Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum - harnums@hotmail.com

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakukan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

Homepage at:  http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/9758

Comments welcomed, appreciated, yadda yadda yadda... does anyone
ever read what comes before the chapter title anyway?  

Chapter 26 : Past Sins [3 of 4]

     He glanced around the large, plain room that he had 
occupied, the bed where he had lain unconscious in, the chair
where Cologne had been when he'd awakened.  The pale, bluish
glow of the lamps on the walls scarred the white sheets with
talons of light and shadow.  There was nothing else beyond the
bed and chair, and he was sure that it had been unused until
they'd stuck him here to recover.

     A knock sounded from beyond the metal-banded wood of the
door, and he turned his head to look at the direction of the
noise.  "Yeah?"

     Kima pushed the door open and stepped inside, a slightly
troubled look on her face.  "I thought you might want this."

     "What?" he asked suspiciously, studying her.  She was 
wearing a form-fitting white robe with the image of the two
phoenixes supporting the sun, a garment similiar to the one she'd
had on when she'd talked to him after he'd awoken, but the trim
of the hem and sleeves was a dark blue this time.  

     "This," she said, raising a hand and flipping him something
that he caught more by instinct than anything else.  He stared at
the photo in the torn leather wallet.  Akane's photo.  

     The troubled look had not left Kima's face.  "She had it
tucked into her blouse when I pulled her out of the spring after
it was ready.  I didn't know what to do with it, so I tossed it
away somewhere in my room.  I forgot I had it until a little
while ago."

     "Thank you," Ranma said quietly, genuinely touched despite
the angry memories her words brought back for him.  He tucked the
photo inside his shirt, and vowed silently that this time he
wasn't going to lose it.

     "Are you ready to go now?"
     
     He looked up, buttoning the ties of his red shirt to keep
the photo safe against his chest and gave her a weary grin.  
"Yeah."

     "Better if you go through less-travelled passages," she 
said, turning and walking out the open door.  "The less attention
you attract among my people, the better."

     Ranma silently rose, hauling up his pack by one strap and
slinging it over one shoulder as he followed her.  Going through
the sitting room, they stepped through another door, and into
what he presumed was Kima's bedroom.  

     He glanced over it momentarily.  The bed and furniture bore
the same obsessive level of decoration with phoenix icons that
everything else in Phoenix Mountain did, and he saw very little
that gave the room any kind of personal touch.  He got the
impression she spent very little waking time in the place.

     "Why are we in here?" he asked.
     
     Kima glanced back from where she stood by a tall chest of
drawers.  "Loame and his Order aren't the only ones who have
secret tunnels in the mountain.  This one isn't much of a secret
any more, but it is unused."

     Ranma's eye caught on something in the wall near where she
stood, and the outline of a door seemed to fall into place
suddenly across the stone, the cracks of the frame almost
unnoticeable.  "What's that for?"

     Kima took a step over and pushed against it, hard, and with
a grating of stone on stone, it swung open, revealing a dark
passage and a long stretch of stairs that the light of the lamps
in the room failed to reach to the end of.  "Back when the
political infighting was more than just words and blackmailing, 
it was important for the highest-ranking families to have a back
door out if needed."

     She shrugged; crippled wings shrugged in time with the
motion of her shoulders, then drooped lifelessly again down her
back.  "It hasn't been needed for centuries now."

     "How high is your family, anyway?" Ranma asked, stepping up
to stand beside her before the revealed passage.

     "Highest in the ranks of the nobles now that Xande's line
has been stricken from the records due to his treachery," Kima
said quietly.  "The men of my family served as the king's 
guardians for ten centuries before me.  I am the first woman to 
hold the position."

     He only saw her face in the profile, but he saw the trace of
bitterness in her smile.  "I suspect that I shall also be the
last."

     From a pocket of her robes, she produced the ivory box that
held the glowing stone, and flipped it open.  The pale light 
staggered across her face and into the darkness beyond the
stairs.  "Come.  This will take you to the only untrapped
ground-level entrance."
     
     They walked in silence down the twining and ancient steps,
Ranma following behind her as she went.  The walls were low and
confining, and after a few minutes, Ranma began to feel slightly
claustrophobic.  As they passed through another hidden door into
another empty section of the rough passageways that twined
throughout the mountain, the feeling increased.  He and Kima 
were a narrow circle of light in the pressing darkness, and just 
as he began to feel as if he could take it no longer, he felt a 
cool breath of air against his face.

