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 37 : The Crucible

I know you've heard it's over now
and war must surely come
the cities they are broke in half
and the middle men are gone
but let me ask you one more time
O, children of the dust,
all these hunters who are shrieking now
do they speak for us?
-Leonard Cohen

     An unnatural silence dominated the woods where she awoke.
Not the stillness born of certain times - the transitional
moments, the periods between the setting and the rising of the
sun - but a desolation, as though despite the murmur of water and 
the canopy of leaves overhead, this place were a desert.

     Akari Unryuu felt, after the first realization of the
stillness, a fearful sense that her skin was not her own, and a 
twisting sickness in her gut.  Again, she realized, Yamiko had
taken her through.  As a method of distracting herself from the
memory of that awful darkness and cold - the boundless bounded
space and the sense of something vast just beyond the 
conception of the senses - she tried to remember what had
happened after she'd gone under the water.  Yamiko must have
dived in after her.

     She would have been dead but for the shadow-wielder.  
Yamiko was the one who had left Ryoga scarred, and Akari found 
her more frightening than anyone else she had ever met.  There
was a deadness in her eyes that was bad enough, but above all
there was whatever was kept concealed under the mask - whatever
gave her that parody of human voice.  The concept that Akari owed
her life to the woman was a difficult one to accept, even with
the surety that there had been no motive beyond selfish ones in
the rescue.  She had simply been more important than she'd 
thought.  Surprisingly, she was dressed, and her clothing was dry
as if she'd never gone into the lake.
     
     From where they sat under heavy guard nearby, Nodoka Saotome
and Soun Tendo saw Akari come slowly to her feet and gaze around
in seeming incomprehension of her location.  Both of them managed
to hide their relief - Soun by examination of his broken ankle
with the one eye not swollen completely shut by bruises, Nodoka 
by the intent study of her bandaged fingers.  Akari had not 
moved since Yamiko had brought her into the grove nearly an hour 
ago.  Yoko Kontongara had left them under the eyes of her 
subordinates and disappeared around then, gone under the earth to
battle the true power of Ryugenzawa.

     Nodoka had one thought on the forefront of her mind,
repeated like a litany:  Ranma is alive, and you will see him.
Nothing mattered beyond that; she had come to that realization
some time ago.  

     Soun, on the other hand, was a conflict of emotions; fear
and worry for his two older daughters, the seething anger he
hated to have but had anyway for what Nabiki had done, hope 
that they had escaped, terror that they had not, relief that his 
youngest was at least beyond the clutches of these people.  He 
had not yet - as few had - put together the interconnections of 
all that was occurring.

     Akari spotted the two of them and took a few shaky steps in
their directions.  Their guards - twenty men in plain clothing
armed with well-tended swords and spears that looked as if they
belonged in museums - shifted warily, but stayed put at the 
raised hand of one of the four women in the gaudy robes of
patchwork cloth.  Those four had been quietly talking apart for
the whole time, discussing the quite radical shift in the 
structure of the Circle Eternal.  But all four were mages, and
had felt the power in Yoko's victory over the Orochi; perhaps, 
all of them thought to one degree or another, it was well past
time the Circle had a supreme leader.

     When she saw the guards relax, Nodoka rose up and walked to
Akari.  Arm around the shorter girl's shoulders, she guided her
over to sit next to Soun, then settled back down beside her.

     In the highest branches of one tree, Xande of the Phoenix -
who had in a short space of time betrayed two whom he had sworn
to serve - perched and stared down through the leaves.  Both the
women still held prisoner were attractive in different ways; the
long decades had done nothing to diminish the lusts of his youth,
and he hoped vaguely that he would be granted some chance to
fulfil them in what was to come.  He was far more comfortable up
here than on the ground.  Fuhaiko and Nenreiko were dead, but the
shape-shifting creature that had served the carrion-mistress was
out there somewhere.  It had been stupid, but loyal, and would no
doubt be seeking him after it recovered from the grief of its
mistress's death.

     He felt before anyone else - with the limited sorcery he had 
taught himself over the years - the rippling feeling of something
disturbing the air, like a hurled pebble marring the surface of 
water.  The shadows deepened around the base of a tree, so thick
they seemed solid, and a head broke the surface like that of a
swimmer emerging for air.  Yamiko rose silently and smoothly from
the shadows until she stood fully in the clearing.  The thickened
appearance of the shadows remained for a moment, and then they
seemed to dissipate and flow away like water bleeding into the
ground.
     
     Akari made a low, involuntary sound of fear in her throat, 
as the memories of the awful cold came back at the sight of 
Yamiko.  

     Nodoka put her hand over the girl's upon the grass, and 
smiled gently.  "It's all right, dear."
     
     Akari nodded.  "Thank you."
     
     Xande dropped smoothly from the tree, wings spreading to
catch him and guide him between the branches.  He landed in front
of Yamiko, and knelt to touch his forehead to the ground in a
servile bow.  "I am as glad to serve you as I am to serve 
honoured mother of the night."

     Over the black leather of her mask, Yamiko's black eyes
glittered.  She hissed, managing to express in that wordless
sound an immense amount of disdain, and turned away to gesture to
the prisoners.  They were brought to their feet and set marching
after Yamiko's lead.  Xande stood up, brushed forest dirt from
the knees of his pants, and frowned as he brought up the rear.

     There was no talking.  Soun limped along, wincing each time 
he put weight on his injured ankle, and at last he gave up his
pride and let Nodoka take some of his weight to help him walk.
Akari rubbed at her arms as she walked, trying to get the slick,
cold feeling to leave her body.  After a time, she realized that
the route was familiar; they were coming towards the same lake
to which she had fled before.  The memory of the terrible, 
terrible strength of the currents beneath came back, and made her 
shudder.  Cold and dark as the lake had been, it did not compare 
to the place through which Yamiko had taken her.

     In the morning, with the sun in the east, the lake was not
dark as it had been before, but clear and glittering.  Mineral
strata in the cliffs across the water shimmered in the light like
bands of diamond.  The ranks of the guards parted, and the
prisoners were brought forward to the edge, to the banks of the
lake where the rushes grew.  It was then that they saw how
unbelievably clear the lake was, like a flawless glass, perfect 
as a mirror.  But it was not a mirror.  The reflection in it bore 
no resemblance to the sky above, and their faces were not in it.
The sun hung differently in the sky, the clouds were the wrong
shape, and deep down in the depths of the lake, dark shapes like
men with wings swam with powerful strokes through the clear
water.

**********

     Herb and Wiyeed, King of the Musk and Highest One of the 
Lady, walked side by side through the gloomy halls of Chenmo 
Shan, past artifacts tilled from the sands in fourteen centuries 
of searching.  It had been hours since Ranma Saotome and Kima 
had left, hours since Wiyeed had left her brother alone and gone
behind the iron door that held the Nightpool.  The ancient
scrying device had revealed everything and nothing, a thousand
images of fire and destruction, victory and peace.  There was no
way to separate the threads; the Lady was weeping for her sister,
and her grief suffused the entirety of Chenmo Shan.  The song 
sung from the top of the mount was a dirge that seemed to have no
end in sight.

     There had been, in the end, only one concrete thing asked of
the Lady's servants.  Bring me the Rose, the Lady had said, in a
moment of coherency, near the end.  Then the Nightpool had turned
black, and nothing more had come forth.

