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 (2 of 3)

     "Oh," Cologne said, very softly.  "I'm sorry, child."
     
     Kima took another deep breath, inhaling the scent of the
steam in the room.  "It's alright."

     But it wasn't.  No matter what she might say, it wasn't.
There had been hope, for a moment, and Ranma had tried so hard,
tried until he had nearly died, swallowed by his own excess of
power, but he had not been able to do it.

     "No, child, it isn't," the other woman said, placing a warm,
damp hand on Kima's shoulder, gently touching the feathers that
sprouted there independent of the wings, the only ones that she
could still feel.  "It isn't alright at all.  I know what this
feels like."

     "How could you know what this feels like?" Kima whispered.
"How dare you even think you could know?"

     "Not all wounding leaves scars upon the body," Cologne said
gently.  "Not all maiming leaves crippled limbs behind."

     Kima glanced back, saw sadness in Cologne's ancient dark
eyes, and realized, somehow, the older woman could understand
what this was like.  

     Cologne smiled slightly.  "We go on, child.  Despite pain,
despite sorrow, despite loss, we have no choice but to go on or
fall.  And I do not think you are one who falls easily, are you?"

     "No," Kima said softly.  "No, I am not."
     
     "I know it is hard," Cologne said.  "But you are not alone.
Do not forget that."

     Kima nodded, and slowly felt herself begin to smile.  "No.
I am not."

     The hot water was beginning to cool around the two of them
as they sat together in the bath, as Cologne moved back to rest
again against one end of the tub.

     Someone banged on the door.
     
     "Are you two going to be in there forever?" Tarou shouted.
     
     "You could come join us if you're that desperate," Cologne
called back, smirking fiendishly and winking at Kima.

     There was the sound of angry muttering that slowly faded
away.  Kima looked at Cologne, who was grinning whole-heartedly,
dark eyes flashing with mirth.

     Kima shook her head, and laughed.  Sometimes, it was the
only thing left to do.

**********

     Cologne ran the brush through her hair one last time, then
flipped her head so it hung straight and silky down her back and
shoulders.  Reaching forward, she grabbed up her hairband from 
the table and slipped it on, gathering strands of hair away from 
her face.

     She looked across to where Kima sat in another chair, paging
intently through the copy of The Book of Fire and Earth that had
been left with Tarou when Cologne went into the bath.  He'd been
waiting when the two of them finally emerged in a haze of steam
from the bathroom, and had pronounced the book a rather boring
read before flipping it absently onto the table and striding into
the bathroom from which the two of them had just emerged.

     The winged woman's face was rapt as she looked through the
book, a strange intensity shining in her blue eyes, as if she 
might find whatever answers she wanted.

     Cologne sighed, laying the brush on the table and settling
back into the chair.  She had grown used to her old, youthful
body in the days gone by, but at times the strange ease of it
felt alien to her.  

     She glanced to Kima, sighed again.  She felt a kinship with
the other woman.  They were much alike; so much pride, so much
independence, hiding so much else beneath.

     There was a lot of pain in that young woman, covered by 
layer upon layer of coldness.  It went further back than the
awful, sadistic crippling, further back than Saffron dying in the
shadow of the mountains.  Cologne wished she knew how to truly
reach the other woman, but she knew herself how hard it was to 
let go, to leave yourself vulnerable, to let someone else know 
your pain.  All she could do was make it obvious that she would 
be there if she was needed.

     The door to the bathroom swung open and Tarou stepped out in
a cloud of steam, scaled vest and bracers glistening with
condensed moisture, towelling vigorously at his thick blue-black
hair.  

     "I could get used to this," he said cheerfully, dropping the 
towel on the floor and raking his fingers through his hair to
comb it as he walked towards them.

     "Don't," Kima said, not looking up from the book.  "And pick
up that towel."

     Tarou shrugged, hooked the slightly-damp towel with his foot
and flipped it into his arms.  Then he lounged into one of the
heavy wooden chairs that surrounded the large round table with
exaggerated casualness.  "So when can I leave this place?"

     "As soon as Samofere says it's alright," Cologne said.
     
     Tarou smirked.  "You think you could stop me if I really
wanted to leave?"

