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 15 : The Superflux of Pain

She dwells with Beauty -- Beauty that must die;
  And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu ; and aching Pleasure nigh,
  Turning to Poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of delight
  Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
    Though seen of none save him whose strenous tongue
  Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
  And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
-John Keats

     When Ranma awoke, he knew that it was night, though he knew
not how he knew - the innate sense of time, perhaps, the rhythms
of the body.  The lamp on the wall of their prison burned dimly 
blue still, the same blue it had burned when they'd first been 
marched in here at gunpoint.  There was Tarou, a thin, unpleasant 
smile on his face where he rested against the wall, his left 
wrist chained to Ranma's right by six feet of silver cord 
produced by alchemy from the threads of Saffron's transformation.  

     There was the thick metal door, with a small panel in it,
set flush into the stone wall.  It would have provided no 
barrier usually; he could have ripped it off the hinges or 
punched a hole in it with ease.  

     Not now; not with his ki flows negated.  His father had
never gone much into the more mystical side of the Art, but he
had mentioned the importance of the inner energies in relation to
the physical abilities.  Ki was what allowed him his strength, 
his speed, his phenomenal agility.  Without it, he was only an
ordinary person, albeit one in top shape.  But he could achieve
none of his true power without his ki.

     There wasn't even ice inside his head, or fire.  There was
only the impression of emptiness, an hollow mould waiting to be
filled.  There was only helplessness.  

     There was Cologne, still sitting in the same position she'd
been in when he'd fallen asleep hours ago, Samofere's old head
cradled in her lap.  Her head was bowed, the fall of long dark
hair hiding her face.  

     "Cologne?" he called softly.
     
     "Yes?" she responded dully, not looking up.
     
     "How is he?"
     
     "He's stopped breathing a few times.  But he starts again.
Each time it's taken him longer, though."

     Samofere's face was ghastly pale, hollow-cheeked in the blue 
light of the lamp.  The lush darkness of his wings was crumpled 
under his body, his white hair was dampened with sweat.  His eyes 
were closed.  Ranma couldn't even see him breathe.

     "Did they ever bring you your herbs?" Ranma asked.
     
     "No," Cologne said.  "No, they didn't."
     
     "How long has it been?" Ranma asked.
     
     "I'm not sure," Cologne said.  "Six hours.  Maybe more."
     
     "And Kima still isn't back?" 
     
     "No."
     
     "Damn."
     
     Silence.
     
     Ranma stood up, joints aching, and carefully crossed the 
floor, watching the distance on the cord so that Tarou wouldn't
get woken.  He sat down by Cologne, crossing his legs and leaning
forward with his elbows on his knees.  "Any ideas yet?"

     "None at all," Cologne said.  "None at all."
     
     She raised up her wrist, where an identical silver cord
bound her and Samofere.  "If I didn't have this, we'd be out of
here in seconds.  I could blast a hole in the wall, break down 
the door... But now..."

     "You try to break it?" 
     
     "Yes," Cologne said.  "Many times.  It's no good."
     
     "Damn."
     
     And again, silence.
     
     "Well, no use in giving up," Ranma said, trying to sound
hopeful.  "We've come this far.  No turning back now."

     "No, I suppose there isn't," Cologne said.  "Not after a
century.  Not after all this."

     Ranma sighed, traced his fingers over his chest, thinking of
the image of the emerald dragon upon his body, the mark given to
him in Ryugenzawa.  
     
     "So has everything in my life just been building up to 
this?" Ranma asked.  "All this prophecy, all this destiny, to sit
here, a prisoner, helpless?"

     "Who knows how destiny truly runs?" Cologne said softly.
"Until the final die is cast, the final piece taken, who knows
whether what we think shall be is what truly shall be?"

     "You're talking in riddles again," Ranma said quietly.
     
     "I'm over a century old, Ranma," Cologne said.  "I'm
allowed to be inscrutable if I want."

     "Sure," Ranma said.  He smiled, knowing how false it looked, 
and not caring.  "If it makes you happy.  I mean, you set this
whole thing up, you drag me away from my family, from Akane.  You
kidnap my mother.  I end up killing a woman like it's the easiest
thing in the world.  I go under Ryugenzawa and see something so
far beyond anything that I have ever seen I can barely comprehend
it.  I have an audience in the Dragon Palace.  I see a 
four-thousand year old immortal being slain by something that 
crawled out of the depths of hell and that I apparently sent 
back there.  And now because we've experienced a bit of a 
setback, you're just giving up."

     "What?" Cologne said, finally raising her head to look at
him.  "What are you talking about, boy?"

     "Don't you see, Cologne?" Ranma said.  "You're the only one
I trust here.  I don't totally trust Kima, I sure as hell don't 
trust Tarou, and I don't trust your friend, because it seems he's
been playing everyone for fools for the past four thousand years
or so."  He took a deep breath.  "But I trust you.  I have to.  
You're the only thing I have left in my life from before.  I need
you, Cologne.  I need the old woman who showed me how to defeat
Happosai when my strength was gone, no matter how young she looks
now.  I need you not to give up."

     And for a third time, silence.
     
     Finally, Cologne spoke.  "Ranma, let me ask you something,
if I may."

     "Go ahead," Ranma replied.
     
     "When you first saw Akane disappear after she touched the
Kinjakan, when you thought she was gone, what did you do?" 

     Ranma closed his eyes.  The memory was a painful one.  "I... 
just lay there.  Ryoga had to drag me away from Saffron's 
threads, or he would have got me.  When we were in the hut... I 
didn't want to do anything.  I just wanted to hold her clothes, 
remember her..."

     "You gave up," Cologne said.  "For a little while.  Tell me
why?"

     Ranma glanced back to Tarou.  The other boy was still 
asleep, it seemed.  Finally, he answered, barely more than a
whisper.  "Because it was her that I fought for, and I had
failed.  There was nothing more worth fighting for, without her."

     "Yes," Cologne said softly.  "I know what you mean."
     
     Ranma could say nothing for a moment.  Cologne's face was a
tapestry; sorrow, pain, regret.

     And oh, that final one, love.  He saw it, there in her eyes, 
as she looked down at Samofere's face, and the sheer, aching
sense of empathy that grew in him hurt to feel.  

     "You and him?" Ranma asked softly.
     
     "No," Cologne said, and Ranma could not understand why she
even answered him.  "We always... there was always so much
between.  I... I wanted to, when we were young.  I suppose I
managed to let it go, just a little, as time went on.  I found
others.  But it was never the same.  It is never the same as the
first."

     "But he's..."
     
     "He's what?"
     
     Ranma shook his head.  "I don't know what I thought I was
gonna say.  It doesn't matter.  Who am I to decide who's human or
not anyway?"
     
     The conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps
beyond the door.  Cologne ducked her head back down; Ranma 
scrambled as quietly as possible back to his place at the wall,
closed his eyes and tried to look as if he were asleep.

     There were voices, but so muffled were they by the door that
there was no way to tell what was being said.  There was the
click of locks being undone, and then the gentle squeal of hinges
as the door opened.

     "As far as I'm concerned, they can all stay in there till
they rot.  Her included."

     "They are needed.  The people need two things right now; a
king, and someone to blame."

     There was the sound of something hitting the floor, and the
door slammed closed with a bang.

     Ranma opened his eyes and looked up.  He saw Tarou was
stirring awake too.  Kima lay on her back near the door, arms and
legs and wings askew, eyes closed, slowly breathing in seeming
unconsciousness.  He could see the bruises on her face from here.

     "Kima?" he said, standing up and walking over to where she
lay.  She didn't respond, and he knelt down beside her on the 
stone floor, a sick feeling rising in the pit of his stomach.

     It looked as if she'd been beaten quite badly, a short time
ago.  There was dried blood at the corner of her lip, the marks
of blows on her face.  

     "Oh god," Ranma said, the strange separation of seeing
something he didn't want to see falling over him.  "Oh geez, what 
did they do you?"

     Tarou was beside him, though Ranma barely realized it.  
"Bastards..." the older boy muttered, so quietly Ranma wasn't
even sure he heard him correctly.  Kima gave a soft groan.  Her 
eyes blinked once, then opened fully.

     "What happened?" Ranma said to her.  Her blue eyes were
unclear, unfocused, slightly fearful.

     "I didn't tell them," she said in a far-away voice.  "I
didn't tell them about what's under Jusendo... if they knew, it
would have been the end of everything.  They questioned me for
hours; they wanted me to incriminate others in the plot; Kavva,
Nakar, Mazarin.  They wanted there to be a plot in the first
place.  I didn't tell them anything.  And then they started..."

     Ranma glanced to Tarou, and was taken aback at the sheer
rage he saw laid bare in the older boy's face.  His skin seemed
stretched tight, the definitions of the skull more visible.  It
seemed to have no object for it; just a state of rage, an
existence of anger continual and unending.

     "They judged I had betrayed the king," Kima said, struggling
as if to sit up.  Ranma put a hand on her shoulder, brushing 
against the few feathers that sprouted there apart from the 
wings.  "They... but I was not judged fairly.  It was not right."

     There was a sense of disbelief so profound in her voice that
Ranma could barely compass it.  He could feel her shaking under
his hand, like a leaf, as he helped her sit up.

     "She's in shock," Cologne said suddenly from where she sat.
"I've seen it often enough.  They did something to her much worse
than the beating."

     "Why was it done?" Kima said, directing the question to no
one.  "I... I have always served loyally.  Was my sin so great
that I must endure this?  I did what I thought best.  Oh, my
king, my king, forgive me."

     "What did they do to you?" Ranma asked in a half-stifled
voice.     
     
     She gave no answer, only turned the angle of her body
slightly.  He took his hand from her shoulder, as her back turned
to him, wings still askew, hanging limp, brushing against the
stone floor of the ground.

     And that, that finally allowed him to see the blood-stained
bandages wrapped around each wing where it sprouted from the pale
skin of her back.  

     "It is the only penalty that they say is worse than death,"
she said in a dull voice.  "The only one.  He... he used the
hound's knife when he did it.  I don't know where he got it.  And
he laughed, while the guards held me down and he cut them.  I 
can't even feel my wings."

