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 [2 of 4]
     
     The drums began first, a deep, repetive march rhythm.  A 
moment later, the horns entered, low-pitched and mournful.  Herb 
stood in the observation gallery, a good hundred feet above the 
great chamber, and watched in silence as the men under his 
father's command began to file into the place called the Mouth 
of the Dragon.  

     The sound of flutes began to rise into the air now, laid
across the drums and horns, a high, sad piping.  The music rose
from somewhere in the wings of the hall, beyond the range of his
vision from up here.  The musicians and the wives of his father's
men would be there, out of his sight.

     The men took their seats in the long rows of benches that 
lay on either side of the hall, walking down a wide avenue in 
the centre carpeted in rich colours of gold and red.  Near the 
end of the chamber, the floor rose up into steps, and on a raised 
platform of bare and polished stone, stark against the rich 
decoration of the rest of the chamber, the true Mouth of the
Dragon stood, a carved and ancient statue rising from the rock of
the platform, a slightly curved serpentine neck supporting the
elegant and noble head, weathered and faded from long existence,
the jaws open wide and big enough to swallow a man.

     "How long are we going to be here?" Mint whispered to Lime.
Unfortunately for him, not quite quietly enough.

     Herb turned, his face twisting into an ugly snarl, and
raised his hand.  "Shut up.  This is the last time I'm telling
you."

     Mint cringed slightly where he stood near the door that led
out into the hallways of the palace.  Lime looked confused, but
sank into silence, his huge hands dangling at his sides as if he
were not quite sure what to do with them.

     Herb resisted the urge to bounce the two of them around the
small room with his power, and turned again to look out from the
tiny window into the Mouth of the Dragon.  The mingled music of
drum and flute and horn was just barely audible through the thick
glass.

     He rested his hands on the window ledge, and bowed his head.
To either side of him, thick silk curtains patterned with the 
shapes of butterflies and flowers were drawn away from the 
window, allowing him to look across the Mouth of the Dragon all
the way to the other end.

     And now the music was sadder, sweeter, building to a pitch,
gently and steadily rising, and then it stopped, an abrupt fall
to silence.  Directly below him, he heard the sound of the great 
doors that led into the Mouth of the Dragon creaking open.  

     From above, he watched as his father walked alone down the
space between the rows of benches, his long golden cape brushing
against the scarlet and gold carpet as he went.

     He looked at the richly-dressed body his father bore in his 
arms, and felt an odd tugging from somewhere inside him.  Her 
face looked older than he remembered, but, of course, he had not 
seen it for fifteen years.  She looked peaceful.  Rogen had told 
him she had gone quickly and painlessly.  

     He remembered at first how all the boys had cried for their
mothers when they'd been brought to the Fortress of the Boys.  He
had cried as well, but not for long, and always alone in his
chambers.  That was how his memory of it went, at least.
     
     He smirked slightly.  He felt little of anything as he
watched his father carry the empty shell of his mother's body up
to the statue, the Mouth of the Dragon, and place her gently
within the jaws of the dragon.

     From this distance, his father was a tiny figure, but Herb's
eyesight was sharp.  He saw how his mother's long hair spread out
as his father laid her down, a dark blue-black.  He saw how his
father took her hands in his and folded them across her chest.

     His father took a step back.  Herb could not see his face.
He knew what came next; the duty of the lords of the Musk to all
their people, whether they were wife or soldier.

     Now the silence was so great it was like a lingering vapour
in the air, a heavy weight that pressed down on him.  He watched
as his father raised a hand.

     Even from so far away, the flare of light was almost
blinding.  When his eyes cleared, his mother was gone.  He knew
that what remained, the fine ash of her physical form, would fall
down through the hollow neck of the dragon, down to where the
waters flowed under the ground, to be carried on them, for as 
long as it took, until they came at last to the sea.  He had done 
it himself for the first time when he was nearly seven, to a boy 
ten years older than he had been who had fallen from a ledge on 
the mountain and broken his neck.  There was a Mouth of the 
Dragon here, and in his own palace to the east.

     The tug in him had become an ache now, like the pain of some
old wound, not as fresh as it might once have been, but always
there.  He gripped the window ledge and stared out across the
Mouth of the Dragon, as his father turned away and began to walk
back down the short flight of stairs.  His father looked up to 
where he stood.  Across the  distance, their eyes met, and Herb 
saw that his father wept.

