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 14 : Of Once and Future Kings

     It was a strange group that sat around the fire in the
growing shadows of the afternoon.  The grass was still sparkling 
with the rain the mid-day storm had left before it faded, as 
overhead the clouds began to roll away, dissipate and pull apart.  
The sun was edging out from behind a bank of wispy grey shapes, 
casting muted light through the air upon the grassy plain that 
lay in the cleft between two mountains, a forest nearby to the 
southwest.  
     
     Cologne hugged her cloak tighter around herself and shivered 
slightly as she looked around the fire at the group assembled 
there.  She was soaked to the skin, though she'd changed out of 
her shredded clothing. 

     There was Ranma, female, wearing an undershirt and trousers,
watching the water heating in the pot over the fire where she sat
on the grass; Shiso was perched upon her shoulder, the glittering
black eyes of the raven taking in everything.  Kima, in Akane's 
form, wearing a blue shirt of Ranma's over the ill-fitting white
uniform that hung loosely from her shorter cursed form, head 
bowed as she stared at the grass.

     The results Jusenkyou's waters had wreaked upon those two,
however, paled next to the form Tarou bore.  The great beast
resulting from the mixture of five different forms was hunching
on his hooved feet some distance away from the fire.  He'd taken
massive injuries in the fight against the monstrous thing that
had called itself Galm, but he'd held it off long enough that
Ranma had been able to save her life.  

     Grateful as she was, she wished she had some idea of just
what he'd done.  She lifted a hand up and absently traced the
upper curve of her left breast; even through the fabric of the
red shirt she could feel the line of the scar.  Less than twenty
minutes ago, it had been a gaping wound from Galm's thrown blade.
     
     From there, she moved her hand down to her side.  Galm's
claws, in his massive beast shape, had opened her there as well.
She thought she'd be carrying the bruises from when he'd slammed
her to the ground for weeks, but there was nothing.  No marks,
save for the scar over her heart.  

     Not so with Tarou.  The massive creature was covered in
ragged claw wounds and bite marks, some nearly down to the bone.
The wounds seemed to have scabbed over already, though Cologne
still could not see how he could possibly be moving.  One of the 
eight tentacles growing from his back was nothing more than a 
ragged stump; two more had lost around half their length.  The 
great eyes of the bull-headed monster were half-clouded, and he 
occasionally let out something that might have been a sound of
pain.  But he'd gotten up and moved closer on his own.

     As her gaze drifted past him, it fell upon the two figures
perhaps a hundred feet away, the dark wings of the one who sat
gleaming with the fallen rain.  The one who lay with his head in
the seated one's lap was golden-haired and golden-winged, and, so 
Samofere had said, his brother, Lord Saffron of Phoenix Mountain.  
There was quite a lot of explaining for her old friend to do, 
Cologne decided.  

     They hadn't even spoken yet.  Galm had said he'd killed
Samofere.  She believed him, and had nearly torn herself apart
with grief.  And now he was back, alive and as young as she was.
None of it even bore thinking about right now.  She couldn't 
think about it, if she wanted to remain as she was.  For when 
Galm had said that he had died, she'd felt something die inside 
her that had not yet come fully back.  

     "Water should be hot enough now," Ranma said, breaking
Cologne from her thoughts.  She stood up from her seat and 
grabbed a ladle from the grass, then scooped up some of the hot
water from the pot and poured it over her head.  There was that
single split second of dissolution, of transition, and then 
Ranma was male again, wringing out water from the dark length of
his braid and handing the ladle to Kima as she approached.  She 
took it without a word and dipped it into the pot, then poured it 
over herself.  Her height shot up several inches, her hair turned 
from black to white, and the vast, sweeping expanse of her wings 
tore through the back of the blue shirt.

     "I seem to have ruined your clothing," she said in a dull
voice as she worked at disentangling the shirt from her wings.  
The expression on her face was practically emotionless, but the 
occasional chance glance at her would reveal a spasm of grief or 
sorrow hidden behind her eyes.  Away on the grass, her king was 
dying, his head in his brother's lap.

     Ranma sighed.  "I've got others."

     He took the ladle from her, and Cologne saw something on his
face as his hand brushed against the nearly-human talon of her
hand that was utterly unreadable.  He took water from the pot and
turned to look at where Tarou was resting a dozen feet away.  
"You want some of this, Tarou?"

     The great beast raised his head, then slowly nodded before
sinking back slightly onto the grass with a lowing sound of pain.
Ranma walked over, and Cologne turned her gaze away to look at
Kima.

     "Did you know?" the winged woman said as she sat down next
to Cologne.  "About Samofere and Saffron?"

     "I had no idea," Cologne said.  "Absolutely none.  Samofere
has a lot of explaining to do."

     "That he does," Kima said with a sigh.  "That he does."
     
     "So what do you do now?" Cologne said.  
     
     Kima laughed bitterly.  "I have absolutely no idea.  I have
just been indirectly responsible for the death of the king I was
sworn on my life to serve.  Nearly fifty people saw me take him 
out of the mountain with the creature that killed him, who has 
now vanished into nothing.  Several of them heard me talk about 
taking him to Ranma.  To be frank, I am so utterly screwed right 
now that I can't even really begin to comprehend it."

     "I, on the other hand, have managed to convince my 
great-granddaughter that I have gone utterly mad," Cologne said.
"I have dragged away a very confused young man from everything he
knows, and invoked the wrath of his family, friends and most of
the female martial artist population of Nerima.  I have ensured 
that if my actions ever get out to the members of my tribe, I 
will be thrown off of the council and exiled by my people.  I 
have just discovered the person I trust the most in the entire 
world has apparently neglected to inform me over the century or 
so I've known him that he is the brother to one of the most 
powerful beings whose existence I have knowledge of.  He also 
decided not to mention that he's apparently capable of changing 
his age, and also that he can come back from the dead, just like 
his brother."

     Cologne laughed for a short moment, without any humour in 
it.  "What do you know?  I'm pretty screwed as well."

     The two women looked at each other for a moment, blue eyes
into dark.  The staring contest lasted but a few seconds.  
Cologne won, perhaps because she had close to a century over Kima
in terms of age.

     A tiny smile quirked one edge of the white-haired woman's
mouth at first, and then she started to laugh hysterically.
Cologne joined her a moment later, and it felt good.  Cleansing,
as if in laughing they somehow rid themselves of the terror and
confusion of the past hour, somehow made the memory of Galm's
power and Saffron's death less fearful, less painful.  

     "Oh," Kima gasped, half-choked by laughter, her eyes 
squeezed closed.  "What in all the world have I done?"

     Cologne slumped forward and rested her head on her forearms, 
hair falling all about her face as she tried to stifle her mirth.  
"In the name of every god I know, you have no idea how many times 
I've asked myself that question."

     "The two of you have gone crazy, right?" Ranma's voice said
from behind them.  The two women turned their heads to look at
him, standing there with the black form of Shiso on his shoulder.

     Tarou was standing silent beside him, changed back to human
now.  The wounds visible on his bare arms seemed to have shrunk
in proportion to the change in his body size, and in the process
had mostly healed.  He looked pale and quite haggard though, and
very angry.  "I don't know what the two of you think is so damn 
funny," he said, almost a snarl.

     "Neither do we," Cologne said, shaking her head.  "Neither 
do we."  Another laughing fit threatened to overtake her, but she
almost suppressed it, staring into Tarou's fierce eyes.

     "What the hell was that thing?" Tarou said.  "I must have
broken its neck twice when I was fighting.  I shoved a tree
through it and it got back up, turned into a man, yanked it out 
and laughed at me."

     "I thank you for your help," Cologne said, managing to go
back to seriousness finally as she looked at the sober faces of
Tarou and Ranma.  "Without you, I do not know if we would have
been able to stop it."

     "I must have pounded it up badly enough that you were able
to finish it off, huh?" Tarou said to Ranma with a smirk.  "Put
the thing on its last legs, eh girlie?"

     Ranma scowled.  "In your dreams, Pan-"
     
     "Ranma, do yourself a favour and shut up," Cologne said.
Ranma did.  "I'm not sure what it was either.  The only thing I
care about right now is that it appears to have been killed, or
at least banished."

     "Banished being the word," Shiso said from where he perched
on Ranma's shoulder, shaking his wings slightly.  "It is not 
actually possible to slay a being such as him on this plane of 
existence."

     "Being such as him?" Ranma and Cologne managed to echo
together.

     "What was he?" Kima said.
     
     "Something that never should have been let out in the first
place."

     The four of them turned.  None had even heard Samofere
approach.  He held Saffron's body in his arms, the dead king's
wings folded over him like a cloak.  

     "The Phoenix is fallen," Samofere said, very softly.  
Cologne saw there were the tracks of tears across his face, 
though there was no mark of them in his eyes.  "My brother is at 
peace at last.  We must talk."

     "Yes," Cologne said, and she slowly nodded her head as she
looked at the restored youth of her old friend.  "I think we most 
certainly must talk."