     "Yes," Cologne said bluntly.  "I could.  Don't test me, 
Tarou.  You're quite good, but I'm better, and as I have grown to
have a mild fondness for you in the last little while, I would
prefer not to take away from that by being forced to knock some
sense into you."

     "Just asking," Tarou said, raising his hands defensively.
     
     "Of course," Cologne said drolly, leaning an elbow on one
arm of her chair and gazing at the stone fireplace that dominated
one end of the room.  

     There was silence for a moment.  Kima turned a page in the
book with a rustling sound.

     Tarou began tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair.
     
     Cologne looked up at him.  "Stop that."
     
     Tarou did.
     
     After a moment, he rose out of his seat, leaving the towel
on the chair.  A single bead of water rolled from the damp cloth
and fell to spot upon the thickly-woven blue rug that lay beneath
the table and chairs.

     He walked over to the fireplace and began to examine the
contents of the mantle, carved and sculpted figurines, graceful
shapes in the form of dragons or phoenixes.  

     "Please don't touch those," Kima said, glancing back to
Tarou.  

     "I won't," Tarou said.  "Just looking at them.  Nice."
     
     "Thank you," Kima said, still buried in the book.
     
     Cologne stopped herself just before she began tapping her
fingers on the arm of the chair.

     She stood up.  "I'm going to check on Ranma."
     
     "Mmm," Kima said in response, turning another page.
     
     "Uh-huh," Tarou replied, still looking at the figurines.
     
     She was about to place her hand on the doorknob that led
into the room where Ranma rested when the door that led to the
hall outside opened, and Samofere stepped in.

     Cologne glanced at him with concern; he looked very tired.
Kima stood up from the chair, closing the book with a snap, and
Tarou turned from the fireplace and took a few steps across the
room.

     Samofere waved them back with one hand and sank down into 
the chair Tarou had occupied.  He realized he was sitting on a
damp towel moments later, and carefully extracted it and dumped
it on the floor.  

"I remember now why I hate politics," he said softly.

     "Lord Samofere--" Kima began.
     
     "Not you too," he groaned.  "Don't call me lord.  Please,
don't call me lord.  I can't stand it."

     Cologne walked over to stand behind him and began to rub his
shoulders, occasionally stroking her fingers through the black
feathers of his wings.  He was a bundle of tension, an 
undercurrent of barely-suppressed emotion singing through his
muscles under her fingers.  "How did everything go?"

     "Terribly," he said.  "They all want me as king.  They all
think they can use me for their own petty ends."

     She felt him go even tenser, if that was possible, and a
twinge of almost sympathetic weakness rushed through her.  "They
know nothing.  They care only for their own power, the fools.  I
should--"

     He sagged back in the chair, relaxing somewhat.  He laughed
softly.  "Is there anything to drink?"

     Kima, who had been standing silently since Samofere's
admonition, seemed to snap to attention.  "I'll see what I have."

     She bustled off through a door, wings sweeping elegantly
behind her, as Tarou sat down in a chair across from Samofere and
looked at him intently.  "What's the big deal?  You're king now.
I don't see what's wrong with that."

     "Everything," Samofere said, holding his forehead in one
taloned hand.  "The entire concept of it.  The idea that one
single person is somehow qualified to decide the fate of many,
without having to listen to anyone else."

     "But you will not abuse it," Cologne said soothingly, 
digging her thumbs into strategic points of his back, trying to 
take the tension away.  "That's the way you are."

     "But that's not the point," Samofere said.  "The point is, I
don't have to listen to them."

     He sighed.  "What is it, I wonder, that makes them desire a
king?"

     "Easy," Tarou said.  "They're used to it, for one thing.  
And most people couldn't care less about thinking for themselves.
They'd rather do what someone says.  They don't want to think
about tomorrow; they want someone else to do it for them."

     He shrugged.  "That's why they have kings, leaders,
whatever.  So they don't have to think.  Most people are sheep;
they just need someone to lead them, and they'll go whichever way
their leader does."

     Samofere raised his head and looked at Tarou.  "That is the
most cynical thing I have heard for quite some time."

