Part One: Ripples. To claim his cure, Ranma must thwart a tribe of Chinese Sorcerers who have come to Jusenkyō, drawn to the spring ground for reasons of their own.
Pride
Chapter Three
For twenty years, the Sorcerers of Qinghai had secluded themselves behind their Maze—an illusion no ordinary man could ever hope to navigate. It acted as a barrier, keeping them safe from anyone who might wish to intrude on their home, but the residents of the village were free to come and go as they wished, whether to hunt game, to forage for berries and nuts, or to journey far and wide by the Lady's command.
It was for this last reason that a procession of hooded figures departed from the Sorcerer village one morning. They were not warriors; they carried no staves as those of the Guard did. They were priests—masters of mending or corrupting flesh and manipulators of the mind. The Lady's head priest was a short, unassuming woman named Henna. Even among the priests she was unique, for she kept her head shaved bare, and she seldom spoke above a whisper.
That morning she led five of her brothers and sisters away from the village. Dark green hooded cloaks helped protect them from the wind and cold, and they carried hefty packs to sustain them on the rest of their journey. But though their departure wasn't forbidden, that didn't mean they weren't watched as they left—and not by their fellow Sorcerers, either. Henna felt the eyes upon her as she led her party. She felt through through the ripples and flows of magic that permeated all things. Though her sense of it was faint and clouded, she halted the group with just a signal from her hand. She closed her eyes, searching their surroundings with her mind. Where a normal man would've dismissed a rustling of branches as an innocent coincidence, Henna saw and sensed more. She turned to one of her subordinates and gave her instructions quietly, as she always did.
"I think there are people watching us," she said, "hiding behind the rocks up the slope. Would you go up there and make sure?"
"How?" asked the man.
"You have my forgiveness. Do what you must."
The man nodded, and he circled behind a tree, taking a canteen with him. The rest of the priests, including Henna, averted their gazes, and after a short time, the only sound that could be heard was that of footsteps around them—footsteps that left light impressions in the dirt without a hint of the man who made them. Leaving the party as sight unseen, the priest headed up the slope, and Henna waved the rest of her party to move forward and pretend all was well. Hopefully, that there were only five priests in line instead of six would confuse their unwelcome guests long enough to find out something about them.
And find out something they did—that the people watching them were not easily fooled. "They're walking among us!" cried a voice. "Shoot, shoot!"
Thud! An arrow lodged in a tree trunk, just one foot away from Henna's head. The priests crouched down, taking cover behind the trees.
"Go back!" Henna hissed to her priests, waving them toward the village.
As four foes rose from the rocks above, climbing down with swords and maces at the ready, Henna and her priests fled back to the safety of the village, knowing that the Maze would protect them even when their own magic could not.
#
"Riverfolk?" asked Ranma. "Never heard of those people."
In her tranquil meditation chambers, Lady Sindoor knelt at the edge of the rectangular pool, listening intently to the trickling water as it flowed in. Behind her stood Ranma and the Captain of the Guard, Wuya, who'd gathered there to hear about the enemy on their doorstep and what steps would be taken to defeat them.
"I admit, I'm uncertain what to call them in your tongue," said Sindoor. "They are a matriarchal people, which isn't uncommon here, but they like to pretend they were first. Still, Riverfolk is our name for them, mostly for their rare skill in controlling water to make for powerful attacks. They are an ancient tribe, and we have feuded with them many times—the last time just twenty years ago."
" 'Just,' you say." Ranma scoffed. "I guess that's short on a geological time scale, but I'm not even twenty years old."
Sindoor chuckled to herself. "Nor is the captain who stands beside you. Years pass quickly in these lands. Still, memories linger. We haven't forgotten how they came to the base of the waterfall and cornered our Captain. I'm sure they haven't forgotten how most of their warriors were turned to ash."
Ah, thought Ranma. It's those people.
"Very strange that they would be here now," mused Sindoor. "They didn't follow you on the way to the spring ground, did they, Captain?"
"They didn't," said Wuya.
"Curious. They used to watch us very closely, but I'd thought they'd grown tired of such waiting. Well, we shall have to find out for ourselves what the they want. It will not do at all to have outsiders watching us. If the Riverfolk have become friends of the Phoenix in recent years, Saffron will be alerted of our arrival, and that is something I cannot allow. Captain, you will lead this effort. Capture the Riverfolk; find out why they have come. Hopefully, they are merely being wary. The last thing we can afford to do is go to war with them and the Phoenix, too. Once the Riverfolk are ours, we can move forward with the effort to take Saffron. There is no better place to do that than at the spring ground."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "You want to go back to Jusenkyō? What for?"
"The tunnels and infrastructure of the mountain there make it ideal to house a fighting force," said Sindoor. "If we are being monitored, I would like to establish a presence for the Guard outside the village, and controlling the water that supplies Mount Phoenix may be useful, too. Our attack on Mount Phoenix will come from the spring ground. That is why the Captain here will gather the full force she's been training for this task and take them to the spring ground with any Riverfolk we capture. There is no need to endanger the people of the village in doing so."
The Captain narrowed her eyes but said nothing.
"What about me?" Ranma demanded. "You need me to help train up for this war you're going to fight. If you leave me here, then you're doing all your final preparations without the only person who can tell you about the Phoenix over the last twenty years. That's not smart, if you ask me."
"The Captain and I will take that point under advisement," said Sindoor.
"Uh-huh. Does that mean more in this country than the bureaucratic bullshit it sounds like?"
Sindoor handled Ranma's cutting remark with her characteristic coolness. "Only time will tell," she said. "Now then, you have your instructions. If there is nothing else—"
"My lady," Wuya interrupted, "I must ask something: why did you send priests from the village? Why are they the ones to discover we're being observed?"
This remark spurred a reaction from Sindoor. She turned her head slightly, and in Chinese, she answered the Captain flatly, giving no room for interpretation or questioning.
"Now, leave me," she said. "I must meditate."
The Captain bowed at the waist for Sindoor while Ranma rolled his eyes for a mocking nod. Wuya pulled on Ranma's arm to show him out, but when the stone door to Sindoor's chambers shut itself, he yanked his hand free.
"What was that about?" he demanded. "She sent priests from the village? Without protection?"
Wuya walked past Ranma, saying nothing. She made for the double doors at the entrance to the tower and Sindoor's court, but Ranma stormed after her, insistent.
"Hey! You must think there's something wrong with that, or else you wouldn't have said anything!" He came up beside her and lowered his voice. "Because you know it smells just like the way she keeps your boyfriend locked up in the top of this tower, don't you?"
Flinching, Wuya glanced around, ensuring that no one else had heard Ranma's comment. "She wouldn't say," was her answer.
"You expect me to believe that? If she's going to have you set up a base at Jusenkyō, you're going to be away from Tilaka. Does that really sit well with you?"
"That," said Wuya, "is exactly why I must go, why the Lady must send me. We are not like you, Outsider. We don't revel in pleasures of the mind or flesh. We do what is needed to keep our brethren safe and sane. There is no power in such bonds, only regret."
"You don't believe that," said Ranma. "You don't stand by someone for the better part of ten years watching them suffer if you believe that."
"We do what is required of us," Wuya insisted, "even if we dislike it."
At the edge of tower grounds' topmost ring, Wuya left Ranma to walk among her trainees in the Sorcerer Guard, and Ranma, unamused, squinted his eyes. " 'We do what is required of us.' What a joke. People do whatever they want, Wuya, or whatever other people will let them do."
Of course, these words were wasted on the Captain, who'd long since left him. Still, his comment encapsulated his position in the Sorcerer village all too well. He was trapped between what he wanted to do and what the Sorcerers would permit. Naturally they had no incentive to let him walk free while they thought he was helping them prepare to fight Phoenix people. In turn, Ranma was unwilling to wait for them to assault Mount Phoenix, either, for if they looked for Saffron there as a source of power—the successor to their soul-sucking Sieve—they'd find only a baby instead. If only to torture Ranma for his deception, they'd never let him go then.
The only way out, then, was to fight, but Ranma had tried that, too—coming up short as he'd invaded the tower to neutralize the channelers there, the people who held up the disorienting Maze that surrounded the village. One-on-one, these Sorcerers didn't impress him. They had more holes in their technique than a slice of Swiss cheese, but there were many of them, and any one man could surprise Ranma with an array of magical powers that would slow him down and force him to adapt. He didn't fear their magic, but it took time to fight through wind master, one who'd conjure endless tornadoes to spin Ranma around, and that was one of the more benign possibilities that came to Ranma's mind. He could easily think of some combination of powers that would be much worse to face. In no way did Ranma doubt he could defeat any given Sorcerer—or even five or ten of them—but as soon as he'd get through them, there'd be a dozen more waiting, all willing to buffet and batter him with their vast powers. What a pain.