**********

     Ranma settled down on the grass around the firepit, Shiso
standing near his feet, silent and watchful, eyes dark as night 
as he looked at Saffron and Samofere.  Ranma watched the dark 
young man with the huge black wings lay Saffron's body upon the 
ground before him as he sat.  The king of Phoenix Mountain looked 
as if he were asleep, eyes closed, wings held furled about the 
body.  He looked peaceful, utterly unlike the ruthless foe who'd 
nearly killed him, nearly killed Akane.

     And with those thoughts, he felt familiar rage rise in him,
but that rage ended almost as quickly as it rose, when he 
remembered the impossible depth of pain that had been in 
Saffron's eyes as he lay dying from Galm's blade, the sense of
guilt and sorrow so great he could barely even comprehend it.  He
had begged forgiveness, at the end of his life.  Ranma hoped that
what he had said had been enough to let the dying king know that
it was granted, at least by him.  

     He looked at Samofere.  The resemblance was obvious, in the
lines of limb and shape of face, though where Saffron had been
fair Samofere was dark.  Physically, though, the two could have
been twins beyond colouration, and that Samofere's face bore none 
of the cruel expression Saffron's had when Ranma had first known
him.

     Cologne, sitting to his right, finally broke the air of
silence hanging over everything.  "Explanations, please,
Samofere."

     There was a coldness in her voice, a distance, Ranma
realized.  He remembered Cologne weeping when Galm had told her
Samofere was dead.  It had been a thing he had never expected to
see.  Then again, much of what had taken place recently had been
unexpected.

     "Where shall I begin then, Cologne?" Samofere said, in a
voice so filled with weariness it seemed to press down upon the
air like a weight.

     "I don't know," Tarou said from where he leaned back on his
elbows.  "You could start with just who the hell you are, since I
have no idea."

     "Why are you still here?" Ranma said, glancing over at the
older boy.

     "Would you rather I went to Japan and had a chat with your
fiancee?" Tarou sneered.

     "Shut up, both of you," Cologne said, in such a flat voice 
that the two of them instantly quieted, although Tarou shot the 
dark-haired woman a glare.

     "It is a good suggestion, actually," Samofere said, as his
gaze passed across the body of his brother.  "To tell you who I
am.  It... has been a long time, since I told anyone who I really
am."

     "You are truly the brother of Lord Saffron?" Kima said from
where she sat, a seeming distance between her and all the others.

     "I am," Samofere said, looking again upon his brother, a
short wave of sadness passing across his face for a moment.  "We
ruled together, long ago, before the dark times came, and the
Valley of the Waters was broken upon itself by the Ravager and
his followers."

     "Then it is to you I pledge my loyalty," Kima said, standing
up and kneeling in front of Samofere on one knee.  "On my life, 
on my honour, I shall serve you, Saffron's kin, till--"

     "Kima."
     
     Samofere's voice was soft, gentle, but the air of command, 
and of the power behind it, was harder than steel.  "Rise.  I 
have not asked any to swear loyalty to me in over four thousand 
years, and I will not ask it now."

     "But I gave my pledge to your brother," Kima said, eyes
downcast to the ground, one wing still hanging slightly limp from
the wound Galm had done to her shoulder.  "And I failed him.  I
only wish to redeem myself in your service.  I shall do my best
to see that you stand as king when we--"

     "Kima."
     
     Ranma saw something like pain pass across Kima's face from
where he sat, and she said no more.

     "I do not need a pledge of loyalty," Samofere said.  "I do
not require it.  If you have any pledge to keep, it is the second
one you made ten years ago.  To serve the people of Mount Phoenix 
as best you can, to keep them safe from harm.  That is all that 
is necessary."

     "Yes, Lord Samofere."
     
     "I am not a lord," Samofere said.  "Not anymore."
     
     Ranma watched in silence, with Tarou and Cologne, with the
eyes of the raven, upon the scene before him, at the one who
knelt and the one who was knelt to, and the body of the dead king
in between.

     "Rise," Samofere said again.  
     
     Kima rose, and took her seat upon the ground.  Her face was
a study in control as she looked rigidly ahead.  

     "There is something you may do for me, Kima," Samofere said.
     
     "Yes?" Kima said. 
     
     "If you could recount the legend of the Golden One and the
King of Ashes?"  
     
     "A children's story?" Kima asked incredulously.
     
     "The stories of children often hold more truth than the
histories of the aged," Samofere said.

     "Oh goodie," Tarou said sarcastically.  "Story hour."
     
     "Can't you keep your mouth shut?" Ranma said.
     
     "Better than you can keep yours shut," Tarou responded.  
"But I always heard girls liked to gossip."

     "Why don't the two of you have a contest as to who can keep
the most quiet," Cologne said, glancing from left to right at the
two of them.  "Either that, or I can tap a certain point on your
necks that will make your tongues turn rigid."

     Shooting each other nasty looks, Ranma and Tarou settled 
back as Kima began to speak.

     "It's one of the stories children are told," Kima said.
"About how Saffron first came to be.  Just a story, of course.
There's many others."

     When she next spoke, there was the tone of recitation in her
voice, the sound of a story told from a memory of being told it
before.  
     
     "In the beginning, there was a great egg whose shell was
covered thick with ice.  Beneath in lay the cold earth, and 
inside that frozen fire, for so great was the ice that all was 
still and static and unchanging.  Nothing was alive, no birds or 
plants or fish or people.  For a thousand days and nights, if 
each day and night were a thousand years as now we reckon time, 
the egg lay in the cold darkness of nothingness.  And then, one 
day, from some high place so far away that it is not recorded if 
it lies east or west, north or south, a tiny bird fell from the 
sky upon the ice, a tiny bird with golden feathers."

     Ranma shifted his position slightly, trying to listen more
attentively.  The accent the people of Mount Phoenix had was
reminiscent of birdsong, an occasional click or whistle breaking 
into the regular speech, the words sounding slightly musical.

     "The bird looked about at all the ice, and was displeased by
it.  She lay down upon the ice and spread her tiny wings, which 
were no bigger than the span of an infant's hand.  Somewhere far 
up above in the starless sky, she heard a voice laughing.  
'Little bird,' it said.  'Little bird, what do you think you do?  
You are too small to hatch this egg, for I have frozen it, that 
the earth will not bloom, that the fire will not burn, that the 
wind shall not blow, that the water shall not flow.  You are so 
tiny, you cannot hope to bring this egg to life'.'

     "The little bird said nothing, and only continued to warm
the egg with her body, and ignored the voice in the starless sky.
How long she lay there, letting the ice take the heat of her 
body, no one can say.  The voice tried again and again to 
convince her that her efforts were in vain, but the bird only
continued to warm the egg, and sometimes she would sing, at the 
times when the voice in the sky was particularly loud, or the ice 
was particularly cold."

     Here she paused, and lifted her voice in song for a moment.
     
     *You may bury the earth with ice and snow*
     *You may freeze the waters deep below*
     *You may still the sky so the wind not blow*
     *But I am the fire, and the fire shall grow*

     "And grow she did, day by day, for each day she doubled in
size, until she was so huge that one wing touched the eastern 
edge of the starless sky, and one wing touched the western edge
of the starless sky, and she wrapped those wings around the egg 
and warmed it.  Her head touched nearly the top of the starless 
sky, and the feathers of her tail nearly brushed the bottom of 
the starless sky.  The voice taunted her always, trying to make 
her give up, but she would not.  And slowly, the ice began to 
melt, and as soon as the first crystal of ice was gone, the voice
in the sky ceased to call to her.  Soon, the earth below became 
visible.  And the little bird, who was now a very great bird 
indeed, trailed her wings across the earth and made channels that 
might become rivers, and she gouged out chunks of earth that 
might become lakes and oceans, and she took those chunks of earth 
and made from them mountains and hills.  And she flapped her 
wings, and winds began to blow, to stir the oceans and rivers and 
lakes, winds to call up plants and trees and all growing things 
from the earth.

     "And the fires came from below, and mingled with the earth
and the water and the air, and the great golden bird, who was the
first Phoenix, the Golden One, she rolled the mingled elements
with her beak, and she made fish to swim in the oceans, and birds
to fly in the air, and animals to walk upon the land, and to some
she gave part of herself, the part that had denied the voice that
told her always to stop in her work.  And those became the human
race.  And to some among them, who she thought most worthy, she
gave the wings of birds, that they might fly."

     "I thought that was because of everybody in Phoenix Mountain
drinking Jusenkyou water," Tarou interrupted.  "That's what the
Guide's daughter told me."

     Kima shot him a glare, broken momentarily out of her 
reverie.  "It's only a story."

     "In some ways," Samofere murmured.  "Go on."
     
     Kima shuffled her wings a little, changed minutely the
position she sat in, and continued.

