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 16 : Fire in the Lake

Water and fire shall rot,
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
This is the death of water and fire.
-T.S. Eliot

     She dreamt of flying when she slept, even though she didn't
want to.  She dipped and soared, over mountains and oceans and
rivers, and the wind rushed through her hair and across her skin.
The sky was blue, and the sun was golden.

     Then she woke, lying upon the shore of an underground river,
with a boat bobbing in the current nearby, anchored to a spar of
rock on the floor by a fine silk rope.  Upon the dragon-shaped
prow, a black bird that lit the darkness with white fire peered
down at her with eyes the colour of new clouds.

     And she remembered that she could no longer fly, and held in
the weeping, and pushed it down inside, and the blank eyes of the 
raven stared down at her with sadness.

**********

     When Ranma walked out of the passage, the boat was where it
had been before, only this time it was tied to a protruding
stalagmite.  The hooded woman who had poled the boat was gone as
well.  

     Kima was sitting with her back against the wall, crippled
wings limp behind her.  She was holding Kioku on one gauntleted
wrist, gently stroking his glossy feathers in a continuous 
rhythm.  The raven still burned white, like his dark-eyed brother 
burned on Ranma's shoulder to cast away the darkness.

     "You're back," she said simply.
     
     "Has it been long?" Ranma asked, walking over and sitting
down across from her.  The river flowed powerfully nearby through
the underground caverns, rushing down to the south towards Mount 
Phoenix.

     "I don't know," Kima said.  "I slept, I think."
     
     "Where'd the woman who was with the boat go?" he asked.
     
     A strange, vacant expression passed across her face for a
moment.  "Away."

     Ranma nodded, deciding it was better to just accept that as
an answer.  After all that he'd seen, some things simply had to 
be taken as they were.

     "Where did the other one go?" Kima asked.
     
     "Tarou?"
     
     "Yes."
     
     "He stayed behind," Ranma said.  "With the dragon.  I think
he did."

     Kima closed her eyes and drew a long breath.  "I see."
     
     "Was it... was it bad for you when you went there?" Ranma
asked.

     She nodded.  "I probably cried as much as you did."
     
     Ranma looked away.  "I didn't-"
     
     "Your eyes are all red," she said.  "There's no shame in it.
No shame at all."

     He nodded.  There wasn't, really.  Not for that.  Not for
the undying, tortured beauty that lay beneath Jusendo.

     "How are you feeling?" he asked.  "Are you-"
     
     "I'll be alright," she said.  "I think I will.  I have to be
alright.  I'm the only one of my people who knows how far Helubor
and Xande have gone.  I have to stop them."

     Ranma looked at the floor.  He listened to the river rolling
by, the sound of water over rock.  Finally, he spoke, 
questioningly.  "Kima?"

     "What?" she said.  Her voice sounded distant.  
     
     "You're not alone in this," he said softly.  "None of us 
are.  I don't know quite what it is we're fighting, or what we're
fighting for, in the end.  Maybe we all need to decide that for
ourselves."

     "I know what I am fighting for," Kima said.  "I am fighting
for my people.  So they shall not die.  Because as bad as our
situation was, if Helubor succeeds in this thing he does, then it
can only grow worse."

     "Are you really going extinct then?" Ranma asked.
     
     She looked uncomfortable, then nodded.  "We are.  There is
only a few more than a thousand of us still alive.  Much of our
home is falling into ruin.  Much of who and what we were is 
lost."

     Ranma was silent for a long time, thinking.  A thousand; a
drop in the ocean of the world's population.  Only a thousand.  
Such a small number.  "That's too bad," he said eventually, and 
realized that it sounded inadequate, and foolish.

     Thankfully, she seemed not to care.  "And you, Ranma.  What
is it that you're fighting for?"

     He raised his hand, rubbed at his forehead.  "I dunno.  I
don't know if I'm fighting for anything at all.  Maybe I'm just
trying to survive.  Maybe I'm just trying to find out why I've
got other people's memories inside my head.  Maybe I'm trying to
keep Akane and everyone else safe.  Maybe..."

     He went silent.  He didn't want to say more.  He didn't want
to think of the woman's throat breaking under his fist, the sound
of her dying gasp, the twisted impact of her body with the tree.
But it was too late, because it all came back to him in perfect
clarity, and he looked at himself through the dark mirror of that
memory and shuddered.

     "But I'm fighting," he said at last.  "And we're not alone
in this.  We're not going to let them win.  Not without a fight."

     "But they have already taken so much," Kima said softly.
"My king is dead.  I am crippled.  And Helubor has taken the
mountain into his hands."

     "But they haven't won," Ranma said vehemently.  "Not yet.
Not yet."     

     He looked at her, in the illumination given by the ravens.
Her face was cold ice, a mask stretched over despair.  Her wings
lay crumpled behind her, unmoving.

     "I'm sorry," he said abruptly.  "If I hadn't..."
     
     "No," Kima said, cutting him off.  "No.  It is not your
burden to bear, this.  If it had not happened today, it would
have happened later.  Helubor and Xande have been waiting a long
time for this.  I should have suspected, should have seen this 
coming, but now, now it is too late for regrets."

     "When Galm threw that knife into Cologne, I thought she was
gone for sure," Ranma said.  "But she wasn't.  I healed her.  You
were unconscious when it happened, but I did.  Saffron showed me 
how.  Somehow."

     He shifted uncomfortably.  "I think I remember how I did it.
It wasn't hard.  I can... I can try it on your wings.  Only if
you want me to."

     She looked at him for a long moment, ice-blue eyes cutting
into his.  Then, very slowly, as if it pained her to do so, she
nodded, and the hope on her face that she tried so hard to hide
hurt to see.

**********

     Tarou didn't know why he'd stayed.  But he had.  The bonds 
were parted, and Saotome gone long ago.  But he was still here.

     He could leave, he told himself.  He could stand up and walk
out of here any time he wanted to.  He was simply choosing not
to.

     Why, why he was choosing not to, that was another question
altogether.  He realized, after what seemed like hours kneeling
there, his head resting against the cool, metallic scales of the
great golden dragon's neck, that he was still being struck by the
drops of water falling from the ceiling, and yet he was remaining
human.  He didn't know why that was happening either, but next to
everything else, it seemed a small and unimportant thing.

     Nothing seemed important but to stay here, and feel how the
dragon writhed in her torment, from the spikes of stone that
pierced her wings, from the great gaping wound upon her side.
The scales slid, shifted under his touch, as the dragon undulated
her form in pain, slowly, so slowly that it would have been 
almost unnoticeable to anyone watching.

     He thought of beauty, and beauty broken.
     
     He thought of--  No, no, no, he didn't want to go there.  He 
didn't ever want to go there.

     He remembered what the raven had said, the first one, the
one with those deep, impossibly sad eyes that were so dark they
seemed to suck the light.  A man is not defined by his name, nor 
is a name defined by a man.  He remembered those same words, 
those same words, and he remembered-- But he didn't want to go 
there.  
     
     There was golden light everywhere.  It was coming from the
dragon, from the swirling waters that held her blood, from the
very air itself.  He recalled the singing of the hooded figure in
the boat, and of how he'd feared her for no reason, and of that
song, which he had heard before, and--

     And he didn't want this, he didn't want to think of this or
remember it, or go there, he didn't want to go there ever again.

     And he was waiting, waiting for something to happen, 
although he didn't know exactly what it was.  Then it did, and he 
felt as a man plunged into an icy stream, because as he knelt 
there, desperately forcing back down memory, back beneath the 
barriers, back beneath the hidden places of his heart, the dragon 
spoke.

     And her voice was the Light, pure and blinding and more
piercing than the most vicious blade.  It laid the soul bare with
the sheer beauty of it.
     
     The air hummed in response like a plucked harpstring, the 
golden glow swelled, and he was sure he heard the roar of the 
rivers, the eight rivers that sourced or were sourced by the lake 
that the dragon lay in, grow in pitch.

     *Come.*
     
     He stood.  He could not have done anything but.  The voice
was sunlight, it was summer wind, it was rich and warm and
powerful, oh, powerful, a power deep and ancient, older than the
mountains, older than the rivers, old as the earth.

     He walked around to stand before the head of the dragon, the
vast, scaled, vaguely avian shape, with the great golden plumes 
rising from the head, the eyes closed as if in death or sleep.

     *Kneel.*
     
     It was not a question, it was not a command, it was simply a 
statement, a statement of what would be, and he knelt, and the 
fear was rising in him, and the awe, as the drops of gentle water 
pattered down on stone, as the rivers flowed, as the waters of 
the lake circled.

     He wanted to speak.  He could not speak.  It was denied to
him; his voice was held in check by sorrow.  Something so huge
should not have been so beautiful, and he should not have such a
hurting in his heart from the sight of this creature in pain.

     But he did, and as he realized that he did, the eyes opened.
It was the first time they had done so in more than four thousand
years, but he could never know that, would never know that, but
he realized with all his being the depth of the honour granted to
him, and it was an honour, he knew that, even with all his anger,
with all his bitterness and with all the hating in his soul, he
knew that he was being given an honour beyond any that a mortal
being might ever hope for.

     The eyes were huge.  They were bigger than he was.  The
whites were seas of gold, the irises were the swimming blues of
sea and sky, the pupils were glittering black diamonds.  They
were filled with intelligence, with pain, with a sorrow so
deep-running and vast that it was like a vacuum, drawing his gaze
into it.
 
     They looked at him, and he felt his mind and soul laid bare,
barriers peeling back, and he didn't want--

     And it stopped.  The dragon continued to look at him, but
that gentle, persistent, unstoppable probing at his very being 
had ceased.

     *I only wish to know you, but only if you wish it.*
     
     And he was, he realized, being given a choice.  The dragon
was choosing to give him one.  She could have torn apart his 
mind, shattered it like a fragile sculpture, she could have known
him and everything he was in a few short seconds.  Here, here in
the place of her power, she could have done with him whatever she
wished.  He was nothing; the dragon was infinitely more powerful
than he was or could ever be.  She could break him like a toy.

     And she chose not to.

     A tremor ran through the cavern, a shifting, mirrored in his
own heart, reflection of his soul, golden light shaking, 
trembling.

     *Rise.  You may go.  I shall not require it.  I have never
required it.  No one comes to me but through their choice.  I 
shall know no one who does not choose to let themselves be 
known.*

     There was compassion in the voice, and there was
understanding.  The dragon realized what it would be to have
your self and soul laid utterly bare, for anyone, especially for 
one such as him.  

     Oh, yes, there was compassion there, there was 
understanding, but there was also, faintly, disappointment.  He
could, he realized, leave here.  The dragon would sleep again, in
her torment.  The waters would flow with her blood.  He could
walk out and that would be the end of it.

     He would never, in the end, know just what it had been.
Perhaps it was the words that the raven had spoken, perhaps it
had been the singing, perhaps only the aching pain in his own
heart, so unexpected, so unwanted, for what he saw here beneath 
Jusendo.

     For Tarou, it was as if the world stood still upon its axis,
paused for a moment with the cavern and he as the centre.  He
could feel the weight pressing upon him, the impossible weight of
power and pain and ancient sacrifice, the weight of the stone and
the water and the golden light.

     And there, in the place of pain, amidst golden light and
suffering, a choice was made, because Tarou continued to kneel
before the dragon, and though he said nothing, he let her know
that it was all right.

