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 [4 of 4]

     Kima went silent, bowed her head and looked at the ground,
and Ranma turned his attention to Herb.  "What are you doing 
here, Herb?"

     The Musk prince, now only a few feet from him, ground his
teeth together audibly.  "I wish I knew myself.  Sister, if you
would explain to me, I would be most grateful."

     The girl Herb called his sister laughed, a silvery sound,
and shook her head as she came towards them, long hair flashing
about her face.  "Aren't you going to perform the ceremony,
brother?"

     Herb looked startled for a moment, and then glared at his
sister.  Ranma could feel the tension crackle through the air
between them for a moment, and then, to his surprise, the prince
took a step forward and knelt before him.

     "Ranma Saotome," he said, looking up at Ranma from behind
the stark white of his bangs.  His crimson eyes held an angry
look as he spoke, and something else that Ranma could not place.  
"I am in your debt for my life, the highest debt that may be 
held.  We of the Musk hold to our debts.  My life falls before 
yours."

     Ranma stared at the suddenly humbled man, and another piece
of the puzzle fell into place.  "Stand up, Herb."

     As the tall prince stood, the words seemed to come to him,
though he knew not from where.  "You were a great foe and a
worthy opponent."

     He extended a hand.  Herb stared at it for a moment, and
then grabbed it, his fingers digging powerfully into Ranma's
forearm.  Ranma did the same, and locked eyes with the prince.
Herb smiled at him, but it didn't reach his eyes.
     
     "Master Herb!"
     
     Herb pulled his hand out of Ranma's grip and spun around,
cloak swirling.  A hulking figure in a dark tunic and pants with
tiger-striped shoulder pads loped across the cavern floor from 
near one of the tunnels leading into the depths of the mountain, 
a smaller boy darting along beside him.

     Ranma was certain he heard Herb groan softly as Mint and
Lime approached.  "What are you two doing here?" he snapped.

     "Lime was right," Mint muttered, frowning and staring past
Herb and Ranma.  "You did come out here to have fun with girls."

     "You could have brought us along," Lime said accusingly.
"We haven't seen any girls since we went to Japan."

     "Maybe he didn't want to share," Mint said sulkily.  He
seemed to notice Ranma for the first time.  "Hi."

     "Hey," Ranma said, regarding Herb's two bodyguards.
     
     "Do you still have those big breasts you had before?" Lime
asked, walking up and patting Ranma's chest with one huge hand.
"Master Herb got rid of his at Jusenkyou once we got back.  I 
think he should have kept them.  They were pretty."

     Ranma saw Herb's face twist uglily.  
     
     "Shut up, you imbeciles," he snarled, and raised a hand.  

     Ranma got out of the way in time.  Herb's hand flared with
light, and Mint and Lime were knocked sprawling as if by a great
fist.  They picked themselves up off the rubble-strewn floor,
complaining and rubbing their heads.  

     Herb raised his hand again, and they quieted.
     
     "We talk.  Now," he said, walking up to Mint and Lime and
grabbing an arm from each of them.  He half-dragged them off to a
corner of the cavern, and began berating them in a low voice.

     Ranma turned to see Kima and Herb's sister engaged in
something akin to a staring contest.  Kima broke her gaze away as
Ranma watched, and walked a few steps from the girl before
glancing to him.  

     "I'll be over there if anyone needs me," she said icily, and
stalked away to another corner of the broken cavern to stare out
through a shattered wall.

     "Hello," Herb's sister said, in a much less formal voice
than the one she'd used before.  She stepped up before Ranma and
inclined her head slightly in a mild gesture of greeting, the 
expression on her face almost shy.  "I am Wiyeed of the Musk, 
also Highest One of the Daughers of the Night.  I'm also Herb's 
sister, but I suppose you already know that now."

     "Yeah," Ranma said, strangely uncomfortable.  In the
distance, he heard the sound of Herb apparently blasting Mint and
Lime again.  "Uhh... what's going on, exactly?"

     "How old are you?" she asked, as if she hadn't heard him.
     
     Ranma blinked.  "Uhh... sixteen.  I'll be seventeen pretty
soon."

     "You're younger than me," she said contemplatively.  "I've
never met a man who was younger than me.  Herb's the same age,
and father and Rogen are much older."

     She smiled brightly at him.  Ranma saw the slightest flash
of pointed teeth at the edges of her delicate lips.  "You're very
handsome."