     "Then she saw that the egg had finally hatched completely, 
and the life within had been brought forth, and thought her work 
was finally done here.  But then she heard the voice again, for 
it had gone silent as soon as the first crystal of ice had begun 
to melt.  'Little bird, little bird,' the voice called.  'I am 
not little anymore,' the Golden One called back.  'I am full 
grown now, for the form I wore before was shadow, and now I am as 
to that shadow as the sun would be as to the shadow of the moon.'  
The voice in the starless sky laughed, and said:  'Little bird, 
little bird, you are little to me still, for I am the King of 
Ashes, and I am older than you by far.  Now, this toy that you 
have made interests me.  Give it to me, that I might play with 
it, and take pleasure in it.'

     "'I shall not!' cried the Golden One.  'You did nothing.  I
hatched this egg from the ice that covered it.  When I came here,
it was nothing.  I will not let you have it'.  There was a pause
for a moment, and then the voice said 'Ah, but who do you think 
made this egg in the first place?'.  And the Golden One answered
with silence for a moment, and then said 'It does not matter who
laid it, for it was I who did the work.  The egg was nothing; it
was only chaos.  I have made it something, which is not chaos.  
You shall not have it'.

     "And the voice in the sky laughed again, and then the Golden
One saw the sky move.  For it had not been the sky at all, but a
single great wing, the wing of another bird, many times bigger
than she, who was so great that what she had thought the four
corners of the sky and earth had but been his wing, stretched
across the sky.  And the King of Ashes looked down upon what the
Golden One had made of the egg, each eye as great as the sun, and 
said, 'If you shall not give this to me, then I shall destroy it, 
for I shall allow no thing to exist that shall not serve me, no 
thing to be that is not mine.'  And the Golden One said, 'I shall 
not let you do this evil'.  And the King of Ashes said, 'You 
cannot stop me.'

     "And now the Golden One laughed, and said when her laughter
was done, 'Oh, foolish one, you shall not have this place that I
have sustained and brought to life, for I shall stop you though
it mean my freedom and my life.'  And she took off and flew up
towards the terrible face of the King of Ashes, and she burned so
bright that he was forced to flee, beyond the span of time, until
the last of her fire would be burned out.  And when he had fled,
she fell to earth, fires dimly flickering, until she crashed down
into a great pit and lay there, unable to move, too weak to do
anything, for she had given nearly all of herself to drive away
the King of Ashes.  She lay there for an untold time, and the
earth shifted about her and buried her, and the winds blew sand
across her, and the waters covered her.  Around her the world she
had given freedom went on, as she slept a sleep akin to death.

     "Then, one day, a single man came to visit her, for he was
learned and knowledgeable, and had discovered where she lay.  He
was one of those to whom she had given wings long ago.  'Noble 
Golden One,' he said.  'My people are cold, and we live in 
darkness.  Might I have some of your fire, that we might be made 
warm and given light?'.  And the Golden One, who was in pain, 
laughed, and at first the man was frightened, but then she spoke, 
and his fear was gone, though something quite like fear had 
replaced it.  'I have waited for very long for one to ask me for 
my fire,' she said.  'Take it, and be blessed with my power, to 
rule over your people, to bring light where there is darkness, to
bring heat where there is cold.'"

     Ranma leaned forward, not even quite realizing it.  He did
not want to miss anything that was said, although he never would
have admitted it.

     "And the spirit of fire entered into him, and he was glad.
Then he said, 'But what of when I die?  Shall not my people be in
darkness and cold again?'  And the Golden One replied, 'They 
shall not, if you are willing to be as I, to burn with fire until
you become as ashes, and then to burn again from those ashes.'  
'I am willing,' said the man.  'It is good,' said the Golden One.
'Go and wait, and rule over your people, for the day shall come
when my fire burns out and I must be born again from my ashes,
and when that day comes the King of Ashes shall return, and try
to claim all things as his own.'."

     Kima took a breath, and touched her hand to the bridge of 
her nose for a moment before continuing.  "And so he left, and
went to rule over his people, and his name was Saffron."

     Ranma realized, very slowly, that Kima was crying, in total
silence, only a few tears, sliding down her cheeks, ones that she
did not seem even to notice.

     "That was an interesting story, Kima," he said after a
moment.

     "Much of it is legend," Samofere said.  "But some, some of
it contains the fragments of the truth.  My brother and I went
beneath Jusendo, where the Golden One is bound.  She gave us
power."

     "She's real, then?" Ranma said.
     
     Samofere nodded.  "Yes.  She has many names, many legends
attached to her.  My people call her the Golden One.  To the
Joketsuzoku, she is Ba Jin Feng, 'Eight Golden Wind'.  The Musk
call her She Who Must Not Wake."

     "What is she?" Tarou asked.
     
     "A dragon, perhaps," Samofere said.  "Or a phoenix.  Those
are both close to what she is.  Only names, though.  Only names.
She is herself."

     Ranma glanced to Cologne, noting the odd, palpable silence 
from her, and saw that her face bore the same pain as when she'd 
spoken to him briefly in the Dragon Palace, about what was 
beneath Jusendo.  Samofere's face was sorrowful as well, as was 
Kima's.

     "What is it about her?" Ranma said.  "Why is it that every 
time any of you talk about her, you look like your hearts are 
going to break?"

     "You... could not understand," Cologne said in a husky 
voice, as if tears lay just beyond, barely held back.  "It 
would be like trying to describe what a sunrise is to a blind 
man, what music is to a deaf man.  You..."

     She trailed off, shaking her head.  
     
     "So then," Tarou said, cracking his knuckles.  "What exactly
was the point of that rather entertaining, but somewhat pointless
story, at least in terms of telling me why I shouldn't go to 
Japan and see if I can barter this information about Ranma's
whereabouts into a new name?"

     "You remember the thing that took all those chunks out of
you?" Ranma asked.  "That's the kind of thing that'll be after
Akane and her family if things go wrong."

     Tarou frowned.  "I've got no grudge with them.  But I still
want to know just why that thing was after you in the first 
place."

     "Long story," Ranma said, and laughed, very bitterly.  
"Long, long story."

     "Longer than you know," Samofere said.  "Far longer."
     
     There was a brief moment of odd silence.  Ranma found his
eyes drawn to Kima.  She was staring up at the sky pensively.
Silently, her lips formed some sentence.  Ranma looked up, as he 
realized that a shadow had fallen across where they sat, as if
clouds had crossed the sun, though he saw from the corner of his
eye that this was not the case.
     
     Then he saw the crows, like a dark ocean in the sky.  There
had to be a thousand of them, wheeling and soaring in a great
flock hundreds of feet above their heads.
     
     "This is not good," Kima said softly.  "I told Xande to come
after me with the troops in an hour if I had not returned.  It
looks as if the hour may be up."

     "Well, it's easy, isn't it?" Ranma said.  "We just say what
happened, tell 'em about this guy bein' Saffron's brother, and 
that'll be it."

     "It is not that easy," Kima said.  
     
     "No, it is not," an aged voice said from where Samofere sat.
Ranma turned, and saw the old man who had come before in the 
place of the young one.  "It is not that easy at all.  The nobles 
will do whatever they can to seize power.  They are unlikely to 
believe what we tell them."

     "Can't you just do a demonstration of your power or
somethin'?" Ranma asked.  

     "I am faded," Samofere answered in a weary voice.  "It took 
nearly all of the strength I had left to contain the hound long 
enough for Kima to escape to you.  I was nearly dead by the end.  
I was able to recover only slightly.  Right now, I can do little.  
And it would not matter if I could."

     "We should get out of here," Cologne said.
     
     "And go where?" Samofere said, shaking his head.  "I shall
not abandon my people.  I will do what I can to hold them
together."

     "As will I," Kima said.  "I am going nowhere.  I shall tell
them what I can of my king's death."

     "But--"
     
     "Know this," Samofere said, very softly.  "Though I know not
who, there are servants of the Dark in Phoenix Mountain.  I will
not leave my people to their mercies."

     Up in the sky above, the crows began to descend.  In the
southern sky, another great flock of could be seen approaching, 
with larger winged shapes darting among them.

     "Well, I for one am out of here," Tarou said as he stood.
"Saotome, don't worry, if I meet up with anyone who wants to know
where you are, I haven't seen you, okay?"

     "Thank you," Ranma said.  
     
     "Don't think you get off that easy," Tarou said.  "I want a
promise you'll help me with getting my name changed if you have 
the chance.  No matter what you have to do."

     "No matter what?" Ranma said.  "I don't-"
     
     "Don't worry," Tarou smirked.  "I promise I won't make you
do anything that'll kill you.  Humiliation might figure into it,
though."

     "Fine," Ranma said, shaking his head, not even caring
anymore.     
     
     "It is unlikely that any of us are going anywhere," Samofere 
said, pointing at the descending flock of crows.  They were 
landing on the ground now, in a circle around them, hundreds of 
dirty black shapes, yellow eyes shining, occasionally calling out 
harshly.

     "A few birds aren't going to stop me," Tarou said.  "I just
need some cold water..."

     "They'll get on you," Shiso said suddenly.  "They'll peck at
your eyes, your wings.  They'll cover you like a carpet, and for
each you smash down another two will take its place.  They'll
bring you down, no matter how many hundreds may die in the 
attempt."

