Ranma and the Heart of the Phoenix

a Ranma 1/2 fanfiction by Vince Seifert (seifertv@csus.edu)

Ranma 1/2 characters and situations are copyright 1987, 2000
by Takahashi Rumiko.  Publishing rights (Japan) by Shogakukan
Inc.  Publishing rights (North America) by Viz Inc.  This work
is not intended to infringe those rights.

This story is for Alan Harnum, who asked for it, and has been
encouraging and helpful at every phase of its production.

These events take place in the A Man Among Women timeline, which
diverges from manga-canon at the beginning of v37: see

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/other.htm

Briefly, the Phoenix Mountain story didn't happen and Ranma
didn't marry Akane.  The rest is... complicated.  But what isn't?

     ~~~~~

     Daylight filtered down into the bamboo grove, turning the
trail Ranma trotted along into a tunnel under the sea, green
shade dappled with brilliant flecks that rippled and danced.  The
illusion was reinforced by the rushing-water sound of the cool,
thin air of the Bayankala mountains stirring the myriad leaves
overhead.  Emerging into the sunlight at the top of the long
slope like a swimmer wading up onto the beach, Ranma shaded his
eyes with his hand until they adapted to the light.

     His stomach growled, reminding him of how long it'd been
since breakfast.  A flat rock in the sun presented itself as a
good spot to rest and eat; his pack thumped to the ground beside
it, and he seated himself with a similar lack of care.

     "Well, let's see what's for lunch," he muttered to himself,
untying the pack's top flap and rummaging within.  He stopped
suddenly and pulled out a package, opened it, and stared.  Three
pork buns stared back at him.  Smiling and shaking his head, he
remembered: he'd packed the night before, not really intending to
leave the next morning but ready to, and then.... "She musta put
you guys in there this morning," he said to the pork buns, taking
a bite out of one.  Just before she'd chided him about the
complaint from the village elders about his "attitude problem"--
meaning he didn't defer to them just because they were women--
and the argument had begun.  It had ended with him grabbing his
pack and fleeing from her house, pursued by shrieks of rage and
flying crockery.  The scene would have been more impressive if
the crockery hadn't been slated for disposal anyway and the
shrieks hadn't had an undertone that was equal parts amusement
and regret, but Ranma figured the elders would be satisfied.

     "Thanks, Shampoo," he said fondly, raising the last pork bun
in the direction of the Joketsuzoku village, back the way he'd
come.  It was hidden by a fold of the hills, but he knew just
where it was; he'd come this way many times before.

     Finishing his lunch, he drank from a canteen before
preparing to resume his journey.  He nodded thanks to the stone
that had served him as a bench, and only then noticed the
characters carved on its side.  "'Phoenix'?" he muttered,
squatting to trace one with his fingers.  The other was well-
known to him; the Joketsuzoku used it to mean "forbidden" or
"authorized personnel only", and he often got in trouble for
ignoring it.

     Ranma stood up and looked around, estimating that the spot
where he stood was near the southern limit of the territory the
Joketsuzoku claimed; the most direct way to Japan was east from
the village, but he was headed southwest past Jusenkyo, an
alternate route he used when the weather was good and he wasn't
in a hurry.  The stone had to have been placed as a marker,
though, and he found the reason: a barely visible, perhaps even
hidden, path leading south.  He scanned the terrain in that
direction, guessing where the path might go, but in the end three
things decided him to take it: the lure of the unknown, the
"forbidden" mark, and the crisp, bright freshness of a day that
seemed made for adventure.

     ~~~~~

     Kiima flapped twice as she approached a terrace carved out
of the side of Phoenix Mountain.  Get the angle just right, and
one could glide below the level of the terrace, pull up and over
the railing into a stall as the updraft hit, and land like a
feather-- and she did, her soft boots meeting the stone pavement
as gently as if she'd descended one step rather than landed from
a five-league patrol.  Folding her white wings like a cloak over
her back, she walked forward in time to clear the way for her
lieutenants, and smiled slightly to herself as they landed behind
her with a little more impact.  Not enough to merit chastisement,
fortunately; she wasn't in the mood, not after a clean sweep on a
beautiful day like this.  She brushed a hand through her short
pale hair, checking that the braided leather headband that arched
from ear to pointed ear was in place and hadn't lost the small
feathers that adorned it, then strode off towards the doorway set
into the rock at one end of the terrace.

     Her good mood vanished when she saw who awaited her in the
shadows there.  "Good day, Helubor," she sighed, stopping well
short of the doorway.

     "Welcome back, Kiima.  All is well, I trust?" the noble said
pleasantly, stepping out into the sun.  Free of confinement, his
wings extended a little to display their markings, rust-red and
black.  He wore matching garments-- Kiima tried hard not to think
of them as a costume, but failed-- on his slender, well-
proportioned frame.  On his chest a polished golden plastron
shone and glittered, as though he were trying to outdo Lord
Saffron... but that was impossible, of course.

     "We detected no threat," Kiima replied.

     "Ah, good.  Then, if your duty is not urgent, I would speak
with you."  Helubor glanced meaningfully past Kiima at Koruma and
Masara, and Kiima heard her lieutenants' wings rustling a little
in their disquiet.  "Privately."

     Kiima turned her head to speak over her shoulder; she knew
how Helubor would react if she turned her back on him, and it
just wasn't worth it.  "Go about your duties," she ordered the
two younger warriors.  "I'll find you later."

     "Very well, Lady Kiima," they said in unison.  They marched
off the terrace, talons clicking on the pavement: the one dark-
skinned, black-haired and black-feathered, the other sporting
slightly outrageous greenish hair and strikingly barred wings,
both clad in the one-shouldered chitons of their office but in
colors of their own choice.  Kiima watched them go, wishing she
were going with them, then transferred her gaze back to Helubor.

     "It's been a week," Helubor said in tones of restrained
impatience.  "Have you decided on your answer to my proposal?"

     Kiima sighed even though she'd known the question was
coming.  "Yes-- I mean, yes, I have decided," she said hastily
before Helubor could misinterpret which question she was
answering.  "I'm afraid I must decline."

     Something quite ugly flashed across the man's handsome face
for a moment, but it was gone before Kiima could react to it.
"Perhaps you need more time to consider, then," Helubor said
lightly.  "I can't imagine any reason why you would refuse to
mate with me.  The joining of our houses would create a power in
Phoenix Mountain second only to Lord Saffron himself, and secure
your future.  And you-- neither of us is getting any younger."

     "As you say... but nevertheless, I have made my decision,"
Kiima said coolly.  The look in her blue eyes was even colder
than her voice, but Helubor appeared not to notice.

     "If you persist in your folly, you'll regret it," he vowed.
"I give you one final chance to change your mind."

     Kiima laughed.  "If it truly is the final chance, Helubor, I
am glad," she retorted.  "Good day to you."  She took two steps
back, bowed in precisely the manner prescribed by custom for
seneschal to noble, and took to her wings.

     Helubor crouched to fly in pursuit, but a low chuckle from
the doorway stopped him.  Another man, with thin but regular
features and the same slim, well-tended good looks, came out of
the shadows.  The sardonic smile on his face was met with a snarl
on Helubor's.  "Taragon!"

     "I told you she'd refuse if you pressed her," Taragon said,
unconcerned by Helubor's anger.  He walked over to lean on the
railing of the terrace and watched Kiima's white pinions
disappear around a shoulder of the mountain.  "In fact, I told
you she wouldn't have anything to do with your oh-so-generous
offer."  He settled his tawny-feathered wings comfortably.

     "Don't think being right will save you from my wrath,"
Helubor blustered.

     Taragon shook his head, still smiling.  "Give up on the
wrath and try a plan that works," he advised the other.  "You've
wasted a lot of time wooing the fair Captain Kiima."

     "No longer," Helubor said tightly.  "As for plans... I await
your suggestions with keen interest."

     "Well, my friend, I'm sure I can come up with something--
oh, drop the wrath already; purple is NOT your color.  Actually,
I have an idea, but it will have to wait for the right
moment...."

     ~~~~~

     "Thrice-accursed aristocratic gumboil," Kiima muttered,
landing on the veranda of a building perched dizzyingly on the
side of the mountain.  "Accosted on my own customary end-of-
patrol landing in front of my subordinates," as she stomped
through a doorway, not sparing a glance for the intricately
carved phoenixes decorating it.  "'You're not getting any
younger,' the mudhugger says," she fumed, turning a blind corner.
"Oops."

     "Hello, Kiima," the lady she'd nearly run over said
brightly.  "Any mudhugger in particular?"

     "Hello, Fanael," Kiima said wearily, rubbing her forehead.
"Helubor, actually."

     The other woman cocked her head to one side, causing the
thin silver chains twined into her long, dark hair to chime
faintly.  "Ah.  So you're not going to be my brother's mate,
then?"

     "Not if he were the last man in Phoenix Mountain," Kiima
said flatly.

     "That's a pity."  Fanael turned to go back the way she'd
come, the way Kiima was going, and Kiima fell into step beside
her... with a little difficulty; Helubor's younger sister was
nearly a foot shorter than she.  "I'd have liked having you for a
sister."

     Kiima darted a glance down at her, and swallowed the comment
she'd been about to make; Fanael's tone was genuinely wistful.
"If your brother was as pleasant company as you are, I might
consider it," she said.  "As it is... well, we'll just have to
settle for being friends, I suppose."

     "Mmm.  Kiima, dear, don't take this the wrong way, but...
aren't you EVER going to settle down?"

     "If you mean mate and bear children--" Fanael nodded-- "not
if I have to do it with Helubor."

     "But really, who else is there?"

     "Not you too," Kiima protested.  "I'm sure that's what HE
was thinking."

     "Well, there are fewer than a hundred nobles, and perhaps a
dozen men the right age for you, and half of them are mated...
Kiima, we can't afford to be picky.  We need the children too
badly."

     Kiima flinched; to bring up the decline of the numbers of
the Phoenix folk in polite conversation was simply not done.
"Fanael, I hope you're not going to tell me to do my duty to our
people.  I do my duty, every day."

     "Yes, of course."  Fanael looked downcast for a moment, but
at that moment their footsteps took them into the vast central
cavern of Phoenix Mountain, and the glory that their people had
assembled over centuries of patient effort lifted her spirits.

     Pleasant warmth suffused the stone, robbing it of its usual
chilling effect; golden light sparkled off sumptuous carvings and
decoration, silken canopies and colorful clothing, rich wood and
polished metal.  Seated in a luxurious lamp-like enclosure
suspended above the terraces, platforms, and gardens arranged on
the floor of the cavern, Lord Saffron emanated the splendor of
his power for the benefit of his people.  The effect penetrated
to most of the interior of Phoenix Mountain, abating somewhat
when Saffron slept, but it was strongest here... and here was
where the Phoenix folk came to meet and make merry.

     Fanael walked to the balcony and looked down.  "The
wisteria's still blooming," she said, sniffing in appreciation.
"I wonder how the gardeners managed that."

     "If only the fountains worked," Kiima said wistfully as she
joined her friend.  The fountains in the cavern, like the rest of
the springs in Phoenix Mountain, including the one that had begun
to transform her people from ordinary villagers to folk of the
air thousands of years ago, had dried up decades ago, and stayed
that way despite the best efforts of the artificers.  Water still
flowed to the fields south of the mountain, and could be brought
to the residential levels if necessary, but nowadays they relied
on rainwater and snowmelt trapped in cisterns, and that was too
scarce to waste in fountains.

     Fanael pouted.  "You just can't be cheered up today, can
you?"

     "Sorry," Kiima said, half-smiling.  "Perhaps I'm on edge
because things have been so quiet lately.  I almost wish
something exciting would happen."

     ~~~~~

     "Well, how about that," Ranma said, gawking at the mighty
circular doorway cut into the mountain, decorated with sculpted
fowl of some kind.  The path had become a trail, the trail had
joined a road, and the road had led him here... but where was
here?  Ranma was pretty sure the Joketsuzoku had never mentioned
this.  However, there were probably lots of things Cologne had
never told him, just because he hadn't known to ask.  For a
moment he considered going back and asking... but only for a
moment, and the prospect of not exploring never even occurred to
him.

     He extracted a few useful items from his pack, then went
back a couple of hundred yards to cache the pack under a boulder
in a pile of other boulders, the result of some landslide in
years gone by.  With his valuables secured and himself at
fighting weight, he returned to the doorway and ventured inside.

     Wide stone steps led upward into the darkness.  The doorway
was wide and tall enough to pass a two-ox cart, but the steps
made this a ceremonial entrance rather than a practical one.
Small box lamps mounted on the walls of the winding passage lit
Ranma's cautious progress up the steps.  He wondered for a moment
if the lamps were lit all the time, but just then one of the
steps moved slightly under his foot.  He jumped back quickly, too
late: all the lamps went out at once.

     Ranma crouched in the darkness, straining all his senses for
signs of danger.  The passageway was long and twisty enough that
no glimmer of daylight filtered through from the entrance even
after his eyes had adapted to the dark.  He carefully produced a
flashlight from his pocket and thumbed it on.  The conical beam
revealed no enemies creeping up, no inconvenient gaps in the
floor; testing each step with care, he proceeded.

     The stairway ended in a landing and a metal door set into a
wall blocking the passage.  Ranma tried the handle; it was stiff,
but it turned.  He pulled the door open-- and something rushed at
him out of the darkness beyond.  He dodged sideways, thrusting
out a hand to fend it off, and found himself staring at a large
mallet, its handle hinged above the door on the far side.
Raising an eyebrow, he glanced down the steep descent that
awaited anyone incautious enough to be caught by the mallet, and
nodded in appreciation.  "Nice try-- yipe!"  An array of steel
spears dropped down from holes in the ceiling, and a busy moment
later the vertical rods constrained him in a contorted pose.

     Blowing out a thankful breath, Ranma carefully eeled through
the forest of spears, pushed the mallet out of the way, and
slipped through the door.  "Whoever built this place had a nasty
sense of humor," he muttered, eyeing the traps with disdain.  The
passage continued, sloping upward, and he followed it.  When he
noticed a glimmer of light ahead, Ranma turned his flashlight off
and returned it to his pocket, then advanced silently, hugging
one wall.  Ahead, the passage opened into a large chamber; Ranma
sneaked up to the corner and peeked in.  Other passageways led
out of the chamber, and lamps on the walls illuminated it, but he
saw no one, so he walked out into the room.

     He realized that he hadn't looked up an instant before he
heard the shrill blast of a whistle.  A circular gate of metal
bars above the passage swung down on the hinge at its base and
slammed into place.  Clang!  Click!  A big grin slid over Ranma's
face as winged men carrying spears flapped down from the balcony
ringing the chamber above the passages.  "Now THIS is more like
it!"

     ~~~~~

     "I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it,"
Kiima chanted to herself, sprinting down a hallway cut from the
rock.  The hallway suddenly opened out into a vertical shaft,
crossing it on a simple, railless bridge made from half of a huge
log.  The tolling of the alarm gongs, echoing up from below,
became much louder.  Kiima dove off the side of the bridge; wings
half-open to guide her plummeting descent, she spiraled around
lower bridges.  With a shoulder-wrenching pullout, she braked and
landed on the lowest log, the impact driving her into a crouch.

     "The intruder's on the upper granary level!" Koruma shouted
from the doorway ahead of her.

     "Just one?" Kiima queried in amazement, jogging after him.
"How'd he get so far?  Were the guards asleep?!"

     "Dunno," Koruma called over his shoulder, then he dropped
out of sight as they came to another open shaft.  Kiima followed
close behind, automatically checking the sword strapped to her
thigh.  "One was coward enough to fly for help when he saw his
squad getting massacred, though."

     "Smart enough, you mean."  Kiima felt a sudden pulse of fear--
not for herself, for the guards under her command.  Massacred?
Had her people already been wounded and dying when she'd said she
wanted a little excitement?  To get to the upper granary level,
the intruder would have to go through at least three squads...
and he'd apparently done it faster than she'd found out about it.

     The sounds of combat met Koruma and Kiima as they burst out
into a large cavern with the guards they'd collected en route.
The intruder was an unarmed man of no exceptional stature, Kiima
noted, astonished; black pants, blue shirt, pigtail... and very,
very fast.  As she watched, he spun around and a scything kick
sent a guard flying through the air, wings flailing limply.
Other guards were crumpled on the floor or draped over the
bulging sacks stacked on the floor of the granary.

     "Masara, get him!" Koruma shouted.  If the barred-winged
warrior heard, he gave no sign; he was already pulling up into a
hover for his attack.  With a wordless cry, he whipped his wings
around, showering a rain of quills on the intruder.

     The man evaded them in an acrobatic whirl.  "Hey, how many
times can ya do that 'fore you're as bald as a plucked chicken?"
he taunted, grinning.  Masara snarled and dove, striking with a
taloned hand-- and scored.  The man rolled across the floor to
fetch up with a thump against a pile of sacks.  "Not bad," he
called, getting to his feet and wiping his mouth with his hand.
He beckoned with the other hand.  "C'mon and try that again."

     Masara circled and stooped, but this time the man sprang
high into the air.  Kiima and Koruma both gasped as Masara,
unprepared to be met in midair, took a foot in the midsection,
stunning him.  The intruder pivoted around his prey, flinging
Masara down into the floor and landing on him hard.

     "This one's mine," Kiima said evenly, barring Koruma as he
started past her.  She drew her sword and leapt into the air,
diving on the intruder as he danced clear of the fallen Masara.
His eyes widened as he saw her, and he seemed to hesitate, but
her first swoop was a clean miss; the man simply wasn't where her
sword was.  Chagrined, she flipped up and spilled air from her
wings, landing just outside engagement range.  "Haaaa!"  She
lunged-- and for an impossible instant he was standing on the
back of her extended sword!  She knew she was wide open for a
kick to the face, and brought her left hand up to try to block,
but instead of attacking he backflipped away and landed facing
her.

     "Hey, wait a min-- yipe!"  He dodged her blade, and again,
and then his hands blurred and the sword left her grip to
cartwheel away and skitter to a stop on the floor behind him.

     Kiima leapt back and up, crossing her arms over her chest;
her wings flapped twice, poised, and snapped down.  "THOUSAND
SEABIRD WINGS!"  A dozen blades of razor-sharp air whirled at the
intruder.  The look of shock on his face was a fine thing to see,
but Kiima's exultation was short-lived; he somehow recognized
them for what they were, spotted the gaps between them, and
slipped through.

