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 8 : Life's Shadow Lifted

     Yoko looked out at the large room from her place behind the
table.  The floor was wooden, the walls grey stone, lit by
flickering torches set into iron sconces upon the walls.  The
back wall had all of its fifty feet of length and twenty feet of
height carved with a seemingly plain circle that edged out from
the rest of the wall perhaps three feet; only careful inspection
let an observer see that it subtly twisted upon its own length
like a Moebius strip, and had only one side to itself.  The ring
she wore upon her finger was the same, and made of silver.  An
eternal circle, without end or beginning.

     Denkoko's tall, slim body lay upon the stone table before
Yoko, hands folded over her breast, one normal, the other a
withered claw.  She wore her robes, the blue-white that had been
her emblem in more than half her years of service.  There had
been no attempt to disguise the blow that had killed her; her
throat was one massive bruise from the crushed windpipe and
broken neck that had ended her life.

     Yoko knew the name of the boy who had killed her.  She knew
his parent's names, and where he had been born, and she knew in
general detail most of the major events that had occurred in his
life.  The problem was, she currently had no idea where Ranma
Saotome was at this point in time.

     The stone table was ringed by Yoko, in her dark grey robes,
and the twelve other senior members of the Circle Eternal.
Behind her dark glasses, Yoko's eyes picked out Yamiko in her
robes, coloured a black darker than night that swam with shadows,
and Kumiko, still clothed in the mad swirl of thirteen colours
that all members of the Circle Eternal but the thirteen most
senior wore.

     As soon as Denkoko was consigned to her death, Kumiko would
put off the robes she wore now and take on her new post.  Usually,
the thirteen were scattered throughout Japan, all in one major
city or another.  From there they kept watch over their various
puppets, and pulled the strings one way or another.  They all
gathered in one place like this only for two reasons; to consign
one of their own to death or for their yearly meeting.

     In front of the stone table, about ten feet away, all the
other members of the Circle Eternal in Tokyo knelt, their
foreheads to the wooden floor.  Perhaps twenty of them; the
Circle itself was not a large organization.  It was through
various pawns that it wielded its true power.  And through the
Children, of course, which was where those women who wished to
serve but had no talent for magic were put, and any men.  There
were no Children here.  The consignment of a senior member was
an event only for the Circle Eternal, though this room was used
also for the monthly ceremonies which both the Circle and the
Children attended.  Those monthly ceremonies were also the
reasons for the slotted grooves on the stone table and the drains
in the floor around it.

     "We gather tonight to send our sister to the master's
heart," Yoko said.  At her words, the kneeling sisters began to
chant the lamentation for another fallen in the service of their
master.  "Let his arms embrace her and gather her to him, and let
the Dark swallow her in death as it did in life.  Let her await
the time when our lord shall come and scour the earth, and take
his vengeance upon those who did betray him."

     She raised up a wrinkled, elderly hand and pulled off her
dark glasses, the lenses opaqued on both sides.  She gazed around
at the other twelve members, feeling a small inward thrill to see
how none of them could meet her eyes.  

     "Nenreiko, you are chosen to consign our sister," Yoko said,
her gaze falling upon the stocky but still beautiful woman in the
pale grey robes.  Nenreiko took a step towards the stone table,
limping slightly.  Her left leg made a clumping, heavy sound
across the wooden floor.

     "I am honoured and accept the honour," she said in a
whispering voice like the pages of an old book turning in a dry
wind.  "Let my hand carry our sister to the master's heart."

     She took another step, and stood beside the table.  She
reached out with one hand and touched Denkoko on the forehead.

     It happened in a few seconds.  Denkoko's young, smooth skin
became traced by fold upon fold of wrinkles; her body shrivelled
like a leaf touched by an invisible flame.  Flesh crackled and
crumpled away, turning to dust and leaving bare bones upon the
stone table for a moment, the robes collapsing around them.  Then
the bones went from clean white to brown and brittle, and cracked
apart, falling away to dust as the flesh had.

     When it was done, there was nothing left but the robes and a
shrivelled right hand, cleanly cut at the wrist as if by a blade
finer and sharper than ever would have been thought possible.
The black blisters that wept when it was attached to a living
host were only small pock-marks now upon the hand.

     Yoko stepped forward and picked up the hand, raising it
high for all to see.  "Here is what remains of our sister
Denkoko.  All else is gone to the master's heart.  Worthy was her
service and worthy was her death."

     She turned to look at Kumiko.  "Kumiko, will you accept this
relic of our sister, and her sisters before her, and take on the
post she held within us, and join the circle within the Circle?"

     "I shall," Kumiko said, stepping forward, a tremulous
eagerness in her voice.

     "Then shed that which you wear," Yoko intoned.  "Naked came
you to this world, naked shall you go to your post.  Come
forward, and be given the blessing of the master."

     Kumiko pulled the multicoloured robe over her head and
stepped forward, naked, carefully holding it in her arms.
Nenreiko took it from her and stepped back to stand in the spot
Kumiko had left when she stepped out of the circle.

     "Lay out your hand upon that which your sister wore and
prepare to receive the master's mark," Yoko said.

     Kumiko put her right hand upon the robes that lay upon the
stone table without hesitation, wrist up, fingers spread wide.
Her pupils were dilated, her lips parted ever so slightly in a
smile.  The expression on her face was one of pure rapture.

     Yoko pulled the ceremonial blade from her robes and brought
it down, feeling, as she always could when she did this, the
subtle, stroking touch of power from the master upon her body,
like a lover within her skin.

     A great, resounding silence came from the kneeling sisters,
filling the room as metal clanged against stone a moment later.

**********

     An hour later, in her office on the top floor of the
building that housed Sen-Atama Software, Yoko sat at the wooden
desk that had replaced the marble one destroyed this morning at
her meeting with Ritter.  Yamiko sat across from her; the other
senior sisters had all left the city already, anxious to return
to their own power centres.  Kumiko would go to Yokohama, to
assume control of the network Denkoko had been in charge of; the
close proximity of the two power centres had always placed Yoko 
in conflict with the other woman, and it was a blessing that
Kumiko was much more amenable to her wishes.

     Taking control of the yakuza twelve years ago had been a
wonderful idea, Yoko decided.  They served as useful liaisons and
pawns, more so than any of the business interests or government
departments that the Circle influenced or controlled.  It was
like the old saying: to kill a serpent, you must only cut off the
head.  And to control it, you just had to have it by the throat.

     The rank and file of the Japanese criminal syndicates had no
idea of who truly pulled their strings.  It was in the upper
echelons that the Circle had their influence, among the heads of
the families and their lieutenants.

     There were many ways to control people, but she had always
preferred fear.  As Machiavelli said, the people loved you on
their own time, but they feared you all of the time.

     She was stirred from her thoughts by a low growl from
Yamiko.  She leaned forward in her chair and regarded the other
woman evenly from behind her dark glasses.

     "I know you are anxious to return to Osaka," Yoko said.
"But we have business to discuss, Yamiko."

     Yamiko made a wet sound from the back of her throat.  Yoko
slowly nodded.

     "First of all," Yoko said.  "About the boy's family and
friends.  I am as desiring of vengeance for Denkoko as you are.
However, we have not survived fourteen hundred years in the
shadows by being rash, Yamiko.  I know where they are; I can take
them at any time.  There is no need to risk exposure without
knowing for certain if there is any hope of reward.  The best
hostages are those who do not know they are hostages."

     Yamiko narrowed her eyes and a low hissing emanated from
behind her mask.  Yoko frowned and slapped a hand down on the
desk.  The next words she spoke were said very quietly, but with
a terrible, terrible force behind them.

     "Now you listen to me," she said.  "Tokyo is mine.  If you
want to kill someone in Osaka, you are welcome to.  But until I
say so, they are left alone.  The old woman acted on her own,
from what we can see.  I will not have all these years of
planning ruined by you; the two of you caused enough damage
already when you tried to take the boy.  He must go to Jusenkyou,
Yamiko.  I have seen that.  He must."

     Yamiko nodded slowly in silence.

     "I think I understand what Denkoko and you were trying to
do," she said.  "By seizing the boy, you would wrest control of
the Circle from me when the master rewarded you.  Fortunately for
me, it didn't go quite as you planned, did it?"

     Yamiko slowly shook her head.

     "The master would have given you no reward beyond death,"
Yoko said.  "You were a fool to think otherwise.  I had seen this
coming, Yamiko.  You were to leave him.  But you did not, did
you?"

     Yamiko made an unpleasant gurgling noise.

     "Would you like to know the consequences of your actions?"
Yoko said in a low voice.  "My weaves are broken, Yamiko.  And I
put the blame upon you."

     Yoko slowly stood up and pushed back her chair.  "Ritter
thinks I should kill you.  He offered to do it himself, actually.
I think he might just do it anyway, despite the fact that I told
him not too.  You know how he is about disobedience.  And he does
so enjoy killing people, Yamiko.  Even more than you do.  Even
more than Denkoko did.  Even more, I would say, than Hako does,
although he takes far less time."

     Yamiko's eyes darkened, and the dim lighting of the office
seemed to grow dimmer.  She made a protest in her hideous voice.

     "I think, however, that I will let you live," Yoko said.
"If you can give me good reason.  Can you give me a reason,
Yamiko?"

     Yamiko slowly put her hand into her robes, and when it came
out it held four long white feathers.

     "How useful," Yoko said drolly.  "They're very pretty,
Yamiko.  But what are they good for?  White is really not your
colour.  Or mine either."

     Yamiko handed them to her and spoke, forcing her mouth to
shape, for a moment, a word that sounded vaguely like human
speech.

     A name.

     Yoko held the feathers and took off her glasses to look at
them, studying them intently.  Then she slowly began to laugh.
It was not a nice sound.

     "Oh, brilliant," she said to Yamiko.  "Very, very good."

**********

     Ranma stared at Cologne over the flickering tongues of the
campfire.  "You said once we made camp you'd tell me more."