     "Weak fool," Herb said softly, under his breath.  All of his
talk of control, and he was unable to deal with this, a simple
death.  But the ache would not leave him, and he felt angry at
that, as he watched his father walk down the red and gold carpet,
as he heard the drums begin again, and the moan of the horns, and
the wail of the flutes.

     And as his father passed the benches, the men in them filed
out and began to walk behind their king, their heads bowed, and
as each joined the procession, he opened his voice and began to
sing, wordlessly, a deep and droning lament.  

     From the wings, he heard higher voices join in, the voices
of the women.  It seemed to reach up through the space, and grab
hold of him, and before he realized it, he was opening his mouth
and singing as well, if singing this could be called, wordless,
pure sound of voice.

     Behind him, he heard Lime and Mint, who had been so silent,
Lime's deep voice merging with Mint's adolescent quaver, and he
gripped the window ledge so hard it felt as if it might come away
in his hands.

     He heard the doors open again, and the men of the Musk, with
Kammael their king at their head, began to leave the Mouth of the
Dragon.  The drone of their voices fell away, and he let his
voice be silent then as well.  His vision seemed blurred, and he 
wondered if perhaps he was still half-blinded from the light his 
father had made during the ceremony.

     "Mint, Lime," he said quietly.  "Leave me."
     
     There was no sound from them but footsteps, and the opening
of a door.  Herb stood alone then, staring at the empty Mouth of 
the Dragon, at the mouth of the dragon into which the last 
physical form of his mother had gone.  He raised a hand to his 
eyes, to see if he could rub away his blurred vision, and his 
fingers came away wet with tears.

     He stared at them, at how they caught the light, and felt
his temper rise ugly and dark, so quickly it startled even him.
His fist lashed out and slammed into the glass window before him, 
light of power along his arm and clenched hand, light of rage.

     The pain of glass shards cutting into his fingers seemed to
bring him back to control somehow, and he drew back a bloody 
hand, as he heard the tinkle of pieces of glass falling to the 
floor a hundred feet below, breaking into still further pieces.

     "Damn it," he whispered.
     
     He heard the door open, and turned.  The figure in the long, 
hooded white cloak closed the door behind it, and came forward.
He saw a flash of black clothing beneath the cloak as it walked
towards him.  He could see no face; the hood covered everything.

     "Get out," he growled, raising a clenched fist.
     
     "I need to talk to you," she said, and it was a woman, he
realized, a woman's voice, and he felt the slight tremble of rage
course through him.

     (He would have them brought before him)
     
     He strode forward and snatched the hood down, and stared for
a moment of livid shock into his own face, the face that had been
the focus of his hate for months now, the weak, soft, beautiful
woman's face that he had worn for that cursed time that the
Chisuiton had locked him into that feeble female body.  And then 
his hand seized the girl's throat in a tight grip.

     "Who are you?" he demanded savagely.
     
     (Kill her)
     
     The girl did not answer, and he squeezed.  The rage was
terrible in him, so vast that it consumed all else, and he 
stared into her eyes, a pale scarlet colour like his, and saw
that there was no fear in them, and that somehow stoked the
anger, like a flame touched with breath.

     (KILL HER!)
     
     And he drew back his other hand, and lifted her from the
ground by the throat, and on the hand he raised he made a blade
of his power.

     (KILL HER NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW-)
     
     And she reached forward and touched her fingers to his
temples, and the world exploded

     and he was bodyless formless without shape and 

     as he drew back his hand and a blade of light gathered (KILL
HER KILL HER KILL HER)

     and he was in a place where no light shone at all
     
     her fingers were like a whip upon his face like a blade like
fire

     and he saw a shape unfold from the darkness and it was a
gate and a man and it wore armour and it was armour and it had 
hair like silver kissed with sunlight and a face so fair that he 
wanted to fall down and worship it

     and the man the gate the armour spoke and the words were
written on the darkness in shapes of fire as the doors opened
     
     I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY,
     I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL GRIEF,
     I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN RACE.
     
     and beyond was an army so great it filled everything and the
red eyes of the man the gate the armour were filled with perverse
glee and a hatred so pure it was beautiful as all pure things are

     BEFORE ME NOTHING, NO ETERNAL THINGS
     WERE MADE, AND I SHALL LAST ETERNALLY.
     ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER.
     
     the man was the gate was the armour was the key was 
beckoning to him (Come to me beloved child)
         
     and he was falling, and a hand caught his, and there was a
word, and it was hidden grief and forgotten pain and tears shed
unwillingly and it was memory lost

     and it was the word rising from his lips and it was Mother.
     
