Ranma - The Wild Stallion.  Teaser 2.
A Ranma 1/2 fusion/multi-crossover
by Shampoo

Disclaimer:
Ranma 1/2 Belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, Viz Communications, and Kitty 
Films.  And other characters and/or ideas belong to their corresponding 
creators.  And are not mine.


Part of this story, of course-the sad, murderous part-Ranma di not learn 
until years later.  For good reason, Mousse was a secretive boy, and he 
would grow to be a secretive man.  It was a mark of his unusual trust in 
Ranma that he had told him as much as he had.  "I've given up everything 
to enter the Academy," he said to Ranma.  "My whole life."

He coughed for a long time, and Ranma listened to the ragged, ripping 
sound.  The huge Dome was full of sound:  wind breaking against the 
clary panes high above, chattering teeth, and two thousand shivering 
boys grumbling and wondering how long they would be made to wait in such 
a frigid place.  Then a deep voice called out, "Silence, it's time!" The 
Head Novice, with a look of command written over his narrow face, 
quickly made his way to the center of the Ice Dome.  "Silence, it's time 
for the first test.  Form a queue at the nearest doorway; a novice will 
lead you to your first test.  Silence!  Once the test begins, anyone 
caught talking will be dismissed."

Ranma looked at Mousse and whispered, "I wish you well."

"I wish you, Ranma the Wild."

They began their walk across Borja, then.  Boys and girls clad in thin 
white robes issued forth from many of the buildings.  That year, some 
seven thousand petitions to compete in the festival had been accepted; 
long lines of would-be novices filled the glidderies.  The sun was now 
high in the southern sky, and everywhere the spires were awash in the 
hot, false winter light.  It was much warmer than it had been inside the 
Ice Dome.  A film of water mirrored the red ice of the lesser 
glidderies.  It was so slippery that some of the petitioners linked arms 
and proceeded very carefully.  Others hurried recklessly along in sudden 
bursts of speed, using their flat leather sandals to skid and hydroplane 
across the ice.  Ranma stayed near Mousse, waiting for him to slip and 
fall momentarily.  But Mousse kept his balance, even as they made their 
way toward Tycho's Spire. Above them-above the dormitories and lesser 
buildings-this giant needle marked the very center of Borja.  Ranma 
liked the feeling of the novices' college; it was a place of beauty that 
had taken centuries to evolve and unfold.  On most of the buildings, 
variegated lichens burned across the stonework in lovely rossettes of 
ocher, orange, and red.  Many old yu trees had grown almost as high as 
the spires themselves.  It was impossible to stand on any lawn of the 
Academy and not hear the kap, kap, kap of mauli birds pecking at the 
bark.  The smooth, immaculate glidderies, the fireflowers, the snow 
loons hunting yu berries in the snow-here, Ranma thought, was a place 
touched by the arts of mankind, and perhaps steeped the unutterable 
essence of halla.

Beneath the Tycho's Tower, surrounded by eight buildings that house the 
various computers used in the novices' education, is the beloved Lavi 
Square.  That is to say, it is beloved by the novices who gather there 
to gossip and greet new friends, and to enjoy a few moments (or hours) 
of open sky.  The petitioners rarely come to love Lavi Square.  Every 
year, the Test of Patience is held there.  This is the first test of the 
Festival of Unfortunate Petitioners, and every year it takes a different 
form.  Every year, the Master of Novices delights in designing trials to 
cull the most patient of petitioners.  Sometimes the unfortunate boys 
and girls are made to recite poetry until their voices are hoarse, and 
the weak among them beg to be allowed surcease from the torment of 
speaking; one time, ten years before, they were required to stay awake 
and attentive while an historian lectured about the manifold horrors of 
the fifth Mentality and the Second Dark Age.  Only those few boys and 
girls who had remained awake after three days had been allowed to take 
the second test.

Along with Mousse-and seven thousand other boys and girls-Ranma was 
herded into the Square.  For a hundred fifty yards along the length and 
breadth of the Square, seven thousand straw mats were laid out in a neat 
array.  Each mat was a rectangle three feet wide and four feet long.  
The mats were jammed close together, their frayed edges separated by 
only a few inches of white ice.  A novice bade the petitioners to each 
kneel on a mat.  Ranma took his place on a mat next to Mousse.  The 
sharp, ragged ends of the straw pricked his knees, and the mat was so 
worn and full of holes that the wet ice beneath bathed him with waves of 
cold.

"Silence, it's time!" the Head Novice cried out again.

The petitioners fell silent as they looked up expectantly, eager to 
learn the nature of that year's test.  Except for a few yu trees laden 
with red fruit and some ice sculptures (and twelve precious shih trees 
from Simoom), the Square was entirely stived with row upon row of 
nervous girls and boys.  Ranma smelled clean, childish sweat and the 
ferment of overripe berries.  From the buildings towering over them came 
the plip, plip of melting icicles.  There was anxiety in the air, a 
chill intensity of anticipation.

"Silence, it's time to present the Master of Novices, Pesheval Lal!

>From the building behind the novice, a man emerged from the doorway and 
made his way down a flight of steps.  His birth name was Pesheval Lal, 
and the novices and journey men called him Master Lal, but everywhere 
else he was famous simply as Genma.  (Or as Genma the Just.)  Genma's 
formal black robe was tight across his immense chest and belly.  Whit is 
the color of Borja, and all novices wear white, but Genma the Just had 
been a pilot before assuming the office of Master of Novices; like the 
other pilots he was properly dress in color.

