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