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 and any other response welcomed.

Chapter 21 : The Truth of Power (1 of 3)

     "He's awake."
     
     "What?"
     
     "I said, he's awake."
     
     "Can I talk to him."

     "I suppose."
     
**********

     The last of the white flames died, and Ranma crumpled to the
stone floor of the Hall of Speaking before the great golden
phoenix statue like a broken doll.  His hundred-foot fall had 
been gentle and fluttering as a feather dropped from high, or a 
leaf spinning on the currents of air as it tumbles from the tree.

     Kima was at his side moments later, kneeling down beside
him, still half-disbelieving what had happened.  For a few short
seconds, as Ranma had hung suspended in the air after slaying
Helubor and the traitorous guards who'd been shooting down the
population of Phoenix Mountain as they fled, the shape of the
phoenix had blazed around him like a cloak of power, wings shaped
of white flame dozens of feet long.

     His still form looked gaunt, skin stretched tight over the
bone beneath.  His red shirt was caked with blood on his left
shoulder, where the bullets had gone through.  

     But his chest rose and fell slowly, and he lived.
     
     "Why do I have to keep on giving this back to you?  Just 
keep it, for once."

     She raised her head and looked up at Tarou, who grinned
wearily and offered her sword to her, handle first.  She accepted 
it without a word and sheathed it at her side, then turned her
attention back to Ranma.

     All around the Hall, she could hear the low hum of voices,
the sounds of children sobbing.  It was over now, Helubor slain,
Xande fled.  They were safe for now, at least.

     She wondered, though, how many of her people had fallen to 
the bullets before Ranma had killed those he held the guns.  

     "Hey, fem-boy," Tarou said, giving Ranma a light slap on the
side of the face.  "You going to lie there all day?"

     Ranma didn't make a sound.  Tarou snorted and slapped him on
the other side of the face.  "Get up, you wimp."

     "Stop that," Kima hissed.  "It's not helping."
     
     Tarou shrugged.  "Kinda fun, though."
     
     She glared at him and shook her head.  Carefully, she put
one taloned hand under Ranma's head and tilted it up slightly.
"Ranma?  Can you hear me?"

     He coughed, a savage sound.  Blood flecked his lips.  Kima
blanched and wiped it away with the back of one of her gauntlets,
leaving crimson trails across the white leather.

     "Ahh, geez," Tarou said, making a disgusted face from where
he knelt on the other side of Ranma.

     The young man coughed again, and again blood spotted his
lips.

     "You're paying my drycleaning bill, fem-boy," Tarou 
muttered, undoing his sash and wiping at Ranma's lips with it in
a surprisingly gentle motion.

     A long, low rattle sounded from Ranma's throat, and his eyes
opened.  He moaned softly.  

     "Ranma?" Kima asked again.  His eyes moved slightly, staring
at her, unfocused and blank.     

     "Ahh, it's you," he said, and grinned without humour.  "But
you died, didn't you?"

     He turned his head slightly where it rested in Kima's palm
and gazed at Tarou, his eyes going sad.  "And you as well.  But
you died too."

     He closed his eyes again, and his grin faded.  
     
     "We have all died so many times," he whispered, and his
voice was filled with an agony beyond imagining.  His body went
limp, and Kima let his head sink gently to the stone floor.
     
     "Kima!" someone called.  
     
     She looked up to see Samofere advancing across one of the
eight bridges that spanned the shallow moat of water that circled
the centre of the Hall, still in his guise as an old man.  
Following behind were Cologne and the Order of the Raven, eleven 
winged men in steel breastplates and clothing of grey and black 
and deep purple and carrying long spears.  Their leader, Loame,
walked in the front of them, a great hammer in his hands.  

     There was a pressing sense of anticipation, of waiting, and
she saw that every eye was turned to the scene beneath the
phoenix statue, her and Tarou kneeling on either side of Ranma
Saotome.

     That name had been whispered in the days following Saffron's
fall.  Saffron's slayer, he who had beaten the Phoenix King.  It
was a name whispered with fear, and with awe, and a name she had
hated to hear, as every mention of it brought back the memory of
her failure to protect Saffron's transformation.

     And now he had returned, and she had brought him here, and
he had saved them.  She knew that those were their thoughts, if
only because they were her own.  

     "Ranma?" she said again, putting fingers to his throat.  His
skin was cold, the pulse weak but steady.

     "Don't worry about him," Tarou said, rising to one knee and
looking down on Ranma with a snort.  "He's a tough idiot.  I'll
give him that."

