Waters Under Earth

A Ranma 1/2 Fanfic by Alan Harnum - harnums@hotmail.com

All Ranma characters are the property of Rumiko Takahashi, first
published by Shogakukan in Japan and brought over to North
America by Viz Communications.

Homepage at:  http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/9758

Commentary is welcomed and appreciated, sent publicly or 
privately.

Chapter 29 : The Halls of Night (4 of 4)

     The crippling of the wings was the punishment for treason
against the king.  That had been the excuse for it, but it had
been wrong.  Had she not tried to the end to protect Saffron, to
serve his interests?  And Helubor and Xande had been the 
traitors, not her.  What answer, then, for why?

     Only the singing, and the sound of water over rock.
     
     The records of those punished stretched back over two
thousand years.  None in the last seven centuries before her.  
But accidents happened, and wounds in battle, and disease that 
robbed the wings of their strength.  There was a tradition, of 
course; go to the highest spire of the mountain, and take a last 
flight, crippled wings or none.  There was no shame in that; a 
sort of honour, even.

     She leaned forward, over the edge of the balcony, keeping a
firm grip on the railings.  The breeze played across her face,
and she remembered flight, the freedom of it.

     *I was wounded and you healed me, I was broken and you made
me whole, I wept and you comforted me.*

     Further forward, and she stared down the dark slopes of the
mountain.  Ever so slightly, her grip loosened.  A small sigh
escaped her lips.
     
     *Oh Lady, Lady, Lady, weary was I and you gave me rest.  You
came to me when I was afraid, and before your light my fear was
nothing.*

     Another few inches forward.  So easy it would be.  Simply a 
letting go now, an inaction rather than an action.  A long fall, 
but nothing to break it at the end this time, no wings to spread, 
no flight.

     *Gather me in your time and hold me safe, bright one, 
passage from river to sea, Lady, Lady, Lady of silences...*

     She breathed in.  Air and water, the gentle scent of lilies.
Then she carefully straightened and stepped back from the 
railing, and dropped her shaking hands to her sides.  The words 
of the singing faded away into the air, again so quiet as to be
almost inaudible.

**********

     Ranma opened his eyes.  He stretched out legs that had been
curled to his chest, unwrapped his arms from around himself.  He
was swimming in the sea of stars, the vast galactic blackness 
marred with endless points of light.

     A voice began speaking.  Wiyeed's, yet not Wiyeed's; as if
something spoke using her voice.  "In the beginning, the world
was nothing."

     The stars began to spin around him, as if he were the centre 
of a whirlwind.  Faster and faster they spun, in a glittering 
dance.  "There was no heat."
     
     So fast they began to blur together the stars spun, tighter
and tighter, closer and closer, until it seemed he might reach 
out and pluck them from the sky.

     "Nor light."
     
     Faster.
     
     "Nor life."
     
     Faster.
     
     "There was nothing."
     
     No stars now.  Only darkness.  An eternity of black all 
around him.     
     
     "From above the world, the Dragon King of the Heavens looked 
down from his throne of clouds upon the nothing, and was 
displeased.  He summoned his three daughters and sent them down
upon the world."

     A nova burned in the centre of his heart, and then he felt,
for a moment, the absolute stillness of everything, a total
cessation of all movement, everywhere.

     "The first daughter, called She Who Makes, brought forth 
that first substance from which all things came."

     And then there was light.  A brief spark, soon consumed by
the darkness.  But light; glorious, wondrous, beautiful light.  

     "The second daughter, called She Who Mends, shaped that
substance the first daughter had brought forth into earth and
water and air and fire, and the plants that grow, and the 
creatures that live."

     Another light, a single spark that burned but grew no
greater.  The darkness pressed hungrily around it.

     "The third daughter, called She Who Breaks, measured out the
span of time that all things that the second daughter had shaped
would exist, before they returned from whence they had come."

     The light went out again.
     
     And then a hundred others bloomed.
     
     And went out.
     
     And in the place of each came a hundred others.
     
     And they went out too.
     
     And in the place of each a hundred more.
     
     Faster.
     
     "And the Unmaker came among them then, to destroy what they 
had created."

     Faster.
         
