but as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she
saw Ryoga half-curled in a ball in one corner of the large
brick-walled room. Moving over on her knees, she shook him by
the shoulder. "Ryoga?"
His only answer was another snore. A less gentle shake
failed to rouse him, and though in the distant past she might
have had other methods of waking Ranma, she wouldn't use them on
Ryoga. The thought of Ranma was quickly pushed away, and she
stood and walked carefully across the dim room towards the door.
Halfway there, she banged an already-sore leg on what felt like
the edge of a stool, and let out an explosive and highly
creative string of swear words.
Footsteps. Beyond the door. A panel slid upon with a
rusty squeak, revealing the face of a woman little older than she
was. "You awake," she observed in heavily-accented Japanese.
"Ryoga..."
"Friend is drugged," the Joketsuzoku said in a flat voice.
She sounded tired and weary, and there were dark bags under her
eyes. "Too strong. Break out if awake."
"Oh," Akane said softly. A prison, of course. Where else
would they be kept?
"Want light?" the woman asked.
Akane nodded. "Yes."
There was a click, and a single naked bulb in the ceiling
began to glow. "Light. Want pot?"
"What?"
"Want pot?"
Akane frowned. "I'm not sure what you..."
"Pot! To do..."
Comprehension suddenly dawned. "I'm okay for now," Akane
blurted, though that was not entirely true.
The woman cocked an eyebrow. "You sure?"
"Yes. Thank you."
Without another word, the guard began to slide the panel
closed. "Wait!" Akane said, then corrected her tone. "I mean...
why are we in here? We didn't..."
"You interfere in execution," the Joketsuzoku said. "Brave
thing to do, but stupid. Only thing that stop you from getting
Kiss of Death is you unconscious. Friend call Elders liars.
That brave too, but also stupid."
A chill came over Akane. "What happened to..."
"What need to," the woman replied, before Akane could
complete the question. "Blood-price paid but little now."
Sick. Suddenly, she felt terribly sick. She sat down on
the stool in the centre of the room and cupped her face in her
hands.
"Want water, outsider?"
The tone was not friendly, but neither was it hostile.
"Yes, please," Akane murmured into her hands, not caring if the
guard heard her or not. Dryness invaded her throat with dusty
hands. Beyond the door, the guard's footsteps slowly retreated.
There was the sound of a door opening, and Akane sat in silence
for long minutes. Shampoo was-- Fang Shi had said she was dead.
Killed by the Phoenix Tribe. But it was all wrong - she could
feel that, feel the wrongness of it. Underneath the surface of
all this was something more malign than Saffron or Fang Shi.
Happosai and Genma had not returned yet, she was sure of that.
And they had pursued someone into the mountains.
Footsteps again. The panel opened in the steel-banded
wooden door, and the hand of the guard deposited a small tin cup,
then retreated. "Water."
Akane came to the door and took the cup gratefully. The
metal was cool in her hands, the water fresh and sweet as she
sipped. The guard did not close the panel, but watched Akane
drink. Through the opening in the door, Akane could see a plain
hallway and little more.
"Your other friend go back with Shampoo's father," the guard
said as Akane lowered the cup from her lips. So Rouge was all
right, then; that brought a tiny measure of relief. The guard
continued speaking without waiting for a response. "I hear
Shampoo talk about you at gathering. You prisoner of Phoenix
before, yes?"
Akane nodded, sipped again. "Yes. And I..." She drew a
deep breath. The water was suddenly a lump of lead shot in her
stomach. "I don't think they did this."
"Why?" the Joketsuzoku asked flatly. "Elders say they did.
Ambush from air. Arrows."
"They aren't..." Akane struggled to express what she was
sure was true in words. Kima - damn her - had seemed to be the
one really in charge of things, though Saffron might be king.
And an ambush and slaughter like what Fang Shi had described did
not seem to match up with Akane's picture of the cunning, subtle
foe the winged woman had been.
The guard grew annoyed at Akane's silence. "What?"
"The Phoenix only really want to be left alone, I think,"
Akane said, making a logical leap as she considered the facts.
"Saffron, their king, is incredibly powerful - I think he could
wipe out entire armies by himself. But all he does is provide
heat and light for them. Even if they would be angered by
prisoners being taken, I think they'd just try to rescue the
prisoners. Wouldn't that make more sense?"
The weary eyes of the woman on the other side looked
doubtful, but not entirely unconvinced. "It..." The sound of a
door banging open came from outside, and a voice called in
Chinese.
"Guard is changing," the woman said, sliding the panel
quickly closed. Her footsteps rapidly went away, and Akane dimly
heard her conversing in Chinese with another voice. Then more
footsteps, a door closing. The tread that stopped outside the
cell door this time was heavier, and the face that looked
through the panel when it opened was older and considerably less
friendly.
Akane tried all the same. "Hi..."
"Quiet, outsider." And the panel slammed closed.
With her foot, Akane slid the stool over to where Ryoga lay
in stupor. Twinges in her body reminded her of her injuries as
she sat down next to him, and drank the water until the cup was
empty. At the end her throat was still dry, but she did not ask
for more.
**********
Ranma woke up from dreaming of Akane. He could remember
nothing but that the dream had been of her. Whatever he had
seen, though, it left him breathing raggedly when he awoke.
Disoriented for a time by the strange surroundings, he
finally swung his feet out of bed to the cold stone floor of the
room in Chenmo Shan, and stretched his arms over his head.
No wonder, of course, that he had dreamed of Akane. Shiso
had brought the word - she was in the Joketsuzoku village.
Somehow, it had not been important at the time. Now, though,
Kima was healed, and the few hours of sleep had banished the
darkly beautiful memory of the Lady from his mind. Again his
thoughts were in turmoil - he did not know what to do. She was
involved now, as was nearly everyone else he'd thought to
protect by leaving them behind. Let my mother be safe, he
half-prayed. Let there be at least that.
Through the gap in the curtains drawn across the open-air
balcony, he could see that it was still night outside, and hours
till sunrise. Yet he was not tired, but rather filled with a
strange vitality. Exhaustion had been too lesser a word to
describe him hours ago; after he'd awakened Wiyeed from her
unexpected nap, and she'd stopped berating him over being the
source of the unexpected nap, he'd simply collapsed into the bed
of the empty room she'd shown him to.
There was a full-length mirror, face clouded with dust,
leaning against one wall. With his hand he wiped the dust away,
and studied himself in the silvered glass by the pale and
unobtrusive light of the globes upon the walls. A web of cracks
marred one of the upper corners of the mirror's face, near a
triangular corner of the metal frame that looked to have been
scorched by acid, but that did not prevent him from seeing the
head of the green dragon on his body. He pulled his undershirt
off, and stood bare-chested before the mirror, turning back and
forth. The black dragon's body writhed along his back and
gripped the tail of the green dragon within its mouth near his
waist. The green dragon's mouth was closed still, the head lying
upon his right shoulder.