     For a few long seconds, Ranma couldn't even speak.  The 
foulness of the act choked off any words he could have had.  He 
was used to violence.  He had fought with ruthless foes before.  
He had come close to dying more than once.

     He had killed, oh, yes, he had done that, and he carried the
stain of that upon himself.  Nothing could wash that blood from
his hands, no waters of rivers or lakes or seas.  But he had 
never seen anything close to this before, this act of sheer 
sadistic cruelty.  Helubor had crippled her, and he'd laughed 
while doing it.

     "Oh, Kima," he said brokenly, helplessly.  "I--"
     
     "Helubor serves the King of Ashes," Kima said, the tone in
her voice one of helpless resignation.  "He knew Saffron would be 
dead before he and Xande came after us.  He's done something to 
the other males of the royal family.  I doubt if they still 
live."

     Tarou, who had been silent for a long while, finally spoke.
"He'd kill his own family?"

     "I always thought him an arrogant fool," Kima said shakily.
"Annoying, but of no true consequence.  Now... I think that he is
mad.  Though it is a dangerous madness indeed."  She gestured 
weakly back at her limp wings with one hand.  "There is nothing 
beyond him now.  He and Xande have passed this judgement on me 
without the consent of the other nobles.  They hold the families 
of the nobles under armed guard, supposedly for their own 
protection.  I believe they want me as an example, of what will
happen to those who defy them."

     "And us?" Tarou asked quietly.
     
     Kima's face twisted into a bitter, smirking expression.  
"Scapegoats for Lord Saffron's death.  He will execute you,
likely.  And crown himself king."

     Cologne moved Samofere's head out of her lap and stood up to
walk across the floor, keeping a close eye on the thread that
connected them.  "Let me see the wound, child.  There may still
be some hope to salvage--"

     "No," Kima said.  "There is not."
     
     "Do not give up hope.  I will do what I--"
     
     "He cauterized them," Kima said.  "Burned the wound closed.
I can't even feel them, Cologne.  He's lamed me."

     "Burned?" Ranma asked.
     
     "With his hands," Kima said, sounding as if she herself did
not quite believe it.  "He has power.  I have never heard of it 
being passed down to Saffron's descendants before, but he has 
power."

     "How are you otherwise?" Cologne asked.
     
     "A little bruised," Kima said in a soft voice.  "Nothing
more.  Nothing compared to my wings.  It doesn't matter."

     "All right, then," Tarou said in a flat voice.  "We need to
figure out a way out of this.  Sitting around is doing nothing.
We aren't as strong as we usually are, but that'll make them
underestimate us.  We may not be able to punch holes in stone or
jump forty feet, but we're still in better shape than 
ninety-nine percent of the population, and that includes those
guys holding the guns.  If we can get even one or two of
those guns off them..."

     "I will not use them," Kima said vehemently, shaking her
head.

     "What?" Tarou said.  
     
     "I will not use them," she repeated, looking at him flatly.
"No matter what."

     "Do you know how to use a gun anyway?" Ranma asked Tarou.
     
     Tarou snorted.  "How hard is it?  You point and pull the
trigger."

     "Of course," Cologne said sarcastically.  "And the Art is
just a bunch of kicking and punching and yelling.  Just because
something looks easy doesn't mean it is."

     "And if we use those things, we're no better than them,"
Ranma said.  "Guns are for killing.  Nothing more.  The Art is
not about killing."

     "That's the kind of lame crap I'm used to hearing from you," 
Tarou said scornfully.  "The Art is like life.  It's about 
winning.  It's about being better than everyone else.  You do
what you have to do.  If we have to use the guns, we use the
guns.  When we get these chains off us, we may throw them away,
we may not.  It depends."

     "No matter what the cost?" Cologne said.
     
     "What cost?" Tarou said.  "Getting out of this little matter
of royal succession with my skin intact has a cost?"

     "You have to pay the price for what you do," Cologne said.
"No matter what ends are achieved by it.  There is always a 
price."     

     "I do not care what you choose to do," Kima said.  "I will
not use those human abominations they call weapons."

     "Then maybe you can just sit here and wait for them to cart
you off," Tarou snapped at her, a disgusted look on his face.
     
     "Hey--" Ranma said.  
     
     Tarou didn't let him finish.  "You think you can just give
up because of what they did to you?  Think again.  Shit happens.
You deal with it.  You move on.  You get payback."

     "And what would you do," Kima hissed in a low tone, "if
someone were to cut your legs off, groundling?"

     "I'd drag myself up to them on my hands and break their damn
head open," Tarou said.  "And you think I don't know what it is
you're missing?  I can fly too, you know."  He paused, and his
face softened slightly.  "You've got to go on, no matter what."

     A spasm of pain seemed to pass across Kima's face for a 
moment, and then it was gone.  She drew herself up where she sat,
staring ahead.  Some of the proud bearing of before seemed to
return to her.  "You are right, of course.  I still shall serve
my people.  But I shall not use the guns."
     
     "This fighting gets us nowhere," Cologne said.  "The fact of
the matter remains that Helubor is quite obviously not stupid,
although he is as arrogant as I have ever seen.  He will be
expecting us to try to escape."

     "He's got Xande on his side as well," Kima said.  "He...
seems different.  I do not understand it."

     "The old man, right?" Ranma said.  
     
     Kima nodded.  "He was a great warrior before my time.  He 
began to fade decades ago, or so I have heard."

     She shook her head.  "Perhaps it was but a ploy.  After all,
who could suspect him?  He's simply an old man...." Her gaze fell 
to Samofere, still and unconscious on the floor, barely 
breathing.  "Yes.  What better way to hide the true nature of your 
role?  The most trusted advisor to the king, working to usurp 
him.  He had access to the map, after all.  It would have been 
easy for him."

     "Huh?" Ranma asked.
     
     "The map that the Guide's daughter took to Japan," Kima 
said.  "Someone stole it from where it was kept and gave it to
the Guide and his daughter.  I went after the map, and Xande was
supposed to find out how it had been stolen in the first 
place..."  She sighed.  "It's all falling into place now.  
Hindsight is a useful thing, isn't it?"

     "I talked to the little girl at the Guide's house," Tarou
said.  "She said a man in a cloak had given her and her father
the map."

     "He probably told them that Jusenkyou would be destroyed as
well," Kima said.

     "You mean it wouldn't have been?" Ranma asked.
     
     She shot him a half-questioning, half-glaring look.  "Was 
it after the partial transformation?  The waters would have been 
drained for the three days and nights needed for the full 
transformation.  By a week after that, two weeks at the very 
most, they would have returned to normal."

     "Then there was no reason for us to fight at all," Ranma
muttered.  

     "You withheld the map from us," Kima said.  "I had no time
or patience to deal with groundlings."

     "If you'd just explained-"
     
     "Who would you have believed?  Us or the little girl?"
     
     Ranma could say nothing to that.

     "It sounds like you got played against each other," Tarou
said after a moment.  "Good tactic.  Set your enemies in 
opposition, and you can do what you want behind their backs as 
they destroy each other."

     "But how would they have known to send Plum to us?" Ranma
said.

     "Who says they did?" Kima said with a shrug.  "The Guide
could have sent her.  Or perhaps they read the same books I have;
the library is open to all.  Perhaps they thought bringing you
here would help them overthrow Saffron."
     
     "So is this what it's all about?" Tarou snorted.  "You the
chosen one, Saotome?"

     "Perhaps," Cologne said, mildly sardonic.  "We're not really
sure yet.  There's been a certain amount of strangeness lately
centred around him.  Not any more than usual, I suppose, only
far more deadly."

     "And what about me?" Tarou asked derisively.  "Do I show up
in these little books?"

     "It could be," Cologne said.  "There is much we still do not
understand about them.  Or you could simply be a random chance."

     "Great," Tarou said, rolling his eyes.    
     
     "Definitely random," Ranma muttered.  "Very random."
     
     "The question is, then," Kima said quietly, "do you stand
with us?"

     "I stand with myself," Tarou said.  "Right now, myself wants
to get out of here.  The best chance for that lies with the rest
of you.  So yeah, for the time being, I stand with you."

     "At least he's honest," Cologne said under her breath.  Her
hand played with the silver cord binding her wrist to Samofere's.
"He... Samofere.  He seems to be hanging on.  Barely.  But he's
stable.  We need to get out of here.  If I had my bag, if we
weren't bound like this, I might be able to do something."

     "Well we don't have your bag and we are bound up," Tarou
said.  "So we need to do something else, don't we?"

     Ranma glanced at Kima.  She was staring at the wall to the
left of the door, an odd expression on her face.  "Kima?"

     She said nothing, standing up and frowning.  "Did anyone
hear something?"

     Ranma cocked his head to one side.  "No."
     
     "Listen," Kima said, raising a finger to her lips.  Her
wings drooped down her back like fallen leaves in autumn, limp
and unmoving.  Ranma found it hard to look at them.  He thought
of what she had said to Tarou; to lose your legs.  It was the
only thing that could possibly compare.  It was a horror he could
barely even begin to comprehend.

     Kima seemed to be taking it as well as anyone possibly could
have, but he could see the wrongness in the way she moved, the
way she darted her gaze back and forth, and in how her eyes had
looked when she'd opened them first.  She was on edge, standing 
on the brink of an abyss, and it was threatening to swallow her.
He understood that feeling very well.
     
     Listen, she'd said, and he did.  At first, nothing, and 
then, as he was about to speak, to question, a rapping sound, 
something hitting against stone, muffled.

     Kima crossed the floor and knelt in front of the wall she'd
been staring at.  Like the rest of the walls, it was covered in
the dust that came from long disuse.  She began to run her hand
over the wall, leaving tracks of fingers in the dust.

     Ranma walked over, and Tarou was forced to come or be
dragged along.  "What is that?"

     Again, there came the rapping, sounding as if it were 
closer, like the dim tread of approaching footsteps.  