     She blushed and looked at her feet.  "I wasn't supposed to
say that, was I?  I don't think you are when you meet men.  I 
haven't met too many men."

     "Yeah," Ranma said, trying to be polite despite his rising
embarassment.  "Uhh... who are the Daughters of the Night,
anyway?"

     Wiyeed seemed to snap to attention, assuming the formality 
she'd had before.  "We serve the Lady."

     "Huh?"

     Wiyeed smiled again, in seeming apology.  "You have met her
kin.  The Daughters of the Night serve the third of the powers 
that rule the waters."

     "A third dragon?" Ranma asked quietly.
     
     She nodded, and now there was a strange distance in her 
eyes.  "The youngest and fairest and most terrible.  We call her
the Lady, though she has many names."

     "Names?" 
     
     "Too many to number in this time," Wiyeed said 
enigmatically.  "My brother and I came here to accompany you when
you go before her."

     She glanced back to where Kima stood, tall and still as she
stared off into the distance at the shattered edge of the cavern.
"We were told that you would come alone."

     "I think maybe I should have," Ranma muttered.
     
     Wiyeed gathered up her hair in one hand and draped it over
her shoulder, then pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head
and fastened it around her neck.  "The Lady showed me how you
aided the Phoenix in their time of trial."

     "How'd she do that?"  Ranma asked, blinking.
     
     Almost absently, she began to pull the long white hair that
hung over her shoulder into a loose braid.  "She aided you and
your companions as much she could.  She brought you to She Who
Must Not Wake quicker than you could have ever gotten there
otherwise."

     "I see," Ranma said.  He could still hear the occasional
yelp from Mint and Lime as Herb disciplined them.  "So... how
long will it take us to get there?"

     Wiyeed shrugged.  "I can bring us there instantly with your 
help, Lord of Waters."

     Ranma pushed his hanging bangs back out of his eyes with one
hand.  "You called me that before.  Why?"

     "It is the name the Dragon Tribe gave you when our seers
spoke of your coming in the time long past," Wiyeed answered.

     "Dragon Tribe?"
     
     She pulled the loose braid a little tighter, and left it
hanging over her shoulder as she dropped a hand to her waist and
almost unconsciously caressed the moonstone pommel of the dagger
on her belt.  "One of the three great tribes that lived in the
Valley of the Waters before the coming of the Ravager.  The
Dragon Tribe, the Phoenix Tribe, and the Water Tribe.  The
remnants of the Water Tribe are the Joketsuzoku.  The Dragon 
Tribe were ruled by lords and ladies of I and my brother's 
bloodline, until they were broken fourteen centuries ago.  What
little is left of them are called the Musk Dynasty."

     "Why did Kima call your brother what she did?" Ranma asked.
The word echoed through his head in the same acid tone she had
used: childkiller.

     "A long story," Wiyeed said softly, looking away from him.
"I will tell you later, if you wish."
     
     "Yeah," Ranma said.  "I'd like that."
     
     He saw too late the flash of eagerness beneath the rather
formal mask she had adopted, and realized he should have chosen
his words more carefully.  "Uhh..."

     "We can talk later," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder
and smiling prettily.  Walking past him, she raised her voice and
called out to Herb.  "Brother!"

     Herb looked up from where he was yelling at the cringing
Mint and Lime.  Turning his back on them as if they were no
longer worthy of his attention, he strode across the cavern floor
with his two bodyguards trailing fawningly in his wake.

     "Idiots," Ranma heard him mutter under his breath as he came
to stand near the drained basin of the Phoenix Tap with them.  
"You were supposed to stay behind."

     "Rogen said we weren't supposed to open the door until he
came and got us," Mint said sourly, kicking at a loose stone on
the ground.  

     Lime nodded and looked proud of himself.  "So I walked
through the wall.  How could you come on another adventure where
there might be girls without us?"

     Mint looked past Herb to Wiyeed.  "Hey Herb, that girl looks
just like you did when you had breasts."

     Ranma snickered, then looked away from Wiyeed when she
turned her head to stare at him.  

     Herb slapped Mint across the back of the head.  "She's my
sister, you fool."

     "Sister?" Lime said.  "Is that the kind of girl you have a
baby with?"

     "No, that's a wife," Mint interjected.  "Can your sister be
your wife too, Herb?"

