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 34 : A Face Burns Through Me I dreamed about you baby. It was just the other night. Most of you was naked but some of you was light. The sands of time were falling from your fingers and your thumb, and you were waiting for the miracle to come -Leonard Cohen Roots seized at her hair, her shoulders, her legs. Hard-packed earth drove aching shocks through her calves and feet with each footstep - how long she had been running, she did not know. Upon her body, the wounds of the battle at Watcher's Hill throbbed with dull and repetitive pain. Side and shoulder were soaked with blood now, and by the second she could feel herself growing weaker, cold seeping through her limbs and dulling her mind slowly towards unconsciousness. But Shampoo ran on through the lightless tunnel, not even able to see her hand before her or the confines of the walls. Ran, because behind her came the sound of someone running upon hard-packed earth. Constantly she feared a stunning collision with a wall, or a broken ankle from low-lying roots. Yet though the tunnel seemed to grasp at her, it never held her fast, and her outstretched hands always seemed to find the wall before her in time to turn away from it. Time stretched on as she ran - into minutes, hours, days, centuries. Time ceased to mean anything. How to measure time without light? Slow as tar she seemed to move, slow as the slide of glaciers. And someone pursued her in silence - did they pace her, were they slower, how had they not caught her yet? Wounded, weary, sorrowing, she ran. The pinpoint of light at the end was slowly expanding. Had she been running only for a few minutes? It could not have been that little. Crying; she was crying, she realized, sobbing like a child. Dead, dead, they were all dead - names marched through her mind, a grim procession of the slain: Hai Feng, Dai Jin, Gu Shou, Dao Tai. Lang Bei. And not even the worthy deaths of warriors, not even bodies to bring back to offer to the flames so that their souls might fly free through the arc of the sky turned red by the setting sun and beyond the clouds into the heavens - not, not even that. Ripped apart, slaughtered like animals, _devoured_ like animals by those monsters... Oh gods, oh gods of all her ancestors, the sounds of tearing and the bright gouts of blood - was that true battle? Was that the true face of death? No nobility in it at the end, only terror and pain-- It could not be. She would not have it be. She was Joketsuzoku. Life was battle, an opposition of force to force, strength to strength. It was an act of will to make the tears stop, but she did. Do not be weak, she told herself. No tears, for tears are of the realm of children. You are the Maiden - do not weep. And something tripped her, and her head slammed into the earthen wall. A groan, a struggle to her feet, and then the voice came from behind. "" it said, "" It was him. The giant with the sword, the one somehow more terrifying than the winged monsters he had commanded, though he but stood with hands upon the hilt of his blade while the battle went on. His tone was light, amused - and how frightening that was - but somehow familiar. How close was he? How close had he been all this time? She could not place the distance of the voice. Fire in the darkness, so sudden a brightness it nearly blinded, though it was but the tiniest of flickering flames. He was perhaps a dozen feet away, holding up his light overhead in one hand, his sword held dipped towards the ground in the other. Each tiny link of his black mail was so brightly polished that it reflected the light perfectly, so that he himself seemed to be afire. The tunnel around him was, as she had guessed, a tangle of roots sticking through rich dark earth. The roots themselves hung all about like hair - she wondered that she had not injured herself upon them. "" It was in the way he said the name. A step closer, and his eyes, so pale a blue - those together did it. It fell into place; sickeningly, it fell into place. Disbelieving, denying, yet knowing. "" Another step, a long stride that brought him to tower over her where she lay dazed. The flame from the silver dragon in his hand burnished his hair into spun gold. "" he intoned sardonically. "" She scrambled back from him, pushing herself with legs and the single arm she could still feel. "" she whispered, though she knew, knew with horrible certainty that it was true. "" he said softly. "" A moment of distraction seemed to pass across his face; perhaps the blue eyes shone with a little more brightness than usual. Then there was another man where he had stood, and in between there had been - something else. A vague shape like a man, but all rawness and blank flesh, except atop the thing that might have been a head were two abysmal pits of blue flame. The armour and clothing had shrunk to fit the new body. Asakazu was slight where the other had been bulky, and not so tall. The hair was longer, dark rather than golden - but the eyes, the eyes were the same coldness. "" Flight was futile. He could kill her in a second - the sword wavered in his grasp as if he read her thoughts - and to stall him might be to live. What to live for, she was not sure, but something. Surely from the wreckage and slaughter, from this final betrayal of her heart, something might be salvaged. "" the Asakazu-thing said. "" He indicated them with a wave of the sputtering lighter. "<...were not this colour. And there was a woman, much like you, a proud and brave warrior. She betrayed me.>" There was no grief in his voice, but there was the impression that once, long ago, there might have been, as the image of a long-dead thing might remain fossilized in stone. But as love fades quicker than hate, so too grief fades in time. The lighter went out. Before the afterimage of light faded from her eyes, he sparked it again. "" Shampoo saw with wild hope that the roots that protruded through the tunnel walls were stretching, like snakes waking from deep sleep, slowly twining round his ankles and creeping up his lower legs. She was not alone in this - something, some power, was with her here. Something had known her blood upon the Watcher's Stone, and something had opened the ground below her feet into this hidden place. That thought, like an oncoming of daylight in this darkness: she was not alone. "" she asked. The roots in the walls near him trembled, as if in anticipation, like the palsied fingers of the old, strong and dark and filled with ancient power. "" The shapeshifter rippled his shoulders in a shrug. "" A lie, perhaps, but a lie that he surely believed of himself. "" And he let the lighter go out. "<...it is time.>" From the darkness, the sword in his hand swelled with silver fire. The inner edge of the flame was an inversion of light dark beyond black, and the roots of the tunnel lashed out as one single thing, and Shampoo forced herself to her feet through pain and loss of blood and ran. Behind her, cold light burned from the sword, and a figure wrapped from head to toe in writhing ropy fibres of roots howled with rage and blindly swung his blade from side to side. Where its cold steel touched roots, they withered and died in seconds. Each running step drove a rusty knife into her throat and lungs. The tunnel was warm, but she was cold inside as if she ran through winter's heart. Blood loss might kill her sooner than he could. Dirt showered down around her as the roots of the trees above shifted and bound themselves into a wall behind her. So close now to the light that she could see - and behind her came a thing haloed in spikes far past the colour black. Upon two legs it came - and perhaps it was without skin, and perhaps it had the scales of a serpent or dragon, and perhaps what writhed beneath the caul of maggot-white flesh stabbed with blue were all the other faces waiting to come forth. The wall of roots melted before it, fell to dust. Up ahead was stunning brightness - what lay beyond she could not see, but now there was a cool and cleansing scent amidst the odours of blood and sweat and raw earth. The tunnel began to widen out. Her pursuer came on, howling with rage - his voice was a man's, and yet not. On the edge of herself there was a vague sense of sorrow, of yet more loss, but there had been nothing truly there to lose. Up ahead the light was blinding, and a figure so tall it could not be human stood illuminated from behind by it. Shampoo stumbled at last, driven this far more by sheer force of will than by any strength left within her. Even that was gone now, and there was only the cold rushing darkness that crept down from high inside her and kissed her with lips of ice. She stumbled, tripped - and fell finally at the feet of the tallest, oldest, kindliest man she had ever seen. His silk robes were as an ancient ruler of China might have worn in times long past, the colour of freshly-tilled soil trimmed with thread of precious metals of gold and silver. Lines were sunk deep into his face as faults within the earth, but his hair and beard were an elegant silver-streaked black. "" he said. His voice was a deep, rumbling bass, yet so pure it was like music. "" Eternally grateful, Shampoo finally allowed