     Herb's cape flowed out behind him, golden gleams racing up
and down the cloth as he strode quickly through the halls.  
Wiyeed was struggling to keep up, raising her long skirts up 
with one hand to keep from tripping over them.  "I realize you 
feel protective of her, brother, but..."

     Herb frowned, but at last slowed.  "I don't even know who
she is, sister.  And I don't understand why I should feel so--"
He hesitated.  "Protective, as you put it, of an amnesiac girl
I've only just met."

     "Ganzaio's Curse is only half of it," Wiyeed said finally.
"In the same way that the Dark was given a way in, the Light did
what it could to provide a way out for the men of our line, that
the line would not need to be ended.  Souls, as we are taught,
fall like rain from the heavens upon the earth.  Oftentimes, two
fall together as one drop of rain, only to divide sometime along
the way.  So was mother to father; so is your Rose to you."

     Herb had stopped walking.  From where had tucked it into his
sash, he drew out a red ribbon and a single strand of black hair.
He held them in his hands, but said nothing.
     
     "She will love you, brother," Wiyeed said.  "And you will
love her.  And so long as she lives, and you love her, then even
the hand of the World-Hater will never be able to touch you."

     "Who is she?" Herb asked finally.  
     
     "She came from over the sea.  The Daughters of the Night
have sought her since your birth, but she was farther than any
of them have ever been."

     "And why is she being brought before the Lady, then?" Herb
asked, running his hands over the silken length of the ribbon.

     "It is time that she remembered herself."
     
     Herb slowly nodded, and returned the ribbon to where it had
been before, carefully, as if it were the most precious thing on
all the earth.

**********

     They had stopped to rest at last on the eastern border of 
the province of Sichuan, in a remote forest where a stream ran by
a clearing.  Tarou - that was his only name now - walked back to
the small fire, empty kettle in hand and hair damp.  He caught
only a fragment of the end of the conversation between Ukyou 
Kuonji, Konatsu Kenzan and Happosai, before they realized he was 
there and grew quiet.
     
     "...the Joketsuzoku, then."
     
     All three of them turned to look at him.  Tarou frowned and
tossed the kettle to Happosai, who caught it on one finger.  
"Something I said?" 

     Ukyou shook her head, a troubled expression on her face.  
"No, it's only that..."

     Happosai interrupted her by tossing the kettle away.  It
landed with a clatter against the side of the chest he'd taken
from the Kenzan compound before putting it to the torch.  
"Konatsu, if you'd like to come with me, I have a few things to
show you that may be of use in the future."

     Konatsu nodded, and followed Happosai off into the woods.
Ukyou, to her obvious discomfort, was left alone with Tarou.  
Either not seeing it, or not caring, he settled down where 
Konatsu had been and studied her in a manner approaching rude.
Having taken the opportunity to clean herself up and find 
something wearable before they left Okinawa, Ukyou looked 
considerably better than she had the night before.  

     "So what's going on with them?" Tarou asked finally.
     
     Ukyou looked at him guardedly.  "Why do you want to know?"
     
     "You could show a bit more gratitude for what I did," Tarou
said, somewhat testily.  "As in any at all, how about?"

     "Gratitude?  You got your name, I understand.  Isn't that
all you really wanted?"  She'd been poking at the fire with a
stick, and now gave it a particularly hard prod, making embers
rise up into the air that were almost invisible in the daylight.
"But thanks.  We probably wouldn't have made it out of there if
it hadn't been for you."

     "No, you probably wouldn't have."
     
     "So how do you know Ranma, anyway?"
     
     Tarou hid a smile.  She'd managed to avoid his question, and
turned it around to asking one of her own.  "We've had a few
battles.  Nothing that big."

     "Yeah, Ranma was always fighting with everyone."
     
     Her voice was wistful, sad.  Tarou was torn, the same way he
had been with Ranma's mother.  He had almost promised not to 
tell where Ranma was, or why; but they were heading towards China
anyway, so what did any of that matter?  It was all coming
together one way or the other.  "He still is."

     Ukyou laughed.  "I was pretty sure you knew something, from
what that winged guy--"

     "Xande."
     
     "Xande, whatever.  What he said on the beach.  What's
happened to Ranma?"

     "You don't seem too concerned."
     
     "I'm trying not to be."
     
     Tarou shrugged.  "He's changed.  Don't be too surprised when
you meet him again."

     "You think I will?"
     
     Tarou nodded.  "I think so."  The truth was, he was almost
sure of it.  His sneaking suspicion was that everyone was being     
gathered in already.  It gave him a bad feeling.

     Ukyou dropped the stick into the fire and watched it burn.
"So how did he end up in China?"

     "That's something I can't really tell you about."  It was 
true enough; he still was in the dark about most of it, despite 
what he'd been told by Ranma and Kima.  

     "I can understand that," Ukyou said acceptingly.  
"Everyone's got things they don't want to talk about, no matter
what."  She sighed.  "As long as I know he's okay, I can wait."

     "So what's wrong with your friend?"
     
     The words were carefully chosen, and struck Ukyou as 
precisely as an arrow.  She didn't say anything for a long time, 
and neither did Tarou.

     "He's dying."  Half of the truth; Konatsu had told her all
of it, in a long walk down the beach at Okinawa.  It had been
around then that she'd let herself finally realize how much she
loved him; somehow, though, she had not been able to tell him.  
"Happosai doesn't know if we'll be able to save him."

     Tarou drew his legs up under him, until he sat with them
folded into the lotus position.  "Look," he said hesitantly, 
"don't give up hope.  Weird things happen at Jusenkyou; things
you never would have thought possible."

     Ukyou stared into the fire and didn't say anything back.
     
     Father off in the forest, away from the clearing and under
the trees, Happosai and Konatsu sat across from each other in the 
same manner as Tarou.  Hands rested on their knees and eyes
closed, the two of them were perfectly still.
     
     "Envision yourself surrounded by and filled with light," 
Happosai said, as the wind rippled the leaves overhead.  "Within
you is a spot of darkness, where the light is not.  No light can
penetrate there, but it can surround it, and keep it from growing
larger.  Can you see it?"
     
     "Sort of," Konatsu mumbled.
     
     "You have to see it," Happosai urged.  "I can see it.  Don't
look with your eyes; you can't look with your eyes for this."
     
     "What else am I supposed to look with?"
     
     An irritated note crept into Happosai's voice.  "I don't
know.  Just do it."

     Konatsu's entire body trembled, as if from a suppressed
involuntary movement.  "I can see it, I think.  It's so dark in
here."
     
     "Let the light in."
     
     "I'm trying!"
     
     "Be calm.  Let the light in."
     
     There was a palpable silence between them for a moment.
     
     Konatsu said, "I see it."
     
     Happosai nodded, and was glad that Konatsu had his eyes 
closed.  The look upon his face was not a reassuring one.     

**********

     Cologne rested her elbows on the worn top of the wooden
table and looked across at the two sullen women on the other
side.  ""

     "" Bi
Shou said in acid tones, hard-faced and straight-backed in her
chair, the greying strands of her dark hair emphasized by the
angle at which the lamplight hit her.  ""

     ""
     
     Bi Shou turned and glared.  Bai Ling shut her mouth.
     
     "Stop fidgeting," Cologne snapped sideways.
     
     "I don't see why I have to be here," Ryoga protested.  The
tone of his voice left it quite clear that he would have rather
been almost anywhere else.
     