Marked. Like cattle. Though the tattoos, or whatever else
they might be, were beautiful - exquisitely detailed down to the
most miniscule feature. They were alive, too, in a way; the use
of power would make them writhe and twist. Not for the first
time, he thought he was getting thinner. Maybe it was simply the
mirror. He pulled his undershirt back on, and his other shirt
overtop, and walked away from the cracked glass.
The room was cool, but not uncomfortably so. Under his
hands, the black curtains were silky, and he drew them aside to
step out onto the balcony. Night air was refreshing as he
breathed it in, and he rested his elbows on the carved stone
railing and leaned slightly over the edge. This balcony faced
south, staring out across the wide desert.
He remembered visions. There had been a forest there once,
and cities within it, and a people fair and bright and beloved of
the Light. Then wasteland, and a black tower like a claw raised
against the heavens. Now the shifting sands of four millennia had
lain themselves down across the place, and buried all. But still
nothing would grow there.
Snatches of song, rising and falling melody: *Lady of ends
and beginnings, Lady of desert and still pool, Lady most fair...*
Nearby, a thin waterfall fell from an opening in the slopes,
and splashed gently down to feed a glistening pool hundreds of
feet below. How small I am, he thought suddenly. How terribly,
terribly small.
A soft knock upon the door drew him away from night and the
desert, and he passed back through the open curtains and into the
small room. Wiyeed was in the hallway beyond when he opened the
door. She had pinned her long hair up atop her head, though a
few strands had escaped to dangle about her pointed ears.
"Lord of Waters," she greeted formally, with a slight
incline of her head.
Ranma laughed uncomfortably. "You can just call me by my
name, you know."
Wiyeed's face softened slightly, moving away from her stiff
shell of authority. "Ranma," she said quietly. "The Lady heard
your dreams. Are you all right?"
A faint anger stabbed him. "Heard my dreams?"
Wiyeed went on as if he'd said nothing. "What is wrong?"
"Akane's here. At the Joketsuzoku village."
A nod. "Akane is...?"
"My fiancee. I should..." He sighed. "I don't know what I
should do. I should have done something. But I just went to
sleep, and..."
"You were tired. Even more so, after what you did."
All he could do was shake his head. "No. That's not right.
I feel... as if I'm forgetting her. Even though I see her body
all the time, it's not her." Losing what Akane moved like, the
way in which she laughed, the precise curvature of her smile. "I
don't know how to--"
"Well, you have to go to her, of course," Wiyeed
interrupted. When Ranma stared at her, she blushed faintly. "I
haven't really... well... look, I've read a lot of books. The
hero always goes to the one he loves. That's the way things
are."
Bitterness tinged his laughter. "Life is not a story."
"But it is," Wiyeed countered. "Stories are only the
reshaping of what there already is in life. Can you deny that
even now you are drawn to her?"
Akane had beckoned him in his dream. He remembered that
now. Calling out from the darkness of sleep. "No. I can't."
Wiyeed smiled, albeit with what might have been sadness.
"Then why deny yourself? Go to her."
"But what about everything else?" Ranma said. "The Dark is
coming, Wiyeed. I can't..."
"I do not think," Wiyeed said coolly, ",that you could avoid
the role fate wishes you to play in what is to come."
Ranma raised one eyebrow. "And can you?"
"I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be." That,
recited precisely, was her answer. She smiled, then shook her
head. "We read many things here. Fate binds some more solidly
to a certain track than it does others."
Decision made, Ranma nodded. "I'm not tired," he said.
"I'm going to go now."
"Now?" Wiyeed blinked. "Can you not wait--"
"Maybe there isn't time," Ranma said, cutting her off.
"Maybe that's why I dreamed."
Wiyeed opened her mouth as if with further protest, then
closed it. "Come," she said, and turned. "I will take you to
one of the pools. From there, you may transport yourself to
Jusendo."
She led him down the empty stone hallways of Chenmo Shan,
the light-globes shining all around them and showing the strange
artifacts, sometimes alien and sometimes inexplicably familiar,
that rested in niches carved from the walls.
In time, they came into a chamber where a small pool of
shadowy water lay upon the floor, as still as if it were frozen.
The lip of the pool was perhaps an inch high, made of pure white
marble so closely joined with the granite floor that it was hard
to see precisely where one truly ended and the other truly began.
Wiyeed knelt and passed her hand over the surface. Tiny
ripples followed her motion as if in response. Frowning, she
made another pass with her hand. "This is..."
Hands resting on his knees, Ranma bent down and stared into
the pool. Below the veil of the water, he could see a marble
bottom, but it was hard to judge precise distance. "What?"
"The connections are gone," Wiyeed murmured. "But how?
Always, always they are there. To her sister over the sea, and
her sister under Jusendo. But..."
"Is it safe to touch the water?" Ranma asked as he dropped
to one knee beside the pool and reached out with a tentative
hand.
Wiyeed nodded. "The Lady is entirely conscious, unlike her
sisters. It is safe."
The water was cool as he dipped his fingers into it. The
slight impact made little spreading circles, and as he swirled
his fingers through it, he felt... pain? Not from him, but
elsewhere... Sister sister sister a voice endlessly repeated
broken and lost sister sister sister
Ranma pulled back. Too deep to go alone.
"Did you feel it as well?"
He nodded. "Yeah." Nervously, he licked his lips and
stared at the pool. "Something's wrong. With them - with the
dragons."
Silence from Wiyeed made him glance to her. Head cocked to
one side, she appeared to be listening to something he couldn't
hear, eyes distant and unfocused. Suddenly, she snapped out of
it with a shake of her head. "The Lady does not know what has
happened. She is..." Wiyeed seemed to struggle with the words.
"She is afraid. I must wake the others - we must use the
Nightpool to scry and see if we may discover something. My
brother as well; he'll need to know this."
"Kima too," Ranma added as he stepped with her towards the
archway leading from the chamber. "How many miles is it from
here to Jusenkyou?"
"The quickest route across the Desert of the Claw to one of
the passes through Dragon's Ribcage is perhaps twenty-five
miles. That leads into the Valley of the Waters - from there
perhaps another ten to Jusenkyou."
Ranma laughed. "That's nothing."
"Not for such as you, I suppose," Wiyeed answered with a
shrug. "And your companion's flight will make it easier for
her."
Ranma did not think it needful to mention that he was quite
capable of flight now as well. How easy it had been last night;
how very easy. Something his father had told him once came back
to him suddenly - one of the pieces of advice the old man had
loved to give but had never followed himself. Beware that which
comes quickly and easily.