     He wasn't complacent about it, though.  "Wait, can't we
talk--" he began, retreating toward the wall.

     Kiima cut him off.  "THOUSAND SEABIRD WINGS!"  Again the
blades of air spun, and again the man dodged.

     "Hah!" he exulted-- just before the scaffolding shredded by
the air-knives that had missed him gave way, dropping a block of
stone on his head.  WHAM!

     Silence descended, save for the groans of the fallen guards
and the last flap of Kiima's wings as she landed.  "I wasn't
aiming at you, fool.  Good thing that part of the balcony was
under repair," she added to Koruma as her lieutenant arrived at
her side.  "Curse it, I didn't want to kill....  Well, have him
given a decent burial, and tally up our casualties."   The block
of stone suddenly split in half and fell on either side of the
prone figure of the intruder, and Kiima and Koruma froze.  Kiima
absently noted that the man's first and fourth fingers were
extended.

     Koruma noticed something else.  He bent over the body and
turned it over, then looked up with a very strange expression on
his face.  "Captain, he's still alive."

     Kiima's jaw dropped.  "Impossible."

     "See for yourself, Captain...."

     Sure enough, the intruder's head was still the same shape,
give or take a large lump, and he was breathing.  Kiima watched
his eyes spiraling for a moment, then shook her head in amazement
tinged with relief.  "All right, improbable, then.  Gods above,
what a hard head.  Put him in a cell... a strong one."  Kiima
walked over and retrieved her sword as guards flooded into the
granary and began tending to the wounded.

     ~~~~~

     After a long ascent through dark, viscous waters, Ranma's
consciousness surfaced with a twitch and a groan in an unfamiliar
place.  The state was quite familiar, though; gingerly he reached
up and felt the tender lump on his head.  "Ow.  Goddamn, what got
me?"  He ran the last few seconds of the fight through his mind
and came up with a guess that seemed likely.  "Gotta look up
more...."

     The room he found himself in was a walled-off length of
cave.  It was obviously a cell; the padlocked metal-barred
circular door was a dead giveaway, but the sparse furnishings
were also a good indication.  A thin straw mat was rolled up in
one corner, two buckets rested in another, and that was it.
Lamplight and air came through the door from the hallway outside,
but the stone walls and floor were only cool, not chilly, a
faintly eerie sensation.

     Ranma got up and moved around a little, inspecting his new
home, and nodded grudging approval.  As cells went, it was pretty
good: clean, dry, well-ventilated but not drafty, not roomy but
definitely not cramped; the stalactites were well clear of his
head, the mat was free of vermin, the water bucket was clean, and
the slops bucket had a lid.  "If it wasn't for the lock, they
could charge rent," he said to himself.  "Hope room service
measures up."

     The echoes of his mutter had barely died away before they
were replaced by another sound: approaching feet sporting large
talons.  Ranma leaned against the bars to look along the hall.
Two birdmen, one carrying a tray and the other holding a stout
bamboo pole, walked up to his cell and stopped.  "Get away from
the bars," the one with the pole said impatiently.

     Ranma didn't budge.  "Let me out!" he demanded.

     "Look, it's simple," the other birdman, the one with
greenish hair, said.  "Get away from the bars, and you get
dinner.  Don't get away from the bars, and you don't."

     Looking down at the tray robbed Ranma of his resolve; dinner
looked and smelled very welcome indeed.  "Okay, okay," he said,
backing up.  The man with the pole watched him carefully while
the other put the tray down, set the bowls on the floor, slid the
tray through the bars, and put the bowls back on the tray.  Ranma
watched in puzzlement until he realized that the bowls were small
enough to fit through the bars and the tray wasn't, at least not
level.  But why bother with the tray at all?  Ranma shrugged,
dismissing the matter as one more eccentricity of a strange
people.

     The look of the green-haired birdman struck him as familiar.
"You were in the fight, weren't you?" he asked.  "Near the end?"

     "Yeah.  What's it to you?"

     "Just wondering," Ranma said.  "You're pretty strong.  How
about letting me out and seeing how we stack up one-on-one?"

     The man's chin came up.  "We have our orders," he said
stiffly.  "You're to be held for Lord Saffron's judgment."

     Ranma shrugged again.  "Oh, well, your loss.  Say, how often
CAN you do that feather trick, anyway?"

     The green-haired man looked incensed, but his dark-winged
companion seemed amused.  "He got you there, Masara," he said.
"Come on, I'm hungry too."

     Masara followed him away, grumbling.  "Thanks for dinner!"
Ranma called after them, starting to uncover bowls.

     ~~~~~

     "Thanks for taking me down to see the mystery man, Kiima."
Fanael's hair-chains jingled faintly as she descended the steps
to the prison cavern.

     "It's nothing," Kiima replied.  In truth, she'd been torn
between curiosity and not wanting to be thought to be gawking at
the human as though he were a captive animal, and Fanael's
request had come as a welcome excuse.

     "I heard he fought his way through all the guards, but
didn't hurt any of them... is that true?"

     "More or less.  He hurt them, all right, but no deaths, not
even a broken bone; only bruises, scrapes, concussions, wind
knocked out, that sort of thing."

     Fanael looked puzzled.  "Isn't that, I don't know, odd?"

     "Quite," Kiima said shortly.  She knew precisely what it
meant: great skill restrained by even greater control, and
directed by a will to do no lasting harm.  Had he slain or even
maimed any of the guards, the law of Phoenix Mountain was clear:
death.  Could that be the reason?  But how could he have known?
Was he a spy?  Did her spies have any information about him?

     She escorted Fanael into the prison, leaving the last door
unlocked; the usual rules about doors were superseded by the
presence of a noncombatant.

     The prisoner was sitting crosslegged on his mat with one
elbow on his knee and his chin resting on his hand when Kiima and
Fanael stopped opposite his cell.  He uncoiled quickly to his
feet and came up to the grill; the flash of recognition in his
eyes when he saw Kiima was clear.  Fanael stepped back quickly
with a little startled squeak, and Kiima laid a warning hand on
the hilt of her sword.

     "Hey, don't be afraid," the man said, holding up his hands
and smiling.

     "Isn't that your line?" Fanael asked slyly, nudging Kiima.

     Kiima flushed.  "Fanael!"

     "He's very handsome, isn't he?" Fanael observed.  The man
grinned charmingly.  "For one of the wingless, I mean."  The grin
slipped a little.  "He's a bit short, though...."

     At that, the man's grin became a hurt expression.  "Look
who's talking."

     Kiima examined him, careful to concentrate on the "wingless"
and "short" aspects, for she couldn't deny that the man was fair
of face and figure.  "I suppose he'd appeal to the Joketsuzoku,"
she said distantly.

     "Lady, you don't know the half of it," the man muttered.

     "So where'd he come from?" Fanael asked.

     "He appears to be from Japan, though dressed Chinese-style,"
Kiima replied.  "Mid-twenties in age, I would judge, and in good
health--"

     "Look, if you don't stop talking about me like I'm not here,
I'm gonna start making personal comments about YOU," the man
interrupted.

     Kiima drew herself up.  "Very well, then.  What is your
name?"

     "Ranma," he said with a nod of acknowledgement, one warrior
to another.  "Yours?"

     "Kiima.  Seneschal of Phoenix Mountain and captain of Lord
Saffron's guard," she said proudly.

     "Hmmm.  Kiima and Ranma.  Your names go well together,"
Fanael said mischievously.

     "Fanael!" Kiima burst out, wheeling on her friend.  If it
had been Koruma or Masara making such an outrageous remark, she'd
have smacked him a good one, but with Fanael she could only
protest.  She darted a glance at the prisoner, prepared to vent
her wrath on him if he was laughing at her, but his return glance
was one of resigned sympathy, as though this sort of thing
happened to him all the time.

     "Oh, Kiima, I'm just kidding.  I'm Fanael," she added to
Ranma.  "Lady Fanael of the House of the Hawk."

     "Pleased to meet you," Ranma said, bowing in the Japanese
way.

     "He's nice, too," Fanael said to Kiima.  "I hope Lord
Saffron lets us keep him."

     "Eeep!"  Suddenly looking apprehensive, Ranma cleared his
throat.  "Uh, 'keep me'?" he inquired.

     "I think that's enough, Fanael," Kiima said crisply.  "It's
time to go."

     "Oh, all right.  Goodbye, Ranma," she said with a little
wave, turning away.

     "Later," Ranma called.

     ~~~~~

     By midmorning the next day, as best he could estimate it in
this place without sunlight, Ranma was pacing his cell like a
caged beast.  Good food wasn't enough to offset the silence and
confinement; his jailers wouldn't let him out to play with them,
and that nice Lady Fanael and the very interesting Captain Kiima
hadn't come back.  "Bored, bored, bored," he muttered to himself.

     Enough was enough.  He stopped, looked out the bars in both
directions, listened, then sprang lightly up to hang sideways on
the bars with his hands on one and his feet on the next.  He
strained, muscles bulging under his loose clothing, and the bars
bent.  Flakes of rust sprang off the iron and fell to the floor.

     The bars didn't have to bend very far to permit his body to
pass through, and in a moment he stood outside his cell.  The
cells on either side of the central hallway were irregularly
spaced but staggered so that the occupant of one cell could see
only part of the next.  Ranma quickly checked the other cells,
but they were all empty.  He started to return to his original
cell, and for a moment wasn't sure which one it was; they all had
identical circular doors with vertical bars.  Only one had bent
bars, though.

     Ranma smiled suddenly.  He checked the next cell in the
direction opposite the way his visitors came; having verified
that it also had a sleeping mat and buckets, he took hold of the
bent bars and carefully bent them back straight.  Then he entered
his new cell by the same method, sat back, and waited for the fun
to start.

     Talons clicking on the stone floor announced that it was
lunchtime, and a panicked curse announced that Ranma's ruse had
succeeded.  "Damn!  The prisoner's escaped!"

     "Captain Kiima's going to have our heads for this-- what are
you doing, idiot?  Put that whistle away!"

     "Koruma, he's loose!  We have to alert the guards.  There's
no way we can handle this ourselves."

     "Crap.  You're right."

     The whistle brought running feet and a quick exchange of
orders and recriminations.  Then a guard at the back of the crowd
by the cell happened to glance sideways.  Ranma, sitting with his
back against the sloping wall and his legs stretched out with his
ankles crossed, waved cheerfully.  The guard did a beautiful
doubletake and his eyes bulged.  A second later he found his
voice.  "Here!  Uh, I caught the prisoner!"

     Koruma and Masara appeared before the cell and stared.
Masara turned and clouted Koruma over the head.  "You moron, you
were looking in the wrong cell!"

     "Bullfeathers!  He was in THAT cell, I swear it!"  Koruma
paused and looked over his shoulder, then back at Ranma.
"...wasn't he?"

     The guards groaned.  Ranma grinned.  Masara ground his
teeth.  The party broke up, going back to wherever guards went
when they weren't guarding.  Koruma eyed Ranma suspiciously as he
slid lunch through the bars, but Ranma's mixture of genuine
amusement and feigned innocence-- and the untampered-with lock--
left his suspicion flapping in midair with no place to perch.
"Thanks for lunch," Ranma told him.

     Koruma growled and stalked away, muttering, as Ranma
attacked his noodles.

     The escapade did result in a change in routine: a pair of
guards came by about half an hour later to retrieve the dirty
dishes from Ranma's lunch, which was normal, but half an hour
after that another pair walked by, paused to watch Ranma for a
moment, and moved on.

     When the next pair came by, they looked into the cell, but
the prisoner was nowhere to be seen.  They rushed up to the bars
and peered in.  "This time he's escaped for sure," one told the
other.

     "Wait, let's check the other cell first!"

     "Good idea!"  They ran a few steps off, and Ranma dropped
from where he'd been clinging to the ceiling among the
stalactites, landed silently, and waited, smirking.

     "Oh, crap," he heard one guard say, and then the whistles
started blowing.  Again a squad of guards ran into the hallway of
cells, but this time the first thing Koruma and Masara did was to
double-check Ranma's cell.  Ranma looked back at their annoyed
faces and shrugged.

     "There's this thing called 'eyeglasses'..." he suggested,
trying to keep a straight face.

     The detachment straggled out, punctuated by accusations from
Koruma and Masara and protests from the first two guards.  Ranma
waited for things to settle down, managed to stay put through the
next inspection-- by four guards-- and then went back to his
original cell, bending the bars straight behind him.  With the
satisfaction of an afternoon well spent, he unrolled his mat and
stretched out for a nap.

     ~~~~~

     "Captain Kiima...."

     At Masara's voice, Kiima looked up from her scroll.  "Yes,
what is it?" she said, managing to convey the irritation of a
superior whose subordinates had better have a damn good reason
for interrupting her reading.

     "It's about the prisoner," Masara said unhappily.

     "He's some kind of sorcerer," Koruma chimed in.

     "Or maybe a, a fakir or something.  Anyway, he's freaking
out the guards," Masara maintained.

     Kiima sighed.  "Go on," she said in the same tone.

     Koruma glanced at Masara, then continued, "He's been moving
from cell to cell."

     "And disappearing and reappearing."

     "Is he there now?" Kiima said dryly.

     Again her lieutenants glanced at each other uncomfortably.
"I think so," Koruma said.

     "He was when we left five minutes ago," said Masara,
sounding quite unsure of himself.

     "I see," Kiima said.  She eyed her deputies speculatively.
"Are you suggesting, perhaps, that it would be a good idea to
have him guarded round the clock?"

     "Definitely," said Koruma.  Beside him, Masara cringed
suddenly.  Kiima favored the more astute of the pair with a
humorless smile.

     "That's right.  YOU get to guard him."

     ~~~~~

     Ranma had just finished his breakfast the next morning,
considerately setting the tray outside the bars and stacking the
dirty dishes on it, when another pair of visitors arrived.  To
Ranma's eye, they were not as welcome as Fanael or Kiima would
have been: both men, both richly dressed, one with feathers of
black and red, one with light-brown plumage.  "Hello," he said,
standing.

     They ignored his overture in favor of inspecting him
carefully.  Ranma folded his arms and waited, noticing that
Masara and Koruma had both stiffened into positions of respectful
attention, and perhaps even a little fear.  Both looked rather
bleary from standing guard outside Ranma's cell in shifts all
night.

     "So this is the groundling who bested over thirty guards,
you, and Lady Kiima?" the red-and-black man finally said to
Masara.

     "Not quite, Lord Helubor," Masara answered.  "He did not
best Captain Kiima."

     Helubor looked incensed at the contradiction.  "Leave us,"
he said shortly.  "I wish to question the prisoner."

     "Captain Kiima's orders were to have him guarded all the
time," Koruma objected.

     "And he will be guarded," the tawny-winged man said.  "By
us.  Unless you are suggesting that Lord Helubor and myself are
somehow less capable of guarding a prisoner than you are?"

     "No, Lord Taragon," Koruma replied reluctantly.  He glanced
at Masara.  "I suppose it's all right for a little while...."

     "A little while is all we require," Taragon said smoothly.
He waited until Masara and Koruma had departed, looking
mistrustfully over their shoulders, and then addressed Ranma
again.  "Did you defeat Lady Kiima, groundling?"

     "The name's Ranma.  No."

     "Ah.  I imagine you could have if you'd really wanted to,"
the other insinuated.  "You were just taken by surprise, caught
by a trick.  Isn't that so?"

     Ranma nodded.  "That's right."

     "Could you defeat all three of them together?" Taragon
asked.  "Lady Kiima, Koruma and Masara?"

     "You bet," Ranma said confidently.

     Taragon glanced at Helubor and raised an eyebrow
significantly.  "What about us?" he asked Ranma.  "Could you
defeat us?"

     Ranma nodded again, smiling slightly.  "Sure."

     Helubor flushed.  "You impudent, lowborn mudhugger!  I would
slice you to bloody ribbons!"

     "Yeah, yeah."  Ranma yawned, went back to his mat, and sat
down.  "I don't see you unlockin' the door, though."

     Taragon laughed at that, interrupting Helubor's buildup to
another explosion.  "Enough.  Helubor, we have what we came for."
He nodded to Ranma and strode off.

     Helubor's humor suddenly seemed to improve; he cast a
contemptuous glance at Ranma and followed the other lord.

     "Assholes," Ranma decided, and went back to contemplating
new ways to amuse and confound his captors.

     ~~~~~

     Kiima, Koruma, and Masara came up to Ranma's cell just as he
finished his lunch.  He gulped the last bite, wiped his mouth,
and stood up.  Kiima spoke before he could.  "You will now be
taken before Lord Saffron for judgment," she announced.

     "It's about time," Ranma said.  "Jeez, I was starting to
think you guys had some grudge against me."

     "Listen carefully," Kiima said, ignoring his comment.  "You
must not create any disturbance.  If you attempt to harm Lord
Saffron, or any of our folk, you will be cut down without mercy.
Do you understand?"

     Ranma shrugged.  "Seems clear enough."

     "Very well."  Kiima gestured to Ranma's door, and Koruma
produced a set of keys and removed the padlock, then swung the
door open.  "Come with me."  Kiima turned and strode away.  Ranma
walked out of the cell and followed her, and Koruma and Masara
fell into step behind him.

     Their path took them through the hallways of Phoenix
Mountain, tunnels carved out of the rock or paths paved through
natural caves, and Ranma took full advantage of the opportunity
to look around.  Lamps lit the way, and that strange glow that
seemed to come from nowhere kept the spaces between the lamps
from being fully dark.  Everywhere was the motif of the phoenix:
on doorways, brackets, occasional freestanding sculptures, carved
into walls and doors, inlaid in the floors.  Where other ways
intersected theirs, guards barred the alternate paths; people
with wings craned their necks to see past the guards, or stared
at the small procession from a distance in the larger chambers,
but they passed no one in the hallways.

     Up flights of steps and spiraling loops of ascending tunnel
they went, always climbing.  Finally Ranma saw daylight ahead.
They came out of the last tunnel into what appeared to be a cave
mouth, its stone floor shaped and smoothed.  Kiima stopped on the
brink and turned.  "Do not resist," she told Ranma.  "Koruma and
Masara will carry you, but if you struggle, you will fall."  She
turned and launched herself out into space in one motion, her
white wings spreading to bear her away.