     They'd been walking since they came down the mountain this
morning, sticking to back roads and forest trails.  Cologne had
set a pace that left even him tired, and left little time for
conversation, which neither of them seemed to particularly
desire, although Ranma had asked her repeatedly to tell him
whatever it was she knew, about his strange transformation in
battle, about why she'd done what she had, about the two women
who'd attacked them.  Every time she'd brushed him off and said
it would wait until they stopped for the night.

     And now they were stopped, in a clearing deep inside a
forest.  Overhead, the branches of trees scraped at the sky and
shielded the grove from the moonlight.

     "What can I tell you?" Cologne said from where she sat, rake
lying across her lap.  She was polishing the dark wood absently
as she spoke with a white cloth.

     Ranma looked up at the sky through the trees and sighed.  "I
dunno.  More about these prophecies, about why we're going to
Ryugenzawa, about why you didn't just come out and talk to me
about this.  You decide."

     "I first read the books relating to you over a hundred years
ago," Cologne said after a moment.  "I was introduced to them by
a friend, one of the population of Phoenix Mountain.  His name is
Samofere, and he is the librarian there.  He has spent all his
life in preparation for the day you would arrive and battle
Saffron.  To him, that would be the final sign."

     "Of what?"

     "That you were who we suspected you to be," Cologne said.
"I have carefully watched you since I came to Japan.  You have
fulfilled dozens of the signs that made me more and more sure
that you were the one.  When Saffron fell to you, that cemented
it."

     "The one?"

     "Jusenkyou is secrets piled upon secrets," Cologne said
quietly.  "Layer upon layer of hidden truths, and at its core the
final secret.  It is much less than what it once was.  Its people
are fragmented, torn apart by centuries of hostilities, by the
divisions of their own cultures."

     She sighed and leaned forward to check the pot cooking on
the fire.  The smell of noodles cooking was filling the night air
and making his mouth water.  "Jusenkyou is a bastion against the
Dark, one of the few remaining in the world."

     "The Dark?" Ranma asked.  Something about the way she said
the word made him uncomfortable.

     "The Dark," Cologne said.  "That is the only name for it,
truly.  It is a force of chaos and destruction, of utter evil.
And each generation, as the population of Jusenkyou shrinks, the
Dark comes nearer and nearer."

     "Is it a monster or somethin'?" Ranma inquired.

     "Perhaps," Cologne said.  "None really know.  We only know
that there is a force, a presence, a thing inimical to the life
of the world.  And yet there are those who serve it."

     "Like those two women," Ranma said.

     Cologne nodded.  "Yes."

     "So what's that got to do with me?" Ranma asked.

     "You are the one who shall unite the people of Jusenkyou,"
Cologne said quietly.  "You shall rally them against the Dark."

     "What?" Ranma asked in a strangled voice.  "How am I
supposed to..."

     "I don't know," Cologne said softly.  "Because that is where
the prophecies end."

     Ranma stood up.  "This is nuts.  I don't care about your
mouldy old books and your prophecies.  I ain't some kinda hero,
and I'm not doin' this."

     "Can you deny your own soul, your own heart?" Cologne said
in a quiet voice.  "Look into yourself, Ranma.  Remember your
dreams.  Remember what you have done.  Remember what is held
inside your very being."

     Ranma closed his eyes, and remembered how he'd killed a
woman a little over a day ago.  "I didn't ask for this."

     "And I did not ask for what I have become," Cologne said.
"But to not fight the Dark is to almost be a part of it."

     Ranma slowly nodded.  "Yeah.  Whatever."

     He sat back down and crossed his legs with a snort.  "So
what now?  Why are we going to Ryugenzawa?"

     "You can come out and sit by the fire," Cologne said, though
not to him.  "I won't stop talking just because you're here."

     Kima stepped out from behind a cluster of trees near the
edge of the grove, looking mildly embarrassed.  The dark-feathered
form of Shiso perched upon her shoulder, black eyes catching the
light of the fire.  "I had only been listening for a moment."

     She sat down at one side of the campfire; Shiso hopped off
her shoulder to the ground and began to preen his wings.  Kima
stretched out one long, white-feathered wing and looked at it
with a frown, rubbing at the spot on her shoulder where it
sprouted from.  "It took me a while to find you two."

     "We had to choose a spot away from where we might be
discovered," Cologne said.

     Kima nodded and folded her wings over her body like a cape,
staring into the fire silently.

     Shiso strutted across the ground and peered up at Ranma with
night-dark eyes that glittered in the firelight.

     "What?" Ranma asked.

     The bird fluttered into the air and settled his heavy weight
onto Ranma's shoulder, talons lightly gripping at the cloth of
his shirt.

     "Hey, what do you want?" Ranma said.

     "Just let him stay there," Cologne muttered.  "He's
absolutely insufferable if he doesn't have a place to perch when
he wants to talk."

     "Ryugenzawa is a little over eight miles from here," Shiso
said in a croaking voice.  "As the raven flies."

     He chuckled and lightly rubbed his beak against Ranma's
neck.  Ranma jerked his head away and turned his neck to glare at
the bird, catching its dark eyes with his.

     (...the names are like shafts of light, multicoloured,
multipartate, endless, and he cannot hold them, he cannot hold
them, and still the raven whispers...)

     Ranma stared into the depths of the bird's eyes, hypnotized,
and the pinpricks of firelight within the depthless black were
midnight-swimming stars upon the sea of space.  His anger and
annoyance died in him, shrivelled and blew away like dust.

     (...and now the final name is spoken, and it is his name,
his name, his true name, the name which is the final name, and
the raven ceases to speak for a moment, and then he says,
"Forget.")

     "What are you?" he whispered softly to the raven.

     "Ranma?"

     He snapped his head back to Cologne, as Shiso settled down
onto his shoulder.  "Yeah?"

     "Ryugenzawa holds a link to Jusenkyou as old as anything
upon the earth," Cologne said.  "So Jusenkyou holds the power of
change within its waters, so does Ryugenzawa hold the power of
life within its waters.  We go there that you might be aided in
coming to understand the thing that drives you in battle."

     Ranma slowly nodded.  "I'm not sure..."

     "The food is done," Cologne said suddenly, standing up and
moving forward to the pot bubbling upon the campfire.  "And I,
for one, am starved."

     Ranma shrugged and put aside his further questions in favour
of eating.

**********

     Dinner finished, Ranma sat under a tree by himself, just on
the edge of the light of the fire.  The night was warm, and from
where he sat he could see the stars shining overhead.

     Kima and Cologne were all the way at the other side of the
clearing, soft voices rising into the night too quietly for him
to hear, Cologne's youthful voice mingling with Kima's strange,
musical accent.  They were speaking in Chinese anyway, from what
few snatches of conversation he was able to hear.

     "You seem quite used to travel," someone said from above his
head.  He glanced up at Shiso.  The raven's head was cocked to
one side, one dark eye peering down at him from his perch atop a
spreading branch.

     "I was on the road a lot with my father," Ranma said
quietly.

     The bird hopped down to a lower branch with a flutter of
wings.  "You often are."

     Ranma started slightly, for a reason he couldn't put a name
to.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

     "Nothing, pay it no mind," the raven said with a shrug of
his wings.

     "You're a strange bird, you know that?"

     Shiso chuckled, beak clicking along with his laughter.
"True."

     Not quite knowing why, Ranma held up his arm, palm pointing
towards the ground.  Shiso nodded amiably and fluttered down to
perch on his wrist, talons lightly gripping.

     "What are you, anyway?"

     The bird gazed at him with one wise dark eye.  "Didn't you
already ask me that?"

     "I don't think so."

     "I am what you see," the bird said.

     "You Kima's pet or something?"

     The talons tightened slightly, digging into his skin, and
the bird looked as insulted as he could manage with a face not
really made to express deep emotions.

     "I am no pet," Shiso said.  "I am many things, but I am no
pet."

     "Sorry if I insulted you or somethin'," Ranma said.  "I've
never really dealt with talking birds before."

     The raven's grip relaxed, and he somehow managed to convey
by the set of his beak what amounted to a smile.  "Forgiven."

     Ranma shifted slightly to lean back against the tree.  "So
what have you got to do with all this, bird?"

     "Many things," Shiso said, ruffling his feathers slightly.
"I am a messenger, an intercedent, a bearer of tidings, a
thought.  No more, no less."

     "Huh?"

     "Got a question?"

     "Sure."

     "Ask."

     "What can you tell me?"

     The raven's eyes glittered like dark jewels.  "Ask and we
shall see."

     "Okay," Ranma said with a sigh.  "How about the third
question I had, the one Cologne never answered.  Why'd she do
things this way?"

     The raven's head bobbed as he moved up Ranma's arm slightly.
"Despite what may seem, she neither knows all nor is she
infallible.  She is as human as you are, prone to the same
foibles, the same mistakes, the same lapses of judgement.  She
tried to do what she thought was best.  She wanted to free you
from the eyes of those who watched you, to ensure the safety of
your friends and family."

     The bird tilted his head up to look at the sky.  "And she
also wanted to help her great-grandaughter if she could.  Not all
went as she planned; in fact, barely any of it did beyond the
fact that you are with her.  But the dice are cast now, Ranma 
Saotome."

     "I don't know why," Ranma said softly.  "But I know you.  I
don't understand why, or how, but..."

     "Shh..." the raven said.  "It will all become clear later."

     Ranma trailed off, turning his eyes from the raven to the
night sky, and then back to the eyes of the bird upon his arm.

     Slowly, slowly it dawned upon him that the black of the
night sky and the black of the raven's eyes were the same.  He
was not sure where the thought came from him, only that it came.

     "I am more than what I seem to be," the raven said gently,
his voice rich and warm.  "And so are you."

     Firelight danced in his eyes, and the fire of the stars and
the fire within the raven's eyes were one and the same.  Ranma
felt as if the eyes could swallow him, could draw him in like a
whirlpool and pull him down to depths beyond conception.