herself the mercy of passing completely into unconsciousness. ********** They faced each other over the unconscious girl. "" the sentry said with gentle voice. "" "" the Serpent replied, "" "" the sentry asked with genuine interest. The Serpent did not answer. "" "" said the Serpent. His tones were very soft. Dropping the blade of the sword so that its tip rested upon the earthen floor of the tunnel, he let the black fires die around him and put back on the Ritter-guise. Comfortable and most familiar, a reminder of what he was now. The sentry's dark eyes were sad under his thick and greying brows. "" he said softly, after a time. "" The Serpent spat upon the dirt floor, narrowly missing the girl's still body. "" "" the sentry questioned, touching a hand to his heart. The Serpent threw back his head and laughed, cold and bitter. "" "" "" "" The Serpent smiled like his namesake. "" "" the sentry said bluntly. "" The smile faded quick as it had come. "" the Serpent snarled. He half-raised his sword. "" "" the sentry replied. The Ritter-guise was huge, for a human, but the sentry himself was over a dozen feet tall, and now he stepped forward until only a few feet lay between them, and the girl lay behind his towering form. "" "" The Serpent edged forward slightly. He was naturally wary of the first ones; they were not human and had never been, and their arts were old and strange. "" And killing the Grey Smith had nearly left him entombed under a mountain. "" the sentry repeated. "" Something clinked and glittered in his hand as he brought it forth from within his robe, a twisting shape of silver that was almost invisible but for its bright glitter in the light streaming from the gateway behind him. "" "" the Serpent whispered. "" "" the sentry replied. "" He raised the slash of silver overhead in one hand, to hurl it, perhaps to bind and catch even the mightiest and most beloved of the Dark - for such as this had it been shaped so long ago. "" the Serpent snarled. "" And, spinning on his heel, he turned and stalked back down the tunnel. This he would not risk, and there were more important things, he told himself. The sentry waited until he faded from sight, and then bent and lifted the girl into his massive arms as easily as if she were a newborn child. She murmured something in her sleep. "" Grief-stricken, for he had known all that had gone on atop Watcher's Hill, the sentry patted her head gently with one immense hand. "" There was no reply. Cradling her against his shoulder, he gestured with one hand, and from far down the tunnel, an earthen rumble and a sliding of rock began. Then he bore the Maiden, who had again asked of him for aid in the name of the ancient compacts between his people and hers, back into the glowing circle of light, so they two passed for now out of the the pain of this world and into another. ********** There was at first the mountain. Tall and sharp, the upper peaks were strewn with clouds, obscured from sight of the ground below. The mountain - it had a name, but that escaped her. Home it was called in the mind, at the most fundamental core from which all other thoughts spring - from the centre of being. Her body felt clumsy and incomplete, and through this she knew that it was a dream, and yet not. While she dreamed, the meaning of the dream escaped her. In the shadows a figure stood nearby. No; not just in the shadows, though a hulking spherical boulder beside him cast darkness down upon him. The light was drawn from him, cast out. And she knew him, though not in the proper way, but this body was hers, was hers, but the mind, all feelings, madly confused. The figure turned, touched his fingers to the stone, and it split and fell in two pieces as if cleaved apart by a blade. Shadow-figure knelt, and in one hand he held a beam of light thought it seared his palm, and in the other hand a ball of darkness was cradled almost lovingly. With fingers of fire and shade he scrawled his name into the rock in kanji elegant and ethereal as last night's mist; flickers of shadow intertwined with a blaze like fire. Beneath it he put her name, and it was written all in light, so bright she could not bear to look directly upon it. Then he closed his fist around the darkness and opened his hand to let the beam of light fly free. He wiped his hand across the names, until they were torn away by slate-grey flame, and only the burning print of his hand remained. And the earth cried out, and he rose and said her name and not her name and the earth cried out and the waters wept blood-- Akane woke up with tears in her eyes. Aches and pains competed for possession of various parts of her body - ribs, leg, stomach, head. Currently, the head was in the lead in terms of how much it hurt, but the others were close behind. The dream, already half-fading in her mind, was gone almost completely beneath the all-too physical pain and nausea. She was in a dark place. A narrow slash of light coming from beneath what must have been a door illuminated little, and the window high overhead showed only a dark sky with few stars in between the gaps of iron bars; through it came the distant sounds of many people moving about and talking outside. The floor beneath her was rough wood, and as she sat up from lying on her side, injuries protesting all the while, her nose rankled at the odour of sweat and otherwise. Someone snored softly in the darkness nearby; the sound startled her, but as her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she saw Ryoga half-curled in a ball in one corner of the large brick-walled room. Moving over on her knees, she shook him by the shoulder. "Ryoga?" His only answer was another snore. A less gentle shake failed to rouse him, and though in the distant past she might have had other methods of waking Ranma, she wouldn't use them on Ryoga. The thought of Ranma was quickly pushed away, and she stood and walked carefully across the dim room towards the door. Halfway there, she banged an already-sore leg on what felt like the edge of a stool, and let out an explosive and highly creative string of swear words. Footsteps. Beyond the door. A panel slid upon with a rusty squeak, revealing the face of a woman little older than she was. "You awake," she observed in heavily-accented Japanese. "Ryoga..." "Friend is drugged," the Joketsuzoku said in a flat voice. She sounded tired and weary, and there were dark bags under her eyes. "Too strong. Break out if awake." "Oh," Akane said softly. A prison, of course. Where else would they be kept? "Want light?" the woman asked. Akane nodded. "Yes." There was a click, and a single naked bulb in the ceiling began to glow. "Light. Want pot?" "What?" "Want pot?" Akane frowned. "I'm not sure what you..." "Pot! To do..." Comprehension suddenly dawned. "I'm okay for now," Akane blurted, though that was not entirely true. The woman cocked an eyebrow. "You sure?" "Yes. Thank you." Without another word, the guard began to slide the panel closed. "Wait!" Akane said, then corrected her tone. "I mean... why are we in here? We didn't..." "You interfere in execution," the Joketsuzoku said. "Brave thing to do, but stupid. Only thing that stop you from getting Kiss of Death is you unconscious. Friend call Elders liars. That brave too, but also stupid." A chill came over Akane. "What happened to..." "What need to," the woman replied, before Akane could complete the question. "Blood-price paid but little now." Sick. Suddenly, she felt terribly sick. She sat down on the stool in the centre of the room and cupped her face in her hands. "Want water, outsider?" The tone was not friendly, but neither was it hostile. "Yes, please," Akane murmured into her hands, not caring if the guard heard her or not. Dryness invaded her throat with dusty hands. Beyond the door, the guard's footsteps slowly retreated. There was the sound of a door opening, and Akane sat in silence for long minutes. Shampoo was-- Fang Shi had said she was dead. Killed by the Phoenix Tribe. But it was all wrong - she could feel that, feel the wrongness of it. Underneath the surface of all this was something more malign than Saffron or Fang Shi. Happosai and Genma had not returned yet, she was sure of that. And they had pursued someone into the mountains. Footsteps again. The panel opened in the steel-banded wooden door, and the hand of the guard deposited a small tin cup, then retreated. "Water." Akane came to the door and took the cup gratefully. The metal was cool in her hands, the water fresh and sweet as she sipped. The guard did not close the panel, but watched Akane drink. Through the opening in the door, Akane could see a plain hallway and little more. "Your other friend go back with Shampoo's father," the guard said as Akane lowered the cup from her lips. So Rouge was all right, then; that brought a tiny measure of relief. The guard continued speaking without waiting for a response. "I hear Shampoo talk about you at gathering. You prisoner of Phoenix before, yes?" Akane nodded, sipped again. "Yes. And I..." She drew a deep breath. The water was suddenly a lump of lead shot in her stomach. "I don't think they did this." "Why?" the Joketsuzoku asked flatly. "Elders say they did. Ambush from air. Arrows." "They