     "Holy shit!" Ranma gasped as he realized what was about to
happen.  Taloned hands seized his upper arms.  "Wait, no--
yaaaaaaaa!"  The two birdmen took three running steps, dragging
him along, and then they were airborne, their wings overlapping
as they flapped in synchrony.  The Bayankala scenery revolved and
tilted hundreds of feet below Ranma's toes, and his father's
voice echoed in his head: 'Fool, don't look down unless you want
to GO there!'  He resolutely dragged his gaze away from the fall
that awaited him and looked ahead.  That view was a lot more
comforting: the side of Phoenix Mountain, seeming almost close
enough to touch, sped by.

     Koruma and Masara ascended rapidly despite Ranma's weight,
and he could hear their rapid breathing to each side of him, but
their grips were tight and sure.  Ranma relaxed, deciding to
enjoy the ride, and looked around.  The steep, craggy spire of
Phoenix Mountain wasn't the highest peak in the area, but the
terraces cut into the rock and the buildings clinging to its
sides set it apart.  To the south, the side away from the way
Ranma had first entered the mountain, a sloping mesa was covered
from one end to the other with small, irregularly shaped fields.
Faraway winged figures flew over them, and Ranma suddenly
realized that they weren't birds; some were carrying burdens, a
tool or a couple of buckets.

     Near the peak of the mountain, not the highest building but
by far the largest, a palace of gray stone clung to the rock.  It
looked like conventional Chinese architecture, with a swooping
tiled roof and red railings, but its foundations hung out over
empty air and the steps down from its veranda led nowhere.  Kiima
was heading right for it, and as she landed on the steps Ranma
realized that to people with wings, steps leading nowhere might
make perfect sense.  A moment later Koruma and Masara braked and
landed behind Kiima.  They set Ranma on his feet, but held on to
his arms.  Ranma glanced back over his shoulder at the next step,
a thousand feet straight down, and was grateful for their grip.
"Wow, what a ride!"

     Kiima turned and frowned at him, then started up the steps.
Koruma and Masara shoved at him to follow, and it occurred to
Ranma that they might not be keeping their tight grip for safety
alone.  He shrugged to himself and allowed them to urge him up
the stairs.

     Many winged folk, some in the uniforms of guards and others
in the finery of nobles, stood on the veranda and watched as
Kiima's party ascended the steps.  The great doors of the palace
swung open as they approached.  Within was a narrow space before
a low wall surmounted by a railing, and another short flight of
steps to a gap in the railing at the top, and more people.  Kiima
proceeded up the steps without pausing, her posture upright and
official.

     As Ranma climbed the steps, the splendor that was Saffron's
throne room appeared to his astonished eyes as the sun appears
over the horizon at dawn.  Guards lined the wide avenue leading
to a translucent curtain hiding the far end of the great hall.
Behind the guards, a couple of dozen nobles, mostly men, watched.
Two ornate phoenixes formed an arch over the curtain, and from
beyond it came golden light.

     Kiima approached the curtained dais and knelt.  Ranma looked
around, spotting Helubor and Taragon in the crowd, but then the
kneeling Koruma and Masara yanked down on his arms.  Ranma
twisted free.  "Forget it," he said defiantly into the sudden
hush.

     The curtain slid open, revealing an immense high-backed
throne fully five meters from floor to phoenix-decorated crest.
On its seat was a man of the winged folk clad in raiment of white
and red, golden-haired and red-eyed.  His face was fair in the
sharp-featured way of the Phoenix Mountain nobles; his expression
was impassive, apparently taking no note of Ranma's unwillingness
to abase himself before him.  Light spilled from him to
illuminate the hall, flashing from ornaments, glowing on
flowering plants, picking out the clothing and plumage of the
populace.

     Another man, apparently of middle age and wearing a short,
ornate cape over his wings and dark robes, walked out to stand at
the right of the throne.  "Lord Saffron sits in judgment of the
prisoner Ranma!" he called.

     "Captain Kiima," Saffron said, raising his right hand.
Kiima rose and walked briskly to the other side of the throne,
turning with precision to stand facing the hall.  She saw that
Ranma was still standing and frowned, but Saffron was already
speaking.  "Chancellor Korianda, read the charges," he said to
the man standing by the throne.

     Korianda produced a scroll from his sleeve and unrolled it.
"In this ninth year of Saffron's current reign, in the afternoon
two days past, an intruder entered Phoenix Mountain.  He disabled
a score and thirteen of the company of Lord Saffron's guard,
including Masara, lieutenant of the guard, before being captured
by Captain Kiima and imprisoned," he read.  He adjusted the
scroll and looked at Ranma.  "Captain Kiima reports that the
intruder's name is Ranma and that he comes from the island
country of Japan.  He is not known to us, nor did he give any
reason for disturbing our peace.  Clearly this outsider is a
threat to our people and must be dealt with accordingly."

     "Am not," Ranma muttered.

     Saffron inspected Ranma, the glint of his eyes no less
bright than the flash of the large circular gem adorning his
chest.  He gestured to Korianda without looking away from Ranma.

     "Ranma, what have you to say for yourself?" the chancellor
challenged.

     "You're making a big fuss about nothing," Ranma said,
folding his arms.  "I was just curious.  I didn't mean any harm,
and I still don't.  Your guards put up a good fight, for
amateurs, and I didn't hurt any of 'em too bad.  If you want to
be friendly, now would be a good time to start, but if not, I'll
be on my way with no hard feelings."

     A shocked and outraged murmur came from the audience, but
Saffron's expression didn't change.  "Will anyone speak for him?"
he asked, his resonant voice carrying throughout the hall, and
waited.  Ranma looked around, but no one spoke up.  He looked
down at Koruma and Masara, kneeling behind him; they looked away
uncomfortably.

     "Lord Saffron," came Kiima's clear voice, "I ask for
leniency for this prisoner."

     Again the crowd murmured, but this time in tones of
surprise.  "Speak," Saffron said.

     Kiima glanced at Ranma.  "It is true that Ranma did no
lasting harm to any of your guards, and I believe him that his
motives for intruding were free of malice."

     Saffron nodded, then turned to Korianda.  "Chancellor?"

     "The secrecy of Phoenix Mountain must be protected, Lord
Saffron," Korianda pointed out.

     Saffron returned his gaze to Ranma.  "Very well.  Let him be
imprinted."

     The chancellor stepped forward.  "Hearken to the judgment of
Lord Saffron!" he shouted.

     "'Imprinted'?  What's that?" Ranma asked Koruma and Masara,
turning his head to and fro as they stood and seized his upper
arms again.  "C'mon, guys, Kiima asked him to go easy on me,
didn't she?"

     "I did, and he was," Kiima said, striding up to them.  "Do
not fear, Ranma."

     "Fear?  Me?  No way," Ranma boasted, but he looked more than
a little apprehensive.  Masara and Koruma began to urge him out
the same way they'd nearly dragged him in, following Kiima.  "So,
is it like a tattoo or something?  'I trespassed in Phoenix
Mountain and all I got was this lousy tattoo'?  Just tell me it's
not branding...."

     Koruma snorted at that.  "It's not branding," Masara said,
sounding like he was trying not to laugh.

     "Great," said Ranma in relief.  He tensed a little as they
went down the steps outside the throne room, but this time when
Kiima took flight from the last step he knew what was coming
next.  "Yaaah!" he whooped as his escorts launched themselves
into the air, dangling him between them.

     The small formation turned hard to the right, wheeling to
glide around the palace and behind it.  Ranma watched with
interest as mountainside and buildings went by.  Kiima angled
down past a chasm spanned by an ornately decorated bridge with a
roof supported by columns, heading for a small, fortified-looking
two-story structure tucked under the bridge.  Koruma and Masara
followed closely, landing on the steps-to-nowhere outside the
building's stout doors.

     Kiima unlocked the doors and opened one to admit them.
Inside it was cool and dark; circular windows with iron louvers
admitted air but little light.  As Ranma's eyes adapted to the
gloom, he saw row upon row of large eggs standing on end, each
nearly as tall as he was.  "What's this, a nursery?" he asked
curiously.

     Kiima smiled a little.  "In a manner of speaking."  She
gestured to her lieutenants, and they pushed Ranma along the
middle of the wide aisle amid the eggs while Kiima went to a
cabinet at the back of the room.  Ranma eyed the eggs, and
noticed that they were easily large enough to contain a person.
A suspicion hatched in his mind.

     ~~~~~

     Kiima opened the cabinet; inside, as expected, was a good
supply of the Eggs of Imprinting.  Three of them should suffice
to enclose Ranma in an eggshell, casting a spell that would cause
him to fixate on the first person he saw after he hatched.  He
would still be himself, more or less; all of the facets of his
personality would be unchanged... but he would treat the one who
brooded him and woke him as a trusted friend whose every
suggestion would be gladly carried out.

     It was Phoenix Mountain's solution for those who could not
be allowed to go free, but did not deserve to be put to death.
It was rarely used on outsiders; most of the eggs waiting in the
vault contained winged folk.  There were whispers that sometimes
the eggs were used by nobles who had exhausted the usual ways of
courtship and wished to have their way with one who persisted in
refusing them... but as long as she had been seneschal, Kiima had
taken pains to ensure that they remained only whispers.

     She took four eggs from the racks in the cabinet, closed the
cabinet, stood up, and turned.  Koruma and Masara were already
holding Ranma in the center of the floor.  She nodded to them and
threw, and just as the eggs left her hands they released Ranma's
arms and jumped back.

     Splat-splat-splat-splat!  All four of them stared down at
the yellow yolks and translucent whites on the floor, Ranma in
puzzlement, the winged folk in surprise and sudden dismay.

     Ba-bump.  Kiima watched her lieutenants reverse their leaps
away from Ranma and begin to lunge forward as she opened her
mouth to shout.

     Ba-bump.  The two men reached for Ranma with agonizing
slowness, and suddenly Ranma was moving.  He dropped and whirled
as their three bodies collided, his arms blurring in the dimness.
Kiima dropped her hand to her sword hilt and jumped back.

     Ba-bump.  Koruma and Masara slid along the floor, one face
up, one face down, and Kiima didn't know whether they were alive
or dead, but Ranma was definitely alive... and coming for her.

     Ba-bump.  Her sword cleared the scabbard, too late.  The
wall of the vault was at her back, there was nowhere to retreat
to and he was right there, inside her defense arc in an eyeblink,
much faster than he'd moved in the granary.  His lips formed a
word as his eyes, such lovely eyes, gazed into hers.

     Ba-bump.  Blackness.

     ~~~~~

     Ranma closed the door of the egg vault behind him, locked
it, and weighed the key in his hand.  It was tempting to simply
pitch it into the void, but he decided against it; if there was
any trouble finding another key, those within might come to harm.
He put it back in the lock.

     Venturing down to the bottom step, he looked over the edge--
and shuddered.  For one of his skills there were ways to survive
the impact after that drop, but it would hurt a lot more than he
really wanted to contemplate.  Up looked more promising, with an
easy climb to the tip of the egg-vault building's pointed roof-
spike, and then a leap to the bridge above.

     When he got to the roof-spike, the leap didn't look quite as
easy as it had from below.  He measured the distance by eye,
carefully did not look down, crouched for a mighty jump, and
hurled himself upwards.  He almost didn't make it.  One hand
slapped onto the top of the handrail and clung for a moment, and
then he hauled himself ungracefully up and over, panting.

     A boot scraped against stone and he looked up.  A dozen
nobles, including Helubor, were eyeing him in a distinctly
unfriendly manner from the doorway at the near end of the bridge.
Ranma essayed a feeble smile and waved.  "Uh, how's it going?"

     Eleven swords rasped out of their sheaths as one; the odd
man out was assembling a two-part spear.  Ranma heaved an
exasperated sigh and ran for it across the bridge, pursued by
yelling men waving swords and wings.  Run-of-the-mill guards were
one thing, but if these guys were half as good as Kiima, he might
have to really hurt some of them to beat a dozen.

     At the other end of the bridge was another palatial
building, its large doors decorated with yet another phoenix.
Ranma slipped through and slammed the door, barring it just as
the first noble fists hit the other side.  He puffed in relief,
straightened, and looked around.

     It had to be a bedroom.  No room could have a bed four
meters square and NOT be a bedroom.  The squared-off knotwork
decorating the walls, the potted plants, and the window screens
all matched the motif of the throne room, and Ranma had an uneasy
feeling that he knew whose bedroom this was, and how much trouble
he'd get into for invading it.

     Then he noticed the other guy who'd invaded it, a tawny-
winged man over by an open cabinet.  The man smiled a knowing,
triumphant smile at him and moved sideways along the wall to a
door, opened it, and slipped out.

     It dawned on Ranma that maybe he ought to slip out too, and
he started across the room.  He was almost there when a booming
roar came from outside, over by the bridge, and the other doors
fell in.  As the smoke cleared, Ranma saw that the doors were
charred and blackened, and then he saw the resplendent figure of
Saffron standing on the bridge with the Phoenix nobles clustered
behind him.  Saffron raised his arm, pointing his hand across the
room at Ranma, and flame streaked from his hand just as Ranma
dove out the door.  The explosion blasted him down the hallway
like a bullet in a gunbarrel, scorching his trousers and curling
his pigtail.

     Ranma rolled to his feet and sprinted away trailing smoke,
resolved to take any turning that headed down in the hope that
eventually one would lead him out.  This was getting much too
serious for his taste.

     ~~~~~

     Kiima opened her eyes to the sight of Casia's face looking
down at her.  The old healer nodded, satisfied, and moved back to
give her room to sit up.  "Are you feeling all right, Captain
Kiima?" she asked, but she was already closing her satchel.

     "Fine," Kiima said absently.  "Why do I feel fine?"

     "Your sleep point was pressed, I suspect, although there is
no trace of a bruise.  Nicely done, actually."  Casia stretched a
slender hand out of the voluminous sleeves of her green robe to
indicate Koruma and Masara, who were laid out in reasonably
comfortable positions, each with an attendant.  "Those two, on
the other hand, will be a while coming around; your assailant was
not so gentle with them."

     "My--"  Kiima looked around wildly, but all of the people
crowding the vault of eggs had wings.  "He's gone!"

     "Indeed he is," came a new voice.  Korianda stepped forward
and frowned down at Kiima.  "Not without causing considerable
damage, however."

     "Was anyone badly hurt or killed?" Kiima asked, anxiety
clear in her voice.

     "We don't know yet," Korianda replied; it was plain that he
would hold Kiima responsible for any injuries.

     Kiima wasn't about to dispute that, as it accorded well with
her own feelings in the matter.  She got to her feet.  Checking
the scabbard at her thigh and finding it empty, she sought her
sword, but a guard hurried forward and held it out to her.  "I'll
see that he's recaptured forthwith," she promised, sliding the
sword home.

     "You will not," Korianda said flatly.  Kiima looked at him
in surprise.  "Lord Saffron commands you to present yourself as
soon as you are fit to do so."

     Kiima nodded coolly, hoping her sudden sinking feeling
wasn't outwardly visible.  "That would be now."  She made her way
past her fallen lieutenants and out the door.  It was
midafternoon, perhaps a couple of hours after Ranma's escape, and
she wondered why it had taken so long to find and awaken her as
she flew up to the roofed bridge.  One possible reason presented
itself as she landed: the charred doors of Saffron's bedchamber,
being remounted by a crew of Loame's workmen, suggested the
mayhem left in Ranma's wake.

     Loame himself was supervising the job.  He turned as Kiima
walked up.  "Hello, Captain," he said respectfully, bowing his
grizzled head.  "They'll have to be replaced, of course."

     Kiima realized he was talking about the doors.  "Yes.  What
happened?"

     Loame shrugged, flexing his brown wings a little.  "It looks
like Lord Saffron, er, blasted them," he said in a soft voice
that did not match his large frame and powerful hands.  "There is
more damage inside.  I am told that the man fled this way."

     Kiima looked past the work party and saw the marks of flame
on the far wall.  The damage to the chamber itself was slight,
but a flash of rage and shame that Saffron's quarters had been
violated made it difficult for her to speak for a moment.  "It
seems likely."

     "We'll rehang the old doors until we can make new ones,"
Loame said, and Kiima envied him his ability to focus on trivial
details.

     Korianda walked up, ignoring Loame.  "Come with me,
Captain," he said to Kiima, and flew off.  Kiima followed without
complaint; under normal circumstances they were peers, neither
with the power to order the other, but these circumstances were
not normal.  They flew around to the front steps of the throne
room and landed.  As they went in, Kiima saw that Saffron was
standing before the throne.  She walked to the middle of the
floor before the dais and knelt there, while Korianda continued
to his place at the right of the throne.

     "Captain Kiima."  Saffron's voice was heavy with anger;
Kiima didn't dare raise her eyes from the floor.  "The prisoner
Ranma has escaped from your custody and fled my realm, damaging
my halls and injuring my people."  He paused, and Kiima realized
with a sinking heart that he was waiting for her to speak.

     "I-- I admit my failure and accept full responsibility," she
said, as steadily as she could.  She could do no less.  "I am
also responsible for my subordinates, and I plead that no blame
shall fall on them because of this.  The fault is mine alone."

     "As you say," Saffron agreed.  "And if that were the only
issue, you would be censured or stripped of your office."  Kiima
flinched, then realized that it must be even worse, and her fears
were confirmed by Saffron's next words: "The fugitive has stolen
the Heart of the Phoenix from my chambers!"

     Shocked, Kiima looked up with wide eyes.  The red circular
gem still hung on Saffron's chest; she realized that he must mean
the smaller green gem, otherwise quite similar, that Saffron had
worn as a prince.  She let her head fall again as the magnitude
of her failure rushed down on her.

     "A priceless and irreplaceable heirloom of my house has been
lost!" Saffron thundered.  His next words were quieter, but still
struck Kiima like blows.  "It has been suggested that execution
is the proper penalty for this treason, but in light of your long
and, until now, faithful service, I have decided on a lesser
punishment."  He paused, and Kiima did not breathe.  "It is my
will that you are this moment stripped of your offices; and that
you shall be banished from Phoenix Mountain, that you shall be
declared outcast, and that none of my people may have commerce
with you, from sundown today."

     "Lord," Kiima husked.  Tiny crystals in the stone paving
inches from her eyes held her attention, details remote from the
world crashing down around her.  She could not bring herself to
beg for mercy, though she detected a note of regret in Saffron's
pronouncement of her doom; was the regret for her, or merely for
the loss of a once-capable servant?  She rose to a crouch and
retreated backward to the stairs and down without raising her
head.  No one in the hall spoke to her, or looked at her when she
finally reached the lower level and straightened.  She walked
down the outside steps and fell into flight, leaving the palace
behind.