     "Because you husband, moron," Bai Ling muttered.
     
     "I am not your husband!"
     
     "Wish you weren't."
     
     ""
     
     Cologne smacked her palm down on the table.  ""

     "" Bai Ling 
begrudged under Bi Shou's disapproving glare.  ""

     "" Cologne retorted.  ""

     "" Bi Shou said quietly.  
""

     "" Cologne asked 
incredulously.  She was herself scarcely able to comprehend it -
women she'd known all her life, dead in an ambush on Watcher's
Hill.  Later, in private, she would give herself the opportunity
to grieve for Lang Bei and the rest; now, she simply had to be
strong.  ""

     ""

     Ryoga frowned unhappily, unable to understand any of the
conversation.  "Cologne..."

     "Quiet," she said, giving him the most cursory of glances
before turning back to Bi Shou.  ""
     
     ""
     
     Cologne's mouth hung open, the words she was going to say
lost.  From the look on Bai Ling's face, she'd been unaware of
this piece of information either.

     Bi Shou's dark eyes glittered triumphantly amidst the faded
beauty of her face.  ""

     "" Cologne said, forcing the words past the
utter lack of moisture in her throat, ""
     
     ""
     
     ""
     
     "" Bi Shou 
said smugly as she leaned back in the chair, ""

     ""
     
     ""

     The words echoed in Cologne's head.  Services rendered.  Bai
Ling looked shaky and uncertain, and Bi Shou had gone from sullen
to arrogant.  It was time to play the hidden card.

     ""
     
     And she reached under the table, where it had been concealed
at her feet, and slammed Hammer of Storms down upon the table
with a sound that cracked like thunder in the sudden quiet fallen
over the room.

     For a moment, just a moment, Bi Shou's expression faltered,
and Cologne knew.  The black rod, with blunt mandible jaws at one 
end and a silver-chained bracelet at the other, lay upon the 
table between them like a challenge thrown down.  Ryoga's 
inhalation of breath made it clear that he recognized it.

     "" Cologne asked
coldly.  ""

     Bi Shou laughed, managing to regain almost all of her
earlier confidence.  ""

     Cologne nearly struck her, and that would have meant the end
of it.  She had to maintain control here.  But Bi Shou had always
been good at finding sore spots.  ""

     "" Bi Shou 
replied.

     "" 

     That was the end of it.  Cologne saw it on Bai Ling's face,
even before the girl spoke, and she felt the weight lift from her
shoulders.  Ryoga had told her what Bai Ling had said earlier, 
the hesitant words.  'Great-grandmother has done a terrible 
thing.'

     ""

     "" Bi Shou said, deadly cold.  She moved almost 
too fast to be seen; Cologne wondered where she'd hidden the 
knife.  They had been sure to search her carefully before they
prepared to question her.

     The light glinted off the razor edge of the dagger as she
swung it in a backhanded arc that would lay Bai Ling's throat
open from ear to ear.  Bi was fast.  Cologne was simply faster.

     The dagger spun through the air and clattered against the
wall.  Bi Shou howled and looked in disbelief at the bulge of her 
broken wrist; Cologne's blow with the toothed end of Hammer of 
Storms had been hard and precise.  

     Bai Ling had fallen out of her chair in a desperate attempt
to avoid the killing blow.  Ryoga was already there, helping her
to her feet.  Cologne saw the look that passed momentarily across 
Bai Ling's face as he took her hand and drew her up, and felt 
momentarily sorry for the boy.  Bi Shou was still in her seat, 
seemingly unable to believe what had happened.

     "" Cologne said.  ""

     "" Bai Ling continued haltingly.  She still
had her hand in Ryoga's, although she was on her feet now.  ""

     Cologne said the worst swear word she could think of.
     
**********

     "Souleaters and The Undying," Lord Kavva said from where 
he sat near the head of the massive rectangular stone table.  
"The nightmares of our people are all coming back, it seems."  
His words were wheezing and soft; the bullets that had nearly 
killed him days earlier in the Hall of Speaking had robbed him 
forever of the rich timbre of his voice.

     Across from him, Lord Mazarin frowned.  "You are certain of
what you saw, Lady Kima?"  

     From the traditional position - standing at the side of the
king's chair - of the seneschal, Kima looked up at Masara's 
father.  "It could have been another winged hell-demon with a
tail, I suppose," she said, with a mild edge of sarcasm.

     "It was him," Samofere said.  He was seated at the head of
the table in the high-ceilinged meeting hall, in an ornate and
high-backed chair of dark gilt-edged wood.  "His name is 
Shouzin.  What else was there?"

     "A human man."  Kima looked up at the mural of the curved 
ceiling of the hall as she continued her report; a battle scene, 
colours long-faded.  The Golden One and Saffron led armies of 
winged warriors against a horde of demons; at the forefront of 
the shadowy army, a towering cloaked figure whose only visible 
features were two enormous white wings held a flaming sword with
a black blade and drove the army to battle.  The White Bird, 
greatest servant of the King of Ashes.  Legends, Kima reflected, 
are not always correct.  "I don't know who he was for certain,
but when we were trapped in passage between Jusendo and Chenmo
Shan, the Ravager said that 'he who was gloried with my blood 
walks among the Valley of the Waters again'."  It was addressed
less to the rest of the gathered people than to Samofere himself;
she didn't think any of them would fully understand what she was
talking about.

     Samofere's head snapped up as if he'd been shocked.  "Why
did you not send word back of that?  Why did you not tell me on 
the way back to the mountain?" 

     Kima blinked, surprised by the anger in his tone.  "I sent a
message back with Shiso."
     
     "Shiso has not returned since I sent him to Chenmo Shan,"
Samofere said.

     The tension in the air had suddenly grown uncomfortably
thick.  The assembled nobles - and the representatives of the
common people that Samofere had appointed since assuming the
throne - looked back and forth, confusion and fear on their
faces.

     Samofere laughed, sharply.  It was disturbingly unstable,
and against her will she recalled what he had told her - and only
her - of what had happened to his mind at the last battle against
the Ravager.  Every face at the table turned to look at him.

     "I killed him," the king said as he dropped his head into
his hands.  "I opened the earth under him and dropped him down
into its throat.  You don't come back from that."

     Suddenly, he jerked up and looked around the table, as if
seeing all those gathered for the first time.  A slow, almost 
manic smile came across his face.  "Alas, alack, the sins of 
youth return with slow certainty on fortune's spinning wheel, and
thus the old man in his dotage shalt surely pay for the 
misdemeanours of the foolish boy."

     "The meeting is over for now," Kima said sharply, turning 
the attention of those gathered away from Samofere to her.  "We 
will resume later."

     Any protests disappeared in the face of the look she shot
around the table.  Samofere had his head in his hands again, and
his lips moved as he spoke too softly for anyone to hear.  They
quietly filed out of the room, all of them keeping their eyes
turned away from the king.  The last to leave was Loame, who gave
a single backward glance, and then left when Kima nodded to him.

     The sound of the door closing echoed heavily in the silence
of the room.  After a moment of hesitation, Kima settled down 
into one of the empty chairs, carefully shifting her wings so
that her position was comfortable.

     "My lord..."
     
     "I am all right now," he whispered, distant eyes meeting
hers as he raised his head.  "Old memories.  Old nightmares."

     "Oh."
     