     "They're birds," Tarou said.  "They're not that smart, or
that brave."     
     
     "They're Xande's birds," Kima said, and shook her head.  "I
did not imagine he could control this much.  But they can do
that."

     "Neither did I," Samofere said as he stood, hunched over,
looking for all the world like an old man, leaning on his
walking stick.  "I don't like this.  It feels wrong."

     "I don't like it either," Cologne said, standing up and
hefting her rake.  "Everything about this is wrong."

     Ranma nodded.  His sense of danger was singing like a harp
string inside his head.  There was a tension in the air, a 
thickening of the feel of everything like before a storm, 
although the storm had passed now, the only remnants the soaked 
grass and the dispersing grey clouds in the sky, and the body of
Saffron upon the ground.

     "If you move, you will be shot," someone called from up
above, a young, strong voice, melodic and perfectly-pitched.  
The sound of wings was everywhere, and the ground lay in shadow, 
from the wings of the crows, from the wings of the people of 
Phoenix Mountain.  

     Hundreds of crows circled in the air, hundreds more sat upon
the ground in a ring around the five around the fire.  The winged
people were landing now, amidst the flocks of crows, and Ranma 
felt a coldness grow inside him as he saw that they held the cold 
metal and hard, awful symmetry of guns.

     His eye picked out the old man who had attended Saffron,
shrunken and bent, bleary-eyed, leaning upon his stick.  Next to
him was a tall winged man, possessed of that rare kind of beauty
that appears almost artificial it is so great.  It was he who had
spoken as they landed; his wings were long and scarlet, touched
with black patterns almost like lightning bolts.

     Ranma glanced to Kima, as if for explanation, and saw in the
paleness of her face equal parts of shock and rage.

     "Xande," she said, rising to her feet, bearing herself
straight and tall as she moved forward.  "Why have you armed the 
troops with these... abominations?  Where are the spears and 
swords and bows of our people?  These are groundling weapons.  
These are not the weapons of our people."

     "Eh?  What's that?" the old man said.  "Helubor, boy, 
what's she saying?"

     "Never mind, Xande," the tall man standing next to the old
man said in a cold voice.  "Kima, in the name of the royal 
family, I am removing you from your position until an 
investigation into the events surrounding Lord Saffron's death
and the disappearance of my father, uncle and cousin is 
completed."

     "What?" Kima said in a slightly strangled voice.  "I know
nothing about those last three."

     "But you know of the first, then?" Helubor said.
     
     "Yes," she said, visibly calming down.  "But--"
     
     "That is enough, then," Helubor said, and sneered.  He
turned his gaze to Samofere.  "Commoner, you are placed in our
custody as well.  Groundlings, be thankful I do not have you shot
on the spot.  You will come with us as well."

     "I think I can dodge bullets," Cologne muttered under her
breath.  "What about everyone else?"

     There was the hard click of three dozen or so guns being
prepared to fire.  Ranma found it a surprisingly persuasive
sound.

     "These are very high quality automatic weapons," Helubor
said.  "Russian made.  I suspect they'll do quite nicely at
chewing you to pieces if you care to try them."

     "How many you think we could take down before they did hit
us?" Tarou called to Helubor.  "I'd guess quite a few.  Maybe 
even you."

     "I really could not care less what you do to them," Helubor 
said with a shrug.  "There's more where they came from."  He 
raised up a taloned hand, fingers spread out slightly.  "And as 
for me, you are welcome to try.  I would enjoy watching the 
flesh boil off your bones."
     
     "Who is this guy?" Ranma muttered sideways to Kima.
     
     "Lord Helubor," she said back to him.  "One of Saffron's
descendants."

     "Shoulda guessed," Ranma said under his breath as Kima 
waved her hand at him in a quieting gesture.

     She turned her gaze back to Helubor.  "You do not have the
right to do this, Helubor.  Only the chancellor has the right to
remove the seneschal from the position, and..."

     "Well, Helubor said it was a good idea," the old man said in
a quavering voice, raising his head up for a moment to look at
Kima.  Ranma saw her posture slump suddenly.

     "Oh, Xande, you didn't," she said.  It was, Ranma realized,
an entirely rhetorical question.

     Helubor held up a sheet of paper, covered in a looping,
scratchy script.  "I have been appointed to serve in your stead 
while the investigation is carried out."

     Kima opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it
and bowed her head, eyes shutting.  "Yes, Lord Helubor."

     "That's it?" Ranma said, turning his head to look at her.
"You're just letting him-"

     "In case you have not noticed, human, they seem to have us
at something of a disadvantage," she snapped back, gesturing with
one hand at the gun-holding guards.  

     "Well, it's like you're just giving up," Ranma said to her.
"Why are you--"
     
     "Don't question my actions, groundling.  You have no idea
what you're talking about."

     "Well, excuse me for--"
     
     "Be quiet, groundling worm," Helubor said lazily.  
     
     Ranma glanced at the richly-dressed man.  "Stay out of this,
pretty boy."

     He heard Cologne softly groan, heard Tarou mutter something
under his breath that didn't sound complimentary.  Helubor's face
went through several interesting shades of colour and expression
in the next few seconds, finally settling on a kind of offended,
astonished rage.

     "How dare you speak to me like that?" he said.  "You 
mud-crawling wingless little insect.  I'll burn your heart out."

     He raised up his hand again.  Ranma tensed, got ready to 
move, remembering the awesome power Saffron had wielded.  If it 
was passed down to his descendants, even in part, than this would
be bad.
     
     "Really, Helubor," the old man next to the tall prince said,
putting his cane across Helubor's arm and pushing it down.  
"There's no need for violence."

     "I will brook no insult from a human," Helubor snarled,
glaring down at the wizened advisor.  "Xande, if you think you
can-"

     "There is no need for violence," Xande said, a harsh tone of
command in his words for a moment, before he seemed to drift away
again.  "Eh... where was I?"

     "Look, I didn't have much to do with this," Tarou said,
addressing Helubor.  "So, if you'll just let me walk on out of
here, I'm sure that would be in everyone's best interests."

     "The next of you groundling fools that speaks I'll have shot
through the legs," Helubor snapped.  "Do you understand?"

     There was silence.
     
     "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?" he yelled, face almost going red.
     
     And again, silence.
     
     "ANSWER ME, WORMS!" 
     
     "You said you'd shoot their legs off them if they spoke, 
remember?" Kima commented offhandedly.  

     "I think they understand, Lord Helubor," Samofere said in a
humble voice.  "They do not mean to give you offence.  Humans are
not familiar with our customs or our nobility.  There's a very
interesting book from two hundred years ago, 'The Self and 
Society of'--"

     "You're little more than they are, commoner, even if you do
know the musty shelves of the library," Helubor said.  "Watch 
your tongue."

     "Yes, my lord," Samofere mumbled.  
     
     "Helubor, I'm tired," Xande said, somewhat petulantly.  "I'm
an old man.  Can we go home now?"

     "Home?" Shiso said, from where he'd been sitting unnoticed 
on the ground.  "Ah, yes, home sounds a wonderful idea."

     With a beat of his wings, the huge raven took to the air and
began to fly to the south, darting through the wheeling flocks of
crows darkening the air.

     Xande's old head swiveled around, long tails of hair
bobbing.  "What's going on?"

     "Have your birds kill that thing," Helubor said.
     
     "Oh, yes, yes," Xande said.  He put taloned fingers to his
lips and blew a sharp whistle.  "Kill the raven, my pets."

     Ranma almost started to move forward.  Levelled guns stopped
him.  "Wait--"

     A hundred smaller black shapes converged upon Shiso.  He
darted easily aside and slashed out with his beak and claws,
dropping two of them fluttering weakly to the ground below, then
wheeled and dodged away, stunningly agile, grace personified in
the air.  They swarmed about him and tried to bring him down, but
they could not, and his speed was many times theirs.  In moments 
he was far from them, a black form shimmering in the muted 
afternoon sunlight as he soared to the south.

     "No matter," Helubor said.  He turned to Ranma.  "You spoke,
groundling scum.  I told you not to.  You knew the penalty."

     In the circle around them, taloned fingers tightened on
triggers.  The hundreds of crows about the feet of the winged men
who held the guns called harshly, answered by the wheeling swarm 
of their brothers in the air.

     "No need for that," Xande said.  "No need, no need."
     
     Slowly, the guns began to lower a fraction of an inch.  
Helubor looked nearly apocalyptic with anger, but said nothing,
as the guards pointed their weapons away from Ranma and towards
the ground.  He took a few steps forward, standing less than a 
dozen feet from Ranma, glaring straight at him.

     "Remember this mercy, human vermin," he said.  His eyes were
a dark reddish-brown in colour, sparklingly vivid.  "I am sure it 
will be a comforting memory to you in the days to come."

     "What do you intend to do with the humans, Lord Helubor?"
Samofere said, taking a step closer to Cologne.