     "He set one foot in the ocean, and there were great waves."
     
     Faster.
     
     "He set his other foot upon the land, and there were 
earthquakes."

     Faster, until it seemed that space would be filled only with
light.

     "And he raised his hands and pulled down the sun to burn the 
earth, and the mountains fell, and the seas rose up upon the 
land, and the people went mad, and made war upon each other."

     Still the stars whirled around him, but they were going out,
one by one, and now, no new ones came to take their places.  

     "And the sisters cried out to their father, but their father
did not answer."

     The motion of the stars stopped.  They hung still all about
him.  Another voice, familiar and unfamiliar, taken for use for a
moment.  Shampoo; how long since he heard her speak?  That memory
brought back others, and for a moment, even in this place, he was
alone and filled with grief.

     "Great was his wrath, for the child loved his wives, but not
him, and he swore that they would not live."

     Darkness gnawed at the stars, and Ranma heard them scream as
they died.  Entire galaxies were consumed in the black fires, and
thousands of worlds fell to ash.  

     It was Shampoo's voice; the words were not Shampoo's.  He 
could not even be sure of the language.

     "And he took up his sword and wounded the child, and blood
came forth to stain the earth.  And the wrath of his wives was
great, and they turned upon him, and he fled."

     Kima now.  As always, the strange accent upon the speech, 
the vague hint of birdsong.  The stars were still going out,
still screaming as they died.  The screams were everywhere.

     "Upward burning the phoenix flew, her fire bright as the 
sun, towards the terrible shape in the sky.  And the King of
Ashes fled the fire."
     
     The death of the stars had stopped.  Wounded, those that
remained hung in the air.  He heard a vast moaning, as if all of
creation was crying out in pain.

     And now, the last, the Lady's voice.  "Do you understand,
Lord of Waters?"

     "No!" he called back desperately.  "Why speak in riddles?
Why?"

     "It is my nature," the Lady answered.  "I can do no more."
     
     And another voice began to speak into his ear and it said
his names.  He saw them then, the men and women to who those
names belonged, each like a tiny fragment of the crystal that was
his soul, and each of them a tiny fragment made of other 
fragments, and each fragment a fragment of fragments.

     Some fragments were fragments of him, and he finally
understood, understood everything.  Nothing ever truly died;
everything lived forever.  The ocean held the water that became 
the rain, and the rain fell upon the river, and the river flowed 
to the ocean, and it all began again.  A part of his soul had
lived before; a part of it would live after.  The sheer, 
beauteous perfection of it stunned him.
     
     "Yes," the Lady said.  "But what if someone sought to dam
the river?"     
     
     He closed his eyes.  And opened them.
     
     He was by the shore of the Lady's lake.  The waters were
still, and the Lady nowhere in sight.  The light was dimming.

     His chest burned, as if scarred with fire.  Trembling, he
undid the ties of his shirt, one by one.  He saw the serpentine
head of the black dragon, gripping the tail of the green one in
her jaws near his waist, the rest of her body curling back around
his ribcage and out of sight upon his back.

     The dragons glowed with their own inner light in the 
darkness.  He touched them, lightly, and felt a tingle spread 
through his fingertips to the rest of his body.

     Everything seemed sharper, all his senses.  As he stood to
his feet, he was astonished by the ease of his movement, by how
smoothly and quickly his body responded.  He felt like a blade
from which the rust had only now been scoured.
     
     "What have I become?" he whispered softly.  He heard the
water - felt it, the power of the flow beneath his feet - and it
seemed to call to him.  Still trembling, he raised his hand.  A
moment's expenditure of will, a spark of power, and it burst into
white fire.

     He stared at it, at the dance of it, hypnotized, and then
concentrated.  The flames turned blue, then red, then gold.  He
drew the colours up from inside him, from the sourceless source,
the endless shifting dance of fire with ice.  Crimson, silver, a 
purple edged with flourishes of gold, a shifting blaze of bronze 
and steel, a black so dark it hurt the eye to look at.

     His fist clenched.  The flames went out.  Slowly, he smiled;
the power coursed through him like electricity, as if he were a 
tree wreathed in flame.  He could feel the water, and the ancient 
shifting might of the earth beneath his feet, and the winds that 
could gather for the hurricane, and the air that waited to be 
consumed by fire.  Power.  Sweet, sweet, power.
     