     "I have already told you more than anyone else.  More than I
should have told you, I have told."

     "More than Cologne?"
     
     "Yes."
     
     That was a surprise.  "Why?"
     
     He laughed, shakily, and threw his hands up.  "I don't 
know."

     Crisply, she tried to move the talk back towards other
subjects.  "What are we going to do about the Joketsuzoku?"

     "We'll see after Cologne finishes her questioning," Samofere
said.  "It is vital that we make peace, and quickly.  We need
them."

     Kima nodded.  "There's going to be war, isn't there?  
Whatever is happening at Jusenkyou..."

     "There has been a war for a long time now," he murmured.  
"It has only just now come into the open."  His voice dropped 
lower, so low that it seemed he might be unaware of her presence, 
as though he spoke only to himself.  "How long, Yan?  How long 
have you waited for this?"

     "Who's Yan?"
     
     He started, and she realized that he truly had been speaking
only to himself.  "No one important.  An old friend, long gone."

     Unconvinced, she nodded all the same.  If the king did not
wish to answer her questions, he did not have to.  "I will put
the troops on alert."

     "Not for the Joketsuzoku," he said.  "For later."
     
     "For later," she assured.
     
     "How many do we have?"
     
     She silently calculated, hiding her dismay at the 
insignificant number.  "About two hundred actually trained.  
Perhaps as many who are young enough and strong enough to wield
a weapon."

     "Not many."
     
     "No.  Not many."
     
     "We need the Joketsuzoku."
     
     She nodded.  "If we can get word to the Musk in time..."
     
     "I already dispatched messengers."
     
     "Will they move without their king's orders?"
     
     A long pause.  At last, Samofere shook his head.  "I don't
know.  Herb is still at Chenmo Shan, no doubt."
     
     Kima shifted, unconsciously dropped a hand to caress the
jewelled hilt of her sword.  "Shiso never came back?"

     "No.  He often goes absent for a long time, but never when
carrying messages."

     The knocking on the door was far too loud, and broke the
still feeling in the room.  "Samofere?  Tell them to let me in,
please."

     "Let her in."
     
     The door opened, and Cologne stepped in past the two
suspicious guards from the Order of the Raven.  The 
over-protective attitude of Loame's men almost made Kima 
uncomfortable; at times, they seemed to consider themselves the
only guardians Samofere actually had.  

     "Bai Ling says Fang Shi was talking to a winged man last
night," Cologne said as she leaned against the edge of the table
with her arms crossed.  "Just what has she allied herself with?"

     "I hope it is the Souleaters," Kima said.  "It is that, or
there are still traitors among us."

     Cologne grimaced.  "I didn't think even she would go that
far."

     "Sometimes we are carried along by things," Samofere said,
with a long sigh as he did so.  "Kima, there is still much to
take care of."

     Kima nodded and rose.  What was unsaid was more important:
he wanted to talk to Cologne privately.  "I will keep you
informed, my king."

     Out in the corridor, the guards closed the door behind her.
"Is the king well?" one asked.

     "Well enough," she answered.  It was not true, she thought 
as she walked away.  But it was important that it be thought to
be true.

**********

     Samofere, the Phoenix King, watched in silence as Cologne
sat down.  It was, he realized sadly, not within him to tell her
what he needed to.  He could not share with his lover what he had
been able to share with his most trusted servant.

     "They said my great-granddaughter died at Watcher's Hill,"
Cologne eventually said.  She slumped into the chair, as if
weariness had suddenly overtaken her.  The sorrow in her eyes was
only equalled by the guilt on her face.  "Would it have been 
quick?"

     He remembered Shouzin and the twisted things that had once
been of his people at the final battle, as they tore and devoured
the foe.  "Yes," he said, without hesitation.  "Yes, it would 
have been very quick."

     Cologne began, very softly, to weep.  Samofere began to get
out of his chair, but stopped when she raised her hand.

     "I wanted to keep her safe," Cologne said.  "Without the
mitigating circumstances, they might have killed her.  But if I'd
been there, if I'd only been there..."  She drew a long, choked
breath, and wiped hard at her eyes with the back of her hand.  
"She wasn't ready to face Fang Shi.  Damn it, why did she come 
back so _soon_?  She should have stayed looking for him in Japan 
for weeks.  They all should have."

     "They didn't.  It's over and done.  Time seldom gives us a
chance to go back and correct it.  All that can be done is to go
on."

     Cologne turned to look at him, the tears running down her
face.  "How many friends have you seen die over all this time,
Samofere?  Does it become easier, after so long?"

     He nodded, and closed his eyes.  "It does, sadly.  Far too
easy."

     "I am going to go and stop this," Cologne said, a sudden
edge of steel entering her voice.  "I will take Bai Ling with me.
Ryoga and Ranma and Akane, if they will come.  It is all that I
may do to make amends for my wrongs."

     "Let me send..."
     
     "No guards.  It would only make it worse if I had even one
of your people with me.  Ranma will come, and if he comes so will
Akane and Ryoga.  I will be all right."

     "What if you can't?"
     
     "Can't what?"
     
     "What if you can't stop them?"
     
     "Fang Shi has the Jade Pearl.  I have to stop them."
     
     In the deep burial of his mind, the threat of the long fall
throbbed like an old scar.  The Jade Pearl; all the nightmares
were indeed coming back.

     Cologne stood up.  "I have to go now.  Time is short."
     
     They didn't kiss.  Somehow, it didn't seem right.  They
simply embraced, as they had innumerable times over the long
decades they had known each other, and then she left.

     He was alone again.  The king of Phoenix Mountain sat down
in his chair, and stared up at the ceiling overhead.  That had
been painted... he couldn't remember when.  Two hundred years 
ago?  Three?  The old stories twist in time, truth is forgotten.

     Cologne had never looked much like Mei Ming.  She was too
petite, too slenderly built.  They resembled each other in mind,
but that was all.  There had been many women over so long a time.  
But only two he had ever really loved.

     He gestured, tapped his power.  Stone flowed like water, and
an oval lump rose from the centre of the table.  He smoothed it,
until a face emerged, short hair framing the strong, solidly
attractive features.  Mei's face.

     All the sins were coming back.  He didn't want to believe
that Yan had returned, but it seemed he had.  All the old
nightmares.  It took him some time to realize he was laughing, 
and that the stone face on the table had cracked into fragments.

**********

     Stirred by wind, the waters of the lake lapped gently at the
banks of the island.  The island itself was small, vaguely
circular and with a diamteter of about fifty feet.  The dead, dry 
pools that had been at the centre of Jusenkyou covered the 
surface like pockmarks, fragments of snapped bamboo poles lying 
in the swampy muck of their empty basins.  The banks of the 
island were jagged and sharp, as though the island had been torn 
out from the earth by some great force.

     That was because it had.
     
     The rest of Jusenkyou was submerged, beneath a lake risen
from the pools to fill the valley from end to end.  Occasionally,
the artificial island at the centre would bob slightly as it
floated on the ink-black waters.

     The dozen members of the Ironwing Clan - whom the Phoenix
called Souleaters - soared and dived in the sky below the 
blackness that enshrouded Jusenkyou, a pillar of night that
reached from earth to sky with the lake at its centre.  Near the
middle of the island, the miserable figure of the last Jusenkyou
Guide crouched.  His eyes stared with helpless horror at what had
taken place.