     The eyes focused upon him again.  The blue irises seemed to
swell, and he was falling, falling upwards, falling downwards,
falling through, through the ocean and the sky, through himself.
At first, it was worse than he could have possibly imagined.
     
**********

     "Anything?" Ranma said, taking his hands off Kima's back;
feathers brushed against his fingers, soft as silk.

     She shook her head.  "Nothing.  It doesn't hurt anymore.
But I still can't feel them."

     The pain in her voice was barely hidden.  Ranma sighed and
began to move his hands back.  Kima half-turned and stopped him,
catching his wrists in her hands.

     "No," she said, voice sounding as if it were coming close to
cracking.  "Enough.  It's not going to work.  This is the third
time you've tried it."

     Ranma's face tightened.  It had been easy, so easy.  He had
only needed to think, of the memory of the light swelling through
his body, going from his hands, and he had known how.  The wounds
upon her wings and back had been horrible when he'd taken the
bandages off; still slowly bleeding, burned black by Helubor's
fire after he'd cauterized the wounds.  Most of that was gone
now; some scarring remained, but little more.  He felt as if he
were going to collapse at any moment, though; each time he did
the healing, it had taken something out of him.

     But no matter what he'd done, there had been no feeling in
her wings.  He was failing, and he hated that.  He wanted it to
work, so badly that it hurt.  He wanted to be able to make things
right again.

     "Damn," he said softly.  "I'm sorry.  God, I was really
hoping it would work, really..."

     "You think I wasn't?" she responded coolly.  
     
     "How could anyone do that?" Ranma said, standing up and 
leaning against the wall, stone cool beneath his arm.  "How could
anyone ever do that?"

     "It is the law," Kima said, the barest sense of disquiet in
her voice.  "But-"

     "But it wasn't right," Ranma said, interrupting her.  "It
wasn't right, and you know it.  I've heard that excuse about it
being the law before, and if it is the law, the law's wrong.  
Helubor didn't do this because it was the law.  He did it because 
he's evil."

     She was very silent.  After a long while, she spoke.  "He 
is, isn't he?"

     "He sure seemed like it," Ranma said.
     
     "He raised Saffron, you know," she said after a moment.  "He
spent more time with him than anyone else.  It was the royal
prerogative; the raising of the king."

     Ranma sighed.  "That explains a lot."
     
     The underground was still lit by the white fire of the
brother ravens, sparkling upon the dark-flowing water, pushing
back the shadow.  They perched upon the boat's prow, silent, 
twins but for their eyes.

     "That's what Fanael says," Kima said after a moment.
     
     "Fanael?"
     
     "A friend of mine.  I did have a life beyond my service to
Saffron, you know."  A slight, bitter smile quirked her face.  
"Admittedly not much of one, but, such is the price of duty."

     Ranma stared at his hands.  He flexed his fingers, thought 
of the motions of muscle and nerve.  So complex a thing, yet so
instinctive, so totally ingrained within him.  

     "Let me try it again," he said.  "Please.  Just one more
time."

     "It can't really do any more harm," she said, and turned.  
He saw pain across her face as she did, only for a moment.  

     He put his hands back upon where the wounds had been,
against the cool smoothness of feather and the mild warmth of her 
bare skin.  His being ached; with sadness, with regret, with the 
memory of his previous failure.

     He closed his eyes, concentrated, upon the soft heat of 
skin, the gentle texture of feather.  He thought of the dragon
upon his body, and used that as a focus.  He thought of light, of
the thing hidden behind Saffron's eyes.  He recalled fire, and
ice, and oh, the blackness between them, the scorching cold
seething at the centre of his soul.  

     He concentrated upon the feel of skin, reached down, for 
what lay beneath, for muscle and bone and nerve and tendon, for
blood and bloodstream, for breath.  He went down deeper, and
deeper back within himself, far back, brushing against the edges
of his mind.

     Farther than before, light swelling in his body, farther
than the other times, farther down below the pain of wounds,
farther back upon himself.  He felt pain; he pressed on.  He
could do nothing else but that.

     Down, down, down, sinking, into himself, into her pain, 
going past, past the pain, past himself, meld, become one, the
pain, oh, the pain, the pain was great, the pain was everywhere
and then below, down past even that there was-

     There was the darkness below the wound, the seething,
bubbling sense of monstrous power, of pure hatred, pure rage, the
utter alien presence, and it was cold, so cold, a coldness in the
marrow of his bones and in the centre of his soul.  

     And there was so much hate there, and oh, such pain...
     
     And he drove past, threw himself back within himself, 
reached, reached desperately, clawed at his being, clawed for the
light.  

     It wasn't enough.  The dark took him.  It fled within his 
skin, madman's laughter in it, wolf's howl, hate and fear and 
pain and rage, boiling and writhing as they rose up, through his 
hands, into him.

     Inside him, the light went out, and he was falling, like 
he'd fallen before, back, barely registering the crack as his
head struck the stone, back, upon the darkness of his self, back,
a hammer blow upon his heart, a choking gasping breath cutting
itself off.  He tried to open his eyes, and could not.  
Everything was the absence of light and the cold hatred.

     He tried to breathe, and found he couldn't do that either.
It hurt so bad.  Night pressed upon him like a weight, smashed 
down his senses with fists made of shadow.  He tasted ashes in 
his mouth.

     And then, very gently, lips on his, his head tilted back, 
the rough texture of something close to human fingers holding his
nose closed.  A breath of air, oh, sweetness, merciful air.  The
darkness lessened, only slightly, fell back, retreating, 
retreating, falling, and there was nothing again, and then 
moments later, air, desperate, lovely air, and the lips, and a 
long gasp of pain from his voice.

     Then there was light.  White light, a burning, flickering
luminescent light, from the black feathers of the ravens, one on
either side of his head where he lay, eyes staring down at him,
blindness and impossible depth.

     "Kima?" he said.  Her face stared down at him, 
slender-featured, blue-eyed.  There was something in the eyes 
that might have been concern.

     Before she could say anything, Shiso spoke, and his voice
was unto the age of a mountain.

     "An emissary is chosen," he said, echoing through the 
caverns.  "A bearer is given.  We go, brother."

     The light vanished, leaving only darkness around them.
There was the beating of wings, the rush of air by his face, a
raven's cry.

     "Where are they going?" Kima's voice said.
     
     Ranma thought, silently, for a long while.  "To Tarou, I
think."

     "Why?"
     
     "Beats me."
     
     There was a silence.
     
     "You saved my life," he said finally.  "You got me breathing
again."

     "I suppose I did," she said, as if she did not quite believe
it herself.

     "Thanks."
     
     "Yes.  One thing."
     
     "Yeah?"
     
     "If you ever tell anyone how I did it, I'll kill you."

     He had no response to that.
     
     So they sat there, in the darkness, waiting.  The only sound
was the fast flow of the river through the caverns, their own
breathing, and overlaying all that was the silence of the 
darkness, as it waited with them.

**********

     He was a child.  A little child.  Walking on an errand for
his mother, walking in fear, in apprehension, through the dusty
streets of the small village, hearing the cluck of chickens
lurking within the shadows of the squat houses, trying to remain 
unnoticed.

     "Well, if it isn't the Pantyhose bastard."
     
     And no, no, no, but it was too late, and they had him, and
they were bigger than him, and it hurt it hurt it hurt and oh he
hated them hated them hate hate hate-

     He fled, down the corridors of mind, the passages of memory,
and behind him came the inexorable pressing power that shone
golden throughout his soul, that was throwing open all the doors 
and breaking off all the locks and pulling back all the barriers 
and-

     "Well, if it isn't the Pantyhose bastard.  How's your slut
of a mother?"

     And no, he couldn't fight them, they were stronger, so he
ran, ran, ran, the taunts rising and he hated them hated them oh
the hate-

     And forward, a tearing, a wrenching of his being-
     
     The old man's face was covered in livid red scars; one ran
down his forehead, across the gaping socket of his left eye, down
his cheek.  The one eye that remained was dark and cold as black
ice, pitiless as the wind in winter.
     
     "Why are you here?"
     
     And he answers, trying to be without fear.  "I want you to
train me."

     And the old man laughs, and he moves, and he is falling to 
the floor, the echo of the blow still ringing in his head, 
tasting blood on his lip, and the old man has a foot on his
throat, and he hates him too, he hates him, there is no room for
anything but the hate anymore.

     And the old man looks down into his eyes, and smiles.  "I
can see it in your eyes.  Perhaps you hate enough.  Perhaps in
time you will come to hate me enough that you will survive.  I
will show you how to turn hate into a weapon."

     His face tears, bulges and splits like rotten fruit, peels 
away, and beneath it is another face, and no, no, he does not 
want this, he does not want to go to this place, not this one-

     And again he flees, but there is no escape, not from 
himself, not now, because he is a child again, an infant, held in 
her arms and rocked back and forth, and a voice rises, sweetly, 
singing-

     *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*

     And he is loved, he was loved, and now, forward again, and 
he realizes he is being emptied, made void, a hollow man.  And 
the golden light is like a cleansing fire, a pain pure and sweet.

     Forward.  Mind and memory, thought and recollection, they 
are taken from him, and he is giving them willingly, he gave them
willingly, this was his choice, his choice, and he does not know
why it was his choice-

     He saw himself, not from his own eyes, or perhaps it is from
his own eyes, with ego stripped, with all sense of self gone, and
he saw, perhaps truly for the first time, who he is.

     He saw his bitter soul, and the hatred in his heart, and how
easily he hurts, how easy it is for him to hurt with words or 
with his hands, because he is good at it, good at the hurting, 
and he likes it, he realizes, and that sickens him now, and he
knows why he is good at it, because it is so much easier than-

     But no, not this, not this, because he is going down now,
past himself, past the barriers, and he is there, the last place,
where he does not want to be.  

     Or perhaps, perhaps he does.  He is weary; tired of running,
tired of fleeing.  There can be no running now.  Not anymore.

     He turns, and turns again, and there is the golden light.

    Golden from the lamp that shines on the wall of the small
house, shines on clean but ragged sheets upon his bed, shines on
clean but cracked dishes.  

     The clean, faded white cloth swabbing at the bruises upon
his face.  "Does it still hurt, love?"

     "No," he says.  "No, mother."
     
     "So brave," she says, and pats his shoulder.  She is 
smiling; she looks very beautiful.  Her eyes sparkle, dark brown,
golden-flecked in the light.

     "They'll be sorry," he says.  "They'll be sorry, when I'm
stronger, when I'm bigger.  They'll be the ones who have to pay
then."

     "Pan-"
     
     "Don't call me that name!"
     
     "It's your name, love.  It's the name you were given."
     
     "I hate it.  I'll make him pay too.  I'll make them all 
pay."

     "It's okay, dear," she says.  "I won't call you it anymore."
     
     That's what she always says.  But she still does, sometimes.
Sometimes, she forgets.  She can't seem to understand why he 
hates it, or how deep the depths of that hatred goes; the name is
everything that is wrong with his life, it is the root, the
source.

     Outside, he can hear the wind blowing.  It's late; he woke
up in the night again, from another nightmare, body aching from
the beating he took today.  She was there, as she always was, and
that made the shame, the shame of the weakness, even worse,
because he knows she must be hiding her disgust, how could she
not be?

     "A man is not defined by his name, nor is a name defined by 
a man," she says.  It's something she always says to him; if it's
supposed to mean something, he doesn't know what it is.