So over the course of the past week, Ranma had observed the Sorcerers closely, trying to gain some insight into their magic and how to defeat it more efficiently—or better yet, to use it himself. Thus far he'd enjoyed a privileged position to do so. Part of his agreement with Sindoor was to provide knowledge and insight into the Phoenix people and to help oversee the Guard's training. He'd help up that end of the bargain as best he could; he just may have neglected to mention one or two things here and there.
"If you guys want to defeat Saffron, you'll need to understand who and what he is," Ranma had said once to the trainees. "Saffron is an egotistical little man-child who doesn't know his own limits. Now, I don't know what kind of punishment you guys can take, but this?" Ranma held up a rock the size of his head for all to see. "I play table tennis with this. Saffron, on the other hand, can't take a little beating to save his life."
Of course, the Sorcerers believed Saffron to be alive, so luckily for Ranma, this set of facts convinced the Sorcerers to train for two days solid in improving their physical strength—magic-enhanced when necessary, but still the same basic techniques. No doubt brute force could prove useful against the Phoenix, but since the Sorcerers would never face Saffron in battle. They were all wasting their time, but at least it gave Ranma the chance to observe and learn something about Sorcerer magic.
It's all just ki manipulation, he'd realized. They're moving it around in their bodies to gain power. Maybe they sense it from others, too.
And ki was something he knew how to work with. He'd played with confidence and despair before and turned those emotions into weapons, but they were raw and unfocused, prone to fizzling out with a turn of mood. Sorcerer magic demanded more control. It was likely why they needed a Sieve to keep them steady in the first place.
Regardless, Ranma knew well enough how to turn his emotions into destructive power. What interested him was something more precise. If raw ki could blow up a wall one meter thick and leave nothing behind, what Ranma wanted was the ability to drill through that wall instead and leave no evidence but a tiny pinprick. That's what the Sorcerers could do. They could call down lightning to strike one specific spot and leave the rest of the world untouched, and Wuya's ability to defend herself with her magic shield had made Ranma look silly at times.
But try as he might, Ranma couldn't get the hang of Sorcerer magic. Where even the youngest members of the Guard could shoot jets of flame from their open hands, the most Ranma could do was contort his hand awkwardly, looking like a poor, impotent imitation of Spiderman. Naturally, the Captain and her subordinates had no inclination to help Ranma with these techniques, leaving him to wonder—just what was he supposed to do?
It was a question he pondered every day, and that day was no exception. With this journey back to Jusenkyō looming, there was opportunity—the chance to escape. He desperately needed to take advantage of it. To do that, he retreated to his hut, surrounded by four guards that stood around his straw home tirelessly. With his back to the door, he sat down and concentrated. He focused his efforts on a small pebble. If he should learn anything about Sorcerer magic, it was that they could move objects without touching them. That was undoubtedly useful. But what was the secret? Should he stare at it intently until it withered under his gaze? Should he lose himself in meditation until the round pebble floated all on its own?
In theory, Sorcerer magic—and ki manipulation in general—relied on one's own emotions. Was that the trick? If so, it should've been simple. All he had to do was fixate on how badly he wanted to punch Wuya in the face. It was a satisfying image, to think about giving that ungrateful captain a bloody nose, but the pebble before him was unmoved.
"Figures," said Ranma, drawing in the dirt with his finger. Idly, he traced out a circle around the pebble and sighed. What else could he try? Could he find inspiration in something lofty, something to make him open his mind? Would world peace bring him satisfaction? How about a chocolate parfait?
A parfait would be nice, considering all I haven't had much to eat out here, but that doesn't do anything special for me.
Maybe the solution was to think of something he really wanted instead.
At a loss, Ranma lay flat on his back, staring at the hut's ceiling. Ultimately, what he wanted was simple—to be cured and to go home. Staying focused on that could only help him in the long run. It'd already been a week since he remembered waking up in that village. Going home was at least as important to him as getting his cure. His hopes for what would happen after that were pretty modest. If each day was dull and boring, it would be an improvement over being a prisoner in a faraway land. The home he'd known for almost a year would do fine. He'd go to school, which could be okay at some points and boring at others. After a while, he'd hardly noticed what happened in classes. He'd just walk to school along the canal road and head back when the day was done, oblivious to everything else around him.
Well, except when Akane—the girl beside him on those walks—would intrude on his thoughts. In particular, Ranma recalled the morning after the failed wedding attempt. For some reason, Akane had the brilliant idea to challenge him to a race. She must've known it was a losing proposition, for she took off through the front gate to the house as soon as he agreed, and when he protested, she shrugged it off. "Are you going to complain or come catch me?" she'd called back to him with a giggle.
He'd caught her all right. Really, she overestimated her own strength and endurance. Being shrunk and dehydrated in the battle with Saffron had taken more out of her than anyone could know. Out of charity, Ranma settled for a draw when Akane's fatigue overcame her, and they'd walked together, side by side, at a more leisurely pace for the rest of the way. Were every day like that, Ranma could be content. Even seeing Akane red in the face from exhaustion yet still able to smile brightly—that was quite a surprise.
But that was weeks ago, and too much had happened since. Ranma forced the memory out of his mind. It would do him no good to reminisce on such things, and the fleeting, momentary wonder in his heart ebbed away, until all he could see was the straw ceiling of the hut and sunlight finding its way through the cracks. None of that mattered while he was still a captive of the Sorcerers, and to revel in memories that way was nothing short of lazy and misguided. He was a man, wasn't he? He was a man on a mission, and he didn't have time to stroll down memory lane looking for something he'd lost.
"You knot up your own ki," said a voice. "That is why you can't perform our magic."
Ranma sat up and glanced at the doorway from the corner of his eye. Stepping inside was a woman in a hooded green cloak. Her head was bald—shaved right to the scalp—and her eyes had a distinctive, silvery hue.
"Who are you?" asked Ranma.
"The Lady sends me," she said quietly. "My name is Henna. I am a priest. The Lady wishes you to know that your plea to accompany the party tomorrow has been accepted. I am to see that you can be properly restrained."
"What does that mean?"
The priest opened her robes, revealing a collection of small, hand-crafted glass vials, each sealed off by string and a leathery covering. She uncapped one of these vials and held it under Ranma's nose. "Please smell this."
"Are you serious?"
"The Lady prefers that you be able to walk for the journey, but if we must, we will carry you unconscious instead."
And if they knocked him out, he'd wake up at Jusenkyō having missed a substantial opportunity to escape. So with a sigh, Ranma wafted the vapors from the vial into his nose. The concoction burned a little, and he turned away, coughing violently. His eyes stung and watered. "Gee," he remarked, "you guys don't kid around."
"No, we don't." The priest held out a twig, and with the tip of her finger, she lit the end of the stick on fire. She gazed into Ranma's eyes, studying his reaction, and blew the fire out when she was done. She went to her robes once more, fetching another vial. Well, if she was going to be so direct about treating Ranma like a lab experiment, the least she could do was humor him.
"How do you do that?" asked Ranma. "Light it on fire, I mean. You said I almost had it?"
"Almost," said the priest, "but I think it's pointless for you to try. Even if you weren't holding all your ki inside you, tangled and knotted, a body like that will always be inefficient at using ki to manipulate the outside world."
Inefficient my ass. I beat your captain like this. But Ranma ignored the point. If the priest thought Ranma incapable of using magic, all the better. She would be less on her guard as he probed her about it. "You know I'm cursed?" he asked. "You can get me some hot water then, right?"
"Please sniff."
Sighing, Ranma snorted, hoping the brief exposure could be mitigated by an unproductive breath. His vision clouded for a moment, and his lips went numb and tingled. He shook off the sensation, but Henna must've found it interesting: she took notes on a small scroll, nodding as she watched him. "Yes," she finally answered. "We can all sense it. It is as apparent as the dirt on your face."
Ranma wiped at his cheek idly. "Or as the boobs on my chest. So, about that hot water…?"
"I have nothing on hand to help you. I take it you don't choose this form?"
"Hell no! Why would I want to be a girl? I'm shorter and smaller. I can't take a hit as well. I have to get closer just to strike someone, and that's not even the half of it!"