     In her quarters, she poked around in a desultory fashion,
still stunned.  What to take with her?  What to leave behind?
Did any of these mementos matter, when her line was ended and her
service cast aside?  She sank into a chair, staring at the wall
and waiting for the light outside to dim.

     A knock on the door startled her out of her trance.  She
looked around, then got up and went to the door.  Her visitor was
a man once tall but now bent with age, his thin white hair
contrasting sharply with the black plumage of his wings.  "Hello,
Lady Kiima," he greeted her.

     Kiima managed a faint smile at the tact of his remark; she
was no longer seneschal or captain, but noble she was until
sundown, and Kiima even after that.  "Hello, Samofere.  I'm glad
you're here."  She stood aside, allowing him to shuffle into her
apartments.

     The small lenses of his spectacles glinted as the old
librarian cocked his head.  "If my presence can give you any
gladness on this terrible day, I am pleased," he said.  "But I
have more concrete aid in mind, while it is still lawful for me
to give it."  He held out a small packet of paper.

     Kiima took the packet, but before she could examine it or
ask what it was, Fanael burst in, weeping.  "Kiima!" she wailed.
"I heard what happened!  Oh, this is awful!"  She flung herself
on the taller woman and embraced her tightly.

     Kiima tucked the packet away and tried to soothe Fanael.
"Don't worry, everything will be all right," she murmured,
amazing herself with how utterly banal and inappropriate the
words were.  They seemed to work, though, and Kiima found that
while trying to alleviate Fanael's distress, her own sorrow
diminished.

     "I don't understand," Fanael sniffled, wiping her eyes.
"There must be some kind of mistake.  Maybe Lord Saffron will
change his mind tomorrow, or the day after.  I'll... I'll talk to
people.  Maybe someone can help."

     "Maybe," Kiima said, but there wasn't much hope in her
voice.  She didn't believe Saffron was a god on earth, as some
did, nor did she believe he was infallible, but her respect for
him as Lord of Phoenix Mountain was a tall citadel with deep
foundations.  Letting Ranma escape had been her failure, and
atoning for it was her last duty.

     "This sucks," someone said from the door.  Kiima looked up
to see Koruma and Masara outside the doorway, both looking like
they'd eaten lemons.

     "I'm glad to see you on your feet," Kiima said, giving
Fanael a last pat and straightening.  She suddenly remembered
Samofere and looked around, but he was gone.

     "You won't be," Masara said, hanging his head.  "It was our
fault too, and we ought to be banished too, but we're stuck
working for the new seneschal."

     "Who?" Kiima asked, managing to keep her voice level.

     "Lord Helubor," Koruma said.

     "Ah."  Kiima didn't need to say more; all of them were well
aware of Helubor's shortcomings.  "Well, do your duty as best you
can.  I've rarely said so, but I've been proud to serve with
you."

     Masara and Koruma did not appear to be gladdened by the
praise; they hung their heads even further.  "He sent us to kick
you out," Koruma mumbled.  "We're supposed to make sure that
you're gone by sundown.  But we wanted to make sure you got a
good start, since you can't fly at night any more than we can, so
we came to remind you...."

     "What a kind gesture," Kiima said, touched.  She looked
around the apartment and came to a sudden decision.  "Fanael, I'm
giving all this to you.  There's no one I'd rather have it, and I
can trust you to see that it doesn't go to waste."

     "Kiima...."  Fanael seemed about to burst into tears again,
but she nodded.  Kiima went quickly around, collecting a few
useful items which she rolled into a bundle.  She ushered her
friends out of her quarters, closed the door and locked it, then
handed the key to Fanael.

     Koruma and Masara escorted her to the nearest doorway to the
open air, managing to make it seem like they were following her
on patrol rather than sending her into exile.  On the platform,
Kiima turned.  "Goodbye," she said.  "Live well."  Koruma and
Masara saluted.  Fanael nodded without speaking.  Kiima adjusted
her bundle, leapt into the air, and flew away from Phoenix
Mountain, not looking back.

     ~~~~~

     Kiima circled to a landing not far north of Phoenix
Mountain.  Her first goal was obvious: find Ranma, find the Heart
of the Phoenix, and return both to Saffron, the latter unharmed.
She didn't hope that doing so would restore her offices, but it
might get her banishment lifted.  If not, or if she was unable to
find her quarry, life outside would require... adjustments.  That
goal lay to the north of her former home, and Ranma was as likely
to have gone north as any other way, so she was here.  There
still lacked about an hour before sunset.

     Lifting her head and trilling a melodious call at intervals,
she waited atop a low crag.  Soon a dove flew by, and then
another, and more calls induced them to land on her outstretched
fingers.  "Find," she whispered to them.  "Find short man.  Find
pigtailed man.  Find."  They cooed back understanding and flew
away.

     Kiima waited, pacing back and forth.  Doves weren't the
fastest of birds, nor the brightest, but she'd always had good
luck getting them to obey her commands.  They might even have
already seen Ranma and registered the fact in their tiny
memories, or heard of his passage in the calls of their
neighbors; using the birds tapped into a dense network of spies
beneath human notice.

     A dove flew in to circle her head, cooing, and she
recognized the undertones in its call: found!  "Lead!" she called
to it.  "Lead me to him!"  The dove sped away.  Kiima followed it
closely, praying that they'd reach her quarry before it got dark.

     ~~~~~

     A match flared into life in Ranma's cupped hands, and she
quickly applied it to pine-needle tinder.  That caught, and
flames licked up into a tight stack of branches.  Ranma nodded in
satisfaction; one match was a win, two was a loss.  Soon she'd
have hot water, and soon after that, hot food, and after that, an
uneasy sleep.

     She looked around at the campsite she'd chosen, nestled
under a pine tree in the angle between two large boulders.  Once
the fire was out and darkness fell, she should be well hidden.
Again she considered pressing on after dark, and again decided
against it.  She poured water from canteen into camp-pot and hung
it over the fire on a stick.

     Suddenly her danger-sense twinged and she looked up.  There
was a rush of wings, a thump, and then a tall, white-winged
figure rushed at her with sword drawn.  "Yeeek!"  She bounced to
her feet and put her back to the boulder, on guard.

     The woman stopped her headlong attack, though, and stared at
Ranma with exasperated fury.  "You're not him!" she cried.  The
fury ebbed and was replaced with weariness; the sword drooped to
dangle at her side.  "You're not him.  Stupid birds.  They saw
the pigtail.  Wrong voice, wrong clothes, wrong SEX, but they got
the pigtail right."

     Ranma looked down at her clothes, glad she'd changed them
for clean ones from her pack after fording the river.  "Uh...."

     "I have mistaken you for someone else," Kiima said shortly,
sheathing her sword.  "You are trespassing on the lands of the
Phoenix Folk, by the way."  She laughed bitterly and looked west,
then east to where blue gloom crept up the side of a mountain
ridge, swallowing the orange light of sunset.  "But then, so am
I."  She looked down at Ranma, seeming uncertain for a moment,
and then her attitude softened.  "I am Kiima.  As one trespasser
to another, I would like to share your fire."

     Ranma cleared her throat.  "Uh, sure," she said.

     Kiima nodded and sat on a large rock.  She picked up a stick
and began poking idly at the fire.  "What is your name?" she
asked, sounding like she didn't really care but was trying to be
friendly.

     "Ran-- ko.  Uh, Ranko."  Ranma silently thanked her deeply-
ingrained reflexes.

     Kiima glanced at her.  "You even have a name like his.  Have
you by any chance seen a man a little taller than you are, with
his hair in a pigtail like yours, out here today?"

     "No," Ranma answered honestly; she didn't have a mirror in
her pack, and hadn't stopped to glance in any pools of still
water.

     "Ah."  Kiima stared at the fire again.  "You're probably
wondering about the wings," she said listlessly.  "I was born
with them.  My mother had wings, my father had wings, so I have
wings.  I don't have a mother or father anymore, though, which is
probably a good thing, because if they were alive to see what
happened to their daughter today they'd probably have died of
shame by now--"  She broke off suddenly and bit her lip.

     Ranma stared, shocked.  Something very bad had happened to
Kiima, and she was uneasily aware that she probably had a large
share of the responsibility for it, and that it therefore fell to
her to do something about it.  Using the hot water bubbling in
the pot for the first purpose she'd intended didn't seem like a
good idea at the moment, though.  The second purpose....  "Are
you hungry?  I was gonna make soup.  You want some soup?"

     "I'm not hungry," Kiima said without looking away from the
leaping flames.

     Ranma shrugged.  "Okay," she said agreeably.  "Let me know
if you change your mind, though."  She poured more water into the
pot, careful not to tip it, and pulled provisions out of her
pack.

     Kiima began to take an interest despite herself as Ranma
assembled dinner.  Slices of dried meat, mushrooms, a stalk of
onion, a packet of noodles, a pinch of this, a sprinkle of that,
and shortly a tempting smell wafted up from the bubbling pot.
Kiima felt her neglected stomach clamoring for attention.  "I
think I would like some soup after all," she said finally.

     Ranma darted a pleased glance at her.  "Thought so.  I made
enough for two.  I don't have a bowl, though, so we're gonna have
to share the pot, okay?"

     "It's that or go hungry," Kiima said, trying to make light
of it.

     Ranma swiftly converted a pine branch into two pairs of
chopsticks with her bare hands, wrapped a rag around the handle
of the pot, picked it up, and brought it over to Kiima.  "Here
you go," she said, handing her pot and chopsticks.  "Careful,
it's hot."

     ~~~~~

     "Thank you, Ranko, that was delicious," Kiima said
sincerely, watching Ranko clean the pot with pine needles.  It
was very difficult to consider someone a stranger after passing a
pot of soup back and forth with her, she reflected.  She'd be
spending the rest of her life among humans unless things went
much better than she was expecting, and a friend would make that
a lot more bearable....  "Do you live around here?"

     "I live right where I am, and right now I'm here," came the
comfortable answer.  "You?"

     "That describes my situation too," Kiima admitted.  "I used
to live near here, but I've been exiled."

     "Really?  Why?"

     "I let a prisoner in my custody escape," Kiima said, the
words bitter in her mouth.  "I thought you were him.  That's why
I attacked you."

     "And they kicked you out because of that?"

     "That, and he stole something very precious from our lord,"
Kiima said, gratified by the indignant tone of the question.

     "I--!  Uh, I mean, are you sure he stole this thing?"

     "Yes.  Tomorrow I'll go on looking for him."

     "Huh.  What if you don't find him?"

     "I'll find him," Kiima promised grimly, rising.  She walked
out to the edge of the small, uneven circle of firelight and
stood listening.  After a few minutes she heard the call of a
night hunter, and hooted in return.  The owl came out of the
night like a ghost, sweeping low over the ground and rising at
the last second to land on her outstretched gauntlet.

     "Hoo?"

     "Greetings, friend," Kiima said softly.  "I need to borrow
your eyes.  Find a man, a short, pigtailed man.  Tell me where he
is."

     "Hoo-hoo."  The owl spread its wings and bated, then folded
them again.  It stared at Ranko, watching intently from the other
side of the fire, and then turned back to Kiima, bobbing its
head.

     "Not that one.  Another one," Kiima said patiently.  The owl
launched itself from Kiima's wrist and disappeared into the
gathering night.

     "Cool," Ranko observed as Kiima returned to the fire.  "So
you can talk to birds, huh?"  Kiima nodded.  "Well," Ranko
continued, "lots of people talk to birds, but this time I think
the bird was talking back."

     Kiima smiled.  "She will search for Ranma, and bring word if
she finds him, while I rest."

     "Oh."  Ranko looked down.  She dismantled the small fire
with a stick, dropping the nearly-consumed firewood into the
shallow pit she'd built it in, and quenched the coals with earth.
Only a small cloud of smoke remained, and that dissipated
quickly, but the light and heat were gone.  "If we're
trespassing, we don't want to show people where we are," Ranko's
voice explained.

     "Yes, of course."

     "Speaking of resting, uh, I can spare a blanket if you need
one...."

     "Thank you, but no."  Kiima found her bundle.  "I have a
cloak, and wings are good for more than flying."  She wrapped
herself in her cloak and reclined against the pine tree.  She
heard Ranko moving around in the dark; objects tapped and rustled
as she put them away, but it didn't sound like she was fumbling.
"Have you been doing this long?  Camping in the wilderness, I
mean?"

     "All my life, just about.  I've been traveling with my
father since I was a kid, and traveling by myself since I grew
up."

     "Don't you have a home?"

     Ranko laughed.  "Oh, I have homes, all right.  I travel
'cause I'm visiting people.  I'm headed home now, but I'm not in
a hurry."

     "You make it sound like a fine life," Kiima said slowly,
trying to wrap her mind around the idea.  This woman seemed to
enjoy what she had been condemned to....

     "It has its points.  Good ones and... bad ones."  Ranko
sounded a little sad for a moment, but only a moment.  "Just try
to enjoy the good ones, and try not to let the bad ones get to
you too much."

     "Good advice," Kiima admitted.  "Perhaps in the morning I'll
be able to see the good points."

     "I hope so.  Watch the stars for a while, that always cheers
me up."

     ~~~~~

     Sunlight struck Ranma's closed eyelids, and she awoke with a
start.  "Ugh."  The low sun shone right between two branches into
her eyes, and she squinted and moved back into the shade, but the
damage was done: she was awake.

     "Not a morning person, I take it?"  Kiima turned from a
small fire, built much like the one Ranma had made the night
before.  "I hope you don't mind, I borrowed your cooking pot."

     "Nah, that's OK."  Ranma heard water hissing against metal
as it began to boil.  "You making breakfast?"

     "Well, tea.  I have tea.  I don't have food."

     "Jeez, you're not going to last long out here without food."
Ranma extracted herself from her blankets and crawled over to her
pack.  "Let's see what we got here.  Dried plums... hmm, whatever
this is-- no, that's for Momma.  I can make rice if you're really
hungry...."

     "Well, tea first," Kiima said.  "I have to contribute
something."

     "Don't sweat it."  Ranma got up, yawning and scratching, and
moved out into the sunlight.  A little workout would shake off
the stiffness from sleeping in the open.  She assumed a guard
stance facing the sun and began, slowly at first, then quicker.

     "Here's your tea," came Kiima's voice.  Ranma stopped and
turned just as Kiima stepped forward, holding out Ranma's own
battered tin cup, and stumbled over a root.  Hot tea splashed
Ranma's face and chest.

     "OW!  HOT!"

     ~~~~~

     "I'm sorry--" Kiima began automatically, then broke off.
The voice, the face, the height, the--  Her eyes widened and she
felt her lips pull back from her teeth.  "Jusenkyo!  You're HIM!
EEEEAAAAA!"  Ranko had been Ranma all along!  She'd eaten and
slept within feet of her quarry!  Her thoughts raced like
lightning: she had to get distance!  Close in, he could dismantle
her like a boiled chicken, but she had a wide edge in mobility.
She leaped back and up, her wings unfolding to scoop air and hurl
her back further.

     Ranma darted for his pack, wiping at his eyes; the hot tea
must have blinded him, at least a little.  Kiima folded her arms
and gathered up her legs, and her wings whipped around and down.
The Thousand Seabird Wings attack lashed out at Ranma without
warning, but he vaulted up and clear.  Crack!  Severed at the
base, the gnarled pine toppled onto the campsite, burying Ranma's
pack in branches and foliage.

     "Wait, listen, I can explain!" Ranma yelled.  His face was
reddened and his eyes were puffy, but he could see; he was
looking right at her.

     "DIE!" Kiima shrieked, unleashing another swarm of slicing
air to bracket him.  He darted a glance at the fallen tree,
cursed, and took the only path open to him: away.  Kiima pursued
him hotly, flinging the Thousand Seabird Wings at him whenever he
tried to turn, driving him away from the campsite and out into
the open.  She swooped and wheeled, circled and dove, staying
well clear of his amazing jumping range while doing her very best
to turn him into mincemeat.  He managed to evade that fate, but
his shorts and singlet became frayed and torn by near-misses.

     On one circle he sprinted suddenly for a nearby grove of
bamboo and reached it before Kiima could intercept him.  Again
she sent the whirling blades to scythe him down, but he was
ready; he hurled several bamboo poles at her like spears.  Her
own attack met them and passed through, dicing and sharpening
them in midair.  She shielded her face with her arms and flipped
aside in a spectacular wingover, but she couldn't shield her
fragile wings.  Bamboo scored her legs and arms and tattered her
feathers, and then the storm of wood was past.  She wheeled,
scanning quickly for Ranma, but he was nowhere to be seen.

     She didn't dare venture into the grove; that would be taking
the battle to ground where he had the advantage.  Kiima circled,
cursing.  "The Heart!" she exclaimed suddenly.  It might be in
Ranma's pack!  Of the two, the Heart was more important; her
vendetta was personal, but the Heart had to be returned, no
matter what.  She flew for the camp as quickly as her wings would
carry her.

     The pine tree was much too heavy for her to lift, but she
found that she could wriggle under it and reach the pack.  She
backed out hastily, tugging it behind her.  Kiima dumped the pack
on the ground and pawed through its contents: clothing, food,
little packages wrapped in cloth, an instant camera, a compact
bundle that unrolled into a small dome tent... but no Heart of
the Phoenix, and nothing big enough to conceal it.  She sagged
back on her heels.

     "He can't have it on him," she muttered.  The shorts and
singlet had left little to the imagination, and no place to hide
the Heart... unless he really were a sorcerer, as Koruma and
Masara had maintained.  She looked in the direction she'd chased
him, her face hard and determined.  "He has it, or he hid it."
Either way, she'd have to run him to ground and capture him... or
die trying.

     Kiima quickly crammed everything back into the pack, tied it
shut, and took off with it.  He had something valuable to her,
but now she had something valuable to him.

     Circling over the campsite an hour later, Kiima waited...
for word from the doves she'd sent looking for him, for sign of
Ranma himself, for anything.  She scanned the rocks, the bushes,
the gullies constantly, and it came as a real surprise to her
when the voice floated up from below.  "Where the hell's my
pack?!"

     She spotted him an instant later, standing by the fallen
tree and glaring up at her with his fists on his hips.  She
circled lower, still wary of his jumps.  "Where's the Heart of
the Phoenix?" she challenged in return.

     "I don't know what you're talking about, you crazy
featherbrain!  Gimme my pack back!"

     Kiima laughed triumphantly.  "Crazy or not, I'm no fool!
Give me the Heart, or you'll never find your pack!"