     "There," Kima said, pointing at something on the wall.
Squinting his eyes, Ranma looked where she'd indicated.  Nearly
faded, nearly entirely gone, there was the stylized image of a 
bird graven into the stone, wings raised and outstretched to the
sides, head looking to the right.  
     
     "What is it?" Tarou said.
     
     Again, the tapping.
     
     Kima reached out and caressed the image of the bird with
taloned fingers, lingering for a moment over the near-black eye
of the image.  "The ravens know our duty bound..."

     And then the image turned its head to the left, a smooth
flowing of stone like a reflection rippling on water.  The wings
folded themselves about the body.  Soundlessly, a seam of stone 
in the wall opposite the door appeared, spreading open like an 
eye turned on its side, until a portal wide enough for a single 
person to pass through was there were the blank stone had been 
before.

     The tapping came again, and then a shape fluttered out from
the darkness beyond, black from black, glossy and feathered.  For
a moment, Ranma thought it was Shiso, but then he saw that though
it was a raven, it was not Shiso, for the eyes were pure white, 
not milky as if with cataracts, but simply an expanse of 
glistening, bright white, and Shiso's eyes were dark beyond 
black.

     The bird landed on the ground, and tapped on the stone floor
with his beak, a staccato pattern.

     "Kioku," Cologne said, bending down next to the bird.  "Then
your brother is near as well?"

     The bird nodded.  
     
     Ranma sniffed the air.  The dank scent of the stone room was
gone, replaced by the smell of fresh water wafting up from the
newly-opened portal in the stone.  

     He glanced to Kima, and saw an exquisite agony laid across
her features.  He realized what she was thinking; if she'd done
this before, noticed this when they first went into the cell,
then her wings would have been saved.  The pain was there, only
for a second, and then hardness engulfed it and buried it, as she
strode forward to stand before the portal in the stone.

     "Where does it go?" she said, looking at the bird on the
floor.

     "He won't answer," Cologne said, kneeling down and offering
her arm.  Kioku fluttered up to her wrist and she raised him up
to her eye level.  "I've never heard him make a sound, much less
speak."

     "Well, wherever it goes has to be better than here," Tarou
said, before turning to Kima.  "Why didn't you do that before?"

     Ranma winced at hearing the question, knowing Kima was
already asking herself that.     
     
     "Because I didn't spot the image and if I had, I didn't know
what it would do anyway," Kima snarled.  "Now are we getting out
of here or not, human?"

     Ranma shook his head.  He almost wanted to tell Tarou to
stop speaking to Kima altogether, but it would not be appreciated
by either side and would probably just make things worse.  

     "Yeah," Tarou said, glancing down into the dim, narrow
passageway, and then at the silver cord binding him to Ranma.  
"Let's get going."

     Kima nodded and walked over to where the lamp hung on the
wall.  Reaching up, she carefully unhooked it with a clicking
sound.  The pale blue light shone across the definitions of her
face and cast sky-coloured highlights in the limp white spread of 
her wings.

     From Cologne's wrist the white-eyed raven took flight, 
landing finally upon Ranma's shoulder in total silence.  Ranma
found the presence of the bird, so similar and yet different
from Shiso, to be an odd sort of comfort.

     Cologne knelt and carefully lifted up Samofere, her face
devoid of expression.  The old man was limp in her arms, looking 
small and wasted.  Silver thread hung about Cologne's arms in 
loops as she carried her friend.

     Carrying the lamp in one hand, Kima walked to the portal 
opened in the stone and shone the light she held into the 
darkness beyond.  Ranma saw that after a few feet of short 
passageway, a narrow, steep set of stairs began, twisting
slightly as they edged down into the stone depths of the 
mountain.

     "Secret tunnels," Kima said, shaking her head.  "It makes
sense, of course.  None of the nobles pay attention during
renovations.  Most of the home is abandoned anyway.  They could
have carved them out over the centuries..."

     "What are you talking about?" Ranma asked, confused.
     
     She looked back at him, unspeaking; the tips of her wings 
brushed against the ground with the movement, hanging limp like a 
cloak down her back.  

     Perhaps only then did he realize the depth of that loss, 
and a sense of pity and sadness so profound that they filled all
of his being engulfed him, and he strove to keep that from his
face, realizing in part that he had failed, for he saw the look
of angry understanding on her face before she turned away and 
began to walk down the passageway.

     "Come on, fem-boy," Tarou said, giving a hard tug on the 
silver cord that jerked Ranma stumbling across the floor.

     Ranma didn't even have the desire to say something back, as 
he began to follow the bobbing blue light that Kima carried, as 
they descended down into the earth.  He looked behind them for a 
moment, and saw that the portal into the room they'd been 
imprisoned in was now closed.

     Down they went, the blue light dim but marking the path,
down winding narrow stairs and long sloping tunnels.  The walls
were smooth in places, rough-hewn in others, natural rock in 
more.  There was silence.  There was nothing to say.  Sometimes
Tarou walked ahead of him, and sometimes he walked ahead of 
Tarou, and the silver cord lay between them always.

     But it was Kima who led, taking certain turns, certain
passages.  He remembered going under Ryugenzawa, and the feeling
that had engulfed him, the sense of being there before, and how 
he had known each and every turn to take, leading them at last to
the lake that held the Dragon of Life, the place of beauty that 
had lain somewhere just beyond the normal world, hidden in the 
monstrous shadow of the Orochi.  

     Whatever turns they took, though, they went always down,
always deeper.  Down past even the labyrinth of rough-hewn stone
tunnels that he'd wandered in when he first came to Phoenix
Mountain, in a time that seemed very far away, but had been less
than a month ago in truth.

     And the blue light shone on the walls around them, and 
always there was the sound of water flowing.  The spring had 
been dry when they came here before, but he could almost feel the
liquid presence of it now, flowing hidden through channels in the 
stone, flowing over rock, flowing under earth and stone, rising 
up through the mountain to the summit, where the cursed spring 
lay.  

     Down, down, down, into the depths of the earth.  The
passageways had become tunnels, tiny, cramped, claustrophobic, so
small in places that they had to duck their heads to walk.  

     And no one, not even Tarou questioned where they were being
led, because he'd begun to open his mouth once, and Kima had
turned and looked at him, something in her face that had made him
immediately go quiet.

     Finally, after what could have been minutes or hours or 
days, they paused.  At a certain point, in certain places, time
seems to cease in meaning, to cease having an effect upon you.
Ranma didn't know how long they'd been walking.  It didn't
matter.  It couldn't matter, because there was only the blue
light, and the earth and stone, and the powerful sound of water
flowing, and the mild feeling of the cord that bound his wrist to
Tarou's.

     He was not tired.  He should have been.  They'd been walking
for a long time, and he did not have his ki to fuel him now.  But
there was no room for exhaustion in him, because the age of where
they were pressed down upon him.  The sheer sense of the millions
of years bound up within the rock washed over him like a cool
stream, laid him bare, gave him peace.

     "Why did you stop?" Tarou asked.
     
     Kima looked at him languidly, a far-away expression in her
eyes.  She seemed detached.  "Because we are nearly there."

     From Ranma's shoulder, the blank-eyed raven took flight,
soaring off down a wide, rough-edged tunnel.  If the bird was
truly blind, he showed no sign of it, for he was graceful as his
brother in flight.  

     "Nearly where?" Tarou said suspiciously.  He planted his
feet firmly on the ground.  "Where are we?  I don't even know why
I followed you in the first place."

     And from somewhere inside him, somewhere that lay buried 
past thick layers of his own soul, Ranma found an answer rising.
"She awaits us."

     "Who awaits us?" Tarou said.
     
     Before anyone could answer, there came a voice, singing, 
from down the passageway.     
     
     *Oh hang not your head in sorrow*
     *When my soul goes out to sea*
     *For in time will come the morrow*
     *And the ocean sets you free*
     
     Ranma saw something flash across Tarou's face, a stricken
look as if he'd remembered something painful, and then it went
hard again, so hard it almost hurt to see.

     *Well my pilot is a maiden*
     *And she's fairer than a star*
     *And her hair with moonlight laden*
     *Lights the way to cross the bar*
     
     The voice was lovely, so lovely as to be pain, smooth as 
silk, soft and gentle as the caress of starlight, and yet somehow 
as loud as thunder.  It came from down the wide passageway that 
Kioku had taken his flight down.

     *So don't weep your tears of grieving*
     *When my soul goes out to sea*
     *If from life I take my leaving*
     *Then I'll live in memory*
     
     Tarou began to stride towards the passage, so quickly and 
unexpectedly that Ranma was almost pulled along trying to keep 
up.  The lines of his limbs and the bent of his body was rigid, 
furious.  He looked ready to kill.

     Kima and Cologne followed behind them, blue light wavering
around them in cloudy arms.  The passageway stretched down for
two dozen feet, and then turned.  With each step, the sound of
water flowing had grown louder.

     They turned the corner, and came then at that moment to the
first and oldest of two great underground rivers, the rivers that
flow from the source beneath Jusendo.  It roared through the
caverns beneath a craggy ceiling hung with drooping fangs of
stalactites, flowing fast, foaming white atop the darkness of the
waters.  It was wide and deep, swift and straight.

     And on the edge of the rocky shore, unanchored by any means
visible, not even bobbing up and down, there was a boat.  It was
shaped from black wood, long and wide with a tall, graceful prow 
in the shape of a dragon's head, and three rows of wooden 
benches.

     A figure, wreathed in a cloak and hood of starless night,
stood near the prow of the boat, holding a long pole in its 
hands.  Upon the curve of the prow, two ravens perched, one with
eyes like the darkness of an underground cavern, one with eyes
like the whitest of summer clouds.

     From the depths of the hood a voice spoke, whispering,
feminine, a muted shadow of the voice they'd heard singing.  "You
have come."

     "I want some answers," Tarou said in an enraged voice.  "Who
are you?"

     The head of the figure shifted slightly, the hood rippling
and hiding her features, if she was female.  Beyond the voice
there was no sign of gender, for the robes were billowing and
shadowy.

