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

Commentary is welcomed and appreciated, sent publicly or 
privately.

Chapter 29 : The Halls of Night (1 of 4)
  
I came by myself to a very crowded place
I was looking for someone who had lines in her face
I found her there but she was past all concern
I asked her to hold me, I said, "Lady, unfold me,"
But she scorned me and she told me
I was dead and I could never return
-Leonard Cohen

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
>From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings
-T.S. Eliot

     He was in a place he might have been before.  A small
building, open on all four sides, with the roof held up by four
broad pillars of red-gold wood, polished till they glistened
richly and held an inner glow like sunlight.

     There was water flowing.  He lay on the grass, dusky with
the scent of morning dew, just beyond the building.  Soft and
yielding, the earth beneath his body was like a bed, fresh and
slightly damp.

     He raised himself on his elbows, then stood up.  His feet
were bare, and the blades of grass brushed softly against his
soles as he stepped into the building, walking on the white stone
floor that lay between the channels through which water flowed.

     The round basin rose from the stone of the floor, with water
spilling always over the rim and splashing down into the channels
on the floor.  A misplaced step dampened his foot, and he paused
to shake it dry, scattering bright pearls of water across the 
milky stone of the floor.  There had been music before, a sad 
singing of the wind.  Now there was only silence, the sound of
water flowing, the slap of his feet on stone as he walked to the
edge of the basin and peered in.

     The woman who lay beneath the water in the basin wore a
garment spun of gold.  It clung to her body like a second skin.  
Hair spread out behind her head like radiating beams of sunlight.  
This time, her eyes were open.  The whites were golden, the 
irises blue, but there were no pupils; the gaze was blank as a 
china doll's.

     Deep and bloodless wounds scarred the pale golden flesh of
wrists and throat, and something clear and pale as water, 
flecked with gold and silver, bled from her.  His heart ached at
the sight; beauty bound, beauty broken.

     He stretched out his arms to bear her from the pool.  She
breathed; somehow, terribly wounded, still she lived.  He might
heal her.  The power was in him to do such.

     His hands touched the surface of the waters, and would go no
further.  Flowing water was harder than ice, hard as cold-forged
steel.  Her eyes stared into nothing, somehow accusing.

     "I can't," he whispered to her sickly.  "I don't know how to
help you."

     The answer was the sound of water flowing.  A sudden rage
filled him, and he drew his hands back and hammered on the
unyielding surface of water.  Each time his fists smashed against
it, all the strength seemed to go from the blows, and he could 
not break through.

     At last, almost weeping with despair, he fell to his knees
beside the basin and rested his cheek against the solid, flowing
surface of the water in it.  He could feel the movement of it,
like a ripple of silk over stone, but it was impregnable as a
wall of iron.  "I don't know how to help."

     "Do you even know if you should?"
     
     He rose, turning at the voice.  A woman stood at one of the
open sides of the building, booted feet on the grass.  
Middle-aged, plain of face but proud of bearing, robed in black.

     "Who are you?" he asked, his eyes narrowed as he looked at
her.

     "Who are you?" she countered, staring at him challengingly.
Her eyes were very dark.     
     
     There was no hesitation in his answer; it rose from him like
a bird taking flight from some dark place, invisible except for
the beating of wings.  "I am the Lord of Waters."

     "Ahh, but which ones?" the woman mused, stepping lightly
into the building, her shadow stretching out long and distorted
behind her.  As if at her presence, the wind picked up, moaning
softly through the bamboo flutes placed at careful angles on the
underside of the roof.

     "Which ones?"
     
     She opened her arms expansively.  "There are so many.  There
is the river of time, which flows always in one direction.  There
is the ocean of time, where all time is gathered at last.  There
is the rain of time, which gathers from the ocean and falls upon
the river."

     She spread her arms wider, opening her hands as if she might
gather everything within.  "There are the waters which cradle the 
worlds, and the seas of infinite darkness in which the stars 
float, and the waters of the powers which flow beneath.  Are you 
lord of all of these, Lord of Waters?"  In her voice, the title
sounded slightly foolish, a pretension.