He brushed the thought aside and walked silently down the
halls of the mountain called Silence, the echo of his footsteps
resounding hollowly on the stone floor.
**********
Ryoga wasn't waking up. It had been nearly an hour now, or
so Akane guessed. The sound of the guard pacing outside was
almost constant, as was the unknown activities whose noise
filtered in through the high window. Occasionally, a group
would pass close by, speaking in Chinese. Not for the first time
since coming, Akane wished she had even a rudimentary knowledge
of it. If she knew Chinese half as well as Shampoo had known
Japanese...
She wiped at her red eyes. Shampoo was alright, she told
herself. Just like Ranma was. Another shake drew only further
snores from Ryoga, and Akane stood from the stool and walked a
circle on the rough wooden floor of the jail. The new guard,
even if less friendly than the last, had left the light on. She
was thankful for that - time always seemed to stretch on longer
if you had to wait in the darkness. Even if they could have
gotten out, there wasn't much chance of them escaping unnoticed.
And there wasn't any chance of them getting out if Ryoga didn't
wake up.
A shiver rolled across her. The air in the room seemed
suddenly colder. In the hallway, the guard stopped pacing.
There was a heavy thump, as of a body falling to the floor.
Akane ran to the doorway and pounded on it. "Hello?
Hello?"
Silence. The rattle of a key in the lock. Akane stepped
back and shifted into a fighting stance, bringing up her
half-clenched fists before her. When the door opened and Mousse
stood revealed on the other side, she sagged with relief.
Then she took in how he looked. His skin was pallid, and
his eyelids were closed. The robes, usually white or pale blue,
were deepest black, the contrasting geometric symbols picked out
in pale thread. In his right hand, he held the long barb-headed
spear that she'd last seen over the fireplace mantle in Lang
Bei's home.
"Mousse?" It was not possible to keep a tremble of
nervousness from her voice.
"It's me, Akane," Mousse replied softly. His voice was a
shadow moving across water. Feet so light as to move without a
sound, he stepped by her and into the room. In the hallway,
Akane saw the guard flat on her back, no mark upon her. Before
she turned away, she noted with relief that the woman's chest
moved slowly up and down.
"What happened--"
Mousse cut her off with a look. Or not a look - his eyes
remained closed. But nevertheless, the impression of being
stared at was so strong that her voice went dry in her throat.
Unable to stand the void of silence, Akane tried again. "Mousse,
Shampoo... they say Shampoo is..."
"I know," Mousse said. "But that's not important right
now." Akane bit back an angry response as Mousse knelt down by
Ryoga, still holding the spear tightly in one hand.
"How do you know?" she finally asked.
"I know," Mousse replied. "We cannot stay here. We must
leave before the War March begins."
Akane blinked. "War March?"
Light glinted across the razor edge of the spearhead as
Mousse gestured with out towards the window, and the vague sounds
of activity outside. "Every Joketsuzoku, woman, man or child,
will march towards Phoenix Mountain. The women will take their
weapons. The men will take their bows. The children will walk,
be carried if they are too tired. The tending of fields will be
abandoned, the herds confined in their pens with enough food to
last them a week. All will turn themselves to war."
"War," Akane whispered. The word sent a chill down her
spine.
"A small war," Mousse said softly. "Between dying peoples."
Akane shook her head. "We can't let it happen."
Mousse nodded. He reached out with his free hand, and
traced Ryoga's forehead with the index finger. Ryoga let a long
breath, and shifted where he lay on the floor. His legs and arms
stretched out, and then he slowly blinked. Mousse rose and
stepped back, gripping the spear shaft with both hands and
resting the butt on the floor.
"What did you do?"
He turned his head in the direction of her voice. A blind
man did not move with such surety; Akane knew that. "I purged
the poisons from his system."
"How?"
No change of expression. "My family line has kept the spear
for fourteen centuries, waiting for when it would need to be
awakened again. There are certain powers inherent in wielding
it."
"Powers?"
"And prices," Mousse said softly. "Oh, there are prices."
"You were in a coma," Akane said. "How--"
"What's going on?" Ryoga asked, shaking his head and looking
around in confusion. "Mousse, how did you get here?"
"That can be dealt with later," Mousse replied as he began
to walk out of the room. "We must go. South."
Outside and nearby, a child began to cry, and just as
quickly went silent. "Phoenix Mountain," Akane said.
"Somehow... I..." Finding the right words was a struggle. "Yes.
He's right."
Ryoga barked a short, bitter laugh. "We're going to walk
out of this frying pan and into the fire, then?"
"We're going," Akane retorted sharply, "to stop a war. And
we know Saffron and the Phoenix somehow had something to do with
whatever happened to Cologne and Ranma."
"No we don't," Ryoga said. "We think."
"I know," Akane insisted. "I just do."
In the doorway, Mousse stroked the shaft of the spear with
his hands and spoke. "Time is not in great abundance here."
"We're going to just walk out?" Ryoga asked wryly.
For the first time since he had come, Mousse smiled. "Yes."
A thought came to Akane. "Rouge," she said. "And Shampoo's
father."
Mousse seemed to hesitate. For a brief second, head turned
towards her, his eyelids fluttered. Beneath - no, that could be
but a trick of the light, Akane thought.
"Yes," he said finally. "We will go there." Without
another word, he turned and walked out into the hall, stepping
over the limp form of the sleeping guard. "Stay close to me, and
do not speak."
Ryoga opened his mouth as if to protest. Then he stared at
Mousse's pale face, slowly shook his head, and said at last
nothing.
When they walked out of the large building they'd been kept
in, the village was a bustle of activity, though it was hours
from sunrise. Torches, lanterns and the occasional electric
lamp lit the village. In the centre of town, a supply dump
appeared to be gathering, with piles of weapons and folded
tents and wrapped packages that must have been provisions.
Women and men ran back and forth throughout the village,
carrying burdens from one place to another. Even the occasional
sleepy-eyed child passed them, carrying a quiver of arrows or a
bulging sack.
No one noticed them. Everyone passed them by. At times, it
seemed as if one of the villagers would walk right into them, but
at the last moment, they always diverted around them without
seeming to realize it.
They passed close to two wooden stakes, sharpened and driven
into the ground. A palpable space which no one would enter
surrounded them, though a few hard-eyed women stood nearby with
hands resting on spears or the hilts of sheathed swords. Akane
let out a low moan as she saw what was atop the stakes, and Ryoga
put his arm around her and moved to hide it from her vision.
"Don't look," he whispered. There was a grief in his voice
as well. "Don't look." The Joketsuzoku seemed, for the most
part, to be doing exactly that. I wonder what they did with the
rest of the bodies, Akane thought inexplicably, and let out a
soft sound halfway between laughing and weeping.