     Turning a corner, he saw a crack of light that soon became a
tiny exit from the mountain, so small they both had to duck their
heads to go through it.  It lay almost totally hidden in the
shadow of a massive rock.  Down a gentle slope of loose scree, he
could see the long pass winding off north and south through the
range of the mountains.

     He turned and looked up, to the mists that hung about the
high spires of Phoenix Mountain.  Beyond it, he saw scattered
winged shapes, soaring and darting among the peaks.  Glancing to 
the side, he saw Kima doing the same, a look of such wistful 
longing on her face that it hurt to see.     
     
     "Guess I'll go now," he said weakly.
     
     She said nothing, craned her head back further and folded 
her arms across her chest, the long sleeves of her robe brushing
silkily against each other.  "I'm coming with you."

     For a moment, Ranma could not speak.  Finally, he managed a
slightly shocked, "What?"

     She tilted her head back down and looked at him.  "I just
realized it now.  What need is there for me here?  Samofere does
not need my protection.  He does not need my advice.  The
question arises of how I may best serve my people, and the only
answer that I find now is that I must see whatever fate has
enfolded you through.  It binds us all, somehow, the fate of all
the people of Jusenkyou."

     Ranma could only stare at her for a time, and then finally
nodded his head.  "If that's the way you feel..."

     "It is," she said.
     
     She turned away from him and raised her hand to the air.  
She whistled, as he'd heard her do earlier in the morning, a
sound almost hauntingly beautiful in the still and stony silence
of the mountains.

     A white shape descended from the mists, spiralled down 
through the air on small wings, and landed upon her wrist.  She 
leaned her head down and whispered something to the dove, and 
then flung it free to the air, her gaze following it as it soared
away again into the mists.

     "Samofere and Cologne will know my choice soon enough," she
said, turning back to him.  "We should go now."

     Slowly, Ranma nodded, and began to walk down the slope
towards the mountain trail.

*********

     Kammael, King of the Musk, did not appear to be an old man.
Despite being well into his sixties, he looked at the most in his
early forties.  A few lines had woven themselves into a face, and
the living showed in his eyes, which had darkened over the years 
from a red like that of his children to a crimson so dark as to 
be almost black.  His hair had been white since his birth, of 
course, and he wore it long and unbound with a slight, pointed 
beard.

     He shifted slightly in his elaborate and baroque throne, and
with that shifting shifted the blade in the sheath across his
legs.  With a strong, unlined hand, he closed his fingers around
the golden dragon that shaped the hilt, and pulled an inch or so
of the curving, slender sword from its dark wooden scabbard,
watching the way light was split across the blade.

     His wife was dead less than a day, and he could already feel
it coming back, so much stronger this time, as if all the power 
of hate contained by that long holding-back had returned at once.
His will kept it in check for now, but will would only carry him 
so far.

     The large throne room was empty of the usual attendants.  
Thick curtains of gold and scarlet were drawn closed about the
huge windows that opened to views of the mountains, and the
silence of the room hung heavy upon him.

     One of the large double doors opened, and Rogen stepped
lightly into the room.  Five years his king's junior, the
bodyguard looked ten years the senior, his eyes hard and dark in
a lined, weatherbeaten face.  "Do you wish longer, my king?" he 
asked quietly, his voice breaking the silence.

     Kammael shook his head and rose up from the throne, holding
the Dragon's Blade in one hand, the ancient symbol of what his
heritage had once meant that had only recently been found again.
"No."

     Rogen's cape of black silk and brown feathers swirled
behind him as he walked across the richly carpeted floor, to meet
Kammael as he descended the short flight of steps that led down
from his throne.  "And where shall it be done?"

     How ancient the words, more than a thousand years now.  A
small age compared to that of the sword he held, a vast time to a
mortal man.  "Here, before my throne, that shall be my son's,
that was my father's before me."

     "It is well then, my king," Rogen said, and his eyes 
betrayed none of his feelings for what was to come.  "Do you feel
fear?"

     Kammael answered as he knew he must.  "No.  I know no fear
of this."

     "It is well then, my king," his old friend said again, and
perhaps there was the barest flicker in his dark brown eyes.  "I
am ready when you are."

     Kammael was silent for a moment, and then spoke.  "Rogen,
was it right what was done to my children?"

     Rogen answered immediately.  "You did as has been done for a
thousand years, my king.  Twins of the blood of your line are 
always separated.  The girls go to the north.  The boys stay
here.  And they shall have no knowledge of each other until such
time as is judged best."