"I feel the same way," said Henna. "It makes your reflection from your own. It is an unnatural form, resistant to flows of ki."
"So you're saying I can't use your magic?"
"You might, but it will be wasteful and difficult. Your task is to help us defeat the Phoenix. An outsider using magic won't make much of a difference there."
It won't help you people very much, no. I definitely agree with that. "Still," said Ranma, the sensation in his lips returning, "I'm a student of many arts. Consider me interested."
The priest laughed to herself—a restrained but genuine gesture—and put another vial under Ranma's nose. "I don't think that very wise. We all know how you tried to harm the channelers."
Ranma tightened his chest and pretended to heave, hoping Henna wouldn't notice the deception. Surely even she couldn't expect he'd take this experimentation forever. "Okay, I get it," he said. "You're a priest; you don't do crazy magic the way the Guard does. You don't have to pretend for me. It's not like being a healer and a chemist is a bad thing. You get to work with test tubes—you know, instead of being badass."
Henna frowned at that, and as she secured the third vial with its leathery cover, she knelt in front of Ranma, holding her hands flat, facing each other, and about a foot apart. "One can wield magic directly, and some people do, but most of us find it more useful to use magic to influence the world around us instead. A man must connect his emotions to the world, to use them as a channel, opening himself to the outside. The mistake many beginners make, whether in the Guard or in my priesthood, is that they think ki only exists to be bent to their will. It isn't so."
"So how can you make ki do what you want, then?"
Pursing her lips, Henna considered the question carefully. "How can I say it? You must forget what you want to do with ki at all. You must make the process of connecting your emotions to ki come first and foremost. Consider ice, for example. It is cold, but a man's emotions can be colder. He can draw heat into himself from the air, and then…"
A filament of snowflakes formed between her hands, and it solidified into a thin, narrow icicle. Henna caught the filament before it could fall and gave it to Ranma to feel. Sure enough, it was frozen, and in Ranma's grip it began to melt.
A connection with the outside world, huh? As corny as it sounded, Ranma couldn't deny the power inherent to what the priest had shown him.
When Henna was done exposing Ranma to all manner of hazardous fumes, he meditated again. Cold was something he knew well enough. The so-called "Soul of Ice" was the heart of Hiryū Shōten Ha, the Heaven Blast of the Dragon. Manifesting cold ki around him was nothing unusual, then, but could he control it further? Could he confine that cold to a damaging filament or a protective sheet?
He would try. He tried putting away the memories of fighting Saffron with his life and another's line. He buried thoughts of the disastrous wedding that ended with his cure gulped down like cheap sake. And if for one day he could run to school at Akane's side, grateful that she was still alive, he ignored any happiness he might've felt in that moment, too. All his disappointment, anger, and joy faded away until there was little more than a cold heart beating in his chest, and even that slowed down to a dangerously lethargic rhythm.
So insulated from his own thoughts, he pulled in heat from the outside instead. As Henna had done, he held his hands out, side by side, and concentrated on the space between them. Snowflakes winked into existence there, tumbling end over end as they made their way to the ground. Yes, he could use these. He would use them to beat these Sorcerers and make his way home, to show that girl, and anyone else who'd doubted him, how much of a man he could be.
And as quickly as the snowflakes had come, they touched his hands and melted.
Tap-tap. One of the guards outside touched the tip of his staff on the hut wall. "What are you doing, Outsider?" he asked, peering through the doorway.
"Nothing," said Ranma. "Just thinking."
Frowning, the Sorcerer went back to his post, and with an intense, focused look on his face, Ranma tried to recapture that feeling—or lack thereof—again. All night, Ranma practiced this brand of ice magic, keeping his efforts hidden from prying eyes by turning his back to the hut's doorway, so he could form all the ice he wanted from the air unobserved. The results were promising—Ranma could conjure films of ice on the ground and even reproduce the filament that Henna had shown him easily enough—but something was holding him back. Without a picture of what he wanted to do with ice, how could he effectively manipulate it? What Henna said didn't make sense.
And until he could figure it out, he couldn't rely on this magic to give him a clear-cut advantage. At best, Ranma could hope to surprise a Sorcerer he fought, relying more on such powers being unexpected than anything else.
#
An hour before dawn, the Guard came to take Ranma, flanked by a half-dozen priests, including the soft-spoken Henna. This time, she didn't play around with a set of vials for Ranma to try. With leathery gloves to protect herself, she applied an oily balm to Ranma's nose and upper lip—a foul-smelling concoction that put Ranma in a haze, and try as he might, the mixture wouldn't rub off. The vapors made the light of the morning sun brighter, and the calls of songbirds in the morning warped into shrill, piercing shrieks. All through his head there was a pulsing, intense pain that made it difficult to see straight or think.
Great, just what I need—a migraine headache when we're about to hike to Jusenkyō.
Despite Ranma's condition, the Sorcerers took no chances, keeping him chained up and surrounded by a group of four Guardsmen. The caravan met on the tower grounds by the base of the waterfall. All told, there were around thirty Sorcerers of the Guard, six priests, and fifteen channelers—who were kept far, far away from Ranma. Wuya called this group just the first wave, at that. More Guardsmen would be sent to Jusenkyō to prepare, with food and supplies to last until the Sorcerers went to war. For the moment, however, the party would pursue its first goal—to draw out the mysterious Riverfolk, wherever they were hiding.
These Riverfolk might be my best shot, thought Ranma, wincing even to concentrate that much. An enemy of the Sorcerers is a friend of mine. Hopefully these Riverfolk don't think I'm in league with Sindoor. It's not like I have a record of making friends with Chinese tribes, after all.
The Sorcerer party set out just after dawn. The channelers took the lead in the group, and as part of the Sorcerers' deception, they'd dressed the channelers to look like Guardsmen, complete with black tunics and battle staves. Sure, anyone with a keen, discriminating eye could tell them apart from the real warriors—just the way they carried themselves was off, and they walked with linked hands. Still, Ranma thought it an ingenious move not to paint a target on their backs, like the priests had with their conspicuous green cloaks.
After about half an hour of hiking—it felt like days to Ranma's foggy mind, but he knew it couldn't have been that long—Captain Wuya moved up from the middle of the caravan, making contact with the head channeler, and even from a distance, Ranma's hyper-sensitive hearing picked up on the sequence of tones the channelers hummed, forming a resonant major chord. Though his eyes stung and ached, Ranma glanced about the forest, trying to catch sight of these Riverfolk. At some point, these tribal people would have to figure out they'd been trapped, and either they'd surrender—not likely—or they'd fight back. If Ranma knew where they were coming from, at least he could get out of the line of fire.
Thud! An arrow struck one of Ranma's guards in the chest, and the man keeled over into the arms of his companions, dragging Ranma off his feet as the shackle chains pulled taut.
Oh hell. Here we go!
Splayed out on his back, Ranma fought the throbbing pain in his head, trying to get upright, but he was tangled in shackles and chains. There was shouting—painful shouting that made his ears ache. The Riverfolk attacked from the east, using the rising sun to attack from the shelter of its light. They took cover behind trees, firing arrows into the unprotected caravan. The Captain raised her golden shell of ki, protecting the channelers at the front; for the rest of them, the priests ran for cover, and the Sorcerers of the Guard fought back with a slew of elemental powers. Lightning bolts shattered tree trunks where the Riverfolk archers shot from, and the earth itself moved, forming a colossal landslide to bury them.
Yet still, despite the unholy levels of destruction the Sorcerers brought upon them, the Riverfolk persisted. They even dared to stand toe-to-toe against the Guard. A girl with a pair of massive steel balls on a rope—a meteor hammer—charged into the caravan, dazzling the Sorcerers with awesome combination strikes. She threw one of the spheres as a projectile weapon, collecting it thanks to the tension in her rope. Then, she swung both balls overhead, swinging them down with deadly force. She crushed or beat three Sorcerers before the lot of them had a chance to catch up to her. A high-powered gust of wind blew out Ranma's ears and shot the girl with the meteor hammer away like a human cannonball.
But she wasn't the only one. An intrepid archer watched her back as she fell. Daring to step into close range, he ran from tree to tree for cover, zipping arrows into the fray. An arrow found another of Ranma's guards, giving him the dead weight of two men to fight against, and a second shot whizzed past Ranma's head, grazing the end of his pigtail.
Oh great, they're trying to kill me, too!
