Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum 

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakukan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

This copy of the story is from my centralized fanfiction archive
at http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/fanfic.  I can be reached by
e-mail at harnums@thekeep.org

Chapter 26 : Past Sins

At the door of life, by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death
-Algernon Charles Swinburne

     First of all, there is a mountain.  Not huge, as mountains 
go, but big enough.  The mountain is tall and steep, thrusting 
up several thousand feet until the sharp peaks pierce the 
curtain of mist that hangs heavy and low in the sky this early 
in the morning.

     Out of the mist, from the small palace complex atop the
highest peaks of the mountain, a dark shape flaps out on dark
wings, rising above the mist, above the mountains.  The bird 
turns once, and speeds towards the north, following the curving 
line of a pass that leads through the mountain chain.

     The bird flies very fast, skimming across the sky, black
wings spread wide.  He is a raven.  His name, in this time, in 
this place, is Shiso.  

     Miles to the north, he soars over another mountain, rising
jagged against the skyline.  This one has been damaged, and
recently, the most severe harm being to the cap of it, blown off 
as if by some great explosion, exposing an interior cave that, 
despite its size, is but a dot of black from this high up.  
Still, despite the damage, a waterfall spills down the sides of 
the mountain, flowing into a river that winds to the east.

     The morning sun has just begun to creep across the horizon,
and light is spearing out across the land, painting it in the
colours of the dawn, making the mist that lies amidst the 
mountain peaks and on the banks of the river curl and rise higher
into the air, as if some vast and ancient sleeper is awaking to
the light.  The light seeps in through the broken crown of the
mountain, and strokes across the bodies of the two great statues 
that lie within the exposed cave, and the scales of phoenix and
dragon ripple with light.  The raven turns once over the 
shattered mountain, and begins to follow the river, towards the 
rising sun.  As he goes on, and the river cuts through the rocky
hills, he follows the main stream, ignoring the small tributaries
that wind away from the gentle flow.

     A mile or so to the east, he passes over a tiny village in a
dip in the hilly land.  Near that village are the burned ruins of
a one-room house, several years old.  Beyond there, the land 
begins to rise, and he turns slightly to the south, following the 
course of the river as it runs, to where it then spills down into 
a low valley, draining away into the ground, before it becomes 
the source of hundreds of tiny pools of water, glittering in the 
sunlight, enticing.  Bamboo poles sprout from the pools, and thin 
walkways of damp earth sparsed with small trees range between the 
pools.  Near the pools is a small, crude hut.

     To the east the bird goes still, banking low over the pools,
and then rising high into the air again.  He passes over a much
larger village than the first, a village only just beginning to
wake sleepily to morning and the light.  Now he turns north, 
away from this more hospitable land, again towards the mountains, 
higher and taller than any of the others in this area.  He passes 
over a few tiny villages, rude collections of houses, and then 
they disappear altogether as the terrain becomes more rocky and 
hostile.

     As he comes closer to the mountains, close enough and high 
enough to see the expanse of blank desert that lies beyond them, 
he drops from the sky, into a long pass running east and west 
that would be nearly invisible to an observer on the ground.  

     He is at the end of the pass.  Here, an ancient and 
weathered fortress is built on the lower slopes of a mountain, 
approachable only from the west.  On the flatter slopes of the 
mountain, tiny figures can be seen moving, and the clash of 
weapons and the sound of battle cries rises into the air, quiet 
as whispers at this height.

     He turns to the west now, and follows the line of the pass
for a little more than a mile, until he reaches another fortress,
even more ancient than the first, slightly grander.  It fills the 
entire pass, walls built to join with the mountains north and
south protecting it from the east and west, the fortress lying
between them.  Perhaps it is the first line of defense for the
smaller fortress, or perhaps it is meant to keep the inhabitants
of the smaller fortress contained.

     The bird tilts downwards, and plunges through the mist
towards the larger fortress, a bringer of tidings, a bearer of
messages.

**********
     
     With yells, the half-dozen young men charged the single
figure they surrounded, lashing out with flying kicks or quick
punches.  A moment later, they were all flat on their backs, 
knocked on average ten feet away.  
     
     "Try again," Lime said cheerfully, as the boys groaned and
struggled to rise.  "You can use weapons this time, if you want."  

     Herb turned away, shaking his head, and seated himself on a 
flat-topped rock, flipping his cloak out so it hung down his 
back.  He folded his arms and watched as another group of boys, 
the oldest no more than sixteen, attempted swordplay with wooden 
training blades against Mint.

     It was comical to watch, really.  There were nearly ten of
the boys, all of them in top physical condition, all of them
trained as warriors since they'd been old enough to walk.

     They stood no chance.  Mint was simply too fast, disarming
them almost before they even got a chance to attack, sending
their weapons spinning away with his own wooden sword.  If he'd
wanted to, the young boy could have disabled or killed all of the
others in a few quick seconds.

     Herb looked back at his fortress, then at the mountains, and 
finally at the three hundred or so young men sparring in the 
shadows of them.  That was the population of unmarried men in the 
Clan of Musk under his command.  

     The morning sun was warm on his face, a pleasant enough
feeling, he supposed.  He rubbed his hands together, then closed
his eyes and slowly began to draw ki into himself, building it to
the point where it became dangerous, and then letting it flow
away into the air around him.  A simple exercise, one that helped
to maintain his powers in peak condition.  He hadn't been able to 
spar against others for years now.  All of his techniques were 
simply too dangerous.  These days, he was glad of that; he was 
unsure if he could have managed the right mentality for sparring 
with anyone anymore.

     The pleasant tingle of drawing power suffused his body,
blocking out the mild feel of the sun on his skin.  If he'd 
wanted to, he could have demolished the entire area with his 
power, torn down the fortress, smashed the mountainside.

     (Why don't I?)
     
     He shook his head, opened his eyes, let the power drain from
him.  He looked around at the other boys, some sparring singly
against each other with weapons or bare hands, others practicing
archery or spear-throwing, a few of the bravest trying to take on
Mint or Lime.  They were not his friends.  They were his 
subjects.  Mint and Lime were the closest any of them came, but 
they were still bodyguards, not equals.

     His eyes narrowed.  And they were both fools at the best of
times, obsessed continually with talking about girls now that
they had gotten some glimpses of them.

     (He would have them brought before him)
     
     Herb felt the anger building in him, the anger that he could
not explain, and he took a long, deep breath.  Another breath
brought him under control.  
     
     He closed his eyes again, drew the power, turned it now to
enchancing his senses rather than simply holding it.  Now the
sunlight was like a caress on his skin, mingling with the air,
the smell of sweat, the sounds of laughter, sounds of battle,
weapons clashing on weapons, horse's hooves clattering on stone.
     
     His eyes snapped open, and he rose, looked down to the west
where the unexpected sound had come from.  A single rider was
coming up the mountain slope, his mount's hooves kicking up dust
in the wake of their passage.  

     "Rogen," he muttered sourly, as the horse made its way up 
the slope.  The other boys had noticed too, and were stopping 
their sparring practice to watch the rider approach.

     Herb turned, cape swirling.  "Why are you stopping?" he
snarled.  "Get back to it, fools."

     The boys returned to as they had been before, some of the
bolder ones occasionally casting a sideways glance as the rider
pulled his horse to a stop and swung down, an absolute grace in 
his motions.

     "Greetings, Prince Herb," Rogen said, nodding respectfully.
     
     "Greetings, Rogen," Herb replied, studying his father's
bodyguard with a vague air of hostility.  

     In the old days, when transformed animals had been taken as
wives, it was said that most of the boys born to the Musk Dynasty
had the power of the animals their mothers had been in them.  
Despite the ending of the practice over a thousand years ago, the
bloodlines could still exert their influence.  It was extremely 
rare, happening at less than one out of every hundred births on
the average, and then only within a few years after the birth of 
an heir to the throne of the Musk Dynasty.  In Herb's generation, 
it had produced Mint and Lime.  His father's had produced Rogen.

     Rogen's ears tapered to mild points, just as the ears of
Herb and his two attendants did.  He was tall and slender, 
long-limbed and muscular, his hair and beard neat and dark.
Over his green tunic and pants, he wore a black cape sewn with 
eagle feathers, the tribute to the long-ago ancestry that had 
touched him.

     "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" Herb asked
icily.  Rogen looked at him for a long moment, his dark eyes
searching, a strange look in them that Herb had never seen
before.

     "Your mother died in her sleep several hours ago," he said 
finally.  "You must come with me now."

     Herb felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach.  Hard.  
Rogen put a hand on his shoulder as if to steady him, and he 
slapped it away.  "Get your hands off me."
     
     "We must go now, Prince Herb," Rogen said quietly.  "Your
father said you must come immediately."

     "Are Mint and Lime coming?" 
     
     Rogen was silent for a moment before answering.  "If you 
want them to."

     Herb nodded mutely.  Somehow, he could not find the words to
speak.     
     
**********     

     Kima woke to the illusion of feeling in her wings, twinging 
aches as if she'd been flying for too long that vanished as soon
as the last of her sleepiness faded.  Phantom pains.

     She lay there for a few moments, under sheets tangled from a
restless night, and then threw off the covers and put her feet on
the floor of her bedroom.

     Grabbing a robe from where it hung over the back of a chair
near the bed, she pulled it on and belted it at the waist.  Like
most of her clothing, it had been cut low in the back to 
accommodate her now useless and crippled wings.  A high collar to
the garment fastened around her neck to keep it from slipping
down.

     Glancing into a mirror as she stepped towards the door, she
frowned sourly.  Despite the shortness of it, her hair was a mess
of spikes from all her unconscious shifting while she slept.  A
bath and a comb would fix it soon enough.

     She opened the door and stepped into the sitting room of her
suite in the upper reaches of the mountain.  

     "Mornin'."
     
     Ranma looked up from where he sat, his feet propped up on
the table in the centre of the room.  He had obviously discovered
the bathroom upon awakening, his hair still slightly damp with
water.  Dressed in fresh clothing and recently bathed, he looked 
far better than he had the day before, when he'd finally awakened 
after three days of unconsciousness.