     Kammael smiled slightly.  "But was it right?"
     
     Rogen was silent.
     
     "It does not matter," the king said at last, warmly clapping 
his friend on the shoulder.  "I am ready, Rogen."

     "Herb will make a fine king," Rogen said after a moment.
     
     "Perhaps he will," Kammael said.
     
     The two men looked at each other, and then embraced like
brothers, strongly and tightly.  Kammael stepped back and held
out the Dragon's Blade to Rogen.  "Hold it until he returns,
friend."

     Rogen took it.  There were tears in his eyes now.  
     
     Kammael reached up to his shoulders and undid his cape,
letting it fall to the patch of stone floor that lay between the
edge of the carpet and the edge of the steps that led up to his
throne.  He took off the armour of dragon scales that he wore on
his shoulders and arms and legs, and stood clothed only in white
now, not the red-trimmed white his son wore, but only white, pure
and clean like snow.  He remembered snow in the mountains, and
walking with his wife when they were young as the snow fell all
around them.

     He knelt before Rogen, remembering all the times that his
bodyguard, his old friend, had knelt before him, and bowed his 
head.  "I, Kammael, Lord of the Musk, kin to dragons, live now 
for a short time, again vulnerable to the darkness that claimed
my ancestors Ganziao and Fukwan and broke the Dragon Tribe.  But
better it is to die holding my own fate in my hands than live a
tool of that darkness."

     There were tears in his own eyes now, as he felt Rogen hand
him the long dagger, the point sharp and glinting, felt his
friend's fingers curl about his own and place the blade over his
heart.  He could feel it prick against his skin through his 
clothing.  There was no fear now; fear had departed long ago, and
sadness, and all else.  He felt peaceful now, and he had always
expected the peace would come after.

     Rogen's hand tightened on his, and they held the hilt
together, and then Kammael drove himself down upon the blade even
as Rogen drove it up towards him.

     And then there was peace no longer, only sharp and piercing
pain so great that he could not bear it and cried out softly,
like a child, but only for a few moments, and then he felt the 
peaceful darkness come rushing down upon him, as his body sagged 
into Rogen's arms.

     When he knew his king was dead, Rogen of the Musk lifted
Kammael's body into his arms, and bore him silently through empty
hallways.  The men of the Musk and their wives were all in their
quarters now.  They had all known what was coming, had known it
would come but had never expected it, and then it had come with 
the death of Kammael's wife in the earliest hours of the morning.  

     He bore him to the place called the Mouth of the Dragon, and
to the statue within that place called also the Mouth of the
Dragon, and he laid his king's body out upon a pire of wood
within the mouth of the dragon, and he did for him what the king 
of the Musk had done for all those of his clan who had died under 
his reign.

     And when that was done, and the ashes of the king had gone
to join those of his wife, Rogen walked, still in silence and now
without tears, to the highest tower of the Fortress of the Men,
and he rang the great bell that was tolled for only two reasons.

     Once, and the sound rang off the mountains and down the
pass, reaching all the way to the Fortress of the Boys.  That
first tolling meant that the king was dead.

     Again, and, low-pitched and booming, the bell echoed into
the mountain air, doubled and redoubled with the echoes of that
first tolling.  That second tolling meant that there was a new 
king.

     The new king, of course, knew nothing at all about any of 
this, and wouldn't find out for some time.
     
**********

     Ranma was halfway down the gentle slope that led towards the
trail, small stones scattering under his feet, when Kima paused
and stared back at Phoenix Mountain.

     Ranma stopped as well, turning on his heel to look at her.
"Kima?"

     The expression on her face was pensive for a moment, then
softened.  "I need water."

     He reached behind to his pack and pulled off his canteen,
not understanding why until it was in his hands.  "What do you
want to change for?"

     She regarded him coldly.  "I attract too much attention in
this form, and I'm walking either way, aren't I?"

     Troubled, Ranma handed her the canteen and turned his back
to her.  He heard the slight pop as she opened it, and then an
almost inaudible splash.

     "Here," Akane's voice said.
     
     He turned back and took the canteen back, trying not to look
at her and failing.  The robe that had been flattering on her 
before was now slightly too large on the smaller cursed body.

     Against all his desires, he found himself looking at her
eyes, the pale blue replaced by the brown of Akane's irises.  He
tore his head away, strangled the pain that rose raw in his very 
being.