     Ranma suddenly crouched and leapt.  Kiima dodged back in
midair-- he'd nearly reached her!  He landed and ran after her.
Kiima flew a little lower to provoke him, and was rewarded by
another spectacular leap.  Again she evaded it, but by a smaller
margin, luring him to follow.  Leap after leap took Ranma and
Kiima further from the camp, progressing along the ridge and up.

     Kiima watched Ranma carefully, and watched the ground below
him, but Ranma had to divide his attention between ground and
sky, and wasn't watching the ground as much as he should have
been.  He reached the top of the ridge and jumped again, but this
time Kiima swooped and caught his wrist.  "Look down!" she
screamed as he started to turn the grip against her.

     Ranma looked down, and froze.  His last leap would have
taken him over a cliff if Kiima hadn't caught him.  Even now her
strong wingbeats were increasing the distance he'd fall if she
let go.  "Down!" he yelled.  "Down, dammit!"  His other hand
snaked up and locked onto Kiima's gauntlet.

     "Where's the Heart?" Kiima shouted.  "Tell me or I'll kill
us both!"

     Ranma stared into her wild eyes.  "You're crazy!"  He
believed it, too; she could see that.  "I tell you, I don't know
what you're talking about!"

     It suddenly occurred to Kiima that he might actually not
know.  "The gem!  The one you stole from Lord Saffron's
bedchamber!  Give it back!"

     "I didn't steal anything!" Ranma shouted, exasperated.

     Kiima stopped flying and folded her wings tight to her back.
For a moment they hung in midair on the last of their upward
momentum, and then they began to fall.  "We're both going to die
now," she stated calmly, gazing into Ranma's wide gray eyes as
the whistle of the wind grew in their ears.  "If I can't return
the Heart, I might as well die, and if you won't return it, you
deserve to."

     Ranma sneaked a peek at the ground, then locked eyes with
Kiima.  "I didn't take anything," he said, emphasizing each word.
"I don't know what happened, but it wasn't me.  I swear it on...
on my mother's sword."

     Kiima's eyes widened.  All of her judgment said she was
hearing truth, but the consequences of truth were--  "But then
where IS it?!" she screamed, shaking him.

     "I dunno," Ranma said quickly, glancing at the approaching
ground again, "but in another few seconds it ain't gonna matter!"

     Suddenly Kiima realized she'd waited too long.  Opening her
wings all at once would turn them into a puff of feathers over a
gory crater.  She might save herself, but not both of them, and
even if she let go, he still had a grip on her-- and then, to her
utter astonishment, he let go of her wrist, and that decided her.
Kiima snatched for his other wrist and got it as she extended her
wings away from her back, still clamped together, and began to
force them apart.  A few loose feathers ripped free, but most
held.  The drag flipped them so she was on top, and she realized
that Ranma was arranging himself below her as though to shield
her from the impact-- what gallant nonsense!  They slowed, but
not quickly enough.  Kiima had only time for two sinew-straining
wingbeats before the world rose up like a mighty fist and smashed
them into oblivion.

     ~~~~~

     Feeling like one giant bruise, Ranma shifted cautiously to
verify that everything still worked.  Kiima was draped over him,
still out cold, but while he was debating with himself whether he
should move her, she stirred and groaned.  "You all right?" Ranma
asked anxiously.

     Kiima's eyelids flickered.  "Why aren't you dead?" she asked
feebly.

     "I'm even tougher than I look," Ranma answered with a cocky
smile.

     "Why am I not dead, then?"

     "You're pretty tough too.  Can you move?"

     "What?  Oh!"  Kiima recovered enough of her faculties to be
embarrassed, but not enough to spring away.  Instead, she
creakily pried herself up and crawled aside, then staggered to
her feet.  She stared in amazement as Ranma got up out of a Ranma-
shaped depression in the ground.

     "Good thing we didn't fall on a rock," Ranma said, dusting
himself off.  "That would really have hurt."

     "Why did you let go?" Kiima burst out.

     Ranma stopped and looked at her.  "So you could save
yourself.  Why didn't you let go?"

     "I... I didn't want to let you die," Kiima said quietly.

     Ranma nodded slowly and smiled, a smile that made Kiima
flush a little but not look away.  "Good fight," he said.  He
looked up at the cliff not far away and whistled.  "Can you fly?
It'll take us a while to climb that if you can't."

     Kiima extended her wings cautiously and winced.  "I'd rather
not," she said, folding them again.

     "Well, come on, then," Ranma said.  He pointed.  "Looks
easier that way."

     "Wait."  Kiima came closer and looked down at him, searching
his face.  "Did you mean what you said about the Heart?"

     Ranma sighed.  "I didn't take it, I don't have it, and I
don't know where it is," he said impatiently, and then something
occurred to him.  "Come to think of it, I don't know WHAT it is.
What is it?"

     Kiima boggled.  "If you don't know what it is, how do you
know you don't have it?!"  For a moment she seemed about to go
for her sword again.

     "Well, I didn't take anything, and whatever this thing is,
it's something, so I didn't take it!"

     Kiima's mouth opened and closed.  "This is silly," she
snapped.  "The Heart of the Phoenix is....  Do you remember the
large red gem Lord Saffron wears on his chest?"

     Ranma consulted his memory.  "Yeah.  Big round thing like a
lens, had two gold wings or something and some tassels?"

     "Exactly.  There's another one, smaller and with a green
gem, that Lord Saffron wears when he's younger."

     Ranma cocked an eyebrow at the odd phrasing, but didn't
pursue it.  "Never seen it," he said definitely.

     "And you swear to this on, on your mother's sword, I think
it was?  Why that?"

     Ranma nodded. "That's what I swore on, all right.  I don't
believe in much, but I really believe in Momma's sword."

     "I believe you," said Kiima.  She touched the hilt of the
sword strapped to her thigh.  "This sword was my father's, and I
would never forswear an oath I made on it."  She sighed in
dejection and started walking in the direction Ranma had
indicated.  "But if you don't have it, I don't know who does.  If
I were still seneschal, I could investigate and find out, but now
I can't even go there.  It's hopeless."

     "Don't start that 'might as well die' stuff again," Ranma
said quickly.  "You decided to live, remember."

     "I may yet change my mind," Kiima said bleakly.

     ~~~~~

     It was noon before they reached the site of the previous
night's camp.  Ranma made quick work of the fallen pine tree,
permitting Kiima to retrieve her meager belongings.  He collected
the things of his that hadn't been packed when the battle started
and glanced at Kiima.  "So where's my pack?"

     "Up there," Kiima said, pointing at a tall spire of rock
standing out from a nearby bluff.

     "Aiyaaaaaa," Ranma said under his breath, measuring the
climb with his eyes.  "Couldn't you have put it someplace lower?"

     Kiima produced a thin smile.  "I could, but that was exactly
the point.  I think I can fly that far, though.  Wait here."  She
spread her wings, flapped them a couple of times in a fruitless
attempt to work out the aches and stiffness, and took off.
Circling slowly to catch updrafts where she could, she worked her
way up level with the peak, then landed.  Going down was much
easier, even burdened; she simply fell into a straight glide that
brought her right back to the camp.

     "Thanks," Ranma said, accepting his pack from her.  He
looked in, clucked his tongue at the condition of the contents,
then emptied it and repacked.  Kiima watched curiously; items
obviously went into the pack in a certain order, for his
repacking was quick and decisive, but she couldn't discern the
system.  Soon everything was back in its place and the pack was a
solid, regular brick rather than a lumpy mass.

     "OK, ready to go," Ranma said, easily hoisting the heavy
pack to his shoulders.  "Where are we going?"

     Kiima stared at him.  "'We'?"

     "Well, if you don't want me to, it's OK," Ranma said,
sounding a little embarrassed, "but if you don't mind...."

     "But we're... enemies!"

     Ranma shrugged and grinned.  "I never let that stop me
before."  He sobered.  "And I owe you for getting you kicked out
of your home.  The gem stuff isn't my fault, but the mess I made
is.  The least I can do is help you get yourself set up."

     "True," Kiima admitted.  "Very well.  I'm headed that way."
She pointed north.

     "Jusenkyo?" Ranma asked, eyebrows raised.

     "Yes."  Kiima let the word hang in the air and walked away
from it.  Ranma settled his pack and followed.

     "It's not really your fault, though," Kiima said after
they'd been walking for a while.  "Lord Saffron said it himself:
your disruption would have earned me a reprimand, and perhaps
even loss of my position as seneschal or captain, but it was the
theft of the Heart that caused him to banish me."

     "That's still pretty harsh," Ranma said, hopping over a
boulder.

     "Yes.  If Xande were still Chancellor, things might be
different."

     "Who's Xande?"

     "He passed away some years ago.  Korianda became Chancellor
in his place.  But Xande was... well, not wiser, perhaps, but
more calculating.  He would have tried to calm Lord Saffron for
my sake.  We were never close, but we worked well together."

     "I guess you miss him, huh?"

     "I miss all of them."

     ~~~~~

     "A question, Ranma."

     Ranma glanced over at his companion.  He'd known she was
mulling something for the last kilometer or so, so her voice
didn't come as a surprise.  "What?"

     "In the granary, the fight when we first met... why did you
hold back rather than attacking me?  I underestimated you, and I
was wide open for a moment."

     "Uh... well... this is gonna sound stupid."

     "I don't doubt it," Kiima said dryly, "but tell me anyway."

     "Well... you gotta understand what it looked like from my
side.  What you looked like.  White hair, white wings, that suit
you wear... for a second I thought you were a, a, an angel."
Ranma twiddled his fingers in embarrassment.

     Kiima's brow furrowed for a moment, and then she laughed.
"Ah, and you feared the wrath of heaven?"

     "Nah, I used to get that all the time," Ranma said with a
reminiscent look.

     "But what about in the vault, then?  You struck Koruma and
Masara quite hard, but only sent me to sleep.  By then you knew I
wasn't an angel."  Kiima cast a suspicious look at Ranma.
"You're one of those people who thinks women are weak and
shouldn't be fighters, aren't you?"

     "Well, some of them are," Ranma said stoutly.  "Most of them
are.  But I know some of them aren't.  I had that pounded through
my head a long time ago."

     "Do you think I'm weak, then?" Kiima demanded.

     "Hell, no!  We tangled three times, and I only got one clean
win and a draw," Ranma pointed out.

     "You could have won twice if you hadn't held back!  Maybe
three times!  Why wouldn't you go all-out against me?"

     "I don't GO all-out!" Ranma said forcefully.  "Look, I'm not
exactly a nice guy, maybe not even a good guy.  I like fights.  I
like to win.  But I don't like to hurt people badly, and I sure
don't like to kill people, and that's what'd happen if I went all-
out!"

     Kiima appeared to be startled by his vehemence long enough
to think about it.  "I see," she said finally.  "Perhaps that is
the difference between a warrior and a martial artist.  For me,
violent conflict is a tool; for you, an end in itself."

     "I never thought of it that way," Ranma admitted, "but you
could be right."

     "It seems rather empty.  All that skill and no purpose."

     "Hey, at least I'm not a bully," Ranma protested.  "And
sometimes I help out people who can't defend themselves."

     "There, at least, we are in agreement."  Kiima sighed.  "I
suppose I'm more than a little sensitive on the matter.  For a
woman to be seneschal and captain of the guard is far from
traditional among my people.  If my father had had a son, or if a
better candidate had been able to rise above the squabbling, I
doubt I would have been permitted to assume the offices."

     "Yeah, I was wondering about that.  All the guards were
guys, and then suddenly there you were."

     "Of course, you're in a better position than most men to
understand," Kiima suggested obliquely.

     "I what?  Oh.  The curse.  Say, how'd you know about
Jusenkyo, anyway?"

     Kiima shrugged.  "I live here.  Jusenkyo is perhaps half an
hour's flight from my home-- my former home."  Kiima considered
the intimate connection of the Phoenix folk to Jusenkyo, and
their understanding of its true nature, and their uses of the
springs, but those were not for the ears of outsiders.

     "And we're going to Jusenkyo because you're going for a
swim?"

     "Yes."

     "Which one?"

     "Which one do you think?" Kiima said.  "The same one that
affects you."

     "Why-- oh.  The wings."

     "Yes, the wings."  Kiima preened a feather with her fingers.
"If I am to live among the wingless, I must be able to pass for
one of them."

     "You better hope no one splashes hot tea on you," Ranma
muttered darkly.

     Kiima laughed.  "Yes."

     "You're still going to be a standout, though," Ranma
observed.  "Nyanniichuan won't change your hair color or your
height, or your looks."

     "No, but-- my what?"

     "Never mind," Ranma said, but his faint blush as he turned
away spoke volumes.

     ~~~~~

     They made camp that night in a grove of trees.  They were
still within the territory of the Phoenix, and some distance from
Jusenkyo, but Kiima was feeling the effects of the morning battle
and the long hike across rough terrain.  She huddled on a log,
exhausted, while Ranma bustled about collecting firewood.  The
sky had turned cloudy and a cold wind carrying the sharp, clean
scent of snowy mountains blew from the west, but the trees
offered some shelter.

     Ranma got a fire going and set water to heat, then pitched
his tent.  He looked at Kiima then back at the tent.  "Jeez, I
hope you fit," he said.

     "I will manage," Kiima said.  "If not, and if it rains, my
cloak sheds water."

     "I'll bet soaked feathers are no fun."

     "No.  No fun at all."  Kiima shuddered and pulled her cloak
tighter around her.

     "Well, I'm not real fond of cold water either, but I'm gonna
take a bath anyway.  Back in a bit."  Ranma took a washcloth, a
bar of soap, and clean underwear from his pack and trotted off in
the direction of the sound of rushing water.

     Ranma returned shortly, wearing shorts and singlet and
carrying a bundle of clothes.  "Much better," she said with
satisfaction, bending to check the water.  "Rice tonight, okay?"

     "Aren't you going to change back?" Kiima asked.

     "Nah," Ranma said casually, starting to rummage for
provisions.  "I'm smaller this way, and if we both have to fit in
the tent it'll be more comfortable."

     In more ways than one, Kiima thought.  "That's very
considerate of you.  It's encouraging to see someone who's
adapted to a Jusenkyo curse so well."

     "Why, because you're gonna get one on purpose?  Yeah, it
took me a while, but I got used to it.  You think I've adapted,
you should meet Pantyhose-Tarou."  Ranma chuckled.

     "How used to it did you get?" Kiima asked bluntly.

     Ranma looked up at her and frowned.  For a moment she seemed
on the brink of anger, but then she said, "I'm not a pervert, if
that's what you mean.  I don't even tease guys with it anymore."

     "My apologies," Kiima said contritely.  "There are tales of
men who wanted to be women, and women who wanted to be men, who
used the springs for that purpose."

     "I'll bet.  There's worse, too.  There's guys who turned
animals into women 'for that purpose'.  Yuck."

     Kiima nodded.  "We know of them.  That was long ago,
though."

     "They're still perverts," Ranma said darkly.  "I don't go
that way."

     "Well, something like that was how we got our wings," Kiima
said, "but it was less... deliberate.  Our distant ancestors
drank water from a magic spring that birds had drowned in, and
eventually this happened."

     "That's a lot better than screwing chickens," Ranma allowed.

     "I'll take your word for it," Kiima said dryly.  Ranma
flushed, then started laughing.

     ~~~~~

     Kiima wasn't in the tent any more when Ranma awoke, but she
could hear feathers rustling outside.  She unzipped the flap and
crawled out.

     "Good morning, Ranma," Kiima said.  "Wonderful things,
zippers.  I remember how pleased my mother was when my father
brought her a bundle of them once."  She was huddled in her cloak
against the damp chill of the morning.  It had rained during the
night, and the trees still dripped.

     "Morning," Ranma said, yawning.  "Damn, the wood's all wet.
Forget the fire."  Forget hot water.  Forget returning to being a
man, she thought sourly.

     "Yes.  I was anxious to get going, but then I thought, why
hurry?  I have plenty of time."  Kiima didn't sound cheerful
about it.

     "I got used to it.  I'm sure you will."

     "I hope so."  Kiima changed the subject.  "I think I can fly
today."

     "Well, I can't," Ranma said.  "Do you want to walk anyway,
or fly ahead and wait for me, or is it goodbye time?"  She
waited, tense and trying not to show it.

     Kiima bit her lip.  "I... would like your company a while
longer."  Ranma sighed a little, relieved, and smiled.  "Would
you fly with me?  I can carry you."

     "Yeah, I couldn't help noticing.  Sure, I'd like that."

     In a remarkably short time, Ranma had dressed, broken camp,
and packed.  "Going up!" she quipped.  "So how do we do this?"

     "First we get out of the trees."  Kiima walked downslope to
where the grove ended, followed closely by Ranma, who was
bouncing with excitement despite the heavy pack.  "Now come stand
in front of me... there.  Now you hold the pack, and I'll hold
you."  Kiima crouched a little and reached down, locking her arms
around Ranma's trim waist.  Her wings extended and poised.
"Ready?"

     "Yeah-- WAAAHAAAA!"  Ranma's delighted yell rang in Kiima's
ears as she climbed skyward, wings beating smoothly.  She
remembered her first flight on her own wings many years before,
after all the exercises and parental admonitions and frustrated
waiting to fledge, and smiled to herself.  It wasn't a good day
to fly, being overcast, cool, and windy, but no day was really a
bad day for flying.

     "We'll stay low," Kiima said into Ranma's ear, "because of
the clouds.  You can't see where you're going... and some clouds
turn out to be full of rocks."

     "Sure, fine," Ranma bubbled.  "Wow, this is fun!"

     "My pleasure.  Look, there's Jusenkyo."

     "Hey, I can see the Guide's house from here!"

     Kiima landed near the springs, gliding so low that Ranma's
pack nearly brushed the wet grass, then pulling up sharply and
braking to drop them on their feet.  She released Ranma and the
small woman staggered forward a step and dropped her pack.
"Whee!  What a ride!  There isn't a spring of drowned Phoenix
Folk man, is there?"

     "I'm not allowed to say," Kiima said.

     "Sure.  Well, it'd be too risky for me to jump in it anyway,
since I'm already cursed, but man, that's tempting.  Speaking of
which, I'll just wait over here, okay?"

     "Fine."  Kiima stared out over the pools, mind in turmoil.
Many Phoenix folk had voluntarily stepped into the Nanniichuan or
Nyanniichuan so that they could pass for human, but that was in
the line of duty.  Koruma and Masara had Jusenkyo curses.  If her
office had required her to be cursed, she would have done so
without a qualm, but this was... personal.