     As she stepped closer, though, she could see the beginnings
of dark circles under his eyes, and a haunted, distant look in
them.  There was a book open in his lap.  He pointed to it and
smiled, slightly sardonically.  "Interesting read, this."

     He laughed softly.  "Funny.  I can read Chinese as well as
speak it now.  Can't even explain why; the words just seem to fly
out at me.  It ain't like I'm translating them into Japanese or
nothing, I just... understand it now."

     Kima sat down in a chair across from him and unconsciously
raked a taloned hand through her tangled hair.  "How do you feel
this morning?"

     "Better."
     
     He turned a page back.  "How long ago was this Book of Fire
and Earth thing written, anyway?"

     "Three thousand years or so," she answered.
     
     He shook his head, pigtail dancing with the motion around 
his shoulders.  "It's... pretty dead on for some things."

     Again, he turned a page back and traced the characters with
his finger.  "A false son, bearing the weight of a thousand
mountains on his back, battered by a thousand seas, water over
rock."

     His eyes were distant and sad.  "False son in truth and true
son in falseness, mother of sorrows, mother of grief, you shall
not know your child for long as truly he is."

     He closed the book and put it down on the table, taking his
feet off it at the same time.  "Lemme show you something."

     Before she could say anything, he raised his hand, fingers
curved upward as if to cup something in his palm.  His face bore
an expression of intense concentration for a second, and then his
hand and fingers burst into white flame, though she felt no heat.

     He pursed his lips slightly, and the flames rolled down his
fingers, gathered into his palm in a spherical ball, so bright
they were almost painful to look at.  

     "And the point of this is?" she asked, raising an eyebrow
questioningly.

     "I'm not sure," he answered.  "But I can do it.  Easily.
Like lifting a finger.  I..."

     He paused, and looked uncertain for a moment.  "I think its
raw ki.  Not a battle aura or an emotion projection, real, pure
unformed energy."

     He raised his other hand, and the white flame streamed out
of his cupped palm to wreath his lifted hand.  "I fought a guy a
while ago whose techniques kinda looked like this.  He could do
stuff with his ki that I'd never have been able to do; straight
power blasts, ki blades, shaped beams."

     He clapped his hands, and the brightness faded.  "Now I can.
It's like a new muscle, a strong one, but..."

     He sighed.  "I need to talk to Cologne about this.  Where is
she, anyway?"

     Kima took a moment before answering.  "With Samofere, most
likely."

     "What, right now?" Ranma asked, blinking.  "They must both
be early risers."

     She felt her teeth clench.  "She probably spent the night
with him."

     "Huh?"
     
     As soon as the word left his mouth, realization dawned on
him, and he had the grace to look embarassed.  "Uh..."

     He grabbed the book back off the table, opened it, and hid 
himself behind it, but not before she caught sight of his 
reddening face.  Awkward as the air between them might be now, it
at least seemed less tense.  

     After a few seconds silence, Ranma looked over the top of
the book, a faint blush still tinging his cheeks.  "Is there any
way I can get something to eat?"

     "I can send down for food," Kima replied.
     
     Ranma looked around the room.  "Ain't you got a kitchen or
something in this place?  It's big enough for it."

     Kima gave him an offended look.  
     
     "You expect me to cook?" she asked flatly.

     He shook his head, lowering the book a little more as he
did.  "Nahh, that's okay.  You don't have to."

     "I never offered to," she replied crisply, standing up out
of the chair and walking to the door that led out of her
apartments.  "I will have food brought up."

     She opened the door that led into the hallway.  This early 
in the morning, no one else was about.  She whistled, soft and
high, and heard moments later the sound of small wings.

     Raising her arm, she presented a wrist, and the slight
weight of the dove settled down upon it, cooing softly and
regarding her with bright eyes.

     "Good morning, little sister," she said quietly.  "I have a
message for you to bear."

     The dove bobbed her head slightly, and took off down the
passage moments later.  Kima watched the blur of the small bird's
wings with an odd ache in her chest.

     When she turned, Ranma was behind her, his arms folded over
his chest, his expression slightly contemplative.  "You can talk
to them?"

     She shrugged.  "Just a little.  They understand what I want,
and we've learned how to understand them."

     "That's how that wizened little bastard controlled all those
crows, then?" Ranma asked.

     "Xande," Kima said disgustedly, suppressing a shudder at the
mention of the traitor's name.  "Not entirely.  He was always the
strongest at controlling birds, and he honed it over the years...
he could force those birds to kill themselves if he wanted."

     "He got away, didn't he?" Ranma asked quietly.  "I know
Helubor didn't, but he did, right?"

     Kima nodded silently.  She had not truly realized until now 
how much the thought frightened her.  Xande was still out there,
waiting.  

     Ranma sighed and dropped his hands to his sides.  "It really
sucks being unconscious for three days.  You miss too much 
stuff."

     He snorted.  "I just hope Tarou doesn't do anything stupid."
     
     Shaking his head, he slammed a fist into his palm, and for a
moment, an angry fear flashed across his face.  "If he puts Akane
in danger, I'll rip him apart."

     "I don't think he would," Kima said.  
     
     Ranma nodded slowly.  "I guess I don't think he would 
either..."

     He shrugged and turned around, gazing about the spacious
living room.  "This is a really nice place.  You the only one who
usually lives here?"

     A faint twinge of sadness went through her.  "It it my
family's chambers.  And yes, I live alone."

     "Isn't there a kitchen?"
     
     Kima frowned.  "A small one.  Why does it matter?"
     
     "I guess it just woulda been easier for me to cook something
than to go to all the trouble of having food sent up," he said.

     "It is what the kitchens are for," she replied.  "To provide
food for..."

     The words died in her throat.  To provide food for the
nobles, so they wouldn't have to cook for themselves.  An
unexpected sense of shame washed over her.

     Ranma tilted his head slightly and looked at her.  "You 
don't know how to cook, do you?"

     Kima's frown deepened.  "What do you care?"
     
     "I don't," he replied.  "You don't seem the domestic type
anyway."

     "I never really had the time to learn," she said.  Or, she
thought silently, the inclination.

     "Didn't your mother teach you or somethin'?"
     
     He said it so off-handedly that it somehow made it worse.
She fixed him for a long moment with an angry glare, until his
face showed the realization that he had made some grave error.

     "No," she said finally, in a cold voice.  "She was not 
around to do so for long."

     She regretted the words almost immediately, as soon as she
saw the stricken expression that passed across his face for a
moment, before he lowered his head and stared at the ground.

     "I'm sorry," he said finally.  "I didn't mean to..."
     
     Then he shut his mouth, turned, walked back to the table,
sat down, and opened the book again, burying his nose in it and
filling the room with the rustle of pages.

     Kima turned away from him and examined the door that led out
into the hallway intently.  She hated this confusion of emotions,
hated it with a passion.  Everything had been much simpler 
before.

     A soft knocking came at the door, and she pulled it open,
revealing a young girl dressed in rough clothing, wings folded
demurely behind her back as she knelt to present a tray.

     Kima bent down and took it.  Straightening, she looked down
into the slightly nervous face of the child and tried to smile.
"Thank you."

     The girl's eyes darted to the side, and her nervousness
increased.  After a moment, Kima realized that she was looking
past her, to Ranma.

     "You can go now," she said, nudging the door closed with her
hip and turning to see that Ranma had put the book down and had 
been staring past her to where the child had been.

     In silence, she brought the tray to the round table in the
centre of the room and put it down, then sat.  Ranma was still
looking past her, at the now closed door.

     "I saw her eyes," he said.  "She was scared of me."
     
     He seemed to lose something, slumping heavily back into the
chair.  "Can't blame her, I guess.  They must all be terrified of
me."

     Kima said nothing.  The presence of humans among her 
isolated people was not discussed; the new king had said it was
allowed, and so the people accepted.  But there was still an
undercurrent of fear in them that she could sense.

     Ranma closed his eyes, put a hand over them and bowed his
head.  "Damn it," he said softly, dropping a loose fist against
the carved arm of his chair with a dull thump.  "I thought about
it again."

     He laughed softly.  "Sometimes, you know, I can forget about
it for a little while, and then I almost feel normal, but then I
think about it, and I remember..."

     His voice trailed off.  He raised his head and opened his
eyes to look at her.  "Sorry.  I shouldn't..."

     He pounded his hand down on the table, making dishes rattle.
"God, I hate feeling sorry for myself."

     "What is done is done," Kima said quietly, staring at her
hands.  "You cannot change the past."

     "No," Ranma replied.  "But it doesn't mean I've gotta feel
good about it."

     She suppressed a sigh.  She had tried already to make him
see that what he had done was right.  If she had possessed the
power to strike down the traitors who had been shooting into the
crowds in the Hall of Speaking, she would have done it in an
instant, and never regretted it.  

     He had the power, and had used it, and she could see that it
was tearing him apart, just like killing Denkoko had been doing.
And she found, to her great surprise, that she wished it was not
so.

     She could rationalize it all she wanted, in the same way she
had at first.  He was somehow a necessary part of her people's
survival, and for that reason she could tolerate him.  But it was
not that anymore, she could not lie to herself.

     He was her friend, she realized with a strange wonder.  She
had fought beside him, had had her life saved by him, had perhaps
saved his, had suffered the loss of her wings because of him and
had somehow forgiven him of any blame as she had seen his grief
at his failure to heal the wound.  It hurt her to see his hurt, 
because he was her friend.  It had been that way for some time, 
since Saffron's death, even, but she had never seen it.

     She looked across to him, at his bowed head and sad eyes,
hesitated, and then spoke.  "My mother died when I was four.  
Childbirth is often difficult for the women of my people, and
mine left her very weak and susceptible to illness.  She might 
have lived much longer, if not for my birth."

     She breathed a soft sigh.  "My father never blamed me, but 
once I was old enough to understand how her pregnancy had
contributed to her death, I blamed myself for a long time,
until..."

     She shut her mouth, realizing she was coming dangerously
close to saying too much, to giving up feelings and memories 
that she did not want to share.  "He never remarried.  He was 
expected to, to produce a male heir, but he didn't."