"Yes, silence!" his voice boomed out, echoing the novice's injunction.  
He was a huge man, and he had a huge voice.  He sternly looked from 
petitioner to petitioner.  He had cunning, superb eyes that didn't miss 
very much when it came to judging human character.  Occasionally he 
would favor one of the petitioners with a smile and a slight head bow.  
He strolled about with a ponderous, heavy gait, as if he were hugely 
bored with himself and the impromptu judgments he had to make.

"Silence!" his shouted, and his voice vibrated from building to building 
across the square.  "You'll be silent while I explain the rules of this 
ear's test.  The rules are simple.  No one will be allowed off his mat 
except to relieve himself.  Ah...or herself.  There will be no eating or 
drinking.  Anyone caught talking will be immediately dismissed.  
Anything not forbidden is permitted.  It's a simple test, by Kami! 
You're here to wait."

And so they waited.  Seven thousand children, not one of whom was older 
than fifteen years, waited in the warmth of the false winter sun.  
Mostly they waited in silence.  Mousse, of course, couldn't help 
coughing, but none of the officious novices patrolling up and down the 
rows of petitioners seemed to bear him any ill feelings.  Ranma listened 
to this coughing, and he worried how Mousse would stand the bite of the 
evening air.  He thought to distract Mousse's ailing spirit with a 
little music, to take him out of himself.  He removed the shakuhachi 
from beneath his robe and began to play.  The low, breathy melody he 
composed caught the attention of everyone around him.  Most of the 
petitioners seemed to enjoy the music; the novices, thought, were not 
pleased.  They shot Ranma poisonous looks, as if they were insulted that 
he had found a clever way around Genma's injunction to silence.  To be 
sure, he was not talking, but in many ways the music he made was purer 
communication than mere words.

In this manner, kneeling on his straw mat, blowing continuously down his 
long bamboo flute, Ranma whiled away the endless afternoon.  it was a 
beautiful day, really, a day of warmth and pungent air wafting down from 
the mountains.  the shih trees beneath the buildings were snowy with 
white blossoms, and clouds of newly hatched fritillaries sipped nectar 
and filled the air with an explosion of bright violet wings.  It wasn't 
hard for him to wait, with the sun burning hot against the clear sky.  A 
million needles of light stung his neck and face.  He closed his eyes 
and played on and on, taking the little notice of the sun as it grew 
large and crimson in the west.  When twilight feel, the first chill of 
evening stole over the petitioners, but he was still warm and fluid 
inside with the music of dream time.  Then the stars came out, and it 
was cold.  The cold touched him, gently at first, and then more 
urgently.  He opened his eyes to darkness and cold air.  There above 
Nerima's edge, the sky was almost clear of light pollution; the sky was 
black and  full of stars.  In unseen waves, heat escaped Nerima and 
radiated upward into the sky.  There were no clouds or moisture in the 
air to hold in the heat.

"It's cold! I can't stand this cold!"

Ranma noticed the named Ryuu sitting ten yards in front of him, sitting 
and cursing as he beat his legs to keep warm.  A cadre of novices 
converged on him and grasped his robe. "Your face!" Ryuu shouted.  "Your 
rotting face!"  But the novices took no notice of his bad manners or 
profanity; they immediately escorted him from the Square.  And then 
groups of ten or a hundred gave up en masse, abandoning their fellows, 
and so abandoned their quest to enter the Order.  By the time night had 
grown full and deep, only some three thousand petitioners remained.

Just before midnight, a wicked round of coughing alerted Ranma as to the 
gravity of Mousse's illness.  It wasn't very cold-at least it was no 
colder than the interior of a snow hut-but Mousse was shivering as he 
coughed, bent low with his face pressing his mat, shivering beyond 
control.  If he didn't give up and seek shelter soon he would surely 
die.  But Mousse didn't look as if he were ready to give up.  The hard 
straw had cut parallel marks into his forehead and cheek; his eyes were 
open to the light of the flame globes shining at the edge of the Square.  
Such eyes he had, a pale brown burning as the hellish blinkans in the 
sky burned, strangely and with terrible intensity.  Something terrible 
and beautiful inside Mousse was holding him to his mat, keeping him 
coughing in the cold.  Ranma could almost see this think, this pure, 
luminous will of Mousse's beyond even the will to life.  Each man and 
woman is a star, he remembered and something  brilliant and beautiful 
about Mousse's spirit attracted him, just as a fritillary is compelled 
to seek a wood fire's fatal light.

"Mousse!" he whispered.  He couldn't help himself.  The urge to speak to 
this willful boy before he died was greater than his fear of being 
dismissed as a petitioner.  He had a strange, overwhelming feeling that 
if he could somehow see the true Mousse, he would learn everything about 
shaida and halla.  Waiting until none of the novices was near, he 
whispered again, "Mousse, it is best not to touch your head to the ice.  
The ice, even through the mat-it is very cold.  Colder than the air, 
yes?"

Through his chattering teeth, Mousse forced out, "I've...never...been so 
cold."

Ranma looked around him.  Most of the nearby mats were empty, and those 
few petitioners who were within listening distance were curled up like 
dogs and seemed to be asleep.  He pitched his voice low and said, "I 
have seen to many people go over.  And you, you will go over soon, I 
think, unless you--"

"No, I won't quit!"

"But your life," Ranma whispered, "to keep it warm and quick, your life 
is--"

"My life's worth nothing unless I can live it as I must!"

"But you do not know how to live...in the cold."

"I'll have to learn, then, won't I?"