     And at the shores, a man sat running his fingers through the
water, watching the trails they left.  His expression was one of
utter contentment, the look of a man whose long-desired dream had
at last come true.

     From high above, a screaming sound, like something moving
with incredible speed, began to be audible.  The Ironwing 
scattered as a flame-wreathed shape fell like a comet from the
sky above and landed on two feet by the man at the shore.

     "It is time," the Warmother said, her alien voice reaching
out from the mouth of her host like a blade tearing through
flesh.

     "Yes," the Serpent agreed.  He had no other name now, and
needed no other; the work was nearly finished.

     The Warmother smiled.  Flames danced behind the curvature of
her mouth as though leaping up from her throat, and flickered 
behind her eyes.  She raised her hand, and a sound like thunder
echoed through the air.

     The waters turned from inky black to crystal clear, as the
walls of darkness peeled away from solidity to a roiling fog.  
Down it came, from the sky above, turning the light sooty as it
rolled over the land.  It did not touch the lake or the island,
as though an invisible dome had been laid over them.  Where it 
did touch, trees blackened and burst asunder, the earth cracked, 
and living things died.

     The Serpent watched the waters, and waited.
     
     A pale hand, smooth and unlined and youthful, thrust up
through them.  He reached down, and drew Yoko up out of the water
and onto the land.

     "Welcome to Jusenkyou," he said.  Nearby, the Ironwing were
roughly dragging the gasping prisoners from the lake.  A withered
old man with long white moustaches was struggling out of the water
onto the bank.  And lithe and smooth as the shadows that were her
dominion, Yamiko rose up from the water and stood upon a swirling
patch of blackness for a moment before stepping onto the land.

     Yoko stared at her hands.  "I see now," she whispered,
turning them back and forth in front of her face.  "He was
waiting, holding them out, as reward."

     "Oh yes," the Serpent said.  "In the end, he will grant all
of our desires."

**********

     "Is she asleep?"
     
     Ranma tugged the light blanket up to Plum's chin and nodded.
Dust motes swam slowly in the light from the small glass-paned
window cut into the stone wall.  "Yeah.  She's a good kid.  
Really brave."

     Akane smiled.  She was seated in a chair on the opposite 
side of the small room, ankles crossed and hands in her lap.  
Her eyes were still red from crying; he suspected his were as
well.  "So is this where you stayed?"  Her voice was tight,
nervous.  They had all been treated with almost exaggerated
courtesy by the Phoenix, both on the way here and when they'd
arrived, but it was no doubt disconcerting, for her especially,
to be among them again.

     "No.  They had me in Kima's room."
     
     Akane's expression turned frosty.  "What?"
     
     Ranma held up his hands.  Already, they were back to the old
routines.  "In a room in her quarters, I mean.  There wasn't
really anywhere else to put me.  And I was unconscious for three
days."

     There was an almost instantaneous transition from anger to
concern, like clear sky to storm.  "Why?  I thought you 
looked..."

     "Thinner?  Yeah."  He looked at his hands, wiggled his
fingers.  "I've lost a whole lot of weight.  But I'm not sick or
nothing."  Not entirely true, he thought ruefully, as Akane rose
and crossed the floor to him.  He hadn't told her any of what had
happened to him yet; the long walk back to Phoenix Mountain had
been spent mostly in silence, hand in hand.
     
     He hadn't yet told her he'd become a killer.
     
     "Why did you go away, Ranma?" 
     
     The sound of her voice snapped him out of his thoughts.  Too
close; too close to tell her the truth.  "I didn't want to put 
you or anyone else in danger.  Cologne said there were some 
pretty powerful people after me."  Lying to her, even with 
half-truths, came easy; it always had.  Soon enough he would have 
to tell her all he'd done; then she would know what he was, and 
that would be the end of it.  

     "So you just left, without a note, a message, without
anything."  No question there; a flat tone of accusation.  The
same as he'd heard from her so many times before.  Only now,
perhaps because of the long separation, did he realize what else
was there; uncertainty and doubt, and not only for whatever words
he might say.

     "Come with me."  He saw Akane bite her lip, as if to hold
back a response, but she followed him to the other door in the
room, opposite the one from which they'd entered.  It took him a
moment to figure out the means of unlatching it, and then the two
of them stepped out onto the tiny, low-railed stone balcony that 
had been cut into the side of Phoenix Mountain.  A cold wind blew 
about the high elevation, making Ranma's pigtail flap and 
flattening Akane's skirt against her legs.
     
     The balcony faced north, and was high enough that looking
down gave Ranma a mild case of vertigo.  It was a drop of a good
thousand feet to the ground, he guessed.  But his attention was
drawn to the north, beyond the mountains, where the column of 
darkness that had bridged earth and sky had vanished, replaced by 
a massive cloud of black vapour that hovered over the land like a 
pall.  He knew - could feel it in his bones - that Jusenkyou was 
at the centre, that the cloud brushed up against the edges of the
mountains that surrounded Jusenkyou.  The dark cloud roiled 
slowly, something disturbingly wrong in the speed and movement of 
it.  There was an undefinable malignancy to it, a sense of blind 
evil as undiscriminatingly destructive as a tidal wave.  

     Hands on the railing, Ranma leaned forward slightly and
stared pensively to the north.  Akane stood silently a step 
behind him, right hand loosely gripping the bandage around her
left forearm.

     He couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't stupid.
Down below, the mountain trails wound through the passes; through
one of them, the entire village of the Joketsuzoku was coming.

     It was Akane who ended up breaking the silence.  "Your
father came, you know; Happosai too.  We don't know where either
of them are."

     "Pop came?"
     
     "Yeah."
     
     Too many questions to resolve now; did she have as many for
him as he did for her?

     "Things were pretty shaken up after you left.  No one really
knew what to do."

     "How's Ukyou?"
     
     "Ukyou?"
     
     "I never really... worked things out with her."
     
     Akane sounded troubled.  "Oh.  She was doing okay."
     
     "She didn't come, though."
     
     "She had other problems to deal with.  Konatsu's clan took
him back, and she went after him."

     "Oh."
     
     "What happened on the mountain, Ranma?  Why did you leave?"
     
     There wasn't any way out now.  In bringing her out here, to
stare out to the north where the darkness was coming down, he'd
hoped perhaps to make her see that this was beyond both of them,
now and forever.  But he couldn't do that; a short exchange of
conversation had rendered it again in terms of her and him.  
Hadn't he always been running from this, even in those short days
before he left when it seemed like things just might come 
together?
     
     "Kima was there; she ended up getting splashed.  Denkoko,
the one that came after me, was hurting her.  It sounded like you 
screaming.  So I killed her."

     It came out easily, so easily he surprised himself.  With 
the weight of the confession done, a peace descended upon him.  
It was finished.

     "Oh, Ranma."  Her hand touched his shoulder, and he felt the
weight of her body press against her back as she embraced him
from behind.  "Is that why... did you think I wouldn't..."

     "Do you?"
     
     He felt her stiffen slightly.  "No," she answered finally, 
in a low whisper.  "No, I don't."

     "I don't either.  I didn't need to kill her."  He'd thought
so much on this, and had come to realize that Denkoko's death had
been the least necessary of any of them.  Helubor would have 
killed Kima, and there was no way to stop him and be certain of
saving her beyond killing him.  The same with Helubor's guards;
more might have died if he hadn't killed them.  Denkoko had not 
needed to die.  She had been helpless, both arms broken and
unable to walk, when he had smashed her throat with a single 
punch.  He had done it cold, knowing what he was doing.