     He felt a hand fall upon his shoulder from behind, and he
studied it intently, the shape of it, as if looking for something
that would reveal to him the falseness of the form.  But it was
all there, down to a small scar across one knuckle of the little
finger that he'd always noticed on Akane's left hand but had 
never asked about.

     "Don't touch me," he snapped, pulling away.
     
     He heard her make a small exhalation of breath from behind
him, a deep sigh.  "What's wrong?"

     He forced himself to turn and look at her.  He gazed at her
eyes, trying to see behind them at the truth, but there was so 
much of Akane in that gaze that he could not.

     "It just hurts to see her," he answered at last, very 
quietly and not sure how he managed to get the words out.
     
     Kima stared at him with Akane's eyes for the silence of a
few long seconds.  "I'm not her."

     Ranma smiled, very slighly, very bitterly.  "I know."
     
     She frowned.  "It is not avoidable.  I cannot travel on the
ground in my natural form."

     As she stepped by him, he caught a flash of long, slender
leg through the high cut in one side of her robe, and again he
felt a sense of deep and unattainable longing.

     Resigned, he began to walk down the slope after her, eyes
studying the ground, the fall of shadow across stone, interplay
of light with darkness scarring the mountain.  The sun was high 
in a blue canvas of white clouds.

     "Do you miss her?"
     
     He glanced up, and slowly nodded.  "Yeah.  I miss her a 
lot."

     Kima kept on walking, not looking back as she continued to
talk.  "You love her."

     He nodded again.  "I guess so."
     
     "I am sure you will see her again."

     He felt the familiar, bitter smile return.  "But once she
finds out all I've done, will she want to see me?"

     Kima stepped onto the rough, rocky dirt of the winding
trail, and glanced back over her shoulder.  A slight breeze
played through the dark bangs of Akane's hair, swept them across
her eyes.  "I don't know.  I'm not her, am I?"

     Ranma leaned against a huge boulder taller than he was, 
tossed onto the trail long ago by a rockslide.  "Nope."

     He turned, suddenly, and slammed his fist against the rock,
cracking the massive stone in half so that both sides crashed
thunderously to the ground, the sound echoing between the
mountains that rose all around them.

     "Ranma..."
     
     Kneeling, he pressed his hand against one of the flat sides
of the rock.  He felt a tingle on his skin, knew the dragon
writhed beneath his shirt upon his flesh, and the tingle rushed
up his arm in a singing glory, and the power flared on his hand,
so bright he could not look at it.

     He stood back up and looked at the hand-print sunk into the
stone.  He stared at his hand.  "What have I become?"

     Kima slapped him with Akane's hand.  "Enough," she snapped, 
glaring at him, the anger so fierce on her face that he almost
stepped back.  "What happened to your big rush of confidence?  I
was almost sure you were done feeling sorry for yourself back
when you were talking in Samofere's chambers."

     Ranma touched his fingers to the stinging mark upon his
cheek, and stared into the anger in the eyes, the sad, unwanted
anger that he had seen in those eyes before.  

     He smiled, a third smile, more bitter than the last two.
"Maybe it's just that whatever's ahead doesn't seem like much
compared to what I've left behind."

     Her face tightened, the anger grew in her eyes, and then she
turned away imperiously, the long skirts of the robe sweeping
about her legs, and began to walk away.  Ranma followed her in
silence, up the trail to the north, towards Jusendo and whatever
else.

**********

     Ranma and Kima reached Jusendo in the late afternoon, when
the sun was falling into the west, walking in long and
uncomfortable silence.  They picked their way up the outside 
slopes to reach the top, the battle between Ranma and Saffron 
having collapsed many of the inner tunnels that wound through 
the mountain.  On some of the more difficult slopes, Ranma had to
help Kima along, and each touch of his hand to the hands that 
belonged to Akane sent a momentary shudder through his mind.

     Now they stood in the shattered heart, and looked about the 
massive cavern, now open to the air, at the mutilated statues of 
the dragon and the phoenix, and at the rubble strewn across the 
floor.  Sunlight sprawled lazily through the broken crown of the
mountain, streaked itself across the floor and walls and chased 
shadows into the corners.  The water that had flooded the cavern 
when Ranma had broken the Dragon Tap had long ago drained away; 
beyond the shattered walls, he could hear the sound of the 
waterfall spilling down the side, to source the river that flowed
towards Jusenkyou in the east.