And despite the pounding in his head, Ranma wasn't going to let even a migraine headache get him killed. He kicked and yanked at his shackles, bringing the rest of his guards down. With his bare hands, he twisted the chain links, and the metal sheared, snapping off. Grabbing two of the broken chains, he spun on his feet, picking the wounded Sorcerers up off the ground. He hurled the bodies at the archer, shattering two trees with the force of the blows.
The Riverfolk archer shielded his eyes from the flying debris, and that gave Ranma a chance. He pounced on the archer, and with the iron shackles around his wrists, he punched and bashed at the man's face. "If you want to kill me, you'll have to try harder than that!" he cried.
"Stop!" The archer vainly tried to cover his face, refusing to resist. "Stop, please!"
Why? Just because he could speak Japanese? "Give me a reason!" shouted Ranma.
"Because we're trying to save you, Saotome Ranma!"
Ranma stayed his hand for a moment, taking the archer by his collar instead. "Why would some Riverfolk people I've never heard of want to save me? Why would they even know my name?"
"Riverfolk?" echoed the archer. "That's not what we call ourselves. We're Amazons."
Amazons? Shampoo's people? Of course, how could he not see it before? The archer's outfit was almost a carbon copy of Mousse's usual attire. And here he'd bruised and scratched up this Amazon archer for nothing.
"How do we break through their illusion?" asked the archer. "Do you know? We can't escape otherwise!"
The secret was the channelers, which the Captain had well protected. Ranma looked over the scene of the battle. The girl with the meteor hammer had been cornered, surrounded by half a dozen Sorcerers. Further off, Amazons struggled to climb out of the torrent of earth and dirt that had overwhelmed them.
"It's too late," muttered Ranma. "You're not getting out of here, either. Whatever else you tell them, you don't know anything about Saffron, or if you do know something, he's still alive. You got me?"
The archer nodded.
"Good. Sorry about this." Ranma slugged the archer once more for good measure, just as a set of Guardsmen came up from the middle of the caravan and pulled Ranma away. The archer struggled—a token gesture of resistance—but the Sorcerers got the Riverfolk prisoners they wanted. Ranma just had to hope the Amazons could hold their tongues.
#
The Sorcerers made off with six Amazon prisoners, preferring to sedate all of them while the caravan moved on. Ironically, Ranma's effort to capture the archer had earned him a little credit with the Captain, and since the Sorcerers had no more shackles to bind him, they were content to leave Ranma unrestrained for the rest of the trip. Alas, Ranma couldn't think of how to take advantage of this freedom. The fight had taken a lot out of him. As far as he could see, he was walking through soup, and more than once he stepped on a tree root or divot in the earth that tweaked his ankle or caused him to stumble. In truth, he had much more on his mind than how to keep his footing on the rough terrain of the Tibetan Plateau.
Amazons, here?
As nice as it was to have allies (if he believed that they were saving him out of the goodness of their hearts, instead of as leverage to make him marry Shampoo), Ranma found this development potentially very dangerous. The Amazons knew him. They knew his name, and Shampoo had been there to see what really happened to Saffron. If the Sorcerers managed to coax the truth about Saffron from just one Amazon prisoner, it could get them all killed.
For this reason, when the caravan stopped for the night, Ranma urged Wuya to keep the Amazons sedated until they reached Jusenkyō. The time to interrogate them could wait until they were secure, after all, and while it cost Ranma a chance to try to break free and take out the channelers overnight, he felt he had to be pragmatic about it: while he was alive, he could always try to escape. If the truth came out, he would be out of chances, and the moment they confronted him about it, he'd have to fight for his life no matter how bad the odds were.
It was by the middle of the afternoon the second day that the party reached Jusenkyō, and the Sorcerers wasted no time establishing their presence. High above the springs, the Sorcerers occupied the tunnels and passages of Mount Kensei. Out of caution, Ranma was kept at the base of the mountain while the channelers were shown inside—a costly loss in that Ranma would have no idea where they were hiding. Still, he had other things to worry about.
Like with the channelers, the Amazons were shown into the mountain, and Ranma insisted on being present to observe the interrogation. Gods only knew what would happen if the Sorcerers questioned the Amazons with him elsewhere and they came up with the wrong answers. Grudgingly, Captain Wuya granted this request, and through the back door at the base of the mountain, Ranma was shown inside. The Sorcerers led Ranma past a gaping chasm, traversing the gap on a set of logs. There lay a series of round cells in the walls, each secured by a grate of vertical bars. By the light of a torch, Ranma glimpsed the occupants—the archer he'd beaten up and the brave, short-haired girl with the meteor hammer.
"There were others," said Ranma. "Where did they go?"
"The priests have them," explained Captain Wuya. "They will use their own methods."
Ranma grimaced at that. Henna had given him some unknowing help, but could he count on them all being clueless and ineffective?
The Captain tapped her staff on the bars, drawing the Amazons' attention. "Explain yourselves, Riverfolk. What are your intentions in spying on us?"
The archer stepped up. "What are your intentions, Sorcerer? Where have you taken us? Why leave your protective bubble after so long? Did you think we wouldn't notice that you'd left? We've been watching. We've always been watching. Not many people would forget losing hundreds of their brothers to the likes of you!"
With her open hand, the Captain shot a beam of ki through the archer, who keeled over, crying out in pain. The girl who'd used the meteor hammer ran to his side, but he kept her at bay, holding his own.
"What are you doing here?" the Captain asked again.
Struggling to his feet, the archer glared daggers at Wuya, but he answered plainly. "At any time, there are eight scouting parties around your village. We rotate, spending two weeks in the wild and two weeks back in the village. We just took over for the last group about five days ago."
"A lie," said Wuya. "Your people gave up on standing vigil for our return years ago."
"No, we only just eluded you until now."
Wuya narrowed her eyes—and in fairness, Ranma thought it sounded pretty thin, too—but she didn't press the point. "Tell me about the state of things in the world. What of the People's Republic?"
"They're having a border conflict with the Soviets, like they've been having for the last twenty years. Deng is in charge now. Mao died about ten or fifteen years ago. What else do you want to know?"
"About the Tribe of the Restless Dreamers—what of them?"
Ranma raised an eyebrow. What did that have to do with anything? Was it just a junk question to throw the Amazons off?
"Massacred, about six years ago," answered the archer. "As I understand it, the PLA run a communications outpost in the ruins."
"And the Tribe of the Eternal Flame?"
The archer hesitated. "The Phoenix?" he asked, glancing to Ranma. "I'd heard rumors a bird drowned in their spring and made them all cursed. They've been reclusive, rather like you people."
"But they are still led by Saffron?"
Ranma stepped back, sliding out of Wuya's sight. He watched the Amazon archer from the corner of his eye and nodded subtly to give him the proper cue.
"Yes, of course," said the archer. "Who else would they follow?"
It was all Ranma could to let out a relieved breath and not be heard as he did.
"He is mature, then?" Wuya pressed.
The archer looked to Ranma again.
"Sorry, what was the question?" asked Ranma.
Wuya turned her head halfway, eyeing him curiously. "I asked the Riverfolk if Saffron is mature. You shouldn't be concerned with answering."
Ranma nodded. "Of course, of course. I'm not trying to do anything, honest."
"Naturally Saffron is mature," said the archer, and though Ranma feared his tone betrayed a bit of hesitation and uncertainty, Wuya didn't seem to pick up on it.
"This was recent? Or did the transformation occur some time ago?"
Ranma froze. Just how was he supposed to help the Amazon answer that? One finger for first, two for second?
"Just a few weeks ago," answered the archer, to Ranma's relief. "From what I heard, his last incarnation must've fizzled out nine or ten years ago. I'm not quite sure how, though."
"I see." Captain Wuya turned aside, exposing Ranma to the Amazon archer. "Do you know this girl?"
"I'm a guy," Ranma insisted.
"I know of her," said the archer. "She and her panda friend came to our village last year and disrupted the annual martial arts festival. As far as I know, one of our finest warriors was going to follow her to Japan and back to kill her. I only thought to save the girl some trouble by killing her myself, especially for consorting with you Sorcerer scum."
The Captain snorted, making way for Ranma. "You insisted on being here. What are your questions for the Riverfolk?"
"Question? Ah, well, I guess I just want to know why they wanted to kill me," said Ranma. "I mean, really, go after the guy in shackles? Grudge much?"
"You work with Sorcerers, you deserve to die," said the archer. "It's that simple. What are you using her for, Sorcerer? What part does she play in the end of your time in hiding? You think my people won't find out how she fits into your plan?"