     There was something there, something within that gaze,
something awful, inducing of awe, of respect, and also of a
little fear.  It was ancient and wise, and impossibly sorrowful.

     "What are you?" Ranma whispered, and asked for a third time
the question, a question which some spend all their lives trying
to answer for themselves.

     The raven opened his beak to speak, to try, perhaps, to
render into simple words his own existence, his own purpose.  Or
perhaps not.  

     A shadow fell across them.  "Ranma?"

     He looked up at Cologne.  "Yeah?"

     "Would you like to spar with me?"

     He blinked, and then shook his head.

     "You, passing up a chance for a fight?" Cologne said in a
wondering voice.

     "It's not that," Ranma said softly, standing up with a shake
of his head.  Shiso fluttered off his wrist and went back to his
perch on the tree limb.

     "Then what is it?"

     Ranma closed his eyes.  "I'm worried I might..."

     He sighed, shoulders shaking slightly.  "That I might lose
control again.  That I might..."

     The sound of a woman's neck breaking.

     He drew a long, shuddering breath and turned, leaning with
his arms straight out against a tree, feeling the roughness of
the bark against his hands.  "I don't know what to do..."

     Cologne laid one small hand on his shoulder.  "Ranma, look
at me."

     Slowly, with strength belied by her size, Cologne forced him
to turn around and look into her eyes.

     "You cannot run from this," Cologne said.  "It will always
catch up to you.  It is a part of you.  You can either try to run
from it, and let it dominate you, or you can face it."

     "How can I face it?" Ranma said.  "It's so strong... it's
like the cat-fist, only worse.  At least I can't remember
anything when I go mental with that."

     "It is to the cat-fist what a mountain is to a pebble,"
Cologne said quietly.  "These times will change you, Ranma.  But
I do not think they will change you so much that you are afraid
to face it.  Think of it as another foe, Ranma.  One that can
become an ally, if only you will not let it take control."

     Ranma slowly nodded.  "You're right.  I've gotta face this."

     "Let us begin, then," Cologne said, taking a few steps away.
Firelight lit her from behind, shining in the depths of her hair.
Her body shifted, so smoothly it was almost an imperceptible
change.  "Do not think of this as a life-or-death duel, though,
Ranma.  It is just a sparring match.  I doubt that you will have
difficulty keeping control."

     Ranma stepped forward, surprised at how relaxed he felt.
He'd always felt more comfortable in combat than anywhere else,
really.

     He slowly smiled, relieved to find that there was nothing in
his head, no fire, no ice, no thoughts that were not his.  He
felt calm, in control.

     Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiso settle down
beside Kima where the winged woman sat by the fire.  He turned
his eyes back to Cologne; the youthful, ancient-eyed woman was
balancing lightly on the balls of her feet, face neutral,
perfectly poised and ready.

     "Yeah," he said.  "Let's begin."

     They began.

**********

     Sitting by the fire, Kima watched the two battling figures,
their forms dimly illuminated by the flickering light.  They
moved like shadows, blurred shapes that seemed at times to become
a part of the night, a thing inseparable from the evening air.

     Evaluating him against Saffron had not been fair, she
decided.  It was not the kind of battle he was used to fighting;
Saffron had power beyond imagining, even after his ruined,
partial transformation, but he had possessed no skill at battle.
He had been a firestorm, wild and chaotic and powerful, utterly
unstoppable.

     And yet Ranma Saotome had stopped him.  Had outlasted him
and beaten him to the ground, with skill and luck and a stubborn
persistence that was close to insanity.

     And in the process, the battle had changed the flow of the
springs and made the mountain glorious again.  No more would
there be need to bring water in from the outside.  The chambers
where agriculture had been done before the spring had died could
be reopened, all the luxuries denied to the people because of the
lack of water could again become a part of life in the mountain.

     And slowly, slowly, she could see her people becoming strong
again.  It would not be within her lifetime, of course.  Nor in 
the lifetime of those who would come after her, or the lifetime
of their children or their children's children.  It would take 
time.

     But they had time, now.  All would have been well, except
for the looming threat spoken of within the books.  All would
have been well but for what she'd seen beneath Jusendo.

     The Dark was coming.  She knew that, deep in her soul.  And
the only one, so said the books, who could stand against it was
him.  She did not understand why; not yet.  Perhaps she never
would.  

     Black feathers brushed against her leg; she looked down at
Shiso.  "Yes?"

     "Very quiet," the bird commented.  She absently ran
sharp-taloned fingers through the dark plumage on his back and he
made a low sound of pleasure in his throat.

     "Just absorbed in watching them, I suppose," Kima said.
They were quite incredible, both phenomenally fast, both
remarkably skilled.

     And Ranma was holding his own, which was an amazing thing in
itself considering that Cologne had, to her understanding, more
than a century of experience over him.

     They came together like colliding stars, exchanged flurries
of hundreds of blows too quick for the eye to see, and then broke
apart again.  They made leaps that took them dozens of feet over
the tops of the trees and battled in mid-air.

     They'd been doing that for two hours, now, and they were
both holding back.  There had been nothing beyond straight
hand-to-hand, no use of anything but speed, skill and strength.

     Cologne leapt, and Ranma followed.  They met nearly fifty
feet above the ground and descended in a chaotic pattern of kicks
and punches that ended ten feet from the earth with Cologne
swiping a kick through Ranma's defence that sent him slamming
into the ground.

     Like a spear she fell, body twisting in mid-air into a
forward dive, hands outstretched.  Ranma rolled, and the force of
Cologne's impact sent dirt and stone fountaining a dozen feet
into the air and left a crater nearly three feet deep.

     He was on her in a moment, putting her on the defensive,
launching strike after strike that Cologne dodged and ducked,
parried and deflected.

     Then she struck back, viper-quick, a flat-handed blow that
looked almost gentle and brought her four rigid fingers into his
sternum.  The impact knocked him back a dozen feet, tumbling end
over end to slam into a tree with force that shook the trunk and
branches.

     And, as he had each time she'd knocked him down, he
got back up and came at her again.  Tenacity beyond all reason.

     Slowly, the flames of the fire grew lower and lower, until
there were only ashes left, and still she watched the two of them
fight on, by the light of the moon and stars, dim dark shapes
that seemed to dance with each other, the occasional battle-cry
breaking the still silence.

     And at last, they stopped.  Neither had won; it seemed an
agreed-upon thing, a mutual decision made without words.
Together they made their way over to the remains of the campfire,
occasionally stumbling with weariness or the effects of blows.

     "I have not," Cologne gasped.  "Had a sparring match like
that in many years."

     Ranma nodded his assent and wiped a hand through his loose
bangs, hanging limp upon his forehead and plastered with sweat.
"I ain't ever had a sparring match like that."

     "You've gotten better," Cologne said as she sat down.  The
shallow light of the moon and stars let Kima see that she had a
smile on her face.  "I'd seen it, but I went too long without
really testing you."

     "You're still just as good as I remember," Ranma said,
sprawling down on the ground on his back, arms and legs
spreadeagled as he stared up at the sky.  "And you were holding
back, weren't you?"

     "Perhaps a little," Cologne said.  "But then, so were you."

     "You're better than before too," Ranma said.

     "Youth has its advantages," Cologne said softly.

     "You are both quite skilled," Kima said after a moment.  "I
was starting to wonder if you would ever stop."

     "Did you have any trouble with control?" Cologne asked,
glancing over at Ranma.  "And do sit up.  It's not dignified to
sprawl all over the ground like that."

     Ranma raised himself up on his elbows and looked at her.
"Ya know, I didn't think of it, but I didn't.  Nothing at all."

     Cologne's smile grew broader.  Ranma looked at her, and his
face slowly grew to match hers.  "It's gone, then?"

     Cologne shook her head.  "No.  But you can see that it knows
the difference between a friend and a foe, can you not?  It is
not some separate thing.  It is, at its fundamental core, guided
by you."

     Ranma slowly nodded.  "Yeah."

     He sighed and sat up fully, pulling one knee to his chest
and resting his chin on it.  "But what does that mean, Cologne?
I killed someone yesterday.  Does that mean I'm a killer at
heart?"

     "Do you think I am a killer at heart?" Cologne said in a
quiet voice.  "Do you think Happosai is?"

     Ranma looked at her.  "No, you guys aren't..."

     "And yet we have both killed in our long lives," Cologne
said.  "Because one sometimes is forced to kill does not mean
that one is a killer at heart."

     "Happosai?" Ranma said.  "I just can't see..."

     Cologne looked at him, eyes narrowing slightly.  "Not that I
can see you or nothin' either..." he stumbled.  "I didn't mean...
uhh..."

     "Happosai is much less than what he might have been,"
Cologne said, her voice tinged by regret.  "He was not an
entirely different man in his youth, but he was more than what he
is now."

     Ranma tilted his head and looked up at the sky.  "I hope
Akane and everyone else is alright."

     "I'm sure they are," Cologne said.  "I worry about my
great-granddaughter as well.  But sometimes, the best way to
protect people is to be far away from them."

     Ranma's fingers traced a pattern in the dirt of the forest
floor.  "So what do we do after Ryugenzawa?"

     "I am not truly sure," Cologne admitted.  "We shall see what
happens there."

     "I, at least, need to return to the mountain home after
Ryugenzawa," Kima said in a quiet voice.  "I have been gone too
long already."

     Ranma sighed and nodded.  "Whatever."

     "We should get some sleep before tomorrow," Cologne said
after a moment.  "I am, I admit, rather tired.  These old bones
need their rest."

     That drew soft laughter from the three of them, even though
it wasn't very funny.  But they were three people, far from their
homes, far from what they knew, caught up in something that none
of them quite understood.  And people must take their comforts
where they find them, and often laughter is the only comfort 
left.