     He staggered back, catching himself back against the window
ledge with his trembling hands.  He stared into the face in front
of him, the soft mirror of his own, and for a moment he could not
speak, and as he stared into that face, he remembered, as the
smell of forest might bring back memories decades past in old 
men, or the certain catch of sunlight on the surface of the 
waves.

     "Wiyeed," he said at last.
     
     "Hello, Herb," the girl said, rubbing at her throat, yet
smiling all the same.  With the hood pulled down now, he could
see her hair, the same colour as his, and the slash of blue in
the forelock that hung over her eyes.  "Do you remember me now?"

     He nodded mutely.  He did not understand how he could have
forgotten.  The memories of the second child beside him in the
cradle, the other shape swaddled in his mother's arm, were as
clear as yesterday.

     She seemed to read his thoughts.  "We weren't even three 
when they separated us, brother."
     
     "What did you do to me?" he asked.  The rage was gone.  He
examined from every angle his desperate urge to kill her, even if
he had not realized who she was, and found no reason for it.  He 
should not have lost his temper.  There had been no provocation.

     "I drove him back," Wiyeed said softly, and her smile
vanished instantly, her face as hard as ever his had been, and a
hate in her eyes as great as any that his eyes had ever held.
"It was very hard, and I barely managed."

     "Who?" Herb said quietly.
     
     "The World-Hater," his sister answered venomously.  "The
eternal legacy of Ganziao's Curse was that it allowed him to 
reach out into the minds of the male line of our family ever 
since the Dragon Tribe was broken fourteen centuries ago."

     Herb looked at his sister for a moment.  "Ganziao the
Founder?"

     Now his sister spat upon the floor.  "May his name be cursed
till the end of time."

     "No less cursed than the name of Fukwan the Traitor," Herb
murmured.  His sister's expression softened slightly, and her 
eyes were sad.  

     "Aye," she said quietly.  "No more and no less cursed than
hers."

     She straightened her white cloak slightly over her black,
long-skirted dress, and tugged the hood up slightly over her pale
hair.  "Father wishes to speak with us now.  It is most 
important."

     Herb looked at her for a moment.  "What if what you had done
to me had not cured me?"

     She looked back at him.  "You are not cured.  You still must
control yourself.  Father says you have always had an awful
temper."

     "I can keep it under control," Herb said angrily.  "For now, 
at least.  Now answer me, Wiyeed.  What if it had not worked?"

     She regarded him levelly.  "I would have blown your head
off."     

     "And if I'd killed you first?"  
     
     She smirked at him.  "You wouldn't have."

     He laughed, then, to his surprise and his sister joined him 
as they stepped towards the door.

**********
     
     Kima glanced to her right as she strode down the hallway,
bootheels tapping against the stone.  Next to her, Ranma raised a
hand and lightly brushed it across Shiso's head.  The bird sat on
his shoulder, bobbing his head in time to the rhythm of Ranma's 
walk.

     "Why do they want to see us?" she asked the bird.
     
     He turned his head and regarded her with dark, depthless
eyes.  "We shall see, now won't we?"

     The raven had come a few minutes after she'd finished 
breakfast in uncomfortable silence, tapping at the door and
delivering the message that Samofere and Cologne wanted to speak
with the two of them.

     After the first sighting of her and Ranma, word had spread
down the corridors of the palace complex, and now the corridors
were deserted of any people.  They walked in a silence nearly as
uncomfortable as the one they'd eaten in, through the tall,
narrow hallways.

     Up a short flight of stairs and around a corner, and they
stood before a set of double doors.  Kima pushed one open, and a
breath of mountain air came wafting in, running through her hair
and ruffling Shiso's feathers slightly.  The raven huffed and
shook them back into place, as she and Ranma stepped out onto the
long, roofed bridge that spanned between two peaks of the
mountain.

     "I remember this place," Ranma said suddenly, the first
words he'd spoken since they'd left her quarters.  "I see you
repaired the bridge."

     Kima nodded in silence as they walked up.  Up ahead, two
huge doors graven with the image of the phoenix led into the
king's chambers, the ones that belonged to Samofere now.

     Outside the door, Loame and another one of his men stood in
their dark clothing and silvery armour, Loame's hands wrapped
around the haft of his hammer as the head of it rested on the
ground, and his companion holding a long spear loosely in one
hand.