     "I do not know who the woman and this one are," Helubor
said, waving his arm in Cologne and Tarou's direction.  "But this
one I know to be Ranma Saotome.  He still must pay for the
invasion of our home, and for the death of our king."

     "We had nothing to do with that!" Ranma said.  "I sent the 
thing that did kill him back to whatever hell it was he escaped
from in the first place!"

     "Did I give you permission to speak?" Helubor demanded.
     
     "I ain't letting you accuse me of something I didn't do,"
Ranma said.  "We all fought that thing.  We did what we could for
Saffron.  I'm sorry he's dead."

     "Why?" Helubor said.  "You took his life once before, human.
This time, though, he didn't come back, did he?"

     Ranma flinched, as if he'd been struck.  "I..."
     
     "You will pay for this," Helubor said, glancing around at
the surrounded five.  "Even you, Kima, if you did have something 
to do with our king's death."  From the tone of his voice, Ranma 
realized that Helubor would like that very much indeed.  

     "I know that I shall be absolved of any deliberate wrong in 
Lord Saffron's death," Kima said quietly.  "Beyond my failure to 
protect my king's life, I intended no harm to come to him."

     "Then why did you bring him to these outsiders?" Helubor
said.  "Why did you-"

     "Let's go home, Helubor," Xande whined.  "I'm tired.  I want
to have a nap.  We can ask questions later."

     Helubor glanced back at the old man, and Ranma saw a mixture
of revulsion and, oddly, something akin to fear on his face as he
spoke to the old man.  "Very well, Xande.  We must indulge the 
aged, after all."

     "So," Tarou whispered under his breath as he took a few
steps over towards Ranma.  "Do we fight or not?"

     "Three dozen guns versus us?" 
     
     "Doesn't seem fair to them, does it?"
     
     "Still, they just need one lucky shot.  And I don't know how well
Samofere can dodge when he looks that old."

     "Who cares about him?  You and I can get out of here easy."
     
     "I'm not leaving anyone behind."
     
     Tarou sighed and shook his head.  "Sometimes you have to leave
people behind, you know."     
     
     "I thought I told you not to talk!" Helubor shouted, glaring at
the two of them.  Ranma and Tarou turned their heads to look at him
and presented innocent faces.

     "We were only discussing our desire to cooperate fully with your
esteemed self," Tarou said with utter sincerity.

     Helubor smiled.  "See, men?  Even human dogs can be trained to
respect their betters.  Perhaps I shall make this one a pet."
     
     That drew laughter, albeit somewhat strained, from the men
holding the guns.  Xande gave a dry chuckle that degenerated into
a coughing fit.

     Ranma saw Tarou's left fist tighten until his knuckles went
white.  A deep, low growl, almost inaudible, rose from him.

     "Ya know somethin', Tarou?" he quietly murmured.

     "What?" Tarou murmured back just as quietly.
     
     "I like this guy's attitude even less than I like yours."
     
     "Go to hell."
     
     "Since the two of you seem to enjoy each others company so
much, I'm sure you'll find spending the next little while 
together quite enjoyable."

     "What?" Tarou and Ranma chorused, turning away from each
other at the sound of Xande's old, cracked voice.  There was an
almost-hidden edge of malicious humour to it.

     Something flashed silver in the air in front of them, a
vague elongated sphere-shape that rippled and twisted, and then
blossomed like a flower.  Ranma's heart skipped a beat as he
remembered the eggs that had taken Shampoo and his father, and
then a silver thread stronger than steel lashed around his right
wrist like a manacle.  Glancing over, he could see there was
about six feet of play between the attachment of the thread to
his right wrist and the other end attached to Tarou's left.  The
feel of the thread around his wrist was similar to the threads 
that Saffron had produced, though slightly more elastic, if no 
more escapable.

     Behind him, he could see Helubor standing near Cologne and
Samofere, his hand outstretched as if he'd just thrown something,
a silver cord identical to the one binding him and Tarou chaining
the two old friends together.

     "What the hell is this?" Tarou said, tugging his wrist and
causing Ranma to nearly stumble into him.

     "Kima, what is this stuff?" Ranma said, looking back at the
tall, winged woman.

     "I don't know," she said.  "It resembles the threads
produced by Saffron, but..."
     
     "Very rare," Xande said, as if half-asleep.  "Had to gather
fragments of Saffron's threads for years to make these.  He is--
was probably a being of pure solidified positive energy.  It's 
why he was able to regrow his limbs, pull off his wings and throw
them, and such..."

     He trailed off, gave a deep yawn and closed his eyes for a
moment.  They abruptly snapped open a moment later and he looked 
up, his eyes dark and hard as onyx.  "It was only a matter of 
inverting the thresholds," he said in a sharp, commanding voice. 
"The alchemical conversion was simplicity itself, although the 
containment was hard.  I lost a few test subjects, but such is 
the price."

     He mumbled something under his breath, as Ranma looked at
him with a kind of sick fascination.  The ancient man had seemed
nothing beyond a senile fool before, when he'd attended Saffron.
Now it was as if he danced upon some invisible line between
coherence and dotage with each turn of conversation.

     "The theories on ki were fascinating," the withered man said
suddenly.  "The idea of negativity countering positivity, of the
theoretical existence of a way to set two ki patterns in 
opposition to each other, and thus utterly negate..."

     He broke off suddenly, and when he spoke again his voice was
petulant and whining.  "I'm tired, Helubor.  Let's go home.  I 
want to have a nap."

     With a cold feeling growing in the pit of his stomach, Ranma
tried to relax, tried to reach inside himself, find the patterns
of his energies.

     Nothing.
     
     Or not nothing, not so much that.  His ki was a bird in an
iron cage, a drowned corpse below a sea of glass.  Visible,
definable, unreachable.

     His limbs felt heavy as lead.  Everything he saw, scented, 
heard, seemed painted in shades of grey when before they had been 
colour.  The air seemed thicker, as if gravity itself had decided
to suddenly exert itself upon him in greater levels.

     He took a hesitant step, and felt clumsy as a newborn child.
Grace and speed had left him.  Each step seemed an invitation to
trip over his own feet, to make a fool of himself.

     "What did you do to us, you withered son of a bitch?" Tarou
snarled from where he stood next to Ranma.  "Take it off, now, or
I'll-"

     "You'll do nothing," Helubor said.  "Compared to what you
were capable of before, the two of you will be barely able to
move.  You might have been able to avoid some of the bullets
before.  They might not even have injured you that much if they'd
hit.  Ki flows strengthen the body's resistance to injury, speed
healing, increase your muscular power.  You've had yours negated,
groundlings, as have the human wench and the commoner."

     "I suppose you see no need to do this to me?" Kima said
softly.  

     "Where is there for you to go if you choose to run?" Helubor
said, and laughed.  "I know you, Kima.  You shall not leave.  You
will answer our questions."

     "I am wondering," Kima said softly, ice in her voice, "just
who shall be king, now that Saffron is gone.  I suppose you would
be interested, would you not?"

     "I shall do what I can to serve," Helubor said, and 
shrugged.  "Now, I think we shall be going back home now.  There
are many, many things we shall discuss."

     The crows took to the sky, all of them, an enormous black
sheet blanketing the ground in shadow below them as they moved to
the south, the beat of their wings drumming inside Ranma's head
like the march of doom.

     "Walk," Helubor said.  "Xande, have them all imprisoned in 
the lower halls.  Have the men take Saffron's body back.  I shall
remain here for a time."

     He wiped a slightly taloned hand across his eyes.  "I wish
to mourn for a while at the sight of my ancestor's fall."

     "I can see he's beside himself with grief," Tarou muttered.
     
     One of the winged guards jabbed Ranma in the back with the
barrel of his gun.  "March, groundlings."

     After a moment, Ranma and Tarou complied.  It seemed the
only thing to do.  

     Out to the south, the harsh cry of the crows echoed back, 
thousandfold voices proclaiming something unknowable, though
there was a terrible feeling bound within it.

**********

     When everyone was gone but him, Helubor smiled and let out a
short laugh.  He stared about at the grass, upon which Saffron 
had been slain.  The servant had done it, his master's hand upon
the earth.  He'd seen it, in his dreams, as he'd seen so many
other things.

     The great wolf holding in bloody jaws the sun, and bearing a
crown in human hands that he knew was meant for his head.  The
serpent with thirteen heads the colours of the rainbow, the heads
snapping and snarling at one another.  The figure who was shadow, 
but for eyes that burned coldly blue like the outer edge of 
stars.  All these would be his servants, all these and more.

     And over it all that great black shape, eyes like cleft
stars, wings big enough to blow planets away in their passage, 
and he wore a crown, black like ashes.  And at his side was he, 
Helubor, wearing as well a crown, ruling in the King of Ashes' 
name upon the earth, and speaking the glory of his words.

     The vast, beautiful awfulness of smoke and ash had spoken to
him but once, in the first dream, before he'd even known of 
Xande's charade, when he had been little more than a child.  He
had flown higher than he could ever have in waking, higher than 
the mountains, seemingly as high as the stars, in that dream.  
All the lands of the earth had spread out before him, all the
mountains and forests and rivers and lakes, all the cities of 
dirt-crawling, hated humanity.  And everywhere, men and women,
winged or wingless, bowed before him and knew him as their
master.