     "Sleep well," Cologne said softly.  She stood up and took a
few steps over to where her grey cloak lay and picked it up from
the ground, folding it into a thin pillow and lying down next to
the ashes of the fire.  Soft snoring soon began to emanate from
her.

     Shiso made his way across the ground and settled down next
to Cologne, softly making a sighing sound of contentment as he
settled down for the night next to her.

     Ranma looked to Kima, and then hesitantly spoke.  "So how do
you figure into this?"

     "I have a duty to my people," Kima said stiffly, rising from
the ground with a slight shaking of her wings.

     "Didn't that duty involve kidnapping my fiancee and nearly
getting me and a lot of my friends killed a little while ago?"
Ranma asked.

     Kima looked at him evenly.  "Not anymore."

     Ranma stood up and took a step over towards her.  They were
about the same height, and he faced her eye to eye.  "I kinda
trust Cologne on this.  But I don't think I got any reason to
trust you at all."

     Kima tilted her head and glared down her nose at him.
"Frankly, I do not care whether you trust me or not.  If you want
something, perhaps you might care to remember who provided a
distraction while you were in the process of beaten to within an
inch of your life."

     Ranma winced slightly.  "There's that, at least.  Thanks."

     Kima nodded.  "Goodnight, Saotome." 

     "'Night."

     She lay down upon the blanket she'd spread upon the ground
earlier, folded her wings around herself, and started that slow
drift into sleep.  Ranma watched her for a moment, and then went
to find his own rest, as well as he could.

**********

     Yoko glanced through the wide, tall window of the dark
conference room into the night outside.  Her eyes scanned the
position of the moon; without turning, she spoke.  "A few more
minutes."

     Yamiko hissed behind her and knelt down to check the lay of
the sigil drawn across the floor.  To one side of the room was
the large wooden conference table they'd moved aside to make room
to draw it.

     The sigil itself was a complex figure, a tangled shape drawn
first in white chalk upon the floor, the pattern then traced over
with a combination of mineral salts, certain rare spices and the
powdered bones of rabbits, deer and birds.  It had sometimes
thirteen sides, sometimes fourteen, sometimes as many as
seventeen depending on how you looked at it; the lines seemed to
shift when not watched.  In the centre of the pattern lay four 
white feathers, arranged in position to the four cardinal points.

     "I am honoured by this chance to serve," the young, pretty
woman standing by the table said.  She wore robes that were a mad
swirl of thirteen colours, and her dark hair was tied back into a
short ponytail that reached her shoulders.  "What must I do?"

     "Only stay there," Yoko said.  "Yamiko and I shall do the
work.  You will be required later, Miyoko."

     Miyoko nodded.  Yoko hid her smirk at the girl's blatant
eagerness; she had not yet learned the importance of discipline
and self-control.  It was not likely she would have a chance to
now.

     Yoko checked the moon's position again, then turned with a
nod.  "Yamiko, if you would begin?"

     Yamiko began a slow chant, her voice like something dredged
from a tomb.  Slowly at first she spoke, each sound seeming torn
from her throat.  

     Yoko stepped to the other side of the sigil and began a
high-pitched, rapid chant of her own, speaking in a meld of
half-a-dozen dead languages.  

     Slowly, slowly Yamiko's voice speeded up as Yoko's slowed
down.  As the moon slowly moved across the sky outside, their
voices moved closer and closer towards the same speed, the same
pitch.

     Minute by minute they chanted, coming closer and closer with
each passing second to the apex of their effort, when their
voices would, for just one moment, meld together into one single
whole.

     That point came just at that point in time that falls
exactly between the setting and rising of the sun.  The sigil
scrawled upon the floor began to pulse like the beating of some
great heart, white chalk slowly darkening to a black, heaving 
stain upon the floor, and powdered ingredients dancing into the 
air like motes of dust within a shaft of light.

     Their voices passed each other, Yamiko's going fast now,
Yoko's going slow.  The pulse of the sigil became more and more
visible, and the entire room began to hum with a low sound of
power, as if it were an enormous generator.  Static electricity
crackled along the hair and clothing of the three women in the
room.

     An almost motionless spiral of frigid mist began to appear
in the centre of the sigil, rising slowly towards the ceiling,
stretching and growing.  As the speed of the pulsing and the
thrum of power grew, the spiral moved slower and slower in
relation.

     And then Yoko's voice reached the pitch that Yamiko's had
begun at, just as Yamiko's did the opposite.  All light, from the
fluorescent tubes overhead to the starlight outside, became
darkness for just a moment, a pure darkness that clung to the
hands and face like tar, that suffocated light.

     And when the darkness vanished, a figure stood in the centre
of the sigil.  The charge of power that had filled the air was
gone; the sigil had ceased to pulse.

     The man who stood in the centre of the sigil was not tall,
but there was a power in him, a lean and hungry thing like
starvation housed in flesh.  His hair was iron-grey, and his 
handsome, dark face was covered with dozens of pale lines of scar 
tissue.  His clothing was a grey vest the shade of his hair and 
loose black pants cinched tight at the waist by a belt of pale 
leather.

     His eyes were golden, dark pupils swimming upon molten,
resplendent irises that glittered metallically in the light.  He
brought up a hand and flexed his fingers in front of his face as
if in wonder at his own existence.

     Then he seemed to notice the other people in the room.  He
bent down and crouched for a moment on the ground, and when he
rose again he held four white feathers in his hand.

     "These are the link?" he said, and somewhere off in his
voice something howled, a hunting cry, a sound of utmost
bloodlust and killing fury as old as time.

     "Yes, Galm," Yoko said.

     The golden-eyed man brought the feather up to his nose and
sniffed them delicately as if they were a fine wine.
"Interesting.  Not some recalcitrant crime boss this time.  I
have not seen prey of this manner in some time."

     "But you have seen it?" Yoko asked.

     Galm slowly nodded his scarred head.  "Of course.  Long ago,
very long ago.  But I have seen it."

     He put the feathers to his lips, brushing his tongue across
them, tasting them.  A slow smile grew on his face.  His teeth
were very, very white.  "This will be interesting.  A female.
Young.  Prime of life."

     "You are not to kill her."

     The smile became a frown.  "What would you have me do,
then?"

     "You are to follow," Yoko said commandingly.  "Until they
reach Jusenkyou.  The one whom the link will lead you to should
be aware of the whereabouts of a boy called Ranma Saotome.  Once
you are in Jusenkyou, you are to find him and capture him.
Alive."

     Galm's frown deepened; confusion showed on his face, like a
child who cannot comprehend something.  "I do not like this.  It 
has never been done this way before."

     "New times come," Yoko said with a shrug. "Do you
understand?  You are to take him to the pools.  Once you are
there, contact us through the link."

     "And then?" Galm asked eagerly.

     "Then you may kill the prey," Yoko said with a shrug.  "And
anything else you wish.  Except for Ranma Saotome."

     "Now I see what you do," Galm said, tucking the feathers
into his pale leather belt.  "You cannot go there yourself, so
you would use me as your hand."

     Yoko nodded.  "Clever as always."

     "I await the day that I shall feed upon your heart, Yoko,"
Galm said offhandedly.  He smiled again, and his teeth were white
as snow and hard as diamonds.

     "Of course you do," Yoko said with a nod.  "Do you accept
the terms of the pact this time, as all times before?"

     "I do," Galm said.  "Do you have what I demand each time?"

     Yoko gestured to Miyoko, who had been standing, half-awed as
she watched the entire exchange.  "I do."

     She looked at the younger woman and smiled.  "Well, come
forward, girl.  Don't be afraid."

     Miyoko's back straightened and she strode forward.  "Yes,
Yoko?"

     "There is an empty office space down the hall," Yoko said.
"Take him there and... show him what you can do."

     Galm's face twisted into an expression that made Miyoko
stumble back slightly.  "Yoko, I..."

     "Do you disobey?" Yoko said, and her voice was very soft, in
the same way that molten metal is soft.

     "No," Miyoko said, shaking her head.  She held out a hand to
Galm.  "Come."

     He reached out and took her hand in his.  "I shall."

     The two of them walked out of the conference room, and it
was not really possible to say who was truly leading whom.

     Yamiko glanced to Yoko and asked a question in her hideous
voice.

     Yoko grimaced slightly, something like regret showing on her
face.  "She was a geisha until three years ago.  She'd gotten 
into the habit of torturing certain clients to death and taking 
their money.  She happened to go to work on a minor government 
clerk who was under my protection.  I thought she had promise; I 
turned out to be wrong.  She does not have the discipline or the 
control.  And the spark of power within her is poor at best."

     She shrugged.  "No matter now.  She will have a use, at
least."

     Yamiko chuckled wetly.

     The two women waited for a moment.  Soon, they heard the
screaming begin.  It did not stop for a very long time.

**********

     The first light of dawn found Cologne sitting some distance
away from the clearing they'd spent the night in, back propped
against a tree and legs crossed in front of her.

     The changes the Nyannichuan water had done upon her did not
seem to have affected most of the techniques she'd used to
extend her vitality down through the years, techniques known only
to a few martial artists all over the world.  She still needed
little food or water, and even less sleep.  Not that she was
incapable of eating, drinking or sleeping; it was only that she
could do without them if she had to.  They had become similar to
many other aspects of life over the years, pleasurable but not
necessary.

     She stared out past the lip of the horizon as the first rim
of light broke across it like a band of molten gold, and then
turned her eyes away from the light and stared at the object she
held balanced across her knees.

     "How did they get you out, anyway?" she said quietly,
tracing her fingers across the black wooden rod she'd taken from
the woman's body yesterday.  It should have been back in the
sealed, secret room that only the Council members knew of, not in
the hands of a woman who'd been intent on killing them all and
capturing Ranma.

     She thought of the members of the Council, and tried to
decide which ones she believed sincerely did not have the
potential to give themselves over in hope of power or reward.