     And then it is gone, golden light winked out, only darkness,
and he is going, at last, to the final hidden place, to the last
empty core.

     It was winter; the snow might come soon.  The night was cold
as he walked home; he'd been gone for three days now, after
another fight, after he'd said again he wouldn't be back, but he
always would be, he would always come back, because she needed
him, his mother needed him, and though he would never have
admitted it, he needed her.

     Some of the older men met him on the trail that led to the
house, past the outskirts of the village.  They ignored him when
they could when he came into the village, shoved him out of their 
way if he happened to stumble into it.  But now, now there is 
something in their eyes akin to pity, perhaps even to compassion.

     They told him what had happened.  A fire.  A broken lamp,
they said.  She'd managed to crawl out of the house, mostly
unburned, but she had breathed too much smoke.  

     They had washed her, dressed her in good clothing, laid her
out in a house until he returned.  And he hated them all the more
for it; hated them for showing kindness now, after twelve years
of shunning the bastard child and his unmarried mother, of trying
to pretend they did not exist, while their children, who knew
their father's names, who had not been born to a woman without a
marriage ribbon wrapped around her arm, taunted him and beat him
and he hated them he hated them hate hate hate-

     He stayed long enough to bury his mother beneath a twisted 
young tree near the burned ruin of his house, and then he'd left 
the village.  

     He was getting strong now; his body had started to change a 
few months ago, and his other body was growing even more rapidly,
from the same size as his first body to far, far larger.  Soon
he'd be strong enough that he couldn't be hurt again.  He would
give pain, not receive it.

     And he hurt so much, for a while, and then the hurting
stopped, it went away somewhere, buried beneath hate and rage and
bitterness, but it didn't go away somewhere outside him, it went
inside, it hid itself, because it was still waiting for him, it
had been waiting for him all this time-

     And sometimes, just sometimes, very rarely, he would wake in
the night with that one thought inside his head like a burning
brand:  You were not there.

     And slowly, he realizes that it is done.  There is no more
probing.  There is no more golden light.  There is no more of him
to know.

     He is empty.  Hollow.  Blank.  Vacant.  There is no
bitterness anymore; there is no hate.  There is no pain, no more
hurting.  

     Why?
     
     And a moment later, he realizes.  For a thing is emptied, so
that it may be filled.

     It comes, all of it at once, back again, through him, all
memory, all thought, all feeling, and there is so much pain in 
it, and it hurts so much.

     But there, at the end, is one last thing, something that is
not a part of him, that is golden, vast as the mountains, 
all-encompassing, and it is bright, it is golden, and it is so
warm, so shining, and there is in it so much love, so much
acceptance, and this, the last, there is forgiveness.

     And he knows that he deserves it not.
     
     Then there is the voice.
     
     *Oh, but you do.*
     
     "But I don't," he whispers.  His voice is cracked, scraped
raw upon memory, upon the pain.  "She died, and I wasn't there."

     *Prideful man,* the voice says, and there is pain in it, and
love, and there is understanding.  *Think that you may know the
weavings of the tapestry, the flow of time's river, the turn of
fortune's wheel?  Think that you are to blame for the wild
swingings of chance?*

     And she shows him, in a short fragment of a second,
everything, every tiny shift in one direction or another, that
had gone towards his mother's death.  It was not a thing planned,
a thing foreseeable, it was only chance, terrible chance, and it
was only that.

     *Yes,* the voice says.  *Only that.  Only chance.  It was
only that.  And can there not be forgiveness then?  Can there not
be release?*

     He is silent, utterly silent, because the voice is without
anger, and the only thing in it truly is love, a deep, fierce
love that is in that moment, only for him.  There is pain in it,
such pain, a pain enough for all the world, but even stronger,
even stronger, there is the love.

     *The road is long,* the voice says, warm and compassionate
and utterly, utterly powerful.  *The road is dark, and none can
ever know the true end.  But come now, come, and let us see where
the road could lead.*

     And he sees the road upon which he walks, a road paved with
his own bitterness, guided in the painful twist and wind by his 
hate, by the dark anger of his soul, and behind him follows the 
memory of his pain, of helplessness, driving him like a goad, and 
ahead, always ahead, there is the Name, the Name that will make 
everything right, that will make worthy the means of its end, 
that will change everything, that will make it better.

     *Such a power in words,* the voice says.  *Such a power, so
long as we give them power.  But if one were to call the Light
the Dark, it could not change what it is.  All things are
themselves before they are named, and after.*

     The road has an end in sight, an end in the way in which he
walks it, and he sees what the end could be; it is pain and
bitterness, it is an unmourned death, and it is loneliness beyond
all comprehension.  The Name, the word, the words are 
meaningless, meaningless, for a name does not define a man, a man
does not define a name, the definition of him lies within himself
and in no other place.

     *Easier it is to destroy than to preserve,* the voice says.
*Easier it is to harm than to heal, to hate then to love.  That
has always been the strength of the Dark, that it is easier.*

     It is true, he realizes, with all his being.  It is easier,
and so often, so often, he has taken the easy way, he has gone
the path of least resistance, he has walked with such pleasure
upon the edge of the darkness.

     *But it is not the way of the Light,* the voice says.  *That
way is harder, and often, the rewards are not so tangible, and
often there may be no rewards at all.  But this, and this is our 
strength, and that is that all things desire the Light, even 
those things of the Dark, because all their need to destroy it, 
to tear it down, that springs from their jealousy.  The Dark is 
older, but the Light is stronger.  We are willing to give our 
freedom, our very lives, and that is something that the Dark 
cannot do.*

     And does he truly, he wonders, desire this, this Light that
the voice speaks of in these aching tones of sunlight?  For what,
he asks himself, does he desire?  The Name, he knows that, he
desires that, but _why_ does this desire lie within him?

     He wants the Name that he will not be mocked, not be forced
to keep himself hidden, forced to leave rather than give his
name, unwilling to suffer the shame.  He wants the Name that he
may cease in wandering, that he may find someone, anyone, who can
be his friend, who can-

     And he does, he realizes, want the Light, wants it with all
his being, but it is hard, it is not easy, and it frightens him,
it frightens him terribly.  He is not a coward.  He has never 
been a coward.  He will not be one now.  And a second choice was 
made there.
     
     And there comes, with that choice, with that acceptance,
with that realization, a feeling in his heart like white flame, a 
feeling of such utter and pure joy that he is stricken, for a 
long time, with the sheer depth of it.

     Slowly, slowly, slowly, Tarou opened his eyes.
     
     The cavern was the same.  There was the golden light, and 
the immense shape of the wounded dragon, and the circling flow of
the waters, and the pressing feeling of ancient suffering.

     The dragon's eyes were still half-open.  They were looking
at him.  There was love in them, and pride, even amidst all the
pain of their gaze.  

     He was on his knees still.  No more drops of water fell from 
the cavern ceiling.  He felt cleansed.  He still hurt, but there 
was something there that made the hurt okay, that made it less.  

     He held something in his hands.  He looked at it.  A tiny
shape, swirling with a hundred hues of gold, a golden pearl, in
the centre of his cupped hands.  It seemed to hold all the light
of the caverns within it, make the light brighter.  

     *Go,* the dragon's voice said, fading, falling away.  *They
are my people.  Help them.  Let me help them.  Be the bearer of
my tidings, and let my vessel do what he must.*

     The eyes closed.  The waters circled, golden with blood.
Tarou stood up.  A black shape alighted upon each shoulder with 
the beating sound of wings.     
     
     "Are you well?" said the first, dark-eyed.  The second said
nothing, eyes white as snow.

     "Yes," he said.  His voice sounded normal to him.  "Yes, I'm
well."  And he was, he realized.  Moreso than he had been in a 
long, long time.

**********

     They waited together in the darkness.  
     
     They did not have to wait long.
     
     Footsteps came first, echoing in the darkness.  Then, at the 
edge of the darkness, white light, only a single horizontal line
at first, but soon after that Tarou stepped from the passage that
wound its way eventually towards the place of pain, a raven upon
each shoulder, his hands down at his sides, languid in his
movements.  He was smiling, and not the cruel smile of before.
     
     "Didn't think you were coming back for a while," Ranma said,
standing up and stretching his arms over his head.  He still felt
drained, weary, but it was a peaceful weariness.  

     On Tarou's shoulders, the ravens blazed with light.  "You
think I'm just gonna leave without getting my revenge on Helubor?
He insulted me.  You know what happens to people who insult me,
don't you fem-boy?  You've experienced my wrath often enough."

     And there was a waver towards that cruel smile, and yet
Ranma still realized that there had been a change, he could see
it.  "What happened in there, Tarou?"

     "What happened," Tarou said slowly.  "Is my business and my
business alone.  Now, are we gonna stand here gabbing or are we
gonna get back to Phoenix Mountain, beat Helubor to a pulp and
make things right?"

     Ranma found himself smiling.  There didn't seem to be
anything else to do.  "I'm willing if you are."

     Tarou nodded.  The ravens alighted from his shoulders and
flapped, white flames rising, to the bow of the boat.  

     Ranma turned and glanced to Kima.  "We're with you, Kima."
     
     Slowly, she stood up, and Ranma felt the sense of grief rise
in him again at the sight of the crippled wings, limp down her
back.  She moved with rigid grace, every movement seeming 
planned, calculated in its fluidity.  The wings dragged behind 
her, brushing the floor with their feathered tips.

     He couldn't make it right.  He couldn't fix this, not even
with what he could do now.  There was too much darkness there,
too much hate in the severing, in the wounding done by Galm's
blade and Helubor's hand.  It had nearly swallowed him, and he
could not make it right.

     Sometimes, he realized, there just was nothing you could do
to make things right.  Saffron slain upon the rain-soaked plain
beneath the mountain shadows, Kima lamed, those could not be
undone, not by him.  

     And with a shudder, he remembered the woman's throat 
snapping beneath the impact of his fist.  He remembered the body
falling, and then him falling, light dissolving, darkness coming,
sunlight fading, the raven's cry on the wind.  The air had stank 
of the ozone discharge of lightning, of-

     "Are you coming or not?" Tarou called from where he 
half-stood in the boat, hands on the rope that tied it to the
shore.  Kima was sitting on the bench seat of the boat, hands 
folded into her lap, head bowed.

     He forced it back down, the memory.  He buried it within
himself.  It was done, it was done, it could not be undone.  He
couldn't change what he had done, he could not clean the blood on 
his hands, he could only carry on, try to make some light from 
his darkness.

     He was failing, he realized.  He was slipping again, back
into himself, back into despair, back towards where he had been
before Ryugenzawa.  Back towards the abyss, and he had nothing to
cling to. 

     But he managed, somehow.  One foot in front of the other,
walking, he made it to the boat and settled down upon a seat, as
Tarou undid the rope and let the rapid flow of the river take 
them into the darkness, that slowly fell away before the raven's
light as they went on.

     "So," Tarou said lightly.  "You never did quite tell me just 
how you ended up here."

     Ranma sighed, watching the stone walls go by, watching the
luminescent flame cast grotesque shadows of himself and his 
companions upon the rock.  He didn't care anymore.  He wanted 
only an end, he realized.  Perhaps it was coming now.  

     So slowly, haltingly, unsure of what words to use, what to
tell, what to conceal, he told Tarou what he could.  About 
Cologne and his mother and the reason for what she had done, 
about Denkoko and Yamiko's attack.
     