Ranma smirked to himself. This archer was really laying it on thick. It showed that he was smart enough to help Ranma sell his position with the Sorcerers, so Ranma decided it was time to try something a little more involved. "Have you seen the Guide and his daughter? I sent the two of them back to Yushu. Don't suppose any of your scouting parties saw the two of them?"
"They did, actually," said the archer. "It took the Guide three days to make it to the city. We didn't make contact with them—it wasn't our concern—but we keep an eye on everything that happens in the basin around the spring ground."
Wuya turned to Ranma. "What happens when this Guide makes it to the city?"
"Beats me," said Ranma. "I just told him and Plum to wait. If they aren't around here now, who knows? I just thought if they'd stayed here after all, they could help me find a spring I'd been looking for. Don't tell me you thought I was trying to help you defeat the Phoenix people."
Scowling, the Captain barked some orders at her men in Chinese, and a contingent of four Guardsmen stood watch by the Amazons' cell while Wuya dragged Ranma back toward the surface, and Ranma didn't mind that in the slightest. He'd found out something useful after all: that he had some clever Amazons for friends and that it was the Guide who called them in, for only that way could they know there were three people in that party—the Guide, Plum, and Kunō. The archer had picked up perfectly on the subtle flaw in his story and played on it beyond all expectations. As long as the priests didn't get any information from their prisoners, Ranma would be in good shape.
After the interrogation, Ranma set out to kill time until nightfall. Ultimately, he wanted to meet with those Amazons and try to come up with some sort of plan. Even three people against the Sorcerers would do better than just him alone, but to get together with them would surely be an irreversible step. He would get no better opportunity. He should be prepared for it.
To that end, he poked his head into the Guard's exercise session that was held in the late afternoon. Following up on what he'd learned from Henna, Ranma encouraged the Guard to practice ice-based techniques, claiming that they would do wonders against the Phoenix people and their wings. He hesitated to give the Sorcerers a real advantage—it could actually prove effective, after all—but it seemed like the best option to give him an edge. Indeed, based on the Guard's proficiency with forming ice walls and weapons out of the stuff, Ranma felt he had a lot to go off of indeed. Though Captain Wuya was naturally wary of giving Ranma any clue how to use their magic, he'd managed to needle out of her something to build off of Henna's advice:
"What these men must understand," Wuya had said, "is that to wield a specific form of magic, they must shut out all other influences. Some people associate fire with anger, and anger is an easy emotion to keep in mind during battle. Ice, on the other hand, can be more difficult because it's more subtle. The best I can tell them is to understand what is in their hearts and let those feelings fade away."
With that in mind, Ranma made some private time later on, sitting on a ledge that overlooked the springs to focus and meditate. Something he wanted to force out of his heart? That was easy. When he fought Saffron over that mountain, with Akane's life ticking away by the second, he knew fear. He knew desperation, and it drove him to rage. He'd killed that arrogant, sneering bird-man, and as he imagined the corpse falling to Earth, he had to wonder—would he know restraint if he met that man again? If he heard Saffron's cackling and laughter, taunting Ranma for his foolishness and threatening Akane's life?
Probably not. He would kill that bastard again and again, and to stare into his own heart and see that darkness unsettled him. What would his mother think of that impulse? Or Akane—had she seen through him to glimpse that damned spot that wouldn't wash out from his soul?
These were the doubts that plagued him, and he scorned himself for even having them. That was not the kind of man he was, but he dealt with those doubts. He confronted them. He bottled them up and forced them away. He made his insides cold, and the world responded to his influence. Ice materialized in his hands, forming a cold, sharp spear. Ranma wasn't one to rely on weapons, preferring to be equally good with his bare hands as any stick, club, or sword, but in countering the Sorcerers' staff attacks, this could do quite nicely.
But would it bring him victory over these Sorcerers? There was only one way to find out. He tapped the spear on the ground, and it cracked and shattered at the slightest touch.
Dammit.
With that failure, Ranma decided to turn to another option. Doing something wrong with these magics could easily play with his mind (Or turn me into a burn victim with robotic limbs who has to wear a black helmet to breathe, thought Ranma), so he pursued the only other thing that might help him turn the tables on the Sorcerers: the cure to his curse. Being a man again would give him increased reach, durability, power, and speed, never mind that it would preserve his dignity once and for all.
The only problem was that, of the thousand springs, Ranma had absolutely no idea which spring would cure him. How bittersweet it was, to be in that place he'd sought out yet powerless to get what he wanted without a map to show him around or a Guide to point the way. Still, Ranma pursued his cure with all due effort. He went to the edge of the woods around Jusenkyō and drew upon his vast traveling experience to capture animals—squirrels, birds, snakes, and rats. He tossed these beasts into the pools around Jusenkyō, hoping he'd get lucky and find the Drowned Man spring all on his own, but he knew it was a longshot, and maybe the distraction was just better than doing nothing at all. To his disappointment, he found Springs of Drowned Horse, Drowned Alligator, Drowned Two-Headed Hippopotamus with Heat-beam Eyes (Ranma drained three or four pools just trying to put up enough steam between him and this creature to protect himself), but none of them led him to the Spring of Drowned Man. The most interesting result of the whole affair was seeing Sindoor's priests following him into the woods, collecting animals and caging them, too. When Ranma tossed a critter into a pool, the priests watched from afar and jotted down notes on their scrolls. What they could find so interesting Ranma wouldn't guess, and he hoped he'd be well beyond the Sorcerers' grasp before he had a chance to find out.
#
As dusk loomed, Ranma headed for shelter. The safest place to keep him, it seemed, was in the den of the Sorcerer Guard themselves. While the Sorcerers used some tunnels as they were extant, Captain Wuya didn't trust the whole tunnel system. "All these passages are connected to the springs' water supply," she'd observed. "That can be a fitting place to keep prisoners, but I won't expose my people to the chance of contamination."
Ranma couldn't blame her for that, but it complicated his efforts severely. Old and ancient tunnels had secrets—turns and side-passages that no one knew of—but what the Sorcerers designed themselves would have fewer weaknesses.
A group of four Sorcerers escorted Ranma underground, and already, Ranma didn't like what he saw: the first room was a barracks-like open space with no privacy. Sorcerers on both sides lined up on mats to sleep. Ranma was shunted off to the middle of the wide-open room, and the four guards stood with him as he was shown an empty straw mat.
"You're kidding," said Ranma. "Are you guys gonna watch me sleep all night?"
The stoic Sorcerer Guardsmen said nothing, which Ranma took to be a yes. With Sorcerers all over the place, Ranma was hard-pressed to think of a plan that would get him out of that bunker during the night. Wuya had put together a smart plan to keep him caged up, at least while he could be surrounded with so many men.
But in the daytime, that would be another story. The Guard would go outside and continue preparing themselves for the assault on Mount Phoenix. Ranma would be given enough freedom to join them and give Wuya tips and advice on how to beat the Phoenix people. While Wuya's plan could shut him down for an evening, Ranma might be able to make a move during the day.
Yet one big question remained: what would he do then? Say he took down his Sorcerer escort—he was reasonably confident of that, if he could isolate them from other Sorcerers—where would he go? What would he do? Could he search the whole mountain for the channelers? Doubtless there would be guards wherever they were kept. Could he reasonably take them head-on and escape? Perhaps. But he'd been through that before. The channelers were powerful in their own right, enough to slow down any attack.
So as night began to fall with Ranma wide awake and clueless as to how to proceed, he watched the torches in the underground barracks flicker and waver. The Sorcerers were still trying to get settled, placing mats for their comrades to sleep on, bringing food and water into the bunker for protection from the elements, along with other miscellaneous supplies. Maybe Ranma could make a run at their grain. If he could damage their food stores, that would slow down the attack plans pretty dramatically. It would buy some time for him to think of something, but the odds that he could pull that off without getting caught were slim. He needed something more definite.
There were other items the Sorcerers brought into the mountain as well. Amazon weapons—bows, knives, and maces—were walked down the central aisle of the barracks to parts unknown. That made sense. It was better to hold on to your enemies' weapons rather than leave them behind to be picked up and used again. Floating pallets of Amazon backpacks and clothes went past, and Ranma paid them no mind, but something shiny and metallic caught his eye. It had straps like a backpack, but it was made of sturdier stuff, with a rounded wire attacked to its top and a phone handset secured to its side.
A radio?