     He rested his elbow on his knee, balling the sash he'd wiped
at Ranma's lips with in his fist, and smirked.  "I won't give him
much more than that, but I'll give him that."

     "Is he alright?" Cologne said sharply, kneeling down by
Ranma's head.  "Give me some room, you two."

     "No problem," Tarou said, languidly standing to his feet and
stepping back to gaze up at the thirty-foot high statue of the
phoenix, the wings outspread, light from torches and lamps 
rippling reflected through the metal body and feathers.  

     As Cologne began to check on Ranma, Kima stood as well and
walked over to where Samofere stood, his back to the rest of
them.  Loame was kneeling down to check on Lord Kavva, Koruma's
father, who had been wounded by the gunfire, and the rest of the
Order of the Raven stood near their leader, the two perches
bearing Shiso and Kioku resting on the floor, as the brother
ravens gazed out across the Hall, depthless dark eyes and blank,
blind white.

     All her people were still looking at the centre of the Hall.
They were waiting, she realized, for something to happen.  They
were confused and frightened and unsure, and they did not know
what to do.

     "Samofere," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder.  He
turned and looked at her, green eyes somehow both incredibly
youthful and impossible old gazing from his ancient face.  

     "Yes?" he said softly, his voice sounding impossibly weary.
     
     "They need something, Samofere," she said gently.  "They do
not understand what has happened, and they are terrified.  We
need something to unite them, or we will lose what we have fought
to maintain.  We cannot be divided; they are too few of us for
that."

     She closed her eyes, unable to face that gaze, the eyes that
seemed to know her, to understand all of her.  The eyes of
Saffron's brother.  "I'm sorry."

     "It's alright, child," he said gently, moving away and
causing her to drop her hand from his shoulder.  "You are right.
I was given my power for a reason, and with that great a power,
there comes a certain duty."

     He took another step forward, and raised his arms, the folds
of his plain brown robe spreading out.  His wings trembled, as if
he were moments from taking flight.

     Kima felt the power building around him, a tingling 
sensation in the air, a hum that set her hair on end, a thrumming
roll like the ocean lapping the beach, a gathering of something
ancient and awful and great.

     Samofere opened his mouth, and spoke.  His voice rang from
one end of the hall to another, commanding, powerful and deep.

     "My people," he said, and every head turned to him, every
eye.  "I stand before you now, and I speak.  I speak with the
speech of the winds, with the voices of the waters, with the
language of the earth and with the tongues of fire."

     The King's Words, Kima thought sickly.  The words reserved
only for Saffron, on those few times when he addressed the
mountain.  She heard the hush, the awful aching silence, grow
deeper, heavy like a weight.

     There was a sound like waves crashing against the shore, and
Kima watched, eyes widening, as the water in the moat began to
rise, rolling up upon the stone, swirling, currents of the sea,
currents of power.  Like a ring they came, surrounding them, the
ones who stood at the centre, encompassing the statue of the
phoenix and the forms of those who stood around it.  

     "I speak," Samofere intoned, and the silence took his words
greedily, starved for the sound, "with the power of the mountains
in me, and the power of the oceans in me."

     He was changing them, Kima realized.  Changing the King's
Words, keeping them recognizable, but subtly changing them.

     "I speak," he cried, and waters rose higher, head height,
held back from falling upon those they surrounded by his power,
"as the servant of the people, as the servant of the mountain."

     Lord, not servant, it was supposed to be.  Kima remembered
that, remembered the only time Saffron had spoken to the people
in the hall in her lifetime.  She had been eleven, standing with
her father, watching the king speak standing before the statue of 
the phoenix, the purity of light sheathing his body, the blaze of 
fire all around him.

     The waters began to rise into the air, tiny beads of 
moisture at first, but then more, waves, sheets of water falling
upwards, in defiance of their nature, white-capped, streaming.

     "I speak," Samofere called, and his voice echoed, resounded,
and the hush of the people in response was one of awe.  "I speak
to you, my people, and mark my words well."

     The waters were gathering over his head, flowing upwards,
into a shape. A winged shape, the head graceful and long-beaked,
the tail a twisting thing, the wingspan nearly a hundred feet.  A 
phoenix, a bird of fire shaped from the waters, impossibly 
beautiful, graceful beyond imagining.

     "I name myself," Samofere said.  "I am Xanovere of the
Phoenix Tribe, brother to Saffron, and I stand revealed to you
now after four thousand years of hiding."