     Akane sighed.  Her head lay between his shoulder blades, and
her arms were wrapped around his waist from behind.  She held him
gingerly with her bandaged arm, but it must have hurt all the
same.  "Is that the only reason?"

     "No.  I had to leave in such a way that no one would think
any of you would know where I went."  He thought for a moment.
"And Shampoo.  I think Cologne did it for her too, so she could
maybe go back and not be punished so harshly."

     "Well, none of it worked," Akane rebutted quietly.  "We
found you anyway, and Shampoo's gone."

     "Things don't always work out the way you want them to, do
they?"

     "No.  No, I guess they don't."
     
     "Does your arm still hurt?"
     
     "What do you think?"
     
    The familiar annoyance in her voice, as if she could not 
quite believe he'd needed to ask a question like that, brought a 
smile to his face.  He unhooked her arms from around his waist
and turned around to take her hands in his.  Slowly, gently, he
began to unwrap the bandages.

     "What are you doing?  It needs to heal--"
     
     "Don't worry."
     
     The wound was puckered and scabbed, and the inside of the
bandages were bloody.  Cologne had done a good job of cleaning it
out and wrapping it, but it would take a long time to heal.  Even
when it did, the arm might be stiff and hard to move.  The arrow
had gone all the way through, and probably done damage to the
delicate system of nerves.

     It was as easy as walking now to slip halfway out of the 
usual way of seeing reality, into the perception of the world and 
all things as incredibly complex shapes woven out of light and 
colour.  Everything flowed into everything, each thing a part of
everything else in the vast, ever-mutable ocean of energy that
composed the underlying structure of the world.  Except to the
north, where a boiling cloud of alien darkness was settling down.
It obscured the structure from sight, like a thick smoke might
hide the bright burning of fire.

     Not what he was concerned with now, though.  He could see
the wrongness of the wound, and also how Akane's body was slowly
working to heal it.  It was nothing compared to what he had done
to Kima; only a matter of speeding the process.

     Akane let out a soft, breathy cry, and stared in shock at
the pale, tiny scar where the wound had been.  Ranma began to 
take a step back from her, and then a sudden surge of dizziness 
overtook him.  His hip bumped against the low railing, and he
might well have gone over the side if Akane hadn't grabbed his
sleeve and steadied him.

     "How did you do that?"
     
     The familiar signs of a pounding headache were coming on.
He smiled weakly and slumped down, leaning his back against the
balcony railing.  "Just something I've learned how to do.  I've
learned how to do a lot of things."

     Concern obvious on her face, Akane knelt down beside him.
"Are you feeling all right?"

     "No," he admitted.  "I'm not."  In the back of his head, the
throbbing, searing cold began to pulse softly.  It had been
absent long enough that he had almost begun to forget about it.
Now it seemed to be reminding him it was there, ready at any time
to spring forth and drag him out of the careful control he'd
managed to establish.  Back into the depths.

     To his surprise, Akane moved over and leaned back against
the railing with him, so close they were almost touching.  
Despite everything, he hesitated for a moment.  Then he reached
out his arm and put it around her, and she let her head fall with
a soft sigh upon his shoulder.
     
     "I love you, you know," she whispered quietly.  The 
extraneous noises - wind, distant bird calls - seemed to die in
his ears at the words.  "I did for so long, but I was so scared
about what would happen if I told you.  But that's why I didn't
want to break the engagement."

     The admission of the fact was what surprised him, he 
realized, and not the fact itself.  He'd known it well enough for
a long, long time now.  "I love you too."  

     "I know," she said, and laughed softly.  "You said it at
Jusendo.  I know you did.  It was dark, and I couldn't move, but
I heard your voice."

     "I don't know what I said," Ranma admitted.  "I was... I was
just so afraid that you were gone.  I don't even remember much of
what happened after Saffron fell."

     "Whatever happened to Saffron?"
     
     "He's dead.  Permanently, now."
     
     "How?"
     
     "Long story."
     
     She raised her head from his shoulder and looked into his
eyes.  "I think you have a lot to tell me, don't you?"
     
     "Yeah," he said after a moment, as he tilted his head and
stared up at the sky.  It was still remarkably blue, with few
clouds.  "I do."

     "Is there going to be time for you to do that?"
     
     "I hope so."
     
     Back in the room, Plum cried out, a high wail of fear as if
she'd just woken up from a nightmare.  Akane stood up an instant
and hurried inside, leaving him alone without a backward glance.

     Ranma sat still for a moment longer, listening to Akane
talk to Plum in a soft voice.  He was still conscious of the 
warmth of her body where it had lain against his.  Also 
conscious, he realized sourly, of the increasing pain of his
headache.  At least he didn't feel dizzy any more.

     The cloud had gotten larger when he stood up and looked at
it again.  It wasn't growing quickly, but it was growing.  From
what he could see, it hovered around Jusenkyou and its environs.
There was no reason to hope it would stay there, though.

     Perhaps, he thought, it will always come back to her, no 
matter how far I may go, no matter what I may do.  Whatever 
destiny hangs over me, she is the light that will bring me home.

     From inside, there came a knocking at the door.
     
**********

     Shampoo walked down the low-ceilinged tunnel, the tap of the
staff on the earthen floor alternating with the sound of Kuang 
Biao's scabbard slapping against her hip.  Behind her, Lougui
matched her pace, his walking staff shining with a pale gold
light.  The mortared brick of the tunnel walls had long ago
disappeared, replaced by earth and protruding roots that reminded
her of the tunnel under Watcher's Hill.

     In the hour of walking they'd done so far in this
claustrophobic tunnel, Lougui had grown no less dour than before,
and had demonstrated a preference for monosyllabic responses in
conversation.  After a few attempts, she'd simply given up on
getting him to tell her anything useful about Pengrai that his 
parents hadn't already told her.

     The tunnel was straight for the most part, and fairly level.
It seemed too regular to be natural, but the tangles of roots
apparently belied that.  It didn't matter anyway, Shampoo
decided; it was more important to think of how she was going to
reveal Fang Shi and Bi Shou as the traitors they were.  A direct
confrontation would simply make it a matter of her word against
theirs, but she couldn't think of anything but that at the
moment.  Perhaps Akane and Ryoga could help somehow.  If they
were still alive; there was nothing beyond Fang Shi now, not
after what she'd done.

     Out of the murky darkness up ahead, a fork in the tunnel
appeared.  Shampoo paused in her walking, and glanced back to
Lougui.  ""

     Louigi's looked at one tunnel, and then at the other.  "" he said finally, and shrugged.  ""

     ""
     
     "" he said, even though he clearly wasn't.  Even
with his human size, there was something about him that was as
alien as his parents, though it was nothing Shampoo could
clearly define; more of an aura than anything else, a detachment
from things.

     She frowned and crossed her arms, crooking the staff in her
elbows to hold it upright.  ""

     ""  Anger and bitterness underlaid the words.
""

     Shampoo bit back a reply, and spun on her heel to march down
the left-hand tunnel.  It wasn't worth getting angry over.  
Lougui followed silently behind her, glowing staff lighting their
way.  It reminded her of Lang Bei's staff; that had glowed too,
up on Watcher's Hill.  The grief was still there, under the
surface - it always would be, she suspected - but it had to
suppressed enough that she could function.  There would be time 
to grieve for the dead later; the living were her concern now.