     There he paused.  He couldn't go on.  He closed his eyes,
voice choked off by memory, by the killing he'd done.  So Kima
took it up, and it must have been hours, he realized, as the boat 
wound its way along with the current, and Kima spoke, and the
shadows danced on the walls.  

     The current slowed as they went further and further away
from Jusendo, and the white fire of the raven's gradually dimmed,
darkness slipping closer and closer until only the boat and a few
feet around it were illuminated.  

     Ranma found himself staring down into the water as it rolled
past.  It was dark, dark as night, and he could not tell the
depth.  There was the reflection of light on the water, radiant
spears branching out from the boat as it moved, matched upon the
river's flow.

     He looked at his face.  It looked thin to him, haggard, 
worn.  Old.  He looked older, he realized.  His eyes seemed alien
to him, haunted, too dark.  
     
     He was hungry, he realized.  He couldn't remember the last
time he'd eaten; perhaps it had been in the garden of the Dragon
Palace under Ryugenzawa, and that had been well over a day ago.

     Up ahead, he saw something glowing blue, and he remembered
that blue glow, as the boat had left Cologne and Samofere behind,
for the robed and hooded shape that had taken them to beneath
Jusendo had not allowed them aboard.

     They were standing on the shore as they came into view.  
Samofere was young again, standing beside Cologne, one hand on 
her shoulder, the blue-glowing lamp held in his other hand, 
raised as if response to the diminishing light of the ravens.
The chain of silver thread was gone from their wrists, as it was
gone from his and Tarou's.

     The boat was moving very slowly now, drifting on the 
current.  As it neared the bank, it stopped completely, bobbing
slightly in the current, anchored by nothingness, but anchored
all the same.

     "You all came back," Cologne said, and smiled.  Ranma saw
something in her eyes that looked very young.  Her hair seemed
dishevelled, her face slightly flushed.  As he stepped out of the
boat, he saw her make a minute adjustment of her shirt with one
hand.  

     Samofere's wings were folded down his back like a cloak, his
bearing tall and straight.  Bluish-purple highlights shone on the
edges of his feathers, starlight seemed to glitter in the green
depths of his eyes.  Even in his plain brown robe, he carried a
sense of power in him, not the same fierce power that his dead
brother had borne, not fire, not that, a serene power, earth and
water, more subtle in their strength.

     Samofere glanced to Cologne, as the three of them, Ranma and 
Tarou and Kima, stepped out of the boat and onto the shore, and
Ranma saw the oddest look in his eyes.

     The two ravens took off from the prow of the boat and came 
to land upon the shore, wings spreading out as they descended, 
folding back in as they placed their talons upon the stone.  
Their fire was gone completely now; there was only the pale blue 
light of the lamp.

     Behind them, the boat began to drift away with the current.
The five of them, and the two birds, watched it go in silence
until it was out of sight, and then they turned their attentions
to each other.

     "Samofere," Kima said.  "You said that you were dying.  What
happened?"

     "It is very complicated," he said; his was voice deep, 
powerful.  "Let it be said that Cologne is mostly responsible.  
Perhaps later, I can say more.  Now, we must go."

     "Where?" Ranma said.
     
     "Up," Samofere said.  "Up to the mountain home."
     
     Here Ranma saw his eyes fall upon Kima, only briefly, and he
saw sorrow driven deep into the ancient green depths of 
Samofere's eyes.  "Cologne told me what happened while I lay as
if dying.  You went before the Golden One, did you not?"

     Ranma nodded, saw Tarou do the same.  
     
     Samofere looked at them in silence for a moment.  "It is 
well, then.  We should go now.  We do not know what Helubor has 
done in our absence."

     He took his taloned, near-human hand from Cologne's shoulder
and turned, lamp swinging on the delicate silver handle, casting
the blue light in a circle around him, and began to walk.  

     Kima and Cologne followed almost immediately, as did the two
ravens.  Ranma came a moment later, glancing back at Tarou, who
was looking into his cupped hands.

     "Tarou?"
     
     Tarou's head snapped up and his hands went down to his sides
in fists.  "What?"

     "We're going now."
     
     "You think I don't know that?" Tarou sneered.  "I can follow
at my own pace, thank you very much."

     Ranma turned and began to walk again, deciding that even the
most wondrous, the most painful of experiences, even they could
only change someone so much.  But they could, he realized a 
moment later, still change you, because he heard Tarou's 
footsteps behind him then, pacing him, in time with his, 
following him out of the darkness of the caverns.

**********

     Samofere led this time.  He knew the tunnels and passages
below Phoenix Mountain like one knows their own skin, and Kima
and the others followed him upwards, until the sound of the water
flowing was only a muted background hiss, thrumming through the
stone walls around them.

     The two members of the Phoenix Tribe walked side by side,
the outsiders following a short distance behind them.  They 
talked in quiet, low voices.

     "So how did you know the way to open the door in the wall?"
Samofere asked as they walked.  "I did not know that-"

     Kima looked at him, hesitant to answer.  Her own perceptions
were at war; this was a young man who bore himself proudly as he
walked, and yet he was also the old librarian she had known, and
he was Saffron's brother.  He had forbidden-- no, not forbidden,
asked, that she not call him a lord.

     But she could not help but think of him as one.  He had been
a lord, millennia ago, before the great catastrophe wrought by the
hand of the one called the Ravager, before he and Saffron had 
been changed, given power, that they might battle him.

     "Kima?"
     
     "Loame told me how," Kima said.  "Not explicitly, but..."
     
     "Loame?" Samofere said, as if confused.
     
     "The worker chief," Kima said.  "Is he not one of your
allies, one of the ones you trusted?  Like I and Cologne?"

     Samofere stopped in walking.  The blue light of the lamp was
harsh across his face, harsh upon the rounded stone walls of the
tunnels of the underground labyrinth.  "No.  

     Kima paused as well, the last click of her bootheels on the
stone echoing through her ears.  In the silence, the sound of the
water running through the channels in the stone walls was like a
powerful whisper, a trembling sensation echoing from the floor 
and into the body.

     "Why are you stopping?" she heard Ranma's voice ask from
where he walked behind.  He sounded tired, weary; though he had
said nothing, she had realized that it had taken a lot out of 
him, his futile attempts to heal her crippling.  He had gone too
far, again, like he had under Ryugenzawa, and again he'd nearly
died, the fool.

     This time, though, Cologne hadn't been there, and she'd had
to... no, she'd rather not think about it.  It had been the right
thing to do.  He was an ally.  She needed allies now.

     The footsteps of the humans had stopped as well now.  Kima
and Samofere turned to face them, the blue light shining in the
space between them.  The two ravens had disappeared up the
corridor almost half-an-hour ago, and had not yet returned.

     Ranma looked as weary his voice had sounded.  He was thin
and haggard, and the look in his eyes was empty.  Next to him,
Tarou's hands were held at his sides, one clenched into a fist 
and clutching the pantyhose-sash at his waist; why he wore such 
a thing, she had no idea, considering how much he appeared to 
hate his given name.

     Cologne was calm and collected, but somehow less so than
usual.  There was something odd about the way she kept on looking
at Samofere, something about the look in her eyes.  Kima shrugged
the thought aside.

     "We appear to have got our lines crossed somewhere," 
Samofere said slowly.  "Cologne, you didn't tell me exactly how
you got out of the cell.  If you could-"

     His words were cut off by the sound of many feet marching on
stone, quiet at first, rising quickly in volume.  It came from 
the corridor they'd been walking down before they stopped.

     "Who is that?" Cologne said.
     
     Samofere shook his head.  "I don't know.  We should..."
     
     Then there came the chanting, of many voices working 
together, blending rich, deep harmonies together.  It echoed down
the stone corridors of the labyrinth, and the rock seemed to
vibrate in tune with it.  It rose in time with the marching of 
the feet, and the sound of it calmed the soul.

     *Old was earth when sky was new*
     *Old was earth when sunlight's hue*
     *First broke the mist and cleared the dark*
     *And lit the first bright-burning spark*
     
     The voices were from just around the bend in the corridor
now.  She could see pale light, the distinctive glow of the
heat-absorbing, light-giving stone that was used in Mount Phoenix
along with the lamps.  

     The humans were dropping into fighting positions.  Samofere
was standing as if transfixed.  She realized she was doing the
same.  She was holding her breath as well.

     Then Loame stepped around the corner, and she released it.
He looked different; he had always walked humbly, tricking the
eye into not noticing his size.  He was over a head taller than
her, and she was not short.  Even at his age, he was still
powerfully muscled, the only signs of sixty years the beginnings 
of grey in the long brown hair.  

     Now he walked straight and tall.  He wore clothing of dark
hues; grey and blacks and deep purples.  A plain breastplate of
polished steel was strapped to his chest.  The stylized image of
the bird was graven upon it, the same one that he'd shaped into
the wall of her chambers, the same one that had opened the 
passage that led below the mountain.

     He held a long-handled hammer in his hands.  His face looked
like stone, carved from the same substance whose shaping was his
duty, his life.

     Now, stepping around the corner, came the sources of the
pale light, two more men who she recognized vaguely as other
workers, both dressed in the same manner as Loame, each bearing a 
long metal pole in both hands, the end topped with a glowing 
stone.  Rising above the glowing stone was a perch.  Upon each 
perch was a raven; Shiso and Kioku, the dark-eyed bird fluffing 
his plumage and looking as proud as a bird could manage, his 
blank-eyed brother stoic and unmoving.

     "Samofere," she said quietly.  "What exactly is this?"
     
     "I have no idea," Samofere said just as quietly.  
     
     There were others coming into sight from around the corner
now as well, all dressed in the dark clothing and steel
breastplates.  They held long spears.  There were perhaps a dozen
of them; they filled the passageway, ranked two by two.

     "Loame?" Kima called hesitantly, looking back and gesturing
to the others that it was alright.

     He said nothing, only knelt.  The others knelt behind him.
"My lord Xanovere.  We have always believed that you would
return."

     Samofere was pale.  He was trembling, as if with some
suppressed emotion.  Kima could not guess at what it was.

     "Samofere, what is it?" she asked.
     
     "That name..." he said quietly.  "That was my given name,
four thousand years ago, before... before..."

     "Before the Ashen One, the Ravager, came," Loame said.  "We
know, my lord.  The Order of the Raven knows.  For fourteen
hundred years, we have kept the faith."

     Samofere took a hesitant step forward.  "But everyone was
purged, everyone who knew.  My brother, those who wished to
maintain their own power, they killed anyone and everyone 
hundreds of years before I ever regained my sanity, before-"

     "We know," Loame said.  His voice was soft, melodic.  "We
know.  You yourself told the first of my ancestors of it fourteen 
hundred years ago.  We have always been few since then, and we 
are few now, but we stand ready to serve."

     "I have no memory of this," Samofere said.  "And yet..."
     
     "Of course you do not," Loame said.  "You chose to forget 
us.  You ordered us to work apart from you, to lessen the risk of
discovery, never to give hint to you or any other of who we were.  
You entrusted the memory of our duty," and here he gestured to 
where Shiso and Kioku perched upon the poles, "to two ravens, who 
where given power, that the memory might not be lost."

     Samofere looked perplexed for a moment, then laughed.  "That
was clever of me."

     "Yes, my lord," Loame said.  "We shall help you to defeat
the usurper and regain your rightful position as king, now that
your brother is dead."

     The atmosphere of the caverns suddenly seemed to grow 
colder.  Samofere's face lost whatever expression of humour it
had held before.
     