     "Yeah, well, I'm a cynical guy," Tarou said.  
     
     "One is seldom disappointed if one expects only the worst,"
Cologne murmured softly under her breath.

     Kima came back in, a bottle clutched in one hand, a number
of glasses held under her arm and in her other hand.  She
carefully put them down on the table.  "Water.  It should be 
cold, they hooked up the water flows so I have something of an 
icebox, if it isn't, we can have them send up--"

     "Kima, sit down," Samofere said wearily.  "Please don't do
this to me.  Please don't treat me differently.  Try to think of
me as a librarian again, if that helps."

     Kima sat down, looking at Samofere nervously.  She bowed her
head.  "I'm sorry, Samofere.  It is hard to..."

     "I know," he said.  "I know."
     
     Tarou had picked up the bottle and popped the cork out, and
was busily pouring a measure of sparkling water into each glass.
He grabbed one up and sipped it, settling contentedly back into
his chair with a relaxed expression on his face.  "That's cold,
alright."

     Samofere leaned forward and took two glasses, handing one
back to Cologne.  She drank the cool water, surprised at her own
thirst.  

     Samofere sipped from his glass, then put it down on the
table.  "I'll make this quick.  Kima, you have been cleared of
any wrongdoing in Saffron's death."

     Kima's eyes closed for a moment, and she drew a long breath.
"I see."

     "Your position has been reinstated," Samofere said.  "You 
are seneschal again, if you wish it."

     "I do," Kima said, eyes still closed.  "Though I do not know
if I am worthy any longer."

     "You are worthy," Samofere said softly.  "Never think that
you are not."

     He glanced back at Cologne, then at Tarou.  "As for you 
two... the explanation I gave for your presence, and that of
Ranma.  I said that I had grown aware of the activities of
traitors in the mountain, and, as I was not sure who I could
trust, recruited aid from outside.  It will do for now.  They
prefer not to question me anyway."

     "That demonstration you did _was_ pretty impressive," Tarou
said.  "The water, the speech.  All good."

     "I am glad you approve," Samofere said vaguely.
     
     He drank the last of his water.  "It came easily, the lie.  
I was surprised how easily."

     "What were you supposed to tell them?" Cologne said softly.
"That we had brought Ranma here because three thousand years ago
you wrote a long series of prophecies that he has fulfilled?  
That Saffron's death, that Helubor's attempted coup, they were
only the start of something long and terrible whose end we do not
know?"

     "I could have," Samofere said.  "They likely would have
believed me."

     Tarou set his empty glass down on the table with a sharp
clink and stood to his feet.  "Well, then, fun as all this is, 
I've got no desire to stay around longer than I have to."

     "You wish to leave, then?" Samofere said, looking up at the
young man.

     Tarou nodded, a slight smile tracing his face.  "Yup."
     
     He spread his arms out, fingers interlaced, and cracked his
knuckles.  "I know how much you'd like to have a warrior of my
calibre stick around, but..."

     "Isn't he gone yet?" Kima said.
     
     Cologne hid a smile behind her hand and looked at Tarou.
"We'll walk him to an exit."

     "Someone needs to stay and keep an eye on the boy," Samofere
said.  "Cologne, if you do not mind..."

     "No," she said softly, stepping back from where she stood
behind his chair.  "Not at all."

     Samofere and Kima stood from their chairs, walked silently 
to the door with Tarou between them, and stepped out.  She 
watched them go, three tall figures, two winged, one wingless,
and felt, of all things, an odd twinge of jealousy.

     With a sigh, she sank down into a chair, feeling very tired.
Much as she loved Samofere, as much as she had always loved him,
she could never hope to understand him.

**********

     Tarou stood on the edge of the steps, a half-filled bucket
dangling from one hand.  Beyond the steps was open air, a plunge
thousands of feet down, through the misty shroud that did not
manage to entirely conceal the jagged spires of stone that
composed Phoenix Mountain.  

     He glanced back at Kima and Samofere, standing in the open
doorway that led back into the halls of the palace complex at the
top of the mountain.  "So long, then."

     "You have our thanks," Samofere said quietly.  "And you are
always welcome here."