The Amazons didn't strike him as the kind to have developed their own radios, but maybe they borrowed one from somewhere. They did have newspapers, after all. Somewhere in the annals of their periodicals there was a story about Ranma and Shampoo's happy "married life" in Japan that was a travesty of journalism at best. A radio could be used to call for help, and Ranma surely needed that. If the Amazons weren't interested in helping a foreign boy in their lands, they might lift a few fingers to rescue their people who'd been captured by Sorcerers.
With that, Ranma slept lightly, for his mind was already racing with possibilities.
#
He made his move at dawn. The barracks came to life and began to thin out, and Ranma was quick to do the same. "Hey," he told his escort, "I think I'd like to go out and stretch my legs. Busy day today, right?"
The request drew no suspicion, and Ranma led the way back into faint daylight to a ledge outside the bunker's mouth. Far below were the thousand springs of Jusenkyō, the pools still and quiet as the sun started poking over the horizon. Closer, however, was the crater where the Guide's house had once been, where the Phoenix and Dragon Taps lay exposed to the elements.
Ranma studied his Sorcerer escort. Two of the guards stayed close to him, shadowing his every move. Two stayed further back—a sensible strategy, so all four of them couldn't be disabled in one go even if Ranma turned on them. Ranma inched toward the ledge, eyeing the drop. They wouldn't let him get much further from the main camp, and without that distance, it would be hard to go unnoticed.
But it was still only dawn, and the low light could work to his advantage. The Sorcerers may have had the radio, but Ranma needed to communicate with the Amazons. Only two people at Jusenkyō could do that for him, and their prison was straight down.
"Hey," he said, turning to one of the Sorcerers. "Do you see something down there?"
"No," said the Sorcerer.
"Are you sure? Don't want to take a look? I think I see movement."
The Sorcerer held fast, pointing his staff at Ranma warily.
Everybody thinks they're so smart. Well, did you see this coming? Ranma grabbed at the point and flipped the Sorcerer overhead, sending him hurtling down the slope of the ledge.
"I think I see movement now!" cried Ranma. "How about you?"
The other three Sorcerers charged at Ranma, but he jumped off the ledge feet-first, skidding down the steep slope. Ranma expected the Sorcerers to come after him, and indeed, two came flying overhead in pursuit. The third, however, stayed on the ledge to channel magic that—
WHAM! The rock face exploded beneath Ranma, and a pillar-like piece of rock jutted out suddenly, knocking him off his feet. Ranma tumbled out of control, hitting his head and knees on the mountainside, but one good push off, and Ranma gained some elevation, enough to contort his body back into a controlled roll.
He looked up. Where were they? Were they still chasing him? Did they—
TISS! His skin hissed and burned; a bright light bored through his eyelids and set his nerves aflame. Ranma shielded his eyes with his hands and spotted a bright spot in the sky surrounded by shadow—the shadow of a Sorcerer holding his staff.
Ranma climbed to his feet and ran under the ledge, fleeing the light, and made his way into the source of Jusenkyō itself, where the Amazon prisoners lay.
The path back to the Amazons' cells wasn't difficult—a turn here, a turn there. What concerned Ranma more were the guards. With the possibility of Sorcerers right behind him, Ranma couldn't afford to wait and size up the situation. Still, he tried to quiet his aura and his breathing as best he could, just to get an idea of what he might be facing.
The standing watch for the prisoners was somewhat thin. Four Sorcerers stood guard—one at each end of the corridor, two right in front of the Amazons. Hearing nothing behind him, Ranma opted for a subtle approach. He crept up on one of the end guards, swiped a dosed bamboo needle, and stuck him in the neck, catching the man's weight as he fell so no one would hear a sound.
The female guard on the other end of the corridor was more careful, but at least as a woman she was easier to take down through physical means. He lunched at her waist, grabbed both legs, and forced her to the floor. The woman closed her hands around his neck, trying to choke him, and a flare of heat from her hands burned his skin, but Ranma slugged her and slammed her head against the floor, knocking her out cold. He came up cradling his neck, feeling the tender flesh there.
Damn I hate these guys, he thought, wincing.
His takedown of the second guard hadn't been as clean as he'd hoped. The guards by the Amazons' cell stirred, with one of them coming down the hall to investigate.
Time to see what this magic can do.
Calming himself, Ranma stormed down the corridor to meet his foe. He embraced the rush of adrenaline but didn't let it control him, for all he wanted was to dull the pain of his burns. Everything else he might feel he was numb to. If magic could help him, that was the time for it. He shut all other influences out, and a spear of ice formed in his hands, coming to a deadly point.
Now I could get to like this. Eagerly, Ranma lunged and thrust with the spear, but an opposing Sorcerer hit the shaft in the middle with his staff, shattering the ice into pieces in one overhead blow.
"And you people swear by magic, huh?" said Ranma. "Useless. Well, let's do it the old-fashioned way!"
WHAM! He decked the Sorcerer, slugging him in the cheek, and the man staggered, crumpling like a paper cup underfoot.
Just one more.
ZAP-ZAP-ZAP! Lightning shot through Ranma's body; his muscles spasmed, and his eyes shut reflexively against the brightness. He reached out for a handhold against the wall, and with his arm shielding him from the light, he tried to look down the corridor.
One last guy, and I can't even see him, he thought, struggling. Hell, I can hardly move. Dammit!
He tried to fight through the pain, but his muscles spasmed, and the incessant crackling of lightning in his ears was difficult to keep out. The shield bought him a momentary respite; that was all. The last Sorcerer cranked up the energy of his lightning, forcing Ranma back off his feet with a powerful pulse.
CLANK!
Until the Amazon archer kicked off the metal grating of his cell and smashed it—and the Sorcerer Guardsman—into the opposing wall.
"Uhh," groaned Ranma, climbing to his feet. "Thank the gods for competent people in this world!"
The two Amazons trotted down the hall, taking up discarded Sorcerer staves for lack of anything else. "You're as impressive as you were a year ago," said the archer. "Thank you for freeing us."
"Don't thank me yet," said Ranma. "We're not out of here by a longshot. Either of you know how to work a radio?"
"Yes, both of us," said the archer. "Why do you ask?"
"If we ain't getting out of here right now, I want to make damn sure the Sorcerers don't find staying here all that hospitable either. Come on!"
The Amazon archer and warrior, boy and girl, trotted together behind Ranma back toward the tunnel exit, just outside the Phoenix and Dragon, but the way wasn't completely clear. Two more Sorcerers rushed into the breach to oppose them, one wielding that blinding light from his staff, the other pinching off the passageway with protrusions of rock to slow Ranma and the Amazons down.
"Stay back!" said Ranma, throwing an arm out to stop the Amazons. "That light will give you a sunburn if you aren't careful, so—hey!"
But the warrior girl wouldn't listen. She charged straight ahead, turning her face away from the light to keep its blinding glare out of her eyes. Though she wielded an unfamiliar weapon, she twirled and thrust the Sorcerer staff with deadly technique. By feel alone, she dodged the rocky protrusions that threatened to seal off the tunnel altogether, leaping past them with the dexterity of a gymnast on a balance beam. With a flick of her wrist, she swatted away the glowing staff of one of the Sorcerers, and the burning light from the staff-tip ceased. She planted her staff into the ground and used it as leverage for a two-footed kick, sending the other Sorcerer headlong into one of the jutting pillars of rock that had made the tunnel so impassable.
"If only she could listen as well as she fights," mused Ranma, coming out from a corner.
"You'll have to forgive Marula," said the Amazon archer. "She's trained hard to place third in the annual tournament and to master both aerial and ground-based fighting styles, but her interests are quite narrow. I've been trying to get her to change that, but she's too stubborn to put her mind to other things. Knowledge of other cultures, including the Japanese, isn't part of her skills."
Ranma nodded in understanding. "In other words, she may be the first Chinese native I've met this week who doesn't speak Japanese."
"Kumkum!"
The archer shuddered, and he went to the warrior girl's side as she took down the two Sorcerers and stripped them of their possessions. Paralytic needles, knives, battle staves—Marula took them all in a heartbeat. Perhaps she had a little too much experience stripping down defeated foes for their belongings. Either way, Kumkum—as Ranma realized he must be named—took all these weapons eagerly, obedient to Marula's command.
And when his arms were full, Marula pinched him on the ear and left with a stern look on her face.
"What was that for?" asked Ranma.
"Marula may not understand Japanese," said Kumkum, "but she knows when I call her stubborn, in any language."
At that, Ranma could nod knowingly. He could definitely commiserate with that.