aren't..." Akane struggled to express what she was sure was true in words. Kima - damn her - had seemed to be the one really in charge of things, though Saffron might be king. And an ambush and slaughter like what Fang Shi had described did not seem to match up with Akane's picture of the cunning, subtle foe the winged woman had been. The guard grew annoyed at Akane's silence. "What?" "The Phoenix only really want to be left alone, I think," Akane said, making a logical leap as she considered the facts. "Saffron, their king, is incredibly powerful - I think he could wipe out entire armies by himself. But all he does is provide heat and light for them. Even if they would be angered by prisoners being taken, I think they'd just try to rescue the prisoners. Wouldn't that make more sense?" The weary eyes of the woman on the other side looked doubtful, but not entirely unconvinced. "It..." The sound of a door banging open came from outside, and a voice called in Chinese. "Guard is changing," the woman said, sliding the panel quickly closed. Her footsteps rapidly went away, and Akane dimly heard her conversing in Chinese with another voice. Then more footsteps, a door closing. The tread that stopped outside the cell door this time was heavier, and the face that looked through the panel when it opened was older and considerably less friendly. Akane tried all the same. "Hi..." "Quiet, outsider." And the panel slammed closed. With her foot, Akane slid the stool over to where Ryoga lay in stupor. Twinges in her body reminded her of her injuries as she sat down next to him, and drank the water until the cup was empty. At the end her throat was still dry, but she did not ask for more. ********** Ranma woke up from dreaming of Akane. He could remember nothing but that the dream had been of her. Whatever he had seen, though, it left him breathing raggedly when he awoke. Disoriented for a time by the strange surroundings, he finally swung his feet out of bed to the cold stone floor of the room in Chenmo Shan, and stretched his arms over his head. No wonder, of course, that he had dreamed of Akane. Shiso had brought the word - she was in the Joketsuzoku village. Somehow, it had not been important at the time. Now, though, Kima was healed, and the few hours of sleep had banished the darkly beautiful memory of the Lady from his mind. Again his thoughts were in turmoil - he did not know what to do. She was involved now, as was nearly everyone else he'd thought to protect by leaving them behind. Let my mother be safe, he half-prayed. Let there be at least that. Through the gap in the curtains drawn across the open-air balcony, he could see that it was still night outside, and hours till sunrise. Yet he was not tired, but rather filled with a strange vitality. Exhaustion had been too lesser a word to describe him hours ago; after he'd awakened Wiyeed from her unexpected nap, and she'd stopped berating him over being the source of the unexpected nap, he'd simply collapsed into the bed of the empty room she'd shown him to. There was a full-length mirror, face clouded with dust, leaning against one wall. With his hand he wiped the dust away, and studied himself in the silvered glass by the pale and unobtrusive light of the globes upon the walls. A web of cracks marred one of the upper corners of the mirror's face, near a triangular corner of the metal frame that looked to have been scorched by acid, but that did not prevent him from seeing the head of the green dragon on his body. He pulled his undershirt off, and stood bare-chested before the mirror, turning back and forth. The black dragon's body writhed along his back and gripped the tail of the green dragon within its mouth near his waist. The green dragon's mouth was closed still, the head lying upon his right shoulder. Marked. Like cattle. Though the tattoos, or whatever else they might be, were beautiful - exquisitely detailed down to the most miniscule feature. They were alive, too, in a way; the use of power would make them writhe and twist. Not for the first time, he thought he was getting thinner. Maybe it was simply the mirror. He pulled his undershirt back on, and his other shirt overtop, and walked away from the cracked glass. The room was cool, but not uncomfortably so. Under his hands, the black curtains were silky, and he drew them aside to step out onto the balcony. Night air was refreshing as he breathed it in, and he rested his elbows on the carved stone railing and leaned slightly over the edge. This balcony faced south, staring out across the wide desert. He remembered visions. There had been a forest there once, and cities within it, and a people fair and bright and beloved of the Light. Then wasteland, and a black tower like a claw raised against the heavens. Now the shifting sands of four millennia had lain themselves down across the place, and buried all. But still nothing would grow there. Snatches of song, rising and falling melody: *Lady of ends and beginnings, Lady of desert and still pool, Lady most fair...* Nearby, a thin waterfall fell from an opening in the slopes, and splashed gently down to feed a glistening pool hundreds of feet below. How small I am, he thought suddenly. How terribly, terribly small. A soft knock upon the door drew him away from night and the desert, and he passed back through the open curtains and into the small room. Wiyeed was in the hallway beyond when he opened the door. She had pinned her long hair up atop her head, though a few strands had escaped to dangle about her pointed ears. "Lord of Waters," she greeted formally, with a slight incline of her head. Ranma laughed uncomfortably. "You can just call me by my name, you know." Wiyeed's face softened slightly, moving away from her stiff shell of authority. "Ranma," she said quietly. "The Lady heard your dreams. Are you all right?" A faint anger stabbed him. "Heard my dreams?" Wiyeed went on as if he'd said nothing. "What is wrong?" "Akane's here. At the Joketsuzoku village." A nod. "Akane is...?" "My fiancee. I should..." He sighed. "I don't know what I should do. I should have done something. But I just went to sleep, and..." "You were tired. Even more so, after what you did." All he could do was shake his head. "No. That's not right. I feel... as if I'm forgetting her. Even though I see her body all the time, it's not her." Losing what Akane moved like, the way in which she laughed, the precise curvature of her smile. "I don't know how to--" "Well, you have to go to her, of course," Wiyeed interrupted. When Ranma stared at her, she blushed faintly. "I haven't really... well... look, I've read a lot of books. The hero always goes to the one he loves. That's the way things are." Bitterness tinged his laughter. "Life is not a story." "But it is," Wiyeed countered. "Stories are only the reshaping of what there already is in life. Can you deny that even now you are drawn to her?" Akane had beckoned him in his dream. He remembered that now. Calling out from the darkness of sleep. "No. I can't." Wiyeed smiled, albeit with what might have been sadness. "Then why deny yourself? Go to her." "But what about everything else?" Ranma said. "The Dark is coming, Wiyeed. I can't..." "I do not think," Wiyeed said coolly, ",that you could avoid the role fate wishes you to play in what is to come." Ranma raised one eyebrow. "And can you?" "I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be." That, recited precisely, was her answer. She smiled, then shook her head. "We read many things here. Fate binds some more solidly to a certain track than it does others." Decision made, Ranma nodded. "I'm not tired," he said. "I'm going to go now." "Now?" Wiyeed blinked. "Can you not wait--" "Maybe there isn't time," Ranma said, cutting her off. "Maybe that's why I dreamed." Wiyeed opened her mouth as if with further protest, then closed it. "Come," she said, and turned. "I will take you to one of the pools. From there, you may transport yourself to Jusendo." She led him down the empty stone hallways of Chenmo Shan, the light-globes shining all around them and showing the strange artifacts, sometimes alien and sometimes inexplicably familiar, that rested in niches carved from the walls. In time, they came into a chamber where a small pool of shadowy water lay upon the floor, as still as if it were frozen. The lip of the pool was perhaps an inch high, made of pure white marble so closely joined with the granite floor that it was hard to see precisely where one truly ended and the other truly began. Wiyeed knelt and passed her hand over the surface. Tiny ripples followed her motion as if in response. Frowning, she made another pass with her hand. "This is..." Hands resting on his knees, Ranma bent down and stared into the pool. Below the veil of the water, he could see a marble bottom, but it was hard to judge precise distance. "What?" "The connections are gone," Wiyeed murmured. "But how? Always, always they are there. To her sister over the sea, and her sister under Jusendo. But..." "Is it safe to touch the water?" Ranma asked as he dropped to one knee beside the pool and reached out with a tentative hand. Wiyeed nodded. "The Lady is entirely conscious, unlike her sisters. It is safe." The water was cool as