     For a moment, Ranma saw a flash of something in the hood,
something like the nova whirl of a distant nebula or the last
fading of a dying star.  Tarou made a strangled noise deep in his
throat and stumbled back a step, nearly bumping into Ranma.

     "Do not fear me," the figure said.  "I shall do you no 
harm."

     And she wouldn't, Ranma realized, knowing it with all his
heart and soul and being.  There was a sense of awesome, vast
power about the hooded and robed figure, as if she were far, far
larger than she appeared, the tip of an iceberg, a shadow of
something much greater.  There was awe in him, and the awe was so
great that it was much like fear, but it sprang from no worry 
that they would have harm done to them by this one.

     There was another glimmer in the robes, something silver and
sun-bright that winked out in the next second.  From the prow of 
the boat, Shiso lifted his voice.  "Are you coming or not?"

     Kima strode forward past Ranma and Tarou, the blue-lit lamp
dangling from her hand at her side.  Her boots tapped on the
stone softly as she moved, stepping forward and raising one leg
to place it in the bottom of the boat before stepping fully into
it.  It didn't rock an inch as she settled down into one of the
wooden seats, holding her lamp in her lap.  The feathered length
of her wings rested out over the back of the boat, nearly dipping
into the water.

     Ranma glanced to Tarou, questioning silently.  The older
boy's face was hard again, but it was a false hardness, a thin
layer disguising something hidden deep beneath.  

     "What the hell," Tarou said disgustedly.  "Come too far to 
turn back now."

     And he walked to the boat as well, and Ranma followed.  
They took seats in the boat, next to each other, the silver cord
spooled between them.  Kima was behind them, the robed figure in 
front near the prow.

     Still no definite feature could be seen of the face, nothing
beyond the suggestion of the lines of face or definitions of what
could have been mouth or nose.  The vague hint of the features 
were slender and vaguely feminine, but no more was visible but
that.  Ranma had a feeling that if he were to rise and pull back
the hood from the figure's face, what he would see beneath might
make him wish that he had not.

     Cologne was approaching from the shore, carrying Samofere in
her arms.  The blue light shining from the lamp Kima held turned
her face pallid and worn, but not nearly so as Samofere's.  He
looked half-dead, shrivelled, like a leaf touched with flame.  

     The figure raised the pole crosswise to her body as Cologne
reached the edge.  

     "You are not to come," she said in a voice like mist rising 
from the depths.

     "What?" Cologne whispered.  "Why?"
     
     "Because you are not," the figure said, without triumph, but
without sorrow as well.  "It is the way it is.  You and he shall
remain here."

     "But he needs help," Cologne said.  "He needs--"
     
     "The mercy that I could give him you would not desire," the
hooded one said.  

     "Cologne," Ranma said, looking up at her.  "It's alright.
You know it is."

     Cologne nodded, and sat down on the rocky ground.  She
cradled Samofere's head in her lap again.  "I shall see you when
you return, then."

     "If we return," Tarou muttered under his breath.
     
     "You shall," the cloaked figure said, turning her head to
regard him.  Shadows fell about her face and hid all of it, and a
pinprick of light flared somewhere about where her eyes might 
have been.  "I know it to be so."

     "You sound pretty confident about that," Tarou snorted.
     
     The figure said nothing, but turned and place her pole in
the water by the side of the boat.  A swift push sent it turning
around, against the flow of the river.  The boat seemed entirely
unaffected by the direction of the river, almost floating in its 
movement.

     "Give them the lamp, child," the robed one said to Kima,
gesturing with the pole to Cologne and Samofere on the bank.

     "But how will we see?" Kima inquired.
     
     "Where we must go, we shall not need light," the hooded
figure said.  Kima half-stood from her seat and put the lamp upon
the rocky bank of the river, then settled back down with a soft
sigh.

     "You people are all crazy," Tarou said, shaking his head.
     
     "Then why are you still here?" Ranma said.
     
     Tarou raised his arm and shook the silver thread at Ranma.
"Because I'm tied to you, gender-bender, and I don't feel like
dragging your ass behind me."

     "I'll drag you, _Pantyhose_," Ranma said, giving vent to
some of his frustration on Tarou with a snarl.  "I'll drag you--"

     Tarou threw a punch with his right hand, the one that the
thread was not attached to.  Ranma caught it in his right hand,
the thread dangling from his wrist, and swung his left fist at
Tarou.  

     Tarou caught that with his left hand, and rolled to the side
slightly on the bench, levelling a kick with his left foot at
Ranma's head.  Ranma trapped that with his right leg and managed
to manoeuvrer himself into a left-legged sweep kick at Tarou's
neck.  

     Tarou ducked his head and caught Ranma's leg behind the 
ankle in the crook of his right elbow.  He smirked.  "Run out of
limbs, fem-boy?"

     Then Ranma headbutted him in the chin.  Tarou's eyes crossed 
for a moment, and then he managed to loop the tangle of silver 
thread around Ranma's neck with a snarl, pulling Ranma's forehead 
down with a crunch into his knee.  From the shore, Cologne put 
her head in her hands and groaned softly.  

     The robed figure silently slipped her pole through the loops
of silver thread, twisted, and lifted the tangle of arms, legs 
and binding thread that was Ranma and Tarou effortlessly into the
air like hooked fish.  

     "Hey, wait--" the two of them echoed in unison, and then the
figure dunked them in the cold, dark water of the flowing river,
at which point they discovered it was absolutely true that the
thread negated Jusenkyou curses.

     "No fighting in the boat," Shiso said from his perch on the
prow, as the figure raised the two of them, spluttering and
dripping water, and dropped them back into the boat with a thump.

     The hooded shape turned away from them, starlight glittering
in the folds of her robe, and began to pole the boat smoothly
against the current.  

     Tarou and Ranma found their seats again, water pooling about
their feet as it dripped down their clothing.  

     Ranma shot the older boy a vicious glare, and hunkered down
in the seat with a scowl on his face.  Tarou was radiating rage
and tension like a furnace, but he seemed to hold even more
wariness of the robed figure than Ranma did.  

     He turned his head back to look at Kima.  She was silent,
unmoving, head turned to watch the rapidly-retreating blue glow
of the lantern that showed Cologne and Samofere by the shore.

     He stared past Kima and her crumpled wings for a long time,
until the blue lantern-glow was only a pinprick in a sea of
darkness all around him, and then it was gone, swallowed as if by
some great beast, and the night of underground became now
all-encompassing, as the boat carried them on into the black
depths of the earth.

**********

     Kima sat in the darkness and listened, to her own breathing,
to the sound of water flowing, to the occasional verbal sparring
between Ranma and Tarou where they sat in front of her.

     She wanted to tell the two of them to shut up.  She wanted
to scream, to rage, to lose control.  But she couldn't, because
if she did, she suspected she might not ever be able to get
control again.

     There was a dull ache between her shoulder blades, where her
wings had been.  Where they still were.  She could feel them
laying against her back like a thick cape, but all feeling was
gone from them.  The brush of cold air down in the caverns played
across her face, her hair, her bare arms, but she never felt it
on her wings.

     Crippled.  Lamed.  Landbound.
     
     Broken.
     
     Perhaps this truly was worse than death, she reflected.
Death, at least, was over and done with.  It didn't replay itself
in your head again and again, like this did.

     Helubor's crazed laughter, the mad struggle to escape the
grips of the guards, before her head slammed into the floor and
she felt the knife tearing through her wings at the joining
between them and her back before unconsciousness had engulfed
her, though only for a few short seconds.  When she awoke, she 
had thought at first he'd actually cut them off, maimed her 
permanently.  Then she'd seen the white feathers out of the 
corner of her eye, and realized he'd sliced out tendon and 
muscle.  The pain was excruciating; there was blood everywhere,
on the floor, on her, on her wings.  She couldn't even move
because of the agony.

     And that was nothing, compared to when Helubor cauterized
the wounds with a blade of flame, born from nothingness on his
hands.  She'd passed out then, mercifully, and awoken only when 
she'd been dumped onto the floor of the cell that the others had 
been held in.  Someone had cleaned her wounds and bandaged them; 
she wasn't sure who.  She hoped desperately it had not been 
Helubor; whoever had treated her would have needed to remove her 
clothing, and the thought of him looking upon her naked filled 
her with revulsion.

     Now she sat here, in the swift-moving boat that sped through
the darkness, listening to the sounds, because it seemed the only
thing to do.  She did not know what had come over her as they'd
gone down through the secret passageways hidden in the mountain;
she had been an observer inside her own skin, looking out through
her eyes as she led them down here.

     She knew where they were going.  To the north.  To Jusendo.
To the true source.  The thought of that, the thought that she
might again have to witness what lay beneath Jusendo, on top of
all this, made her want to scream, to weep.

     But she couldn't.  She had to be numb, had to be, because it
was the only thing letting her walk, letting her function.  It
was all that she had that would let her fight.  

     Helubor was mad.  Worse than mad.  He would bring about an
age of darkness such as had never been seen.  And she was not
even sure if the thought of Helubor as king frightened her as
much as the thought of Xande at his side.  

     She had never seen through the charade.  No one had.  And
how long, she wondered, had Xande sat their, hiding his darkness
in the cloak of senility, working his plots, a bloated, ancient
spider amidst his tangled webs.  He had to be the one truly
behind this; she could not credit Helubor with the intelligence
to pull this off.

     Xande had sat there, questioning her with Helubor, all 
pretence of dotage gone.  Helubor had yelled and raged, rose 
from the chair to strike her, ordered the guards to hold her 
while he hit her across the face.  Xande had sat and watched, a 
faint smile tugging at his withered lips.  He had been cold and 
hard as stone.

     Servants of the Dark.  Worshippers of the King of Ashes.
And because of her, because of what she'd done, they were now the
ruling power in Phoenix Mountain.

     And she had to be numb, because she had to stop them.  
There was no one else to do it.  Saffron was dead, Samofere was
dying, and she didn't even know if she could rely on the humans.