     Ranma walked up to the lip of the huge, empty pool that
Saffron's egg had rested in.  Fragments of shell, the inner 
parts chased with all the colours of the spectrum and the outer
portions smooth and white, littered the basin.

     "I guess this is where everything began, wasn't it?" he said
quietly.  

     "I suppose it is," Kima said, standing at his shoulder in
Akane's body.  "The fall of Saffron was the last sign."

     Ranma shrugged and pulled off his backpack, then sat down,
resting against the marble edge of the basin and massaging his
legs to try and rid the muscles of the twinges he'd acquired
after hours of walking compounded by the climb up the slopes of
the mountain.  "So what now?"

     "I want to change back," Kima said bluntly, sitting down
beside him.  "I don't like being in this body any longer than 
I have to."

     Ranma began to open his pack to get out the kettle, and then
paused, an impulse coming over him.  "Lemme try something."

     He raised his hands and held them before him, as if he 
cupped a sphere between them.  He thought of how Cologne had 
shown him this, a few hours before Tarou had shown up, before 
Galm.  He had nearly forgotten it until now.

     He felt a pleasant tingle through his skin, a cool suffusion
that left him feeling cleansed and peaceful.  His sight seemed
somehow clearer and obscured at the same time, a swimming 
distortion of his vision that was in some ways a clarity.

     Draw them in, he whispered silently to himself, draw them 
in, draw it from the air, draw, come, oh come to me, oh waters...

     And between his hands, the air shimmered, and a misty orb of
blue came first, and then a transition so fast it was almost not
visible, a coalescing into moisture, clear water held between his
hands.

     And he shaped the power with ease, with joy, sent it flowing
into the water as fire, saw the bubbling as the heat of the water
increased, and it was easy, and yet so hard, like a child taking
the first tentative steps that will lead to more, to steadiness,
to running.

     He turned to Kima and let the sphere bob above the palm of
one hand, wisps of steam rising from the orb of warm water he
held suspended.  He grinned.  "Easier than making a fire."

     He put his hand over her head, and released the water from
the hold he had upon it.  It splashed down, ran for a moment
across the darkness of hair that turned in an eyeblink to white,
sending damp bangs draping over eyes now pale and blue.

     Kima shook her head, and ran a taloned hand through her hair
that came away with water droplets dancing on the fingers.  
"Useful trick."

     She stood up and stretched her arms over her head, the 
motion making her wings move with her shoulders before they again
dropped limply.  

     Ranma rose to his feet, brushing his hands against his 
pants and feeling, oddly, much better than he had in a long time.
"Yeah.  Useful trick."

     "Hail and well met, Ranma Saotome."
     
     Startled, they both turned at the unfamiliar voice, Ranma
crouching slightly on the balls of his feet, Kima reaching for
the sword that hung at her belt.  

     Ranma watched in surprised silence as Herb of the Musk 
stepped from behind the serpentine length of the Dragon Tap that 
lay nearby, sunlight flashing off the burnished golden scales of
his armour, his long cloak seeming to float behind him as he
walked.

     A dozen steps from them, Herb paused and looked past Ranma's
shoulder.  "Did you know about this, Wiyeed?  Is this why father
wouldn't tell me why we had to come here?"

     Ranma whirled, and blinked at the girl standing behind them,
wearing a long, dark dress with a white cloak thrown loosely
around her shoulders.  She was the twin of Herb's cursed form,
except for her hair, which hung long and unbound, nearly to her
waist.

     "Hail and well met, Lord of Waters," she said formally.
"Hail and well met, Child of Phoenix."

     Ranma looked from Herb to his twin, and then shook his head
and sighed.  "Hail and well met, Herb, and whoever the heck you
happen to be."

     He glanced to Kima, and saw her regarding Herb with 
barely-veiled anger.  "So this is why Samofere would not tell why 
you had to come here," she half-snarled.

     Herb arched an eyebrow at her and a thin smile came onto his
face.  "Do I detect hostility?"

     Kima's face darkened.  "The memory of Phoenix Mountain is
long, childkiller."

     The girl in the white cloak spoke.  Her voice was as Herb's
had been when he was female, though her tones were more gentle,
less harsh.  "That sin is a thousand years past, and my brother
has killed no children."

     Kima turned slowly and looked at the girl, her hostility
lessening only slightly from Ranma's perspective.  "I know of
older sins than that which still stain the world today."

     "Aye," the girl said softly.  "That which is truly evil
cannot ever truly die."

-Continued in section 4


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