     The worker chief gave a respectful nod to her, and perhaps
to Ranma, and gave one of the doors a light push.  It swung open
with a slight rasp of hinges, admitting them to the king's 
chambers.  As they walked through, Kima saw Loame's subordinate
looking at Ranma with almost undisguised hostility, which no one
except her seemed to notice.

     Inside the immense quarters of the king, Cologne and 
Samofere knelt on the floor at a round table far too large for
only two people.  

     "Ahh, welcome," the new king said, a weary smile creasing 
his young, dark face as they entered.  "Sit down.  We must talk."

     Shiso launched off of Ranma's shoulder with a beat of his
wings, and settled down in the middle of the round table in a
huddled ball of black feathers, tucking his head under one wing
and seeeming, for all appearances, to go to sleep.

     Kima took a seat on the floor before the immense round
table.  A moment later, Ranma sat down with his hands on his
knees, managing to locate the point at the table that put him as
far away as possible from all three of the others.

     "It is good to have you back among us," Samofere said,
glancing to Ranma.  "Much has happened since..."

     "I know," Ranma said sharply.  "I've heard all of it I need
to know."

     Surprised, Kima looked at his face quickly.  She could read
nothing from it, no sign of what was going on below the surface.

     "Ranma..." Cologne began, a vague hint of dissatisfaction in
her voice.

     Ranma turned to look at her.  "Let me talk, Cologne."
     
     His voice was steady, unusually so for him, and his words
seemed more carefully formed as he went on.  "I've had enough of
stumbling around in the dark.  I want some answers for once, and
I think I deserve them."

     The faintest wince passed across Cologne's face.  "Ask and
we shall see what we can..."

     "What in the hell is happening to me?"
     
     Kima frowned and stared at the table, detecting now the
agonized undertone of his voice, which did not fade as he
continued.  "I thought I had it under control.  I really did.
And then I did it again.  I killed again."

     And there it was, the barest tremble in his voice, and she
focused intently on the table, studied the grain of wood, knowing
no way to speak, waiting to hear Cologne and Samofere answer.

     "As I understand it," Samofere said softly.  "Your friend, 
the other boy..."

     "Tarou ain't my friend," Ranma interrupted.
     
     "As you like it," Samofere acquiesced.  "He brought an
object into the Hall of Speaking, a golden pearl that he was
given when he stayed below Jusendo... it carried a part of the
dragon's will with it, and it brought the fire from the water,
and empowered you with some of her strength."

     "And made me kill Helubor and the guys with the guns?" Ranma
asked quietly.

     "No," Samofere replied, just as quietly, and Kima heard the
tint of sorrow in her king's voice.  "That you did yourself.  It
was asked of you, but it was your choice."

     "It wasn't my choice," Ranma said.  Kima raised her head,
and now there was no mask across his face, only the agony of
guilt, shining in his eyes, in the twisted lines of his mouth.

     "Was it not?" Samofere asked.  "If you had not killed
Helubor when you did, he would have killed Kima.  If you had not
killed those traitors when you had, who knows how many more
deaths they might have caused?"

     A quaver passed across Ranma's features, and he slowly shook
his head.  "Helubor, yeah.  I don't feel bad about him at all.  
I..."

     He hung his head slightly, and then glanced up to Kima.  
"Maybe I knew that if I didn't kill him, he woulda killed you,
and if there's one thing I ain't ever gonna feel bad about, it's
killing that bastard so you could live."

     Kima felt her lips edge up in the barest of smiles.  "I
suppose, given the circumstances, I appreciate the sentiment."

     Ranma looked away from her then, back to Cologne and
Samofere where they sat near each other.  "But I didn't need to
kill those other guys.  I had the power to stop them without
killing them, and I didn't."

     "It was the decision of a second," Cologne said flatly, her
eyes betraying no more emotion than her voice.  "You made the
choice.  It was the easiest way to stop them."

     "But the easy way is not necessarily the right one," Ranma
answered softly, leaning his elbows on the table and cradling his
chin in his palms.

     "Yes," Cologne agreed, a trace of tired regret entering her
voice.  "That too is true."

     "Be that as it may," Samofere said.  "What is past is past."
     
     He looked around the table, and his face was sad.  "Is there
any one of us here who has not done things that we regret?  Acts
that we wish we could take back, or change?"