     The problem was, she didn't have any idea how she could stop
them.  The evidence pointed against her.  The one hope she had 
was Xande and Helubor's heavy-handed tactics in seizing control; 
the guns and the 'guarding' of the noble's families, those could 
be used against them, at least politically.  The question arose 
of whether there was actually the military force necessary to 
toss them out of power.  She needed to know more: how many troops 
Xande and Helubor had loyal to them, how many guns they had.  She 
needed to plan, but she had no information.

     So she sat there, in the darkness, and listened, and tried
to ignore the faint thoughts inside her head that told her that
her people's fate was sealed, and that Helubor had won, and oh,
worst, worst of all, the memories of flying, of the caress of 
air across skin and through wings, that continued to play 
themselves back through her head, against the realization that
she would never fly again.

     She had legs to walk with, though.  She had hands to wield a
sword with.  Harsh as Tarou's words had been, they had given her
that, at least.  She was still alive.  She could still fight,
albeit it far less effectively than before.  And she would fight,
until the end.

     The river seemed to be flowing faster now, from the sound of
it, though the boat travelled at the same speed it had before,
floating atop rather than upon the water, unaffected by current
or flow.  There was the soft sound of the pole breaking the
water every few seconds.  Suddenly, the boat stopped with the 
gentlest of bumps.
     
     "We are there," the soft, power-laden voice said from the
darkness near the prow of the boat.  The trip had taken but a few
minutes, but everything else told her that they were very far 
from where they'd begun.

     "Great.  I'm getting sick of sitting next to the 
crossdresser here," Tarou said, invisible but for his voice.  
     
     "The feeling is mutual, I assure you," Ranma replied after a 
moment in a low murmur.

     There was a soft crackling sound, and then a flare of white
fire came into being from the dragon-shaped prow of the boat.  
The source was the second raven, Kioku, his wings outspread as if
to take flight where he perched.  The luminescent flames that
rimmed his wings and body were the same pure white as his eyes,
and cast their light into the darkness all around, revealing at
last where they had come to.  The river came to a stop now, at
least for boat travel.  The ceiling was low here, barely tall
enough to stand straight up on the rocky shore.  

     From under a rough stone wall, the river flowed, the opening
above the water less than two feet high.  It was narrower here, 
flowing so fast that the boat should have been carried away with
the current in seconds.  

     Kima, Tarou and Ranma blinked their eyes in the sudden 
light, half-blinded for a few seconds as they adjusted from the
darkness to the light.

     "How come the bird didn't make the light before?" Tarou
griped.  "It would've been better than travelling in the dark
like that."

     "The darkness was a mercy," the robed and hooded woman said
softly.  "You would not have enjoyed the sights you would have
seen upon the waters that we travelled."  Something bright and 
white-hot winked amidst the shadows of the hood, and Tarou's 
mouth snapped shut.

     "Where are we now?" Ranma asked, although something in the
tone of his voice told Kima that he knew.

     "At the source of Jusenkyou," the tall, robed figure said.
"The true source.  Where the two rivers divide, at the great lake
beneath the mountain called Jusendo.  One flows south, to Phoenix
Mountain.  The other flows a shorter distance to the east, to
Jusenkyou.  Both rivers are bound with the power of change within
their waters, of transition, of the passing of one form to the
next."  There was a pause.  White fire-light shone amidst the
black depths of the robe, upon the plain wooden length of the 
pole the figure held.  "But all this is not for me to tell.  Go, 
and you shall see that which you must see."

     Shiso had begun to glow as well, with the same white fire as
his brother, the two of them near-twins of one another but for 
their eyes.  He took off from the dragon-shaped prow and soared
into the air of the low-ceilinged cavern through which the river
ran.  "This way."  With a mid-air gesture of his wings, he 
indicated a narrow opening on the rocky shore next to the 
underground river, only the first few feet of which could be seen 
beyond the entrance.  What could be seen revealed a steeply 
sloping natural ramp that led up into the darkness.

     Ranma and Tarou slowly stepped out of the boat, shooting
glares at each other.  

     "Don't trip and fall in the water or nothing, fem-boy.  It
would be terrible if you got swept away by the current," Tarou
said nastily.

     "Particularly because you'd get dragged along with me,
remember?" Ranma said, indicating the binding threads.  

     Kima shook her head and rose to stand.  The two of them were
worse than children.  They couldn't even see they were allies,
even if not by choice.

     "No," the robed figure said, raising an arm.  A hand slipped
from the folds, pale and perfectly formed as that of a statue,
without blemish or imperfection.  "Not you.  Not now."

     Kima sat back down in the boat.  On the shore, Shiso twirled
once in the air, and the motion of his flying, the simple, pure
grace in the air, made her heartsick, and the burn-scarred wounds
upon where her nerveless wings joined her back throbbed in 
torment.

     The black-eyed raven came to land upon Ranma's shoulder,
white fire wavering from him in a curtain, shining light about
the once-dark caverns that held the great underground river that
flowed south to Mount Phoenix.

     "Well, then," Ranma said with a sigh.  "Guess we'd better 
get going, huh Tarou?"

     "Going where?" Tarou demanded.
     
     "To sorrow's heart," Shiso said from where he rested on
Ranma's shoulder.  "To the place of pain."

     There was an impossible depth of sadness in the bird's 
voice, ancient and mournful.  His black eyes glittered, as the 
white fire wreathed his body in a cloak of blazing light.  

     "Sounds like fun," Tarou muttered, but he began to walk with
Ranma, up the ramp and into the darkness, the frosty light Shiso
shed showing the way.  The ramp curved after a dozen feet or so,
and then they and their light were out of sight, and Kima was
alone with the robed figure and the blank-eyed, burning form of
the other raven.  There was silence for a few moments, as Kima 
looked up at the hooded woman, if woman it was.  

     "Who are you?" she said finally.
     
     "I am the youngest of three sisters," the night-clad woman
said in a voice of gentle rain, pattering upon dark plains and
fog-shrouded mountains.  The power behind the tone and speech was
immense, all-encompassing, vast as all of creation.

     "Do you have a name?" 
     
     "I have more than one."
     
     The woman raised her arms and slid back the hood from her
face, with a soft sound of silk sliding across skin.
     
     For a fraction, only a fraction of a second, there was
something there, where shadows had been, something so impossibly
beautiful and awful that it made Kima's heart skip a beat.  It 
was a face, perhaps, composed of planes of sheer and aching 
light, of cold mist rising from frozen lakes, of angles and lines 
of a geometry that lay beyond the mind's ability to comprehend, a
face with eyes made from the fires at the heart of stars, so 
lovely and so terrifying that it was past her senses to remember 
any detail of beyond the sheer sense of ancient, impossibly great 
power bound up within it.

     And then it was only a face, a human face, so fair it was
almost heartbreaking, perfect and beautiful but for a single long
line along one cheek, a snow-white scar like a brand.  The eyes
were dark as a raven's wing, the hair darker, shining and silky 
in the white, luminescent fire streaming from Kioku's body.

     "You know me best, perhaps, as the White Bird," the maiden
said.  "The White Bird who bears the souls of the dead beyond the
sea in her great cold talons."

     And for a moment, there was the impression of wings all
about the woman, bigger than the caverns, sweeping and vast, pure
as snow, each feather longer than a tall man, and then it was
gone.

     Fear choked Kima.  The White Bird.  The one who rules in the 
Nest of the Dead.  The servant of the King of Ashes, who tears 
out the souls of living creatures with her great sharp beak.

     The face of the woman was filled with impossible agony.  "Do
not be afraid.  Please, child, do not be afraid.  There is 
nothing to fear from me, or from that which is my domain.  I am
not to be feared.  Some of the ways in which you may come to me
are worthy of fear, but those ways are his, and not mine, and I 
serve him no longer.  I have not for a very long time.  None of
us have."

     There was such compassion in the words and on the face, such
terrible pain in the voice and expression.  Slowly, the gasping,
soul-aching fear left her, replaced by awe at the sheer sense of
power the woman radiated.

     "I can stay here but a short while," the woman said.  "This
place is of my sister's power, and she is not awoken.  Soon I 
must go."

     "Where?" Kima said.  
     
     "To the north," the woman said.  "Beyond the Desert of the
Claw, to the seat of my power.  But you shall not remember that,
nor any else of what I have told you, nor of what you glimpsed of
me.  It is not allowed, not yet."

     "Then why did you show me?" Kima said.
     
     "Because I chose to," the woman said, and smiled sadly.  
"There is one memory I will give you, and that is this.  They did
this thing that they have done to you for two reasons.  The first
is because they wish to use you as an example.  The second is
because it is a greater pleasure to their master to see a servant
of the Light destroy themselves to have his servants destroy 
one."

     "What did you call me?" Kima asked softly.
     
     "A servant of the Light," the tall woman said, black eyes
shining in the light the still form of Kioku cast.  "You are, are
you not?  Have you not seen my middle sister's agony, and wished
it ended?  Have you not seen my eldest sister's beauty, and 
revelled in it?"

     She could give no answer to that.  She closed her eyes,
bowed her head, and remembered.     
     
     "The battle has barely yet begun," the woman said 
cryptically.  "Be brave, dear one.  The way is hard, and it is
not without its pain."

     There was a gentle kiss upon her forehead, soft as summer
rain, and then darkness.     
     
**********
     
     So now, Cologne reflected, it was as it had been in the
beginning, only the two of them.

     She cradled Samofere's head in her lap, sitting there upon
the dark stone shore beneath the earth, as the powerful river
that led from Jusendo to Phoenix Mountain roared by through the
riverbed it had carved itself over the impossible geologic span
of years, down through millions of spinnings of the sun and moon
and stars.

     The blue light of the lamp shed itself across the cavern,
sparkling on the foaming darkness of the river, picking out the
chips of mica and quartz that lay amidst the vast expanses of 
grey stone and making them sparkle like jewels, like stars.

     The river rushed by, and Cologne remembered something, and
that was that all rivers flowed at last to the sea, no matter how 
long or short their passage might be.  All waters returned at 
last to that which birthed them, and perhaps then the separations
that were given to oceans and to rivers were fragile, temporary
things, human things, human ways of definition.