he dipped his fingers into it. The slight impact made little spreading circles, and as he swirled his fingers through it, he felt... pain? Not from him, but elsewhere... Sister sister sister a voice endlessly repeated broken and lost sister sister sister Ranma pulled back. Too deep to go alone. "Did you feel it as well?" He nodded. "Yeah." Nervously, he licked his lips and stared at the pool. "Something's wrong. With them - with the dragons." Silence from Wiyeed made him glance to her. Head cocked to one side, she appeared to be listening to something he couldn't hear, eyes distant and unfocused. Suddenly, she snapped out of it with a shake of her head. "The Lady does not know what has happened. She is..." Wiyeed seemed to struggle with the words. "She is afraid. I must wake the others - we must use the Nightpool to scry and see if we may discover something. My brother as well; he'll need to know this." "Kima too," Ranma added as he stepped with her towards the archway leading from the chamber. "How many miles is it from here to Jusenkyou?" "The quickest route across the Desert of the Claw to one of the passes through Dragon's Ribcage is perhaps twenty-five miles. That leads into the Valley of the Waters - from there perhaps another ten to Jusenkyou." Ranma laughed. "That's nothing." "Not for such as you, I suppose," Wiyeed answered with a shrug. "And your companion's flight will make it easier for her." Ranma did not think it needful to mention that he was quite capable of flight now as well. How easy it had been last night; how very easy. Something his father had told him once came back to him suddenly - one of the pieces of advice the old man had loved to give but had never followed himself. Beware that which comes quickly and easily. He brushed the thought aside and walked silently down the halls of the mountain called Silence, the echo of his footsteps resounding hollowly on the stone floor. ********** Ryoga wasn't waking up. It had been nearly an hour now, or so Akane guessed. The sound of the guard pacing outside was almost constant, as was the unknown activities whose noise filtered in through the high window. Occasionally, a group would pass close by, speaking in Chinese. Not for the first time since coming, Akane wished she had even a rudimentary knowledge of it. If she knew Chinese half as well as Shampoo had known Japanese... She wiped at her red eyes. Shampoo was alright, she told herself. Just like Ranma was. Another shake drew only further snores from Ryoga, and Akane stood from the stool and walked a circle on the rough wooden floor of the jail. The new guard, even if less friendly than the last, had left the light on. She was thankful for that - time always seemed to stretch on longer if you had to wait in the darkness. Even if they could have gotten out, there wasn't much chance of them escaping unnoticed. And there wasn't any chance of them getting out if Ryoga didn't wake up. A shiver rolled across her. The air in the room seemed suddenly colder. In the hallway, the guard stopped pacing. There was a heavy thump, as of a body falling to the floor. Akane ran to the doorway and pounded on it. "Hello? Hello?" Silence. The rattle of a key in the lock. Akane stepped back and shifted into a fighting stance, bringing up her half-clenched fists before her. When the door opened and Mousse stood revealed on the other side, she sagged with relief. Then she took in how he looked. His skin was pallid, and his eyelids were closed. The robes, usually white or pale blue, were deepest black, the contrasting geometric symbols picked out in pale thread. In his right hand, he held the long barb-headed spear that she'd last seen over the fireplace mantle in Lang Bei's home. "Mousse?" It was not possible to keep a tremble of nervousness from her voice. "It's me, Akane," Mousse replied softly. His voice was a shadow moving across water. Feet so light as to move without a sound, he stepped by her and into the room. In the hallway, Akane saw the guard flat on her back, no mark upon her. Before she turned away, she noted with relief that the woman's chest moved slowly up and down. "What happened--" Mousse cut her off with a look. Or not a look - his eyes remained closed. But nevertheless, the impression of being stared at was so strong that her voice went dry in her throat. Unable to stand the void of silence, Akane tried again. "Mousse, Shampoo... they say Shampoo is..." "I know," Mousse said. "But that's not important right now." Akane bit back an angry response as Mousse knelt down by Ryoga, still holding the spear tightly in one hand. "How do you know?" she finally asked. "I know," Mousse replied. "We cannot stay here. We must leave before the War March begins." Akane blinked. "War March?" Light glinted across the razor edge of the spearhead as Mousse gestured with out towards the window, and the vague sounds of activity outside. "Every Joketsuzoku, woman, man or child, will march towards Phoenix Mountain. The women will take their weapons. The men will take their bows. The children will walk, be carried if they are too tired. The tending of fields will be abandoned, the herds confined in their pens with enough food to last them a week. All will turn themselves to war." "War," Akane whispered. The word sent a chill down her spine. "A small war," Mousse said softly. "Between dying peoples." Akane shook her head. "We can't let it happen." Mousse nodded. He reached out with his free hand, and traced Ryoga's forehead with the index finger. Ryoga let a long breath, and shifted where he lay on the floor. His legs and arms stretched out, and then he slowly blinked. Mousse rose and stepped back, gripping the spear shaft with both hands and resting the butt on the floor. "What did you do?" He turned his head in the direction of her voice. A blind man did not move with such surety; Akane knew that. "I purged the poisons from his system." "How?" No change of expression. "My family line has kept the spear for fourteen centuries, waiting for when it would need to be awakened again. There are certain powers inherent in wielding it." "Powers?" "And prices," Mousse said softly. "Oh, there are prices." "You were in a coma," Akane said. "How--" "What's going on?" Ryoga asked, shaking his head and looking around in confusion. "Mousse, how did you get here?" "That can be dealt with later," Mousse replied as he began to walk out of the room. "We must go. South." Outside and nearby, a child began to cry, and just as quickly went silent. "Phoenix Mountain," Akane said. "Somehow... I..." Finding the right words was a struggle. "Yes. He's right." Ryoga barked a short, bitter laugh. "We're going to walk out of this frying pan and into the fire, then?" "We're going," Akane retorted sharply, "to stop a war. And we know Saffron and the Phoenix somehow had something to do with whatever happened to Cologne and Ranma." "No we don't," Ryoga said. "We think." "I know," Akane insisted. "I just do." In the doorway, Mousse stroked the shaft of the spear with his hands and spoke. "Time is not in great abundance here." "We're going to just walk out?" Ryoga asked wryly. For the first time since he had come, Mousse smiled. "Yes." A thought came to Akane. "Rouge," she said. "And Shampoo's father." Mousse seemed to hesitate. For a brief second, head turned towards her, his eyelids fluttered. Beneath - no, that could be but a trick of the light, Akane thought. "Yes," he said finally. "We will go there." Without another word, he turned and walked out into the hall, stepping over the limp form of the sleeping guard. "Stay close to me, and do not speak." Ryoga opened his mouth as if to protest. Then he stared at Mousse's pale face, slowly shook his head, and said at last nothing. When they walked out of the large building they'd been kept in, the village was a bustle of activity, though it was hours from sunrise. Torches, lanterns and the occasional electric lamp lit the village. In the centre of town, a supply dump appeared to be gathering, with piles of weapons and folded tents and wrapped packages that must have been provisions. Women and men ran back and forth throughout the village, carrying burdens from one place to another. Even the occasional sleepy-eyed child passed them, carrying a quiver of arrows or a bulging sack. No one noticed them. Everyone passed them by. At times, it seemed as if one of the villagers would walk right into them, but at the last moment, they always diverted around them without seeming to realize it. They passed close to two wooden stakes, sharpened and driven into the ground. A palpable space which no one would enter surrounded them, though a few hard-eyed women stood nearby with hands resting on spears or the hilts of sheathed swords. Akane let out a low moan as she saw what was atop the stakes, and Ryoga put his arm around her and moved to hide it from her vision. "Don't look," he whispered. There was a grief in his voice as well. "Don't look." The Joketsuzoku seemed, for the most part, to be doing exactly that. I wonder what they did with the rest of the bodies, Akane thought inexplicably, and let out a soft sound halfway between laughing and weeping. "Be silent," Mousse said in a quiet voice tight with strain. Both hands held