Ranma smiled into the darkness. He squeezed the cold bamboo shaft of the 
shakuchachi and said, "Can you wait a little, longer?  I will be morning 
soon. False winter nights are short."

"Why are you talking to me?"  Mousse suddenly wanted to know.  "Aren't 
you afraid of being caught?"

"Yes," Ranma said in a soft voice.  "I know we should not be talking."

"You're different form the others."  Mousse swept his arm in an arc, 
waving at the motionless petitioners slumped down on their mats.  "Look 
at them, asleep on the most important night of their lives.  None of 
them would take such a chance-you're not like them at all."

Ranma touched Kima's feather and thought back to the night of his 
passage into manhood.  "It is hard to be different, yes?"

"It's hard to have a sense of yourself.  Most people don't know who they 
are."

"It is as if they were lost in a sarsara," Ranma agreed.  "But it is 
hard to see yourself, the truth.  Who am I, after all? Who is anyone?"

Mousse coughed wickedly, then laughed.  "If you can ask that question, 
you already know."

"But I do not really know anything."

"And that's the deepest knowledge of all."

They looked at each other knowingly and broke into soft laughter.  
Immediately, though, their laughter died when a novice clacked across 
the Square ten rows behind them.  As they waited for him to pass, Mousse 
blew on his hands and began shivering again.

When it seemed safe, Ranma asked, "You would risk your life to enter the 
Academy?"

"My life?" Mousse rasped out.  "No, I'm not as ready to die as you seem 
to think."

He coughed for a while, then Ranma asked, "Did you journey here to 
become a pilot?  It is my fate to be a pilot, I think."

"Your fate?"

"I have dreamed of being..." Ranma began, and then fell silent.  "I...I 
have always wanted to be a pilot."

"I also," Mousse said.  "To be a pilot, to interface with the world's 
chi, this continual vastening the pilots are allowed-that's the 
beginning of everything."

"I had not thought of it that way."  Ranma looked up at the Wolf and 
Thallow constellations and the other stars, and said simply, "I will 
become a pilot so I can journey to the center of the Great Circle, to 
see if the universe is halla or shaida."

He closed his eyes and pressed his cold thumbs against his eyelids.  To 
see the universe as it really is and say "yes" to that truth, as man and 
as asarya-how could he explain his dream to anyone?  In truth, the 
Alaloi are forbidden to reveal their nighttime dreams or visions, so how 
could he tell Mousse that he had dreamed of becoming an asarya?

"what is this word 'hall' that you keep using?"  Mousse asked.

Ranma listened to the wind rise and whoosh between the buildings.  It 
fell over him, and he began to shiver.  Despite his discomfort, he loved 
the chill of the wind against his face, the way it carried in the sea 
smells and a feeling of freedom.  How exhilarating it was to talk long 
past midnight with such an aware, new friend! How reckless to talk 
beneath the novices' ears with only the wind for cover! Suddenly the 
utter strangeness of kneeling on a scratchy mat and waiting with three 
thousand other freezing boys and girls was too much.  he found himself 
telling Mousse about the death of his parents and his journey to Nerima.  
He tried  to tell him about the harmony and beauty of life, then, but he 
found that the simple Alaloi concepts he had been taught sounded trite 
and naive when translated into civilized language.  "Hall is the cry of 
the wolf when he calls to his brothers and sisters," he said.  "And it 
is halla that the stars should shine at night when the sun falls beneath 
the mountains.  Hall is the way...the way false winter takes away the 
cold, and the way false winter dies into the colder seasons so the 
animals do not become too many and crowd the ice.  Halla is...oh, 
blessed halla! it is so fragile when you try to define it, like crossing 
morilka, the death ice.  the greater weight you give it, the more likely 
it is to break.  Hall is.  Sometimes, lately, I think of it as pure 
isness. A way of simply being."

Mousse pressed his lips together as he turned his face away from the 
wind and tried not to cough.  "I've never known anyone like you before," 
he marveled.  "To cross a thousand miles of ice looking for something 
you call halla-and to do it alone!"

"Old Father warned me that if I told anyone, they might not believe me.  
You will not...tell anyone else?"

"Of course I won't.  But you should know, I believe you."

"Yes?"

Mousse stared at the feather in Ranma's hair, then coughed and said, 
"Ranma the Wild--you *look* a little wild.  And the way you see things, 
so wild.  I'll have to think about what you've said.  Especially about 
being.  Can it be enough just to be? I've always dreamed of becoming."

"Becoming...what?"

"Becoming more," Mousse said.

While Mousse bent low with another coughing fit, Ranma touched the 
shakuhachi's ivory mouthpiece with his lips.  "But, Mousse," he said.  
He reached over and touched the boy's forehead.  It was burning hot.  
"Mousse, Mousse, you are not becoming.  Your are dying."

"No, that's silly,"  Mousse said hoarsely.  "Please don't say that."

After that, he lost his voice and began coughing in great breaking 
waves.  Ranma wondered why the novices or Genma the Just, who strolled 
among the petitioners from time to time, didn't take the unfortunate, 
dying boy inside somewhere to heal him.  He decided that entering the 
Order must be a kind of passage.  And like all passages into new levels 
of being, there must always be danger and the possibility of death.

"Will you play your flute now?"  Mousse whispered.  "I can't talk 
anymore."

Ranma wet his lips and smiled.  "It is soothing, yes?"

"Soothing? No, it's haunting, really.  Haunting.  There's something 
about the way you play, the music.  Something I can't bear to hear.  But 
something I have to hear.  Do you understand?"