     "Kima..." he said quietly.  
     
     "Never mind," she said suddenly, surprised at her own
vehemence.  "It doesn't matter.  I shouldn't have told you."

     Ranma looked as if he wanted to say something, and then
silently picked up a bowl of rice and a pair of chopsticks from
the tray, and began to shovel food into his mouth, making a clear
intention of looking away from her.

**********
     
     The drums began first, a deep, repetive march rhythm.  A 
moment later, the horns entered, low-pitched and mournful.  Herb 
stood in the observation gallery, a good hundred feet above the 
great chamber, and watched in silence as the men under his 
father's command began to file into the place called the Mouth 
of the Dragon.  

     The sound of flutes began to rise into the air now, laid
across the drums and horns, a high, sad piping.  The music rose
from somewhere in the wings of the hall, beyond the range of his
vision from up here.  The musicians and the wives of his father's
men would be there, out of his sight.

     The men took their seats in the long rows of benches that 
lay on either side of the hall, walking down a wide avenue in 
the centre carpeted in rich colours of gold and red.  Near the 
end of the chamber, the floor rose up into steps, and on a raised 
platform of bare and polished stone, stark against the rich 
decoration of the rest of the chamber, the true Mouth of the
Dragon stood, a carved and ancient statue rising from the rock of
the platform, a slightly curved serpentine neck supporting the
elegant and noble head, weathered and faded from long existence,
the jaws open wide and big enough to swallow a man.

     "How long are we going to be here?" Mint whispered to Lime.
Unfortunately for him, not quite quietly enough.

     Herb turned, his face twisting into an ugly snarl, and
raised his hand.  "Shut up.  This is the last time I'm telling
you."

     Mint cringed slightly where he stood near the door that led
out into the hallways of the palace.  Lime looked confused, but
sank into silence, his huge hands dangling at his sides as if he
were not quite sure what to do with them.

     Herb resisted the urge to bounce the two of them around the
small room with his power, and turned again to look out from the
tiny window into the Mouth of the Dragon.  The mingled music of
drum and flute and horn was just barely audible through the thick
glass.

     He rested his hands on the window ledge, and bowed his head.
To either side of him, thick silk curtains patterned with the 
shapes of butterflies and flowers were drawn away from the 
window, allowing him to look across the Mouth of the Dragon all
the way to the other end.

     And now the music was sadder, sweeter, building to a pitch,
gently and steadily rising, and then it stopped, an abrupt fall
to silence.  Directly below him, he heard the sound of the great 
doors that led into the Mouth of the Dragon creaking open.  

     From above, he watched as his father walked alone down the
space between the rows of benches, his long golden cape brushing
against the scarlet and gold carpet as he went.

     He looked at the richly-dressed body his father bore in his 
arms, and felt an odd tugging from somewhere inside him.  Her 
face looked older than he remembered, but, of course, he had not 
seen it for fifteen years.  She looked peaceful.  Rogen had told 
him she had gone quickly and painlessly.  

     He remembered at first how all the boys had cried for their
mothers when they'd been brought to the Fortress of the Boys.  He
had cried as well, but not for long, and always alone in his
chambers.  That was how his memory of it went, at least.
     
     He smirked slightly.  He felt little of anything as he
watched his father carry the empty shell of his mother's body up
to the statue, the Mouth of the Dragon, and place her gently
within the jaws of the dragon.

     From this distance, his father was a tiny figure, but Herb's
eyesight was sharp.  He saw how his mother's long hair spread out
as his father laid her down, a dark blue-black.  He saw how his
father took her hands in his and folded them across her chest.

     His father took a step back.  Herb could not see his face.
He knew what came next; the duty of the lords of the Musk to all
their people, whether they were wife or soldier.

     Now the silence was so great it was like a lingering vapour
in the air, a heavy weight that pressed down on him.  He watched
as his father raised a hand.

     Even from so far away, the flare of light was almost
blinding.  When his eyes cleared, his mother was gone.  He knew
that what remained, the fine ash of her physical form, would fall
down through the hollow neck of the dragon, down to where the
waters flowed under the ground, to be carried on them, for as 
long as it took, until they came at last to the sea.  He had done 
it himself for the first time when he was nearly seven, to a boy 
ten years older than he had been who had fallen from a ledge on 
the mountain and broken his neck.  There was a Mouth of the 
Dragon here, and in his own palace to the east.

     The tug in him had become an ache now, like the pain of some
old wound, not as fresh as it might once have been, but always
there.  He gripped the window ledge and stared out across the
Mouth of the Dragon, as his father turned away and began to walk
back down the short flight of stairs.  His father looked up to 
where he stood.  Across the  distance, their eyes met, and Herb 
saw that his father wept.

     "Weak fool," Herb said softly, under his breath.  All of his
talk of control, and he was unable to deal with this, a simple
death.  But the ache would not leave him, and he felt angry at
that, as he watched his father walk down the red and gold carpet,
as he heard the drums begin again, and the moan of the horns, and
the wail of the flutes.

     And as his father passed the benches, the men in them filed
out and began to walk behind their king, their heads bowed, and
as each joined the procession, he opened his voice and began to
sing, wordlessly, a deep and droning lament.  

     From the wings, he heard higher voices join in, the voices
of the women.  It seemed to reach up through the space, and grab
hold of him, and before he realized it, he was opening his mouth
and singing as well, if singing this could be called, wordless,
pure sound of voice.

     Behind him, he heard Lime and Mint, who had been so silent,
Lime's deep voice merging with Mint's adolescent quaver, and he
gripped the window ledge so hard it felt as if it might come away
in his hands.

     He heard the doors open again, and the men of the Musk, with
Kammael their king at their head, began to leave the Mouth of the
Dragon.  The drone of their voices fell away, and he let his
voice be silent then as well.  His vision seemed blurred, and he 
wondered if perhaps he was still half-blinded from the light his 
father had made during the ceremony.

     "Mint, Lime," he said quietly.  "Leave me."
     
     There was no sound from them but footsteps, and the opening
of a door.  Herb stood alone then, staring at the empty Mouth of 
the Dragon, at the mouth of the dragon into which the last 
physical form of his mother had gone.  He raised a hand to his 
eyes, to see if he could rub away his blurred vision, and his 
fingers came away wet with tears.

     He stared at them, at how they caught the light, and felt
his temper rise ugly and dark, so quickly it startled even him.
His fist lashed out and slammed into the glass window before him, 
light of power along his arm and clenched hand, light of rage.

     The pain of glass shards cutting into his fingers seemed to
bring him back to control somehow, and he drew back a bloody 
hand, as he heard the tinkle of pieces of glass falling to the 
floor a hundred feet below, breaking into still further pieces.

     "Damn it," he whispered.
     
     He heard the door open, and turned.  The figure in the long, 
hooded white cloak closed the door behind it, and came forward.
He saw a flash of black clothing beneath the cloak as it walked
towards him.  He could see no face; the hood covered everything.

     "Get out," he growled, raising a clenched fist.
     
     "I need to talk to you," she said, and it was a woman, he
realized, a woman's voice, and he felt the slight tremble of rage
course through him.

     (He would have them brought before him)
     
     He strode forward and snatched the hood down, and stared for
a moment of livid shock into his own face, the face that had been
the focus of his hate for months now, the weak, soft, beautiful
woman's face that he had worn for that cursed time that the
Chisuiton had locked him into that feeble female body.  And then 
his hand seized the girl's throat in a tight grip.

     "Who are you?" he demanded savagely.
     
     (Kill her)
     
     The girl did not answer, and he squeezed.  The rage was
terrible in him, so vast that it consumed all else, and he 
stared into her eyes, a pale scarlet colour like his, and saw
that there was no fear in them, and that somehow stoked the
anger, like a flame touched with breath.

     (KILL HER!)
     
     And he drew back his other hand, and lifted her from the
ground by the throat, and on the hand he raised he made a blade
of his power.

     (KILL HER NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW-)
     
     And she reached forward and touched her fingers to his
temples, and the world exploded

     and he was bodyless formless without shape and 

     as he drew back his hand and a blade of light gathered (KILL
HER KILL HER KILL HER)

     and he was in a place where no light shone at all
     
     her fingers were like a whip upon his face like a blade like
fire

     and he saw a shape unfold from the darkness and it was a
gate and a man and it wore armour and it was armour and it had 
hair like silver kissed with sunlight and a face so fair that he 
wanted to fall down and worship it

     and the man the gate the armour spoke and the words were
written on the darkness in shapes of fire as the doors opened
     
     I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY,
     I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL GRIEF,
     I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN RACE.
     
     and beyond was an army so great it filled everything and the
red eyes of the man the gate the armour were filled with perverse
glee and a hatred so pure it was beautiful as all pure things are

     BEFORE ME NOTHING, NO ETERNAL THINGS
     WERE MADE, AND I SHALL LAST ETERNALLY.
     ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER.
     
     the man was the gate was the armour was the key was 
beckoning to him (Come to me beloved child)
         
     and he was falling, and a hand caught his, and there was a
word, and it was hidden grief and forgotten pain and tears shed
unwillingly and it was memory lost

     and it was the word rising from his lips and it was Mother.
     
     He staggered back, catching himself back against the window
ledge with his trembling hands.  He stared into the face in front
of him, the soft mirror of his own, and for a moment he could not
speak, and as he stared into that face, he remembered, as the
smell of forest might bring back memories decades past in old 
men, or the certain catch of sunlight on the surface of the 
waves.

     "Wiyeed," he said at last.
     
     "Hello, Herb," the girl said, rubbing at her throat, yet
smiling all the same.  With the hood pulled down now, he could
see her hair, the same colour as his, and the slash of blue in
the forelock that hung over her eyes.  "Do you remember me now?"

     He nodded mutely.  He did not understand how he could have
forgotten.  The memories of the second child beside him in the
cradle, the other shape swaddled in his mother's arm, were as
clear as yesterday.

     She seemed to read his thoughts.  "We weren't even three 
when they separated us, brother."
     