"Be silent," Mousse said in a quiet voice tight with strain.
Both hands held the spear before him as they walked. Now that
Akane turned her eyes to him and away from the terrible sight of
the executed Phoenix, she saw that a pale fire thinly rimmed his
hands and the shaft of the spear. Somehow, the look of it gave
her comfort. Peace.
When they arrived after what seemed like hours of walking
through the busy night-time preparations of the village at
Shampoo's house, they found the door closed and locked. No one
ever locked their door in the village.
Mousse touched the point of the spear to the door's handle.
There was a click, and it swung open. "Inside." As they walked
into the front hallway, Akane swung the door closed behind them.
Dimly, she realized that under other circumstances whatever had
happened to Mousse would have caused her much greater concern
than it did now. On top of everything else, though, it was only
one more thing to be dealt with.
Rouge met them in the passage between hallway and sitting
room, red-rimmed eyes going from wary to relieved in an instant
when she realized who it was. "Oh, Akane, I'm glad you are
well," she said effusively. "I had no idea what was going to
happen to you. I tried to talk to people, but none of them would
listen, and Shampoo's father said I had to come away. They're so
angry, Akane." Before even Akane had a chance to respond, Rouge
grabbed her by the shoulders and embraced her tightly. "I didn't
know what to do. I felt so helpless."
The only thing Akane was able to do was give the older girl
a few hesitant pats on the back and then step away. To Ryoga's
obvious relief, Rouge chose not to embrace him as well, but
simply gave him a brief smile. Even that made him blush and
stare at his feet.
"We don't have a lot of time," Akane said.
Rouge nodded. "I know. We have to get out of here before
things start getting bad."
Hanging back from the reunion, Mousse spoke. "It would not
be good to be outsiders among the Joketsuzoku at this time."
It was as if Rouge had only noticed him them. She looked up
past Akane and Ryoga, and as much as eyes could be said to meet
among one blind and one sighted, theirs did.
After a few seconds of silence, Mousse turned away and
walked down the hall out of their sight without another word.
Akane blinked, then stared at Rouge's ashen face.
"What's--"
"Nothing." Rouge's voice was shaky. "Who is that?"
"A friend of ours," Ryoga said. "A good one. Something's
happened to him. I don't know what."
It seemed that Rouge accepted that, for the tension in her
body relaxed. "Shampoo's father is upstairs," she said. "I'm
going to go and pack supplies."
"Want some help?" Ryoga asked unexpectedly. Rouge nodded
and the two of them headed down the hallway in the direction of
the kitchen. Left alone and confused, Akane stopped to order her
thoughts. They had arrived in the village less than two days
ago, and so much had happened.
We are going towards the strongest enemies we ever faced,
she thought with a dim sense of foreboding. To the Phoenix Tribe
and their child-god, who nearly killed Ranma and me. To do what?
Give warning or otherwise?
Within all this, this threat of war, there were the unknown
factors. The women on the mountain so long ago who spun storm
and shadow, the old man that Happosai and Genma had pursued into
the mountains only to vanish. Tarou, who had appeared and just
as quickly disappeared. It was all a tapestry of intertwined
threads, but so many of them she could not see the beginning or
the ending.
The Council had been killed. Shampoo too, it seemed, much
as she might wish to believe she could have lived - and such a
sadness that put in her now, even with all their past. The
thought of the vibrant girl gone, truly gone, struck her nearly
as hard as the thought that Ranma might be gone as well. But it
had not, could not have been the Phoenix. That she knew with all
her heart. Dangerous foes, ruthless too, but Kima's ruthlessness
had been subtle; not senseless slaughter.
So what then? Let war occur? That could not be. But war
was a great beast, and it would grind her and anyone else who
tried to stop it beneath an iron heel. She told herself that,
and yet there was nothing else to do but go. To warn, at least.
To find answers in the process. Deep in her heart, she
remembered... something. Ranma. A dream of him, perhaps,
keeping her always on the right path.
Lost in her thoughts, she only realized she was climbing the
narrow stairs up to the second floor of the house when she was
near the top. Almost, almost she went back down, but then she
stopped herself and walked to the closed door at one end of the
hallway that she guessed belonged to Shampoo's father.
A knock upon the door received no answer. A second nothing
more. "Hello?" she called.
"Open," a heavily-accented voice called from inside.
Nervous, she opened the door and stepped through. Shampoo's
father sat cross-legged on a thin sleeping mat, fingers working
deftly and quickly to string a short bow. The room itself was
spartan, almost aesthetically bare of any mark of personality or
uniqueness. A small window overlooked the night scene of the
village. Captured points of the lights and torches from outside
danced like wisps in the glass.
If he was surprised to see her, the small man gave no sign.
Though, since his eyes were hidden behind his dark glasses, that
might not have been the case. He gave her a cursory nod and
resumed bending the bow almost double with surprising strength,
a hand on the upper curve of one end and the other end crooked in
between his leg and knee. Akane stood in silence as he finished
and rose smoothly to his feet, the bow held loosely in one hand.
With a finger, he plucked the string and gave a satisfied smile
at the twang it made. That changed abruptly to a frown. "You
not stay here. I not turn you in, but not shelter you either.
War March is called. We go to war."
"It wasn't the Phoenix," Akane said quietly. "They didn't
do this."
He shrugged his thin shoulders. "War March is called upon
Phoenix, by vote of majority of woman villagers. All Joketsuzoku
obey or no longer Joketsuzoku. Is law."
Such an absoluteness in the words. Not much trace of
emotion. Akane almost opened her mouth in angry reply. Then she
saw that there were tears falling in silence down cheeks, from
underneath the dark glasses that covered his eyes.
"The Phoenix didn't take your daughter away," she said
softly. "You know that. I fought them. They're well-trained
soldiers, but they're not martial artists. The Council would
have driven them off easily. Shampoo alone could have fought
dozens of them without even breathing heavily."
"Their king..."
"Saffron was a baby when I last saw him. And if it had been
him, no one would have survived to come back. To tell about the
ambush. To execute prisoners for crimes they did not commit, and
call down war."
The man cradled his bow in both hands. "War always part of
the Joketsuzoku," he said softly. "Last century, we put it away.
Grandmother, Elders like her, they say no more war for the
Joketsuzoku. But it never go away. Part of what we are."
"Don't let this happen."
He laughed softly. "I am man. I nothing. I provide
support. Carry bow, though I not shoot in years and then only in
hunting. War cannot be stopped by me."
"But that doesn't mean you have to go along with it," Akane
insisted. "You can't. Shampoo wouldn't want this."
"And how you know what my daughter want and not want?"