Ranma played his music, then, even though his mouth was so dry that the 
playing was difficult.  He licked his lips for the hundredth time.  He 
was very thirsty.  Since the morning coffee, he had drunk nothing, and 
his tongue was dry against his teeth, as dry as old seal leather.  Of 
course he was hungry, too, with his belly tightening up empty and 
aching, but the hunger wasn't as bad as his need for water.  And, in 
truth, he was colder than he was thirsty.  Soon, perhaps, the thirst 
would grow angry and all consuming, but now, as he played, the cold was 
more immediate, like a stiff, frozen fur touching every part of him.  
the wind blew down his neck, and the mat was icy against his legs.  It 
was hard to move his fingers, especially the two smallest ones on his 
right hand: as a child, he had burned them in the oilstones, and they 
were stiff with scar over the knuckles and now almost numb.  Somewhat 
clumsily, he played his music while Mousse watched and listened.  And on 
Mousse's delicate face, in his eyes, there was a look of anguish, 
whether from the music or cold it was hard to tell.  Ranma played to the 
anguish, all the time thinking of Old Father and the "holy pain" that he 
delighted in causing others.  Ranma took no joy in others' suffering, 
but he could appreciate the need for pain as a stimulant.  Pain is the 
awareness of life-that was a saying of the Alaloi tribes.  Life was 
pain, and in Mousse's pain, there was still an urge to life.  This 
miracle of living, though was such a delicate thing liable to end at any 
moment.  He could see that Mousse was dying-how much longer could his 
will and inner fury keep him alive?  Death is the left hand of life, he 
thought, a death is halla, but suddenly he did not want Mousse to die.

He set down the shakuhachi and whispered, "Mousse, Mousse, keep your 
hands inside your robe.  Do not blow on them.  fingers claw the cold 
from the air--do you understand?"

Mousse nodded and thrust his hands into either of his loose sleeves.  He 
said nothing as he began to cough and shiver even more violently.

"Mouse, Mouse, you were not made for the cold, were you?"

Ranma rolled the thin wool of his robe between his fingers and smiled 
grimly.  The wind rose up and drove particles of ice across the Square.  
It seemed that everyone was shivering, even the tired novices in their 
white jackets. For a long time, as the wind continued to blow, he looked 
at Mousse.  Mousse had spoken sophisticated words, and he had courage, 
but in truth he was still just a boy, uncut and unseasoned against the 
world's bitterness.  He was frail and sick, and he would go over soon.  
Ranma watched and waited for him to go over.  He waited, all the while 
wondering what dread, mysterious affinity connected his life with 
Mousse's. He studied Mousse's fevered face, and somewhat worried at the 
turn of his thoughts, he decided that he and Mousse must share the same 
doffel.  Surely Mousse's spirit animal must be the snowy owl or perhaps 
one of the other kinds of thallow.

Then, in the deepest, coldest part of night with the wind dying and the 
world fallen silent, just before down, Ranma heard Ahira calling him.  
"Ranma, Ranma," his other-self said, "Mousse is your brother spirit and 
you must not let him die." Rashly, almost without thought, Ranma 
shrugged off his robe.  There was a smile on his lips, grim necessity in 
his eyes.  then he leaned closer to Mousse and worked the rough wool 
over his head, down over his trembling body.  He knelt back down on his 
own mat, freezing and naked, astonished at what he had done.

Mousse stared at him and smiled faintly.  After a while he closed his 
eyes in exhaustion.  Ranma scooped up a few of the nearby mats and built 
a half pyramid over him.  The overlapping mats--and his robe--might keep 
the wind from killing him.

"Ranma, Ranma, there is no pain as terrible as cold," Ahira whispered to 
him.

While Ranma clenched his fists to keep from shivering, Mousse fell into 
unconsciousness and began to dream.  It was obvious he was dreaming: his 
eyelids fluttered like the wings of a fritillary, and he moved his 
cracked, bleeding lips silently.  then he began to murmur in his sleep, 
to call out for his father.  "No, no, Father," he said. "No, no."

"Mousse you must be quiet!" Ranma whispered.  He looked around to see if 
any of the other petitioners had been awakened.  Among the Alaloi it is 
taboo to disturb the sleep of others with one's own dreams.  Sleep is 
the sacred time, the return to the natural state, which is at once the 
source and sustenance of the spirit.  To reveal a dream is to infect 
another's spirit with images that must remain secret.  If dreams weren't 
kept sacred, Ranma believed, the spirits of all men and women would fall 
into confusion and madness. "Mousse, Mousse, wake up if you cannot 
sleep!"

But Mousse was now lost into nightmare.  There was sweat on his face, 
terror on his lips. "Father, Father!" he began to cry out. "No, no, 
no--"

His shouts were cut off abruptly when Ranma leaned over and clamped his 
hand over his mouth. "Shhh!" Ranma said.  His cold hand hurt with the 
breath burning out of Mousse's nose. "Shhh, go to sleep now!" he 
whispered.  "Shantih, go to sleep."

He cradled Mousse's head in the crook of his arm as he held his hand 
hard over the boy's mouth.  He was afraid one of the novices might hear 
the muffled cries. But the nearest novice was fifty yards away leaning 
against the trunk of a shih tree and heard nothing.  Soon, to the 
whispered supplication of "Shantih, go to sleep!" Mousse fell into 
dreamlessness and peace.  When he was quiet and still, Ranma let him go 
and returned to kneeling on his mat.  He looked at the thousands of mats 
lining the ice of Lavi Square, at the thousands of suffering children; 
never in his life had he felt so cold, so abandoned, so utterly alone.