     "SHUT UP!" Herb roared, turning on the two.  "Go and sit
over there," he gestured at the Dragon Tap, "and don't say
anything.  Don't move.  Don't breathe more than you have too."

     Mint opened his mouth, then closed it, and turned away, his
shoulders slumping as he walked off with Lime.

     "You shouldn't yell at them so much," Wiyeed said quietly.
"Yelling won't make them behave any better.  Probably the
opposite, in fact."

     Herb spun around and glared at his sister.  "Don't tell me
what to do, woman," he snapped.

     "Herb."
     
     Ranma's ears perked up at the heavy sense of command that
layered Wiyeed's voice as she said her brother's name.  Herb did 
an almost exact impression of Mint, opening his mouth and then 
closing it.  He hung his head slightly and clenched a fist at his 
side.  "Forgive me, sister.  I should not speak to you in such a 
way."

     "You're right," Wiyeed said quietly.  "You shouldn't."
     
     She glanced to Ranma and smiled, her face softening.  "I
only found out I had a brother a few weeks ago.  He only found
out about me this morning."

     "It has been a day of surprises," Herb declared wearily.
     
     "Interesting family relationship you two have," Ranma
murmured to himself, staring at the ground.

     He raised his head and looked from brother to sister.  "What
now?  You said you could take us there quickly with my help."

     Wiyeed nodded.  "The waters will obey you.  They know you.
I shall do the rest."

     Ranma nodded, then turned and walked across the cavern to
where Kima stood.  "Kima?"

     She looked back at him, her arms crossed and shoulders held
imperiously high.  "What?"

     "I'm going with them now," he said.  "You don't have to come
along any further than this if you don't want to."

     Kima stared out through the opening in the cavern wall at 
the river winding between the sparse trees, through a rocky 
valley that cut through the mountainous land to the east.  From 
this height, they could dimly make out the dip of land that held
Jusenkyou, see the tiny pools a mile away, pinpoints in the land
like stars in the sky.  

     "No," she said finally.  "I'll come with you.  I must
represent my people's interests in this."

     "Is that the only reason you came along?"
     
     She looked back at him, saying nothing, and then walked past
him towards where Herb and Wiyeed stood.  Ranma stood in silent
thought for a moment, and then hurried after her.

     "I greet you in the name of the Phoenix Tribe," Kima said
with formal stiffness as she approached the siblings.  "And in 
the name of King Samofere of Phoenix Mountain.  Forgive my
rudeness of before."

     "Nothing need be forgiven," Wiyeed said with equal 
formality.  "It has been a long time since there was contact
between our people and the Tribe of the Phoenix.  We greet you in 
the name of our father, Kammael of the Dragon Tribe, Lord of the 
Clan of Musk."

     Beside his sister, Herb nodded his silent assent, one hand
cupping his angular chin as he regarded Kima with flat crimson
eyes.

     "I believe we hold certain interests in common," Kima said,
seeming to relax slightly.  "There is a power massing its forces
against Jusenkyou.  It has already taken the life of Saffron, who
was my king."

     Ranma's ear caught the faintest edge of a tremble in her
voice as she said the dead king's name, and felt a sadness rise
in him for Kima and her great loyalty.

     "The Dark is rising," Wiyeed said in a soft voice.  "It
comes in a hundred shapes and it hides where the light cannot
reach it.  We look to without for it, never realizing that it can
come as easily from within."

     Ranma was not sure, but he thought he saw Wiyeed's eyes fall
to her silent brother for a moment.  Hesitantly, he spoke.  "What
can you tell us about what we face?"

     Wiyeed stroked a nervous hand across the long braid of white
hair that fell over one shoulder and across her chest.  "I will
tell you what I can in due time.  The Daughters of the Night know 
much of the history of the Valley of the Waters."

     Then, to Ranma's surprise, Herb spoke, his voice soft.  "And 
we of the Musk have our own stories to tell."

     Wiyeed picked up as her brother finished.  "And the Lady, of
course, knows many, many things."

     Herb turned slightly, cape flourishing.  "Mint!  Lime!"
     
     The two boys looked up from where they had been sitting 
against the Dragon Tap with unhappy looks on their faces, but did
not speak.

     Herb beckoned them with his hand.  "Come on."
     
     They stood up and wandered over, faces brightening.  
     
     "Does this mean you forgive us, Master Herb?" Lime asked
eagerly.  