     Overhead, the phoenix Samofere had shaped was shifting,
waters circling endlessly through the form, head turning to look
round the Hall.  Kima felt a tightness in her chest, a feeling of
joy, of such pride that it hurt to bear.

     There should have been cries, shouts, denials.  But there
was not; only the silence, the silence that magnified Samofere's
words, sent them crashing back upon him.  

     "Oh, Samofere," Kima whispered under her breath, barely able
to even speak.  The brother to her king, who had borne his long
duty, who had watched in sorrow at what his brother had become,
who had not been able to stop the long fall to isolation and the
slow dying of his people.

     "My brother and I were given a duty four thousand years
ago," Samofere said.  "Power was given to us, weapons shaped for
us.  Not that we might rule, but that we might serve.  Not that
we might sit and be content in our dominion, but that we might
strive to battle the darkness that threatened our people."

     The phoenix's tail flowed down from the air, washed across
Samofere.  Kima watched as he changed, as he stood tall, as his
hair turned from white to black; a near-twin to Saffron, dark
where his brother had been fair, a shadowed mirror.  Drops of 
water clung to his black-feathered wings, as he spread them up, 
matching his raised arms.

     "We forgot," he said, a whisper loud as thunder, sick with 
sorrow.  "We forgot and for a thousand years we fell, my brother 
and I, and you fell with us, my people.  And when I remembered, 
I found that he did not, could not, and I could do nothing but 
wait.  And for three thousand years we fell, oh, how far we 
fell.  I tried, but I did not perhaps try hard enough."

     And then, of all things, with the hearts and souls and minds
of every one of his people upon him, he knelt.  His wings folded
to his back like a cloak.

     "Forgive me," he said.  "Forgive my brother and I for what
we became.  My brother is dead, and his long duty is ended.  Mine
has only yet begun.  Ask of me what you will, my people.  My
power and my life are yours."

     The form of the phoenix unravelled in the air above him,
water spilling down to roll across the ground to the moat again,
leaving damp streaks across the stone floor.
     
     Samofere bowed his head, touched it to the stone floor.  He
said nothing, as if awaiting judgement for some sin.  

     Kima never knew who the first voice was.  But after that
voice, from somewhere in the rapt crowd, there came a single,
soft sound.

     "Our king."
     
     And the cry went up, and was taken up by many more, and it
spread through the hall like wildfire, until it seemed that every
voice spoke it.  Our king, our king, our king.

     In her heart, in the very essence of her soul, Kima felt a
sorrow rising for Samofere, so great that she could hardly stand.
Because she knew, knew, that this was the very last thing that he
had wanted.  

     He stood to his feet, his wings still folded upon his back,
looking broken and crippled as hers.  His arms fell slowly to his
sides.

     "Very well," he said softly, brokenly, and he looked as if 
he wanted to weep.  "If it be your will."

     And he crossed the floor, to where a golden and silver shape
glittered on the stone, abandoned in the battle by Helubor, the
Phoenix Crown, the crown that had been his brothers, hidden 
inside his form, the focus of Saffron's power.

     He knelt down and took it up in his hands, raised it up,
water droplets clinging to the metal.  His arms trembled; he
seemed unable to move.  

     And Kima realized, with an awful, aching pity, what she must
do.  She began to walk, lamed wings trailing behind her, and she
closed the distance between them and stood before him.

     She looked at him, at his weary young face and ancient,
agonized eyes.  She reached out and took the gleaming crown of
braided gold and silver from his unresisting hands.

     "Forgive me," she whispered softly, so only he could hear.
His green eyes flashed with pain, and, oh, mercifully, 
understanding. 

     She stared at the crowd in her hands, at the phoenix shaped
rising from the metal.  Their symbol; the symbol of her people,
her dying, isolated, threatened people.

     Then, gentle and slowly, she placed the crown upon his brow,
set it amidst his dark hair, and knelt before him.  

     "My king," she said, raising her voice, letting it resound
throughout the Hall of Speaking.  "I am yours."

     And her voice went up, and the people gathered it, and their
voices echoed those words.  We are yours, we are yours, we are
yours.

     Someday, someday, Kima prayed silently to any powers that
might be listening, let him truly be able to forgive me for this
thing that I have done to him.

**********

     "Do you mind stopping that?"
     
     "Hmm?"
     