With dawn came a rising of the wind and the sun.  "Lura Sawel," Ranma 
whispered.  "O blessed sun, be quick to take away the teeth of the 
wind." But the sun as not quick that morning and the wind was still 
cold.  They sky was salmon-red, frozen with high, wispy clouds.  Soon 
after first light, the sun still lost behind the mountains to the east, 
Genma the Just appeared to take inventory of the night's attrition.  He 
sent the novices scurrying up and down the ranks and rows.  They counted 
the petitioners on  their mats. Most of the mats were empty.  Only one 
thousand twenty-two petitioners remained.  And of these, only one 
thousand and twenty would continue the competition into the next 
day--during the night, two girls had died.  The novices found them dead 
on their mats, seemingly asleep.

They found something else, too.  A cadre of novices one skates 
surrounded Mousse and Ranma.  "Look!" one of them pointed. "This boy is 
naked!"

Genma made his way carefully among the petitioners.  Despite his girth, 
he was light on his feet and adept at moving across ice.  He waggled a 
finger at Mousse, half covered with mats and still unconscious.  "And 
this boy," he said, "is wearing two robes.  Why is he wearing two 
robes?" He turned to Ranma, and his carmine lips were tight with 
disapproval.  "You're naked, by Kami! Do you understand me, boy? Incline 
your head once if you answer is 'yes.' Did you give this other boy your 
robe?"

Ranma nodded his head.  He was kneeling low with his thighs pressing his 
chest.  His skin was ivory in the early light, and along his naked back 
and sides, the muscles quivered like the strings of a gosharp.  He hated 
it that everyone was looking at him.

"Extraordinary!" Genma thundered.  "Remarkable--this is worthy of 
remark.  In all my years as Master of Novices, I've never seen such a 
selfless act.  Who would have thought anyone would strip off his robe 
and give it to another?  Why did you do that, boy? Ah, excuse me, you 
may not speak.  Such a selfless act--and reckless!  How do you think to 
last another day?  It's damn cold out here!"

Ranma looked up, saying nothing.  Something in his deep blue eyes must 
have irritated Genma, for he snapped, "Don't stare at me, boy, it's 
impolite!  Ah, why, why, why must I suffer these impolitenesses?"

Ranma continued to stare, not at Genma, with his black beard and sad, 
self-pitying face, but rather through him, up at the sky. Ti-miura hall, 
he thought, follow your fate.  He stared at the beautiful circle of the 
sky, at the cloud patterns and colors.  Ti-miura hall.

Obviously, Genma the Just mistook this unspoken, open-eyed pray of 
Ranma's as a sign of defiance.  "Impolite boy!" he said.  "Does anyone 
know this boy's name?"

A conceited-seeming novice name Kuno came closer and said, "I saw him in 
the Ice Dome--they call him Ranma the Wild."

"Then stay close to this wild boy for the rest of the day," Genma said.  
"Watch him--I'll be dining at the Hofgarten, so you'll have to watch him 
closely." He looked back and forth between Ranma and Mousse, all the 
while muttering, "Impolite boy!"

And so Ranma knelt beneath the watchful eyes of the novice, Tatewaki 
Kuno.  Kuno was the oldest of the high novices patrolling the Square; he 
was a diligent boy with hard narrow eyes, and smooth narrow face.  Like 
some of the high novices, he liked to torment first-year novices and 
petitioners.  He kept a vigil over Ranma and Mousse.  From time to time, 
to his passing friends, he would call out witticisms such as:  "Behold 
the boy of Ice! How does he keep from freezing to death?  Has he had his 
blood carked with juf?  with drugs?  Behold Ranma the Wild!"

some of the other novices skated closer to gawk at Ranma.  Soon, word of 
his deep spread throughout Borja.  Novices fresh from their morning 
thought exercises took a few moments to pass through Lavi Square.  Ranma 
was surrounded with girls and boys laughing, pointing at him.  Hundreds 
of steel blades cracked the ice near him and flung up patches of 
chiseled snow.  Hunched over as he was in the unfamiliar kneeling 
posture, his muscles began to ache and cramp.  he longed to move, to 
stretch out his stiff legs, but he did not want anyone to view the cuts 
and scars of his manhood.

"I've never seen a naked boy before!" a pretty novice giggled. "His 
arms, his back, the muscles--he looks like a sculpture of a god!"

Another girl stood next to her beneath a shih tree. She was older, a 
brown-haired journeyman holist almost womanly in the fullness of her 
body.  She craned her neck to get a better view and said, "Well I have 
seen naked boys before.  This Ranma the Wild, whoever he is--he's 
splendid."

Many of the petitioners were up on their mats, watching him, too.  And 
as the morning passed, quite a few masters from Lara Sig and Upplysa 
came to see what could be causing such a commotion.  One of them, the 
famous remembrance Tofu Onu, chastised Kuno for his cruelty. Master Tofu 
Onu, who had a noble face, smoothed out the folds of his silver robe and 
said, "Kuno, don't you remember when you began your novitiate three 
years ago?  What was it they called you--Kuno the Blue Blunder?  And now 
you accuse this boy of carking his flesh with juf.  Yes, there are 
substances to keep the blood from freezing, but they are no help against 
cold and hypothermia.  He gave his robe to another!  You should applaud 
his act, not deride him for it."

In truth, many of the people standing over Ranma seemed to be in awe of 
his toughness and resolve, as well as his selflessness.  "He gave his 
robe to his friend," one novice or another would explain to the 
continuous stream of arriving spectators.  "He's been like this all 
night, naked as ice."