Akane had no reply to that, simply uncomfortable and mute
silence.
Shampoo's father sat down heavily on a stool by his tiny
dresser. On the dresser, dried sticks were arranged in a plain
vase of chipped white porcelain. The bow laid across his knees,
he took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes with the back of
one hand. When he looked up at her, she saw his eyes were small
and dark and blurred with tears and near-sightedness. "I am
Joketsuzoku," he said softly. "I not know how to be anything
else."
"If war happens, how many will die, even if you win? The
Phoenix live in a mountain as secure as any castle. They can fly
beyond even the range of arrows."
"Arrows not all the Joketsuzoku have," the man replied
cryptically. He was silent for a moment, then turned his head
and looked away from her, out the window and into the night where
the Joketsuzoku made ready for war. "What you and friends going
to do?"
"We're going south," Akane answered after a moment's
hesitation. "Towards Phoenix Mountain."
He nodded, as if he had known all along. "Go soon."
"Rouge and Ryoga are packing supplies." She wondered what
time it was, how soon until the sun. "Mousse is awake now too.
He's coming with us."
The legs of the stool scraped raspingly on the boards of the
wooden floor as he rose. "You not think the Phoenix do what Fang
Shi and Bi Shou say?"
It was said so softly, Akane barely heard it. Blame,
perhaps. He was seeking someone to blame for the death of his
daughter. "No." His face bore no readable expression, and now
his eyes were dry. Akane pressed on. "Something terrible is
coming, and we're only leaves in a stream in this. We're going
to try and stop this if we can. Whatever it is."
He nodded. For the first time since she had entered his
room, he smiled. "Some ways, you remind me of my daughter."
A compliment, Akane supposed. But the pride she felt was
surely real. Looking at him, a small, grieving, seemingly weak
man, Akane felt as lonely and isolated from her own family as he
must now feel. She longed to hear Kasumi sing to herself as she
cooked, hear one of Nabiki's snide remarks. Even her father
would have been a joy to see in that moment.
"Thank you," she said at last, and wondered how much time
had passed in silence. Outside, the sound of work and dim voices
calling back and forth seemed to have lessened. Had they run out
of time?
He seemed to hear her thoughts. "When they ready to go,
there will be time for rest. A few hours, so all are strong and
can march long as possible."
"We'll go now, then."
He nodded. "All the gods go with you."
Akane nodded, a thickness in her voice. "And with you."
Silence between them. No need to speak.
"You know," Akane mused softly, "I don't think I even know
your name."
"Gao Chao, Akane," he replied even more softly. "Name is
Gao Chao."
He waited. She could say nothing. She did not know what he
wished her to say.
"It means 'high tide'," he said finally. In the silence,
Akane could hear sounds from the floor below. The kitchen must
be under this room - through the thin boards, Ryoga and Rouge's
voices carried, though not the words.
She nodded. "It fits." She didn't know why it did.
"Do you know how to use a bow?" Gao Chao asked, and held
forth the one in his hands to her.
**********
""
""
Fang Shi paced the front hallway of her house as Bi Shou
stood warily upon the doorstep, tossing one of her daggers from
hand to hand. The village was quiet now; everyone had been
ordered to grab a few hours sleep before the march began, and
only a few torches and lamps remained burning, unguarded.
""
"" Bi Shou replied.
""
Bi Shou raised an eyebrow. ""
It was a trial to stifle an angry reply. Face tight, Fang
Shi stepped out of the house and closed the door behind her.
"" she said as she gazed at the
darkened houses of the village.
Bi Shou shrugged. ""
Gibbously, the moon hung in the sky overhead. Fang Shi
watched it, and the spangled glitter of the stars. Finally, she
spoke again. ""
Bi Shou shook her head, then tucked her blade away. With
her hand, she covered a small yawn. ""
"" Fang Shi muttered. ""
"" something hissed from nearby. It did not sound
human. ""
The voice said the tribe's name almost mockingly. It
dripped an almost visible darkness, something deeply wrong in the
sibilant tones. Bright finger-long fangs glinted in the
moonlight as one of the monstrous winged things from Watcher's
Hill stepped out of the shadows near the house, black wings
folded tightly around him so that he was nearly invisible against
the night. A chill ran through Fang Shi's old body at the sight
of the lashing barbed tail that seemed possessed of a will of its
own - it was the leader of them. His eyes were very dark, with a
faintly shimmering haze of red.
"" Fang Shi said flatly. "" Yet he did, she realized - as much right as the
master that he served. Or she. Not for the first time, Fang Shi
mourned inwardly at what she had allied herself with. Let them
have believed me, she thought silently. Let them have believed
that I never knew it would come this. But it had, and now she
could only go in this one direction. Survival first; after that,
everything else.
The monster - Shouzin, it had been called - seem to realize
that. Thank the gods that nearly everyone else was asleep, and
that the few guards awake were far from here. Shouzin did not
go, but rather took a step closer. Bi Shou stood in silence,
regarding him in mute disgust.
There were still stains of blood upon Shouzin's teeth.
Whose, Fang Shi wondered, and hurled that thought deep down and
locked it away before it drove her mad. "" the
monster said. ""
"" Fang Shi asked.
"" Shouzin replied. ""
"" Bi Shou murmured. ""
Hurriedly, she turned to leave. Fang Shi put a hand upon
her arm and stopped her. ""
Bi Shou nodded, and stalked away. Shouzin was grinning when
Fang Shi looked back to him. "" she said in a
dangerously low voice. ""
"" Shouzin said. "" From between his fangs, a forked tongue flickered.
""
Her stomach twisted. ""
Shouzin regarded her with obvious contempt. ""
"" Fang Shi hissed. "" She was not sure she could back up all the threats she
might make, not now. But she was almost certain that if she
wanted to, she could kill Shouzin. Not easily, perhaps, but she
could.
Muscles coiled beneath the emaciated, almost fleshless body
of the monster. Fang Shi drew on her energies and prepared an
attack that would reduce him to ash if he moved at her. Then,
without a sound, he sprang straight up into the air. Wings beat
once in a smooth and powerful motion, and he was gone from sight
within an instant.
Slowly, Fang Shi let herself relax. She sat down on the
front step of the house and pulled her shrunken legs up to her
chest. A wind blew through the village, flittering the distant
flames of torches, and she linked her hands together across her
knees and watched.
""
Fang Shi hadn't even heard the door open. Framed in the
light from within the house, Bai Ling was tousled and sleepy-eyed
in her nightgown, and looked younger than her eighteen years.