Ranma and Kumkum followed Marula to the mouth of the tunnel, but the female Amazon held up a hand, telling them to wait. She poked her head out briefly, looking to the sky with concern.
"What is it?" asked Ranma.
Marula looked back, pointed the Sorcerer staff to the sky, and said something in Chinese.
"The Sorcerers are starting to patrol the air," said Kumkum. "It seems unlikely all three of us will be able to escape without being spotted. Do you know where our radio pack is?"
"Back up the slope." Ranma trotted out to the tunnel mouth next to Marula and looked for himself. Sure enough, flying Sorcerers dotted the dawn sky like birds of prey waiting to strike. They wouldn't get out of there easily. "We need a distraction," he concluded.
"What are you suggesting?" asked Kumkum.
"Me?" Ranma scoffed. "I ain't suggesting anything. You want me to be the distraction?"
"It's your idea, isn't it?"
"That doesn't mean I'm going out there and making myself a target! You go be a distraction!"
Kumkum sighed. "I see tales of your heroism aren't understated after all."
"I'm a hero? Since when?"
"My point exactly." Kumkum grabbed a Sorcerer staff with both hands and moved for the tunnel mouth, but Marula pressed a hand to his chest, stopping him. She said a few words in Chinese, which Ranma didn't follow.
"What's the deal?" asked Ranma.
Kumkum looked to Marula and shook his head. "She's—she's saying she'll go herself. She can't understand you, so it's the only thing that makes sense. I'll work the radio while you relay what information you've gathered from the Sorcerers." He pursed his lips and nodded hesitantly. "It's the right thing to do."
Marula touched a hand to Kumkum's and squeezed gently. That was the only goodbye between them: a small gesture of affection, followed by a mutual nod. Then, taking a deep breath, the Amazon warrior bounded into the sunlight and ran as fast as she could, leaving Ranma and Kumkum behind.
Ranma looked to Kumkum, studying the archer's stoic gaze. "Are you and she—?"
"We're family," Kumkum explained. "Cousins, you could say."
Narrowing his eyes, Ranma looked out the tunnel mouth, waiting for Sorcerers to fly by. "Is that right," he said dryly.
"Well, my mother's cousin married Marula's grandfather's youngest brother."
"You call that family?"
"It's a small village. Everyone's family in some way."
Ranma scoffed. "I don't touch people I consider family like that."
"I've heard you're not the touching type, otherwise you and Shampoo would've had children by now."
Ranma glared.
"Well…" Kumkum looked Ranma up and down. "You would have to get out of that body first."
When this is all done, you and me are gonna have a long chat. Maybe with our fists. But after we've dealt with these Sorcerer goons.
While the two of them fought this sophisticated battle of wits, Ranma and Kumkum's chance to reach the radio finally came. A group of Sorcerers soared across the sky and down the slope of the mountain, heading in pursuit of Marula.
"I think that's our cue," said Ranma. "Let's go, Kumquat."
"It's Kumkum."
"Close enough."
With Sorcerer forces distracted, Ranma and Kumkum clung to the sheer inner face of the crater that housed the Phoenix and Dragon. They moved slowly but with purpose, working their way around to a path through the crater wall that the Sorcerers had dug out. The way up the mountain was steep and difficult, and at times, both men had to go down on all fours to scale it, which had the benefit of keeping them low to the ground and out of sight as much as possible.
As long as the Sorcerers weren't looking for them specifically, they had a good chance of making it back to the barracks, and indeed, the Sorcerers seemed very distracted. Marula led several Sorcerers down the slope, and given that a tornado was rapidly forming behind Ranma and near the base of the mountain, Ranma felt Marula must've been doing a good job.
If Marula could hold out, they'd have time to get a message through, and Ranma needed to figure out what to say and how to say it. "Okay, Kumkum, listen to me here," said Ranma. "You're gonna call up your people and tell them where we are—at Jusenkyō, right? The Sorcerers have some people here, and they're protected by their magic maze thing. You said you knew about that, right?"
"We tried for years to break through it," said Kumkum, pulling himself up a particularly steep part of the path. "No one ever came back. Do you know where they are?"
"They don't even know where they are. If they're lucky…" Ranma shook off the thought. "But you can stop it if you can get to the channelers. I don't know where Wuya hid them, but they're around here."
Kumkum's eyes weren't on Ranma, however, and his attention certainly wasn't on this information about channelers and illusions. Ranma could practically see Kumkum's eyes following the swirling tornado below them.
"Hey," said Ranma. "Your body's over here; your head can't be down there."
Kumkum nodded grimly, looking back toward the top of the mountain. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't worry. Marula's one of the best warriors of our year, but it's hard not to. She promised my mother she'd bring me back home in one piece. I told her I'd do my best to bring her back alive, too."
"Well, don't worry about that. They like taking people alive, so they can use magic to plant visions in your head, or to make you feel things you shouldn't feel to screw with you. So I don't think they'll go out of their way to kill her."
"That's your idea of a comfort?"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "We're fighting with these guys; ain't no time to be picky about what they give you." He looked up. "This is the last ridge before we get to the bunker they dug out. Stay down."
Kumkum nodded in acknowledgment, and Ranma led the way. Luckily, the entrance to the barracks was totally unguarded. The Sorcerers may have been powerful, but they weren't many. Still, it would just take one to come by and ruin Ranma's day. He wasn't afraid of what they could do to him, or to the Amazon archer Kumkum, but a radio was a fragile piece of circuitry. One stray fireball or bolt of ki, and the machine could end up fried.
Thus, Ranma and Kumkum hurried across the open space and descended the stair into the barracks. They trotted quickly down the central corridor, past the host of empty straw mats. Ranma snatched a torch from the wall, and the two of them went further into the bunker, past store rooms of grain sacks and casks of water. At last, they found an open, square room with the confiscated Amazon equipment: Marula's meteor hammer, a pair of bows, other weapons, and the backpack radio set. Kumkum went to the radio at once, powering it up and checking the dials.
"You know," he said, "it would be much better if we could get back to the surface. I'm not sure what all this rock will do to reception."
There was a sound, a shifting of a pebble or dirt underfoot. Ranma cast the torch at the darkness, seeing nothing, but he crept out of the doorway to the Amazon weapons to locate the source of the sound.
"Are you listening to me?" asked Kumkum. "I said we have to go out—"
"Shut up! Just get that radio working!"
Kumkum hunched over the radio, redoubling his efforts. Ranma stepped cautiously in the hallway, and—
THWACK! A Sorcerer staff stabbed him in the gut.
Cradling his stomach, Ranma looked both ways for his attacker, but he saw only a blur. Great, thought Ranma. Everybody's got a gimmick, and this guy is fast.
Ranma punched and swiped at the blur, just to get whacked and stabbed all over with the heavy metal tip of a staff. He needed some way to stop this speedster, and he could think of only one way. Ranma put a hand out in front of him, calmed his mind, and focused. Pure ice formed in shield-like shape, and Ranma crouched behind it warily. He would wait for the Sorcerer to attack again, and when the shield blocked him, Ranma would burst into a counter-attack. That was, as long as the shield could hold.
The blur returned; a staff swung, and Ranma's shield shattered. He took the brunt of the blow on his shoulder, tumbling backward. Ranma scampered to his feet and spat. "Useless again!" he cried in frustration.
Well, perhaps at what Ranma intended. The shards of ice made footing slick and slowed up the Sorcerer long enough for Ranma to see more than just an indistinct blur in low light, enough to land a solid punch.
WHAM!
The Sorcerer flew backward, tumbling into the main hall of the barracks. Ranma stalked after him to give chase, but the Sorcerer fled—this time, less of like blur and more like a man merely in fast-motion. He made for the stairs of the barracks, and Ranma weighed whether he should follow.
Can't leave Kumquat alone here. Dammit. Ranma poked his head into the supply room. "Hey, here's the deal: stay down, don't make too much noise, and get that damn radio working, all right? I'm gonna be out here."
"Doing what?"
"Holding them off."
At that, Kumkum gulped nervously and put the handset of the radio between his ear and his shoulder, trying to work the dials with both hands. Ranma threw the torch out to where the hallway met the greater barracks sleeping area, which was open and exposed. He breathed steadily, trying to keep his focus. Any minute now, the Sorcerers could come. All it would take was a sound, a change in the light.
Flickering shadows on the stairs to the outside.