Kuno shooed away a couple of novices who were standing too close.  He 
stripped off his white glove, then bent over and felt Ranma's back.  
"And his skin is cold as ice," he announced.

"What about the other boy?"

"His face is hot," Kuno said as he held his fingers to Mousse's cheek. 
"He's sick.  I don't know how either of them will last the day."

One of Kuno's fellow novices agreed.  "Not this day--that's certain.  I 
think it will snow before nightfall."

Indeed, the sky was full of snow sign; Ranma had known since first light 
that there would be snow that day.  he smelled moisture in the air, the 
ominous shifting of the wind to the south.  And then there was no wind, 
and the clouds thickened up, the silver wisps growing out of nowhere 
into an impenetrable, icy gray.  A wet cold descended over the world.  
Eeshakaleth, as the Alaloi named it.  On many mornings of his life, he 
had felt the coldness before snow.  And now, waiting beneath the gray, 
gravid sky, there was a foreboding that recalled his deepest memories, 
distant childhood images of chilled teeth, bewilderment, and dread.  He 
feared the snow.  No man (or boy), he thought, should have to bare his 
flesh to the snow.  Suddenly, in shivering waves tearing down his chest 
and belly, he was afraid of snow as he had never been before.

That afternoon snow began to fall. Large sharp flakes broke against his 
back and melted.  Ice water pooled against his spine, and in freezing 
rivulets ran down his side.  Every particle of melted snow stole a 
little heat from his body, and there were many, many particles of snow.  
His numbed skin, his throat, his eyes--everything about him hurt.  There 
is no pain so terrible as cold, he thought.  Soon, he would stop 
shivering, and then he must ask to be carried inside, either that or 
die.

He might have quit, then, but he remembered that he was engaged in a 
competition.  Beside him, deep in fever, Mousse still slept.  Often, 
Ranma thought his sleep was with death.  Each time when he had almost 
given up hope, however, Mousse would cough, and the snowy mats covering 
him would rattle and shake.  The fever was saving the boy, keeping him 
warm beneath layers of robes, mats, and snow.  All the others around 
him, of course, were also being covered with snow.  And they each wore 
robes, but there was no real heat in clothing.  Clothing could keep heat 
in; it could not make heat.  Only a living thing such as a star or a 
body's inner fires could make heat.

"Look at them quit!" Ranma heard one of the novices exclaim.  "A little 
snow and they can't stand it."

Many petitioners began standing up, brushing snow from their sodden 
robes, and leaving the Square.  All but a few of the mats within fifty 
yards of Ranma and Mousse were empty.  Ranma lifted his head to count 
the remaining petitioners.  A stand of yu trees obscured his vision; he 
couldn't see much of the Square's southern half.  But from what he could 
see--rows of abandoned mats broken here and there by a miserable, 
shivering, snow-covered child--he estimated that only two hundred of 
them were left.  Two hundred out of seven thousand! How much longer, he 
wondered, would Genma the Just allow the competition to go on?

"Behold the boy of ice!"  Kuno called out.  There was vindictiveness in 
h is voice, and darker emotions.  Despite Master Tofu's chastisement--or 
because of it--he obviously had decided to hate Ranma.  "Why not quit?  
Shall I take you inside where it's warm?  Why not quit now, while you 
can, Wild Boy? Ranma the Wild, the Nameless Child--don't you think you 
should quit?"

Snow covered Ranma's head and back; even the upturned soles of his feet 
were layered with snow.  His skin had fallen blue cold, too cold to melt 
the snow.

"Quit now! Wouldn't it be so easy to quit?"

Ranma was breathing hard, almost gasping for air.  He had stopped 
shivering.  His muscles had hardened up like knots of cold shatterwood; 
he didn't know if he could move to stand, even if he were willing to 
quit.  His belly ached with cold.  The cold mat cut his kneecaps.  The 
cold was like a stone point being hammered into his bones.  Soon even 
his bones would grow numb, but now there was agony along his legs and 
spine.  Cold and pain, pain and cold--it seemed that the world was made 
of nothing else.  He tried to think of a way out of the cycle of pain, 
but his thoughts were sluggish, as opaque and slow-moving as glacier 
ice.  Why should he care about the world's pain, or even his own?  He 
began falling into a deep well of torpor and insensibility.  He 
remembered that certain hunters of his tribe had spoken of a discipline 
called Ki. Ki, the burning of the blood.  there was a way to look 
within, to light the body's inner fires and burn with warmth.  Anyone 
could learn this way.  Any man, that is.  He knew that the art of Ki was 
part of the Song of Life, a small part of the lore he would have been 
taught had he completed his passage into manhood.  Only a man could 
apprehend the ebb and flow of the world's energies.  (He wondered if the 
women taught such arts in their ceremonies, but he didn't know.)  Only a 
man could have enough experience of himself to look inward at that 
secret place where the fires of being burst into life.

Only a man...He remembered certain things that Herb had once told him 
about Ki.  As in the open-waiting attitude of the hunter, the face of 
being must be cleared. But instead of looking through the other side of 
day with clear vision, he must look deep within for his Ki; 
specifically, he must look for the life fire that is the most vital part 
of Ki, and in so doing, he must face himself.