     He stood silent for a moment.  "Maybe the last."  He glanced
back at the pool of white stone, the prison of white stone.  "Who
are you?"

     For the first time, she smiled.  "I was called Tanzei once.
I served the Lady for a time.  When she asked it of me, I took my
leave of the river and came to the ocean."

     He nodded.  Somehow, he understood.  "And why are you here?"
     
     "I linger for a time," she answered.  "Floating upon the
cusp of river and ocean, standing with one foot in either and
gazing into each.  It is given to some of us, who are most
beloved, to do this that we might aid the flow."

     Again, he looked back at the pool.  "Why would I not want to
help her?"

     "Would you doom the world for the sake of one?"
     
     "What?"
     
     She waved her hand, and the roof of the building blew away.  
The sun seemed to go out, and the only light was from the pool, a
soft and muted gold that glittered in the pillars.

     "Look up," she said gently.
     
     He could not.  
     
     "Look up," she prompted again.
     
     As if his body were not his own, he did.  The sky above was
a sea of black scarred with the white lights of stars, vast and
hungry.  Hundreds of stars, thousands, tens of thousands.

     "Stars?"
     
     "Not stars," Tanzei said.  "Not these ones.  Shadows."
     
     "Huh?"
     
     Overhead, the stars seemed to blur, shift and whirl, forming
half-familiar shapes, monstrous forms out of old legend and
forgotten nightmares.  The wind keened mournfully about them; in
the channels on the floor, the water stirred with tiny waves.

     "The Dark must lie beyond the Light until the end of time
itself, but the shadows it cast are transcendent of time.  In 
every world, they wait.  Seeds of vengeance."

     He turned a third time and pointed at the pool.  "But what
does any of that have to do with this?"

     Tanzei came to stand beside him, peering into the pool.
There was a sort of stoic grief in her eyes, a calculated
enduring of sorrow.  "Sympathy and contagion.  Can the prisoner
not be also the jailer, and the jailer also the prisoner?"

     Reaching out, he pressed a palm flat against the barrier of
the water, as if paused while moving to touch his fingers to the
golden woman's throat.  "I still don't understand.  I only want
to help her."

     "Again, I ask, would you doom the world for the sake of 
one?"

     He shook his head.  "Must an innocent suffer for the sake of
the world?"

     Tanzei reached out and put her hand next to his on the solid
flow of the water.  "Innocents always suffer.  Not everyone can 
be saved."

     "But if it is within my power to stop suffering," he asked
with a sigh, "how can I ever justify not doing so?"

     "Suffering, perhaps not," Tanzei replied softly.  "But do 
you have the right to stop a sacrifice given freely?  If the
burden is borne willingly, is it your right to take it upon
yourself, not knowing if you are even capable?"

     He stared up at the sky, at the hungry stars and the seas of 
dark.  "I don't know."
     
     There was a silence for a time.  The stars swung in their 
mad dance overhead.  At last, Tanzei spoke.  "To we who stand in
the waters of both the river and ocean of time is given the power 
to see forward to the end."

     He quickly turned his head to stare at her.  "Tell me what I
have to do, then."

     Her dark eyes were sad.  He saw that there were strands of
white and grey in her black hair.  "To see, but never to speak.
She reached out, placed her fingers upon the lids of his eyes, 
and slowly, gently, closed them.  "Do what you must."

*********

     Ranma bolted upright, trying to remember how to scream.
     
     (He met Akane fought Ryoga fought Shampoo met Shampoo met
his mother)

     He was in
     
     (Fought Mousse met Cologne fought Herb Saffron Tarou his
father)     
     
     a bed
     
     (O waters of rivers and lakes and seas)
     
     and he had to scream and could not remember how.  He gasped 
instead, shaking his head to clear away the disorientation.

     Wiyeed looked back from where she sat brushing her hair at 
an elaborately-carved dressing table that sat flush against one
stone wall of the room.  "Awake at last, I see."

     There were lights upon the walls, spheres of glass with a
bright spark held at the centre.  Ranma stared without
comprehension at Wiyeed for a moment, and then closed his eyes
with a sigh.