The Sorcerers came down the steps two at a time, and already, Ranma felt their presence. He felt heavy and sluggish, like he stuck in the heavy atmosphere of Jupiter, weighed down beyond belief. He could barely move a step without feeling like he was moving a thousand-pound mass on his back. Gravity itself was fighting him, and it made him slow and nonreactive to enemy blows. A Sorcerer got his hands on Ranma, and from those points of contact, an intense heat seared Ranma's skin.
"Agh!" Ranma cried out, and he slugged the offending Sorcerer with an icy punch to keep him at bay, even while his skin still sizzled and boiled. More Sorcerers came down the stair, bringing with them all manner of impossible magics and effects. Plants began to sprout from the floor and the walls, covering the interior of the barracks in an unnatural green hue, and their thorny tendrils grasped and clawed at Ranma, stretching his body out to render him helpless.
The Sorcerers relaxed. A set of four held their staff-points at Ranma while others continued on down the hall, looking for Ranma's partner in crime.
"Hey, Kumquat, they're coming!"
Whack! A staff clubbed Ranma on the back of the head for his trouble, and that was all he needed—a throbbing pain in his head and neck. He shook it off as best he could. He just needed Kumkum to buy a little time.
Thud, thud. Two pairs of arrows took down the Sorcerers in the hallway, and the others retreated for cover behind the wall.
But it was only a temporary respite. Ranma needed something to beat these goons. He needed to win. He couldn't afford to be defeated there, to be retaken into Sorcerer hands with nothing to show for it. He had to beat those people and make his way back home, or else all he'd done in coming to China would be for naught.
But thus far, the Soul of Ice had failed him. His attempts at using Sorcerer magic had been feeble and pathetic, and if he couldn't count on that to aid him, what did have but his own strength to get him through? And that wasn't enough. That strength had saved a girl from certain death, and yet it still wasn't enough. He could still be selfish and vacillating. He could be cripplingly indecisive when it came to matters of the heart.
And no amount of Sorcerer magic would change that, would it.
No, it wouldn't. As Ranma lay on the floor of the barracks, entangled in a web of vines, he realized the profound magnitude of his mistake. He'd hoped to claim his cure and, in doing so, prove his own determination and worth, but the connection between what he wanted to do and what he hoped to accomplish was tenuous at best. Even if he'd succeeded in curing himself, his deeds could fall flat and be without meaning.
He could fail.
He, Saotome Ranma, could fail.
The prospect, even just the thought, terrified him, so much so that it had driven him to recklessness and aggression. When he'd fought the Sorcerers in the rain, he beat one so badly that his own knuckles ached. When he realized the depths of the Sorcerers' scheme, he'd tried to go after the channelers without a plan, with little more than an idea of where they were and no clue how to stop them.
And every time he'd tried to find the secret to Sorcerer magic, the hope that it might lead him to salvation and freedom had simmered under the surface of his thoughts. That hope only masked his fear of failure, and both worked against him. They kept his mind frothing and unstable—hardly the cool and even-tempered state of thinking necessary to find the Soul of Ice in his heart.
But he could fail. He could definitely fail, and the only way that fear wouldn't hold him back was if he could convince himself, however flimsily, that he no longer cared. No one had the right to judge him but he himself. He extinguished all desperate hope within his heart. There was only what he felt he could do—what he would do—and how that helped or hurt him he wouldn't worry about. He couldn't afford to.
All I can do is accept it, he thought. I'm gonna make myself cold and not care one way or the other. It is what it is, and there ain't nobody who can touch me or make me change my mind.
With that resolution in mind, Ranma felt himself settle into a more familiar state—it was like the Soul of Ice, but colder, and he felt the chill all over his body. He thought only of the cold, and it came to him. It grew over his hands and legs. It encased the vines that had entangled him, and it was with mere curiosity, rather than boldness, that Ranma grabbed on the frozen vines and pulled.
Crack. The vines shattered, and Ranma broke free.
There was a shout in Chinese; Sorcerers turned their staves on Ranma, but he bolted past them, making for the room where Kumkum worked on the radio. He slipped inside, and when the Sorcerers came after him, Ranma raised his hands to the empty doorway and shut his eyes. They were coming after him, like invaders to his very soul, and he would do his best to shut them out and keep his cold heart pure.
Shink! A wall of ice formed over the doorway, and a pair of Sorcerers slammed into it headlong. They eyed the wall of ice in surprise and horror, chattering between themselves and to their comrades, and the whole group backed away, as if they'd seen a ghost.
"I don't think they expected that," said Ranma, allowing himself a slight smirk. He peered over his shoulder at the Amazon archer. "How's it coming, Kumquat?"
Kumkum shoved his own bow aside and went to the back of the radio set. "It blew a fuse. I'm trying to fix it."
"Can ya fix it faster, maybe?" Ranma nodded his head toward the ice wall. "I'm kinda out in the cold here."
"Do I look like a Chinese electrician to you?"
Ranma opened his mouth to answer, but there was a commotion outside. The Sorcerer Guard made way for someone entering the hallway, and that person walked up to Ranma's ice wall with a stern look on her face, her reddish-brown hair disheveled in the early morning.
"Nice to see you, too, Captain," said Ranma. "You look a little tired."
"What sorcery is this?" Wuya demanded, touching a finger to the ice wall.
"Well, I think it's your sorcery. I'm just borrowing it. It's kinda what I do. There ain't a technique in the world that I can't figure out and pull of."
"Don't play games with us, Outsider. Surrender yourself and the Riverfolk man now. We have his companion. You don't want to make us harm her to ensure your cooperation."
Kumkum closed a panel on the radio and stared. "They have Marula? They captured her?"
"It's a bluff," said Ranma. "Don't listen to her."
"How do you know?"
"Because I do! Because I know you have to put that kind of thing out of your mind, Kumquat. You can't care about that, about her, right this second. There's something you have to do. She can wait. She has to wait, or we're all damned. You got me?"
Hesitantly, Kumkum turned the radio's front back toward him, and he held the handset to his ear as he adjusted some dials.
"Besides," said Ranma, looking back to the Captain. "I know this bitch. She likes to be straight up. Torturing people for the sake of evil isn't her style. She'll grill you if she wants something from you, but that's it. If you ask me, kinda makes her weak and bad at her job."
Wuya narrowed her eyes, but she said nothing to oppose Ranma and walked out of sight down the corridor instead.
"Yeah, that's right!" Ranma called out as loud as he could. "Just walk away. You can't do nothing to get at me, or to help your friend Tilaka like this. I know your magic; even a dozen of you can't get rid of me so easily!"
KA-PAM! A hole blew open in the wall to Ranma's right, and Wuya stepped in bearing an intense glare.
"Okay," said Ranma, leaving the ice wall to stand and melt. "I admit, I didn't think of that."
Kumkum looked up from his sitting position. He was helpless; his bow was too far to get his hands on, so he did the only thing he could: he kept talking, explaining, transmitting for someone to hear. A golden ball of shimmering ki formed in the Captain's hand. She cocked it back to hurl at Kumkum, and—
WHAM! Ranma decked her with a heavy punch, his fist covered in a block of ice. The Captain stumbled and fell into the breach, totally stunned.
"Keep talking, Kumquat!" cried Ranma. "Keep talking until you can't speak, you got me?"
Kumkum nodded, and he jabbered away on the radio faster than ever. Ranma bounded into the gap in the wall that Wuya had made, and with his heavy ice punches, he fended off a whole gaggle of Sorcerers that tried to rush in. They tried using heavy gravity to weigh him down, but they caught their own comrades in the gravity field and made the breach an obstacle for both sides. Vines grew on the walls and grabbed at Ranma, but they just as often found Sorcerer arms and legs instead.
"Enough!" cried Wuya, climbing to her feet. She took her staff in both hands, held it straight upright, and with crackling ki energy, she slammed the tip into the floor.
TIK-KOW! A deafening shockwave obliterated the walls of the room. It sent Ranma flying into the corridor, into the mass of Sorcerers who'd been unable to get past him. The radio lay in pieces, and Kumkum was prone among the broken circuits, screws, and knobs.
Sorcerers grabbed at Ranma's arms, and he didn't resist. He only looked to Kumkum, who was taken into custody, too.
"Did you reach them?" Ranma demanded. "Did you get through?"
Kumkum looked to Ranma with a dazed, confused expression, but after a couple blinks, he responded with a definite nod.
The Amazons had heard them, and they would come for Jusenkyō.
And though Ranma had fallen to the Sorcerers that day, he knew something firmly in his heart: when Amazon and Sorcerer met on the grounds of the thousand springs, he would find a way to escape in that battle. He would absolutely be freed.