Because the world was only a swirling cloud of snow--because his sight 
was failing--he closed his eyes.  There was darkness and silence as vast 
as the night.  He descended into himself it was like venturing into an 
unknown, unexplored cavern.  Unknown, and yet he seemed instinctively to 
know the way.  The remembered stories of his elders guided him; he could 
almost hear Herb chanting, "Ti-miura Ki, ti-miura wilu sibana: to follow 
your Ki, follow the hunger of your will."  Deep in his belly he found 
the place where his Ki dwelt.  Behind his navel, almost touching his 
spine--that was the secret place.  At birth, the navel of man was cut 
off from creation's fires, but deeper inside a part of the sacred flame 
always burned.  And now the flame was as tenuous and dim as that of a 
dying oilstone; now he must make it burn more brightly.  He envisioned 
the fat tissues of his body. Between skin and muscle, in his chest, 
belly, and groin, along the soles of his feet and the palms of his 
hands, was a thin layer of fat.  He was lean as knotted rope leather, 
but even bodies that have once starved retain a trace of fat.  There was 
scant fat, but what little there was, he envisioned melting like blubber 
inside an oilstone.  Melting, heating, flowing inside him, catching 
fire.  There was a fire in his belly, then, and it was hot.  It burned 
and grew hotter, touched his blood. The fire of life raced along his 
blood.  His veins were burning vessels of fire, burning and branching 
down his legs and arms, quickening even his numbed fingertips with heat.  
Into his skin came a hot, red flush.  The snow atop his back began to 
thaw.  Soon the snow was falling down his sides in slushy clumps.  
Snowflakes striking his bare, red skin dissolved instantly into drops of 
water.  But the water was not cold; he felt life rushing hot in every 
part of him, and he couldn't imagine ever being cold again.

"Look!" someone said.  "Look how red his skin is! The snow's melting off 
him."

Kuno worked his skates closer to Ranma and felt his arm. "It's hot," he 
said. "It was cold, and now it's hot."

"I've heard of such things," another said.  "Down in the Farsider's 
Quarter, some of the avadhutas soak their robes in water.  And sit 
outside in winter all night long.  They dry their robes with their body 
heat.  Do you think he's an avadhuta?"

"Who knows?" Kuno said.  He picked at one of the pimples on his cheek.  
He did not seem pleased.  "it must be a trick, though.  A drug.  No one 
could melt snow like this without drugs."

The crowd surrounding Ranma broke into tens of arguments.  Most of the 
novices wanted to believe that he hadn't used drugs, though no one 
seemed to know what else could be the source of his heat.

Just then, Genma the Just returned, wobbling on his skates.  Despite the 
snow, his bulging forehead was dripping with sweat.  His huge nose, 
which was shot with a webwork of tiny broken veins, glistened 
purple-black.  He liked to drink sake at any time of day; the novices 
knew this, and they tried to avoid him when he was drunk.  "By God, what 
do any of you know about drugs!" he shouted as he heaved closer and 
wrapped his moist meaty hand around the back of Ranma's neck. "He is 
hot," he pronounced.  "But it can't be the result of a drug.  When have 
the petitioners ever been tested by cold before, eh?  Until the day 
before yesterday, I myself, Genma the Just, didn't know what this year's 
test would be.  How could this wild boy know?  No, it's something else, 
something remarkable.  Ah...strange.  There are ancient 
disciplines--this Ranma the Wild has been taught things."

Kuno slung his toe pick against the ice, kicking up flowers of snow 
against Ranma's face.  He asked, "What kind of things?"

Instantly Genma pirouetted like a master ice dancer and cuffed Kuno's  
ear.  He could  turn cruel when he was drunk, cruel and sentimental. 
"What's wrong with you!" Genma bellowed.  "Kicking snow in this poor 
boy's face when he can't get off his mat! I told you to watch him, not 
torture him."  Then he stroked his bandanna clad head and began talking 
to himself in a deep, melodious voice:  "Ah, too bad, Genma, my 
friend--why did you leave a novice to do your work?"

Kuno, stunned by the quickness and force of Genma's blow, stood with his 
hand clapped over his ear.  His face was full of hate as he cowered and 
glared down at Ranma.

The novices surrounding Genma seemed to shrink back as if they too were 
afraid of being struck. One of Kuno's friends waved his hand at the 
almost empty Square and asked, "Please, Master Lal, how much longer can 
it go on?  There are only a hundred of them left."

Genma squinted his shiny brown eyes against the falling snow.  He looked 
at Ranma and frowned.  "Look at this poor naked boy!" he exclaimed to 
the novices.  "He's more patient than any of you!"  Then he grunted and 
puffed as he bent low and cupped his hands over Ranma's ear.  His breath 
was sour with beer, and he whispered, "Are you testing me, or am I 
testing you? I've never seen anyone as hard as you.  Ah, that is, 
there's only been one other.  Who *are* you, by Kami?  No, no, do not 
answer, you may not speak.  But tell me, Wild Boy--shake your head if 
the answer is no--if I let the test go on, you won't die and make me 
look like a barbarian, will you?"

Silently, Ranma smiled and shook his head.

"The test continues!" Genma announced as he straightened up. "The test 
will be over when it's over."

And so Ranma and the hundred remaining petitioners waited through the 
long day.  In the silence of the snowfall, in the whiteness of the 
buildings around the Square, it was hard to tell how much time had 
passed. Ranma knelt on his mat and watched sparkling snowflakes tumble 
through the air.  He was afire with Ki and with hope, but his body's 
tissues were burning too quickly.  He was very thirsty.  Quite a few of 
the petitioners had fallen deathly ill after eating mouthfuls of snow, 
but he knew better than to eat snow, even though his throat was hot and 
parched, even though his heart felt like a pool of lava surging against 
his breath bone.  Soon he would collapse; soon would come crushing 
weakness, a stilling of eyelight, and finally oblivion.  And then he 
would never journey beyond the stars to find halla; his only journey 
would be the other side of day where the sea is white and cold and bare, 
and the ice of eternity goes on and on forever.