     "Where am I?" he asked quietly.
     
     "My bedroom," Wiyeed said.  
     
     He groaned softly and opened his eyes again.  "And why am I 
here?"

     Wiyeed put down her hairbrush amidst the clutter of the
dressing table.  "The waters of the Lady often have adverse
effects upon those who contact them for the first time.  I would
have been able to shield us normally when we travelled between
here and Jusendo, but..."  She trailed off for a moment.  "It is 
nothing serious.  Unconsciousness for a time, a mild amnesia at 
most."

     Ranma looked at her flatly.  "And you didn't think to tell
me about this before we came?"

     She shrugged and smiled apologetically.  "I didn't think it
would ever come up.  What occurred between Jusendo and here 
was hardly ordinary."

     "He was waiting for us," Ranma muttered, throwing off the
sheet and putting his feet on the floor.  "Where's my shirt?  My
backpack?"

     Wiyeed gestured to a corner of the room near the bed, where
his pack lay against a small wooden chest of drawers, his shirt
draped across it.  He bent down to pick it up, and heard a soft
rustle of cloth as Wiyeed walked up beside him.  "May I see the
mark more closely?"

     "Huh?" he asked as he straightened up, shirt in hand.
     
     She pointed at his chest, a shy smile on her face.  "The
tattoo."

     "Oh, that," Ranma muttered.  "Yeah, alright."
     
     She stepped closer and lightly pressed her fingers against
the twining tattoo of the dragon that ran across his chest.  
"Interesting," she said after a moment of silence.

     "What?"
     
     "It's a power focus.  I've heard of them before.  Tattoos, 
ritual scarring, body paints.  But this one is... different.  A
part of you, almost."

     Ranma shrugged.  He'd heard much the same from Cologne.  
"Yeah, I guess."

     She traced the serpentine length of it with her index 
finger.  "Interesting..."

     "What?"
     
     "The shape, the texture, the feel..."
     
     "Huh?  What, the tattoo?"
     
     She shook her head, and laughed softly, a slight flush on
her face.  "No, your body.  I..."

     Ranma backed away.  "Wiyeed!"
     
     "I'm sorry," she said.  "I know I shouldn't..."
     
     She sighed.  "I have very little experience with men.  There
are none of them here, and we are isolated from the outside world
for many years while we study the ways of the Lady."

     "Yeah, you told me," he said, turning his back to her and
tugging on the shirt.  He began to fumble with the ties, 
embarrassed.  "Where's Kima?"

     "In another room," Wiyeed answered.  There was a vague trace
of hurt in her voice.  "Why?"

     Ranma glanced back.  "I just want to know."  He finished 
with the ties.  "How long was I out?"

     "No more than two hours," she said, glancing to the floor.

     He paused, lost in thought.  Unbidden, a name rose to his
lips.

     "Tanzei..."
     
     Wiyeed drew a long, soft intake of breath.  "How did you
hear that name?"  

     Ranma blinked.  "I... I'm not sure.  It just..."
     
     He stopped talking.  Wiyeed was gripping the back of the
ornate wooden chair that stood before the dressing table, 
half-turned from him.  In the mirror, he could see her eyes were
closed, and tears fell silently from beneath her lids.
     
     "Wiyeed?" he asked finally, taking a hesitant step forward.
"What's wrong?"

     "The last few days have been very hard," she said tightly, a
thin edge of a voice, rigidly controlled.  "Very, very hard.  I
have had little time to try and deal with all that has happened,
so I have simply not done so.  I have pushed everything down
until I could not feel it any longer."

     Another step, and he put his hands on her shoulders.  
Underneath the soft black wool of her dress, she shook like a
leaf.  He felt helpless; he barely knew Wiyeed, or anything about
her.  Herb's sister.  That was almost all of it.

     "I always seem to do this eventually," he said quietly.  "I
always end up hurting every girl I meet in some way or another."

     Wiyeed didn't say anything for a long time.  Her hands
gripped the chair's back tightly; long white hair, blue-slashed,
hung about and hid her face.