     The tunnel began to slope upwards after a few minutes,
around the same time that the roots began to disappear.  After a
few minutes more, the earthen walls had become bare stone, and
the tunnel began to curve, until it terminated in a flat wall of
rock.

     "" Lougui said.
     
     "" Shampoo muttered.  ""

     Lougui sighed and shook his head.  ""  Without
waiting for her to move, he stepped past her, staff held in one     
hand.  He raised it high, and then rapped once with the glowing
end upon the rock.  The stone rumbled, and a single vertical
crack spread from top to bottom.  Slowly, it began to slide open,
letting in the light of day from outside.  The tunnel now opened
into a narrow, steep-sided gully, into which the sunlight fell
between patches of shadow cast by overhanging rocks.  

     "" Shampoo snorted.
     
     Lougui lowered the staff.  The light was already gone from
it.  ""

     Shampoo walked out ahead of him into the sunlight and shaded
her eyes with her hands to look at the mountain peaks.  By the
look of them, they were somewhere to the south of the Joketsuzoku
village.  If she judged correctly, walking out of the gully would
lead to one of the numerous passes through the more mountainous
terrain of the south that led to the flatter lands of the
Joketsuzoku.

     She turned around to ask Lougui if he was coming or not, and
saw Mousse sitting on a rock nearby, leaning with his hands 
wrapped around the shaft of a long spear.  He was wearing black;
she had never seen him wear black before.  Black was the colour
the married men wore.

     "" she said, after a moment of shocked silence.
     
     "" Mousse said.  He stood up, and
she noticed then that his eyes were closed as though against an
intensely bright light.  ""

     Lougui had stepped out of the tunnel - which appeared to
have opened in the bare rock of the gulley slope - and was now
staring at Mousse with the most interest she'd seen him display
in anything so far.

     "" he said as he approached, a slightly nervous
edge to his voice.  ""

     "" Shampoo asked as she stepped
between him and Lougui.  ""

     "" Mousse said quietly.  He was
very pale, almost unhealthily so.  ""

     Shampoo repressed the urge to snap at him.  Too many
questions, not enough time.  She'd settle it later; at least he
was awake now.  ""

     "" Mousse said.  If there was any emotion in him over
it, he hid it well.  ""

     ""
     
     But he was already walking out of the gully.  Lougui 
followed a step behind, almost eagerly.  Shampoo frowned,
wondering just what had happened to Mousse, and then walked after
them.

**********

     Cologne lay flat on her stomach, peering over the edge of
the ridge towards the snake-like shape far in the distance of the 
Joketsuzoku winding their way through the pass below.

     "I don't see why we have to be so far away," Ranma said from
beside her.

     "There will be advance scouts," Cologne replied.  She 
frowned.  "I can't believe she called a War March, the fool."
Though, after what she'd heard, she could believe it; that and 
worse.  Fang Shi was nothing more than a pawn in the hands of
their enemies.  

     "Great-grandmother say they kill Council," Bai Ling said
somewhat testily.  "Majority of women vote for War March."

     "On false pretences," Cologne snapped back.  
     
     "You think you better?" the girl said.  "Shampoo become
Maiden because of Jusenkyou.  If she come back under any
circumstances but the ones you made, she not have been sent 
there."  She narrowed her eyes at Cologne.  "And is law that we
not use Jusenkyou except as punishment."

     Cologne looked back with a level gaze.  Inside, she was
seething - everything Bai Ling said was true, but her motivations
had been right, damn it all.  "You have always been jealous of my
great-granddaughter, child.  I would hope it would go away now
that she is dead.  Would you rather have died in her place 
because of what your great-grandmother has allied herself with?"
Forgive me, Shampoo, she thought silently.  That I must use your
memory like this shames me.  But she needed Bai Ling; that was 
the only chance she had to stop this.

     "What are we going to do, exactly?" Ryoga asked.  He was
beside Bai Ling, though not really by choice; she'd just managed 
to maneuver in such a way that they ended up like that.  Bai Ling
had more subtlety than Shampoo, but the boy's fate had been 
sealed after he'd helped her up.  And after Bi Shou had tried to
kill her; that, more than anything else, had brought the girl 
over to their side.
     
     Akane, who didn't seem to be paying attention to anything,
suddenly broke her silence.  "I still can't believe they executed
them."

     "The woman was going to be married next month," Cologne
murmured softly.  When Samofere had heard about the executions,
she had been afraid for a second that there was going to be war.

     "So what about that?" Ranma asked, pointing to the north.
The cloud had sunk low, barely visible over the mountains now.  
"We all know that's the really important thing now."

     "Samofere sent messengers to the Musk," Cologne replied.
"But they won't move without Herb's orders.  I don't know if 
we'll be able to coordinate help from them in time."

     "Are we going to need armies, then?" Ryoga asked.
     
     Cologne nodded.  "I think we very well might."
     
     "Well," Ranma said as he stood up, "let's just see if we can
stop this peacefully."

     Akane accepted the hand he offered, and let him pull her to
his feet.  "And if we can't?"

     "We can."  There was, Cologne saw, an edge in his eyes as
sharp as any blade.  No one but her seemed to notice it; but 
then, none of them were as practiced as she was at seeing the 
subtle changes underneath that were not visible on the surface.

     They walked back from the ridge and picked their way down a
winding trail on the side of the walls that hemmed in the pass.
This pass, wider than most of the others that ran through the
mountainous heights of Qinghai, seemed the result of a seismic 
shift rather than the glacial rivers that had created the others;
some great cataclysm within the earth millions of years ago had
ripped a jagged line down the mountain chain, leaving high,
sheer-sided cliffs on either side.  Late afternoon was 
approaching as they headed down, Cologne in the lead, Ranma and
Akane behind her, Ryoga and Bai Ling bringing up the rear.  

     Lost in thought, Cologne did not really pay attention to
their surroundings.  The Jade Pearl.  If Fang Shi unleashed that
against Phoenix Mountain, the gods only knew what would happen. 
Legends spoke of it levelling cities, or raising mountains from 
flat plains.  They reached the boulder-strewn bottom of the 
pass, the visible results of landslides over the long years.  
Down on the ground, the marching army of Joketsuzoku was not 
visible due to the slow rising of the land to the north; it would
begin to dip down several miles before Jusenkyou, until it 
widened into the fertile valley among the mountains that held 
both the cursed springs and the village of the Joketsuzoku.

     After a short time spent walking, Cologne called them to a 
halt and sat down against the flat side of one large rock.  "It
will be best if you all let me do the talking," she said as she
searched through her bag.  "Unless, that is, I ask any of you to 
say something."  The younger members of the party said nothing - 
not even, Cologne was gratified to see, Bai Ling.  

     The sun was dipping slowly towards the late afternoon when
she found what she wanted, a tiny corked glass vial of water.  
With a weak smile, she looked around at the others.  "I've put
this off for too long anyway."

     Akane frowned.  "Put what off?"
     
     Cologne ignored her, and handed the vial to Ranma.  "If you
would heat that up for me."