     Tarou looked up at Kima from where he sat in the chair.  The
tapping of his fingers on one of the carved wooden arms ceased
momentarily, then began again as he stared up at the ceiling,
looking very, very bored.

     "The tapping," Kima said, leaning forward a little in her
own seat.  "And take your feet off the table."

     "Yes, your majesty," Tarou said in an edgy voice, swinging
his feet off the wooden table between them and placing them on
the floor.  

     It had been perhaps an hour now since they'd left the Hall.
Samofere was meeting with the heads of the noble families, and
all that they could do now was wait.

     They'd put Ranma in the old room she'd had as a child, of
all places.  Cologne was in there with him now, in one of the
chambers that adjoined the central room of Kima's quarters in the
mountain; she had told the two of them quite firmly to stay out.

     Half of the Order of the Raven was standing guard outside
the doors.  Samofere had judged it best that the rest of them
wait until he had finished meeting with the nobles.  

     That had included Tarou, who, after much complaining, had
finally been persuaded to go peacefully.  There had been almost
total silence between them, neither having any great desire for
conversation.

     Tarou began tapping his fingers again.
     
     "Are you _trying_ to annoy me?" Kima hissed.
     
     Tarou smirked and nodded.
     
     Kima slumped down into her chair with a heavy sigh.  "I
should have guessed."

     "Look, I'm bored," Tarou said diplomatically.  "If I don't
do something, I'll get even more bored.  I don't like being
bored.  I tend to do things to end my boredom."

     "Don't threaten me, human," she said wearily.  "I'm not in
the mood."

     "Well, pardon me, your majesty."
     
     Kima glared at him.  "Stop calling me that, human."
     
     "Well, what else should I call you?"
     
     "I have a name."
     
     "So do I."
     
     An opening.  "Yes, I believe Ranma mentioned it a few times.
Isn't it Pan-"

     Tarou held up a finger, leaning forward slightly in his 
seat.  The smirk had left his face, as had any trace of 
amusement.  "Don't."

     "Tarou, then," Kima said.
     
     "Kima, then," Tarou said agreeably.  He settled back into 
his chair, and steepled his hands, drumming his fingers together
soundlessly.

     Kima nodded and leaned back, closing her eyes and trying to
relax.  

     Then the tapping began again, Tarou's nails rattling against
the wood.  

     "That's it," Kima said, standing up and gazing murderously 
at him.  "I'm going to take a bath.  Tap all you want."

     Tarou stopped tapping and looked up at her, displaying
interest for the first time since they'd begun waiting.  "You
have a bath?"

     "Yes," Kima said shortly.  "And I'm using it now, so don't
get any ideas.  You can have it when I'm done, if you want."

     "How do you get running water in this place?" Tarou asked.
"Is it heated?"

     "We have our ways," Kima said, as she opened the wooden 
bathroom door, carved with fancifully entwined red and blue
phoenixes, and stepped inside.  She neglected to mention that
those ways had only become available in the last few days; giving
Tarou something to ponder might stop him from getting bored.

     She shook her head as she entered the stone-tiled bathroom.
So much had changed in the last few days that it was almost too
much to comprehend; Saffron slain, Xande revealed as a traitor,
the dark plan to place the mountain home under the control of
Helubor and the evil that he served averted.

     "What would you think of all this, father?" she said,
looking at her face in the mirror over the marble basin that
served as a sink.  

     A wave of grief swept unexpectedly over her, and she 
clutched the sides of the basin and bowed her head, feeling
unwanted tears gather in her eyes.  She looked up, at her
reflection, saw her limp wings sagging down her back, and the
pain and sorrow threatened to overwhelm her.  

     Shuddering, she drew herself up straight and pressed the
silver button atop the golden phoenix head, letting hot water
flow steaming into the sink.  She could not, would not dwell on
this, on the crippling that had been done to her, because if she
fell into despair, she knew that she would not come easily back.

     But it hurt so much, to think that she would not fly again.
     
     With a sudden angry motion, she splashed hot water on her 
face and stepped over to the massive square tub, absently 
shutting off the water in the sink as she did.  

     Turning on the tap in the bath, she watched the hot water
falling from the open mouth of the sculpted golden phoenix head
to splash on the stone floor of the tub for a moment, then turned
away and sat down on the side of the tub.  

     Reaching up, she carefully unhooked her earings and laid
them on the edge of the sink, then took the braided leather band 
with two white feathers from her short hair and laid it beside
them.  Putting her hands behind her neck, she undid the clip of
her pendant and the catch of the high-necked collar of her
uniform at the same time.  