     "Sure," Tarou said, surprised at the strange, happy feeling
that unexpectedly swept over him.  He was welcome; such a strange
thing to hear.

     "This is not over," the black-winged man said in his deep,
rich voice.  "It has only just begun."

     Kima took a sudden step forward, walking down to stand on 
the steps above Tarou, one hand resting on the slender railing
that bordered the jutting, narrow balcony that edged out from the 
building on the side of the mountain.  A gust of wind played
through her short hair, half-lifted the limp spread of her wings.

     She smiled at him, but it didn't reach her eyes.  "Without
you, I think we would have died against the hound," she said
softly.  "For that, I thank you."

     Seeming hesitant, she reached out one taloned hand.  
     
     Tarou half-turned and shook it lightly, intrigued at the odd
feel of her hand in his hand.  He tried to smile back without
smirking, hoping he succeeded.  "No problem."

     Kima nodded and released his hand, stepping back up the
stairs to stand by Samofere.  She folded her arms and stared up
into the sky, at the drifting clouds, so close this high upon the
mountain.

     Tarou waved again, then dumped the bucket over himself as he
leapt from the stairs, his tiny wings spreading as if they could
somehow cease the fall of his ponderous body.  Somehow, they
always did; he'd found it better not to question that.

     Thousands of feet below, he heard the ring of the bucket
he'd dropped hitting the stone.  As he flew off to the north, he
turned his head back once, to see two tiny figures, white-winged
and dark, standing together in the shadow of the doorway.  
     
     In his massive beast shape, Tarou gave a loud snort that
would have amounted to a sigh in a human.  Perhaps he truly was 
welcome there.

     He had changed a lot in these last few days.  But he had not
changed that much.

     And he had always walked alone.
     
**********     
     
     A day passed for Kima, and then another.  There was much to
occupy the time, much that was like the mundanity of her previous
life.  She accompanied Samofere at all times, as he walked 
through the halls of the mountain; he seemed to extend a kind of
protection over her.  And when times came that flight was needed,
he carried her, and the staring, pitying gazes of the rest of her
people somehow seemed less harsh to bear.

     Samofere went among the people, all of them, and he talked
to them.  And most were fearful, awed in his presence, but some
few talked back to him, and in time, perhaps, they began to
realize that this rule would be of a different kind than 
Saffron's had been.  The Order of the Raven were always with him,
following in his wake, hard-eyed and attentive; the ravens
themselves spent most of their time at Ranma's bedside, with
Cologne.

     Sometimes, though, when he thought there were no eyes upon 
him, Kima would see Samofere clench his fists and draw long, 
shuddering breaths, like a man long beneath the water who 
desperately gulps air when he surfaces, not knowing how deep he 
must go when next he plunges.  And she felt silent worry for the 
new king, though she said nothing.

     There had been a bed laid out upon the floor of the sitting
room in her chambers for Cologne, but late in the night, as she
lay in her own bed in an attached room, she would hear the other
woman rise and go out into the hallway, and Kima knew where she
went.  Samofere had been given Saffron's chambers, which lay 
close to her own quarters, over a bridge that spanned between
peaks of the mountain.  And if she could not entirely approve of 
such a thing between them, she could at least understand some
parts of it.  And he was the king now, and it was not her place 
to question such things; that was what she told herself, at 
least, and it helped.

     Saffron's body had been lain, as all the dead of the 
mountain were, in a sealed casket of stone, where he would lie
until the moon had gone a full cycle from the day he died, and
then he would be given to the flames.  Almost twenty others had
been laid to rest in the same way, slain by bullets in the chaos
in the Hall of Speaking.

     On the second night after the battle in the Hall of 
Speaking, she had woken suddenly near the darkest point of the
night.  Not from nightmares, but dreams, dreams of flying, 
wonderful dreams that left her sick with grief and wanting to
weep when she awoke.

     Rising from bed, she took a robe, soft white silk cut low in 
the back to accommodate her wings, and pulled it on over her
nakedness, belting it loosely at the waist.  Then she walked out
into the main room of her quarters, and from there into the old
room, the bedroom of her childhood, where Ranma had lain in 
deathlike sleep for the past two days.