     "Problems?" Ranma asked after a while, sounding sympathetic.

     "Yes."  What an inadequate word.

     "I don't blame you.  It messed up my life something fierce,
I can tell you.  Can you think of anything else you can do?"

     "I... wait, there's the letter Samofere gave me," Kiima
remembered.  She fished it out of her belt pouch; it was battered
and creased, but intact.  She unfolded it and read.  "Ranma, do
you know the Joketsuzoku?"

     "Pfffft!"  Ranma sprayed her drink of water and nearly
dropped the canteen.  "Yeah, you could say that," she croaked
when she'd managed to stop coughing.

     Kiima eyed her, puzzled.  "Well, Samofere has written me a
letter of introduction to Elder Cologne.  I didn't even know they
were acquainted."

     "Hell, I could give you an introduction to Cologne.  But I'm
not surprised Cologne knows what's-his-name, 'cause nothing
Cologne does surprises me any more.  She's a great old gal."

     "Samofere suggests that perhaps I would find a home with the
Joketsuzoku after I dip myself in the Nyanniichuan.  What you say
is encouraging... but your first reaction wasn't."  Kiima didn't
ask, but her tone betrayed her curiosity.

     "Well... let's just say that now wouldn't be a good time for
me to go back there," Ranma said uncomfortably.  "Nothing
dangerous, just bad timing.  It might be a good place for you,
though.  There are lots of worse places for a warrior woman."

     "That's what Samofere's letter says."

     "You'd still need the curse, though."  Ranma paused,
thinking.  "There aren't any villages of winged people outside
Phoenix Mountain, are there?"

     "No, I'm sure there aren't.  It's this, die, or go back and
die."

     "Jeez.  Dammit, it's not your fault!  Isn't there something
you can do to get them to take you back?"

     Kiima laughed bitterly.  "I could bring them your head in a
sack."

     "Er, on second thought--"

     "I wouldn't do that, Ranma.  It wouldn't be enough anyway.
I'd need to recover the Heart of the Phoenix."

     "Well, let's think about that.  I didn't take it, but it's
gone.  Someone else must have taken it.  Hey!"

     Kiima turned at the sudden note of excitement in Ranma's
voice.  "What?"

     "There was a guy pokin' around in Saffron's bedroom when I
got there!"

     "What did he look like?" Kiima asked eagerly.

     "Noble, light brown wings, sandy hair, sly face.  He came to
visit me when I was in the cell."

     "Taragon," Kiima breathed.  Facts slid together and linked,
and a bright silvery chain of supposition emerged from the murk.
"Helubor, you VILLAIN!"

     "Huh?"

     Words spilled out of Kiima's trembling lips.  "Helubor.  He,
he wants power.  He wanted to be Chancellor when Xande died, but
Korianda was chosen instead.  Chancellor and Seneschal are
equals, second only to Lord Saffron himself.  He asked me to mate
with him a week ago.  He really wanted to be Seneschal-- why,
why, why didn't I see it?  I turned him down the very day you
arrived.  Taragon is Helubor's crony.  They exchange the Eggs of
Imprinting for b-bird eggs, you get away, Taragon steals the
Heart in the confusion, they talk Korianda and Saffron into
pinning the whole thing on you-- and on me for letting it happen--
and then I'm gone and Helubor is Seneschal.  Gods above and
below!"

     Ranma scratched her head; clearly most of Kiima's revelation
had zipped right past her... but not all of it.  "This Helubor,
is he an asshole with red and black wings?"

     Kiima laughed in surprise.  "That's him exactly."

     "He was with the brown-winged guy when he visited me.  They
wanted to know if I could beat you and your sidekicks, all three
at once.  I told 'em 'sure'."  Ranma's tone did not reach self-
loathing, but she sounded quite disgusted.

     "That's it, then."  Kiima sank to her knees and pounded a
fist against the earth.  "May all gods damn them to the HELL they
deserve!"

     "Yeah.  But they're not here, so what are we going to do
about it?"

     "There's that 'we' again," Kiima said without raising her
head.  "Ranma--"

     "Look, don't tell me it's none of my business!  This is my
fault, and theirs, but it's sure not yours!  You did everything
just right!"

     "I let you escape!  I let them trick me!"  Anguish filled
her voice.

     "Oh, bullshit.  Kiima, if you'd known then what you know now
about what I can do, would you have done anything different?"

     "I would have dropped a bigger rock on your head," Kiima
muttered, unwillingly drawn out of her misery.

     "Heh.  That's not something you get to change.  Your guards
were going all-out, and it didn't help them any.  You might have
killed me the first time, and you sure tried the third.  Kiima,
I'm really, really good.  You and your guards never had a
chance."

     Stung, Kiima finally looked up.  "Archers--"

     "Pfeh."  Ranma waved a hand in derision.

     "Lord Saffron--"

     "Cute fire tricks, I gotta admit, but I have some tricks
too."  Ranma grinned, the same cocky, charming grin that Kiima
remembered from the male Ranma.  "But what he does is HIS
responsibility, not yours.  As for being tricked... well, I
wouldn't feel too bad about not thinking as slimy as those guys."
Her gray eyes went wintry in an instant.  "And they used me, they
used me to hurt you, and there's no way I'm gonna let them get
away with that.  They're gonna pay whether you want in or not."

     "All right."  It was good to have an ally, there was no
denying that, good not to be alone in a world turned upside-down,
but it was Ranma's irrepressible confidence that rekindled hope
in Kiima.  She sat up on the grassy slope, wrapped her arms
around her knees, and stared out over the cursed pools and their
bamboo poles.  "The Heart.  The Heart is the key to all of this."
One key; the other was Ranma himself....

     "Any idea where it might be?" Ranma asked, seating herself
beside Kiima.

     "That's what I'm thinking about," Kiima replied.  "Taragon
wouldn't keep it; he would be risking too much.  They can't have
disposed of it; that would be unthinkable, even for them.
Helubor probably has it, probably in his quarters.  If he hid it
somewhere else, there'd be too much risk that someone would find
it."

     "Fine.  We sneak in, search his place, get the Heart, take
it to Saffron.  Somewhere in there we kick Helubor's ass into
next week."

     Kiima shook her head.  "I'm banished.  Outcast.  I can't set
foot in Phoenix Mountain without the Heart.  Even with it, it
would be tricky; they'd be within their rights to kill me on
sight."

     "So don't let 'em kill you."  Ranma shrugged.

     That notion ran up against a stone wall in Kiima, one so
pervasive and obvious that it took her a moment to come up with a
way to express it.  "That would be resisting the law of Phoenix
Mountain!  I've spent my life upholding it, I can't disregard it
like that!"

     "Why not?" Ranma said, looking annoyed.  "They kicked you
out.  You don't have to follow their laws any more.  Until they
take you back."

     Kiima's mouth opened and closed soundlessly in a confusion
that was beginning to be familiar: the meeting of her rigid,
rectangular life with Ranma's whirlwind principles.  Finally she
managed a plaintive "But...."

     "Look, if you're not getting any protection from the law,
why should you obey it?"

     "I...."

     "Gaah.  If you're gonna be that way about it, try this: your
great Lord Saffron made a MISTAKE.  He was wrong to kick you out
and put Helubor in your place, 'cause there's no way that bastard
is a better, uh, seneschal than you.  It's your duty as, as a
loyal subject to correct that mistake.  And kick Helubor's ass
into next week," she finished with relish.

     A door opened in the wall.  Kiima peered through, and liked
what she saw.  "It is, isn't it."  The door was too small,
though...  "But I still can't go back without the Heart.  I just
can't."

     "Well, I can," Ranma said matter-of-factly.

     ~~~~~

     "Are you sure you're stealthy enough to succeed?" Kiima
asked dubiously.  The plans that they'd made the day before
didn't seem quite so sound in the cold, damp gloom just before
dawn.

     "Don't worry about that," Ranma said lightly.  "I'm as
stealthy as a, as a, as a really stealthy thing."

     Kiima tried to examine Ranma's expression for reassurance,
but it was still too dark to make it out; it was all she could do
to discern the short, curvy silhouette of her ally.  "It's just
that experience has taught me to associate you with, um,
commotion...."

     "Oh, there'll be a commotion, all right, but not until it's
too late.  Are you sure you can fly well enough to pull this off
if they spot you?"

     Ranma's tone was teasing rather than doubtful, but Kiima's
chin came up anyway.  "No one in Phoenix Mountain is better in
the air than I am," she said proudly.

     "That's the spirit."

     Fortune favored them, Kiima saw when she cleared the
ridgetop carrying Ranma in her arms.  The sky was still obscured
with patchy clouds all the way to their destination; combined
with the early hour and the gloom, it was very unlikely that
anyone would see them coming.  She flew up between two clouds,
emerging into a sky gray with higher overcast but brightening
with the coming of the sun, and set course for Phoenix Mountain
by dead reckoning.

     The peak revealed itself as a disturbance in the smooth flow
of the clouds when they arrived overhead, and Kiima took her
bearings from it before plunging into the mist.  Ranma flinched a
little as darker gray shapes rushed by to left and right, but she
kept silent.  Pulling out just at the cloud base, Kiima whipped
around in a tight curve and glided along the mountainside spread
out beside them.  "That one," she told Ranma in a voice no louder
than it had to be.  "The one with three round windows and the
terrace next to it."

     "Got it.  Ready."  Ranma didn't tense up at all, Kiima
noticed.  She adjusted their glide path slightly, pulled up
sharply, and released Ranma into a perfect ballistic arc.
Looking over her shoulder as she started flapping to climb back
into the clouds, she saw Ranma land neatly on the terrace, wave
at her, and blur to vanish into cover that Kiima would have sworn
was inadequate.

     The whole maneuver had been accomplished with only a few
seconds of exposure, in near-total silence.  Kiima began to feel
that perhaps Ranma's confidence was justified as she prepared for
the next part of the plan.

     ~~~~~

     Ranma lurked around the outside of the building perched on
the side of the mountain, the building Kiima had identified as
Helubor's, waiting impatiently.  Kiima had known that the lord
who'd replaced her wasn't an early riser, and said so, but she'd
expected that his new duties would require changes in his
schedule.  After an hour or so, noises began to issue from
inside: Helubor was preparing for his day.  It took a
ridiculously long time by Ranma's standards, but eventually she
heard the distant slam of a door, and the noises stopped.

     After waiting a little longer to be sure, scanning around
occasionally to make certain she hadn't been spotted from the
air, Ranma emerged from hiding and skulked to the door from the
building onto the terrace.  It was locked, but not for long.

     Helubor's quarters were large and well-appointed, with
wooden furniture elaborately carved and fine rugs on the stone
floors.  They were neither particularly neat nor unkempt, but
they were quite clean.  "Someone cleans for him," Ranma muttered
under her breath; it was a situation she was quite familiar with.
Keeping her ears pricked for activity, she ghosted through the
suite.  Most of it was delved into the mountain, and it took
Ranma a while before she was satisfied that she'd found all the
rooms, for each door had to be checked carefully before opening
to be sure it didn't lead to public areas.

     Finally Ranma stood in the middle of the largest room and
looked around.  "If I was a precious bit of incriminating
evidence, where would I be?" she said to herself.  Kiima had
offered suggestions, but she wasn't familiar with Helubor's
quarters either.  Ranma sighed and began the search.

     Two hours later, Helubor's rooms were a shambles.  Silence
had been the only constraint on Ranma's actions; respect for
Helubor's property certainly wasn't a factor.  She'd found a lot
of strange stuff, but no sign of the Heart.  She prowled through
the suite, trying to think of something she'd overlooked,
occasionally grimacing with frustration.

     It was almost a relief when the door rattled.  Ranma
flattened herself in a corner and waited tensely as it opened.
"Helubor, darling, are you here?  Oh, my goodness!"  Ranma
targeted the gasp of dismay, stepped around the door, and struck
without warning.  A moment later she caught the woman's toppling
body in her arms and nudged the door shut with her foot.  She
carried the limp figure to a bedroom, careful of the trailing
wings, and arranged her carefully on the bed.  The woman was
young, of medium height, and very pretty, with long reddish-brown
hair and speckled wings, but not as pretty as Kiima.

     "The bastard's got good taste in women, I'll say that,"
Ranma said quietly.  She checked that her victim was no worse
than unconscious, and likely to stay that way for a comfortable
time, and then returned to her ambush; she had a feeling that
someone else would be along shortly.

     She was right.  Ranma hadn't counted three hundred breaths
before the door opened again and Helubor strode in.  "Sinamon?"
The noble stopped short and stared at the mess.  "Gods!  I'll
flog the maids for this!"

     "It's not their fault," Ranma said casually, stepping out
from concealment.

     Helubor reddened with rage.  "Why, you--!"  He broke off
before his first gerund and his eyes widened.  "You're a
groundling!"

     "Why, yes!" Ranma sparkled, smiling cutely.  "Where's the
Heart of the Phoenix?"  Helubor's eyes flicked involuntarily and
then he went for his sword, but Ranma's playful mood was entirely
feigned; he collapsed with it half-drawn, victim of seven precise
and powerful blows.  Ranma shut the door and wedged it, then bent
over Helubor's body.  She searched him quickly, but the Heart
wasn't on him, not that she'd expected it to be.  She rolled him
over and stood looking down at the noble thoughtfully.  It was
very tempting to disable him, but Kiima's plan had been clear on
that point: he had to be able to fight later.

     The next thing to do was to investigate the shift of
Helubor's eyes when questioned.  Ranma poked around in that
direction, but nothing turned up among the clutter.  She started
tapping walls and floors.  "Hello--"  A suspicious paving stone
yielded to Ranma's feverish prying, the heavy wooden lockbox
within disintegrated with gratifying speed, and a moment later
Ranma held the Heart of the Phoenix in her hands.  "All right!"
she exulted in a whisper.  She wrapped the Heart in a cloth, tied
it securely around her waist under her shirt, and left the way
she'd come.

     ~~~~~

     On Kiima's third nerve-wracking pass, she spotted the green
cloth laid out on Helubor's terrace.  She couldn't see Ranma, but
he'd warned her to expect that; she swooped, lining up for a much
closer pass.  Ranma slipped out from hiding as she approached,
scooped up the cloth without pausing in her dash across the
terrace, and leapt-- an amazing leap, peaking just below Kiima's
flight path at just the right time, and on an arc that would have
ended far, far below if Kiima's taloned hands hadn't caught her
outstretched wrists.

     Kiima gathered Ranma up into a more secure position for
carriage, and her forearms encountered a hard shape under Ranma's
clothes.  "You found it!  You found it!  Ranma, you wonderful,
wonderful--" She broke off suddenly and blushed, but she couldn't
help hugging Ranma with her supporting arms.

     "'Burglar' is the word you're looking for, I think," came
Ranma's amused voice.  "Helubor showed up.  I don't think he
recognized me, but he'll know the Heart is gone as soon as he
wakes up, which should be in about two hours.  Ready for the next
part?"

     "Oh, yes," Kiima said eagerly.  She flew up between drifting
clouds, heading north.  Concealed as they were concealed, Phoenix
Mountain dwindled behind them.

     ~~~~~

     Pepa was a guard.

     For the most part, Pepa liked being a guard.  It had many
good points.  It was easier work than being a farmer.  Guards got
good food.  Some girls thought guards were cuter than guys who
weren't guards.  Guards were taught to fight.  Captain Kiima
taught Advanced Swordsmanship, even though she wasn't exactly a
swordsman, and Aerial Combat, which was (as Sergeant Kumin said)
the most fun you could have with your clothes on.  That impressed
the girls too.

     Sometimes it had its bad points.  A wingless foreign
intruder who tossed whole squads around like punching bags was
one of them.  The guards had talked it over afterwards and
compared lumps and bruises.  They'd decided two things.  First,
he was doing it for fun.  Second, they didn't ever want to meet
him when he wasn't doing it for fun.

     Another bad point was bad leadership.  Captain Kiima had
been a good leader, and Pepa hadn't known it until he'd gotten a
bad leader.  Koruma and Masara tried their best, but Lord Helubor
was a bad captain, and that was all there was to it.  Captain
Kiima yelled at them and hit them, but that was because she
wanted them to be better guards, and thought they could be better
guards if she yelled at them and hit them.  Lord Helubor yelled
at them and hit them because he thought they were scum.

     An hour ago Lord Helubor had shown up all excited and
started issuing orders.  Weird orders.  Koruma and Masara had
explained them as "stay on your toes", which was why Pepa and his
partner were guarding this door instead of practicing to impress
girls.

     Boredom was another bad point of being a guard.

     Pepa started to explain this at length to his partner, but
when his mouth opened no words came out.  His eyes bulged and he
dropped his spear.  His buddy turned to look and did exactly the
same thing.

     Captain Kiima strode along the hallway towards them, looking
like she had places to go and people to kill.  She held the Heart
of the Phoenix in one hand.  In her other hand was one end of a
rope.  The other end was tied around the wrists of a wingless
foreign intruder who tossed whole squads around like punching
bags.  The prisoner wore a big pack.

     "Pick up those spears," Captain Kiima ordered crisply.
"You're guards, not ornaments."  She brushed past them while they
were obeying and went through the door Pepa was guarding.  The
intruder winked at Pepa as he went by.

     "We're in luck," Pepa said to his buddy when he found his
voice.  "He's in a good mood today."

     "I'm really, really glad we're guarding this door," Pepa's
buddy said fervently.  "I dunno about you, but I'm going to go
right on guarding this door.  Nobody's gonna steal this door
while I'm on the job.  No, sir."

     Pepa thought about it and decided his buddy had a good
point.

     ~~~~~

     "I'm surprised we got this far without having to clobber
anybody," Ranma observed to Kiima in a low voice as they moved
quickly through a long tunnel.

     "Frankly, so am I," Kiima said over her shoulder.
"Disgraceful.  I'll have to have words with Koruma and Masara
about it."

     Ranma grinned.  "Are you that sure you'll win, then?"

     "Absolutely."  Kiima's voice was as determined and confident
as her words.

     "Good.  Me too."  Ranma fell silent then, because they'd
come to the last doorway.  Beyond was golden light that he'd seen
once before, the same golden light that had grown gradually
stronger in the corridors as they approached the core of Phoenix
Mountain: the light of Saffron.  No one opposed them as they
emerged into the great cavern, but just as Kiima set foot on a
wide stair leading down towards the center of the terraced bowl
that was its floor, there came a rush of wings and Koruma and
Masara landed in their path.