     Someone knocked on the door outside.
     
     "I said you can have it when I'm done," she snapped angrily.
"And that is not now."

     "It's me, child," Cologne's voice called, muffled by the
door.  "May I come in?"

     Kima hesitated a moment.  "I suppose."
     
     The door slid open, and the small, slender form of the
Joketsuzoku slipped inside, shoulders bowed, face weary.  Her
ancient dark eyes, showing the weight of her years despite the
guise of youth, were half-fogged, as if she'd just awoken.

     "Are you feeling alright, Cologne?" Kima asked, as Cologne
closed the door behind her.  

     "Just tired," Cologne said softly.  "Very tired."
     
     "How is Ranma?" 
     
     Cologne frowned.  "He is stable.  He has not awoken, 
though.  I do not think he will for some time.  He has been... I 
am not quite sure how to describe it.  Drained, I suppose.  Of
everything; ki, strength, will.  He is recovering, but slowly.  I
think what he did in the Hall of Speaking took a lot out of him."

     Kima nodded, remembering in silence, white flame, Helubor
slain in an instant, the traitors shooting down their own people
destroyed seconds later.  She began to slide her boots off her
feet.  

     "That bath looks very inviting," Cologne said quietly.
     
     Kima looked up, then hesitantly spoke.  "It is large.  There
is room enough for two."

     "I don't mind if I do," Cologne said, undoing the collar of
her shirt, flower-patterned red silk, and sliding it over her
head.

     Moments later, the two of them lounged in opposite ends of
the steaming tub, the hot water taking the dirt from their skin
and the weariness from their bones.  Kima rested her head back
against the lip of the tub, crippled wings half-floating in the
water, and felt something almost like peace.

     "Are you well, child?" Cologne asked suddenly, her eyes
closed, dark hair hanging soaked across her bare shoulders where 
she rested 

     "As well as I could be, I suppose," Kima said wearily.  "I
will survive, Cologne.  Do not worry of that."

     "I can't help worrying," Cologne said softly.  "I like you,
Kima.  You have been a loyal ally and a good companion since this
endeavour began.  Of course I worry."
     
     Kima raised her head and looked at the other woman, 
surprised at the sincerity of the words.  "Cologne..."

     "We are not allies by necessity, Kima," Cologne said
gravely, sliding down so that she was almost entirely submerged,
hair floating up upon the surface of the water in a dark halo.
"We are allies by choice.  Would it not be easier if we were also
friends?"

     A sudden memory came, laughing half-hysterically with 
Cologne as they sat around the fire and waited for the water to
heat, only a few minutes after Saffron's death and Galm's defeat,
taking some small comfort in each other.

     Kima smiled slightly.  "We already are, Cologne."
     
     "I am glad," Cologne murmured, eyes still closed.  The steam
from the water was filling the room with a misting haze, and
leaving droplets of condensed water upon the walls that rolled
slowly down.  

     "We shouldn't stay in here too long," Kima said, letting 
herself sink down until only her head was above the water.  "I
told Tarou he could use it after us."

     "Don't worry about him," Cologne said.  "I gave him
something interesting to read."

     "What?" Kima asked softly.
     
     "The Book of Fire and Earth," Cologne responded.
     
     Kima laughed softly, then felt the feathers of her wings 
brush gently against her arms.  She grimaced, laughter dying
nearly as quickly as it had begun.  

     "Something wrong?" Cologne said, obviously picking up on the
shift in her mood.

     "No," Kima replied.  "Just too much thinking."
     
     There was a small splash as Cologne sat up.  Kima did as
well, surprised at the other woman's motion.  "What is it?"

     "Nothing much," Cologne replied.  "Let me see your back,
child.  I want to see the wound."

     "Cologne, I would prefer-"
     
     "Kima."
     
     The tone left no room for argument, even from her.  Closing
her eyes and taking a deep breath, Kima turned around in the bath
and heard the sound of the water shifting as Cologne moved up
behind her.

     Cologne's slim fingers began to probe at her back, at the
points near her shoulderblades where her wings sprouted.  The
wings that she could no longer feel.

     "What happened to them?" Cologne asked bluntly.  "Why is
there no scarring, no trace of the wound?"

     Kima licked her lips, scrunched her eyes closed even
tighter.  "Ranma tried to heal the wound, like he healed you when
Galm stabbed you.  He wasn't able to repair the internal damage,
but..."

-Continued in Section 2


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