the spear before him as they walked. Now that Akane turned her eyes to him and away from the terrible sight of the executed Phoenix, she saw that a pale fire thinly rimmed his hands and the shaft of the spear. Somehow, the look of it gave her comfort. Peace. When they arrived after what seemed like hours of walking through the busy night-time preparations of the village at Shampoo's house, they found the door closed and locked. No one ever locked their door in the village. Mousse touched the point of the spear to the door's handle. There was a click, and it swung open. "Inside." As they walked into the front hallway, Akane swung the door closed behind them. Dimly, she realized that under other circumstances whatever had happened to Mousse would have caused her much greater concern than it did now. On top of everything else, though, it was only one more thing to be dealt with. Rouge met them in the passage between hallway and sitting room, red-rimmed eyes going from wary to relieved in an instant when she realized who it was. "Oh, Akane, I'm glad you are well," she said effusively. "I had no idea what was going to happen to you. I tried to talk to people, but none of them would listen, and Shampoo's father said I had to come away. They're so angry, Akane." Before even Akane had a chance to respond, Rouge grabbed her by the shoulders and embraced her tightly. "I didn't know what to do. I felt so helpless." The only thing Akane was able to do was give the older girl a few hesitant pats on the back and then step away. To Ryoga's obvious relief, Rouge chose not to embrace him as well, but simply gave him a brief smile. Even that made him blush and stare at his feet. "We don't have a lot of time," Akane said. Rouge nodded. "I know. We have to get out of here before things start getting bad." Hanging back from the reunion, Mousse spoke. "It would not be good to be outsiders among the Joketsuzoku at this time." It was as if Rouge had only noticed him them. She looked up past Akane and Ryoga, and as much as eyes could be said to meet among one blind and one sighted, theirs did. After a few seconds of silence, Mousse turned away and walked down the hall out of their sight without another word. Akane blinked, then stared at Rouge's ashen face. "What's--" "Nothing." Rouge's voice was shaky. "Who is that?" "A friend of ours," Ryoga said. "A good one. Something's happened to him. I don't know what." It seemed that Rouge accepted that, for the tension in her body relaxed. "Shampoo's father is upstairs," she said. "I'm going to go and pack supplies." "Want some help?" Ryoga asked unexpectedly. Rouge nodded and the two of them headed down the hallway in the direction of the kitchen. Left alone and confused, Akane stopped to order her thoughts. They had arrived in the village less than two days ago, and so much had happened. We are going towards the strongest enemies we ever faced, she thought with a dim sense of foreboding. To the Phoenix Tribe and their child-god, who nearly killed Ranma and me. To do what? Give warning or otherwise? Within all this, this threat of war, there were the unknown factors. The women on the mountain so long ago who spun storm and shadow, the old man that Happosai and Genma had pursued into the mountains only to vanish. Tarou, who had appeared and just as quickly disappeared. It was all a tapestry of intertwined threads, but so many of them she could not see the beginning or the ending. The Council had been killed. Shampoo too, it seemed, much as she might wish to believe she could have lived - and such a sadness that put in her now, even with all their past. The thought of the vibrant girl gone, truly gone, struck her nearly as hard as the thought that Ranma might be gone as well. But it had not, could not have been the Phoenix. That she knew with all her heart. Dangerous foes, ruthless too, but Kima's ruthlessness had been subtle; not senseless slaughter. So what then? Let war occur? That could not be. But war was a great beast, and it would grind her and anyone else who tried to stop it beneath an iron heel. She told herself that, and yet there was nothing else to do but go. To warn, at least. To find answers in the process. Deep in her heart, she remembered... something. Ranma. A dream of him, perhaps, keeping her always on the right path. Lost in her thoughts, she only realized she was climbing the narrow stairs up to the second floor of the house when she was near the top. Almost, almost she went back down, but then she stopped herself and walked to the closed door at one end of the hallway that she guessed belonged to Shampoo's father. A knock upon the door received no answer. A second nothing more. "Hello?" she called. "Open," a heavily-accented voice called from inside. Nervous, she opened the door and stepped through. Shampoo's father sat cross-legged on a thin sleeping mat, fingers working deftly and quickly to string a short bow. The room itself was spartan, almost aesthetically bare of any mark of personality or uniqueness. A small window overlooked the night scene of the village. Captured points of the lights and torches from outside danced like wisps in the glass. If he was surprised to see her, the small man gave no sign. Though, since his eyes were hidden behind his dark glasses, that might not have been the case. He gave her a cursory nod and resumed bending the bow almost double with surprising strength, a hand on the upper curve of one end and the other end crooked in between his leg and knee. Akane stood in silence as he finished and rose smoothly to his feet, the bow held loosely in one hand. With a finger, he plucked the string and gave a satisfied smile at the twang it made. That changed abruptly to a frown. "You not stay here. I not turn you in, but not shelter you either. War March is called. We go to war." "It wasn't the Phoenix," Akane said quietly. "They didn't do this." He shrugged his thin shoulders. "War March is called upon Phoenix, by vote of majority of woman villagers. All Joketsuzoku obey or no longer Joketsuzoku. Is law." Such an absoluteness in the words. Not much trace of emotion. Akane almost opened her mouth in angry reply. Then she saw that there were tears falling in silence down cheeks, from underneath the dark glasses that covered his eyes. "The Phoenix didn't take your daughter away," she said softly. "You know that. I fought them. They're well-trained soldiers, but they're not martial artists. The Council would have driven them off easily. Shampoo alone could have fought dozens of them without even breathing heavily." "Their king..." "Saffron was a baby when I last saw him. And if it had been him, no one would have survived to come back. To tell about the ambush. To execute prisoners for crimes they did not commit, and call down war." The man cradled his bow in both hands. "War always part of the Joketsuzoku," he said softly. "Last century, we put it away. Grandmother, Elders like her, they say no more war for the Joketsuzoku. But it never go away. Part of what we are." "Don't let this happen." He laughed softly. "I am man. I nothing. I provide support. Carry bow, though I not shoot in years and then only in hunting. War cannot be stopped by me." "But that doesn't mean you have to go along with it," Akane insisted. "You can't. Shampoo wouldn't want this." "And how you know what my daughter want and not want?" Akane had no reply to that, simply uncomfortable and mute silence. Shampoo's father sat down heavily on a stool by his tiny dresser. On the dresser, dried sticks were arranged in a plain vase of chipped white porcelain. The bow laid across his knees, he took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes with the back of one hand. When he looked up at her, she saw his eyes were small and dark and blurred with tears and near-sightedness. "I am Joketsuzoku," he said softly. "I not know how to be anything else." "If war happens, how many will die, even if you win? The Phoenix live in a mountain as secure as any castle. They can fly beyond even the range of arrows." "Arrows not all the Joketsuzoku have," the man replied cryptically. He was silent for a moment, then turned his head and looked away from her, out the window and into the night where the Joketsuzoku made ready for war. "What you and friends going to do?" "We're going south," Akane answered after a moment's hesitation. "Towards Phoenix Mountain." He nodded, as if he had known all along. "Go soon." "Rouge and Ryoga are packing supplies." She wondered what time it was, how soon until the sun. "Mousse is awake now too. He's coming with us." The legs of the stool scraped raspingly on the boards of the wooden floor as he rose. "You not think the Phoenix do what Fang Shi and Bi Shou say?" It was said so softly, Akane barely heard it. Blame, perhaps. He was seeking someone to blame for the death of his daughter. "No." His face bore no readable expression, and now his eyes were dry. Akane pressed on. "Something terrible is coming, and we're only leaves in a stream in this. We're going to try and stop this if we can. Whatever it is." He nodded. For the first time since she had entered his room, he smiled. "Some ways, you remind me of my daughter." A compliment, Akane supposed. But the pride she