     She could think of only one.  She closed her eyes and
rested her head back against the tree.  It was too awful for her
to contemplate.  The people she took such pride in, whose warrior
spirit had never been broken in all their history, how could any
one of them, let alone a Council member, willingly serve a power
such as that which had guided the hands of the two women they'd
faced yesterday?

     And yet she had proof now.  Final proof, for herself, at
least.  And now, when her tribe needed her most, she could not be
there.

     When her great-grandaughter needed her most, she could not
be there.  She had any of a dozen reasons for what she did.  But
the greater good notwithstanding, why each time that she closed
her eyes did the image of her own kin plunging a knife at her
heart appear?

     "Mornin'," Ranma said, as he settled down near her, resting
back against the same tree she leaned against.  He glanced at the
rod in her lap, and she saw a momentary twinge of revulsion pass
across his face.  "Whatcha got that for?"

     "Just looking at it," Cologne said.  "Trying to figure out
how it could have gotten out of the village and into their
hands."

     "They've probably got someone inside the Amazons," Ranma
said with a shrug.  "I mean, it's not like it would be hard.  An
outsider comes in a few generations back, starts havin' kids,
they're all working for whatever this Circle Eternal thing is."

     "You do not understand," Cologne said quietly.  "Jusenkyou
is called a bastion against the Dark for a reason.  It has
certain protections that encompass it and keep it safe from harm.
It is very difficult for someone who wants to do evil to the
people or the land to even enter.  If they do enter, things go
against them; they would soon be detected, or they would simply
disappear.  In the past, it is said the very land itself would
rise against threats.  If there are traitors among the
Joketsuzoku, it seems likely to me that they are from among us,
not outsiders.  It would be very difficult for anyone not on the
Council to even gain access to the room where this weapon was
kept."

     "What is it, anyway?" Ranma said, shuddering again as he
looked at the rod.

     "None of us are really sure," Cologne said, holding in the
rod by gripping it in the centre.  The silver bracelet dangled on
its chain, sparkling in the light of the newly-risen sun.  "There
are no records of its making.  It is first mentioned in a text
from nine hundred years ago, a cataloguing of the treasures of
the tribe assembled by a Council matriarch, but I think it is
much older than that."

     She flipped it in the air and caught it by the end opposite
the two blunt-ended teeth.  "It is a kind of ki focus, I suppose.
It's fairly easy to use, although for some reason only a woman
can operate it.  You send your energies through the chain, which
amplifies them and converts them into an electrical charge at the
end of the rod.  A very unpleasant item."

     "You don't need to tell me," Ranma said.  "I've felt what it
can do.  It oughta be destroyed."

     "You're welcome to try," Cologne said drolly.

     "Really?" Ranma asked.  "What's the catch?"

     "No catch."

     She offered the rod to him.  He took it gingerly and stood
up, wrapping his hands around either end of it.  A puzzled
expression on his face, he tried to bend it.  His arms flexed;
muscles moved under his shirt.  The rod did not flex a hair.

     Frowning, he turned and braced it against the tree, pressing
with his legs and the weight of his body.  A bead of sweat rolled
down his face; he was giving it all his strength, a strength
capable of punching holes in stone, and it there was no sign upon 
the rod.

     "Okay," Ranma said, tossing it to the ground at Cologne's
feet after another moment of exertion.  "I give up.  What's it
made outta?"

     "Wood," Cologne said.  "It's too light to be anything else.
But it's magic, of course.  There's a document from about two
centuries ago that relates it was thrown into a bonfire and
pulled out after half-an-hour, absolutely untouched."

     Ranma shook his head.  "Weird."

     He sat down again and raked his hands through his hair.
Cologne smiled slightly, and allowed herself a moment of regret
that the boy would likely never be brought into the tribe.  He
was a fine specimen, even at his young age.  She pushed down any
further thoughts by reminding herself that whatever appearances
might be, she was still a woman more than a century old.

     He was handsome, though, she had to admit that.  
     
     "Think we oughta wake Kima up?" Ranma said after a moment.

     Cologne shook her head.  "Let her sleep a while longer."

     "Can I ask you somethin' about her?"

     Cologne nodded.  "Go ahead."

     "You trust her?  When she first showed up here, she was an
enemy."

     Cologne looked at him evenly.  "When Ryoga first came, he
was trying to kill you.  As was my great-grandaughter.  As was
Mousse.  As was Ukyou.  Now, those two boys at least try to kill
you only part of the time; the rest of the time they're usually
helping you fight someone else.  And the girls, of course, we do
not need to discuss."

     She chuckled.  "You have a habit of turning men who are your
enemies into allies, if not entirely into friends.  And women..."

     "You didn't answer the question," Ranma said in a flat
voice.

     Cologne slowly let amusement slip from her face and looked
at him evenly.  "I trust Samofere as if he were of my blood, and
he trusts her.  That is enough for me."

     "I just hope it's enough for me," Ranma said with a sigh.

     "See what you think after Ryugenzawa," Cologne said.  "If
what is there is what I think it is, it will have a way of
opening your eyes to some things."

     "Yeah," Ranma said softly.  "There's stuff that'll do that."

     Cologne looked at him for a moment.  "Ranma, when you said
you were willing to return to China with Shampoo and I, were you
serious?"

     He looked embarrassed for a moment, then nodded.  "Yeah."

     "What about Akane?"

     He stiffened, his eyes showing hidden pain for a moment,
then nodded for a second time.  "I couldn't face myself if I let
anything happen to Shampoo that I could have prevented.  Even if
it meant..."

     "She never had a chance, did she?" Cologne said quietly.

     Ranma looked oddly speculative for a moment, then shook his
head.  "No.  I wouldn't say that.  When she first came, I thought
she was cute.  I still think she is.  Beautiful, even.  But..."

     He sighed.  "I didn't like the way she dealt with things.
She was willing to run over everything in her path just to get
me.  I still don't like that."

     "She still has much to learn about subtlety," Cologne said
softly.  "But she has changed."

     Ranma nodded.  "Yeah."

     "But you think she's cute, at least," Cologne said with a
shrug and a small chuckle.

     Ranma blushed, as if just realizing for the first time what
he had said.  "Uhh..."

     "At least you can see where she got her looks from," Cologne
said, leaning over slightly and tilting her head at him.  She
smiled.

     "Uhh..."

     "What of me?" Cologne said.  "Do you think I am beautiful?"

     She edged closer to him.

     His eyes suddenly went very, very cold.  His hands shot up
and grabbed her shoulders, not tightly, but with an impossibly
deep strength to them.

     "Do not toy with me, woman," he said, very softly and
quietly, but with such utter conviction to his words that it was
frightening.  "I will not be toyed with.  I am very, very tired
of pretty women who are not what they seem toying with me."

     Just as suddenly, his hands dropped from her shoulders and
shock lit his face.  "What the..."

     "As I thought," Cologne said, moving slightly away from him,
all coquettishness gone.  "Rage, embarrassment, fear, they all make
it more difficult for you to keep a handle on yourself.  You must
learn control, Ranma.  You must."

     "It doesn't help if you start freakin' out on me like that,"
Ranma said, though he glanced at his hands with an apprehensive
expression.

     "You are not used to dealing with women in any way," Cologne
said.  "Be it in battle or any other thing.  It is a weakness,
and it is one you must overcome."

     "But girls are..."

     "For someone who knows as many female martial artists as you
do, you have a remarkable attitude towards women," Cologne said.
"Is there something in a woman that somehow makes her any more
virtuous than a man, any less incapable of doing you harm, any
less incapable of being a foe?  Any less capable of serving
evil?"

     Ranma looked uncomfortable, saying nothing, staring at the
morning sky as if for answers.

     "Would you feel any better if it had been a man you killed?"

     "Just shut up," Ranma said, rising to his feet.  "Just shut
up, Cologne."

     He stalked away, leaving Cologne to watch his retreating
back.  She sighed softly, picked up the black rod from where it
lay upon the ground, and went to wake up the third member of
their travel group.

**********

     The first light of dawn found Yoko and Yamiko still in the
conference room, their robes exchanged for dark, fashionable
business outfits, although Yamiko still wore her mask.  If you
didn't look too closely, it appeared as if it might be a surgical
one, worn to prevent the spread of disease or to help filter out
polluted air.  Certain wards on her person kept most people from
looking too closely at her anyway.  Stealth was not a difficulty
for her; the years had changed her into a creature of the
shadows, and she slipped easily through the patches of darkness
that lay amidst the light.

     The sigil had been scrubbed away, and the table replaced.
That was a necessity; the majority of the employees of Sen-Atama
had no awareness of what it truly hid.  

     The screaming had stopped about an hour ago, but they'd
learned long ago that even after the screaming stopped, it was
better to wait a while.  There were certain terms of service when
you called up something like Galm; one of them was that he truly
hated being disturbed until he was finished.

     Yoko sipped her tea and looked across at the other woman.
"Are you sure you don't want some?"

     It was a joke, and a poor one, but it made both of them
laugh, although Yamiko's laugh was something little resembling
human laughter anymore.  Like Yoko, she bore one of the most
blatant marks that the senior members of the Circle received, and
like Yoko she was among the most powerful.  The hours had been 
spent in discussion and planning, something all senior members 
excelled at, but Yoko most of all.

     Finishing her tea and putting the cup down with a clink,
Yoko glanced at her watch.  "I think we should check now, at
least."

     The two women rose from their seats and went out into the
hallway, walking down to the empty office they'd sent Galm and
Miyoko to hours ago.

     Yoko pressed her ear to the door and heard nothing.  She
nodded, put her hand on the doorknob, and swung the door open
enough that she could get her head in.

     She looked at the open window, twenty floors above the city
streets, and at the rest of the room, and then pulled her head
back out.  

     "Yamiko, go and bring the fire hose, would you?" she said
with a sardonic smile and an affected grimace.  "We have some
cleaning-up to do."