"Ranma, Ranma." He thought he heard Mousse whispering to him, but in 
truth, Kuno and the other high novices were keeping too close a watch 
for anyone to risk whispering.  And Mousse was still sleeping beneath 
his double robes, beneath his mats and thick blanket of snow.  How 
troubled the boy seemed wincing and coughing in his sleep. Then, as 
Ranma looked on, Mousse came gradually awake.  he rose through his fever 
murmuring, and looked at Ranma.  Ranma, Ranma, his eyes seemed to cry 
out, I owe you my life.

"Look," Kuno said as he pointed at Mousse, "the sick boy is awake."

Genma the Just and hundreds of chattering novices stood around making 
embarrassing comments as to Ranma's and Mousse's courage, recounting the 
events of the day.  And then Kuno snarled at Ranma, "It's unlikely that 
you'll pass the other tests even if you pass this one.  But if you do, I 
hope you're assigned to my dormitory.  It's called Furinkan Hall, wild 
Boy.  Can you remember that name?"

Although this hazing was directed at Ranma, its effect on Mousse was 
startling.  Mousse's face, already deathly white, grew cold and hard as 
if his kin were frozen.  The only part of him that seemed alive was his 
eyes, which were burning with a pale fury.  This fury frightened Ranma, 
for it seemed to come out of nowhere.  Furious over Kuno's words, Mousse 
tried to kick away the mats and sit up.  but he was too weak to move.  
He lay staring at Ranma, helpless in his fury and his shame.

There, in the falling snow, Mousse and Ranma waited together locked eye 
to eye; neither of them wanted to be the first to look away.  While many 
people stood above them commenting on the unseasonable snowfall, a 
silent communication flowed between them, secrets that both of them knew 
they must never reveal.  Ranma was aware of Mousse's intense powers of 
concentration, his devotion to friendship and fate; they were both very 
aware of each other.  Thus they waited all afternoon, and Ranma wanted 
to say, "Mousse, Mousse, you are as dangerous as Ayeye, the thallow."  
Then from a distance came the faint ringing of Resa's evening bells. The 
crowd around them stirred. Among the weary novices who had been 
patrolling Lavi Square since dawn, there were grumblings, quick 
arguments, a rippling wave of concern for Ranma and Mousse, and for the 
others. Then Genma the Just rubbed his eyes, shot Ranma a curious, 
admiring look, and he clapped his hands.

"Silence, it's time!" he said.  He was speaking to the novices and to 
the crowd of onlookers; the miserable petitioners were as silent as they 
had been since the first morning of their competition. "Silence, it's 
time, by Kami! It's time that the Test of Patience comes to an end.  You 
petitioners," he began, and then he shut his mouth abruptly.  One of his 
novices, breathless from a quick trip through the Square, chose that 
moment to tell him something.  Then Genma went on, "You seventy-two 
petitioners have survived the first test.  We welcome you to continue 
with the second test, which will begin five days hence.  there are hot 
baths, coffee, and food waiting for you in the dormitories.  The novices 
will escort you there.  Congratulations--you may  now leave your places 
and speak as you wish."

Instantly, there were shouts of relief; petitioners were arising form 
their mats shivering as they slapped blood back into their limbs and 
rushed to follow the novices inside.

"Ranma the Wild!" a novice in the crowed suddenly called out. "Someone 
get a fur for Ranma the Wild!"

Still on his mat, Ranma knocked snow from his disheveled hair and tried 
to stand.  He could not.  He no longer cared if Kuno and the others 
beheld his cut membrum.  In truth, he could not stand because his joints 
were stiff and locked, shooting with pain.  there was agony in his lions 
convulsing up his spine to his neck.  As the snow and air found his 
exposed belly, as the fire of Ki left him, he began shivering again.  
Even though someone threw a thick shagshay fur over his naked shoulders, 
he couldn't stop shivering.  "Mousse, Mousse," he said as he staggered 
in a half crouch over to his friend.  "Mousse, it's over."

Mousse, of all the petitioners (except five unfortunate boys who were 
found dead), remained motionless on his mat.  Indeed, many thought that 
he too had died, but Ranma could still see the life inside him.  A 
novice arrived carrying a bulky shagshay fur, and Ranma helped him lay 
it over Mousse's body.

"Ranma, are you all right?"  Mousse asked softly.  He was breathing as 
rapidly as a snow hare, and he had stopped coughing.  "I was afraid you 
were going to die."

After that the novices carried Mousse away. Ranma was left to fend off 
the congratulations of the curious crowd.  Someone eased into his hand a 
mug of hot coffee, which he gulped down gratefully.  He stood closely 
pressed by a hundred cheering strangers, surrounded yet alone with his 
thoughts.

And then Kuno came up to him; his face was red and inflamed from the 
cold.  "We'll take care of him," he said.

"What will you do...with my friend?" Ranma asked.

"Your friend?" Kuno asked.  "Listen, Wild Boy, there's an old saying you 
should know:  'Save a person's life, make and enemy for life.' I don't 
think that boy will ever be your friend."

Ranma covered his eyes against the falling snow, and he wondered about 
Mousse.  As he began walking with the other novices toward the warmth of 
the waiting dormitories, he hoped that Kuno would be wrong.

(to be continued)

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