     Kiima spoke before they could.  "Yes, I'm breaking my
banishment," she said without remorse.  "You have a hard choice
before you.  If you choose to side with me and I lose, you may
well be executed as traitors.  If you choose your captain and I
win, things will go hard with you.  Choose quickly."

     Koruma and Masara exchanged a quick glance.  "We serve Lord
Saffron," said Masara.  "We will escort you before him, Lady
Kiima, and do as he commands."

     Kiima let only a thin smile show, but her pride in her
former lieutenants was clear.  "Excellent."  Masara led the way
down the steps, and Koruma fell in behind as Ranma passed him.
The little procession stopped on a paved plaza, and Ranma looked
up at the suspended platform where Lord Saffron sat.  Strains of
soft music drifted down with the golden light and pleasant
warmth.

     "Lord Saffron!" Koruma cried.  "Lady Kiima is here seeking
audience!"

     The platform shifted suddenly.  The music stopped as the
alate damsel playing for Saffron dropped her dulcimer and clung
to the strut nearest her.  Saffron appeared over the edge,
keeping his balance easily despite the swaying of the platform,
and looked down.  Kiima, already looking up, raised the Heart of
the Phoenix in one hand and the rope tethering Ranma's wrists in
the other, but said nothing; the triumph in her face said
everything necessary.

     Saffron stepped off the platform, spreading his wings, and
descended to the plaza in a majestic spiral.  Kiima knelt as he
landed, and so did Koruma and Masara.  Ranma knelt too-- Kiima
had expended considerable eloquence to persuade him of the
necessity-- but he kept his head up, scanning warily around.  It
was only a matter of time before--

     "GUARDS!  SEIZE THEM!"  Helubor came flying rapidly from the
other side of the cavern, signaling frantically to the guards who
followed him and poured from the other entrances.  Flapping spear-
carriers landed all around the plaza, trampling flowerbeds and
tables.  Helubor himself landed between Saffron and Kiima, facing
Kiima.

     "Stand aside, Captain Helubor," Saffron said mildly.

     Helubor paused in the act of drawing his sword and turned,
dismay warring with anger in his aristocratic features.  "But,
Lord--!"

     "Was there something unclear about my command, Captain?"
Saffron's tone was still mild, but the iron fist inside the down
glove was evident.

     "No, Lord Saffron."  Chagrined, Helubor bowed and moved
back, but only enough to obey the letter of Saffron's order, and
he kept his hand on the hilt of his sword.

     Saffron walked forward and took the Heart from Kiima's
upraised hand.  He examined it carefully, turning it over, and
nodded.  "I see that you have caught the thief and returned him
as well.  Well done, Lady Kiima.  I welcome your return to our
company.  Your absence was sorely felt by many."

     Amid the gasps of surprise and joy from the onlookers,
Kiima's voice was a discordant note.  "Lord Saffron, I beg leave
to correct you...."

     Saffron's faint benevolent smile faded.  "Kiima?"

     Kiima looked up, her face hard, but did not stand.  "Lord
Saffron, this man I have brought before you in bonds is not the
thief."  Her hand, the hand that had proffered the Heart of the
Phoenix to her lord, shifted to point accusingly at Helubor.  "He
is!  I name Helubor liar, thief, traitor, conspirator, and
villain!"

     The rasp of Helubor's sword out of its scabbard was arrested
by Saffron's outflung hand, and the coruscating energy leaping
and dancing around its talons.  "Hold, Helubor!" Saffron snapped,
then returned his attention to Kiima.  "Are these formal charges,
Kiima?"

     "They are, Lord Saffron.  Well, all except for the 'villain'
part," Kiima admitted.  A ripple of laughter came from the
spectators at that.

     Saffron's lips twitched a little, but his voice remained
grave.  "And you can prove these charges, I trust?"  The flames
of his hand continued to throb warningly before Helubor's
apoplectic face.

     "Yes.  I pursued the fugitive Ranma, and determined that he
had not stolen the Heart.  His account made it clear that the
Heart was stolen by another, at Helubor's bidding, during the
confusion of Ranma's escape after the Eggs of Imprinting failed
to subdue him.  Did not the counsel to execute me for this come
from Helubor?"

     "It is possible," Saffron said.  "However, you still have
not convinced me that your charges are true."

     Kiima sighed.  "Ranma."

     "I found the Heart of the Phoenix in Helubor's quarters this
morning, Lord Saffron," Ranma said clearly.

     "Lies!" Helubor shouted, unable to contain himself.  "All
lies!  HE stole the Heart, and Kiima failed to prevent it!  They
conspired together to plant it in my quarters, but I discovered
their plot, forcing them to attempt this flimsy substitute!"

     "Both accounts fit the evidence," Saffron mused.  "I have no
reason to accept the testimony of this Ranma; even if he is no
thief, he is intruder, prisoner, and fugitive."

     "You are correct, Lord Saffron," Kiima said.  She rose to
her feet, still pointing at Helubor.  "I challenge my accuser!  I
will prove the truth of my charges upon his body!"

     Ranma held his breath; this was the tricky part.  The trial
by combat was an ancient law among the Phoenix, little-used
because of the potential for abuse by the strong to oppress the
weak, and appeals to it had to be approved by Saffron himself.
If he denied it, at least Kiima's banishment had been rescinded.
If he approved it, she had a chance to revenge herself on her
enemy and perhaps even win her office back.

     "Interesting," Saffron said slowly.  "Helubor?"

     "I will prove the truth of my charges upon her body,"
Helubor averred in the traditional formula, staring fixedly at
Kiima.

     "Very well," Saffron said. "Let justice be so served."  The
flames around his hand vanished, and he flew back up to his
hanging platform.  Koruma and Masara quickly gave orders for the
astonished guards to man the entrances to the great cavern.

     Ranma stood up and looked around.  He noticed that, while
most of the people who had been thronging the gardens and perches
were leaving hastily, a few were arriving, mostly nobles.  "Fight
fans?" he murmured to Kiima.

     "Perhaps.  Beware treachery, Ranma."  Kiima gave him a brief
look laden with concern.

     "Sure will.  Kick his ass into next week."  Ranma smiled
confidently as Kiima surreptitiously let his tether drop to coil
at his feet.  The long flight feathers at the tips of her right
wing brushed his bound wrists as she turned to face Helubor, and
he was sure it was a gesture rather than an accident.

     "Let the trial begin!" Saffron called, and Kiima and Helubor
leapt into the air, wings curving and pumping as they clawed for
altitude.  Neither had drawn sword yet.  Ranma frowned; Helubor
wore spat-like footgear that left his scaly toes and long, curved
talons exposed, while Kiima's boots weren't hard or even sharply
pointed.  The claws on his hands were also rather more vicious-
looking than her nails. Hopefully it wouldn't come down to
natural weaponry.

     "EAGLE FIST!" Helubor shouted, pulling up suddenly as he
closed on Kiima.  His wings whipped down, and Ranma saw
something, a transparent distortion in the air, hurtle at her.
She evaded, white wings vaning and tilting, and a section of
paving and a plant-pot took the impact of Helubor's attack.
Ranma eyed the shattered stone and winced.

     "Thousand Seabird Wings!" came Kiima's response, a wide
spray of slicing air that trimmed a few of Helubor's feathers and
left a gash in his sleeve as he twisted wildly in midair.

     "Oh, nice," Koruma murmured.  Ranma glanced that way; the
two birdmen were standing at the other end of the plaza, watching
the aerial duel avidly.

     Swords rasped from scabbards as both Helubor and Kiima drew
at once.  They flew at each other and steel rang as they passed,
then again as they wheeled.  Ranma watched, and his trained eye
began to piece together the patterns in the exchange.  The sword
skills Kiima exhibited were formalized, a dueling style that
relied as heavily on skilled flying as the sword styles known to
Ranma relied on footwork; one that protected the wings while
expanding the scope of attack and defense into three dimensions.
It wasn't a style that was particularly effective against Ranma's
own unconventional unarmed methods, but it was both elegant and
effective against a winged opponent, especially if the other was
also armed with a sword.

     Kiima was very skilled indeed, Ranma saw, both at flight and
swordplay.  Helubor was stronger and perhaps quicker, but Kiima's
skill and mobility gave her the edge.  The question was whether
Helubor's endurance and toughness were greater than Kiima's.
Ranma was betting from personal experience that they weren't.

     The battle overhead ranged from one side of the great cavern
to the other, wheeling in wide arcs around Saffron's suspended
platform while the Lord of Phoenix Mountain watched impassively.
Kiima and Helubor darted and spun, white wings and red-black
flashing in the golden light, clashing and separating, swooping
and diving.  Eagle Fist and Seabird Wings lashed to and fro,
occasionally causing spectators to leap for cover.

     Ranma felt menace approaching and realized that not everyone
was watching the duel.  He turned slightly and caught sight of
Taragon drifting casually in his direction from the side away
from Koruma and Masara.  The tawny-winged lord was the picture of
nonchalance, but the long dagger held along his thigh betrayed
murderous intent.

     Taragon got close enough and the dagger came up, but Ranma
was ready.  He twirled aside from Taragon's lunge and sent him
crashing into the shrubbery with a deft kick.

     Ranma held up his bound hands as Taragon rolled out of the
bushes and raised the dagger again.  "Hey!  Look at the coward!"
he yelled.  "He's trying to kill a guy with his hands tied!"
That got Koruma and Masara's attention, but Taragon lunged again
before they could interfere.  Ranma dropped to his back, slapping
his feet on either side of the dagger blade and twisting.
Taragon squawked as Ranma yanked him sideways and rolled him
under.  A moment later Ranma was holding Taragon down with a knee
planted firmly between the man's wings; he clawed for the dagger,
but Ranma's toes held it just out of reach.

     "All yours, guys," Ranma told the lieutenants.  He looked up
just in time to see Kiima's sword flick through Helubor's guard
and into his chest, coming out stained with blood.  Helubor fell,
wings flailing.  Scarlet droplets spattered the plaza nearby, and
a moment later Helubor himself slammed into the stone paving.
His sword clattered to earth next to him.

     Kiima landed between Ranma and Helubor.  She walked over to
her fallen foe and stooped over him, sword in hand.  The light
shifted as Saffron arrived, gliding down from his platform.
"Helubor is dead, Lord Saffron," Kiima announced wearily,
cleaning her sword and returning it to the scabbard.

     "Let it be said that at least he died with honor, then,"
said Saffron.  "He has been proven guilty, and he has paid the
penalty; justice has been done."  He turned to Taragon, held by
Koruma and Masara.  "And what of this one?"

     "We suspect that he actually stole the Heart on Helubor's
behalf," said Kiima, eyeing the struggling Taragon with contempt,
"and that he may have exchanged the Eggs of Imprinting for false
ones."

     "I see."  Saffron looked down at Helubor's corpse.  "The
office of Seneschal and Captain of my guard is vacant.  Will you
resume it, Kiima?"

     "Gladly, Lord Saffron," said Kiima, kneeling.  "It has
always been my privilege to serve you."

     "I am pleased to accept your service.  I regret that I was
persuaded to cast it aside."

     "Lord," Kiima said, bowing her head in an eerie echo of the
scene in the throne room when she had been dismissed.  "Lord
Saffron, may I ask a favor?"

     Saffron, turning to fly back to his platform, stopped and
turned back.  "Speak, Captain Kiima."

     "Ranma was... very helpful to me in recovering the Heart.
Without his efforts, I would still be banished and a villain
would still stand at your right hand.  Please pardon him for his
offenses, and allow him to leave Phoenix Mountain freely.  I will
stand responsible for his behavior."

     Saffron turned to gaze at Ranma, and Ranma was struck by the
deep, ancient weariness in his eyes.  Saffron seemed to read his
reaction.  "Granted.  Remove his bonds."

     "No need," Ranma said casually.  The muscles in his arms
swelled a little, and the ropes binding his wrists burst.  He
rubbed his wrists, smiling.

     Saffron's expression lightened.  "A willing prisoner?  You
interest me, Ranma.  Perhaps we will speak later."

     "Sure.  Thanks for the pardon."  Ranma bowed, and Saffron
nodded in return and flew back up to his place.

     Shooting a pleased glance at Ranma, Kiima stood.  "Take him
to the cells," she told Koruma and Masara, indicating the
crestfallen noble in their grasp.

     Her lieutenants braced to attention, looking joyful at the
prospect of obeying her orders rather than Helubor's.  "Yes,
Captain Kiima!"  They frogmarched Taragon away up the steps, and
Ranma started to follow them.

     "Where are you going, Ranma?"

     Ranma stopped on the steps and turned with a surprised look
on his face.  "With them," he said, hooking a thumb over his
shoulder at the departing Koruma and Masara.  "They're going back
to the cells, right?  They're pretty nice cells, really, and with
the stuff in my pack they'll be even more comfortable--"  He
stopped; Kiima was looking like she was about to blow a gasket.

     "You idiot!" she burst out.  "You're pardoned!  That means
you don't have to go back to the cells--"  It was her turn to
break off as she realized Ranma had been teasing her, and a
reluctant smile broke through the exasperated frown.  "You rogue.
We'll find you something better than a cell, trust me.  Phoenix
Mountain has lots of vacant rooms--"  A sudden thought occurred
to her.  "Including mine.  Oh, dear."  That triggered another
thought.  "Oh, no!  Fanael!"

     "Lady Fanael, of the House of the Hawk?" Ranma asked.

     "Yes."  Kiima stared down at Helubor's body, looking quite
distraught.  "I just killed her brother."

     ~~~~~

     Lady Fanael came slowly down the steps, her eyes locked on
the bier where Helubor lay.  She was supported by her mate, a man
about the same age as Koruma and Masara with wings barred in blue
and black.  The little plaza had become a mortuary as those of
the winged folk who handled such things cleaned the body and
arranged it decorously.  Helubor looked like he was merely
sleeping, and the warm light shed by Saffron even hid the pallor
of his face.  Without the sneer, he appeared more handsome and
noble than he had in life.

     "I heard what happened," Fanael said quietly, looking down
at Helubor and then up at the sympathetic faces of Ranma and
Kiima.  "Did he really cause it all?  Did he really steal the
Heart of the Phoenix to have you banished just so he could be
Seneschal?"

     Kiima bit her lip.  "He didn't confess to it," she said,
unwilling to shade the truth, "and there's no positive proof, but
everything points that way.  I believe so.  Lord Saffron is
satisfied that it's so.  We've arrested Taragon, and perhaps
we'll learn more from him."

     "I don't doubt it," Fanael said, looking down at Helubor
again and shaking her head.  "I know he wasn't a good man.  And
if he did all that, he deserved to die.  But he's still my
brother."

     "I'm sorry I had to kill him, Fanael," Kiima said softly.

     Fanael shook her head.  "I understand."  Tears collected
slowly and began to run down her cheeks.  "Do you know, I felt
worse when you left than I do now?  I'm so glad you're back,
Kiima...."

     Kiima gathered Fanael into an embrace and held her while she
sobbed quietly.  Ranma traded sad, slightly embarrassed glances
with Fanael's mate, but neither of them spoke, trying to support
with their presence but not wishing to intrude.

     Finally Fanael pushed back from Kiima and produced a
kerchief.  A small metal object fell from her sleeve with it,
making a musical sound on the stone.  Fanael quickly stooped and
snatched it up.  "I brought this for you," she said, presenting
it to Kiima.

     Kiima stared at the key to her quarters that she'd given
Fanael.  "Oh... no, Fanael, I gave it to you, I can't--"

     "Please don't make me argue about it," Fanael said, pressing
the key into Kiima's weakly-resisting hand.  "I kept anyone from
going in there, so it's just the way you left it.  There's
nothing that would make me happier than seeing you living there
again.  I insist."  She looked away, dabbing at her face, and
moved closer to her mate.

     "Thank you, Fanael," Kiima said, wishing for adequate words.
"I, well, if there's anything I can do...."  She fell silent and
retreated as Fanael nodded.

     Ranma followed Kiima up the steps away from the scene,
noticing that Saffron was watching from his platform, and
probably had been the whole time.  "Poor Fanael," he said as they
turned onto the balcony around the cavern.

     Kiima nodded.  "I thought I would feel good about giving
Helubor what he deserved, but it's never that simple, is it."

     "Sometimes it isn't."  They walked on in silence for a
while, lost in their separate thoughts.

     Kiima finally shook herself.  "It's over," she said dazedly.
"I've recovered everything I lost."  She glanced at the man
walking beside her.  "Thank you, Ranma.  It's true what I told
Saffron, you know: without your help, I'd still be wandering
alone."

     "Nope.  Without me, none of this would have happened, and
you'd still be Lady Kiima, Seneschal of Phoenix Mountain and
Captain of Lord Saffron's Guard," Ranma said lightly.

     "Well-- Helubor would still be plotting, and he might have
come up with something that worked," Kiima retorted.

     Ranma gave her a sly glance.  "Sounds like you're trying to
come up with a reason to be glad I'm here," he observed.

     "I am," Kiima said, blushing a little.  She looked down at
the key in her hand.  "Well, at least there's no problem about
accommodations any more."

     ~~~~~

     "Nice place," Ranma pronounced, looking around.

     Kiima closed the door behind them and turned to survey her
quarters, piqued into trying to see them as a stranger might...
and failing.  Ghosts from her past haunted them: her father,
strong and stern to his last day; her mother, tall and elegant,
beautiful and kind; the brothers and sisters she'd hoped for but
never had.  That chair over by the fireplace had been her
father's, and she'd no more been willing to dispose of it than
she had his sword.  Her mother had assembled the collection of
small figurines on the mantel, and strung the silken warp
gathering dust on the loom in the corner.  "It's bigger than I
need," she said finally.  "My family used to live here."

     Ranma nodded.  He wandered towards daylight coming through
an open door and Kiima followed, suddenly feeling a bit shy about
showing off her home.  The next room was a sort of parlor, with
white walls and red-lacquered furniture, but it was dominated by
two large windows and a heavy door between.  Thin, uneven panes
of glass distorted the view, but it was still awesome; the clouds
had gone, and the shadow of Mount Phoenix cast by the setting sun
stretched away over the rugged lands to the east.  "Whoa," Ranma
said reverently.  He glanced at Kiima and indicated the door.
"Uh, does this open?"