**********

     Banking slightly to the left, Kima changed her flight course
a moment after Shiso changed his.  Forests and hills rushed by
beneath them, hundreds of feet below.  The sun was newly risen in
the east, the morning air crisp and clean as it flew by her face.

     It had been a relief to leave the other two behind; there
had been an air of tension between the Joketsuzoku and the boy.
Something had obviously happened between them before she'd woken
up.  They'd broken camp and agreed to meet on one of the trails
that led into Ryugenzawa.  She would get there first, of course.
Flying was so much quicker than walking.

     She wondered vaguely what it might actually be like to have
to walk everywhere, and grimaced slightly at the thought.  It was
a terrible thing to contemplate; to be forever landbound, forever
denied the beauty of flight.

     That was the nightmare of any of the people of Phoenix
Mountain, to have so severe an injury done to their wings that
they were unable to fly.  It was the punishment for treason
against the king, the highest possible crime in the laws of the
mountain.  In all of the recorded history, very few had ever been
punished in that way.

     She soared downwards a dozen feet, keeping Shiso's
flickering black form in sight.  One of these days, she was going
to have to ask Samofere just what it was that made the bird so
fast.

     Inexplicably, she felt a prickling sensation between her
shoulders, in the spot right between where her wings joined.  As
if she were being watched.

     She tried to shake the feeling; it was too reminiscent of 
last night's dream.  A great dark shape had chased her, and for 
some reason she'd run instead of flown to escape.  Its eyes had 
been golden.  She'd woken bathed in sweat and with her heartbeat
racing just before it had caught her, the howl of its pursuit
ringing in her ears.

     Dreams could not hurt you.  And she had not had any
nightmares she could remember in several years.  It meant
nothing.

     There was a sudden splash of black beside her, and Shiso was
there.  He must have dropped back in the moment of her
distraction; he'd been nearly a hundred feet ahead when last
she'd looked.

     "You seem distracted, Lady Kima," the bird said.

     She blinked.  "You've never called me that before."

     The bird looked abashed for a moment, as much as he was
capable of.  "Well, you do seem distracted."

     Why did those words sound so familiar?  "Just thinking."

     "We'll be at Ryugenzawa soon," Shiso said, doing an elegant
sweeping turn beside her.

     "And the landbound ones will be an hour behind us, I am
sure," Kima muttered.

     The raven looked almost disapproving.  "Actually, I'd say
they'll get there a few minutes after us.  They are moving just
as fast, and aside from an inability to take a straight course,
they'd probably get there ahead of us."

     "Really?"

     The bird bobbed his head in a nod that dipped his entire
body down slightly before he resumed his previous level of
flying.  "Neither of them is particularly enjoying the other's
company at this time.  Cologne is thinking too much, as she 
tends to do, and the boy is being somewhat sulky."

     "You sound like you're there."

     The bird said nothing, only flitted ahead.  Kima shook her
head.  She was really going to have to ask Samofere about him one
of these days.

     And then, over the next rising bank of hills, she saw the
forest of Ryugenzawa.  A soft gasp escaped her lips.  She knew
that it could not possibly be anything but.  The smallest tree
she saw had to be at least a hundred feet high; some towered
what must have been nearly three hundred feet, with a trunk
width to match.  They were of every species of tree imaginable,
all scattered randomly throughout, as if a giant-sized gardener
had hurled handfuls of seeds.  Many were trees that never should
have grown in this area of the country, or trees not even native
to Asia.  And yet they did grow there.

     "Why hasn't it been used for lumber?" Kima muttered under
her breath.  "There seems little else that they will not
exploit."

     And with that thought, those words, she saw why.  Perhaps it
was a trick of the light, perhaps it was something far more.  But
she could swear she saw trees actually bend, shifting and
wavering like a mirage.  For a moment, there were two images
superimposed over each tree, one the forest giant, the other an
average, unremarkable tree.

     And then they were giant again.  The trees grew so thick
that she could see no details of the forest floor below them;
deep into the forest was a wide clearing and an enormous cave in
the side of a mountain, and in other clearings throughout the
forest she could see the springs bubbling up, from outcroppings
of rock or rising from the ground itself.

     As she soared down and came closer to the edge of the
forest, following Shiso's darting black form, she noticed a
change in the air.  It seemed fresher even than before, sweeter,
with an impossible to describe tang to it that somehow bespoke
vitality.

     She felt the aches and pains that had plagued her since her
fight with the sadist in the robes two days ago diminish
slightly.  Weariness left her, and cool sensation somewhere
between the touch of wind and water seemed to flow across her
skin.  She felt strangely light, joyful.  An unfamiliar feeling,
that last one.

     Shiso turned a lazy barrel roll in the air in front of her.
"We are here."

     "I know," she said softly.  "Oh, I know."

**********

     Ranma and Cologne came to the edge of Ryugenzawa to find
Kima waiting for them, Shiso atop one of the lower branches of a
towering tree.  The two of them had walked the miles between
where they'd spent the night and Ryugenzawa in tense,
uncomfortable silence, the memory of their dialogue this morning
driving a wedge between whatever small companionship had built up
after last night's sparring match.

     It had almost been enough to make Ranma wish that Kima had
been with them, or even Shiso.  He'd actually found himself
liking the bird, which was strange.  It was weird, and it talked,
and there were times that it almost scared him.

     And yet there had been something in that short talk they'd
had under the tree after dinner last night, something he had
seldom felt with another person, and never before with an animal.

     A sense of companionship, perhaps, of understanding.  He
didn't want to get any attachment to an animal; he remembered a
fervent desire for a pet as a child, but that had faded as he'd
gradually realized it would never come to be.  His father
probably would have cooked and eaten any pet in a fit of
desperation anyway at some point or another.

     "I hope you haven't been waiting long," Cologne said to Kima
in a neutral voice.  The tone implied it didn't really matter to
her one way or the other.

     "Not long," Kima said with an impressive shrug that began at
her shoulder and ended as the tips of her wings settled back into
position.  She had a small smile on her face that looked very
much out of place.  "It's been a pleasant wait anyway.  This
place is very beautiful."

     Ranma glanced at the forest.  Here near the edge it was
thin, the trees smaller.  Inwards they grew thicker and thicker,
a growing concentration of greenery and foliage, towering taller
and taller, leaving swelling shadows on the forest floor.  "Never
noticed last time.  Too busy dealin' with all the giant animals
and the Orochi.  Kinda hard to appreciate nature when you've got
exotic beasties and mythological eight-headed serpents trying
to devour you."

     He had to admit, it was rather nice, though.  There was no
sign of any of the gigantic animals that inhabited the place
right now, at least.  It looked very peaceful.

     "We better be careful, though," he said in a sage voice with
a glance at the two women.  "This forest is full of monster 
traps."

     "I don't think that will be a problem," Cologne said softly.
"Ranma, step up to the edge of the forest."

     Looking at her strangely, Ranma shrugged and started
forward, walking towards the trees looming high above his head.
Shiso watched him from his perch, dark eyes pooled with night
even in the sun.

     "I don't know what you're expecting," Ranma said, glancing
sideways to Cologne.  "But it probably..."

     And then he stepped between two of the trees, and felt the
change.  A wind seemed to whisper across his skin, though no
leaves blew in its passage.  It scented of fresh water and
sunlight, of earth and clay, of the fresh green shoots of spring
plants and the intoxicating aroma of a thousand different summer
blossoms.

     He felt every sense sing and come alive, sharpening and
opening to new sensations he had not realized existed.  The
forest floor was soft beneath his feet, and he felt the tiny
movements of the creatures within the soil.  Sunlight stroked
itself across his skin in golden velvet fingers.

     (Come to me...)

     The voice was felt rather than heard, felt within his very
being, rising from the earth and trees around him, from the air
itself, slipping into his body like water to a parched throat,
managing somehow to become a thing he had always lacked and had 
only now discovered, like a man blind from birth who one day 
wakes to see the sun.

     (Come to me...)

     "Look," Cologne said softly.  She raised an arm and pointed
along a line of sight into the forest.

     From summer trees the leaves were falling like green rain,
draping themselves on the floor of the forest in two paralleling
lines that bent and twisted like snakes, marking a path that led
between gaps in the trees that did not seem to have been there
before.

     (Come to me...)

     A wind blew past his feet and along the path, and the
detritus of the forest trail was pushed to the sides, along the
edges.  And where that wind passed, green shoots of grass pushed
themselves up from bare dirt and grew to a soft carpet nearly
four inches high.  Small wildflowers sprouted amidst the grass,
blue and green and yellow and every other colour, petals
spreading in a second like opening hands, waving slightly in the
wind's passage as if in greeting.

     "What is going on?" Kima whispered, and none of them really
knew the answer.

     (Come to me, my child...)

     Like a lover to a soldier returned from a war as old as
time, like a mother to homeward-coming sons and daughters, like a
long-lost friend's embrace, like the soft light of your own home
burning at the end of a darkened street, the one who ruled in the
Forest of Life made welcome for that which was hers.

     (Oh, come...)

**********

     The crane swept through the air, white feathers pure as
snow, long neck and streamlined body impossibly graceful and
beautiful.  It dipped and soared, and then descended to drink
from the fast-rushing stream by the hills.

     It never had any idea what hit it.  One moment, it was
alive, and the next it was dead, delicate neck snapped cleanly in
half.  It thrashed for a moment before its body got the message,
but its death had been an assured thing since Galm had spotted
its slender form flying above an hour ago.

     Galm smiled as the bird collapsed to the ground.  It had
been very beautiful to watch it soar.  He liked killing beautiful
things most of all.  It was a pleasure to him to know that he was
the last set of eyes that would ever revel in the flight of this
crane, and that he would carry the last memory of its grace and
form with him.

     He liked killing anything, really.  It was what he did.  He
was a very simple creature at heart.  One of Yoko's predecessors
had compared him to a cockroach once; he hadn't changed much over
the long span of years because he didn't need to.  He was already
perfectly adapted to what he did, which was two things, really.
The first was hunting, the second was killing.