felt was surely real. Looking at him, a small, grieving, seemingly weak man, Akane felt as lonely and isolated from her own family as he must now feel. She longed to hear Kasumi sing to herself as she cooked, hear one of Nabiki's snide remarks. Even her father would have been a joy to see in that moment. "Thank you," she said at last, and wondered how much time had passed in silence. Outside, the sound of work and dim voices calling back and forth seemed to have lessened. Had they run out of time? He seemed to hear her thoughts. "When they ready to go, there will be time for rest. A few hours, so all are strong and can march long as possible." "We'll go now, then." He nodded. "All the gods go with you." Akane nodded, a thickness in her voice. "And with you." Silence between them. No need to speak. "You know," Akane mused softly, "I don't think I even know your name." "Gao Chao, Akane," he replied even more softly. "Name is Gao Chao." He waited. She could say nothing. She did not know what he wished her to say. "It means 'high tide'," he said finally. In the silence, Akane could hear sounds from the floor below. The kitchen must be under this room - through the thin boards, Ryoga and Rouge's voices carried, though not the words. She nodded. "It fits." She didn't know why it did. "Do you know how to use a bow?" Gao Chao asked, and held forth the one in his hands to her. ********** "" "" Fang Shi paced the front hallway of her house as Bi Shou stood warily upon the doorstep, tossing one of her daggers from hand to hand. The village was quiet now; everyone had been ordered to grab a few hours sleep before the march began, and only a few torches and lamps remained burning, unguarded. "" "" Bi Shou replied. "" Bi Shou raised an eyebrow. "" It was a trial to stifle an angry reply. Face tight, Fang Shi stepped out of the house and closed the door behind her. "" she said as she gazed at the darkened houses of the village. Bi Shou shrugged. "" Gibbously, the moon hung in the sky overhead. Fang Shi watched it, and the spangled glitter of the stars. Finally, she spoke again. "" Bi Shou shook her head, then tucked her blade away. With her hand, she covered a small yawn. "" "" Fang Shi muttered. "" "" something hissed from nearby. It did not sound human. "" The voice said the tribe's name almost mockingly. It dripped an almost visible darkness, something deeply wrong in the sibilant tones. Bright finger-long fangs glinted in the moonlight as one of the monstrous winged things from Watcher's Hill stepped out of the shadows near the house, black wings folded tightly around him so that he was nearly invisible against the night. A chill ran through Fang Shi's old body at the sight of the lashing barbed tail that seemed possessed of a will of its own - it was the leader of them. His eyes were very dark, with a faintly shimmering haze of red. "" Fang Shi said flatly. "" Yet he did, she realized - as much right as the master that he served. Or she. Not for the first time, Fang Shi mourned inwardly at what she had allied herself with. Let them have believed me, she thought silently. Let them have believed that I never knew it would come this. But it had, and now she could only go in this one direction. Survival first; after that, everything else. The monster - Shouzin, it had been called - seem to realize that. Thank the gods that nearly everyone else was asleep, and that the few guards awake were far from here. Shouzin did not go, but rather took a step closer. Bi Shou stood in silence, regarding him in mute disgust. There were still stains of blood upon Shouzin's teeth. Whose, Fang Shi wondered, and hurled that thought deep down and locked it away before it drove her mad. "" the monster said. "" "" Fang Shi asked. "" Shouzin replied. "" "" Bi Shou murmured. "" Hurriedly, she turned to leave. Fang Shi put a hand upon her arm and stopped her. "" Bi Shou nodded, and stalked away. Shouzin was grinning when Fang Shi looked back to him. "" she said in a dangerously low voice. "" "" Shouzin said. "" From between his fangs, a forked tongue flickered. "" Her stomach twisted. "" Shouzin regarded her with obvious contempt. "" "" Fang Shi hissed. "" She was not sure she could back up all the threats she might make, not now. But she was almost certain that if she wanted to, she could kill Shouzin. Not easily, perhaps, but she could. Muscles coiled beneath the emaciated, almost fleshless body of the monster. Fang Shi drew on her energies and prepared an attack that would reduce him to ash if he moved at her. Then, without a sound, he sprang straight up into the air. Wings beat once in a smooth and powerful motion, and he was gone from sight within an instant. Slowly, Fang Shi let herself relax. She sat down on the front step of the house and pulled her shrunken legs up to her chest. A wind blew through the village, flittering the distant flames of torches, and she linked her hands together across her knees and watched. "" Fang Shi hadn't even heard the door open. Framed in the light from within the house, Bai Ling was tousled and sleepy-eyed in her nightgown, and looked younger than her eighteen years. "" Bai Ling toyed nervously with her hair, lifting it with her hands and letting it fall back against her shoulders. "" "" For a moment, there was a frightening hesitation on the girl's face, and then she shook her head. "" "" Fang Shi murmured softly. "" "" "" Bi Shou nodded, bit her lip in a childishly annoyed gesture, and turned away. The door closed with a snap behind her, and then Fang Shi was alone again. As she wanted it. ********** There was a pale rosy haze in the east, as the light of dawn swept over the sky and shone upon the desert below. A dim and sallow moon was still visible in the pale blue sky, soon to vanish as the sun rose higher. Up above the lifeless sands, Kima flew. Dip, soar, rise, fall. Claws of wind brushed against her face as she flapped her wings to drive herself forward. Sometimes she laughed with the sheer exuberant joy of it, like the children did when their wings were judged strong enough to carry them and they took their first flight out of the mountain. Memories of that came back - the sheer vast space there was to go, the incredible sense of power and beauty inherent in being a thousand feet above the land, so you could trace the way the rivers ran, and see how hill and valley intertwined. A glorious, ordered picture, so huge and complex that it seemed no one who could not fly could ever grasp it. On the ground below, Ranma walked. It had been her hope that he would fly with her, for she could have shown him how it was really done. But, stubbornly and predictably, he had chosen to plod along on the ground. Well, not plod, really - he moved in the long run as fast as she did, despite having to climb high dunes of shifting sand. She laughed again - if he wanted to be landbound, let him - and it was, like all her laugher, lost in the wind. It was a mile, perhaps two, until they would reach the pass leading through the mountains. Chenmo Shan was a memory in the distance of the horizon, and from her high vantage point, she could see the enfolding mountains of the Valley of the Waters. Never again could she think of it as simply a space of land that held Jusenkyou and Phoenix Mountain and the lands of the Musk, the village of the Joketsuzoku and Jusendo. It had a name, a name from out of ancient memory. They had given him a cloak to wear, saying that the desert grew hot when the sun rose. Ranma had said they would be across before it rose too high, but Wiyeed had pressed it upon him anyway. He was a blot of dark grey against the sand, pacing her, occasionally looking up to smile when she flew close enough to see his face. Oh, but how good it felt to fly again. Free again. _Whole_ again. Not because flight made her any better - because it was a part of her. Close, how close she had come to having to live without it. And she could have - she knew she could have, and the fact that she did not made it all the more important. But she had had the strength at last to face life without flight, and she felt now as if nothing could ever stop her again. As they got within a hundred feet of the mountain pass, Ranma stopped walking. He had taken no rest since they had begun to cross the desert hours ago, with the night sky still dark and star-filled overhead. Neither had she, though she now realized that she was tired. Perplexed, she tucked her wings and dived, unfolded them when she neared the sands, and turned over in the air to land lightly on her feet. Ranma clapped his hands sarcastically and smiled. Kima humphed with mock annoyance and then regarded him questioningly. "Why did you stop walking?" "Just wanted to look back." He looked vaguely embarrassed, and shrugged his shoulders, making the long grey cloak ripple around his body. "Helps me focus. If we lose, I think this place is gonna get a whole lot bigger." "And if we win?" Another shrug. "It won't. Maybe things'll get a little better for a while." "A pessimistic attitude." "Destruction's a hell of a lot easier than repair." "This isn't even a desert, really," she said quietly, hit harder than she wanted to show by his words. "There are flowers, even in deserts. This is