     "What did you do to me?" he asked.  The rage was gone.  He
examined from every angle his desperate urge to kill her, even if
he had not realized who she was, and found no reason for it.  He 
should not have lost his temper.  There had been no provocation.

     "I drove him back," Wiyeed said softly, and her smile
vanished instantly, her face as hard as ever his had been, and a
hate in her eyes as great as any that his eyes had ever held.
"It was very hard, and I barely managed."

     "Who?" Herb said quietly.
     
     "The World-Hater," his sister answered venomously.  "The
eternal legacy of Ganziao's Curse was that it allowed him to 
reach out into the minds of the male line of our family ever 
since the Dragon Tribe was broken fourteen centuries ago."

     Herb looked at his sister for a moment.  "Ganziao the
Founder?"

     Now his sister spat upon the floor.  "May his name be cursed
till the end of time."

     "No less cursed than the name of Fukwan the Traitor," Herb
murmured.  His sister's expression softened slightly, and her 
eyes were sad.  

     "Aye," she said quietly.  "No more and no less cursed than
hers."

     She straightened her white cloak slightly over her black,
long-skirted dress, and tugged the hood up slightly over her pale
hair.  "Father wishes to speak with us now.  It is most 
important."

     Herb looked at her for a moment.  "What if what you had done
to me had not cured me?"

     She looked back at him.  "You are not cured.  You still must
control yourself.  Father says you have always had an awful
temper."

     "I can keep it under control," Herb said angrily.  "For now, 
at least.  Now answer me, Wiyeed.  What if it had not worked?"

     She regarded him levelly.  "I would have blown your head
off."     

     "And if I'd killed you first?"  
     
     She smirked at him.  "You wouldn't have."

     He laughed, then, to his surprise and his sister joined him 
as they stepped towards the door.

**********
     
     Kima glanced to her right as she strode down the hallway,
bootheels tapping against the stone.  Next to her, Ranma raised a
hand and lightly brushed it across Shiso's head.  The bird sat on
his shoulder, bobbing his head in time to the rhythm of Ranma's 
walk.

     "Why do they want to see us?" she asked the bird.
     
     He turned his head and regarded her with dark, depthless
eyes.  "We shall see, now won't we?"

     The raven had come a few minutes after she'd finished 
breakfast in uncomfortable silence, tapping at the door and
delivering the message that Samofere and Cologne wanted to speak
with the two of them.

     After the first sighting of her and Ranma, word had spread
down the corridors of the palace complex, and now the corridors
were deserted of any people.  They walked in a silence nearly as
uncomfortable as the one they'd eaten in, through the tall,
narrow hallways.

     Up a short flight of stairs and around a corner, and they
stood before a set of double doors.  Kima pushed one open, and a
breath of mountain air came wafting in, running through her hair
and ruffling Shiso's feathers slightly.  The raven huffed and
shook them back into place, as she and Ranma stepped out onto the
long, roofed bridge that spanned between two peaks of the
mountain.

     "I remember this place," Ranma said suddenly, the first
words he'd spoken since they'd left her quarters.  "I see you
repaired the bridge."

     Kima nodded in silence as they walked up.  Up ahead, two
huge doors graven with the image of the phoenix led into the
king's chambers, the ones that belonged to Samofere now.

     Outside the door, Loame and another one of his men stood in
their dark clothing and silvery armour, Loame's hands wrapped
around the haft of his hammer as the head of it rested on the
ground, and his companion holding a long spear loosely in one
hand.

     The worker chief gave a respectful nod to her, and perhaps
to Ranma, and gave one of the doors a light push.  It swung open
with a slight rasp of hinges, admitting them to the king's 
chambers.  As they walked through, Kima saw Loame's subordinate
looking at Ranma with almost undisguised hostility, which no one
except her seemed to notice.

     Inside the immense quarters of the king, Cologne and 
Samofere knelt on the floor at a round table far too large for
only two people.  

     "Ahh, welcome," the new king said, a weary smile creasing 
his young, dark face as they entered.  "Sit down.  We must talk."

     Shiso launched off of Ranma's shoulder with a beat of his
wings, and settled down in the middle of the round table in a
huddled ball of black feathers, tucking his head under one wing
and seeeming, for all appearances, to go to sleep.

     Kima took a seat on the floor before the immense round
table.  A moment later, Ranma sat down with his hands on his
knees, managing to locate the point at the table that put him as
far away as possible from all three of the others.

     "It is good to have you back among us," Samofere said,
glancing to Ranma.  "Much has happened since..."

     "I know," Ranma said sharply.  "I've heard all of it I need
to know."

     Surprised, Kima looked at his face quickly.  She could read
nothing from it, no sign of what was going on below the surface.

     "Ranma..." Cologne began, a vague hint of dissatisfaction in
her voice.

     Ranma turned to look at her.  "Let me talk, Cologne."
     
     His voice was steady, unusually so for him, and his words
seemed more carefully formed as he went on.  "I've had enough of
stumbling around in the dark.  I want some answers for once, and
I think I deserve them."

     The faintest wince passed across Cologne's face.  "Ask and
we shall see what we can..."

     "What in the hell is happening to me?"
     
     Kima frowned and stared at the table, detecting now the
agonized undertone of his voice, which did not fade as he
continued.  "I thought I had it under control.  I really did.
And then I did it again.  I killed again."

     And there it was, the barest tremble in his voice, and she
focused intently on the table, studied the grain of wood, knowing
no way to speak, waiting to hear Cologne and Samofere answer.

     "As I understand it," Samofere said softly.  "Your friend, 
the other boy..."

     "Tarou ain't my friend," Ranma interrupted.
     
     "As you like it," Samofere acquiesced.  "He brought an
object into the Hall of Speaking, a golden pearl that he was
given when he stayed below Jusendo... it carried a part of the
dragon's will with it, and it brought the fire from the water,
and empowered you with some of her strength."

     "And made me kill Helubor and the guys with the guns?" Ranma
asked quietly.

     "No," Samofere replied, just as quietly, and Kima heard the
tint of sorrow in her king's voice.  "That you did yourself.  It
was asked of you, but it was your choice."

     "It wasn't my choice," Ranma said.  Kima raised her head,
and now there was no mask across his face, only the agony of
guilt, shining in his eyes, in the twisted lines of his mouth.

     "Was it not?" Samofere asked.  "If you had not killed
Helubor when you did, he would have killed Kima.  If you had not
killed those traitors when you had, who knows how many more
deaths they might have caused?"

     A quaver passed across Ranma's features, and he slowly shook
his head.  "Helubor, yeah.  I don't feel bad about him at all.  
I..."

     He hung his head slightly, and then glanced up to Kima.  
"Maybe I knew that if I didn't kill him, he woulda killed you,
and if there's one thing I ain't ever gonna feel bad about, it's
killing that bastard so you could live."

     Kima felt her lips edge up in the barest of smiles.  "I
suppose, given the circumstances, I appreciate the sentiment."

     Ranma looked away from her then, back to Cologne and
Samofere where they sat near each other.  "But I didn't need to
kill those other guys.  I had the power to stop them without
killing them, and I didn't."

     "It was the decision of a second," Cologne said flatly, her
eyes betraying no more emotion than her voice.  "You made the
choice.  It was the easiest way to stop them."

     "But the easy way is not necessarily the right one," Ranma
answered softly, leaning his elbows on the table and cradling his
chin in his palms.

     "Yes," Cologne agreed, a trace of tired regret entering her
voice.  "That too is true."

     "Be that as it may," Samofere said.  "What is past is past."
     
     He looked around the table, and his face was sad.  "Is there
any one of us here who has not done things that we regret?  Acts
that we wish we could take back, or change?"

     Kima felt a dull ache in herself, saw it mirrored in the
faces of Cologne and Ranma, and in Samofere's face, and she knew
that all of them saw it on her face.  

     "I cannot say that I have done no wrong in my life," she 
said finally, to break the silence.  "Even sometimes that I have
done wrong and believed that I did right.  But I go on.  If we
cannot undo what wrongs we have done, we may at least seek to 
rise above them."

     "She is right," Cologne added, her voice barely audible.
"None of us are without stains upon our souls."

     "No," Samofere said quietly, nodding his head and staring at
the table.  

     "No," Ranma repeated, smiling sadly.  "I guess that's just
the way it is, right?"

     And then the smile fell away from his face, but his face did
not fall into melancholy, but into a hard and fierce 
determination.  He stood up.  "So what now?  This isn't over by a
long shot.  Whoever sent Galm after us is still out there.  
Xande's still out there.  So's the Circle Eternal."

     There was a brightness in his eyes now, a flash of fire, and
he folded his arms across his chest and seemed to stand 
straighter.  "The dragon under Ryugenzawa said I'm supposed to
unite the people of Jusenkyou, right?  I damn well can't do it
sitting around here and moping."

     And then he smiled, entirely differently from the smile of
moments earlier, confident and unafraid.  Kima smiled, against
her expectations, saw Cologne break into a grin, saw Samofere 
follow a second after she did.

     "Bravo, boy," Cologne said.  "That's an attitude I'm more 
used to from you."

     "Hell," Ranma said, shrugging his shoulders.  "What I saw
under Jusenkyou, under Ryugenzawa... letting that be destroyed
would be a heck of a lot worse than anything else I could do."

     In the centre of the table, the sleepy ball of black 
feathers shook slightly, and Shiso poked his head out from under
his wing.  "Jusendo."

     "Hmm?" Ranma said, looking to the bird.
     
     Shiso stood up, stretching his wings and fluttering them.
"Back to where it began.  To the heart of the matter."

     Samofere slowly nodded.  "That was, in fact, what I was
going to suggest.  I need you to go to Jusendo, Ranma, to the
heart of it, where the Dragon Tap and the Phoenix Tap are 
placed."

     Ranma tilted his head to the side and looked at the winged
man.  "Why?"

     "You'll see when you get there," Samofere answered 
cryptically.

     Ranma shook his head.  "Not good enough.  Why?"
     
     "I cannot say," Samofere said.  "To tell you why might 
change too much.  Do you trust me enough to go?"

     Kima watched as Ranma studied Samofere, long and hard.
     
     Finally, he shook his head.  "No.  I don't.  Tell me why."
     