     Kima felt a dull ache in herself, saw it mirrored in the
faces of Cologne and Ranma, and in Samofere's face, and she knew
that all of them saw it on her face.  

     "I cannot say that I have done no wrong in my life," she 
said finally, to break the silence.  "Even sometimes that I have
done wrong and believed that I did right.  But I go on.  If we
cannot undo what wrongs we have done, we may at least seek to 
rise above them."

     "She is right," Cologne added, her voice barely audible.
"None of us are without stains upon our souls."

     "No," Samofere said quietly, nodding his head and staring at
the table.  

     "No," Ranma repeated, smiling sadly.  "I guess that's just
the way it is, right?"

     And then the smile fell away from his face, but his face did
not fall into melancholy, but into a hard and fierce 
determination.  He stood up.  "So what now?  This isn't over by a
long shot.  Whoever sent Galm after us is still out there.  
Xande's still out there.  So's the Circle Eternal."

     There was a brightness in his eyes now, a flash of fire, and
he folded his arms across his chest and seemed to stand 
straighter.  "The dragon under Ryugenzawa said I'm supposed to
unite the people of Jusenkyou, right?  I damn well can't do it
sitting around here and moping."

     And then he smiled, entirely differently from the smile of
moments earlier, confident and unafraid.  Kima smiled, against
her expectations, saw Cologne break into a grin, saw Samofere 
follow a second after she did.

     "Bravo, boy," Cologne said.  "That's an attitude I'm more 
used to from you."

     "Hell," Ranma said, shrugging his shoulders.  "What I saw
under Jusenkyou, under Ryugenzawa... letting that be destroyed
would be a heck of a lot worse than anything else I could do."

     In the centre of the table, the sleepy ball of black 
feathers shook slightly, and Shiso poked his head out from under
his wing.  "Jusendo."

     "Hmm?" Ranma said, looking to the bird.
     
     Shiso stood up, stretching his wings and fluttering them.
"Back to where it began.  To the heart of the matter."

     Samofere slowly nodded.  "That was, in fact, what I was
going to suggest.  I need you to go to Jusendo, Ranma, to the
heart of it, where the Dragon Tap and the Phoenix Tap are 
placed."

     Ranma tilted his head to the side and looked at the winged
man.  "Why?"

     "You'll see when you get there," Samofere answered 
cryptically.

     Ranma shook his head.  "Not good enough.  Why?"
     
     "I cannot say," Samofere said.  "To tell you why might 
change too much.  Do you trust me enough to go?"

     Kima watched as Ranma studied Samofere, long and hard.
     
     Finally, he shook his head.  "No.  I don't.  Tell me why."
     
     "And if I cannot tell you?"
     
     Ranma's eyes narrowed slightly.  "Then maybe I won't go."
     
     "Perhaps you won't," Samofere answered in a level voice.  
They stared at each other for a few seconds that seemed to drag
on forever, and then Ranma swore under his breath and looked
away.

     "One of these days," he said quietly, glaring at Samofere
and Cologne in turn.  "I'm going to get back at the two of you
for all this enigmatic mumbo-jumbo."

     "You will go, then," Cologne said, as statement and not
question.

     Ranma nodded, though his face was angry.  "I'll go."
     
     "I wish I could go with you," the Joketsuzoku said.  "But I
am needed here."

     Kima saw the eyes of her king and Cologne meet for a second,
and she felt a vague twince of dissatisfaction that she quickly
suppressed before it could show on her face.  

     "So do I go alone, then?" Ranma asked quietly.
     
     Kima turned her eyes to again staring intently at the table.
     
     There was a long silence.
     
     "Fine," Ranma said finally.  "Hey bird, come on.  You can
keep my company, at least."

     "I'm really needed here a lot these days," Shiso's voice
answered croakingly.

     "Oh."
     
     She heard him sigh softly.  "Guess I'll go and get my stuff
together, then."
     
**********     

     Ranma folded another shirt, and carefully tucked it into his
backpack.  He made sure the straps holding the flap opening 
closed were tight, and then attached his bedroll.  The pack was
old and weathered.  He had carried it to Phoenix Mountain and
back to Japan, and then to the mountain where he had killed
Denkoko.  It had been brought through the cold unlight that had
lain between Jusenkyou and Ryugenzawa, and it had been taken from
him for a time when he'd been a prisoner.  Now it was in his
hands again, and he was using it as it was meant to be used, to 
prepare for travel.

-Continued in section 3


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