""
Bai Ling toyed nervously with her hair, lifting it with her
hands and letting it fall back against her shoulders. ""
""
For a moment, there was a frightening hesitation on the
girl's face, and then she shook her head. ""
"" Fang Shi murmured softly. ""
""
""
Bi Shou nodded, bit her lip in a childishly annoyed gesture,
and turned away. The door closed with a snap behind her, and
then Fang Shi was alone again. As she wanted it.
**********
There was a pale rosy haze in the east, as the light of dawn
swept over the sky and shone upon the desert below. A dim and
sallow moon was still visible in the pale blue sky, soon to
vanish as the sun rose higher.
Up above the lifeless sands, Kima flew. Dip, soar, rise,
fall. Claws of wind brushed against her face as she flapped her
wings to drive herself forward.
Sometimes she laughed with the sheer exuberant joy of it,
like the children did when their wings were judged strong enough
to carry them and they took their first flight out of the
mountain. Memories of that came back - the sheer vast space
there was to go, the incredible sense of power and beauty
inherent in being a thousand feet above the land, so you could
trace the way the rivers ran, and see how hill and valley
intertwined. A glorious, ordered picture, so huge and complex
that it seemed no one who could not fly could ever grasp it.
On the ground below, Ranma walked. It had been her hope
that he would fly with her, for she could have shown him how it
was really done. But, stubbornly and predictably, he had chosen
to plod along on the ground. Well, not plod, really - he moved
in the long run as fast as she did, despite having to climb high
dunes of shifting sand. She laughed again - if he wanted to be
landbound, let him - and it was, like all her laugher, lost in
the wind.
It was a mile, perhaps two, until they would reach the pass
leading through the mountains. Chenmo Shan was a memory in the
distance of the horizon, and from her high vantage point, she
could see the enfolding mountains of the Valley of the Waters.
Never again could she think of it as simply a space of land that
held Jusenkyou and Phoenix Mountain and the lands of the Musk,
the village of the Joketsuzoku and Jusendo. It had a name, a
name from out of ancient memory.
They had given him a cloak to wear, saying that the desert
grew hot when the sun rose. Ranma had said they would be across
before it rose too high, but Wiyeed had pressed it upon him
anyway. He was a blot of dark grey against the sand, pacing her,
occasionally looking up to smile when she flew close enough to
see his face.
Oh, but how good it felt to fly again. Free again. _Whole_
again. Not because flight made her any better - because it was a
part of her. Close, how close she had come to having to live
without it. And she could have - she knew she could have, and
the fact that she did not made it all the more important. But
she had had the strength at last to face life without flight, and
she felt now as if nothing could ever stop her again.
As they got within a hundred feet of the mountain pass,
Ranma stopped walking. He had taken no rest since they had begun
to cross the desert hours ago, with the night sky still dark and
star-filled overhead. Neither had she, though she now realized
that she was tired. Perplexed, she tucked her wings and dived,
unfolded them when she neared the sands, and turned over in the
air to land lightly on her feet.
Ranma clapped his hands sarcastically and smiled. Kima
humphed with mock annoyance and then regarded him questioningly.
"Why did you stop walking?"
"Just wanted to look back." He looked vaguely embarrassed,
and shrugged his shoulders, making the long grey cloak ripple
around his body. "Helps me focus. If we lose, I think this
place is gonna get a whole lot bigger."
"And if we win?"
Another shrug. "It won't. Maybe things'll get a little
better for a while."
"A pessimistic attitude."
"Destruction's a hell of a lot easier than repair."
"This isn't even a desert, really," she said quietly, hit
harder than she wanted to show by his words. "There are flowers,
even in deserts. This is just a wasteland."
"There's no water here," Ranma agreed. "Not a bit.
Everywhere I go now, I can feel it, and I didn't even realize I
could until I put my feet on the sand and realized I was missing
something. It calls to me, night and day, as long as I'm near
it. But there's nothing calling me here, as long as my feet are
on the ground."
"Is that why you walked?"
He nodded. "There ain't nothing but me in my head here."
The words disturbed her, though she could not say precisely
why. "We should hurry."
"Yeah."
She waited for a moment, but nothing more was forthcoming
from him. "I'll see you on the other side of the pass, then?"
"See ya." Then he began to walk away through the short
distance of barren sand that remained between the flat wastelands
and the towering mountains.
**********
Yan came out of the ground shortly after the sun rose. The
Serpent, he told himself. I am the Serpent, the hand of the Dark
upon the earth. But before that, so long before that, he had
been Yan. Warden of Tang-Jin, the shining lake that was the
centre of the Valley of the Waters, just as Tu-Mu was the centre
of Wurdsenlin. Tang-Jin, where the blind washed their eyes and
were given sight, where the lame bathed and walked again upon
legs strong and youthful as spring.
Beautiful Tang-Jin that had turned black as coal and dried
up when his beloved lord had smote Wurdsenlin in the name of the
Dark. He had not been there to watch it die - he had been at his
lord's side beneath Tu-Mu, for he had been betrayed and turned
away from Tang-Jin and the Light to walk with the Ravager for all
his days.
Under the great tree that was the sourcing of all the power
in Wurdsenlin, they had slain the the Twelve, the mightiest
wizards of the Dragon Tribe. Under the great tree, he had been
bathed in the Ravager's blood and had watched him bring the black
fire down upon the green and pleasant land.
And at the last battle in the wasteland, beneath the black
shadow of the tower that had been raised as a monument to the
might of the Dark, he had been slain. Like a maw, the earth had
yawned and swallowed him. A moment of awesome pain when it had
slammed shut and then...
Floating. Through a place of darkness and fire that burned
without light, through lakes of ice and pools of acid. He had
been unravelled like a spool of thread, twisted and plucked, his
torments magnified.
And reborn at last beneath a pile of corpses in a land of
ice so far from home. Forgetting everything... so many centuries
of wandering and killing, with old memories slowly emerging and
shaping him. How long had it been till he had remembered
everything... it could not have been more than a few centuries
ago... Or had he... did he remember everything? How much of him
was Yan, and how much of him was not? He called the second-birth
body Ritter now... how many names had been on it before? He
couldn't remember them all.
Yan stopped and stared straight at the sun. It had been
night when he had gone under the ground. He had forgotten how
the passage of time in the places between the worlds stretched
and warped. He blinked. The Serpent looked around at where he
was. After the tunnel had been collapsed, he had dug his way out
until another exit had been found. Yan wasn't sure where he was.
The Serpent stared and tried to orient himself. At last, he did.
A short walk to the village from here. By now, the War March
would have begun. Shaking his head to clear it, he began to walk
through the craggy hills. Birds sang in the branches of the thin
but strong trees nearby. Overhead, the sky was blue and
cloudless.