     *Serve me, and all this shall be yours.  Ring high my name
and my glory from atop the mountains, and I shall lay all the
riches of the world before you for the taking.*

     He shook himself from the pleasant memory, and looked about.
His footsteps had carried him to here, to this spot, as he had
lost himself in his reverie.  Upon the ground before him were the
stains of blood, from where Saffron had been slain.  

     Point dug into the ground, a viciously curved and saw-edged 
knife sprouted like a steel flower, bone-handled and ancient.  
Smiling, Helubor pulled it out and tucked it into his belt.

     And there it was, a few steps away, a braided circlet of
silver and gold with the phoenix rising from it, a gem dangling
from the golden chain held in its beak.  Just as ancient as the 
knife, just as beautiful to his eye, discarded in the grass like 
a child's toy.

     He knelt and plucked it from the ground, and glanced about.
There were no eyes to see.  No suspicion could be given, not yet.

     Slowly, he placed it upon his brow.  It fit as if sculpted
only for him.  The circlet an intertwined expanse of cool metal
across his forehead, he closed his eyes and let himself drift
into thoughts of the power that would be his.  The long knife was
a mild, warm presence against his leg.

     "The king is dead," he whispered, thinking of the masses 
bowed before him, of the riches of the world given unto him, of
kingdoms shattered beneath his feet and the ashes of cities 
strewn from his hands.  "Long live the king."

**********

     They took them to a room of stone, marching them up long
flights of stairs from a concealed entrance near the base of
Phoenix Mountain, then through deserted stretches of stone 
hallway, lamps burning coldly blue upon the walls.  Attempts to 
talk had been answered by the guards with blows to the back and 
head with the rifle butts.  Ranma's body ached.  It shouldn't 
have.  He shouldn't have hurt from such weak blows in the first 
place.  When he did hurt, he healed incredibly fast.  

     Not now.  He could feel the marks of each blow, feel the
strain of the muscles in his leg from the long walk to Phoenix
Mountain and then up the many stairs.  Tarou was a silent,
seething presence to his right, face set into an expression of
pure rage.  He'd taken even more blows from the guards than Ranma
had before he'd decided to finally keep his mouth shut.  Kima
walked ahead, flanked on either side by a rifle-bearing guard,
hands clasped behind her back.  Behind him and Tarou walked 
Cologne and Samofere.  Cologne was silent as shadow; Samofere 
was breathing heavily.  

     In the front walked the hunched, shrivelled form of the old
man who'd served Saffron, the one who Kima had called Xande.  He
stopped every few minutes in a seeming daze, during which the
guards who ringed him and the prisoners stood around 
uncomfortably, before he began to move again.  

     The room they were finally forced into was tiny, no more
than ten feet by ten, with a plain metal door several inches 
thick that swung back with a squeal of slightly rusting hinges.  
They were all pushed inside, encouraged to move by hard prods of the
rifle barrels, and then the door was slammed shut.  The dim sound
of footsteps on stone could be heard retreating through the solid
metal of the door for a few moments, and then they were gone.

     Ranma glanced around.  A single lamp on the wall glowed a
muted blue.  All their bags were gone, carried away by the 
guards, along with Saffron's body.

     "So what now?" Ranma said, sitting down heavily on the 
floor.  Tarou did the same, keeping as much distance as the
half-dozen feet of silver thread linking them allowed.

     "If I got my hands on some cold water, I'd be able to pull
this stuff apart, ki or no ki," Tarou said.

     "If you got your hands on some cold water, it would do you
no good," Samofere said wearily from where he slumped against the
wall under the lamp, Cologne beside him.  The blue light made his
dark skin look a strange, sickly hue.  "The ki negation of the
binding threads negates Jusenkyou curses while it occurs.  I was
never able to figure out how; perhaps something to do with the
need for the ki to be adjusted when the transformation takes
place."

     "How do you know so much about this stuff?" Ranma said.
     
     "Because I wrote the books Xande used to make them,"
Samofere muttered.  "I was not exactly idle for the three 
thousand or so years I watched my brother rule, you know."

     "So you never tried to help him for three thousand years?"
Ranma said.  "Never tried to-"

     "What could I have done?" Samofere snapped, looking very
old, very tired.  His cloak of age was back upon him now, as his
brother had worn youth's shadow before.  "Tried to lead some kind 
of revolution?  Tried to roll back a thousand years of 
carefully-established hierarchy?  I did what I could.  I waited."

     "You waited," Ranma said.  "For what?"
     
     "For you," Samofere said.  "Because then my brother would
finally be given rest."

     "So that's it," Kima said from where she stood facing the
door, leaning forward with one hand against it.  "You had me
bring him here so Saffron could die, is that it?"

     "No," Samofere said.  "I... did not know my brother's death
would be a part of this.  I am more concerned with Helubor now."

     "Helubor is a fool," Kima said.
     
     "And I am but an old librarian," Samofere said.  "Helubor 
has been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, I think.  
I do not know what has become of his father, or Laelle and Nakar, 
but I do not think it can be good."

     "I don't know how he got Xande on his side," Kima said,
shaking her head.

     "I don't care one way or the other," Tarou interrupted from
where he sat.  "I'll just be content with beating his royal
highness senseless, then maybe making that old man eat his own
cane."

     "Vengeance is an empty pursuit," Samofere said, turning his
head to look at Tarou.  "You would be..."
     
     "Tarou."  The young man answered quickly, before anyone else
could.     
     
     "How did you come to be involved in this."
     
     "He had the misfortune to show up just about the same time
our pleasant friend from the lower depths of hell did," Cologne
said, breaking her silence.  "He battled it with us."

     "I defended myself," Tarou said with a snort.  "I might have
just flown away if I'd known that thing was going to keep on
coming back to life."

     "You overstate your own maliciousness," Cologne said softly.
     
     Ranma agreed, silently.  He didn't like Tarou at all.  He
didn't know if he ever could.  But the older boy had stepped 
forward freely to fight after seeing what Galm had done to Kima, 
and he'd seen the anger in him.  He had to respect that anger, at 
least, mirrored as it had been in himself.

     "And where come you from?" Samofere asked Tarou.
     
     Ranma sighed softly.  Bad territory to step into with Tarou.
     
     "What's it to you?" Tarou hissed.
     
     "He's from the Village of the Named," Cologne said shortly.
     
     "Ah," Samofere said with a nod.  "And your given name would
have been..."

     "None of your damn business is what it would be," Tarou 
said.  "None of your damn business or anyone else's."

     "It can't be all that bad," Kima said.  "It's only a name."
     
     Tarou laughed, humourlessly.  "You have no idea what you're
talking about."     
     
     "I remember when that village was founded, you know,"
Samofere said.  "Oh... fourteen hundred years ago, it must have
been."

     "I'm sure you've got lots of fascinating stories, old man,"
Tarou said.  "But I'm sure that you're a hell of a lot more
interesting than I am, or at least a lot older.  So what's the
deal with you, anyway?"

     "We asked him that already," Cologne muttered.  "I believe
his answer was to get Kima to tell us a children's tale."

     "Cologne..." Samofere said, very softly.  "Please..."
     
     "You lied to me," Cologne said, and there was hurt in it.
"For more than a century."

     "I can-"
     
     "I don't care.  Just tell us, Samofere.  For once, be
truthful."

     Samofere nodded.  "I am sorry for deceiving you, Cologne.
But-"

     "It had to be done?" Cologne said.  "Oh, yes, I've heard you
tell me that often enough.  Perhaps I even believed it."

     "Oh, come on," Ranma said.  "We don't need this fighting
right now.  Just let him talk, Cologne."

     Cologne snarled something under her breath and turned to
look away, from Ranma, from Samofere, from anything but the stone
wall.  

     "I think all but you," Samofere said, gesturing to Tarou,
"have heard this story before, in one form.  The Dragon of
Ryugenzawa told you, did she not, of the Ravager?"

     "Yes," Kima said.  "She spoke of him.  Briefly."
     
     "As I must," Samofere said.  "I... do not remember
everything about my past.  It is a necessity.  I could no more
contain four thousand years of memory than a bucket could hold
the ocean.  I have... had to pick and choose what to keep over
the years."

     "Memory doesn't work that way," Cologne said.
     
     "Yours does not," Samofere said.  "Mine does.  I am not like
you, no more than my brother was." 

     "No," Cologne said softly.  "I suppose that you are not."
     
     "I was mad for near a thousand years, you know," Samofere
said, shaking his head wearily.  His voice sounded dreaming,
drifting.  "After what happened... well, who would not have gone
mad?  And perhaps I wished to stay mad, because it allowed me not
to face what I had done..."

     "What?" Cologne said.  "What did you do?"
     