     "It's not your fault," she said at last.  "Tanzei was the
Highest One of the Lady before me.  She died very recently, on
the same night our mother did."

     Ranma stared into the mirror at the two of them.  He was
surprised at how gaunt his face looked, and at the weariness in
his eyes.  And how much Wiyeed looked like Herb had in his cursed
form.

     Twins, of course.  The themes repeat.
     
     "I'm sorry," he said.  "I didn't know."
     
     "How could you have?" Wiyeed asked.  "Why did you say the
name?"

     "I don't know," he confessed.  "I... I've been saying and
doing a lot of things recently that I don't understand.  I kinda
feel like I'm different people all the time."

     To his surprise, she laughed.  "Everyone feels that way.
Everyone is."  She looked back at him, and raised a hand to wipe 
at the tears on her cheeks.  "Have you been having dreams?"
     
     He nodded.  "Yeah."
     
     "I understand why you knew her name, then," Wiyeed said.  
She moved away, dropping his hands from her shoulders, and turned
to face him.  "You are the Lord of Waters, Ranma.  It is no
surprise that you feel as you do."

     Ranma studied his face in the mirror, tracing with his eyes
the lines and definitions.  Somehow, they seemed unfamiliar.  
"You called me that when you met me.  The Ravager called me that
too."

     Wiyeed visibly shuddered.  "Cursed be his name until the end
of time."

     "Why do you call me that?" Ranma prompted.
     
     Wiyeed looked down for a moment in thought, her hands
clasped in front of her.  Finally, she spoke, or recited, as it
was.

     *After the dragon's descent*
     *After the phoenix's fall*
     *At centre of the rivers*
     *Let the Lord of Waters call*
     
     She stopped, and looked slightly embarrassed.  "The title
repeats many times.  In the poetry, the stories, the songs of the
Dragon Tribe, the records of them.  There are only fragments of
the originals left; most of what we have are translations."  She 
closed her eyes.  Ranma stood in silence; there was a distance 
between them now, vast as any ocean.  "So much was destroyed when 
the Ravager came.  Wurdsenlin was levelled.  Dead sand stands 
where the beauty of it once was."

     They had seen it destroyed in the place between the waters.
The Ravager had shown them that, his great triumph, the black
fire washing through the emerald and jade forests.  

     "So I'm the Lord of Waters, huh?" Ranma said finally.  "How
does that explain any of what's happening to me?  My dreams, my
power, my..." He drew a long breath.  "You don't know any of 
this, I guess.  I lose control sometimes.  I've done things I 
shouldn't have done because I wasn't in control."

     "I know a little of it," Wiyeed said.  "The Lady showed me
some.  You... what you did..."

     "I've heard it all before," he snapped, clenching his fists
at his sides.  "It won't do any good to hear it from you either."

     Wiyeed took a step back from him, hurt showing on her face.
"I..."

     Almost instantly, he felt ashamed.  "Sorry.  I shouldn't be
snapping at you.  You've been nicer to me than almost anyone
since this whole thing started."

     She smiled brightly.  She was, Ranma noted again, very
pretty.  "Thank you."

     The serious look dropped back onto her face a moment later.  
"We are taught that water is the element most attuned to the 
soul, to the world beyond the physical.  Time can be seen as a
great river.  At its end is an ocean that holds within itself all
of time.  When we die, we go upon that river much faster, and
come to the ocean.  There, our soul mingles with every other soul
that has ever made that journey.  In time, we are gathered as 
rain, and fall back upon the river at some point."

     "Reincarnation?"
     
     Wiyeed looked thoughtful.  "Of sorts," she said finally.
"But not of the individual, separate soul.  In time's ocean, all
souls flow together.  The waters of that ocean fall again as rain
upon the river, and each raindrop, each individual soul that will
fill a physical body, has the memories of many others within it.

     "Certain types of souls gather together.  It is the will of
the waters that it be done that way, that the river of time might
reach the end when it must.  The river began, so it must in time
end, but a river can end before its time, and there are forces
that seek to do so."