     The lamps in there burned night and day, casting blue-white
fingers across the room, streaking the gauntness of his face as
he lay on his back with bands of light and darkness.  On the
headboard, the two ravens perched, eyes closed in sleep, bodies
occasionally stirring slightly with nocturnal dreams.

     She stood looking at him for a long time, a strange sense of
peace upon her as she did.  He looked far older than when she had
first met him, less than a month ago in Japan, though it seemed
somehow longer.

     He had been chosen for something, she realized, just as
Saffron and Samofere had been chosen so long ago.  The blinding
speed and power with which he had struck Denkoko down, the
emerald dragon graven on his flesh, the power in his hands, the
wound on Cologne's heart healed, the white fire slaying Helubor.

     He had been chosen, for something awful and terrible and
wonderful, and somehow, somehow she had been caught up in it as
well.  She felt like a leaf, borne along on a river, carried by
forces so much greater than her, forces she could not hope to
understand.

     She stood there for a moment longer, looking at him
contemplatively, and then returned to bed, and slept without any
dreams at all.

     And the next day, the third day, she learned the truth of 
why Samofere had not wanted to be king.

**********

     It was the end of a long day, most of which had been
occupied with a fruitless meeting between the new king and the
heads of the noble houses, who had been probing for the past
three days as to just what Samofere's intentions were regarding
the wide division between the two castes of people in the
mountain.  He had given few concrete answers, maintaining a calm
visage throughout the entirety of proceedings, though Kima had
seen him coming near to anger a half-dozen different times.

     The closest he'd come had been when Lord Mazarin, Masara's
father, had asked him somewhat bluntly what the purpose of his
rule was going to be.  

     A shadow had passed across his face, one which he quickly
hid.  From where she sat beside him at the massive, circular 
stone table where meetings where held, she saw his hands grip the
arms of his chair, so hard that when he took them away, she saw
he'd left an impression in the wood.

     "I shall rule," he had said softly, "as I see fit."
     
     "And what do you see fit?" Mazarin had asked.
     
     "That I may prevent the suffering of all my people," 
Samofere had replied in a quiet, heavy voice.  "Not just 
guarantee the continued happiness of some."

     Mazarin, nor any of the other nobles, had any answer to
that.

     But the day was done now, the meeting over, and she stood in
the enormous bedchamber that had belonged to Saffron, and now had
been given over to his brother.  Outside the doors, Loame and the
other members of the Order of the Raven stood guard on a
recently-repaired bridge that spanned between the spires of the
mountain, the door at the other end leading into the rest of the 
palace complex that dominated the upper reaches.

     Samofere had been very firm on not wanting any attendants,
and, after the day was done, he spent the time alone, except for
Cologne.  He seemed at times to have little desire to see even
her at times, though he had ordered that she be allowed to move 
freely among them.  It was an unheard of thing, a human moving 
freely in the mountain, but, he was king now, and his word was 
the law.
     
     "I will have dinner sent up for you, Samofere," she said as
she prepared to exit.  She had grown somewhat used to calling him
simply by his name in private, though in public, appearances had
to be kept up, protocol had to be followed.  

     "Thank you," he said, sitting wearily on the edge of the
massive bed.  Plants bloomed greenly in brightly-painted vases
situated around the room.  

     She nodded and prepared to leave, when his voice stopped
her.  "Kima, wait."

     She turned back, looking at him questioningly.  "Is there
anything else you need?"

     He shook his head.  On the bed beside him, the golden and
silver shape of the Phoenix Crown lay as if discarded.  "I need
to tell you something.  I need to tell someone."

     Half-hesitating, she walked back to stand near him.  "What
is it?"

     "I suspect it will answer a question you have been wanting
to ask as well," he said.  "You want to know why I did not want
to be king, do you not?"

     After a moment's pause, Kima nodded.  
     
     "Yes," she said softly.  "I cannot understand it.  You are
wise, and good, and you can lead us so well.  You can change so
much for the better."

     "But why must it be only me?" Samofere asked quietly.  "Am I
the only one who can change things?  What gives I, who am only
one, the right to decide the fates of so many?"

-Continued in section 3


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