     Samofere's voice was shaky.  His skin was pale, sweating,
the blue light of the lamp shining on him and defining how hollow
the curves of his face looked.  "We thought he was good... he was
our friend, like a sun among us, bathing us all in his radiance,
in his beauty.  We let him among us, and he... took from us.  
Everything.  Our mother dead by his lieutenant's hand, Wurdsenlin
burned to a wasteland... Mei... Please, Mei, forgive me.  What 
did I become?"

     His head slumped to one side and a convulsion seemed to 
shake his body.  His eye rolled back into his head for a moment,
and he let out a soft groan.

     "Samofere?" Cologne said, and Ranma could hear the fear in
her voice.  "Samofere?"

     Kima crossed the floor and knelt, taking the old man's wrist
in her hand.  "He's... I don't understand it.  His pulse is fine,
but..."

     Samofere's eyes abruptly focused again, and he seemed to go
lucid.  "The duality is broken.  My brother... he had to radiate
energy to stay safe.  I had to absorb it.  We were kept alive,
kept in power, solely by the other's existence.  Now that he is
gone, my power is backlashing against me.  Draining me of my own
life."

     "No..." Cologne whispered, and Ranma saw such pain scarred
across her face for a moment, before it vanished.  

     "What can we do?" Kima said briskly.
     
     "Nothing," Samofere said, and shook his head.  He convulsed
again.  "The transformation... All this time, it was wrong.  We
needed to do it together, but... Oh, brother, forgive me, for
what I allowed you to become... They were purged, everyone you
told to keep the memory of it alive, they were purged by you
later on.  And I lay in madness for a thousand years, as the
caste system grew, as we pulled inward and turned our backs on
the world outside...  And when I awoke, I was so afraid, because
I still remembered, though I wanted to forget..."  His eyes 
closed, and he fell to the side.  Cologne caught him and laid his 
head in her lap.  

     The sense of helplessness engulfed Ranma.  He couldn't do
anything; his ki was beyond his reach, whatever techniques he'd 
used to heal Cologne's wounds earlier sealed away.  And what good 
could it have done against this anyway, this four millennia old 
pact, this mirror of light and dark now broken, shattered by the 
hound's knife.  

     "Is he..." Ranma said.
     
     "No," Cologne said, seeming to force the words through some
barrier, as she gazed down at the old man to whom the silver
thread bound her.  "He's asleep.  But..."

     "We'll do what we can for him," Kima said.  "Though I do not 
think it will be much."

     Tarou said nothing, only stared at the floor.  His face was
without expression, utterly blank.  

     There came the sound of metal scraping, and a panel in the
door slid open, revealing a narrowed pair of dark eyes and 
nothing else.  

     "Kima," a deep, hard-edged voice said from beyond the door,
belonging, presumably, to the owner of the eyes.  "Lord Helubor
and Lord Xande wish to see you now."

     "Kavva?" Kima said, standing up and starting towards the
door.  Ranma began to stand as well.

     "Sit back down, human," the voice said.  "Only Kima is to
come.  I have guards out here with me."

     The door swung open, revealing a dark-haired, dark-skinned
winged man dressed in a white shirt and pants.  A black, 
red-trimmed breastplate covered his chest, and he bore a long,
straight sword at his side, the handle elaborately bejewelled.  
His wings were as dark as his hair.  

     Ranma couldn't place why he looked familiar for a moment,
and then realized why he did.  He looked like one of the two kids
who'd come to Japan with Kima.  Koruma, that had been his name.

     There were a half-dozen guards behind him.  These ones held
guns as well, and looked ready to use them.     

     "Kima, you must come with me now," he said.
     
     "Yes."
     
     "Yes, sir.  You have been removed from your position.  You
will defer to all nobles."     
     
     "Yes, sir, Lord Kavva."
     
     There was nothing in her voice, not even anger.
     
     Kavva glanced around at the other prisoners.  His eyes fell
on Samofere.  "Is the librarian unwell?"

     "Yes," Cologne said softly.  "He..."
     
     "I shall send for someone who knows herbs," Kavva said in a
brisk voice.

     "I know them," Cologne said.  "If I could be given my bag, I
would care for him."

     Kavva looked at her flatly.  "No tricks, human.  We will
bring you your bag, after we have finished searching it."

     "Thank you," Cologne said simply, looking down at the 
pallid, unconscious face of Samofere.

     "It is only to make less work for us," Kavva said.  "I only
wish the old man to live, to give testimony as to just who took
my king's life."

     "It wasn't us," Tarou said.
     
     "I did not ask for your opinion, human," Kavva said.  "Kima,
come."

     He stepped aside as Kima walked into the hall, then closed
the door with a bang and slid the panel closed, leaving Ranma,
Tarou and Cologne alone with the sleeping Samofere.

     "So what are we gonna do?" Ranma said to Cologne.
     
     Cologne looked up at him, the weight of age reflected in the
vivid darkness of her eyes, the impossible span of years carried
behind that youthful face.  "I don't know."

     "What?" Ranma said.
     
     "None of us can access our ki," Cologne said in a slow 
voice.  "Meaning we have no way to get out of here.  If we did 
get out, we currently have no way of getting ourselves free,
meaning we're vulnerable to anything from an arrow to all those
lovely firearms the Phoenix Tribe seems to have decided to start
carrying about.  I've been shot more than once, Ranma.  It is an
experience I would really not like to repeat when I'm as 
vulnerable as I am now."

     "Cologne..."
     
     "Furthermore," Cologne continued, "I have to take into 
account the fact that my dearest friend on all the earth is
currently dying.  Frankly, Ranma, for once I'm stuck for ideas.
I'll tell you if anything comes up, though."

     And she closed her eyes, moved Samofere's head in her lap
slightly, and said no more.  

     "Damn," Ranma muttered, then glanced over to Tarou.  "How
about you?"

     Tarou opened one eye from where he sat, leaning his back
against the wall, arms folded over his chest.  "I'm gonna try to
get some sleep.  I'd like to be well-rested for when I'm going to
have a chance to be alone with that bastard Helubor, without any
weird chains, or guns being pointed at me.  I've got all kinds of
interesting and original ideas of how I can hurt him."

     Then he closed his eye and let out a soft, false snore,
putting an end to the conversation.  After a moment, a cruel
smile appeared on his face.  There are some people who looked
more innocent and peaceful in sleep; Tarou was not one of them.

     Ranma gently drew a breath, and realized that he was tired
as well.  He shouldn't have been; perhaps the shielding of his ki
had taken something out of him.  

     He pushed himself back across the floor, took a spot on the
wall a few feet from Tarou, glanced at the silver thread harder
than steel that tied them together, stretched out nearly to its
full length.  The one that bound Cologne and Samofere together
lay in a tangled pile upon the floor, shimmering silver-blue in 
the lantern-light.  He crossed his arms, leaned his head back 
against the wall, and tried to think.

     Sleep, however, interceded, and came far more easily than it
should have.  His last thought was of Shiso, flying back to the
south, escaping from the wheeling flocks of dirty crows, and that 
memory gave him, and only just, the tiniest fragment of hope, for 
there was one among them at least who had remained free.

**********

     The pole struck the surface of the water and pierced the
membrane of it.  When it hit bottom, the hands pulled it back and
drove the small skiff along with the flow of the river.  The boat
itself left no wake in its passage; only the pole, leaving
spreading circles upon the water that were pulled away in seconds
by the flow, left any sign of the journey.

     On it moved, beneath long stalactites like scraping claws,
past ancient walls of stone weathered by the passage of time and
by the waters, when once they rose as high as the ceiling.  Not 
so any more.  The flows were changed, but the waters still 
flowed, and that was what was important.     

     The figure in the boat was tall and robed, a soft hood
covering the face.  Just occasionally, something like a distant
star would glitter in the black depths of the garment.

     On the boat was driven, by the pole held in the slender
hands of the black-clad figure.  The skiff seemed almost to move
atop the surface of the waters rather than upon them, for still
it left no mark of passage beyond the quickly-gone impression of
the pole.  

     One upon each shoulder of the pilot of the boat, a raven 
perched, the first with eyes as dark as starless night, one with 
eyes as white as fresh-fallen snow.  

     The boat poled on, guided on the left by thought and the 
right by memory, and in the centre by the shrouded figure upon
whose shoulders they rested.

**********

     "Lord Kavva?"
     
     Koruma's father looked back, to where Kima walked between
him and the guards.  "Yes?"

     It had been hard, at first, to get used to giving orders to
a man who'd held her on his knee as a child, but ten years had
accustomed her.  And now they were back as they had been before.
"How is Koruma?"

     "They say he will be alright," Kavva said after a moment.
"His arm is broken.  One wing may be sprained.  Possibly a mild
concussion."

     "I am glad," Kima said.
     
     Kavva nodded silently, and continued to walk ahead.  The
section of the mountain they were in was one of the deserted 
ones, totally empty of any habitation.  The lamps on the walls
had been recently lit, but her feet still left tracks in the dust
of the floor as they walked.

     "Has any sign been found of Lord Laelle and Lord Nakar?"
     
     "No," Kavva said.  "They were last seen speaking to Helubor
and his father."     