just a wasteland." "There's no water here," Ranma agreed. "Not a bit. Everywhere I go now, I can feel it, and I didn't even realize I could until I put my feet on the sand and realized I was missing something. It calls to me, night and day, as long as I'm near it. But there's nothing calling me here, as long as my feet are on the ground." "Is that why you walked?" He nodded. "There ain't nothing but me in my head here." The words disturbed her, though she could not say precisely why. "We should hurry." "Yeah." She waited for a moment, but nothing more was forthcoming from him. "I'll see you on the other side of the pass, then?" "See ya." Then he began to walk away through the short distance of barren sand that remained between the flat wastelands and the towering mountains. ********** Yan came out of the ground shortly after the sun rose. The Serpent, he told himself. I am the Serpent, the hand of the Dark upon the earth. But before that, so long before that, he had been Yan. Warden of Tang-Jin, the shining lake that was the centre of the Valley of the Waters, just as Tu-Mu was the centre of Wurdsenlin. Tang-Jin, where the blind washed their eyes and were given sight, where the lame bathed and walked again upon legs strong and youthful as spring. Beautiful Tang-Jin that had turned black as coal and dried up when his beloved lord had smote Wurdsenlin in the name of the Dark. He had not been there to watch it die - he had been at his lord's side beneath Tu-Mu, for he had been betrayed and turned away from Tang-Jin and the Light to walk with the Ravager for all his days. Under the great tree that was the sourcing of all the power in Wurdsenlin, they had slain the the Twelve, the mightiest wizards of the Dragon Tribe. Under the great tree, he had been bathed in the Ravager's blood and had watched him bring the black fire down upon the green and pleasant land. And at the last battle in the wasteland, beneath the black shadow of the tower that had been raised as a monument to the might of the Dark, he had been slain. Like a maw, the earth had yawned and swallowed him. A moment of awesome pain when it had slammed shut and then... Floating. Through a place of darkness and fire that burned without light, through lakes of ice and pools of acid. He had been unravelled like a spool of thread, twisted and plucked, his torments magnified. And reborn at last beneath a pile of corpses in a land of ice so far from home. Forgetting everything... so many centuries of wandering and killing, with old memories slowly emerging and shaping him. How long had it been till he had remembered everything... it could not have been more than a few centuries ago... Or had he... did he remember everything? How much of him was Yan, and how much of him was not? He called the second-birth body Ritter now... how many names had been on it before? He couldn't remember them all. Yan stopped and stared straight at the sun. It had been night when he had gone under the ground. He had forgotten how the passage of time in the places between the worlds stretched and warped. He blinked. The Serpent looked around at where he was. After the tunnel had been collapsed, he had dug his way out until another exit had been found. Yan wasn't sure where he was. The Serpent stared and tried to orient himself. At last, he did. A short walk to the village from here. By now, the War March would have begun. Shaking his head to clear it, he began to walk through the craggy hills. Birds sang in the branches of the thin but strong trees nearby. Overhead, the sky was blue and cloudless. There is a power in names, he thought, as he walked through the pleasant land. In the ones we choose to call ourselves, and the ones others choose to call us. He was not Yan, he decided after more walking through the craggy but green land that approached the Joketsuzoku village. He had not been Yan for a long, long time. He was the Serpent, whether he liked the name or not. His was the poison fang and the subtle touch, the shedding of skins. In the distance, he could see the quilted terrain of the Joketsuzoku's farm fields. They stood empty now - all would be on the War March. Who won and lost, who won at all, those was irrelevant. The only objective had been to remove the Joketsuzoku from their village, as they lived close enough to Jusenkyou to pose a threat. Not to him, but to Yoko and her sisters. He would need them for a short time longer. And then no more. A wind made the trees sway. There was the tang of water on it as it blew past him. How peaceful it all seemed. There was no hint in the air of what was coming. Best that way, he thought, and he turned towards the west, towards Jusenkyou and the beginning of the end. ********** "How much further?" Akane winced for the umpteenth time. Rouge's complaining and lack of fitness compared to the rest of the travelling party had made the long night-journey slow, and even now that dawn had cracked in the east and come spilling over the mountains, it wasn't getting any better. There had been no stops to rest or otherwise, and even she was beginning to get tired. Not that she was going to show that. Mousse and Ryoga weren't having any trouble keeping this fast walking pace, and if they weren't going to have any trouble, neither was she. They were in a narrow section of the southern passes, walking down a v-shaped gully sliced out of the Bayankala range by the torrents of the great rivers of the world's youth. A few tenacious trees clung to the steep and barren slopes, many with half their roots exposed and the others twined tight into the cracks of the mountains. The ground itself was hard-packed and sparsely vegetated, strewn from time to time with fallen boulders from the slopes. "I said..." "I don't know," Akane snapped with an angry glance at Rouge. "And complaining is definitely not going to get us there sooner." Rouge looked hurt, and Akane immediately felt bad. But it really wasn't helping to hear her all the time. And she couldn't think of any apology to make, so she kept silent and fixed her eyes at the trail ahead. "There." Mousse was pointing with the head of his spear towards a peak cloaked in mist far in the distance. "That is Mount Phoenix." Ryoga adjusted the pack on his shoulders and shaded his eyes with one hand to gaze towards where Mousse indicated. "Tell me again why we're going there," he muttered, with a sideways glance to Akane. "Because we can't allow this to happen," Akane said stubbornly. "Because it's wrong. And because I think we'll find the answers we're looking for there." She pointedly gazed at Ryoga. "Is that good enough for you?" "You nearly died because of Saffron, Akane," Ryoga said softly, falling into step beside her. Mousse walked ahead of them with a smooth and silent gait, and Rouge trailed behind them by nearly twenty feet, though she made the occasional hurried struggle to catch up. "I know," Akane replied. And it went even deeper than that; Kima had stolen her very body, a theft of a magnitude so great it was almost incomprehensible. But there was far more to this than the personal. More to this than Saffron or Kima. There were the two innocents, guilty only of spying, who had been executed for deaths that their people were not even responsible for. Somehow she knew that, knew with the deepest conviction that this was some great and elaborate plan. Only, she wondered, how could it be carried off - was it really so easy to start a war? It almost drew bitter laughter from her. Of course it was. History had shown it again and again. How especially easy it would be to start a war upon the Phoenix; they were isolated and alien, half-legendary. That which is unfamiliar is feared. That which is feared is hated. "Akane?" Ryoga's voice shook her from her thoughts. "This is too important to think about the past," she said, trying to put what she felt into words. "How can we not try and stop this? Do you want to see the Joketsuzoku try to storm Phoenix Mountain?" Ryoga shook his head. "Of course not. But how can warning the Phoenix help to stop this?" "You don't believe they actually did what Fang Shi said, do you?" Ryoga looked unsure. "I don't..." "Don't lie to yourself," Akane chided. "You were the one who stood up last night, in front of the Joketsuzoku, and told those two power-mongers that you didn't believe them." "And what good did it do?" Ryoga snapped. "Words did nothing. There's war all the same, isn't there?" "But if there's proof that..." "Proof?" Ryoga laughed. "Proof, Akane? People don't care about proof. I had proof before my face for so long that Ranma wasn't the enemy I thought him to be, that you--" Akane blinked. "That I what?" "Nothing," Ryoga muttered. "Just take it from me. If you want to believe something, really want to believe it, it's hard to make yourself stop. Not before people end up getting hurt." "Ryoga, what do you mean--" Rouge cried out from behind them. Akane whirled, Gao Chao's bow already drawn from where it had been on her back and an arrow nocked to the string. The two Joketsuzoku must have come up silently behind Rouge. Tall women both, hard-eyed and dressed in dull shades of grey and brown that would blend into the terrain here. One of them had Rouge in an almost casual-looking