     "And if I cannot tell you?"
     
     Ranma's eyes narrowed slightly.  "Then maybe I won't go."
     
     "Perhaps you won't," Samofere answered in a level voice.  
They stared at each other for a few seconds that seemed to drag
on forever, and then Ranma swore under his breath and looked
away.

     "One of these days," he said quietly, glaring at Samofere
and Cologne in turn.  "I'm going to get back at the two of you
for all this enigmatic mumbo-jumbo."

     "You will go, then," Cologne said, as statement and not
question.

     Ranma nodded, though his face was angry.  "I'll go."
     
     "I wish I could go with you," the Joketsuzoku said.  "But I
am needed here."

     Kima saw the eyes of her king and Cologne meet for a second,
and she felt a vague twince of dissatisfaction that she quickly
suppressed before it could show on her face.  

     "So do I go alone, then?" Ranma asked quietly.
     
     Kima turned her eyes to again staring intently at the table.
     
     There was a long silence.
     
     "Fine," Ranma said finally.  "Hey bird, come on.  You can
keep my company, at least."

     "I'm really needed here a lot these days," Shiso's voice
answered croakingly.

     "Oh."
     
     She heard him sigh softly.  "Guess I'll go and get my stuff
together, then."
     
**********     

     Ranma folded another shirt, and carefully tucked it into his
backpack.  He made sure the straps holding the flap opening 
closed were tight, and then attached his bedroll.  The pack was
old and weathered.  He had carried it to Phoenix Mountain and
back to Japan, and then to the mountain where he had killed
Denkoko.  It had been brought through the cold unlight that had
lain between Jusenkyou and Ryugenzawa, and it had been taken from
him for a time when he'd been a prisoner.  Now it was in his
hands again, and he was using it as it was meant to be used, to 
prepare for travel.

     He glanced around the large, plain room that he had 
occupied, the bed where he had lain unconscious in, the chair
where Cologne had been when he'd awakened.  The pale, bluish
glow of the lamps on the walls scarred the white sheets with
talons of light and shadow.  There was nothing else beyond the
bed and chair, and he was sure that it had been unused until
they'd stuck him here to recover.

     A knock sounded from beyond the metal-banded wood of the
door, and he turned his head to look at the direction of the
noise.  "Yeah?"

     Kima pushed the door open and stepped inside, a slightly
troubled look on her face.  "I thought you might want this."

     "What?" he asked suspiciously, studying her.  She was 
wearing a form-fitting white robe with the image of the two
phoenixes supporting the sun, a garment similiar to the one she'd
had on when she'd talked to him after he'd awoken, but the trim
of the hem and sleeves was a dark blue this time.  

     "This," she said, raising a hand and flipping him something
that he caught more by instinct than anything else.  He stared at
the photo in the torn leather wallet.  Akane's photo.  

     The troubled look had not left Kima's face.  "She had it
tucked into her blouse when I pulled her out of the spring after
it was ready.  I didn't know what to do with it, so I tossed it
away somewhere in my room.  I forgot I had it until a little
while ago."

     "Thank you," Ranma said quietly, genuinely touched despite
the angry memories her words brought back for him.  He tucked the
photo inside his shirt, and vowed silently that this time he
wasn't going to lose it.

     "Are you ready to go now?"
     
     He looked up, buttoning the ties of his red shirt to keep
the photo safe against his chest and gave her a weary grin.  
"Yeah."

     "Better if you go through less-travelled passages," she 
said, turning and walking out the open door.  "The less attention
you attract among my people, the better."

     Ranma silently rose, hauling up his pack by one strap and
slinging it over one shoulder as he followed her.  Going through
the sitting room, they stepped through another door, and into
what he presumed was Kima's bedroom.  

     He glanced over it momentarily.  The bed and furniture bore
the same obsessive level of decoration with phoenix icons that
everything else in Phoenix Mountain did, and he saw very little
that gave the room any kind of personal touch.  He got the
impression she spent very little waking time in the place.

     "Why are we in here?" he asked.
     
     Kima glanced back from where she stood by a tall chest of
drawers.  "Loame and his Order aren't the only ones who have
secret tunnels in the mountain.  This one isn't much of a secret
any more, but it is unused."

     Ranma's eye caught on something in the wall near where she
stood, and the outline of a door seemed to fall into place
suddenly across the stone, the cracks of the frame almost
unnoticeable.  "What's that for?"

     Kima took a step over and pushed against it, hard, and with
a grating of stone on stone, it swung open, revealing a dark
passage and a long stretch of stairs that the light of the lamps
in the room failed to reach to the end of.  "Back when the
political infighting was more than just words and blackmailing, 
it was important for the highest-ranking families to have a back
door out if needed."

     She shrugged; crippled wings shrugged in time with the
motion of her shoulders, then drooped lifelessly again down her
back.  "It hasn't been needed for centuries now."

     "How high is your family, anyway?" Ranma asked, stepping up
to stand beside her before the revealed passage.

     "Highest in the ranks of the nobles now that Xande's line
has been stricken from the records due to his treachery," Kima
said quietly.  "The men of my family served as the king's 
guardians for ten centuries before me.  I am the first woman to 
hold the position."

     He only saw her face in the profile, but he saw the trace of
bitterness in her smile.  "I suspect that I shall also be the
last."

     From a pocket of her robes, she produced the ivory box that
held the glowing stone, and flipped it open.  The pale light 
staggered across her face and into the darkness beyond the
stairs.  "Come.  This will take you to the only untrapped
ground-level entrance."
     
     They walked in silence down the twining and ancient steps,
Ranma following behind her as she went.  The walls were low and
confining, and after a few minutes, Ranma began to feel slightly
claustrophobic.  As they passed through another hidden door into
another empty section of the rough passageways that twined
throughout the mountain, the feeling increased.  He and Kima 
were a narrow circle of light in the pressing darkness, and just 
as he began to feel as if he could take it no longer, he felt a 
cool breath of air against his face.

     Turning a corner, he saw a crack of light that soon became a
tiny exit from the mountain, so small they both had to duck their
heads to go through it.  It lay almost totally hidden in the
shadow of a massive rock.  Down a gentle slope of loose scree, he
could see the long pass winding off north and south through the
range of the mountains.

     He turned and looked up, to the mists that hung about the
high spires of Phoenix Mountain.  Beyond it, he saw scattered
winged shapes, soaring and darting among the peaks.  Glancing to 
the side, he saw Kima doing the same, a look of such wistful 
longing on her face that it hurt to see.     
     
     "Guess I'll go now," he said weakly.
     
     She said nothing, craned her head back further and folded 
her arms across her chest, the long sleeves of her robe brushing
silkily against each other.  "I'm coming with you."

     For a moment, Ranma could not speak.  Finally, he managed a
slightly shocked, "What?"

     She tilted her head back down and looked at him.  "I just
realized it now.  What need is there for me here?  Samofere does
not need my protection.  He does not need my advice.  The
question arises of how I may best serve my people, and the only
answer that I find now is that I must see whatever fate has
enfolded you through.  It binds us all, somehow, the fate of all
the people of Jusenkyou."

     Ranma could only stare at her for a time, and then finally
nodded his head.  "If that's the way you feel..."

     "It is," she said.
     
     She turned away from him and raised her hand to the air.  
She whistled, as he'd heard her do earlier in the morning, a
sound almost hauntingly beautiful in the still and stony silence
of the mountains.

     A white shape descended from the mists, spiralled down 
through the air on small wings, and landed upon her wrist.  She 
leaned her head down and whispered something to the dove, and 
then flung it free to the air, her gaze following it as it soared
away again into the mists.

     "Samofere and Cologne will know my choice soon enough," she
said, turning back to him.  "We should go now."

     Slowly, Ranma nodded, and began to walk down the slope
towards the mountain trail.

*********

     Kammael, King of the Musk, did not appear to be an old man.
Despite being well into his sixties, he looked at the most in his
early forties.  A few lines had woven themselves into a face, and
the living showed in his eyes, which had darkened over the years 
from a red like that of his children to a crimson so dark as to 
be almost black.  His hair had been white since his birth, of 
course, and he wore it long and unbound with a slight, pointed 
beard.

     He shifted slightly in his elaborate and baroque throne, and
with that shifting shifted the blade in the sheath across his
legs.  With a strong, unlined hand, he closed his fingers around
the golden dragon that shaped the hilt, and pulled an inch or so
of the curving, slender sword from its dark wooden scabbard,
watching the way light was split across the blade.

     His wife was dead less than a day, and he could already feel
it coming back, so much stronger this time, as if all the power 
of hate contained by that long holding-back had returned at once.
His will kept it in check for now, but will would only carry him 
so far.

     The large throne room was empty of the usual attendants.  
Thick curtains of gold and scarlet were drawn closed about the
huge windows that opened to views of the mountains, and the
silence of the room hung heavy upon him.

     One of the large double doors opened, and Rogen stepped
lightly into the room.  Five years his king's junior, the
bodyguard looked ten years the senior, his eyes hard and dark in
a lined, weatherbeaten face.  "Do you wish longer, my king?" he 
asked quietly, his voice breaking the silence.

     Kammael shook his head and rose up from the throne, holding
the Dragon's Blade in one hand, the ancient symbol of what his
heritage had once meant that had only recently been found again.
"No."

     Rogen's cape of black silk and brown feathers swirled
behind him as he walked across the richly carpeted floor, to meet
Kammael as he descended the short flight of steps that led down
from his throne.  "And where shall it be done?"

     How ancient the words, more than a thousand years now.  A
small age compared to that of the sword he held, a vast time to a
mortal man.  "Here, before my throne, that shall be my son's,
that was my father's before me."

     "It is well then, my king," Rogen said, and his eyes 
betrayed none of his feelings for what was to come.  "Do you feel
fear?"

     Kammael answered as he knew he must.  "No.  I know no fear
of this."

     "It is well then, my king," his old friend said again, and
perhaps there was the barest flicker in his dark brown eyes.  "I
am ready when you are."

     Kammael was silent for a moment, and then spoke.  "Rogen,
was it right what was done to my children?"