     Samofere's eyes were closed.  His breathing was slow, and
would have been unnoticeable to anyone without the kind of 
training in the arts of medicine that she had.  He was growing
worse, gradually, his dark skin becoming more pallid with each
passing breath.

     Cologne realized that she was holding one of his hands in
both of hers, and had been for some time.  The flesh was rough
and pebbled, the nails taloned, gnarled into claws by long age.
In his youth, she remembered, in the youth she'd seen him in
hours ago, they'd been nearly human.  So close, so close.  But
just not close enough.

     Like them.
     
     There was a century of denial in her that had begun to die
some time ago, a century of hardening herself, and the first
crack had come when the monster that had sometimes worn a man's
shape had told her that Samofere was dead.

     And there had been hope, such hope burning in her, when he'd
first come back, young again, young as she was, as beautiful as
she remembered.  
     
     Then had come that last revelation, of four thousand years
of deceit, of a century of lying to her.  He'd shared so much
with her, or pretended to, of his thoughts, of his feelings, of
his dreams.  And none of them had been real, but constructions of
the life he'd chosen to lead in that false incarnation, as he'd
led dozens of others down through the centuries.

     And like him, she'd shared as well.  She'd told him things
she would never have told to anyone else.  She would have told
him truth in anything he asked, save one thing and one thing
only, because she'd realized a long time ago that the thing she
desired most from him lay beyond both of them.  There was too
much between; too many barriers of culture and mind and race.

     Now, in the face of his dying, she wanted to tell him that
final thing, but found it beyond herself, and she hated herself
for that.  She had thought herself gone beyond any of this after
more than a hundred years, beyond feelings that had belonged to a
girl who had been very, very different from the old woman who was
alive now in that young girl's body.

     But she could not deny her own heart.  Not in this.  Not
anymore.  And how much, she wondered, was the girl of yesterday
bound up in the body now worn?  Perhaps they had always been one 
and the same, the girl of yesterday, the crone of today.  
Perhaps she had always been there, waiting.  

     Wasn't it all right, then, at last?  And just as she 
realized that, he stopped breathing.
     
     "No..."
     
     She thought that this time, he would not start again.
     
     "No..."
     
     You could talk forever about peace, Cologne realized, and 
mercy, and better worlds than this one, and the cycle of life, 
but most of that ceases to be a comfort when one you love lies
dying before you and you can do nothing.

     And then he opened his mouth, and drew one last, aching,
painful breath of air.  His eyes opened slightly; there was the
flash of the deep, liquid green of their irises, pained in the
blue light of the lamp, cloudy.

     And then, with an exhalation, like the last fading of the
wind, he spoke a word.  "Cologne..."

     Her name.
     
     He closed his eyes again.  
     
     "Don't go," she whispered fiercely, pulling the aged body
against her and embracing it, stroking her fingers through the
downy feathers of his wings.  How she'd loved to see them in her
youth, she remembered, dreaming of how they'd feel beneath her
hands, wondering what his hands would feel like upon her body,
what the taste of his lips on hers would be.  She'd always 
imagined that they would taste of the sky, of the air, of sweet 
water.  

     They'd tasted bitter, the one time she'd kissed him, but 
that had been her fault.  It was why she could never hold 
against Shampoo her actions with the pills from the bracelet or
the kairaishi mushrooms; how could she blame the girl for making
the same mistakes she had at that age?

     "Please," she said, not hearing even a sign of breath.  
"Please, don't leave me.  I need you, Samofere.  I need you.  I
don't care about anything else of what you've done, or who you've
been.  I need you."

     The blue light seemed dimmer.  He was going, now, and she
didn't want him to, she realized with an ache in her soul.     

     "Don't leave me," she pleaded, barely a whisper, realizing
that tears were streaming down her face, not even caring that 
they were.  "Oh, by the gods, don't leave me.  I--"

     There was a sound like the earth sighing.  The blue light of
the lamp extinguished, and left them in darkness.  She heard a 
sound that might have been the river rising higher in its bank, 
as if in reply to the vanishing of the light.

     She felt her heart beating, slow and steady, like the roll
of waves upon the beach.  She remembered a beach, and oh, when 
had that been, when last she'd truly seen the ocean, and ran in
the gentle waves, laughing, leaving footprints on the white sand 
behind her that would roll away with the tides?

     She remembered being on the beach with Happosai once, long,
long ago, before he'd become what he was now, remembered his
lithe, slender shape, tanned dark by the sun, darting through the
waters of the ocean with the sheer, simple pleasure of movement, 
his plain, roguish face smiling at her, made handsome by the joy 
in it.  The sky overhead had been blue, the sun warm, the sand 
coarse and hot against her bare back when she'd lain down with
him, trying to end what sorrow she bore for what she couldn't
have in him, and never managing it.

     That was the first time she'd been to the ocean, she 
realized, when Happosai took her.  The Joketsuzoku village had 
lain far inland, and though she'd swam in the mountain streams, 
she'd never seen the vast beauty of the ocean until her twentieth 
year, when she left to go after Happosai and the treasures he'd 
taken, and found in him more than she'd ever intended or wanted.
What they'd had was not meant to last; they were too separate,
too different, and he never would have allowed himself to be tied
down to anyone, never allow himself the vulnerability of truly
needing someone, and down through the decades he'd become twisted
upon himself and his own lusts.

     She'd loved him too, she realized, who he had been, and she
sorrowed at what he had become, because he could have been so
much more, if only things had been different.

     Why did everything have to change, to depart, to fall away?
Why did she have to remain alive, the same, while everything she
loved died, in body or in spirit or in soul?

     And finally, there was this, that last closing, that last
barred gateway, the last barrier, the last denial.  It was still 
there, still choking her.  Still stubbornly holding, with all 
those decades of bitterness and pain and loss, against this final
desire, this final admittance.  

     But now it no longer held her, because she refused to let 
it.  The tears on her face were hot.  In her arms, Samofere's
body was cold.  There was darkness everywhere.

     "Don't go," she said, beyond a whisper.  "Don't leave me.  
Please.  I love you."

     And those last three words rolled out from the centre of her
soul, from all her being, like a tidal wave, and the last of that
barrier fell before it, was washed away in that sense of sheer,
aching love she felt in that moment.  There was a sensation of
tugging on her wrist, where the thread bound them, a pulling of
the body and the soul, as she laid herself bare to him at last,
and let the denial die.

     Silver light exploded through the air, along the thread,
along their bodies, crackling and making the hairs of her body
stand on end.  She saw his face, his eyes closed, his flesh
mapped with wrinkles, his hair white.  She saw it stretched tight
over the skull beneath.

     There was a cleaving through her being, as if her soul and
mind and body had been wrenched in two.  The pain was everywhere, 
infinite, unendurable, and she opened her mouth to scream.

     The scream was swallowed by a rush of pure pleasure so 
intense that, for a moment, there was no room for anything but.
She'd heard pleasure talked about as being so great that it was
a pain.  This should have been, for it was surely great enough.
It wasn't.
     
     There was an impossible sense of joining, of connection,
beyond anything she'd ever felt.  Light seemed to swell inside
her body, warming, comforting.

     And slowly, she felt slim, strong arms wrapped around her
back and draw her close.  She saw, through the blurred sight of
tears, darkness descending, in the form of two vast, 
black-feathered wings that fell all about her and embraced her
like his arms did.  They smelt of clean water and cool mountain
air.

     There was a face in front of hers, young, green-eyed,
handsome.  It looked pale and tired, but life seemed to be 
filling it each second.

     "Oh my dear Cologne," Samofere whispered, agony in the tone.
"You have no idea what you have done by letting yourself love
me so much."

     Cologne looked to the side, and saw the blackened remains of
the thread upon the stone floor of the cavern.  She looked back 
to Samofere.  

     He was so beautiful.
     
     She smiled.  "I don't care."
     
     "But--"
     
     "Did you hear me?  I don't care."
     
     She took her hands from where they'd been holding his wings
and back, and placed one gently on each side of his slim face.
The moment seemed frozen.  The silver light was everywhere,
streaming from her, from her clothes and hair and skin, from him,
from his wings and body and eyes.

     "Cologne," he said, a movement of his lips, wonder in the
tone.  "Why--"
     
     She smiled again, pulled his face to hers and kissed him, 
and did not stop until she was sure he would be silent.  By that
time, the silver light was gone altogether, and there was only
the darkness.

     And then, finally, at last, there in the darkness, guided
only by the feel of each other's body, by the aching of their own
souls, by the pain in their two hearts, the two of them came 
together at last, proud child of a warrior race and a man 
haunted by the darkness of his own soul, as they had always been 
meant to.  

**********

     Following the blazing form of Shiso, Ranma and Tarou wound
their way up a spiralling, sloping natural ramp that led them
higher and higher up into the caverns.  The walls were oddly
smooth as they passed, and the air clung damply down here, heavy
and claustrophobic.

     White light from the raven played off the silver cord that
hung between them, sparkling like sun across a clear lake.  There
was always the sound of water flowing, no matter how high up they
went.

     "So," Tarou said conversationally after a long period of
silence.  "What do you make of all this, fem-boy?"

     "If you want to hear what I make of it, then quit calling me
names," Ranma muttered.  He was feeling tired and weary; his body
ached.  The air seemed to pressing down upon him like hands.  His
head pounded, a plain headache, no fire, no ice.  

     "But it's so entertaining," Tarou said.  "And you always 
take the bait."

     "It's not like you don't, Pan--"
     
     "Uh," Tarou said, holding up a finger.  "We're away from
anyone who might decide to dunk us in the water.  Watch it."

     "You watch it," Ranma snapped back.  "I'm not in the mood to
deal with you, Tarou.  I'm not ever in the mood to deal with you,
but right now is a really, really bad time."

     "Is it that time of month, then?"
     
     Ranma turned and was swinging his fist as soon as the words
were out of Tarou's mouth.  Tarou was expecting it, of course, 
and ducked to the side.  Ranma's fist crashed into the wall 
behind him; his knuckles scraped open against the stone and he
was sure he felt bone shift.