     "I have no wish to be king," he said, leaving it quite
certain by his tone that there would be no argument.  

     "But-" Loame said from where he knelt, confusion in his
voice.  "My lord..."

     "Rise," Samofere said, and Kima remembered how had said the
same to her, when she had knelt and proclaimed him king.

     "My lord, if we have displeased you, forgive us."
     
     "Rise," he repeated, firmly, commandingly.  
     
     Slowly, Loame rose.  The others kneeling behind him did so
as well.  There were consternated murmurs among them as they did;
one of the poles that held the light and a raven wavered, and 
Shiso gave a surprised squawk and nearly tumbled off.  

     "Forgive me, my lord."
     
     Samofere stepped forward to stand before Loame.  Loame was
taller and broader, and yet Samofere seemed to tower over him.  

     "And why do you believe I would make a good king?" he asked
quietly.

     "You are Saffron's brother," Loame said, casting his eyes to
the ground.  "The earth, the stone, bears witness to your power.  
We know what you can do, my lord.  Your power is great."

     "And power makes a king good, does it?" Samofere said in a
very low voice.  His wings shook, a sign of concealed tension.  
Kima took a step back from him, and nearly bumped into Ranma.  

     "Who are all these guys?" he asked suspiciously.
     
     "Allies, I think," Kima said quietly, watching Samofere
warily.  "Though if Samofere keeps this up..."

     She stopped talking as Samofere raised a hand up over his
head, fist clenched.  The air around his hand appeared heavier,
distorted, rippling.  The light of the blue-glowing lamp he held
in his other hand seemed to dim, as did the light of the stones
upon the poles.

     "Power gives the right of rule, does it?" he said, low and
quiet.  "Power is an end unto itself, a justification for all
actions?"

     Now Loame took a step back.  "My lord..."
     
     "I AM NO LORD!" Samofere shouted, the tension snapping in
him.  His wings half-spread themselves out, gleaming darkly in
the light.  

     The air seemed thickened, as if half-solid.  Kima saw fear
on the faces of the black-clad workers, fear on Loame's face.  It
was a familiar fear; the same mixed look of awe and terror that 
had been on the faces of her troops as they watched Saffron and 
Ranma fight at Jusendo, as they watched the Phoenix destroy 
mountains with his fire.  

     "Samofere..." she said hesitantly, but he seemed not to hear
her.

     "Yeah, this guy is definitely Saffron's brother," Ranma
commented from where he stood behind her.  

     She whirled to say something to him, words rising to defend
her dead king, to defend his brother.  The outsider had no right
to insult--

     And then the very world shook, as if beneath the blow of a
great hammer.  The floor heaved beneath her feet and she was
tossed off-balance, tripping over something she only realized
moments later was her own crippled wing and landing painfully on
the ground.
     
     There was a crashing sound, and rocks and dirt showed from
the cavern ceiling, striking the ground around her.  Strangely,
none hit her.  
     
     Hesitantly, she looked up from the ground.  Loame and the
others were on the ground, faces pressed to the stone; Samofere
was standing, his fist still raised.  The air around him was an
inversion of light; darkness radiated from him in shafts so black
the sight of the hurt the eyes.

     Ranma was standing over her; he was the reason nothing from
the ceiling had struck her.  He was covered in dust from the
waist up from the tiny cave-in.  As she watched, he shook himself
and bent down, offering her a hand.  There was a small trickle of
blood running down his forehead, where a larger piece of rock had
apparently struck him.  

     She looked at the hand for a moment, and then stood up by
herself, irritably stretching.  The crippling wound upon her
wings ached, and she felt a stab of pain through her soul, the
despair threatening to engulf her again, and she forced it down.

     Slowly, she saw Samofere's fist lower.  She saw the dark
aura of power around him vanish.  
     
     "We've got a problem back here," Tarou said from behind her.
Turning, she saw him kneeling by Cologne, who was crumpled on the
ground, limbs and body trembling.  

     Samofere's head turned, and on his face she saw such a sense
of agony and self-hatred that it seemed as if it might consume
him.  He turned and strode quickly past them, leaving Loame and
the others still cowering upon the floor; after a moment, Ranma
followed him.  

     The poles with the perches were glowing where they had been 
dropped.  The ravens stood on the floor nearby, Shiso looking 
irritated, Kioku looking exactly as he had upon the pole, cold
and collected.

     Kima walked over to where Loame lay, and knelt down beside
him, putting a hand on his shoulder.  "Loame?"

     He looked up.  "Yes, Lady Kima?"
     
     "You need not call me that anymore," she said.  "I have been
stripped of my position.  I am Kima now.  We stand as equals.
That is what Samofere wishes, I think."

     "But a king," Loame said despairingly.  "The people need a
king."

     Kima looked at him, remembered how often she'd spoken those
words herself, how long she'd believed them true, and gave voice
at last to something she had perhaps only realized as she'd 
watched Saffron's plunging, icy fall.  "No.  The people may exist 
without a king.  The king may not exist without the people."

     Loame slowly sat up.  Then he stood, his dark-clad 
companions doing so as well.  They raised their spears again; the 
two who had held the poles took those up, and the ravens flew to 
land atop them.  "It had been said that he would hesitate to be
king.  We had not expected him to be so... vehement."

     "Perhaps it would be best," Kima said, "if you said nothing
more of kings to him.  Best not to call him a lord either."

     Loame slowly nodded.  "We have something for you."
     
     He turned, and one of the spear-holders stepped forward,
holding out a sheathed sword, the handle bearing a round red gem.
Her sword.  Hesitantly, she took it and strapped it to her thigh.
The familiar weight of the ancestral sword of her family was 
comforting; she remembered it had been left in the nursery after
Galm had disarmed her, in a time that seemed so long ago.

     "Helubor and Xande have called a Speaking," the big man 
said, broad brown wings making a slight, nervous twitch.  
"Helubor is going to declare himself king.  He has a proclamation
signed by five of the noble house heads."

     "He is holding their families, isn't he?" Kima said.
     
     Loame nodded.  "We guess he has perhaps fifty troops loyal
to him and Xande, all with guns."

     "Then it is best to confront him during the Speaking," Kima
said.  "Everyone must attend, and weapons are forbidden within 
the Hall of Speaking."

     Not, she thought silently, that Helubor would care about
those.  But there was the chance that he might not be willing to
take such a risk an outright violation of the ancient laws just 
yet.  Not yet.

     Loame slowly nodded.  "Wise words, Lady Kima."
     
     "Kima.  Only Kima."
     
     "Kima," he said, seeming to form the words hesitantly.  "You
were a general, before Helubor and Xande stripped you of your
position, before they-"  He broke off.  She felt his eyes upon 
her wings.  Her crippled, broken wings, that had once been her 
greatest pride.     
     
     "I know what was done to me," Kima said.  "I shall do what I
can."

     He nodded.  "The Order of the Raven is yours to command.  We
have all trained as we could.  I hope we shall not need to fight,
but..."

     Kima stepped past him.  "Let's go.  The sooner Helubor is 
stopped, the better."

     One of the first things she had ever learned in her military
training came back to her.  Know your own forces.  

     A dozen men whose abilities she did not know, but who seemed
loyal.  Saffron's brother, whose power was untested, who did not
even seem entirely stable to her mind after that last incident.  
Three humans, powerful warriors all of them, but humans, and she 
could not entirely bring herself to trust them, despite all 
that had happened.

     And there was herself, with her crippled wings and her 
sword.  Against Helubor and Xande and soldiers wielding those 
hideous instruments that some dared to call weapons, against a 
population that had for four thousand years been told they 
needed a king.  She shrugged.  She supposed it could be worse.
     
**********

     Lord Helubor, soon to be king of Phoenix Mountain, stood in
the centre of the Hall of Speaking and regarded the gathered mass
of his subjects.  His red-brown eyes sparkled, and a smile curved
onto his thin lips for a short moment.

     The Hall was the largest chamber in Phoenix Mountain, and
among the most ancient.  It was a vast indoor amphitheatre, the 
ceiling  three hundred feet high at the lowest point.  It had 
been carved thousands of years ago, out of the living rock of the 
mountain, and the stone had long been worn smooth by time's 
passage.

     The central section was a wide circular area, with a huge
golden statue of a phoenix with its wings raised dominating.  
Beneath the cast shadow of the head, a small table and chair were 
placed.  An identical table and chair lay in the shadow of each 
immense wing.  

     Around that circular area, a ten-foot wide moat of clear
water slowly circled, crossed at the eight compass points by
bridges of intricately-wrought stone.  Eight entrances led out
between the long stands of rising seats, each gate topped by 
graven phoenixes, wings touching the ground as they edged along 
the frame.  The seats in the front were in luxurious boxes, 
covered in the decorative symbols of the noble family that they 
belonged to.  Up from that, hard stone benches served to seat 
the common folk.

     The Hall could hold over ten thousand at full capacity; it
needed barely a tenth of that to hold the entire population, 
which was rapidly gathering.  Nervous chatter rose to his ears
from all of them as they took their seats, and he felt a swell of
dark pride in his heart as he felt the hundreds of eyes, looking 
only to him.

     The seats of the royal family lay directly across from the
phoenix statue.  He glanced there, to his mother and Fanael.  His
mother was staring intently at her hands; Fanael shot him a look
of utter hatred.  Well, it was not as if he wasn't used to that;
in time, his lovely sister might come to realize the appeal of 
power.  He actually found the loathing somewhat attractive, in
the same he'd always Kima's hatred of him impossibly alluring.  
He'd been used to the women falling at his feet since he'd been
old enough to realize the appeal of his own looks; the only two 
who'd ever rejected his advances had been Kima and his own 
sister.  He liked that; it rather excited him.

     He was annoyed at the escape of Kima and the rest, but it
didn't really matter that much.  He had already had the sweetest
vengeance he ever could have exacted upon her; almost 
unconsciously, his hand reached down to touch the bone-handled
knife at his belt.  A cold, delicious shiver ran up his arm and
through his entire body.

     Lord Kavva sat at the centre table of the three that lay 
before the phoenix statue.  Nominally, he would moderate the 
Speaking, but in the truth it did not matter.  Nothing would, 
soon enough; none of the archaic foolishness of his people.

     He glanced to where Xande stood, looking as if he were
half-asleep, near the left-hand table.  The old man still played
at his deception.  Perhaps he truly was going senile this time;
that would have been a pleasant bonus.  He knew the old man was
necessary; the troops were loyal to him, after all.  He was
necessary for now. 

     At the right-hand table was nothing.  In theory, anyone who
wished could have sat there, to refute what he said when he 
spoke, but he knew no one would.  Even if they had, he had little
to say anyway, little that they could find retort to.

     He'd had more dreams last night while he slept, the Phoenix
Crown cradled against his chest.  Xande should have been more
respectful of him before; he _was_ the chosen of the master,
after all.  

     Too late now, he realized as he looked at the old man.  
Perhaps it had been from the start; this was destiny, after all.
This was the master's will.  Slowly, he walked over to where
Xande stood, languidly pacing himself, knowing all eyes were upon 
him.  

     "Have they all arrived?" he asked eagerly.
     
     The decrepit old man's thick white eyebrows raised as he
opened his eyes.  "Just about, I believe.  The messengers went
out this morning to call back all who were outside the mountain.
We can begin soon."