     She'd made a mistake with the sigils about a year later, and
he'd managed to open her throat before her sisters corrected the
error.  He wasn't sure quite sure how long ago that had actually
been; the passage of time was not a very clear thing to him.
There were times when he hunted, times when he killed, and times
when he rested and dreamed of hunting and killing.  He rested
quite a lot.  He remembered that it had been in a wooden hall,
with sliding, delicate paper frame doors and silk banners hanging
on the walls.  The room had flickered in the light of torches,
the flames waving like stalks of grass in the wind.  When he'd
cut her, the blood had been like a red tide.

     Galm held up four white feathers in his left hand and
sniffed at them, pulling in the lingering scent of the prey.  A
slow smile spread across his dark face, twisting the scars into
interesting patterns.  He could get a sense of the vague shape
from what he held, and he got the idea that she was quite
beautiful.

     He liked killing beautiful things most of all.  He tucked
the feathers away and crouched to the ground.  His grey and black
clothing shifted and flowed together like water, mixing into one
consistent colour.

     Changed now, Galm set four clawed, padded feet upon the
earth in a form more suited for running, and then resumed his
hunt again, a hunt that had never begun and never ended.  

**********

     Ranma, Cologne and Kima walked along the path that had laid
itself out upon the ground, Shiso perched on Ranma's shoulder and
bobbing his head in time with the rhythm of the walking,
strangely silent in the place of his usual gabbing.

     After the first startling appearance of one of the gigantic
animals that inhabited the forest, a raccoon as big as an
elephant, they had realized after a moment of panic that they
truly were safe upon the path.

     It had been Ranma, surprisingly, who had remained the most
calm when they'd heard it moving through the woods nearby.  "Stay
on the path," he'd said, a strangely serene, out-of-place
expression on his face.  "Just stay on the path.  Don't cross it,
and we'll be alright."

     Then he'd stopped talking and closed his eyes as they stood,
hearing the sound of the animal chittering to itself and the
heavy footsteps as it moved along the ground.  He seemed to be
listening to something; a slow smile broke across his face.

     The giant raccoon had come to the edge of the path, standing
only a few feet from them.  It had sniffed the edge of the trail,
the scattered leaves, something like interest shining in its
enormous dark eyes.  Cologne's hands had tightened on the haft of
the rake she bore, and Kima's fingers had laced themselves around
the handle of her sword, eyes drawing themselves to the huge
claws of the massive beast.

     Then it had turned around and gone the other way.

     Deeper and deeper the path led into the forest, winding
between towering trees and through clearings out of which crystal
waters bubbled.

     It was only after half-an-hour of walking that Cologne
looked back and finally seemed to realize that the path was
disappearing behind them as they walked, the leaves drawing
together into a closed line rather than an open path.

     "Wait," she hissed, grabbing Ranma and Kima's arms.  "Look."

     Kima looked back immediately, a startled expression breaking
across her face, blue eyes widening.  "Why is it closing?"

     Ranma turned his head languidly back, a relaxation in him
that was not often there.

     "Well, it has to," he said, with a gentle smile as if he
were many years older than either of them, as if he were
explaining a fact of life to children.

     "What?" Cologne said.

     "Well, if she didn't close the path, anything that wanted to
could follow us in," Ranma said, as if it were the most obvious
thing in the world.  He laughed, and reached up to pat Shiso's
side.

     "She?" Kima said, glancing to Cologne.  The other woman's
young face slowly blossomed into a smile of understanding.

     "He's right, of course," she said.  "No thing here shall do
us harm.  At this time, there is almost no place in the world
safer for us than here."

     And up ahead of them, they saw the path widening, and before
them was a clearing, a clearing at the base of a mountain, and a
cave mouth yawned in the mountain, gaping and dark like a wound
in the rock.  The trail of leaves ended at the cave, the widened
pathway terminating at both sides of the entrance.

     Now another wind began to blow along the path, a cold one.
Stagnant water in bottomless pools, mushrooms and creepers
growing in the dark and the damp, the chill winter that follows
spring and summer.

     Where that wind passed, the grass and wildflowers that had
carpeted the path seemed to shrink beneath it.  The wind had a
vitality to it as well, but it was the vitality of things that
grew upon the wreckage of other things, the vitality of fungus
and mould and corpse-worms.  This was a place of life, but it was
a place of pain as well.  The cavern mouth beckoned,
inexplicably.

     "We're here," Ranma said, gazing at the cave as if
hypnotized.  "She's waiting.  Oh, how long she's been waiting..."

     "What's he talking about?" Kima hissed to Cologne, as Ranma
began to walk ahead of them.

     "He's remembering," Cologne whispered, starting to follow
Ranma.  "He knows the memory of this place, or a place much like
it."

     Ranma turned and glanced back.  "Well, are you guys comin'
or not?"

     Kima shook her head and sighed.  "The things one must do for
one's duty."

     "Duty is a freely given thing," Cologne said quietly from up
ahead.  "It is always a choice to follow it."

     The three of them stepped up to the mouth of the cave; the
light of the sun did not reach far inside, exposing only a small
expanse of rocky walls and floor before it faded into dark.

     Kima reached into a pouch at her waist and extracted a small
carven box of ivory, held closed with a silver clasp.  She undid
the clasp between two taloned fingers and flipped the box open;
pale light began to shine from the stone inside.

     "What is that, anyway?" Ranma said, his attention on the
cave momentarily broken.

     "A certain kind of rock found in the lower strata of
Jusendo and Phoenix mountain," Kima said softly.  "It's been
theorized that it changed over the years because of the cursed
springs, somehow.  It absorbs heat and gives off light; the box
keeps it from wasting it all at once.  That's part of how Lord
Saffron maintains the mountain; there's panels of it in most of
the walls."

     As if realizing she'd shared more than she meant to, she
closed her mouth and held the box forward to Ranma.  "We can use
it to light the way.  As you appear to be leading this little
expedition, you might as well carry it."

     "Thank you," he said, taking the box from her with what
looked like a conscious effort not to touch her hands.  He raised
it in one hand and began to advance down the corridor.  After a
moment, Kima and Cologne followed.

     So into the belly of the mountain they walked, for just how
long they did not know.  Past stalactites that hung like fangs,
and moss that shone yellow in the pale light that bloomed like
the petals of a rose from the stone within the box.  Ranma
remembered that the cavern system had not seemed this extensive
when last he was here.

     Cool winds blew through the caverns, the scent of water in
them.  They did not talk; conversation did not seem a necessary
thing, down here as they made their way through the winding
mountain tunnels.  At forks in the tunnels and crossroads, Ranma
took certain turns without hesitation, and, not knowing what else
to do, the two women followed him.  He had become, for the
moment, the leader of two who were not used to following.  The
pale light of the stone streaked the walls with light and dark
veins of stone like clawmarks, but it never threatened at all to
dim.

     And then at last, they took a final turn and came to the
heart of the caverns, a great underground lake as clear as glass
at the top, as dark as night at the bottom, contained within a
vast subterranean chamber, and the rock floor they stood upon was
like the shore of a beach, and the lake was like an ocean.  And
at the bottom of the pool, a vast shape lay in tangled darkness,
many-necked and serpentine, barely visible beyond an impression
of its form, for so deep were the waters.

     "This is the Orochi's pool," Ranma said softly.  "I don't
remember it being this far.  Maybe we went in a different
entrance last time."

     "So what happens now?" Kima said.  "Samofere said that we
had to come here, but-"

     She stopped talking as Shiso abruptly gave a soft, harsh cry
and leapt from Ranma's shoulder to fly into the air above the
lake, inky feathers gleaming like obsidian in the light.

     He soared to the centre, and raised his voice within the
cavern, and it was like soft thunder and the crack of lighting.
"AWAKEN!"

     The light from the box Ranma held suddenly winked out, and
left them in darkness with their own surprised cries.

     And then came the sound of waves lashing against stone walls
of the cavern, as from deep below the now-hidden lake something
began to rise.

     There was fear for a moment, the fear ingrained in all
things that live in the open world beneath that sun and wind, the
fear of the alien, claustrophobic earth that rests below your
feet, the caverns stretching down to miles below, holding within
them the darkness deeper than night.  

     The sound of the waves was like the hard roll of drums being
beaten, primal and fierce, touching something in the soul, some
ancient racial memory of a time far, far in the distant past, of
gathering around fires and staring into the dark in fear of what
might be there.

     For a moment they all wavered upon the brink of fleeing,
even Ranma, who had led them here with utmost confidence, even
Cologne, who had lived more than a century and known little fear
in all the years that she could not overcome.

     This was something different, they all realized.  This was
something ancient, some power unlike that which they knew.  And
because it was unfamiliar, it carried with it a little fear, as
any unfamiliar thing does.

     And then, after those moments of darkness, there came the
light, rolling off the lake in rising waves, shining silver like
moonlight, and the light of the lake and the crystal clarity of
its waters were the same light, because it seemed now to be more
than just a lake.  It was the light of stars and moon that shone
in defiance of the dark, that lit the night when the sun was
gone.

     And fear vanished, because there was no more room for fear,
no more room for anything beyond an awe so deep that it filled
all of your being, because as soon as the light came from the
rolling waters, the first scale broke the surface of the lake,
and the Dragon of Life rose.

     And then there was beauty.

**********

     Ranma sank to his knees, thinking, as he fell:  the serpent
was a shadow, a flawed image, seen as if through a glass darkly.
It was not the truth, no more than the reflection of the sun in
the waters of a pool is the truth of the sun.

     This, this was the truth, the final secret at the core of
Ryugenzawa, the last vision of infinite, impossible beauty beyond
the last locked gateway of the soul.

     The Orochi had been powerful, bigger than he'd ever imagined
any living thing could be, smashing trees and rocks with its
bulk, breathing fire, conquerable only by the whistle Akane had
held.  Yet it had been a stupid thing, a mere beast, a primal
force like a hurricane or tidal wave, mighty but chaotic.