     Tarou grabbed him by the collar of the shirt with his free
hand and cocked back his other fist.  "You're no match for me no 
matter what state the two of us are in, so don't even try."

     Stop.
     
     "Huh?" Tarou said, relaxing the grip slightly.
     
     Is not my pain enough?
     
     "Do you hear that too?" Ranma said, trying to concentrate
and form the words through the aching pain in his hand; he 
thought he might have broken the bone, hitting stone that hard
without any protection.
     
     "I don't hear anything," Tarou said with a snarl.  His grip
tightened, and the muscles of his raised arm and fist tensed.

     No.
     
     Sorrow, inexplicable and sourceless, descended upon Ranma
like a weight.  It was a hammer blow of pure anguish that drove
him to his knees.  Tarou's grip vanished; through eyes 
threatening to blur with tears, Ranma saw from the cast of
Tarou's face that the same thing had happened to him.

     There shall be no pain here but mine.
     
     "Oh my god," Tarou said, barely a whisper.  "What is that?"
     
     Is not my pain enough?
     
     "It's her," Ranma answered in a choked voice.  The terrible 
feeling of grief made it hard to talk.  He couldn't explain it; it 
was without cause, but it was there.  

     Is not my suffering enough for all the world?
     
     "The dragon?" Tarou asked, as if wanting to hear a denial.
     
     "Yeah," Ranma said.  "Oh... oh, no... how can it be..."
     
     There was nothing with which to describe it, no words with
which to compass it or render it into a way that could possibly
be understood.  He felt as if his heart would tear itself from 
his chest, as if his very self would somehow be subsumed beneath 
that aching, awful sadness that filled his entire being.  

     What spoke was not inside his head, or heard from outside.
It was simply his own thoughts, and yet they originated from
outside.  It was his voice, his inner voice, speaking in the
words of another.

     "Come on," Shiso called gently from up ahead, soft and deep.
"Come on."

     And in that voice, in that voice there was something that
could not and would not be denied.  Ranma felt like a man upon
the edge of a cliff who longs with all his soul for the empty
embrace of the air beyond and the plunging flight that follows.
He knew that what was awaiting him would leave him changed, just
as what he'd seen beneath Ryugenzawa had left him changed; he
knew not if it would be for better or for worse, but he knew that
he must go, beyond any shadow of doubt.

     He looked to Tarou, across the distance of the silver chain
between them, and realized that all he felt was mirrored in the
angry, bitter soul of the other.  Tarou looked pale, his body a
study in rigid tension, 

     All he felt was mirrored there and more, because he was not 
afraid, not that, and he realized that Tarou was.  

     "The bird's right," Ranma said.  "We've got to go on.  We
can't turn back."

     He started to walk after Shiso, up the gradual slope of the
tunnel.  He stopped when he felt a jerk on the line as it went
tight.  Looking back, he saw that Tarou wasn't moving.

     "Come on, Tarou," Ranma said, not unkindly.  "Come on.  
"We've got to go on."

     "She's inside my head," Tarou said to no one in particular, 
half in wonder and half in pain.  "She knows me."

     "Huh?"
     
     "She knows me," Tarou said, his voice sounding far away,
disconnected.  He grabbed at his skull with white-knuckled 
fingers.  "Please.  Get out.  Get out."

     I only wish to know that you might know yourself.
     
     The hanging, heavy sorrow seemed to have direction now,
purpose.  It was a presence, hanging around the subterranean
depths of the caverns like a clear mist.  It watched from the 
walls, the ceiling, the floor, from behind your eyes and inside 
your skin.  It was not hostile, not angry, and it did not mean 
them harm.

     But the sorrow it held, the pain it bore, those were beyond
comprehension.  It was a silent dirge, a mourning-song from a
muted throat, the agonized cry of the voiceless, a humming
background noise of grief to every thought, every movement.

     Then, it was gone, abruptly, though the lingering sense of
sadness still remained upon Ranma.  He felt the weight upon his
soul ease, just a little.

     "It's gone," Tarou gasped, sagging sideways against the
stone wall.  "It's gone--"

     He appeared only then to realize he was speaking out loud, 
and the momentary weakness seemed to vanish from him as he drew 
himself up straighter and walked quickly past Ranma.  Up the 
winding slope of the tunnel, the flaming form of Shiso hovered 
and swooped in the air, keeping them at the edge of his light.

     "You felt more than I did, didn't you?" Ranma asked.
     
     Tarou looked at him and tried to make something resembling
his usual sneer.  "Maybe I did.  There's so much more mind for it 
to get at, after all."

     But the haunted look in his eyes betrayed him.  The effect 
of the presence had been even worse for him, although Ranma could
not even imagine what that could be like.  He didn't want to
imagine what it would have been like.

     "Do you want to go on?" Ranma asked.
     
     Tarou snorted.  "Of course I do.  You think I'm scared or
something?"

     Deciding it was best not to reply, Ranma simply started
walking again, and this time there was no resistance from Tarou.
Up and up they walked, following the raven-fire, until the 
twisting of the passage became straight, until the floor levelled
out from the vertical slope to a straight horizontal.  It was
worn smooth, as if by the passage of many feet.  

     Up ahead, Shiso hovered in the air, wings still and spread
to his sides, the white fire dim next to the golden light bathing
the passage from within the tall, wide exit, square-cut as if
by mortal hands.  Across the lip of wall above the exit, five
twisting sigils, long-faded into the stone, shone with the same
white fire that Shiso was giving off.  They were in no tongue
Ranma had ever seen or heard.

     Beyond the exit, the air glowed vaguely golden, like a haze 
of heat.  No ceiling could be seen, and no floor, and no walls 
but the rough grey stone expanse that had to lie nearly a 
thousand feet across from the exit.

     In silence, in step together without realizing it, the two
of them walked with hesitant steps to the edge of the passage, 
and amidst the golden light that made everything as bright as 
noonday, they gazed down.  Upon the place of pain.
     
     Beyond the passage lay an underground cavern so vast it
defied comprehension.  Circular in shape, a thousand feet across,
nearly that in height, the largest stalactites hanging from the
ceiling tall as ten men, it was a great rough bell of stone, and 
at the bottom, in the centre, the true source of Jusenkyou lay.

     From two hundred feet above, Ranma and Tarou looked upon the
great golden shape of the Dragon of Change, where she lay in the
centre of the cavern, half-submerged in the great shallow lake 
that shone golden, golden as the air, golden as her.

     Ranma's mouth opened and closed in silent horror, for by the
shape and definition of form, by the noble line of body, he could
see that the dragon was as beautiful as her sister.  Or had been.
     
     He realized where the shape and line of the phoenix came 
from now, for it had to have come from her.  The great head was
avian in form, the tail long and bestreamed with thick golden
plumes, the scales so fine as to be like feathers.  In rough 
shape, in lineage, the one who was beneath Jusendo was like her 
sister beneath Ryugenzawa, but after that she bore no more 
resemblance than Kima did to Cologne.

     Because even beyond the golden shine of the body, even 
beyond the vast plumed tail and the matching golden plumes upon
her head, there were the wings.  Each was fully as long as the 
two-hundred foot length of her body, swept out to the sides, 
covered in long patterns of scales that were red-gold and purple 
and orange, that had once been beautiful and were beautiful 
still, but only a shadow of the former beauty.  Because the 
dragon was a prisoner, and she was not free, and the beauty that 
she held was tarnished gold, a lovely thing broken.  

     In the caverns below, the waters swirled around her body, 
from six great underground rivers that flowed into the cavern,
and two great underground rivers that flowed out.  The waters 
were golden too, spotted with shining flecks upon and below 
their surface.  Blood; dragon's blood.

     That was the power of Jusenkyou, the power of the cursed
springs.  It was power paid for in sorrow and pain beyond
imagining, power paid for in beauty's blood, in the blood that 
flowed from three great wounds that scarred the huge, noble body 
of the dragon.     
     
    Two were upon the wings, in almost mirrored spots near the 
centre of each.  In a time so long in the past that Ranma could
only wonder at when it had been, a great stalactite had ripped
free from the ceiling and pierced each wing.

     Taller than a house, nearly twenty feet across at the top in
width, the fallen formations had torn through the delicate 
membrane and shining scales and pinned the dragon to the floor of
the shallow lake.  Great lumpy rings of raw red scar tissue were
built up around each wound, and around what had wounded her.  Yet
golden blood flowed always from around the wounds, running down 
the wings and into the water, leaving stains upon the bright 
beauty of the scales.

     Upon the right side of the dragon was the third wound, vast
and gaping, crimson and unhealing amidst the golden scales.  
Shattered chunks of stone from a stalactite even larger than the
ones piercing the wings lay nearby, in the water and upon the
land, giving testament to what had given the wound.  The blood 
seeped golden from that wound as well, into the water, the water
that spiralled and circled and gathered the blood into itself.

     And worst, worst of all, the dragon lived, had lived for
untold ages and would live for ages more.  The great eyes were 
closed, the breathing unseeable, but the great creature writhed 
with glacial slowness in her torment, wounding herself further 
upon the spikes that pinned her wings, scraping open the wound of 
her side upon the floor of the lake.

     The golden blood flowed, into the water, and it gave the 
water the power embodied within her, the flowing magic of 
transition that was her nature, the might and scope of the 
changes of state and existence that all things undergo to 
preserve themselves.  It was that power, twisted upon itself and 
made a thing of sorrow, that made Jusenkyou what it was.

     The cavern was awash in the golden light, and Ranma wished
it were darkness, so that he would not have to see any more, so
that he could erase the image from his mind, even though he knew
that he would never be able to do that.

     He looked to Tarou, and saw the agony laid bare upon his
face, because even he, with all his bitter soul, could not stand
untouched against this.

     Ranma had wept beneath Ryugenzawa, at the beauty, at the
love that had been offered to him without condition by the 
dragon.  He wanted to weep now, but he wasn't allowed, he wasn't
allowed to weep at this, because what of his pain could compare
to the pain of she that lay below?  What right did he have to 
weep at that sight, when his sorrow was nothing next to hers?