     Then he closed them again and let out a soft, snoring 
breath.  Helubor shook his head and stepped away; the only real
regret he had was that he hadn't been able to bring the armed
troops and their guns inside the Hall.  But weapons were
forbidden, and he couldn't risk that great a defiance yet.  Not
until everything was in place.

     Then, and only then, nothing would stand in his way.
     
     He waited, watched the people filing in from the eight
entrances and finding seats, watched the water swirling in the
wide channels around the central area, clear and pure.

     Finally, after what seemed like centuries of waiting, he saw
Xande slowly nod his head, twin tails of hair bobbing with the
motion.

     Helubor walked back to the left-hand table.  The golden and
silver crown with the phoenix upon it lay there, and a golden box
with a phoenix design on the lid.  He smiled, looking at it, and
reached out to caress the lid, gently, lingeringly.

     He glanced to Kavva, and slowly nodded his head.  The dark
noble slowly stood and picked up the padded hammer from the table
in front of him.  Feathers of every type and colour were arrayed
behind the cloth-wrapped steel head, red and blue and yellow and
a hundred more shades.

     Kavva turned, and struck the belly of the great phoenix
statue with the hammer, a resounding blow that echoed like the
tolling of a bell.  Carefully-designed acoustics in the Hall
caught the sound and amplified it, spread it to ever corner of
the vast chamber, bounced it to every ear.

     The silence as the sound receded was like a pressing weight.
People seated themselves, awed looks on their faces, fearful 
ones.  Helubor smiled.  He waited until a moment before the last
echo of the ringing had faded, and then he began to speak.

     "My people," he said, listening to the sound of his voice as
it spread through the chamber.  "As you all know, we face a great
time of crisis.  Our beloved Saffron has been slain, by the
foulest treachery of one who was supposed to be his most trusted
servant.  Even now, his body lies in the throne room.  A time of
great change is coming, my people.  Not only did the traitorous
Kima work with the outsiders to slay Saffron, but my father,
uncle and cousin have also vanished, though we can yet hope to
find some trace of them."

     He paused, let his words sink in, and glanced to the golden
box.  Yes, he knew where to find some traces of the rest of the
royal family.  When the time came, he told himself, when the time
came.

     "I come before you now to put myself forward as king," he
said, and the silence that followed was greater in volume than
anything else could have been.  He could almost hear their hearts 
beating, as if in time with his words, measured by the cadence of
his voice.  "I do this that I might serve, that we might 
survive."

     He took a deep breath, and spoke the next words, purely
ceremonial.  "This is why I speak here, in the Hall of Speaking,
and if any should challenge my right to speak in this way, let
them say so now."

     Silence hung long and heavy, reaching to the furthest edges
of the room.  Helubor looked around in triumph.  Soon, he
whispered to himself.  Oh, soon.

     And then the silence broke, shattered, because another voice
came, from the entrance across from the statue of the phoenix, 
quiet at first, but it echoed, oh how it echoed, it resounded
through the chamber.

     "I challenge your right to speak," it said, and Kima stepped
forward, from the shadows cast by the gate and into the light of
the chamber.  He could see shapes behind her, other figures
arrayed.  She stood tall, the wings he knew to be crippled draped
down her back, face cold.  "I challenge your right to be king."

     Helubor stood silent for a moment, stricken, unsure what to
do.

     Then he laughed, deep and rich, pealing off the walls and
derisively dismissing the threat.  "And who shall stand with you,
traitor?  Who have you chosen to stand at your side as you
challenge me?"

     "I have chosen Ranma Saotome," she said, and he heard gasps
rising now.  A smile twisted his face, and he laughed again.

     "Surely not," he said.  "An outsider may not stand with a
speaker."

     "Actually," said an aged voice that still managed to carry
itself throughout the Hall.  "An outsider may.  No law forbids 
it."

     He saw the old man, the librarian, step up to stand beside
Kima.  There were others stepping up beside her now as well; the
dark-haired woman who had been at the site of Saffron's death, 
the boy in the dragon-scaled vest, a dozen winged folk he vaguely
recognized as commoners, dressed in black clothing and steel
breastplates.

     And there, finally, the outsider.  Ranma Saotome.  
     
     Helubor threw back his handsome head and laughed for the
third and final time.  "Very well, then."

     When he spoke next, he put as much disdain into the words as
possible, turning the solemn ritual of them into mockery.  "Come
forward, and speak, and bring the one who stands with you."

     He saw her start to walk, the outsider coming beside her.  
He tried to make himself look fearful, nervous; all that she
would expect and want to see in him.

     Inside, he was laughing madly.  She had come back; against
all that he had thought, she had come back.  He glanced to the
golden box, and smiled.  

     Soon, it would be time.  
     
**********

     Ranma was, as he had been a lot recently, confused.  He'd
had a killer of a headache ever since they'd come up through the
caverns.  They'd walked through absolutely deserted stone
hallways, and had finally ended up here.  Everyone had been
talking except for him; he was deeply grateful that they all had
decided to ignore him.

     Cologne had been all right, or so she said.  She'd brushed 
it off and stood back up, and they'd resumed walking.  He could 
see a huge stone hall beyond the gateway they stood in; Kima was 
speaking, voice echoing, and another voice was speaking back, but 
he couldn't seem to make out the words.

     His head hurt, a steady pulse of pain driving through his
skull, cold spikes of metallic fire behind his eyes.  He wanted 
to lie down and rest, but he couldn't rest, he couldn't rest, he 
couldn't ever rest.  The spot where a sharp edge of rock falling 
from the cavern ceiling had struck him hurt even worse; he had no 
idea why he'd done something as stupid as shielding Kima's body 
with his in the first place.

     The speaking seemed to have paused now.  Someone prodded him
in the back.  Cologne.  "Go on," she said, "we have to step in 
there."
     
     He walked through the gate, vaguely noting the presence of
other people following behind.  They seemed far-away and
unimportant, shadowy like mist.  His limbs felt strangely light,
buoyant, as if he might float away at any moment.

     A voice, mocking, sarcastic.  "Come forward, and speak, and 
bring the one who stands with you."

     And he was being shoved out, into bright lights, into a vast
hall of stone with a circular centre, ringed by a wide moat of
water.  There was a golden phoenix rising in the central point of
the chamber, and for some reason, he was half-stumbling, 
half-walking beside Kima.

     "What's going on?" he whispered, as quietly as he could.  He
saw the faces of the winged folk staring at him from rows of 
seats.  The eyes were fearful.

     "Just stand still and don't say anything," Kima whispered
back as they walked across a stone bridge leading across the 
moat.  "And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to refute Helubor's
claim."

     He could feel a vague tickling at the back of his skull, a
sense of wrongness.  His skin felt loose, his tongue thick.  He
felt like a passenger within his body.  It moved, it walked, and
yet he, he did not.

     Somehow, he had come to stand at Kima's side, beneath the
dark-cast shadow from the great wing of the golden statue.  The
tickle at the base of his neck had turned into a full-fledged
caress.  Everything seemed a division of light and darkness; the
shadows splashed across the floor, the glow of lamps across his
hands.  The eyes of all the people seemed focused on him.  

     Kima opened her mouth as if to speak.
     
     There was fire in his head.  He was slipping, he realized,
and then it was too late, because everything happened at once.  
He saw Tarou in motion, moving so fast, he saw the old man
standing by Helubor raise his gnarled hand, slice it down in a
chopping motion.  Then there was the horrible staccato sound of 
gunfire, and pain tore across his shoulder as he started to move.

**********

     Helubor glanced to Xande as Kima and the outsider 
approached.  "You had nothing to do with this, did you?" he asked 
quietly.

     Xande shook his head.  "No, though it is terribly 
convenient."

     "What?" Helubor asked.
     
     Xande's withered lips curved into a cold smile.  "A group of
renegade troops, seeking revenge for Saffron's death.  
Unfortunately, the candidate for king happened to be in the way."

     And Helubor's eyes went up, and he saw from alcoves high
above the Hall, above the light of the lamps, the star-bright
flashes of guns going off.

**********

     Tarou was standing near the gate with the others, the golden
pearl clutched tightly in his right hand, when he saw the first
of them, and then only by chance.

     He was holding Kima's sword in his left hand; she'd given it
to him, saying she couldn't take it if she was going to speak.  
Something caused him to glance up, past the circle of light cast
by the hundreds of lamps upon the walls, and he had a seen a
shimmer, a slight glint of metal.

     He was running by instinct, before that realization fully
registered, but it was already too late, because the guns were
already going off.  He saw Ranma go down, tackling Kima behind
the golden phoenix statue, and he couldn't tell if he'd been hit
or if he'd thrown himself flat in an attempt to avoid the shots.

     He was over the bridge in a second, and he was not sure what
it was, but some feeling in him made his right hand come up, and 
he flung the pearl behind him into the shallow depth of the 
water, watching it sparkle as it fell.  
     
     The sheathed sword flew from his hand in the direction of 
Kima and Ranma, clattering across the floor as the bullets from 
the automatic rifles chipped up splinters of stone behind him.  
From the winged people gathered in the seats, he heard the 
screaming begin, as a wave of heat rose at his back.

**********

     Helubor's hand came up, his mouth open in a silent scream,
and a curtain of volcanic heat wreathed the air around him.  
There was the patter of molten lead hitting the floor around him
as the bullets melted, and he saw the stricken look on Xande's
face as he turned, an aura of heat blazing around him.

     "Traitor," he said lightly, and raised his hand.  Fire
blossomed there, swirling, a ball of white-hot flame.  He grinned
at the look of terror on Xande's face.

     Then the moat caught fire.  Inexplicably, impossibly, sheets
of flame a hundred feet high roared up from the water, 
accompanied by immense clouds of steam and screams of panic and
fear from the watchers in the seats.
     
     Xande moved faster than he would have thought possible, 
darting to the side as the fireball exploded into the ground, 
blackening and twisting the stone.  
     
     He realized with a vague sense of apprehension that the old
man was burning with a black aura of power that wreathed his 
limbs and wings, and he was also smiling, very unpleasantly.

**********

     Kima was about to speak, to put into words her denouncement
of Helubor, when Ranma hit her from the side at the same time she
heard the same awful sound she could never forget even after all
these years, the sound of guns going off.  

     She heard the echo of bullets ricocheting from stone and
metal, heard Ranma cry out in pain, and then they were on the
floor, his body on top of hers, beneath the cover of one wing of
the phoenix statue.

     He was up and off her in an instant, and she could see a
bloodstain on his left shoulder, the hole in his shirt and the
wound on the flesh beneath.  His face looked blank of all but 
fury, empty of everything except rage.  She remembered it 
vaguely, from the time in the forest upon the mountain, when 
he'd killed the woman in the blue robes, the one who had wielded 
the instrument of pain with such delight.  
     
     Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Tarou, running 
across the stone floor towards Helubor.  He flung her sword in 
her direction; his running speed was incredible.  The sword
skittered across the floor, landing perfectly at her feet, and
she snatched it up and stood, fighting back the urge to hide, to
panic, at the sound of the gunfire.  

     Then it stopped, at the same time an immense roar of 
consumed oxygen filled the Hall, as walls of fire tall as
buildings exploded from the water.  Over her head they branched
together, joined into a single great dome of rolling flames like
a knitted web.  She could feel the heat from here; her eyes 
watered and stung from it.

     She turned around, drawing her sword from its sheath with a
hiss of metal.  She vaguely saw Kavva lying wounded on the floor
in front of the phoenix statue, barely breathing, blood leaking
from his body.  