There is a power in names, he thought, as he walked through
the pleasant land. In the ones we choose to call ourselves, and
the ones others choose to call us. He was not Yan, he decided
after more walking through the craggy but green land that
approached the Joketsuzoku village. He had not been Yan for a
long, long time. He was the Serpent, whether he liked the name
or not. His was the poison fang and the subtle touch, the
shedding of skins.
In the distance, he could see the quilted terrain of the
Joketsuzoku's farm fields. They stood empty now - all would be
on the War March. Who won and lost, who won at all, those was
irrelevant. The only objective had been to remove the
Joketsuzoku from their village, as they lived close enough to
Jusenkyou to pose a threat. Not to him, but to Yoko and her
sisters. He would need them for a short time longer.
And then no more.
A wind made the trees sway. There was the tang of water on
it as it blew past him. How peaceful it all seemed. There was
no hint in the air of what was coming. Best that way, he
thought, and he turned towards the west, towards Jusenkyou and
the beginning of the end.
**********
"How much further?"
Akane winced for the umpteenth time. Rouge's complaining
and lack of fitness compared to the rest of the travelling party
had made the long night-journey slow, and even now that dawn had
cracked in the east and come spilling over the mountains, it
wasn't getting any better. There had been no stops to rest or
otherwise, and even she was beginning to get tired. Not that she
was going to show that. Mousse and Ryoga weren't having any
trouble keeping this fast walking pace, and if they weren't going
to have any trouble, neither was she. They were in a narrow
section of the southern passes, walking down a v-shaped gully
sliced out of the Bayankala range by the torrents of the great
rivers of the world's youth. A few tenacious trees clung to the
steep and barren slopes, many with half their roots exposed and
the others twined tight into the cracks of the mountains. The
ground itself was hard-packed and sparsely vegetated, strewn
from time to time with fallen boulders from the slopes.
"I said..."
"I don't know," Akane snapped with an angry glance at Rouge.
"And complaining is definitely not going to get us there sooner."
Rouge looked hurt, and Akane immediately felt bad. But it
really wasn't helping to hear her all the time. And she couldn't
think of any apology to make, so she kept silent and fixed her
eyes at the trail ahead.
"There." Mousse was pointing with the head of his spear
towards a peak cloaked in mist far in the distance. "That is
Mount Phoenix."
Ryoga adjusted the pack on his shoulders and shaded his eyes
with one hand to gaze towards where Mousse indicated. "Tell me
again why we're going there," he muttered, with a sideways glance
to Akane.
"Because we can't allow this to happen," Akane said
stubbornly. "Because it's wrong. And because I think we'll find
the answers we're looking for there." She pointedly gazed at
Ryoga. "Is that good enough for you?"
"You nearly died because of Saffron, Akane," Ryoga said
softly, falling into step beside her. Mousse walked ahead of
them with a smooth and silent gait, and Rouge trailed behind them
by nearly twenty feet, though she made the occasional hurried
struggle to catch up.
"I know," Akane replied. And it went even deeper than that;
Kima had stolen her very body, a theft of a magnitude so great it
was almost incomprehensible. But there was far more to this than
the personal. More to this than Saffron or Kima. There were the
two innocents, guilty only of spying, who had been executed for
deaths that their people were not even responsible for. Somehow
she knew that, knew with the deepest conviction that this was
some great and elaborate plan. Only, she wondered, how could it
be carried off - was it really so easy to start a war?
It almost drew bitter laughter from her. Of course it was.
History had shown it again and again. How especially easy it
would be to start a war upon the Phoenix; they were isolated and
alien, half-legendary. That which is unfamiliar is feared. That
which is feared is hated.
"Akane?"
Ryoga's voice shook her from her thoughts. "This is too
important to think about the past," she said, trying to put what
she felt into words. "How can we not try and stop this? Do you
want to see the Joketsuzoku try to storm Phoenix Mountain?"
Ryoga shook his head. "Of course not. But how can warning
the Phoenix help to stop this?"
"You don't believe they actually did what Fang Shi said, do
you?"
Ryoga looked unsure. "I don't..."
"Don't lie to yourself," Akane chided. "You were the one
who stood up last night, in front of the Joketsuzoku, and told
those two power-mongers that you didn't believe them."
"And what good did it do?" Ryoga snapped. "Words did
nothing. There's war all the same, isn't there?"
"But if there's proof that..."
"Proof?" Ryoga laughed. "Proof, Akane? People don't care
about proof. I had proof before my face for so long that Ranma
wasn't the enemy I thought him to be, that you--"
Akane blinked. "That I what?"
"Nothing," Ryoga muttered. "Just take it from me. If you
want to believe something, really want to believe it, it's hard
to make yourself stop. Not before people end up getting hurt."
"Ryoga, what do you mean--"
Rouge cried out from behind them. Akane whirled, Gao Chao's
bow already drawn from where it had been on her back and an arrow
nocked to the string. The two Joketsuzoku must have come up
silently behind Rouge. Tall women both, hard-eyed and dressed in
dull shades of grey and brown that would blend into the terrain
here. One of them had Rouge in an almost casual-looking
chokehold with a knife to her throat. The other shouted
something in Chinese and gestured with her sword. Akane got the
message all the same, and dropped the bow to the ground.
"Stupid outsiders," a familiar voice called from up the
slope. "You think you get away when move so slow? I and my
scouts know mountains like they our homes." Bi Shou picked her
way down from the upper slopes and strode towards them. Even
from here, Akane could see that she was exhausted by the way she
moved. In the crags of the slopes, more women in grey and brown
had emerged. Bows in their hands shifted slightly from target to
target.
"If you move faster, maybe you have made it," someone else
taunted. Bai Ling hurried down from the opposite slope in a few
short leaps, almost slipping once but catching her balance at the
last second with the butt end of her weapon. It was a polearm
much like her great-grandmother's, except that the bladed head
was a flat inverted-bell shape rather than a crescent moon. She
smiled grimly, but Akane saw a sort of falseness in it. "Now you
not get to betray Joketsuzoku to enemies."
"The only enemies of the Joketsuzoku right now are
themselves," Mousse said quietly. Bi Shou started, and Akane saw
the women with bows do the same; it was as if they had not
noticed Mousse until he spoke. Bai Ling, on the other hand, did
not seem to respond so much to Mousse's presence as to his words;
they drew a visible wince from her.
"So that how they escape." Fang Shi spat into the dirt.
"Drop spear, male dog." There was perhaps a moment's hesitation
from Mousse. Fang Shi made a subtle motion with her hand. Akane
heard the twang of a bow. Then there was an awesome, piercing
pain in her left forearm. She cried out, and swayed. Ryoga
caught her. Darkness threatened. Every bruise from last night
came back in force, but nothing could compare to the molten spike
driven through her arm above the wrist.
"Drop spear."