     Rogen answered immediately.  "You did as has been done for a
thousand years, my king.  Twins of the blood of your line are 
always separated.  The girls go to the north.  The boys stay
here.  And they shall have no knowledge of each other until such
time as is judged best."

     Kammael smiled slightly.  "But was it right?"
     
     Rogen was silent.
     
     "It does not matter," the king said at last, warmly clapping 
his friend on the shoulder.  "I am ready, Rogen."

     "Herb will make a fine king," Rogen said after a moment.
     
     "Perhaps he will," Kammael said.
     
     The two men looked at each other, and then embraced like
brothers, strongly and tightly.  Kammael stepped back and held
out the Dragon's Blade to Rogen.  "Hold it until he returns,
friend."

     Rogen took it.  There were tears in his eyes now.  
     
     Kammael reached up to his shoulders and undid his cape,
letting it fall to the patch of stone floor that lay between the
edge of the carpet and the edge of the steps that led up to his
throne.  He took off the armour of dragon scales that he wore on
his shoulders and arms and legs, and stood clothed only in white
now, not the red-trimmed white his son wore, but only white, pure
and clean like snow.  He remembered snow in the mountains, and
walking with his wife when they were young as the snow fell all
around them.

     He knelt before Rogen, remembering all the times that his
bodyguard, his old friend, had knelt before him, and bowed his 
head.  "I, Kammael, Lord of the Musk, kin to dragons, live now 
for a short time, again vulnerable to the darkness that claimed
my ancestors Ganziao and Fukwan and broke the Dragon Tribe.  But
better it is to die holding my own fate in my hands than live a
tool of that darkness."

     There were tears in his own eyes now, as he felt Rogen hand
him the long dagger, the point sharp and glinting, felt his
friend's fingers curl about his own and place the blade over his
heart.  He could feel it prick against his skin through his 
clothing.  There was no fear now; fear had departed long ago, and
sadness, and all else.  He felt peaceful now, and he had always
expected the peace would come after.

     Rogen's hand tightened on his, and they held the hilt
together, and then Kammael drove himself down upon the blade even
as Rogen drove it up towards him.

     And then there was peace no longer, only sharp and piercing
pain so great that he could not bear it and cried out softly,
like a child, but only for a few moments, and then he felt the 
peaceful darkness come rushing down upon him, as his body sagged 
into Rogen's arms.

     When he knew his king was dead, Rogen of the Musk lifted
Kammael's body into his arms, and bore him silently through empty
hallways.  The men of the Musk and their wives were all in their
quarters now.  They had all known what was coming, had known it
would come but had never expected it, and then it had come with 
the death of Kammael's wife in the earliest hours of the morning.  

     He bore him to the place called the Mouth of the Dragon, and
to the statue within that place called also the Mouth of the
Dragon, and he laid his king's body out upon a pire of wood
within the mouth of the dragon, and he did for him what the king 
of the Musk had done for all those of his clan who had died under 
his reign.

     And when that was done, and the ashes of the king had gone
to join those of his wife, Rogen walked, still in silence and now
without tears, to the highest tower of the Fortress of the Men,
and he rang the great bell that was tolled for only two reasons.

     Once, and the sound rang off the mountains and down the
pass, reaching all the way to the Fortress of the Boys.  That
first tolling meant that the king was dead.

     Again, and, low-pitched and booming, the bell echoed into
the mountain air, doubled and redoubled with the echoes of that
first tolling.  That second tolling meant that there was a new 
king.

     The new king, of course, knew nothing at all about any of 
this, and wouldn't find out for some time.
     
**********

     Ranma was halfway down the gentle slope that led towards the
trail, small stones scattering under his feet, when Kima paused
and stared back at Phoenix Mountain.

     Ranma stopped as well, turning on his heel to look at her.
"Kima?"

     The expression on her face was pensive for a moment, then
softened.  "I need water."

     He reached behind to his pack and pulled off his canteen,
not understanding why until it was in his hands.  "What do you
want to change for?"

     She regarded him coldly.  "I attract too much attention in
this form, and I'm walking either way, aren't I?"

     Troubled, Ranma handed her the canteen and turned his back
to her.  He heard the slight pop as she opened it, and then an
almost inaudible splash.

     "Here," Akane's voice said.
     
     He turned back and took the canteen back, trying not to look
at her and failing.  The robe that had been flattering on her 
before was now slightly too large on the smaller cursed body.

     Against all his desires, he found himself looking at her
eyes, the pale blue replaced by the brown of Akane's irises.  He
tore his head away, strangled the pain that rose raw in his very 
being.

     He felt a hand fall upon his shoulder from behind, and he
studied it intently, the shape of it, as if looking for something
that would reveal to him the falseness of the form.  But it was
all there, down to a small scar across one knuckle of the little
finger that he'd always noticed on Akane's left hand but had 
never asked about.

     "Don't touch me," he snapped, pulling away.
     
     He heard her make a small exhalation of breath from behind
him, a deep sigh.  "What's wrong?"

     He forced himself to turn and look at her.  He gazed at her
eyes, trying to see behind them at the truth, but there was so 
much of Akane in that gaze that he could not.

     "It just hurts to see her," he answered at last, very 
quietly and not sure how he managed to get the words out.
     
     Kima stared at him with Akane's eyes for the silence of a
few long seconds.  "I'm not her."

     Ranma smiled, very slighly, very bitterly.  "I know."
     
     She frowned.  "It is not avoidable.  I cannot travel on the
ground in my natural form."

     As she stepped by him, he caught a flash of long, slender
leg through the high cut in one side of her robe, and again he
felt a sense of deep and unattainable longing.

     Resigned, he began to walk down the slope after her, eyes
studying the ground, the fall of shadow across stone, interplay
of light with darkness scarring the mountain.  The sun was high 
in a blue canvas of white clouds.

     "Do you miss her?"
     
     He glanced up, and slowly nodded.  "Yeah.  I miss her a 
lot."

     Kima kept on walking, not looking back as she continued to
talk.  "You love her."

     He nodded again.  "I guess so."
     
     "I am sure you will see her again."

     He felt the familiar, bitter smile return.  "But once she
finds out all I've done, will she want to see me?"

     Kima stepped onto the rough, rocky dirt of the winding
trail, and glanced back over her shoulder.  A slight breeze
played through the dark bangs of Akane's hair, swept them across
her eyes.  "I don't know.  I'm not her, am I?"

     Ranma leaned against a huge boulder taller than he was, 
tossed onto the trail long ago by a rockslide.  "Nope."

     He turned, suddenly, and slammed his fist against the rock,
cracking the massive stone in half so that both sides crashed
thunderously to the ground, the sound echoing between the
mountains that rose all around them.

     "Ranma..."
     
     Kneeling, he pressed his hand against one of the flat sides
of the rock.  He felt a tingle on his skin, knew the dragon
writhed beneath his shirt upon his flesh, and the tingle rushed
up his arm in a singing glory, and the power flared on his hand,
so bright he could not look at it.  The hand print sunk into the
stone was detailed enough to see fingerprints in it.  River
roared in his head, whirled and sank down as he stood.  "What
have I become?" he mused, turning his hand back and forth.

     Kima slapped him with Akane's hand.  "Enough," she snapped, 
glaring at him, the anger so fierce on her face that he almost
stepped back.  "What happened to your big rush of confidence?  I
was almost sure you were done feeling sorry for yourself back
when you were talking in Samofere's chambers."

     Ranma touched his fingers to the stinging mark upon his
cheek, and stared into the anger in the eyes, the sad, unwanted
anger that he had seen in those eyes before.  

     He smiled, a third smile, more bitter than the last two.
"Maybe it's just that whatever's ahead doesn't seem like much
compared to what I've left behind."

     Her face tightened, the anger grew in her eyes, and then she
turned away imperiously, the long skirts of the robe sweeping
about her legs, and began to walk away.  Ranma followed her in
silence, up the trail to the north, towards Jusendo and whatever
else.

**********

     Ranma and Kima reached Jusendo in the late afternoon, when
the sun was falling into the west, walking in long and
uncomfortable silence.  They picked their way up the outside 
slopes to reach the top, the battle between Ranma and Saffron 
having collapsed many of the inner tunnels that wound through 
the mountain.  On some of the more difficult slopes, Ranma had to
help Kima along, and each touch of his hand to the hands that 
belonged to Akane sent a momentary shudder through his mind.

     Now they stood in the shattered heart, and looked about the 
massive cavern, now open to the air, at the mutilated statues of 
the dragon and the phoenix, and at the rubble strewn across the 
floor.  Sunlight sprawled lazily through the broken crown of the
mountain, streaked itself across the floor and walls and chased 
shadows into the corners.  The water that had flooded the cavern 
when Ranma had broken the Dragon Tap had long ago drained away; 
beyond the shattered walls, he could hear the sound of the 
waterfall spilling down the side, to source the river that flowed
towards Jusenkyou in the east.

     Ranma walked up to the lip of the huge, empty pool that
Saffron's egg had rested in.  Fragments of shell, the inner 
parts chased with all the colours of the spectrum and the outer
portions smooth and white, littered the basin.

     "I guess this is where everything began, wasn't it?" he said
quietly.  

     "I suppose it is," Kima said, standing at his shoulder in
Akane's body.  "The fall of Saffron was the last sign."

     Ranma shrugged and pulled off his backpack, then sat down,
resting against the marble edge of the basin and massaging his
legs to try and rid the muscles of the twinges he'd acquired
after hours of walking compounded by the climb up the slopes of
the mountain.  "So what now?"

     "I want to change back," Kima said bluntly, sitting down
beside him.  "I don't like being in this body any longer than 
I have to."

     Ranma began to open his pack to get out the kettle, and then
paused, an impulse coming over him.  "Lemme try something."

     He raised his hands and held them before him, as if he 
cupped a sphere between them.  He thought of how Cologne had 
shown him this, a few hours before Tarou had shown up, before 
Galm.  He had nearly forgotten it until now.

     He felt a pleasant tingle through his skin, a cool suffusion
that left him feeling cleansed and peaceful.  His sight seemed
somehow clearer and obscured at the same time, a swimming 
distortion of his vision that was in some ways a clarity.