     Ranma nodded.  "The Dark and the Light."
     
     Wiyeed smiled.  "Names are useful things, are they not?  But
they are only that.  We seek to understand in our terms what is
beyond our understanding on its terms.  Time is a river.  Time is
a tapestry.  A wheel.  A book.  Which is the truth?  All."
     
     "I've had dreams where I was other people," Ranma said.  "I
can do things with my ki that I shouldn't be able to do, and I
don't know how.  Is that why?"

     "You are the Lord of Waters," Wiyeed said.  "You are one
whose coming has been awaited for thousands of years.  We have
waited so long for you, champion."

     She stepped forward and reached out, cupping the side of his
face with one hand.  There was a reverence in her eyes, a strange
sadness, a sort of joy perhaps.  "We have waited so very long."

     "I don't know if I can..." he stuttered.
     
     "Enough," she said abruptly, cutting him off.  "Forgive me.
I take too many liberties here.  We can discuss this later.  We
need to talk with my brother and the Phoenix Tribe's 
representative.  Time is short."

     "What makes you say that?"
     
     She stepped by him and opened the door.  Beyond, a long
hallway of stone stretched out, and Ranma heard a faint trace of
what sounded like singing.  "Something the World-Hater said when
he had us trapped.  Do you remember it?  What he first said to my
brother?"

     Ranma thought for a moment, and then slowly nodded.  With
the memory, there came a premonition of sorts, perhaps of the end
towards which everything was heading, inexorable as a great 
river, and a slow, invisible shiver ran down his back.
          
**********

     (Wake up, Herb.)
     
     He groaned and turned over, still asleep, clutching the edge 
of the sheet and twisting it around his body like a shroud.

     (Wake up, Herb.)
     
     "No..."
     
     (I'm still HERE, Herb.  Let me in.  We'll have so much fun
together, Herb.  There are so many things I have to show to 
you...)

     A slow trickle began at the edges of his mind, like oil
seeping in.  Caught in the throes of the dream, the Musk prince
tossed and turned as he slept.  

     (Let me in, Herb.  Please?)
     
     A note of desperation in the lovely voice, pleading.  The
trickle became a flood, a roaring assault against him.  The tide
of slick foulness filled his ears as if to bursting.  (LET ME 
IN!)

     He screamed and woke.  Panting and covered in sweat, he sat
up in the bed he had been placed in.  The room was dark.  After a
moment, he raised his right hand and absently tossed off a spark
of his power to light the darkness.  It bobbed in front of his
hand, and the light swam across the silver and the jewels of the
seven-fingered shape.
     
     (I'm here to stay, Herb.  We'll be together forever.)
     
     "No," Herb whispered.  He stared with horror at the hand.  A
scarlet ruby winked at him from one knuckle; a bright pearl wept
pinpoint spears of light upon another.

     (Oh yes,) the beautiful voice hissed.  (Forever.)
     
     No scream this time.  Simply an awakening in silence, his
heart pounding within his chest like a drum, his hair falling
damp and loose about his face.  The room was not lain in darkness
as before; lights burned, suspended in glass spheres that rested 
in niches on the wall.  

     He threw off the sheet and got out of the small bed, 
clenching a fist angrily.  Nightmares; a child's weakness, not
something worthy of a man.  He wore his tunic and pants; the
burnished, gold-scaled plates of the ornamental armour lay in a 
neat pile by the bed, his cape folded beside.  The room was 
small, bare of anything but the bed and a small table on which 
his slippers and hair clip rested.  The stone floor was oddly 
warm beneath his bare feet.

     He strapped on the plates of armour with practiced care, and
sat back on the bed to pull his slippers on and clip his hair
back.  He wondered how he had gotten here; the last events he
remembered were a blur of confused images; light and dark
intertwined, his sister's dagger buried in the Ravager's eye, 
Saotome burning so bright with power that he had been forced to 
look away, a howl of rage that seemed to split the very air in
two, and then a long, deep fall into darkness.