There was a soft sound, as of something being driven into
the earth.
"Akane!" Ryoga said desperately. Ugly rage twisted his
face. "I'll..."
"No," Akane muttered, leaning into his arms to keep herself
from falling. "No, I'm okay. Don't provoke them."
It took a visible effort for Ryoga to keep his control. Bai
Ling was saying something to Bi Shou, but Akane only heard Bi
Shou's response. "Best way to punish is sometimes to hurt what
your enemy cares for."
Then Rouge screamed. A piercing, wailing cry that sounded
as if it had been ripped from her. Akane tried to raise her head
to see what was going on.
A blinding flash, bright as the sun itself. She heard the
Joketsuzoku cry out in pain and fear. The world was bathed in
light. A wave of incredible heat washed over her, as if she
stood scant inches from a bonfire.
Ryoga's arms cradled her shoulders and back. It felt nice.
Not as nice as Ranma's would have felt, but... Oh, did her arm
ever hurt. She hoped it wouldn't get infected. What was going
on?
Bi Shou was shouting something in Chinese. She sounded
terrified. Something that could not, must not be human laughed
and the cold hate and awful alien joy of it ached in Akane's
bones. The Joketsuzoku were still screaming. There was a smell
like scorched meat. Like when she'd tried to make stir-fry pork
months ago. Ranma hadn't liked it.
"It begins," Mousse said, soft as the breeze and yet it
carried over all the laughter and screams. "Look north. Look
and see the truth of what you have allied yourself with."
**********
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
Ranma sat down on the lip of the Phoenix Tap's basin with a
weary sigh. "Nothing here, at least. I just don't get any sense
that there's something wrong."
Kima glanced back over her shoulder and fluffed her wings
nervously. "Then whatever is wrong..."
"...isn't here," Ranma completed. He stared up at the
shattered roof of the Heart of Jusendo. "But..."
"Jusenkyou, then?"
The reaching was almost instinctual now, his senses falling
down thousands of feet in an instant to the water vein below the
roots of the mountain. Even the suffering unconscious love of
the bound one below had become easier to bear.
Rivers, lakes, oceans, all fell into sight. The shape of
them was mapped behind his eyes in glowing lines. Flow, speed,
strength, volume. How ancient they were, he thought. He saw
how rain was gathered from the sea, and how the endless renewal
of the earth and all things on it took place continuously.
Great source of life, he thought. Mother of all things. The
cast-off bodies of the continents fell, grain by grain, into the
cradle of their birth. In time, all would be as dust, and new
lands would be raised anew.
Lord of Waters. It was an apt title. He saw the truth in
it now, for it was both most placid and most destructive of the
elements. It was the cup lifted to the parched throat, and it
was the tidal wave. It was the spring in the desert, and it was
the flood. Source of all life, and in the end, the gatherer of
all things. Maker, mender, breaker.
And he saw it all now. It was perfect, so very perfect. As
balanced in the end as a lake over which no wind blows and in
which no currents eddy. And yet...
There was corruption in it. Not dead things, for that was
natural - they would be returned to life in time, if in other
forms. What he saw was the hand of humankind, he realized;
toxins dumped into the oceans and the rivers, acid carried in the
raindrops. Hundreds, thousands of spots were disturbed, as if
someone hurled stones one by one into the stillness of the lake.
"Ranma?"
So far off, the voice. Too deep he had gone this time, he
realized vaguely. Sister, someone whispered. Sister, sister,
sister, oh my beloved sister. Sister, oh darling sister. Filled
with grief as old as time, it was an endless dirge that had been
varied in its repetition since it had begun back in the youngest
days of existence.
There was something else there as well - a festering thing
that made the dark spots of corruption seem bright as day by
comparison. The image of it was something vast and solid, yet
possessed of no defined shape. A great tangle of gnarled roots
that writhed and stretched itself with terrible purpose. A
thousand-headed serpent. A cruel man upon a throne. A vast bird
whose eyes were the clefts of dead stars.
Then, suddenly, someone dropped a mountain of foulness into
the mix. The waters of all the world echoed with a great and
silent laughter, and Ranma was lifted and hurled by an implacable
and vast hatred out of the depths of the sea and gasping into the
light.
"Ryugenzawa," he whispered.
Kima took a step back from him. "What?"
"Ryugenzawa," he gasped again. As he staggered to his feet,
he almost fell. Kima made a motion as if to help him, but he
waved her away. "I'm okay. Jusenkyou. Now. We have to go."
The earth shook, very softly. Somehow, Ranma knew that it
shook not only here and in Ryugenzawa, but everywhere throughout
the Valley of the Waters, perhaps throughout the entire world. A
minute tremble, as if the land were crying out in fear.
Kima leapt into the air and soared out of the broken crown
of the mountain in seconds. Ranma took a deep breath, gathered
wind about his limbs like armour, and arced into the air.
Perched upon the edge of one spire of rock, Kima knelt and
stared to the east, towards Jusenkyou. The wind had risen
abruptly to almost gale-force, blowing furiously from the east,
and it raked through her hair and ruffled the feathers of her
wings. Ranma landed beside her and stared as well, open-mouthed.
"Too late," she cursed, closing her eyes and clenching one
fist. "We should have seen. We should have seen."
There are moments of life of utter shock, when something
expected appears but turns out to be far more than was prepared
for. Such was this. The Dark was rising - how many times had
that been said?
Not so quickly, though. Not so soon. There is a corruption
that lies hidden, a disease the eye cannot see until it springs
forth. Such this had been, Ranma realized. Galm had been the
merely the first thrust, deflected easily. A feint, perhaps.
The triumph against Helubor and Xande had thrown them off their
guard.
They should have seen. Had not warning been sent to
Samofere and Cologne? The one gloried in the blood of the
Ravager walked again in the Valley of the Waters. Had not the
message been received?
Akane, he thought. Are you safe? There would be no
forgiveness, no coming back for him if she was not. With a sick
fear rising in his heart, he tugged the dark grey cloak Wiyeed
had given him to cross the desert tighter about his body. From
this far, Jusenkyou seemed unreal, the toy of a child.
Dark figures flew on dark wings above the pools. He saw
them, and knew that they were not the Phoenix, and he hated them.
Traitors, a distant and fading voice whispered in his head like
the last trickle of water before a rivered at last runs dry into
cracked earth. Most hated.
But not upon them did his eyes fix at the last; rather, upon
a figure standing in the centre of Jusenkyou, arms raised to the
sky. From a distance such as this, there was no detail to the
man, but Ranma knew him as if he were a brother.
"Gods of earth and heaven," he whispered softly. The words,
though they were not such ones as he would normally have spoken,
seemed to fit.
Over Jusenkyou, the sky was tearing apart. (
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