     Draw them in, he whispered silently to himself, draw them 
in, draw it from the air, draw, come, oh come to me, oh waters...

     And between his hands, the air shimmered, and a misty orb of
blue light came first, and then a transition so fast it was 
almost not visible, a coalescing into moisture, clear water held 
between his hands.

     And he shaped the power with ease, with joy, sent it flowing
into the water as fire, saw the bubbling as the heat of the water
increased, and it was easy, and yet so hard, like a child taking
the first tentative steps that will lead to more, to steadiness,
to running.

     He turned to Kima and let the sphere bob above the palm of
one hand, wisps of steam rising from the orb of warm water he
held suspended.  He grinned.  "Easier than making a fire."

     He put his hand over her head, and released the water from
the hold he had upon it.  It splashed down, ran for a moment
across the darkness of hair that turned in an eyeblink to white,
sending damp bangs draping over eyes now pale and blue.

     Kima shook her head, and ran a taloned hand through her hair
that came away with water droplets dancing on the fingers.  
"Useful trick."

     She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, the 
motion making her wings move with her shoulders before they again
dropped limply.  

     Ranma rose to his feet, brushing his hands against his 
pants and feeling, oddly, much better than he had in a long time.
"Yeah.  Useful trick."

     "Hail and well met, Ranma Saotome."
     
     Startled, they both turned at the unfamiliar voice, Ranma
crouching slightly on the balls of his feet, Kima reaching for
the sword that hung at her belt.  

     Ranma watched in surprised silence as Herb of the Musk 
stepped from behind the serpentine length of the Dragon Tap that 
lay nearby, sunlight flashing off the burnished golden scales of
his armour, his long cloak seeming to float behind him as he
walked.

     A dozen steps from them, Herb paused and looked past Ranma's
shoulder.  "Did you know about this, Wiyeed?  Is this why father
wouldn't tell me why we had to come here?"

     Ranma whirled, and blinked at the girl standing behind them,
wearing a long, dark dress with a white cloak thrown loosely
around her shoulders.  She was the twin of Herb's cursed form,
except for her hair, which hung long and unbound, nearly to her
waist.

     "Hail and well met, Lord of Waters," she said formally.
"Hail and well met, Child of Phoenix."

     Ranma looked from Herb to his twin, and then shook his head
and sighed.  "Hail and well met, Herb, and whoever the heck you
happen to be."

     He glanced to Kima, and saw her regarding Herb with 
barely-veiled anger.  "So this is why Samofere would not tell why 
you had to come here," she half-snarled.

     Herb arched an eyebrow at her and a thin smile came onto his
face.  "Do I detect hostility?"

     Kima's face darkened.  "The memory of Phoenix Mountain is
long, childkiller."

     The girl in the white cloak spoke.  Her voice was as Herb's
had been when he was female, though her tones were more gentle,
less harsh.  "That sin is a thousand years past, and my brother
has killed no children."

     Kima turned slowly and looked at the girl, her hostility
lessening only slightly from Ranma's perspective.  "I know of
older sins than that which still stain the world today."

     "Aye," the girl said softly.  "That which is truly evil
cannot ever truly die."

     Kima went silent, bowed her head and looked at the ground,
and Ranma turned his attention to Herb.  "What are you doing 
here, Herb?"

     The Musk prince, now only a few feet from him, ground his
teeth together audibly.  "I wish I knew myself.  Sister, if you
would explain to me, I would be most grateful."

     The girl Herb called his sister laughed, a silvery sound,
and shook her head as she came towards them, long hair flashing
about her face.  "Aren't you going to perform the ceremony,
brother?"

     Herb looked startled for a moment, and then glared at his
sister.  Ranma could feel the tension crackle through the air
between them for a moment, and then, to his surprise, the prince
took a step forward and knelt before him.

     "Ranma Saotome," he said, looking up at Ranma from behind
the stark white of his bangs.  His crimson eyes held an angry
look as he spoke, and something else that Ranma could not place.  
"I am in your debt for my life, the highest debt that may be 
held.  We of the Musk hold to our debts.  My life falls before 
yours."

     Ranma stared at the suddenly humbled man, and another piece
of the puzzle fell into place.  "Stand up, Herb."

     As the tall prince stood, the words seemed to come to him,
though he knew not from where.  "You were a great foe and a
worthy opponent."

     He extended his arm.  Herb stared at it for a moment, and
then grabbed it, his fingers digging powerfully into Ranma's
forearm.  Ranma did the same, and locked eyes with the prince.
Herb smiled at him, but it didn't reach his eyes.
     
     "Master Herb!"
     
     Herb pulled his hand out of Ranma's grip and spun around,
cloak swirling.  A hulking figure in a dark tunic and pants with
tiger-striped shoulder pads loped across the cavern floor from 
near one of the tunnels leading into the depths of the mountain, 
a smaller boy darting along beside him.

     Ranma was certain he heard Herb groan softly as Mint and
Lime approached.  "What are you two doing here?" he snapped.

     "Lime was right," Mint muttered, frowning and staring past
Herb and Ranma.  "You did come out here to have fun with girls."

     "You could have brought us along," Lime said accusingly.
"We haven't seen any girls since we went to Japan."

     "Maybe he didn't want to share," Mint said sulkily.  He
seemed to notice Ranma for the first time.  "Hi."

     "Hey," Ranma said, regarding Herb's two bodyguards.
     
     "Do you still have those big breasts you had before?" Lime
asked, walking up and patting Ranma's chest with one huge hand.
"Master Herb got rid of his at Jusenkyou once we got back.  I 
think he should have kept them.  They were pretty."

     Ranma saw Herb's face twist uglily.  
     
     "Shut up, you imbeciles," he snarled, and raised a hand.  

     Ranma got out of the way in time.  Herb's hand flared with
light, and Mint and Lime were knocked sprawling as if by a great
fist.  They picked themselves up off the rubble-strewn floor,
complaining and rubbing their heads.  

     Herb raised his hand again, and they quieted.
     
     "We talk.  Now," he said, walking up to Mint and Lime and
grabbing an arm from each of them.  He half-dragged them off to a
corner of the cavern, and began berating them in a low voice.

     Ranma turned to see Kima and Herb's sister engaged in
something akin to a staring contest.  Kima broke her gaze away as
Ranma watched, and walked a few steps from the girl before
glancing to him.  

     "I'll be over there if anyone needs me," she said icily, and
stalked away to another corner of the broken cavern to stare out
through a shattered wall.

     "Hello," Herb's sister said, in a much less formal voice
than the one she'd used before.  She stepped up before Ranma and
inclined her head slightly in a mild gesture of greeting, the 
expression on her face almost shy.  "I am Wiyeed of the Musk, 
also Highest One of the Daughers of the Night.  I'm also Herb's 
sister, but I suppose you already know that now."

     "Yeah," Ranma said, strangely uncomfortable.  In the
distance, he heard the sound of Herb apparently blasting Mint and
Lime again.  "Uhh... what's going on, exactly?"

     "How old are you?" she asked, as if she hadn't heard him.
     
     Ranma blinked.  "Uhh... sixteen.  I'll be seventeen pretty
soon."

     "You're younger than me," she said contemplatively.  "I've
never met a man who was younger than me.  Herb's the same age,
and father and Rogen are much older."

     She smiled brightly at him.  Ranma saw the slightest flash
of pointed teeth at the edges of her delicate lips.  "You're very
handsome."

     She blushed and looked at her feet.  "I wasn't supposed to
say that, was I?  I don't think you are when you meet men.  I 
haven't met too many men."

     "Yeah," Ranma said, trying to be polite despite his rising
embarassment.  "Uhh... who are the Daughters of the Night,
anyway?"

     Wiyeed seemed to snap to attention, assuming the formality 
she'd had before.  "We serve the Lady."

     "Huh?"

     Wiyeed smiled again, in seeming apology.  "You have met her
kin.  The Daughters of the Night serve the third of the powers 
that rule the waters."

     "A third dragon?" Ranma asked quietly.
     
     She nodded, and now there was a strange distance in her 
eyes.  "The youngest and fairest and most terrible.  We call her
the Lady, though she has many names."

     "Names?" 
     
     "Too many to number in this time," Wiyeed said 
enigmatically.  "My brother and I came here to accompany you when
you go before her."

     She glanced back to where Kima stood, tall and still as she
stared off into the distance at the shattered edge of the cavern.
"We were told that you would come alone."

     "I think maybe I should have," Ranma muttered.
     
     Wiyeed gathered up her hair in one hand and draped it over
her shoulder, then pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head
and fastened it around her neck.  "The Lady showed me how you
aided the Phoenix in their time of trial."

     "How'd she do that?"  Ranma asked, blinking.
     
     Almost absently, she began to pull the long white hair that
hung over her shoulder into a loose braid.  "She aided you and
your companions as much she could.  She brought you to She Who
Must Not Wake quicker than you could have ever gotten there
otherwise."

     "I see," Ranma said.  He could still hear the occasional
yelp from Mint and Lime as Herb disciplined them.  "So... how
long will it take us to get there?"

     Wiyeed shrugged.  "I can bring us there instantly with your 
help, Lord of Waters."

     Ranma pushed his hanging bangs back out of his eyes with one
hand.  "You called me that before.  Why?"

     "It is the name the Dragon Tribe gave you when our seers
spoke of your coming in the time long past," Wiyeed answered.

     "Dragon Tribe?"
     
     She pulled the loose braid a little tighter, and left it
hanging over her shoulder as she dropped a hand to her waist and
almost unconsciously caressed the moonstone pommel of the dagger
on her belt.  "One of the three great tribes that lived in the
Valley of the Waters before the coming of the Ravager.  The
Dragon Tribe, the Phoenix Tribe, and the Water Tribe.  The last
remnants of the Water Tribe are the Joketsuzoku.  The Dragon 
Tribe were ruled by lords and ladies of I and my brother's 
bloodline, until they were broken fourteen centuries ago.  What
little is left of them are called the Musk Dynasty."