     It took him a few moments to come back to himself, and when
he did, he was sickened by his previous thoughts.  But he could
not deny it, that the joy of the power had been there, the want 
to exercise it, the uncaring need to use it.

     You always wanted to be the best, some deep and hidden part
of him whispered.  A man among men.  You were that; now you are
something more.  

     He stared at his hands, and slowly shook his head.  There
would be no more weeping anymore.  He could not afford the luxury
of it.

     "What have I become?"
     
     No answer.  What had he?
     
**********     

     They waited outside the iron door.  Brother and sister,
mirrored images.  Long silence between them; nothing to say.
Strangers, really.  

     After a time, the door opened, and Ranma Saotome came
through.  He had changed in the short time.  Nothing that could
be placed easily, but the air about him, the way he moved, was
subtly different.  It was in the eyes most of all; they had been
a soft grey before.  Darkened now, like storm clouds.

     "It is finished," he said, and there was an impossible
weariness in him.  Brother and sister stared at him.  Their eyes,
crimson as if dyed with the noble blood of their lineage, studied 
the aura of the one before them.  Each of them felt something 
akin to fear; there was nothing else to feel, in the face of what
they saw there.

     Herb nodded and said nothing.  He stepped by Ranma and
through the open door, closing it behind him as he went down the
long corridor towards the Lady's lake.  As his father before him
had, as every king of the Musk Clan had done since the end of
Ganzaio's reign over a thousand years ago, he went to go before 
the Lady.

     Wiyeed waited until her brother had left, and then carefully
took Ranma's head in her hands, and tilted his face down so that
she might kiss his brow.  She was the Lady's chosen, and what she
saw in Ranma Saotome now that he had come forth from his audience
with the Lady grieved her terribly.

     "Come now," she said gently, releasing him.  She spoke to 
him as the Highest One now, however else she might feel about 
him.  "You may rest, Lord of Waters."

     She led him up through the near-abandoned hallways of Chenmo
Shan.  Outside the door to the room they had met in, he stopped.

     She turned.  "Rest.  You are weary."
     
     Ranma shook his head.  "No.  I can't rest yet."
     
     "Sleep," she said quietly, and stretched out a hand to touch
him.  She knew what was best for him right now.

     He caught her wrist, and lightly traced her forehead with
the fingers of another hand.  "Sleep," he said gently.  With 
an expression of great surprise, Wiyeed slumped into his arms.  

     "Sorry," he said, carefully laying her down outside the 
door.  "But I have to make right what I can."

**********

     "Hey."
     
     Kima started and looked back.  She hadn't even heard the
door open.  Ranma stepped out from between the curtains onto the
balcony, his arms held loosely at his sides.  "Hello."

     He nodded and came to stand next to her at the railing,
resting his forearms on it.  "Kima?"

     She shifted her hands on the railing and moved a step away
from him.  "What?"

     "We've been through a lot since this started, haven't we?"
     
     She gave him a flat stare.  "Masterfully understated."
     
     He smiled, but there was an odd seriousness to his face.
"Yeah, I guess.  I just wanted to say..."  He trailed away into
silence, shaking his head.

     Despite herself, her interest was peaked.  "Say what?"
     
     "I wanted to say thanks," he said at last, as if she had not 
spoken at all.  "I think there are times when I couldn't have 
made it through without you and Cologne."

     She was silent for a moment, staring at him.  His eyes
seemed darker than she remembered.  "There are times when I could
say the same for you."

     Ranma laughed then, very softly.  He looked up at the stars,
and then spoke.  "When I was talking to Wiyeed, I realized 
something for the first time that I probably should have figured
out a long time ago."

     "And that would be?"
     
     He turned his eyes to gaze at her.  "Every friend I've ever
had started out as an enemy.  Weird, isn't it?"

     She felt transfixed by his stare.  "I suppose it is 
strange."

     He smiled at her, then went back to looking at the stars.
"I'm sorry about what happened to your wings, Kima."

     She winced.  "You already said that a long time ago.  I 
don't need to hear it again."