     Take all that power, that size, that primal force, and
distil it, make it a purer thing.  Add to it intelligence and a
beauty so great it threatened to break the soul apart.  And all
these things gave still not a worthy estimate of her.

     Fifty feet, a hundred feet, breaking serpentine and shining
from the waters, writhing and twisting for the joy of her own
existence, flying without the need of wings.  She was green, if
you could call her any single colour, but you could not truly
name one colour.  To call her green was to call the sun just
another star in the sky.  She was jade and coral, olive and
emerald, the shine of sun upon aquamarine waters, the green of
leaves in summer and plants in spring, of rolling meadows of
grass that stretched out beyond the ability of the sight of the
eye to follow.

     A hundred feet, two hundred now, and still she was rising
from the lake, and the talons of the five-fingered hands on the
ends of upper limbs that were short compared to the vast
serpentine curl of her body were the palest jade.  Her scales
caught the light of the waters and reflected it, breaking it into
a hundred different shades of green and silver, making the light
brighter by her very presence.  A silver mane flowed behind her,
wet and shining with the waters of the lake, and the silver of
her mane and the silver light that filled the cavern were the
same, and above a pair of flashing emerald eyes were the curving
horns of pure white ivory, more than three times as tall as a
man.

     Behind him, he heard Kima or Cologne, he would never be sure
which, give a soft sound that he recognized for one of pure joy,
of the realization of a beauty so deep that to not be joyed by it
was to be in denial of your own humanity.

     And finally, after what seemed like eternity compressed into
the space of a few seconds, the last shimmering scale at the tip
of a fine tail, feathered at the end with hair the same colour as
her mane, was free of the waters, and the Dragon of Life was
before them, twining in the air like a ribbon of green silk,
scales flashing in the silver light.

     She was nearly three hundred feet long from the tip of her
wise-eyed, silver-maned head to the end of her tail, and yet
there was no sense of ponderousness or bulk to her, no clumsiness
or lack of grace to the writhing spirals she turned in the air.

     There were few sights Ranma had seen that could compare to
her in sheer beauty.  The rise of sun over snow-capped mountains
that sparkled like diamonds in the light, the spreading oceanic
vastness of the Pacific seen from atop a tall hill above a beach
of white sand, the glass surface of Lake Biwa stirred slightly by
the breezes of spring, an ancient Shinto temple he'd seen in
Kyoto once in the early morning with the mist hanging around the
stone statues and the wooden gate like a cloak, shrouding the
site into a vision out of time eternal.  Cherry blossoms falling
in the sunlight, so brief, so very, very brief in their beauty,
and in that briefness only more beautiful.

     She seemed to be looking directly at him, ageless, ancient
eyes sparkling with intelligence and wisdom, and something else,
something he could not place right away.

     And then he did.

     Love.

     And in the face of that he was held helpless, the
realization that the shining eyes of the dragon as she looked
upon the three small, inadequate, mortal creatures who stood upon
her shores were filled with an impossibly deep love, absolute and
unconditional, freely given without thought.  He felt as if all
his existence had gone towards this moment.  

     He forgot, as he gazed upon her, the dreams and the fires,
the spires of ice and the dark core of being that had filled his
head.  He forgot the sound of a woman's neck snapping beneath his
fist.

     He was loved, and it was alright.  That was all that
mattered for the next little while, as he gazed upon the beauty
now risen from the lake, gazed upon the true shape hidden for so
long within the serpent's shadow.  There was love in her eyes,
and it was all for him, and it was wide enough to encompass all
things, and it was, it was all alright, it truly, truly was
alright.

     Innocent he'd come into the world, and in that single
moment, as the dragon's eyes gazed upon him with that achingly
pure love shining in their depths like the heart of a star, he
was innocent again.  His soul was washed clean, his heart was
a thing less heavy than the clouds, his very being felt made of
light, a light that shone throughout all of him, warm and
comforting.

     For the first time since he had been a very small child, he
wept without any sense of shame, because he could not hold back
the barriers he'd built around his soul in the face of this.  A
floodgate opened within him, all that he had held back, all those
feelings that he'd taught himself to deny, and he cried tears
that he had not known he held within him.

     Not that he had not cried before; he had, when frustration
had grown too great, when sorrow choked him, when at last he
could hold in his pain no more.

     He'd cried when he'd held his mother balanced upon a sword
above the roaring ocean, intermingled joy and sorrow twining
themselves inside his soul.

     He'd cried in terror when his father had hurled him again
and again into a pit that seemed filled with nothing beyond
glowing eyes and razors and howling voices like the tortured,
jagged screams of pain and fear that he did not realize until
later were his own.

     He'd cried as he held Akane in his arms in the flooded Heart
of Jusendo, before her eyes had opened, in that single agonized
moment when he thought that, just once, he'd been too late.

     But always, always there had been the shame, the gnawing
guilt at the core of him.  Because men did not cry.

     And there was none of that now, because he saw that for the
lie it was.  Because weeping was a part of being human, and
because tears cleansed the soul like waters cleansed the body.

     So Ranma wept by the lake of the Dragon of Life.

     So much beauty.

     So much pain.

     Weep, child, and in the weeping cleanse your soul.

     His tears were silver, like the light of the lake.

     The dragon looked at him, ancient sorrow, ancient love,
ancient eyes.  Silver light was everywhere, stretching and
filling the cavern, inside his heart, behind his eyes, and it
was shining, oh, it was shining so bright, and what could match
this beauty?

     And then the dragon spoke, and if there was anything that
could match the beauty of what he saw before him, it was the
sound of that voice, that silver and crystal melody.

     It was to music what an ocean is to a puddle.  It seemed to
come from everywhere; from the walls, from the lake, from his own
heart, a crescendo of swelling, beauteous sound that caressed his
senses, laid them bare and raw and pained them with its sheer,
aching loveliness.  

     *Why do you weep, my child?* she asked.

     "Because you are so beautiful," he said, the words rising
unbidden.  He could no more have held them back than he could
have plucked stars from the sky.

     *I am sorry that my appearance causes you grief.*

     Such regret, such sorrow in her voice.  Such an ancient
sadness that her words bespoke.

     "No, no, no, oh no," he said, shaking his head as the tears
spilled down his face.  "Never that, lady.  Never grief."

     There seemed to be nothing in the world beyond his voice and
the dragon's.  *Then I make you happy?*

     "Yes, yes, oh yes," he said, a smile on his face as he
looked up at her through the haze of his weeping.  "You make me
happy."

     Words.  Words were so inadequate for what he was feeling, so
impossibly, impossibly limiting.  How could you give voice to the
bright joy bursting in your soul like a flower made of starlight,
how could you possibly express those feelings with mere words?

     *I am glad.*

     She looked at him, as if weighing him upon some invisible
balance, and smiled, the corners of her mouth curving up,
exposing fangs the size of tall men.  *You are the one.  You are
worthy.  I have waited for you.*

     "You have?"

     *For a very long time.*

     "I don't understand."

     *Shh... it's alright.  Rest.*

     He realized in that moment that he was exhausted.  The
hours, had they truly been hours?, of walking through the caverns
caught up with him.  He did not understand; looking back, even a
mountain was too small to contain all those tunnels, all those
twisting and winding turns that had led deeper and deeper into
the earth.  How far down were they, how long had they travelled
to come at last to these waters under earth?

     Too deep to comprehend, too deep to imagine, and he
realized that the journey they'd begun in the caves in Ryugenzawa
had led to somewhere far, far beyond that.  

     He slumped forward, going from kneeling before the lake to
lying on his side in front of it.  Out of the corner of his
rapidly-closing eyes, he saw Kima, one wing stretched out to the
side, the other held across her body where she lay, eyes closed,
face peaceful.  He saw Cologne, hair draping across her face like
a dark waterfall, strands of it rising slightly as she breathed
the breath of deep sleep.

     The last sight he saw was of Shiso, his dark shape dwarfed
by the Dragon of Life, perched perfectly between the dragon's
horns, his black wings raised and the feathers outspread, the
night-deep plumage rimmed with a glorious silver in the light
from the pool.

**********

     Galm killed a deer that night in a forest a hundred miles
away from where he'd begun his journey at the crack of dawn this
morning, and had it for his dinner.  He stalked it for two
hours, padding silently behind it, a lean grey shape as silent as
the wind and entirely without any scent that would have tipped
off the animal to his presence.

     Like the crane, it died almost immediately.  He never took
long to kill animals; their lasting pain never was as satisfying
as that of humans.  They could not scream for mercy, offer
anything to him beyond simple wordless cries and wails.

     The prey was still far, but not as far as it had been.  It
appeared to have stopped moving, and so he would stop as well.
He was not without his limitations, and the need for rest was one
of them.  He curled up under a tree and closed his golden eyes,
the orders of the hunt running themselves over in his head.  He
was a simple creature, and they were simple instructions.  He
would follow the prey to the place called Jusenkyou.  He would
use her to find the boy called Ranma Saotome.  He would take the
boy alive, and bring him to the pools of Jusenkyou.  Yoko would
take things from there.  Then he would kill the prey.  Then maybe
he would kill some more things.

     A cockroach, she'd called him.  He hadn't killed her because
he considered it an insult; he'd killed her because she'd been
stupid enough to get careless.  Culling the herd; you killed the
weak, the sick, the stupid, and left yourself a better class of
prey.  You made the hunt more fun.  But you always won in the
end, because you were the predator and they were the prey.

     He had to admit, in a lot of ways he was like a cockroach.
He'd been here before almost anything else, and he'd be here
after most of it was gone.  

     He was a very simple creature.  And under the right
circumstances, simple things are the most dangerous things of
all.

     And so Galm slept, and dreamed of hunting and killing, and
far away golden eyes stalked in the slumber of a woman like
wraiths dancing in a fog.