     There was a spiralling black shape, twisting in a dive
towards the bottom of the cavern.  Shiso.  He was covered in
light from the caverns, white flame gone, golden glow clinging to 
his body like mist.  He swooped and soared, left trails of 
red-gold in his passage, and came down to perch upon the 
shoreline next to the great lake, a tiny black speck.  To each 
side of him, two rivers flowed into the lake, their waters 
spiralling around the dragon, gathering her blood, before they
flowed out in two other streams, one that went to Mount Phoenix,
one that went up the reaches of the mountain to the waterfall
that sourced Jusenkyou.  The blood would dilute, become 
invisible, but the power would remain.

     Shiso was a dot of black upon the grey stone, a dot of black
upon the dragon's golden head when he fluttered up and lay upon
the golden mane, spreading his wings, as if to embrace, as if to
offer comfort.  The dragon's head, upon the graceful arch of her
neck, lay upon the shore, eyes shut tightly.

     Ranma saw there were rough stairs, steep and narrow, leading
down from where he and Tarou stood, and he realized, though all 
of him screamed to turn back, that he could not.  His feet led
him downwards, and Tarou's feet led him, down the stairs with
careful steps, the presence of the sorrow returned a 
hundredfold, a burden to bear, but no burden next to the pain of
what lay bound beneath Jusendo, so he had to act as if it were no
burden at all.

     He was a child again, a scared and frightened child, as the
two of them reached after long minutes the bottom of the stairs.
The dragon was huge, impossibly big, bigger than any living thing
should have been.  Yet even with the crippling that had been done
to her, she still held grace within her form that was beyond 
anything a creature of her size should have managed.  And she was 
so beautiful, and in so much torment, that it hurt the soul to 
see.

     Ranma walked across the stone floor, footsteps tapping in
time with Tarou's, the silver cord stretched between them.  The
sound of water flowing was almost overpowering, and the sense of
immense age pressed down upon them.  Water dripped from the
ceiling in tiny drops, falling upon their hands, their faces.
They did not change; the power of their bonds prevented that.

     They stood now before the great shining head of the dragon.
It was a mix between avian and serpentine, many times taller than     
they were.  The eyes were closed; the dragon did not seem to
breathe.  Only that continual writhing displayed any sign on 
life.

     Shiso was a crumpled black shape against the dragon's mane,
shaking as if with silent grief.  Ranma gazed up at the golden 
head, and felt a trembling rise from within his soul like a
plucked string, pain soaring through his body.  He did not
understand how he could still stand to move, yet he could.

     "Oh, noble one," he whispered, barest voice, pain in his
heart as he reached out and laid his hand against the golden
scales near the closed jaws.  "Why has this thing been done to
you?"

     The scales shifted beneath his hand, and he leapt back in 
shock as a long, glimmering golden scale fell to the stone with a 
soft metallic sound.  

     "Why doesn't she speak to us again?" Tarou asked from where
he stood.  His voice held no anger, no bitterness, nothing of
what it usually did.  He sounded lost and frightened and alone.

     "She can't," Ranma murmured, kneeling to pick up the scale
from the ground.  "Not in here.  Not in this place."

     "But why is she here? Tarou asked.  "Did she just lie here
while the stalactites fell?"

     And slowly, with horror and sadness, Ranma realized that
this was what had happened.  The dragon was too powerful, too
mighty, for her not to have been willing for this to happen.

     She had known, Ranma understood.  She had known what would 
happen, and had stayed here while it did.   It had been a 
sacrifice given freely, for some reason he did not know.

     The scale was warm in his hands as he gripped it carefully.
The edge glittered in the golden light, and the scale shed its
own light as well.  Everything was golden, harshly golden.  It
was as long as his forearm and hand, hard and rigid as steel.

     "Yeah," he said finally.  "I think that's what she did."
     
     "But why?" Tarou said.  "Why would anyone.. anything do 
that?"

     "I don't know," Ranma said.  "I really don't."
     
     He remembered, what had been said in a voice that was not
his, and yet was:  Is not my suffering enough for all the world?

     "Why did we come here?" Tarou asked.  "Why did we come 
here?"

     "So we could see," Ranma whispered.  "So we could realize.
This is what Jusenkyou is about, Tarou."

     He raised the scale, gold flashing through the air.  "And so
that we could be free.  She has made us free."

     He touched the edge of the scale to the silver thread, in
the centre.  It parted and unravelled, fell to the floor and
shrivelled to nothing.  Ranma dropped the scale to the stones and
rubbed at his wrist, feeling weariness leave him, feeling a part
that had been cloven from him return.

     "We're no longer tied together, Tarou," he said, his voice
weighted by pain, by regret as old as time.  "You don't have to
come with me anymore.  I'm going out of here.  I'm going back to
the boat.  I'm going to see what I can do to help Kima.  To stop
Helubor."

     Tarou said nothing.  He had both his hands pressed to the
golden side of the dragon's neck, his cheek laid against the cool
scales.  He was on his knees, his face stricken with pain.  His
eyes were clamped tightly closed.  His body trembled,

     Ranma turned away, a sadness rising in him for Tarou as 
well, although he could never know why.  He couldn't find it in
himself to feel anger, to feel anything even remotely resembling
hatred.  There wasn't room for it; not amidst all the sorrow, not
amidst all this pain.  Hate seemed futile and useless in the face
of this endless suffering.

     A soft weight settled on his shoulder, smelling of feathers
and clean water and mountain air.

     "Hello, Shiso," Ranma said, and reached up to stroke the
bird's dusky feathers.  The bird was silent in return, his eyes
so far away, so deep and dark, that Ranma could not look at them
for long for fear of falling within and being lost.

     Not looking back, Ranma walked away.  He walked up the 
narrow, steep stairs that led to the passage.  He walked down the
twisting warren of sloping tunnels that led back down to where
they'd left the boat, Shiso's white fire again lighting his way.

     It was only when he could contain his grief and hold it
within no longer, when he slumped down against a stone wall to
wrap his arms around himself and sob like a child, for beauty
lost and for sacrifice willingly given, that he truly realized 
that Tarou had not followed him out of the cavern of the dragon.

**********

     The five winged men gathered around the circular stone table
were frightened.  Decades of plotting and intrigue within Phoenix
Mountain's complex political system had not prepared them for
this.  

     Prince Helubor lowered his hand.  A few feet in front of 
him, a loose piece of bone fell from atop the pile of ash and
clattered to the floor.  The air of the large chamber stank of 
scorched flesh.  Moments before, the pile of ash had consisted of 
two guards who had been unlucky enough to report that the 
prisoners had, somehow, escaped.

     Helubor had asked for explanations.  They hadn't been able
to give them.  He'd raised his hand, and the air between him and
the two guards had caught fire.  They'd died almost instantly,
but their screams had been loud enough to still echo in the ears
of those five who had just witnessed it.

     "You killed them," Lord Kavva said finally, shock on his
dark face.  The common people of the mountain weren't treated
particularly well by the nobles, but there was nothing like this.

     You oppressed the commoners, you took their tribute, you
ordered them to investigate the strange noises coming from the
caverns and halls that later turned out to have been a group of
invading Japanese martial artists.  All in Saffron's name, of
course.

     But you didn't kill them.  The population was too small for
that.  Every child born, commoner or noble, was treasured, every
life lost prematurely, mourned.

     "Well," said the hunched, shrivelled form of Xande where he
sat across the table from the five nobles.  "This does lend a
certain amount of urgency to the proceedings, doesn't it?"

     "Yes," Lord Mazarin said, his face pale.  "I suppose it
does."

     "Urgency or not," Kavva said.  "I have no intention of
proclaiming a king without knowing for sure that it is for the
best, and if you think you can frighten us into..."

     "How is your wife and son, Kavva?" Helubor said, taking his
seat again at the table.  "Do you think the guards we have for
them are adequate?  Accidents do happen, you know.  Accidents do
happen."

     Kavva went silent.
     
     "If we proclaim you king, you will of course make every
effort to track down both the outsiders and the two traitors?"
Mazarin said, shaking his brown-speckled wings and looking as if
he wanted to be sick.

     "If they are traitors," Kavva muttered.
     
     "Judgement has already been passed on Kima," Helubor said.
"And who cares for punishing outsiders or one old man, so long as
we are safe inside the mountain?"

     "You had no right to do that," Kavva said.  "No right to
pass judgement by yourselves."

     "Not under the old laws, not really," Xande said.  "But 
desperate times, desperate measures... or something like that.  
Anyway, uh... Oh, where was I..."  The old man's head drooped 
slightly and he let out a sighing snore.

     "It's quite simple," Helubor said, indicating the elaborate,
gold-inked scroll on the table.  "You can proclaim me king for
now.  The people are in panic.  Saffron is dead.  The people need
a king.  You know how the commoner mind works.  They need a king.
And with my cousin, uncle and father vanished, and my grandfather 
now dead, there is no one to fill the position but I.  My mother
is royal only by marriage, and my sister, is of course, out of
the question."  He smiled ferally.  "Unless you wish a woman 
king.  You did, after all, allow one to be seneschal.  But look 
where that got us."

     Kavva frowned.  "We still have no--"
     
     "You never answered me, Kavva?" Helubor said.  "How is your
wife and son?  And you, Mazarin?  Your own son, your wife, your
sister, how are they?"

     The silence hung palpably in the stone chamber.  

     Kavva glanced to the proclamation upon the stone table, and
then to the pile of ash upon the floor.  He thought of his wife
and his wounded son.

     He looked up, into Helubor's reddish-brown eyes and cold
smile.  He thought again of his wife and son, and of the guns
that guarded them, and the troops loyal to Helubor and Xande that
held them.

     He dipped his pen into the inkwell, a sick feeling in his
heart.  But what choice did he have?  The people needed a king.
On the floor, the ashes shifted slightly, though there was no 
wind to stir them into motion.