     "Do you miss flying?"
     
     "Of course I do."  A burst of anger swelled in her.  "Did
you ever think I wouldn't?"

     He shook his head.  "Sorry.  Stupid question, huh?"
     
     "Yes," she whispered, staring down the slope of the
mountain.  The breeze blew by her face, ruffling her bangs.  
Again, it carried the faint singing, though she could not make
out the words.  "Stupid."

     "Kima?"
     
     She looked up.  "What?" she asked snappishly.  She felt a
great desire to be alone again.

     Wordless, Ranma stepped away from the railing and spread his
hands out to his sides.  A pale fire limned them, and spread up 
his arms until his entire body was covered in a thin sheen of
light.  

     There was a stirring in the air, a gathering of wind, and
motes of dust rose to dance around Ranma's feet.  A subtle
shifting of his arms, and he rose a foot off the ground into the
air.

     Kima stared.  Her throat was suddenly dry.
     
     "Herb did something like this when I first met him," Ranma
said quietly.  "But he didn't seem to have enough control over
it.  I thought about it, though, and it's easy.  Come on."  He
held out his hand.

     Unable to speak, she reached out and took it.  He pulled her
in closer, and looped his free arm about her waist.  Almost
unconsciously, she crooked her arm around his neck, having to 
stand on the tips of her toes to do so.  
     
     They rose into the air, a bit shakily at first, but with
growing grace and speed.  Her legs dangled helplessly; frightened
and exhilarated at the same time, she pulled her hand from his
and clung to his waist, pressing against him.

     He laughed.  They dipped slightly, and moved off from 
hanging over the balcony.  A wind seemed to circle around them as
they moved; white fire coursed through the air.  A drop of
hundreds of feet hung below them.

     The wind shifted; they soared up into the air, and dived,
the air lifting her limp wings into a pantomime of flight for a
moment.  She laughed then; she could not help herself.  Glancing
to the side, she saw Ranma's face was alive with joy, his eyes
bright.  
     
     "This is wonderful," he said.  Smiled.
     
     "Yes," she murmured, a strange happiness spilling over in
her.  She laid her head against his shoulder and subtly tightened
her grip on him.  "Wonderful."

     Ranma stiffened at first, seeming surprised, and then he
relaxed.  His arm shifted slightly on her waist; he brought his
free hand up to rest it upon her upper back, at the joining of
her broken wings.

     Kima closed her eyes and sighed.  She breathed in the scent
of his skin, the tang of water.  The wind ran through her hair,
fluttered the skirts of her robe about her legs.

     Soon, too soon, her feet touched solid ground again.  Ranma
let go of her almost instantly; she risked a moment of longer
contact, and then stepped back, staring into his eyes.  He looked
back at her, something odd and hidden and almost vulnerable in 
his gaze.

     "Thank you," she said finally.  She inclined her head once
to him, hesitated for a moment.  "How do I do it?"

     Looking up, she saw the sadness in his eyes.  "You can't."
     
     She nodded.  Closed her eyes.  "I didn't think I could.  Why
not?"

     "There's just not enough power in you," Ranma answered
quietly.  "Herb, Wiyeed, I think they'd be able to do it.  
Maybe Cologne.  It's very draining."

     She nodded again, fought back the slight itching urge of
tears.  "It's alright."

     There was a silence from Ranma for a moment.  "No.  I didn't
come out here to show you that, to... I don't even know what made
me do it.  I should have told you right away..."

     The tone of his voice, the words, brought back the message
she had almost forgotten.  She cursed silently, wondering how it
could have slipped her mind, and pulled the scroll from her
pocket.  "Here.  You need to see this."

     Ranma opened it and read it in silence.  "Damn," he said at
the end, closing his eyes.  "Damn, damn, damn."  He shook his 
head, and sighed deeply.  "Shoulda expected it, though.  I'm not
gonna worry about it now.  I'm too far away to do anything."

     He tucked the scroll away and turned his attention back to
her.  "I think I can heal you."

     A tide of bitter pain.  "You already tried.  It didn't 
work."

     Ranma shook his head.  "No.  I wasn't going about it right.
I was trying to do it in the same way I healed Cologne, and that
wasn't the way I should have.  I... I'm starting to understand
more about the way these things work.  Let me try again.  
Please."