     "Why did Kima call your brother what she did?" Ranma asked.
The word echoed through his head in the same acid tone she had
used: childkiller.

     "A long story," Wiyeed said softly, looking away from him.
"I will tell you later, if you wish."
     
     "Yeah," Ranma said.  "I'd like that."
     
     He saw too late the flash of eagerness beneath the rather
formal mask she had adopted, and realized he should have chosen
his words more carefully.  "Uhh..."

     "We can talk later," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder
and smiling prettily.  Walking past him, she raised her voice and
called out to Herb.  "Brother!"

     Herb looked up from where he was yelling at the cringing
Mint and Lime.  Turning his back on them as if they were no
longer worthy of his attention, he strode across the cavern floor
with his two bodyguards trailing fawningly in his wake.

     "Idiots," Ranma heard him mutter under his breath as he came
to stand near the drained basin of the Phoenix Tap with them.  
"You were supposed to stay behind."

     "Rogen just said we weren't supposed to open the door until 
he came and got us," Mint said sourly, kicking at a loose stone 
on the ground.  

     Lime nodded and looked proud of himself.  "So I walked
through the wall.  How could you come on another adventure where
there might be girls without us?"

     Mint looked past Herb to Wiyeed.  "Hey Herb, that girl looks
just like you did when you had breasts."

     Ranma snickered, then looked away from Wiyeed when she
turned her head to stare at him.  

     Herb slapped Mint across the back of the head.  "She's my
sister, you fool."

     "Sister?" Lime said.  "Is that the kind of girl you have a
baby with?"

     "No, that's a wife," Mint interjected.  "Can your sister be
your wife too, Herb?"

     "SHUT UP!" Herb roared, turning on the two.  "Go and sit
over there," he gestured at the Dragon Tap, "and don't say
anything.  Don't move.  Don't breathe more than you have to."

     Mint opened his mouth, then closed it, and turned away, his
shoulders slumping as he walked off with Lime.

     "You shouldn't yell at them so much," Wiyeed said quietly.
"Yelling won't make them behave any better.  Probably the
opposite, in fact."

     Herb spun around and glared at his sister.  "Don't tell me
what to do, woman," he snapped.

     "Herb."
     
     Ranma's ears perked up at the heavy sense of command that
layered Wiyeed's voice as she said her brother's name.  Herb did 
an almost exact impression of Mint, opening his mouth and then 
closing it.  He hung his head slightly and clenched a fist at his 
side.  "Forgive me, sister.  I should not speak to you in such a 
way."

     "You're right," Wiyeed said quietly.  "You shouldn't."
     
     She glanced to Ranma and smiled, her face softening.  "I
only found out I had a brother a few weeks ago.  He only found
out about me this morning."

     "It has been a day of surprises," Herb declared wearily.
     
     "Interesting family relationship you two have," Ranma
murmured to himself, staring at the ground.

     He raised his head and looked from brother to sister.  "What
now?  You said you could take us there quickly with my help."

     Wiyeed nodded.  "The waters will obey you.  They know you.
I shall do the rest."

     Ranma nodded, then turned and walked across the cavern to
where Kima stood.  "Kima?"

     She looked back at him, her arms crossed and shoulders held
imperiously high.  "What?"

     "I'm going with them now," he said.  "You don't have to come
along any further than this if you don't want to."

     Kima stared out through the opening in the cavern wall at 
the river winding between the sparse trees, through a rocky 
valley that cut through the mountainous land to the east.  From 
this height, they could dimly make out the dip of land that held
Jusenkyou, see the tiny pools a mile away, pinpoints in the land
like stars in the sky.  

     "No," she said finally.  "I'll come with you.  I must
represent my people's interests in this."

     "Is that the only reason you came along?"
     
     She looked back at him, saying nothing, and then walked past
him towards where Herb and Wiyeed stood.  Ranma stood in silent
thought for a moment, and then hurried after her.

     "I greet you in the name of the Phoenix Tribe," Kima said
with formal stiffness as she approached the siblings.  "And in 
the name of King Samofere of Phoenix Mountain.  Forgive my
rudeness of before."

     "Nothing need be forgiven," Wiyeed said with equal 
formality.  "It has been a long time since there was contact
between our people and the Tribe of the Phoenix.  We greet you in 
the name of our father, Kammael of the Dragon Tribe, Lord of the 
Clan of Musk."

     Beside his sister, Herb nodded his silent assent, one hand
cupping his angular chin as he regarded Kima with flat crimson
eyes.

     "I believe we hold certain interests in common," Kima said,
seeming to relax slightly.  "There is a power massing its forces
against Jusenkyou.  It has already taken the life of Saffron, who
was my king."

     Ranma's ear caught the faintest edge of a tremble in her
voice as she said the dead king's name, and felt a sadness rise
in him for Kima and her great loyalty.

     "The Dark is rising," Wiyeed said in a soft voice.  "It
comes in a hundred shapes and it hides where the light cannot
reach it.  We look to without for it, never realizing that it can
come as easily from within."

     Ranma was not sure, but he thought he saw Wiyeed's eyes fall
to her silent brother for a moment.  Hesitantly, he spoke.  "What
can you tell us about what we face?"

     Wiyeed stroked a nervous hand across the long braid of white
hair that fell over one shoulder and across her chest.  "I will
tell you what I can in due time.  The Daughters of the Night know 
much of the history of the Valley of the Waters."

     Then, to Ranma's surprise, Herb spoke, his voice soft.  "And 
we of the Musk have our own stories to tell."

     Wiyeed picked up as her brother finished.  "And the Lady, of
course, knows many, many things."

     Herb turned slightly, cape flourishing.  "Mint!  Lime!"
     
     The two boys looked up from where they had been sitting 
against the Dragon Tap with unhappy looks on their faces, but did
not speak.

     Herb beckoned them with his hand.  "Come on."
     
     They stood up and wandered over, faces brightening.  
     
     "Does this mean you forgive us, Master Herb?" Lime asked
eagerly.  

     Herb looked at him flatly and said nothing, until Lime's
face quirked sadly and he looked at the ground, appearing like
nothing so much as scolded child.

     Mint was staring intently at Kima.  "I didn't realize that
some girls got wings as well as--"

     "Quiet," Herb said warningly, and Mint shut his mouth.
     
     Wiyeed jumped up onto the marble lip of the huge basin, the
delicately walked down the short flight of steps that led to the
inside.  "We must all be inside the basin," she said quietly.

     Gathered moments later in the centre of the immense stone
tub, the six of them stood in a rough circle.  Ranma saw that the
basin was cracked and strewn with rubble and pieces of Saffron's
eggshell that hadn't been washed away when the cavern had 
flooded.

     He glanced up at the Phoenix Tap, bound together at the neck
by the hardened crystalline threads that had been part of
Saffron's transformation.  "How do we do this?"

     "Call the water," Wiyeed said from where she stood beside
him.  "Bring it from below."

     Ranma nodded and closed his eyes.  After a moment, he opened
them.  "How, exactly?"

     Wiyeed sighed and stepped in front of him.  "Put your hands
in mine."

     "Is that really necessary?" 
     
     She didn't respond, simply reached out and grabbed his hands
in hers with surprising strength.  "Close your eyes."

     Ranma did so, unconsciously enfolding her smaller hands in
his.  "Yeah."

     "Call to her," he heard Wiyeed whisper, only to him, her
voice soft like the breeze on the shore.  "Call to her.  You know
her, have always known her, will always know her."

     Her hands were warm in his.  He felt something like a spark
leap between them.  Through his slippers, the cool of the stone
beneath his feet seemed to reach up and draw him into it, as if
he were sinking, falling low into the depths of the mountain,
down the thousands of feet, that he might stand again before the
bound and broken Lady of Jusenkyou.

     "Call," Wiyeed said, voice of the ocean, of the sea, 
stroking across the surface of his mind.

     And Ranma called, knowing the water, becoming the water, the
water that flowed below under his feet.  He felt it, the 
ancientness of it, the endless cycle as it flowed to ocean and to
rain and again to rivers and again to the water under the earth.

     Untold years, the long fall of century and millenia, carving
out rushing channels through the earth, and mountains rose and
fell and still the water flowed, and they sunk wells to tap it,
and still the water flowed, and call, call, call, the 
liquidrushing waterfall risingrising.

     There was a trembling, a shaking of the earth, and a hissing
sound.  Ranma opened his eyes as water began again to pour from
the mouth of the Phoenix Tap, splashing into the basin and
beginning slowly to fill it.  

     Pieces of rainbow-coloured shell began to float upon the
rising tide, glimmering with crystal drops of water on their
bright surfaces.  Ranma looked around from face to face, Wiyeed
standing before him with a smile, Herb's cold eyes, Mint and
Lime's confusion, Kima's mask, and then they were falling, all
of them falling, falling down into the sea, as if the depth of 
the basin and the waters reached somehow to the centre of the 
earth, and the dark ocean closed over his head, like a lover's 
sweet embrace.

**********

     First of all, there is a place where there is no light.  The
place has no definition.  It is huge.  It is tiny.  It is both of
these at once.

     But now there is space, and definition.  A small room.  
Still without light.  The room could be stone.  Yes, let it be
stone.  And still there shall be no light.

     Let there be stone, and let there be no light, and let there 
be the feel of many eyes upon the boy in the room, as he opens 
his own eyes to the absence of the light.  His name, in this 
time, in this place, is Ranma Saotome.

     Let him reach out in the darkness, unable to see where his
hand is moving.  Let his hand brush across the stone floor until
his hand finds a body that is not his.

     "Who's there?" his voice shall say.  "Kima?"
     
     And another voice shall answer.  "Wiyeed."
     
     And a hand will clasp tightly around his searching one, and
the second voice will speak again.  "I think something went 
wrong."

     And now, let a third voice answer from all around in the 
darkness, a voice as vast as all creation, cruel and cold and 
patient as time.

     OH YES, LITTLE ONES it will say in ringing tones like the
tolling of a thousand iron bells.  SOMETHING WENT VERY, VERY 
WRONG INDEED.  And let there be laughter now, laughter now, and 
still no light, no light in any, any place.