     Then she saw Ranma.  His eyes were closed, his arms out to 
the sides, the fingers spread broadly.  The expression on his 
face was ecstatic, rapturous.  He was smiling, and not 
pleasantly.

     The walls of fire roared, screamed with the sheer force of
their heat, and then a bolt of fire leapt from them and struck
Ranma.  The impact lifted him from his feet and into the air, and
then a second hurled him upwards, body unburnt, the awful smile
still upon his face.

     A third struck him, a fourth, a fifth.  His body writhed,
eyes still closed, fire wreathing his limbs.  He was near the top
of the dome of fire now, and blazing talons of pure flame were
grasping him, holding him there, bathing him.  He should have 
been dead after the first of the fire had struck him, yet he was 
unburned.

     And he still bore that smile upon his face, a smile like a
skull, as the fire washed over him, scouring him as if it might
wash him clean.

**********

     Xande's wings swept back, emerging from the decoration of 
his robes, broad, mottled with black bands.  The darkness swirled
about his wings, about his arms, gathered on his hands.

     Helubor swore silently and tried to get off another blast of
fire, but it was too late.

     Xande's wings whipped forward, blurring, leaving an 
afterimage of themselves with their speed.  
     
     "KIYOKARASUKAMINARIKAZE!" he shrieked, his ancient voice
hideously cracked.  The wave of ravening darkness that boiled 
from his wings looked like a spill of ink upon the air, and then
it slammed into Helubor and he was flying backwards, tumbling 
over the table, sending the Phoenix Crown and the golden box 
flying across the floor with metallic clatter.  The air and heat
of his body seemed sucked from him; he heard Xande's feet running
away.

     Weakly, he struggled up from where he'd fallen, searching
desperately for the box.  He spotted it out of the corner of his
eye, and began to turn.  The walls of fire seemed only to be
growing higher.

     "Hey," someone said from behind him.  "Don't look away from
me, now.  That's a real bad idea."

**********

     Tarou smirked as Helubor turned back.  He'd let the old man
run by him to get at the arrogant prince; it wasn't as if the old
guy could have escaped anyway, not through those walls of fire
the dragon's pearl seemed to have created.  He'd vaguely noticed
that Saotome was currently being slightly roasted in the air,
but that wasn't really his problem right now.  He swung his fist
as Helubor turned, a straight-armed blow with all his strength 
behind it.

     Tarou wasn't a sadist.  He didn't have an aversion by any
means to causing pain, but it had always just been a means to an
end for him.  What Helubor had done to Kima had sickened him to
the core of his soul, even before he'd gone below Jusendo, even
before he'd glimpsed upon the own darkness of his being and
turned, even if just a little, back from it.

     Still, he took a certain grim pleasure in feeling Helubor's
nose break.  The force of the punch knocked the winged man
sprawling backwards, letting out a cry of pain.  Tarou followed
up, raining blows upon him, letting the rage drive him.  It was
easy, it was so easy, but this time, it was all right, all right
to give in to this rage, because Helubor had done far worse
things than what he would receive at Tarou's hands.

     Well, probably.
     
**********

     Kima pulled her eyes away from Ranma and looked about.  
Tarou seemed engaged in beating Helubor to a pulp, and she 
couldn't see Xande anywhere.  Sword still drawn, she moved to
check on Kavva.

     Koruma's father was unconscious, bleeding heavily from a 
bullet wound to his chest.  But he seemed stable; she needed
something to bandage him with, though.

     Some chance motion out of the corner of her eye made her
dart to the side, as she heard Xande's scream begin.

     "KIYOKARASUKAMINARIKAZE!" 
     
     The wave of aching, chill force slammed into her legs and
knocked them out from under her.  She landed and rolled, bringing
up her sword into a guard position and looking up.

     Xande was perched atop the head of the phoenix statue,
twenty feet above the floor.  His withered face was exultant with
twisted joy, all of his masquerade gone now.  "You cannot imagine 
how long I've dreamed of killing you, Kima."

     "Why, Xande?" she said quietly.  "Why would you betray
Saffron, betray our people?"
     
     "Betray," Xande spat disgustedly.  "Betray?  You are the
traitors, Kima, you and all the other nobles.  You have ruled the
people in Saffron's name for four thousand years.  You have said
he is a god, and you have used that to take everything from the
people.  I say it is better to serve a god, even a god of evil,
than to serve a squalling child and the ones who maintain his
rule for their own power."

     "You call me traitor?" Kima hissed, rage rising in her.
"You call me traitor, when you and Helubor delivered the map to
the girl, when you released her father from his imprisonment to
interfere in Saffron's transformation..."

     "You always were a clever one," Xande clucked.  Overhead the
flames roared, clawed at Ranma's body as he twisted beneath their
grasp.  The firelight shone in the dark depths of Xande's eyes,
glittered upon the golden body of the phoenix.  "Just like your
father."

     "Do not dirty his name by your mention of it," Kima snarled.
     
     Xande sighed.  He looked almost regretful for a moment.  "It
would have been so much easier if you'd died with him, you 
realize that.  Or even if you'd simply stepped down from taking 
up his duty.  But no, you had to be all courageous about it.  
Even if you'd been incompetent, that would have worked; the
problem was, you were so damn good at the job.  From your father
again, I suppose."

     "If you're going to fight, then fight," Kima said, forcing
back down everything but the anger, the cold rage.  "If you're
going to perch there like one of your crows and insult the memory
of the dead, then you are an even greater coward than I thought."

     "I have been promised certain things, you know," Xande said,
gazing down balefully at her.  "When the mountain is the 
master's.  I have been promised my youth again.  Perhaps I shall
make you a consort."

     Kima laughed.  "I'd sooner lie with Helubor."
     
     "We can always arrange that," Xande said, and he leapt from
the phoenix and soared into the air, the black power gathering
around him again for another blast.  "He does have something of a
fancy for you, although his tastes are rather... unorthodox in
such matters."

     A day before, she could have taken into the air, battled in
her element.  She probably could have won; she knew she would 
have been faster than him, and better, whatever tricks he might
have.  Not now.  She gripped her sword and prepared to sell her 
life as dearly as she could.

**********
     
     Helubor groaned in pain.  The human's last blow had knocked
him to the floor in a tangled heap.  His body ached; he realized
the outsider bastard had broken his nose.  If it didn't set 
right, his face was going to be ruined.  If he managed to 
survive.  The human was very fast; he hadn't had time to build up 
any power.  When he got into the air, though, the man was dead.  
     
     If he got into the air.  A swift and brutal kick to his ribs
sent him rolling across the floor.

     "Why aren't you laughing?" he heard the human ask.  "I hear
you laughed before, when you crippled her.  Isn't it as funny
when it happens to you?"

     Of course.  The knife.  He'd forgotten all about it.  
     
     He did it all in one swift motion, drawing the knife from
his belt as the human levelled another kick at him.  He could
almost feel the power contained within the blade; it seemed to
give him strength, speed, make the pain less.

     He ducked under the kick as he rose and slashed out, feeling
the blade tear through flesh and hearing the human bellow in 
pain.  He'd given the man a long but shallow wound across the
thigh, but he knew a wound like that would bleed badly, and would
hurt to move.  The glow of the fire rising from the water 
sparkled on the blade, streaked with blood.

     He saw the box out of the corner of his eye then, golden and
shining in the firelight.  He dove for it, grabbed it up, and was
into the air with a powerful beat of his wings before the human
could stop him.  He looked down at the groundling, clutching his 
wound and looking up with furious eyes at him.  

     "For damaging the king of Phoenix Mountain," he said, as he
opened the box.  "The penalty is death."

     He dropped the lid, to clatter to the floor twenty feet 
below, as he soared through the air.  He saw Ranma Saotome being
struck continuously by flame, clasped in the air by talons of fire
near the top of the burning prison that held them in here, but he
put it from his mind.  He would be dead soon; Helubor did not 
know the source of the flames from the lake, but they were a 
blessing, he supposed.

     He looked at the contents of the box.  Gritty grey-white
ashes.  His father's, his cousin's, his uncle's.  He knew that;
he'd killed them himself, burned them to death.  Xande had told
him what they could do for him.

     As he scooped up a handful and choked them down his throat,
he suddenly remembered that Xande had intended to kill him all
along.  Handsome he was, but intelligence had never really been 
among Helubor's strong points.

**********

     Tarou yelled as the knife bit into his leg and stepped back.
Helubor moved faster than he'd expected, rising and diving for
the golden box upon the floor, scooping it into his arms and
leaping into the air to soar above his head.  He cursed, and
looked up as Helubor spoke.

     "For damaging the king of Phoenix Mountain, the penalty is
death."

     Then he tossed the lid of the box to the floor with a
clatter, and swallowed a handful of something from the box; Tarou
couldn't see what it was.

     Helubor screamed; his limbs spasmed as he hovered in the
air.  Fire roared from his eyes, his mouth, his ears, his nose, 
it wreathed his limbs and wings, and yet neither he nor his 
clothing burned.  The box clattered to the floor, as did the 
knife.  Ashes scattered across the blade, as Tarou watched.
Helubor laughed, high and mad, and pointed with his hand, the 
palm open and fingers spread wide.
     
**********

     Kima saw Xande turn in the air as Helubor's laughter boomed,
overcoming even the roar of the walls of flame for a few moments.

     The sheets of flame suddenly collapsed inwards in a 
shrieking crescendo of fury.  She felt heat roar over her head,
heard Xande cry out as if in surprise.  In a hundred bolts, the 
flames were sucked into Helubor, whirling around him in a spiral, 
a tiny hurricane of super-concentrated heat and fire.

     With the flames gone, she could see outside now.
     
     It was anarchy.
     
     People struggled to escape through the exits, flying or
running, slamming into each other in panic.  She thought she
could see Cologne, a sole wingless figure standing out amidst the
masses, trying to fight her way through the crowd, Samofere and
the Order of the Raven behind; she saw why a moment later.

     The guns were going off still.  From the shadows high above
the range of the lights, Xande's men were firing into the crowd.
There looked to be only a dozen of them, but the repeated fire of 
the weapons was wreaking havoc, and adding to the panic.  Cologne 
and the others were trying to reach them, but it did them no 
good; the crowds were too thick.

     People were dying.  It was not anarchy.
     
     It was chaos.
     
     Xande laughed above her.  "A beautiful sight, isn't it?"
     
     She looked up at him, almost consumed by horror.  
"Monster..."
     
     "Helubor has consumed the ashes of his kin," Xande said as
if lecturing a child.  "It should give him an enormous amount of 
power for a few minutes, until he burns himself up.  He'll 
probably start losing control near the end.  Maybe he'll bring
down the mountain."

     "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Kima said, the disgust
dripping caustically from her voice.     
     
     Xande smirked.  "If I can't rule it, no one can.  Not even
Helubor.  So long, Kima."  He clapped his hands together in the 
air, a sharp sound that seemed to echo too many times.  He 
muttered something under his breath that she couldn't hear.

     Around him, the air seemed to split, to peel back, and the
darkness below wrapped around him like a great pair of wings, and
when they tore away, he was gone.

**********

     Tarou dived out of the way as a spear of flame the size of a
tree exploded from Helubor's hands and engulfed the spot where 
he'd been standing.  The floor bubbled, and a shock wave of 
concussive force from the impact slammed into him and lifted him 
from his rolling tumble to smash him against the floor like a 
hammer-blow.  