     Grabbing the handle of the single wooden door in the room,
he pulled it open and stepped through into another bedroom.  It
was bigger than the one he had been in, with carefully-carved
furniture in the corners and a large bed dominating the centre.

     As he closed the door behind him with a sharp bang, he
realized there was a girl in the bed, lying on her back, the
sheets draped over her defining the contours of her body.  Dark
hair spread out behind her head on the pillow.

     Herb felt something stir deep inside him, ugly and dark and
hateful.  The pitiful weakness of his cursed form came rushing
back, the strange desire that had risen against his will at the
sight of the transformed monkey in the pool, his hatred of that
loss of control.

     And the rage; the blinding, red rage.  The curse of their
line, Wiyeed had said; the minds of the men could be touched by
the World-Hater, their will shifted to become his own.  With 
surprising ease, he pushed the almost instinctual anger at the
sight of the girl back down.

     There was a chair beside the bed.  Not knowing precisely
why, he sat down, arranging his cape to one side as he did.  He
placed his hands on his knees and looked at the girl more 
closely.
     
     Her features were very fine, sharp and slender.  Her skin
was very pale; the lush darkness of her hair framed her face in
contrast.

     He wondered if she had any clothing on under the sheets.  He
reached a hand forward to draw them away, and then pulled it back
a moment later, not knowing precisely why.  

     He stared at her.  He did not understand the oddness of the
feeling that had risen in him now, unlike anything he had felt
before, utterly unlike the rage.  He thought...

     He thought she was beautiful.  The most beautiful woman he
had ever seen.  Not that this had been a very great number, but
something told him that he would see few as fair as she was in
his lifetime.

     Hesitant, he reached out and lightly touched his fingers to
her cheek.  Her skin was cold, but as he touched her, he felt the
warmth begin to spread between their flesh.

     Herb of the Musk sat like that for what seemed an eternity,
as helpless to move as if he were bound in chains.  He could not
take his eyes from her face; long, dusky lashes trembled 
slightly as he watched, an involuntary motion of sleep.

     The girl suddenly moaned softly, a fearful sound as if she 
were dreaming some nightmarish vision.  One of her hands came out 
from under the sheets, and clutched almost spasmodically at the 
air.  

     Without entirely understanding why, Herb took her hand in
both of his.  "It is alright."  He was still unable to look away 
from her face.  "I'm here."

     Her eyes opened.  They were very dark, deep as a pool of
water in the depths of the earth.  She stared into his eyes, and
Herb felt something like an electric shock pass through the air
between him.  And he felt the hard, hateful anger that he was
holding in check disappear.  

     It had been with him for so many months now; since the
disaster at Jusenkyou, the bare edge of control he had always
kept over his temper had blurred more and more.  It had become
part of him.  And now it was gone.

     For the first time since he had gone to Jusenkyou, Herb felt
true peace.  A calm settled over him, and he gazed into those 
dark, beautiful eyes as if he might do so forever.

     "Who are you?" the girl asked finally, breaking the silence.
     
     "My name is Herb," he replied, almost stumbling over those
words.  His mouth felt dry.  He had never had to talk to a girl
like this; he didn't know what to do.  She was staring at him; 
she seemed to be expecting him to go on.

     He fell back at last upon what his tutors had taught him in
his youth, about the courtly manners and the proper way of
addressing nobility.  "And may I ask your name, my lady?"
     
     She was silent for a moment.  "I..." Confusion showed on her
face suddenly.  "I'm not sure."

     Suddenly, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.  "What are you
doing here?  How did I come here?"

     She pulled her hand out of his and sat up in bed, clutching
the sheets to her body in such a way that Herb's earlier question
of whether she had any clothing on was answered quite 
conclusively.  "Get away from me."

     His first and natural response was anger; he was a prince of
the Musk, with the blood of dragons in his veins.  He was not to
be spoken to in such a way.  As it was, however, he gave into his
second response.

     "Please," he said quietly.  "Don't be afraid.  I swear I 
will do you no harm.  I will let no harm come to you, my lady."

     Still she glared at him, her hair loose and tangled about
her face.  "Why should I believe you?"

-Continued in section 2


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