     Slowly, she nodded.  What harm could it really do; simply
another broken hope.  If it would make him happy, then let him
try.

     She turned her back to him, and, after a moment, felt his
strong hands touch lightly upon her back.  Hesitantly, he traced
the scarred joining between one wing and her back.

     She took a deep breath, and felt a tingling sensation where
his hands touched her skin.  He probed for a moment longer, and
then drew his hands away.

     "Helubor used Galm's knife, didn't he?"
     
     Mutely, she nodded.
     
     "Ahh," he said sagely.  "That's it, then."

     She could say nothing in return.  Fighting back the urge to
tremble, she reached out and closed her hands around the railing
of the balcony, and waited for it to end.
     
**********

     Ranma lifted the limp spread of one wing in his hand, and
again ran his fingers along the crippled joint between the wing
and her back.  The flesh was pale and scarred.  

     The last time he had tried this, the darkness in that wound
had nearly swallowed him.  He understood now; the blade had been
a part of the hound, and a part of the hound's power was in the
wound.

     He sank in, focusing on the texture and heat of skin, and
falling in deeper, past the healed cuts of the wounding, to the 
destroyed nerves and muscles.

     The darkness was waiting.  It seethed with hate and rage,
and howled and snapped at him as he came.  No chains bound it 
here; it stood like a guardian against the mending of this
crippling.

     Ranma raised light against it like a torch, and drove it
whimpering back.  On and on he came, burning the alien corruption
out, merciless and inexorable.  The darkness tried feebly to
fight back, but it was no match for that which burned it.  
Snarling, it fled.

     Now there was the wounding only.  A terrible crippling, and
in the wound was bound a deeper pain.  Carefully, Ranma sought 
the edges of it.  This was not the unconscious healing he had
done to Cologne; that had been instinct.  This was precise as 
surgery, infinitely finer.

     Some wounds healed with time.  New skin grew over cuts, 
toxins purged themselves from the system, even broken bones might
knit in time.  Some didn't.  So time was no help.

     But the body, the body knew itself.  The way it had been
when it was born, the shape that it would pass on to its 
children.  If time might flow backwards then, and make the torn
flesh remember the perfection of the earlier form, what then?

     You know yourself, he whispered gently.  Show me.  Be 
healed.  He stroked lightly with his power.  The answer came 
back.  After that, it was easy.  As if he had been doing it 
since he was born, he set the sparks of light singing through 
the wound, and felt muscle stir and grow anew, severed tendon 
knit together.  

     He left it doing that, and turned to the other wing.  The
darkness was there too, and it howled and fled before his 
blazing light.  Exulting, he did as he had done before.  And
stepped back, out from the sinking into flesh and blood and bone,
away from the healed pain.

     Kima turned from the balcony and stared at him.  A tremble
seemed to pass through her entire body.  Subtly, almost 
imperceptibly, her wings trembled in time.  An expression of vast
disbelief showed on her face.

     "You did it," she whispered numbly.
     
     He grinned.  "How do you feel?"
     
     "Like I've been flying for days without rest," she answered
quietly.  "My wings ache; I don't think I could fly if I needed
to.  But I can feel them.  I can feel them, Ranma."
     
     She reached out and took one of his hands in hers.  Bending
her head, she brought it to her lips.  "Thank you," she said, and
lightly kissed it.  He felt a drop of liquid splash against his
wrist; a tear.  They were streaming down her face, falling on his
hand, on the floor of the balcony, on everything.
     
     Embarrassed, he slowly pulled his hand away, and stared into
her eyes as she raised her head.  "I gotta go wake up Wiyeed."

     "What?"
     
     He looked uncomfortably at the floor.  "Long story."
     
     Inexplicably, through the falling of her tears, Kima 
laughed.  It was infectious; after a moment, he laughed as well.
Their laughter rang out, and mingled with the singing that had 
not ended in fourteen centuries, and with the sound of the water
flowing over rock, and the silent music of the stars that hung
above their heads; in its own way, as much a defiance of the
Dark as any blow they had yet struck.

-End of Chapter 29

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