     Helubor's laughter seemed to engulf the world.  It was mad,
and terrifying in its madness.  Rationality and sanity were gone
from it.

     "I am the vessel," he heard the rich, eloquent voice of the
prince say.  There was the sound of taloned feet touching down on
stone.  Tarou tried to move, but the impact with the floor had
knocked most of the breath and all the inclination to do so out
of him.  "My master has seen fit to give me fire."

     From his position on his back, staring up, Tarou saw that
Saotome was still floating in nothingness, wreathed in a corona
of flame.  Helubor's flames were angry reds and yellows, boiling, 
furious.  The flames that covered Ranma were so bright that they
burned beyond white, hurting the eye with the sheer purity of
their light.

     Helubor spoke again.  "And if I cannot rule the living, then
I shall rule the dead, as my master does, atop a pile of ashes 
and a throne of skulls."

**********

     Kima saw Helubor turn the whirlwind of flame around him into
an immense blast that she was sure had annihilated Tarou, until 
she saw him lying on his back a dozen feet away from the melted
patch of ground where the blast had hit.  She could hear the guns
roaring, hear her people screaming, and she forced herself to 
stay calm.

     Helubor touched down on the ground near Tarou, landing from
the air.  He said something she didn't hear, then pointed his
hand at the roof of the Hall of Speaking.  He turned, his back to 
her, raised his other hand, and the heat was gathering, a 
wavering distortion in the air around his fingers.
     
     She was running then, as she'd never needed to before,
because flying had always been enough, had always been faster,
but she couldn't fly now, and she realized what Helubor was going
to do, as she remembered the immense ball of heat that had torn
Jusendo apart, that had shattered mountains, the one that had
come from Saffron's hands.

     He was going to bring the roof down.  He was going to wipe
them all out.  The power was gathering, larger, vaguely 
spherical, the size of a man now, making the air writhe as if in 
pain.

     "Run, damn you," she whispered to herself.  He was twenty 
feet ahead of her, fifteen, ten.

     Run.  Run, ignore the burning pain in her legs, in her 
lungs, run, just run, because she saw the tensing of his body, 
the preparation of release, and she knew how the ball would swell
as it left his hands, blossom like a flower, and it would 
collapse the hall and everyone would die, everyone would die.

     And then she was there.  The sword drew back, thrust 
forward, both her hands on the hilt, gripping so tightly it hurt.  
She realized she was screaming, saw Helubor was turning.

     The sword hit him in the back, driven by all her strength,
and it pierced Helubor's heart from behind.  He turned, life
dying in his eyes, the whirling sphere of heat compressing upon
his hand into a single head-size ball of purified flame, and he
stared at her with such hatred, and such direction for that
hatred, that she knew that she was dead.
     
**********

     Ranma turned within the fire, rotating upon the axis of his
self.  He felt it caress his skin, lover's touch, scrape of silk.
It seeped in through the channels of his mind, blazed white-hot
trails across his nerves and muscles, sang him to power with the
pain of it.

     It might have been a second, or a century.  Images flashed 
by him, and he could keep none of them.  Names were whispered,
but they vanished.  His mind, his very soul, were twisted upon
themselves, and the fire was everywhere.

     And oh, it was pain, and oh, it was glorious, it was so
beautiful, the pain, so exquisitely pure in the agony of it.

     He heard fragments of singing inside his head, hundreds of
voices, thousands of them, tens of thousands, a sea of voices, 
oh, pain, pain divine, lovely pain.

     The light fled from him, and the darkness too, and he was
only himself, himself, Ranma Saotome, and for tiny, perfect
moments, the scope and span of existence was laid bare to him, 
and he saw the millionfold paths taken that had led to where he
was now, and he saw some of what might have been and wept inside
his own soul for what could have been, and he saw some of what 
might have been and cringed in terror as deep as his heart for
what could have been.

     Such pain, such pain.
     
     Oh, there was always the pain, he knew that now, always the
death, always the killing, and the necks of a hundred different
women broke beneath his fist, and he was soaked in blood from 
head to toe, so much blood, so much pain.

     Shall you do my will, sweet one, as you have done before?
     
     And oh, yes, yes, yes, my lady.
     
     And reality unfolded before him, in the vast hall of stone, 
and he saw the panicked flight, and the snappings booms of the 
guns, and he saw the people falling, dying, fleeing.

     Shall you do my will?
     
     Yes, lady, lady, thy will be done, be done, be done.
     
     (Oh, sweetling, yes, thou art and always hath been the 
sweetest of my slaves...)
     
     And he raised his hands, and the flames, the flames, the
white-burning flames of purest Light, they exploded from his 
hands, blazed unerringly from him.

     My will?
     
     Oh, lady, lady, yes.
     
**********

     As Kima watched, Helubor raised his hand, to slay her, to
burn her life out.  Blood was spurting from his mouth, from the
wound her sword had done.  His legs were collapsing as she
watched.  He still had enough life left in him to kill her, 
though, she realized that.

     And then a bolt of white-hot fire shrieked from the sky and
slew Helubor, as if the very vengeance of the heavens had been
given forth that day upon him and his evil.  He did not even 
seem to have time to die; a flame distilled from the heart of a 
diamond burned across his body for a moment, and then he was 
gone, utterly and completely.  

     Not even ashes remained.  Only her sword, lying undamaged 
upon the floor.  She had not even felt the heat of the blast that 
had killed him.
     
     Overhead, she saw the flames lashing from Ranma's body where
he hung suspended in the air.  They struck the ones who held the
guns, and they did not even have time to scream before they died.

     Ranma blazed with light like a star, glittering, shining.  
His arms were held out to the sides, and the aura of fire gave 
him the impression of wings.

     The screaming had stopped.  The panic had stopped; somehow, 
it had all stopped.  She glanced around, saw Tarou weakly sit up.  
Everyone, from the nobles to the commoners, was staring up at 
Ranma.  
     
     The flames moved around him, shifted, expanded.  They were
not the impression of wings; they were wings now, blazing all
about him, an aura in the flowing, familiar form of the phoenix,
shining all about him, casting away all the darkness, shining to
the top of the ceiling of the Hall of Speaking.  

     She wanted to hate the look of it, an outsider, wearing the
most sacred image of her people, the phoenix that was their
symbol.  But she could not.  The sight, the purity of that light, 
was too beautiful.

     And then, as she realized she was holding her breath, the
light died around him and he fell, a hundred feet, fluttering,
tattered remnants of the fire clinging to him.  He landed, almost
gently, on his back, before the golden statue of the phoenix.

     And she realized that her exhalation of breath was matched 
by that of everyone in the Hall of Speaking, as she ran to his
side.

**********

     When he woke up, someone was wiping his face with a damp
cloth.  Drops of water slid slowly down his forehead, reaching
the bridge of his nose in cool trails, before the cloth snatched
them away; too few to make him transform.  It was very dark 
where he was, though out of the corner of his eye he could see 
the bluish-white glow of a lamp.

     He opened his mouth; his lips were dry and cracked.  "Who's
there?"

     "It's just me, boy," he heard Cologne say.  "Don't worry.
It's all over now."

     He was lying on something wonderfully soft, feeling almost
as if he were sinking into it.  A thin sheet covered him from the
neck down.

     He could make out Cologne's figure, half-shadowed, sitting
beside the bed in a straight-backed stone chair.  A tiny candle
burned next to the bowl of water on the table before her, light
flickering across her face, shining in the dark depths of her
eyes.

     She moved the cloth to the bowl again, then gently drew it 
across his feverish brow.  He revelled in the blessedly cool 
feel of it, and forgot, for the next few moments.

     Then he remembered.  All of it.  The thunderous chatters of
the guns, the screams, the mad laughter rising into the air.  

     And he remembered the fire blazing from his hands, seeing
the winged men who held the guns and perched high above the floor
annihilated from existence by the white-hot power.  By his power.
The darkness had fallen then.

     "How many?" he said weakly, wanting to shout it out, not
having the strength.

     "Shh..." Cologne said.  "You've been unconscious for three
days.  There are lots of people who want to talk to you; I've
been keeping them at bay by saying you're too weak."

     "How many?" he said again, his voice coming stronger.
     
     Cologne looked at him, and he saw in her eyes that she knew
exactly what he meant.  "A dozen, perhaps.  Samofere thinks they
were the ones who knew where Helubor and Xande's loyalty truly
lay.  They were firing into the crowds, Ranma.  None of us could
have reached them before a lot more people died."

     A dozen.  There hadn't seemed that many when he'd killed
them, when he'd thrown the white fire from his hands with the
same ease that he walked or clenched a fist.  He tried to sit 
up.  Cologne put a hand on his shoulder and held him down; he 
didn't have the strength to fight her.

     "A dozen," he whispered sickly.  
     
     "A dozen who had killed over twenty other people and wounded
nearly fifty more before you stopped them, Ranma," Cologne said 
gently.  "And Helubor as well, though he was already dying when 
you killed him.  The fact that you killed him when you did likely 
saved Kima's life."
     
     He pushed himself up.  Cologne didn't stop him this time.
He stared at his hands.  He flexed his fingers, looked at the
motion, and tried to keep from shaking.

     He remembered his fist, crushing Denkoko's throat.  He
remembered the fire exploding from his hands, killing men before
they had time to scream.  He remembered fire, and ice, and the
sheer, aching joy of that power.

     "What happened to me?" he said, the agony rising tattered
and flayed in his voice.  "I had it under control.  I did.  And
then..."

     Cologne's face looked old, impossibly sorrowful.  "When
Tarou stayed under Jusendo after you left, the dragon gave him an
item of power.  It let some of her will reach through.  That was
what made the fire come from the water."

     Her eyes closed, very briefly.  The light caught highlights
in her hair.  "I believe she used you as her vessel, as an outlet
for her power."

     "That's what I am, isn't it?" Ranma said.  "That's what I 
am.  An outlet for power, for voices in my head, for the dragons?
She changed me, Cologne; the dragon under Ryugenzawa changed me.
And now this other one, she uses me to kill, she uses me to..."

     "Ranma," Cologne said through gritted teeth.  "Sometimes,
there is no other way.  They were shooting people, Ranma.  You
killed them so that they would not kill others."

     "But I didn't have to," Ranma said helplessly.  "I didn't.  
I did only what was asked, and it was so easy."  He could barely 
hear himself when he next spoke.  "And I liked it.  It was 
wonderful.  There was so much power.  I didn't have to kill them.  
I could have knocked them out, or just destroyed their guns, 
or..."

     But he had killed them.  It was done, and there was more
blood upon his hands, more lives upon his soul, hanging like
weights, choking him.  He couldn't speak anymore.  He didn't want
to speak.  

     Only weep.  That was all he wanted to do.  And he did,
unable to hold it back.  He wept like he had under Ryugenzawa at
the beauty there, like he had after he'd left the broken body of 
the dragon beneath Jusendo, the broken beauty left to lie in
deathless agony for untold ages.
     
     Cologne sat and watched him weep, and no matter what words
she tried to offer him, it did him no good.  For there was no 
cleansing in the weeping this time, no relief from pain, no 
surcease of sorrow.  There was only helpless agony, and a 
despair so deep that he could not even hope to conquer it.

     Finally, she could only hold his head against her shoulder,
like one holds a child's, and let him cry, for who he had been, 
for what he had become, and for the long dark road that he knew 
lay ahead of him, whose end he did not know.