     "And now all but Helubor have vanished," Kima said softly.  
"Suspicious, is it not?"

     Kavva looked back at her.  The disgust was barely held back
on his face, so fierce it was hard to look at.  "No more 
suspicious then the one who is supposed to be the king's 
protector taking him from the mountain and delivering him into 
the hands of outsiders."

     "Is that the story that is being told?" Kima murmured,
casting her eyes at the ground, peering at the trails their
footprints left in the dust.  The marching rhythm of the guards
behind her did not falter.

     "That is the gist of most of them," Kavva said.  "There are
many conflicting versions.  The nobles have had grave doubts
since your handling of Saffron's transformation; this is only
confirmation of our fears."

     "What fears?"
     
     "Some have raised your name as the culprit in how the map
was delivered into the hands of the Jusenkyou Guide and his
daughter."
     
     "Then they have greatly misjudged me," Kima said.  "All I
have done, for all the time I have been seneschal, has been in
the service of my king and my people.  If I have had to make a
choice between them, I have chosen as best I could."

     "And who did you serve by bringing the outsider into the
mountain, the one who hurt my son?"

     "I know not where he came from," Kima said slowly.  "There
is a malign power that desires Jusenkyou, Lord Kavva.  I have 
seen only the barest edge of it, and what I have seen terrifies 
me.  I have seen things in the last week that have forced me to 
change the way I look at things.  What pursued me, what hurt your 
son, what slew Lord Saffron, that thing was of the Dark.  It was 
evil given shape upon the earth, and it is only the first of what 
is to come."

     "Next you will tell me you have seen the Golden One in your
dreams," Kavva snorted, shaking his head.  Behind Kima, the 
guards remained silent.

     "Not in my dreams," Kima said.  "Lord Kavva... Saffron's
fall was only the beginning.  Someone took the map to the Guide
and his daughter.  Someone told them that Saffron's 
transformation would have destroyed Jusenkyou permanently.  
Someone wanted it ruined."

     "Yes," Kavva said, the scorn dripping from his voice as he
looked back at her.  "I wonder who that could be?"

     "There are traitors in the mountain, Lord Kavva," she said
desperately.  "Helubor and Xande have armed the troops with human
weapons--"

     "Not all the troops," Kavva said, very quietly, so softly
that she was sure the words were meant only for her.  "Only those
loyal to them."

     "Lord Kavva, do you truly think you should be talking so 
much to an accused traitor and prisoner?" one of the guards said
from behind her.  "I mean no disrespect, my lord, but it might
cast you under suspicion."

     "Your suggestion is noted," Kavva said in an icy voice.
     
     "Yes, my lord," the guard said.  There was the edge, just 
the barest edge, of mockery in the words.

     "I am only glad that Xande is so concerned for the welfare
of the families of the nobles," Kavva said to the guard, though
he looked at Kima.  "So kind of him, to insist on armed guards to 
attend my wife and son, and the families of the other nobles."

     "Yes, my lord," the guard said.  "Very kind."
     
     Kima could say nothing more after that.  It was even worse
than she had thought.  She'd never liked Helubor; his arrogance
and laziness had disgusted her.  Had it all been a cover for his
ambitions?  It was too convenient, all of this, for Helubor.  
Somehow he had Xande's help in this.
     
     And she remembered Samofere's words, sitting in a circle as
Xande's crows came in the thousands.  There were servants of the
Dark in Phoenix Mountain.

     And then a second remembrance, from the Book of Fire and
Earth;  *...by the foulness hiding in dotage, by the madness 
hiding in arrogance...*
     
     "King of Ashes," she murmured under her breath, closing her
eyes against a surge of fear.  "Oh, no.  Not this.  Not this."

     And when she opened them again, Kavva was opening an iron
door, and backlit by the blue of the lamps inside the vaulted,
high-ceilinged stone chamber was the tall, slender, impossibly
handsome figure of Helubor.  

     "Thank you, Kavva," he said, in his pleasant, melodic voice.
He gestured to two of the guards who'd escorted Kima.  "Take Lord
Kavva to his wife and son, men."

     As Kavva walked away, Kima found it hard to say whether the
look of hate on his face was for her or Helubor.  Most likely, it
was for both of them.

     "Come in, Kima," Helubor said, stepping back into the room
and making a sweeping gesture with his hand.  

     She stepped inside.  The guards followed behind.  Helubor
closed the door with a bang.

     The guards took up positions by the doors, the awful shapes
of the guns held at ready, as she looked around.  The lamps
burned blue and scattered their light around the room.  There was
a table in the centre, made of stone, the carved, phoenix-graven
legs growing from the bare rock of the floor.  There were two 
seats behind it, one occupied by the dozing form of Xande, his 
walking stick on the table in front of him.  In front of the 
occupied seat lay three things.

     A crown, braided gold and silver, with a golden phoenix 
rising from the front with a gem upon a chain in its beak.  A 
golden box, the image of the phoenix upon it.  And a curving, 
bone-handled knife, saw-edged and vicious, terrible as death, 
ancient as night, razor-sharp lines shining in the blue light.

     Helubor took the seat next to Xande, and prodded the old man
with his hand.  "Wake up, Xande."

     "Ah, yes, yes," Xande murmured, shaking his head.  His eyes
opened.  They were hard as stone.  "Hello, Kima.  I hope you'll
be cooperative."

     "Yes, sir," Kima whispered through the dryness of her mouth.
     
     "Do you have anything to ask before we begin?" Helubor said.
     
     "The other members of the royal family," she said.  "Where
are they.  I know Laelle, Nakar and your father are missing, 
but..."

     "Tragedy upon tragedy," Helubor said, bowing his head.  "My
grandfather passed away only an hour ago, in his sleep.  But he
was over a century old, you know.  Fanael and my mother are in
their chambers."

     He sighed.  "As for my father, cousin and uncle..."
     
     His right hand came out and tapped upon the golden box 
before him, taloned fingers clicking against the metal.  "I'm
sure they're around here somewhere."

     "Shall we begin, then?" Xande said in a cracked voice.  
     
     "Yes, I suppose we should," Helubor said.
     
     He smiled, exposing sharp canine teeth, long even for one of 
the people of the mountain.  It never even came close to reaching
his eyes, because there was no room for anything in them beyond a
pure, vicious, triumphant hatred.

**********     
     
     He saw many things in his sleep, through the staring inward 
eye of the mind, images and visions flashing past him, few 
remembered.  Some stayed with him when he awoke, vague, 
half-forgotten.  Others were gone when he rose next to the 
waking world.

     Perhaps he dreamed.  Perhaps he remembered, be they memories
of futures past or futures yet to come.  In that realm of dreams,
within the power of sleep, brother to death, perhaps we come 
closest to knowing that which we cannot know.  

     The figures flashed by his vision, again and again, hundreds
upon hundreds.  An angel of fire who held a ball of ashes in his
left hand and a bleeding dove in his right, a blank figure of 
featureless porcelain doll-legs and doll-arms and doll-head with 
painted blue eyes from which blood fell like tears, a 
golden-haired woman bound to a spar of rock beneath the ocean 
with her own hair as the chains.

     All these, and many more, but none stayed but those three,
except for a single vision more, of a short-haired girl who 
clutched her arms around herself and wept, and unlike all else
that he saw, this he knew.

     Akane, he called in his sleep.
     
     Never, never, never, called back the tides.
     
     Akane, he called again.
     
     Never, never, never, called back the waves.
     
     Akane, he called, for the third time.
     
     Never, never, never, called back the waters, for the third
time also, for more often than not, these things shall work by 
threes, for in that number there is power.

     And past the span of mountains and oceans, forest and 
rivers, plains and lakes, past the rising steel thorns of cities
and beneath the brimming silver cupful of the moon, with love to
guide it, the last aching, longing echo of that call resounded in
the mind of a girl in the clear tones of a bell, and she awoke 
with tears in her eyes for a reason she did not know.

     She rose and went outside, and looked up at the sky, the
smoke-shrouded sky of Tokyo, through which only the brightest
stars can shine.    

     And there, clouds shredding the moon above her into silver
tatters, she cried for a little while, not quite sure why she 
did, though the weeping cleansed her, and the only one to watch 
was the moon, and though she offered no comfort to the one who 
wept below her light, she offered no scorn as well.

     "Ranma," she whispered finally, feeling dew-stroked grass
beneath her feet, hearing the soft night-sounds of cicadas, the
beating wings of birds, breathing in the cool air of summer 
nocturne, fallen through the scent of her tears.  The word was 
passion, the word was pain, the word was regret, and it was also 
a call.

     But that call went not far enough, and that call did not
reach, not across the oceans, not across the mountains, because
there was so much between.  And up above, the moon looked down 
blankly, and watched like a singular eye, cyclopean and silver,
as Akane Tendo stepped back inside the house, grief bearing down 
upon her like a weight.  

     Up above the haze of Tokyo's sky, the uncaring stars 
twinkled as if in laughter, as night settled deeper across the
world.