chokehold with a knife to her throat. The other shouted something in Chinese and gestured with her sword. Akane got the message all the same, and dropped the bow to the ground. "Stupid outsiders," a familiar voice called from up the slope. "You think you get away when move so slow? I and my scouts know mountains like they our homes." Bi Shou picked her way down from the upper slopes and strode towards them. Even from here, Akane could see that she was exhausted by the way she moved. In the crags of the slopes, more women in grey and brown had emerged. Bows in their hands shifted slightly from target to target. "If you move faster, maybe you have made it," someone else taunted. Bai Ling hurried down from the opposite slope in a few short leaps, almost slipping once but catching her balance at the last second with the butt end of her weapon. It was a polearm much like her great-grandmother's, except that the bladed head was a flat inverted-bell shape rather than a crescent moon. She smiled grimly, but Akane saw a sort of falseness in it. "Now you not get to betray Joketsuzoku to enemies." "The only enemies of the Joketsuzoku right now are themselves," Mousse said quietly. Bi Shou started, and Akane saw the women with bows do the same; it was as if they had not noticed Mousse until he spoke. Bai Ling, on the other hand, did not seem to respond so much to Mousse's presence as to his words; they drew a visible wince from her. "So that how they escape." Fang Shi spat into the dirt. "Drop spear, male dog." There was perhaps a moment's hesitation from Mousse. Fang Shi made a subtle motion with her hand. Akane heard the twang of a bow. Then there was an awesome, piercing pain in her left forearm. She cried out, and swayed. Ryoga caught her. Darkness threatened. Every bruise from last night came back in force, but nothing could compare to the molten spike driven through her arm above the wrist. "Drop spear." There was a soft sound, as of something being driven into the earth. "Akane!" Ryoga said desperately. Ugly rage twisted his face. "I'll..." "No," Akane muttered, leaning into his arms to keep herself from falling. "No, I'm okay. Don't provoke them." It took a visible effort for Ryoga to keep his control. Bai Ling was saying something to Bi Shou, but Akane only heard Bi Shou's response. "Best way to punish is sometimes to hurt what your enemy cares for." Then Rouge screamed. A piercing, wailing cry that sounded as if it had been ripped from her. Akane tried to raise her head to see what was going on. A blinding flash, bright as the sun itself. She heard the Joketsuzoku cry out in pain and fear. The world was bathed in light. A wave of incredible heat washed over her, as if she stood scant inches from a bonfire. Ryoga's arms cradled her shoulders and back. It felt nice. Not as nice as Ranma's would have felt, but... Oh, did her arm ever hurt. She hoped it wouldn't get infected. What was going on? Bi Shou was shouting something in Chinese. She sounded terrified. Something that could not, must not be human laughed and the cold hate and awful alien joy of it ached in Akane's bones. The Joketsuzoku were still screaming. There was a smell like scorched meat. Like when she'd tried to make stir-fry pork months ago. Ranma hadn't liked it. "It begins," Mousse said, soft as the breeze and yet it carried over all the laughter and screams. "Look north. Look and see the truth of what you have allied yourself with." ********** "Nothing." "Nothing?" Ranma sat down on the lip of the Phoenix Tap's basin with a weary sigh. "Nothing here, at least. I just don't get any sense that there's something wrong." Kima glanced back over her shoulder and fluffed her wings nervously. "Then whatever is wrong..." "...isn't here," Ranma completed. He stared up at the shattered roof of the Heart of Jusendo. "But..." "Jusenkyou, then?" The reaching was almost instinctual now, his senses falling down thousands of feet in an instant to the water vein below the roots of the mountain. Even the suffering unconscious love of the bound one below had become easier to bear. Rivers, lakes, oceans, all fell into sight. The shape of them was mapped behind his eyes in glowing lines. Flow, speed, strength, volume. How ancient they were, he thought. He saw how rain was gathered from the sea, and how the endless renewal of the earth and all things on it took place continuously. Great source of life, he thought. Mother of all things. The cast-off bodies of the continents fell, grain by grain, into the cradle of their birth. In time, all would be as dust, and new lands would be raised anew. Lord of Waters. It was an apt title. He saw the truth in it now, for it was both most placid and most destructive of the elements. It was the cup lifted to the parched throat, and it was the tidal wave. It was the spring in the desert, and it was the flood. Source of all life, and in the end, the gatherer of all things. Maker, mender, breaker. And he saw it all now. It was perfect, so very perfect. As balanced in the end as a lake over which no wind blows and in which no currents eddy. And yet... There was corruption in it. Not dead things, for that was natural - they would be returned to life in time, if in other forms. What he saw was the hand of humankind, he realized; toxins dumped into the oceans and the rivers, acid carried in the raindrops. Hundreds, thousands of spots were disturbed, as if someone hurled stones one by one into the stillness of the lake. "Ranma?" So far off, the voice. Too deep he had gone this time, he realized vaguely. Sister, someone whispered. Sister, sister, sister, oh my beloved sister. Sister, oh darling sister. Filled with grief as old as time, it was an endless dirge that had been varied in its repetition since it had begun back in the youngest days of existence. There was something else there as well - a festering thing that made the dark spots of corruption seem bright as day by comparison. The image of it was something vast and solid, yet possessed of no defined shape. A great tangle of gnarled roots that writhed and stretched itself with terrible purpose. A thousand-headed serpent. A cruel man upon a throne. A vast bird whose eyes were the clefts of dead stars. Then, suddenly, someone dropped a mountain of foulness into the mix. The waters of all the world echoed with a great and silent laughter, and Ranma was lifted and hurled by an implacable and vast hatred out of the depths of the sea and gasping into the light. "Ryugenzawa," he whispered. Kima took a step back from him. "What?" "Ryugenzawa," he gasped again. As he staggered to his feet, he almost fell. Kima made a motion as if to help him, but he waved her away. "I'm okay. Jusenkyou. Now. We have to go." The earth shook, very softly. Somehow, Ranma knew that it shook not only here and in Ryugenzawa, but everywhere throughout the Valley of the Waters, perhaps throughout the entire world. A minute tremble, as if the land were crying out in fear. Kima leapt into the air and soared out of the broken crown of the mountain in seconds. Ranma took a deep breath, gathered wind about his limbs like armour, and arced into the air. Perched upon the edge of one spire of rock, Kima knelt and stared to the east, towards Jusenkyou. The wind had risen abruptly to almost gale-force, blowing furiously from the east, and it raked through her hair and ruffled the feathers of her wings. Ranma landed beside her and stared as well, open-mouthed. "Too late," she cursed, closing her eyes and clenching one fist. "We should have seen. We should have seen." There are moments of life of utter shock, when something expected appears but turns out to be far more than was prepared for. Such was this. The Dark was rising - how many times had that been said? Not so quickly, though. Not so soon. There is a corruption that lies hidden, a disease the eye cannot see until it springs forth. Such this had been, Ranma realized. Galm had been the merely the first thrust, deflected easily. A feint, perhaps. The triumph against Helubor and Xande had thrown them off their guard. They should have seen. Had not warning been sent to Samofere and Cologne? The one gloried in the blood of the Ravager walked again in the Valley of the Waters. Had not the message been received? Akane, he thought. Are you safe? There would be no forgiveness, no coming back for him if she was not. With a sick fear rising in his heart, he tugged the dark grey cloak Wiyeed had given him to cross the desert tighter about his body. From this far, Jusenkyou seemed unreal, the toy of a child. Dark figures flew on dark wings above the pools. He saw them, and knew that they were not the Phoenix, and he hated them. Traitors, a distant and fading voice whispered in his head like the last trickle of water before a rivered at last runs dry into cracked earth. Most hated. But not upon them did his eyes fix at the last; rather, upon a figure standing in the centre of Jusenkyou, arms raised to the sky. From a distance such as this, there was no detail to the man, but Ranma knew him as if he were a brother. "Gods of earth and heaven," he whispered softly. The words, though they were not such ones as he would normally have spoken, seemed to fit. Over Jusenkyou, the sky was tearing apart.