     Ranma, bless him, didn't ask any questions.  He held the
vial between his hands for a moment, and bubbles rose from the
bottom as the glass walls fogged with steam from the inside.  
Cologne watched the way the energy flows moved at his command
like chess pieces; he was beyond even the lineage of the royalty 
of the Musk now, shaping the underlying forces in such a way that
the world changed to conform to his will.  What he might 
ultimately be capable of, she could not begin to guess at.

     "What are you doing, Cologne?"
     
     Akane again.  The girl should learn when to keep silent.
Cologne turned away, the last sight she saw of the younger people 
that of Ranma putting his hand on Akane's shoulder, to reassure 
or to silence her.

     Behind the tumbled pile of boulders that shielded her from
the sight of them, Cologne held the warm shape of the vial in one
hand and settled down cross-legged on the ground.  Despite her
knowledge that this was necessary, she hesitated.  What she had
done had been absolutely forbidden by the Joketsuzoku - the laws
against using Jusenkyou for any purpose but the punishment of
trangressions was specifically to prevent exactly the sort of
thing she had done, regaining her youth and strength in the
decrepitude of old age - but necessary enough that she had not
hesitated then either.  In the same way that the subtle, driving
force of destiny manipulated them, so too could they manipulate
it.  Perhaps she and Samofere had moved too soon, but it was done
now.  Neither of them could ever know if they had done it because 
the time was right for the battle to be begun, or if the battle
had begun because they had done it.

     Well, it had begun, and the first major casualties were 
likely going to be on their side, and not the enemy's, unless she
could stop this.  And as she was, it would be far harder than as
she had been.

     No hesitation, now, she told herself.  The law was right to 
forbid this; it was too easy to justify this, too easy to 
rationalize while enamoured of what we once were.

     She uncorked the vial, and upended it over her head.
     
     The weight of age came back with all the force of a hammer.
Skin wrinkled, senses dulled, and her body shrunk and twisted 
into the tiny mockery of her former beauty it had once been.  
She'd forgotten how hard it was, how she always had to fight the 
stiffness of her limbs and the ravages that time had done to be 
so strong in this diminutive form.  
     
     As the water before had been from the Chisuiton, this water
had come from the Kaisuifu.  The curse - funny to call youth
regained a curse, she thought sardonically - wasn't gone now, but 
it wasn't permanent any longer either.  Probably best this way;
youth was for the young.  Or, she thought ruefully, for the
immortal.

     When she walked back out onto the trail, she was in a
shapeless robe again.  Nothing else fit this body.  She missed
her staff; even though it hadn't been necessary, it had been
useful.

     "Well, then," she said sharply.  She didn't recognize her
own voice; it seemed that of someone else.  "This should make
negotiations easier.  Fang Shi was always jealous that I was
better-looking than her when were girls."  She tried to say it
lightly, but it came out tinged with the regret she felt for all
the decades of bitterness between them.
     
     No one said anything.  They seemed too surprised to see her
again in the old familiar form.  "Come on, children.  Let's put
an end to this."

     "All right," Ryoga said with a deep breath.  "We let you do
the talking."

     "Good, boy.  You got it right away."  Already she was
becoming more snappish.  

     Bai Ling, hands held nervously in front of her with the
fingers intertwined, licked her lips and spoke.  "I not have to
say anything but what I see, right?"

     "That will be enough, child."  At least, she hoped it would;
she had little else on her side.  It could not be easy for Bai
Ling to do this.  Going against your own family was almost a
taboo among the Joketsuzoku, no matter what the reasons.  She
hoped the girl would have as much resolve when it came time to
confront Fang Shi.

     As the sun moved into the west, they walked north.
     
**********

     Bi Shou sat in one corner of the stone cell and thought of
her dead husband.  How he would have laughed to see her like
this, brought low again, as he had done to her so many times
before.  Twenty-five years ago he'd walked into the village, 
another arrogant outsider male seeking one of the fabled
Joketsuzoku for a wife.  One or two came per year on average, and
were turned away with a few broken bones if they were lucky, or 
in a box if they weren't.  At twenty she had been beautiful, 
moreso than any woman of her generation, and she had already 
killed one outsider three years earlier.

     Oh, he had not beaten her easily.  She'd given him a good
fight.  But he was ten years older, stronger and more skilled,
and he'd won in the end.  No one had liked it, but it was the 
law.  And so she'd moved into her new home, with her new husband,
and the four years of hell had begun--

     Beyond the steel door of her cell, a scream began, and was
abruptly cut off.  There was the sound of a body impacting with
something extremely hard.  She sprang to her feet, and then the
door shuddered as someone drove four fingers and a thumb straight 
through three inches of solid metal.  The grip tightened, and 
hinges screamed as the door was ripped free of its moorings and 
hurled down the corridor beyond with a thunderous crash.   

     "Loose ends.  I hate loose ends."         
     
**********

     Fang Shi waited in the middle of the pass, hands 
white-knuckled on the shaft of her polearm.  One of the forward
scouts had brought back word a few minutes ago: Cologne had
returned.  And Bai Ling was with her.
     
     Bi Shou's last runner had arrived hours ago.  The scouts 
said that two of the outsider prisoners were with Cologne as 
well.  And an unidentified male, who Fang Shi would have been 
willing to bet was Ranma Saotome.  Even though there were 
warriors all around her, she suddenly felt very vulnerable and 
alone.

     She did not want to believe it.  Everything was going wrong,
had been going wrong since the thrice-damned outsider male who'd
claimed to serve the Circle had come to her.  If she could go
back, she never would have... no, not that far.  But she had
never meant it to become what it had on Watcher's Hill.  Her own
battle-sisters, women she had fought beside, ripped apart and
devoured by those _things_.  And she had stood by and done
nothing.

     "" she murmured.  Too loudly; the
other women looked at her, and Gao Chao raised his head from 
where he sat nearby on the ground.  Unused to long walks, he was
exhausted.  As were most of the other men, and even some of the
women.  The main body of the Joketsuzoku were several hundred
feet back, called to a halt for a supposed rest.  The real
purpose was to allow her to meet with Cologne without too much of
a fuss being created.

     If only she had known the road would be so dark.  No, not a
road; a pit, one from which she could never escape.  There was no
way out of this, no escaping what she had become.  She was not
Joketsuzoku any longer; she was of the Circle now, and would do
their will.  There was nothing else left.  Whatever was occurring
at Jusenkyou would decide everything.  It comes to this, she 
realized bitterly.  Survival over pride.

     But she still couldn't forget what had happened on the hill.
It was there whenever she closed her eyes.  And now, here was 
Cologne, a tiny wrinkled figure walking along the trail towards
her, flanked on one side by Akane Tendo and the boy who must be
Ranma Saotome, and by Ryoga Hibiki and her own 
great-granddaughter on the other.  A dozen of the forward scouts
surrounded them, but they were a token guard at best; Cologne by 
herself could have defeated all of them without breathing 
heavily.

     Gao Chao got up and walked to stand beside her.  "" he said.  ""

     "" she hissed.  She stepped forward, out of the
protective ring of the warriors, and levelled a narrow gaze at
Cologne.  ""

     "" Cologne
answered back. 

     Fang Shi tried not to wince.  "" she said, making a 
sudden shift in attention to her great-granddaughter, ""

     Bai Ling shook her head.  ""
     
     ""
     
     Her great-granddaughter began to move, and then stopped.
     
     ""
     
     "" Cologne said in a low voice.  ""

     ""  Fang Shi laughed.  "

    Source: geocities.com/tokyo/pagoda/4361