     Herb looked at him flatly and said nothing, until Lime's
face quirked sadly and he looked at the ground, appearing like
nothing so much as scolded child.

     Mint was staring intently at Kima.  "I didn't realize that
some girls got wings as well as--"

     "Quiet," Herb said warningly, and Mint shut his mouth.
     
     Wiyeed jumped up onto the marble lip of the huge basin, the
delicately walked down the short flight of steps that led to the
inside.  "We must all be inside the basin," she said quietly.

     Gathered moments later in the centre of the immense stone
tub, the six of them stood in a rough circle.  Ranma saw that the
basin was cracked and strewn with rubble and pieces of Saffron's
eggshell that hadn't been washed away when the cavern had 
flooded.

     He glanced up at the Phoenix Tap, bound together at the neck
by the hardened crystalline threads that had been part of
Saffron's transformation.  "How do we do this?"

     "Call the water," Wiyeed said from where she stood beside
him.  "Bring it from below."

     Ranma nodded and closed his eyes.  After a moment, he opened
them.  "How, exactly?"

     Wiyeed sighed and stepped in front of him.  "Put your hands
in mine."

     "Is that really necessary?" 
     
     She didn't respond, simply reached out and grabbed his hands
in hers with surprising strength.  "Close your eyes."

     Ranma did so, unconsciously enfolding her smaller hands in
his.  "Yeah."

     "Call to her," he heard Wiyeed whisper, only to him, her
voice soft like the breeze on the shore.  "Call to her.  You know
her, have always known her, will always know her."

     Her hands were warm in his.  He felt something like a spark
leap between them.  Through his slippers, the cool of the stone
beneath his feet seemed to reach up and draw him into it, as if
he were sinking, falling low into the depths of the mountain,
down the thousands of feet, that he might stand again before the
bound and broken Lady of Jusenkyou.

     "Call," Wiyeed said, voice of the ocean, of the sea, 
stroking across the surface of his mind.

     And Ranma called, knowing the water, becoming the water, the
water that flowed below under his feet.  He felt it, the 
ancientness of it, the endless cycle as it flowed to ocean and to
rain and again to rivers and again to the water under the earth.

     Untold years, the long fall of century and millenia, carving
out rushing channels through the earth, and mountains rose and
fell and still the water flowed, and they sunk wells to tap it,
and still the water flowed, and call, call, call, the 
liquidrushing waterfall risingrising.

     There was a trembling, a shaking of the earth, and a hissing
sound.  Ranma opened his eyes as water began again to pour from
the mouth of the Phoenix Tap, splashing into the basin and
beginning slowly to fill it.  

     Pieces of rainbow-coloured shell began to float upon the
rising tide, glimmering with crystal drops of water on their
bright surfaces.  Ranma looked around from face to face, Wiyeed
standing before him with a smile, Herb's cold eyes, Mint and
Lime's confusion, Kima's mask, and then they were falling, all
of them falling, falling down into the sea, as if the depth of 
the basin and the waters reached somehow to the centre of the 
earth, and the dark ocean closed over his head, like a lover's 
sweet embrace.

**********

     First of all, there is a place where there is no light.  The
place has no definition.  It is huge.  It is tiny.  It is both of
these at once.

     But now there is space, and definition.  A small room.  
Still without light.  The room could be stone.  Yes, let it be
stone.  And still there shall be no light.

     Let there be stone, and let there be no light, and let there 
be the feel of many eyes upon the boy in the room, as he opens 
his own eyes to the absence of the light.  His name, in this 
time, in this place, is Ranma Saotome.

     Let him reach out in the darkness, unable to see where his
hand is moving.  Let his hand brush across the stone floor until
his hands find a body that is not his.

     "Who's there?" his voice shall say.  "Kima?"
     
     And another voice shall answer.  "Wiyeed."
     
     And a hand will clasp tightly around his searching one, and
the second voice will speak again.  "I think something went 
wrong."

     And now, let a third voice answer from all around in the 
darkness, a voice as vast as all creation, cruel and cold and 
patient as time.

     OH YES, LITTLE ONES it will say in ringing tones like the
tolling of a thousand iron bells.  SOMETHING WENT VERY, VERY 
WRONG INDEED.  And let there be laughter now, laughter now, and 
still no light, no light in any, any place.

-End of Chapter 26

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com