     "Of course."  Kiima moved past him, slid the bolts, and
turned the handle.  Together they walked down a short flight of
stairs to a small platform cantilevered out over the sheer side
of the mountain.  Kiima watched Ranma curiously; for her, of
course, the vertiginous setting held no fear, but for one of the
wingless it had to be unsettling, if not terrifying.  Ranma,
though, appeared to be nothing but exhilarated, turning slowly to
take in the view with a rapt expression on his face.

     "Fantastic," he said finally.  He glanced at Kiima, who was
sheltering in her own wings.  "Cold?"

     "A little.  Here on the east side of the mountain, the
morning is bright and warm and the evening is cool.  Since I'm an
early riser, it's better that way... and of course the sunrise is
a sight to behold."

     "I'll bet."  Ranma took a last look and turned to follow
Kiima in.

     "The bathroom is here," Kiima said, opening a wooden door
decorated with red and blue phoenixes.  "Unfortunately, hot water
requires several hours' notice, so we'll have to make do with
cold for now.  You may bathe first while I send for supper."

     Ranma cast a cursory glance over the large stone tub.  "Uh,
I don't mind bathing in cold water, but there's one little
problem...."

     "Oh, of course.  I'll have the servants send up a kettle or
something."  Ranma retrieved his pack and took it into the
bathroom, closing the door.  The rush of water sounded faintly as
Kiima sent a dove to summon a messenger, and shortly thereafter
she heard Ranma's feminine voice humming an unfamiliar tune.

     "Got that hot water yet?" Ranma asked, coming out of the
bathroom a little later, her clothes baggy on her small frame.

     Kiima rose from her chair. "Not quite.  They should be here
soon, though."  She smiled wryly.  "Don't frighten them."

     "Gaah," Ranma groused, putting her pack down and dropping
into another chair.  "Don't worry, I won't change in front of
'em."

     Kiima laughed, picked up the bundle she'd assembled, and
went into the bath.  She was used to cold-water baths, having
picked up the habit from her father, who claimed it hardened the
body.  She opened the valve, letting water run in from the
cisterns while she removed her jewelry, then stripped off
gauntlets, boots, and suit and plunged in.

     Skin scrubbed, hair brushed, feathers preened, and clad in a
white gown with blue embroidery, Kiima returned to the main room
feeling quite recovered.  The servants had come and gone, she
noted; Ranma was male again, and supper had been set on the big
wooden table.  "I waited for you," he said, "but it wasn't easy.
Smells delicious."

     "Our farmers are industrious, and our cooks are skilled,"
Kiima said proudly, seating herself and uncovering a platter.
"Phoenix Mountain sets a fine table."

     "Yeah, I noticed while I was locked up."  Ranma started
helping himself.  "You don't cook?"

     "I'm a warrior, not a domestic," Kiima said haughtily, then
dropped the pose.  "To tell the truth, I never was any good at
it.  Mother liked to cook, as a sort of hobby, and she tried to
teach me, but...."

     "Ah."  Ranma smiled a little, but said no more.

     After the light meal had been polished off, Kiima went to a
heavy wooden cabinet, unlocked it, and surveyed the bottles
ranked within.  "Wine?" she asked without turning.

     "Maybe a little."  The hesitation in his voice surprised
Kiima.  Selecting a bottle and two glasses, she turned and raised
an eyebrow.

     "What, you don't drink?"

     "Nah," Ranma said casually, pushing his chair back and
standing.  "You?"

     "Not much... well, not to get drunk.  I'm always on duty,
after all.  Do you gamble, then?"  She handed him a half-full
glass and sipped from her own, welcoming the sense of luxury.

     "Heh.  Not with money," Ranma said with a rakish smile.

     "You don't drink, you don't gamble... you must chase women,"
Kiima said lightly.

     That got her a surprisingly wry expression over a deadpan
delivery: "No, they chase me."

     Kiima blinked, then decided to take it as a joke and
laughed.  Ranma shrugged, still smiling wryly, still standing
casually by the big table holding an untasted glass of wine.
Feeling a little uncomfortable, Kiima turned away and wandered
over to the wine-cabinet.  "So what will you do now?" she asked.

     "I dunno.  Hit the road again, go see what kind of trouble I
can get into, I guess."

     "Does this happen to you a lot?"  She'd never noticed how
fascinating this little chest by the wine cabinet was, and all
the oddments on top of it....

     "Heh.  This was kind of a personal record for trouble, I
gotta admit, but yeah."

     Kiima went still all of a sudden, looking at the three
imprinting-eggs among the clutter atop the chest.  Her long
fingers touched one, feeling its smooth curve.  He wasn't
expecting it now.  She could pick them up, turn and throw, and
then he wouldn't leave....

     "Whatcha got there?"  She hadn't even heard him move, but he
was right there, behind her and to one side.  His voice was mild
and curious, not accusing at all.

     "Nothing... appropriate."  Mind made up, Kiima turned and
met his gaze.  "You say women chase you; do you ever let them
catch you?"

     His lips quirked.  "Sometimes.  If they're... special."

     Kiima didn't need to ask if she was special; the look in his
gray eyes was enough.  She put her wineglass down behind her
without looking, noted absently that Ranma had left his on the
table, and moved forward a little.  She was enough taller than he
was that it could have been awkward, but somehow it wasn't; they
kissed tentatively, then surely, then urgently as the barriers
between cursed man and winged woman crumbled.

     Despite her rising ardor, Kiima remembered a barrier that
was still there.  "Ranma, just so you understand--" she began,
pulling back far enough that she could see his expression.

     Ranma's wry smile was back.  "Let me guess: this isn't
forever, you can't marry a guy who's not of the Phoenix Folk?"
His amused nod matched her rueful one.  "Works for me.  I was
just about to tell you the same thing, backwards, sort of."

     That was both a relief and an annoyance to Kiima, and her
face reflected both emotions for a moment before Ranma cocked an
eyebrow at her and grinned.  "All right, you rogue.  A fling it
is, then."  She ran a hand through her hair, looking exasperated.
"Gods, I'm out of practice at this."

     "It's been a while, has it?"

     "There were a few when I was younger, but they all ended up
mated to other women, somehow."

     "Their loss, my gain.  Well... is there a bed around here
somewhere?"

     "Yes, of course."  Kiima blushed, suddenly feeling quite
young.  "This way."  She led Ranma through another room to a
bedroom with an east-facing window.  Evening's darkness had
settled outside, so she drew curtains and lit a lamp, the
familiar activity making her less nervous.

     "Going too fast for you?" Ranma asked, looking away and
running a hand over the carved footboard of the large bed.

     "No, by no means," Kiima replied.  "You're no more direct
than I am, and neither of us are teenaged virgins.  It's just...
this will be my first time for a long time, and my first with a
wingless man ever, and it's a little... strange."

     Ranma smiled.  "I like strange."  He took a step closer and
raised a hand.  "Okay if I...?"

     "Yes."  Kiima brought her wings forward around her.  He
touched the long feathers gently, then stroked along the leading
edge, careful to go with the lay of the short, soft feathers
there.  Kiima closed her eyes as goosebumps sprang up on her bare
arms.

     "I guess you can feel that," Ranma said softly.

     "Oh, yes," Kiima said, opening her eyes.  "Feathers aren't
like skin, more like hair, but yes, I could feel that, and it
felt... very nice."

     Ranma looked down.  "Do you wear those gauntlets and boots
all the time?"

     Suddenly self-conscious, Kiima hid one hand in the other.
"Yes.  I only take them off in private."  She read the question
in his eyes-- aren't we in private now?-- and sighed.  "Here,
I'll show you why."  She slid the ring securing the back of the
white leather gauntlet off her finger and pulled, and the
gauntlet came off.  She held up her hand up before Ranma, scales,
pebbled skin, talons, and all.  Her fingers weren't so bad, and
she kept the nails even and smooth, but her wrists and hands...
"See?"

     "That's different," Ranma admitted, but he showed curiosity
rather than the revulsion Kiima feared.  "So?"

     Kiima clenched her exposed hand into a fist and looked at
it.  "It's not soft, and smooth, and nice.  And the men of our
people are even... worse.  Would you want to be touched by such a
hand?"

     "Depends on who's doing the touching," Ranma said lightly.
He held up his own hand.  "My hands aren't exactly soft either."

     Kiima touched it, and it wasn't; smooth callus hardened the
palm, the striking edge, the knuckles.  And she definitely wanted
this hand to touch her...  "All right.  I'll be careful."  She
pulled off the other gauntlet.

     "What about the boots?" Ranma asked.  His own feet were
bare, and had been since bathing.

     "I... think I should leave those on."  She sat down on the
edge of the bed, lifted one knee to her chin, and slipped the
boot off to display the reason why.  Her foot showed more of the
spring-borne avian influence than her hands; there was even a
clawed toe where the heel would be on a human.  "I might hurt you
otherwise," she said, donning the soft boot again.

     Ranma sat on the bed beside her, one leg folded under him.
"And this?"  His hand traced the edge of her gown where it rose
along the front of her shoulder.  "Hiding anything interesting?"

     "I certainly hope so."  Kiima stood, then reached up and
undid the high collar of the gown.  Cut low in back to clear her
wings like the suit she usually wore, it slithered easily to the
floor.

     ~~~~~

     Ranma awoke just before dawn, opening his eyes to light, not
dim but not full sunlight, filtering in through the curtain.  The
air in the room was cool, a marked contrast to the comfortable
warmth under the quilt, and it was a definite temptation to just
stay where he was and drowse.  However, another temptation
induced him to slide out of bed, careful not to disturb Kiima.

     He located his shorts after a brief search, then retrieved
his trousers and slipped out of the bedroom.  He reached the
platform on the side of Mount Phoenix just in time to watch the
sun peek over the mountains to the east.  The clear light shone
on his face as he attacked an unseen foe to the north, defended
against a phantom strike from the south, warded off sunbeams.
Leaping, kicking, whirling a thousand feet up in the air, as
close to flying as he could be, he thought about a woman with
wings.

     "Good morning, Ranma."

     He knew before he turned that she'd been there for a while,
watching him.  "Morning, Kiima."  She wore the same white gown
she'd worn the night before; the breeze molded it against her
flanks and fluttered the white feathers at her shoulders, and he
took his turn to admire her as she came down the steps.  "Sleep
well?"

     Kiima's face was composed, but her look was warm.  "My
dreams were pleasant, yes.  And you?"

     "Fine."  Ranma looked out over the vista as Kiima joined him
on the platform.  "I'm glad there's a China.  Japan is home, but
this place is... so much of everything that I have to keep coming
back."

     "It's my home," Kiima said.  "I've spent half my life
protecting this little corner of China, keeping it strange just
for wandering rogues with a taste for the exotic."

     "Thanks."

     "You're welcome."  Kiima gazed out at the rising sun and the
streaks of cloud around it, pink and orange.  "My father used to
do what you were doing, at the same time and in the same place."

     "Was he a martial artist?"

     "He was a warrior and a defender of the peace; seneschal and
captain of Lord Saffron's guard before me.  His morning exercises
weren't as energetic as yours, though.  We have our own way of
tai-chi."

     "Ah."

     "It was something of a surprise to wake up and find you
gone," Kiima said without reproach.  "And more of a surprise to
see you out here."

     "I wanted to watch the sunrise," Ranma explained.

     "Yes."  Kiima continued to do just that.  "How long do you
think you'll stay?"

     Ranma sighed.  "Week or two, maybe?  Right now I don't want
to think about leaving, though."

     Kiima finally turned away from the sunrise and looked at
him.  "You're right, of course."

     "So, how does your day usually go?"

     "I rise about this time, bathe, break my fast, then begin my
duties.  The night watch reports any unusual events; I handle
anything that needs my attention, fly out to patrol around the
mountain for external threats, inspect the guard.  After midday I
exercise and practice, train the guards, then go around looking
for... well... trouble, hoping I don't find it.  Eat dinner.
Drink a little wine.  Read, perhaps.  Go to bed."  The litany
sounded well-practiced.

     Ranma gave her a slightly disgusted look.  "And is that how
this day is going to go?"

     "Er... I hadn't really thought about it.  I suppose so."

     "How long has it been since you've had a vacation?"

     "What's a 'vacation'?" Kiima asked, sounding irked.

     "Time off," Ranma said.  "A few days away from the job."

     "I don't have a 'job'.  Artisans and laborers have 'jobs'.
I have an office, and I have duty," Kiima said stiffly.

     Ranma grinned.  "Okay.  I'll tag along on your duty, then.
I'll just have to find something to do while you're off on
patrol.  I'm sure I can stay out of trouble... well, probably."

     Kiima's mouth opened and closed several times.  "On second
thought," she said finally, "perhaps I should alter my schedule."

     "You're on the right track," Ranma said encouragingly.
"Look, Koruma and Masara can handle your duty for a while.  What
do the other nobles do all day?"

     "Not much," Kiima admitted.

     Ranma spread his hands.  "Well, then.  You've just had a
rough experience, so now you need some rest."

     "Rough?  It was the most fun I've had in years!" Kiima burst
out.

     "You don't need to tell them that."  Ranma gave her his best
grin and waited.

     "It occurs to me that escorting important guests is one of
the duties of the seneschal," Kiima said slowly.

     "Is that traditional, or did you just make it up?"

     "The seneschal has wide latitude to interpret her duties--"
Kiima stopped and smiled reluctantly.  "I just made it up.
Phoenix Mountain doesn't have guests."

     "It does now," Ranma said cheerfully.

     ~~~~~

     "Captain...."

     Kiima turned aside from watching Ranma play with her guards.
In squads of four, they were attacking him with staves, and he
was defending with bare hands and feet, and they were losing.
Disgracefully.  But the joy he took in fighting, and the good-
humored way he explained what they were doing wrong, and the care
he took to avoid injuring them... all these made it impossible
for any but the most sour guardsman to take offense, and the
whole thing had the flavor of children roughhousing in a sandbox.
Sometimes it seemed that Ranma approached his whole life that
way, and there was something to be said for that.

     "What is it, Koruma?  Oh, the intelligence reports."

     "I ran across something that I thought you'd want to see."
Koruma looked unhappy about it.

     Kiima took the scroll and read.  Her eyebrows rose.  She
read some more, and then she looked across the lamplit width of
the training hall at Ranma sailing inverted though the air
pursued by laughing, flapping guards waving sticks, and she
rolled the scroll back up and handed it back to Koruma.  "Yes,
very interesting," she said evenly.  "Thank you."

     "Uh, there's more--"

     "I'm sure there is, but this is enough."

     ~~~~~

     When Ranma came out of the bath with a towel hung around his
neck, Kiima was waiting for him in the parlor with a serious
expression.  "Uh, oh, the 'we-have-to-talk' look," he chuckled.
"What is it?"

     "I heard about this woman in the Joketsuzoku village," Kiima
said casually.  "She has three children, girls, one about six and
twins perhaps five years old.  She has a husband, but he's
usually not there: a Japanese man with a pigtail and a
Nyanniichuan curse.  Her name is Shan Pu...."  She trailed off;
Ranma was looking at her with an annoyed expression.

     "Why don't you just say what you want to say, or ask what
you want to ask?" Ranma said impatiently.  "I already know all
that.  What did you expect me to do, deny it?"

     "Well, no--"

     "Jeez.  I figured you knew what you were getting into.  You
said so.  'A fling with a rogue', you said, and that's all I can
deliver, and I thought you were enjoying it."

     "I was."  Ranma stared at her with a hurt look.  "I mean I
am."  The hurt look turned confused.  "Ranma, just shut up and
let me talk for a minute!"

     "Fine," Ranma said, throwing up his hands and falling into
the chair opposite her.

     "I was upset when Koruma brought me the report, but I had
time to think about it while you were having fun with the guards,
and you're right: you didn't promise me any more than that, and I
didn't ask."

     "So why bring it up, then?" Ranma said with a puzzled look.

     "Because it happened," Kiima said seriously.  "I can either
brood on it, or tell you that I know, and hope it just blows away
like a cloud.  The funny thing is that I've actually known about
you for a while.  I heard about Shan Pu's occasional pigtailed
Japanese husband, what, six or seven years ago?  You sure caused
a commotion then!  But I didn't make the connection until this
afternoon."

     "I'm famous?" Ranma asked, bemused.

     Kiima smirked.  "Notorious, I'd say."

     "Heh."

     "It's just that it got me thinking that I really don't know
much about you, and I started wondering...."

     "You know me pretty well, really," Ranma said.  "While we
were camping out there and chasing the Heart... all that was me,
the real me.  I like to fight, I like to win, I like to help
people out.  I like feeling like I'm on the side of the good
guys.  What happened after that, the fling with the rogue... that
was something I learned, and part of it was 'don't tell her stuff
she doesn't want to hear.'  I don't mind it, don't get me wrong,
but it's like playing make-believe for grown-ups."

     A frown had settled on Kiima's face.  "Some women may want
it that way, perhaps.  I'd rather know the truth."

     "Well, I haven't lied to you.  It's just that there are a
lot of things I haven't told you."

     "Like about the wife and three children, yes."  Kiima's
voice was amused rather than indignant.

     "Uh-uh.  Shampoo thinks I'm her husband, but I only have one
wife, and she's in Japan."

     Kiima's eyes widened.  "Um... do you have children with her,
too?"

     "Yup.  Two boys," Ranma said fondly.

     "Five...."

     "Six."

     "SIX?!  A third woman?"

     "Yup."  Ranma eyed Kiima with concern.  "Are you sorry you
asked yet?"

     "Well, once I was watching one of Loame's workers get sand
from a sand-bin, and the chute jammed.  He prodded it, and pried
at it, and suddenly it broke and the poor fellow was just covered
with sand."

     "Heh."

     "Are there any...."  Kiima pondered how to put it
delicately, and then decided to hell with it.  "Do you have any
other women?  Beside the ones you've had children with?"

     "Uh... one.  Sort of."  Ranma's suddenly reticent look told
Kiima she'd hit a sensitive subject.  "Guess I'm even more of a
rogue than you thought."

     "If you were a woman, you'd be a slut," Kiima said
positively.  "Damn double standards.  Instead you're an adulterer
or a womanizer."

     "Or a man among men, as my mother would say.  Does say."

     "With all those women, what do you need ME for?"

     "Not need," Ranma said seriously.  "That part wasn't a lie,
or make-believe.  I let you catch me because you're special."

     "How?"

     "What do you mean, 'how'?"

     "How am I special?"  Kiima's tone was curious rather than
fishing-for-a-compliment.

     "I... well... would you believe I have a thing for strong,
violent, short-haired tomboys?"

     "Shan Pu has long hair," Kiima pointed out.

     "Damn.  Uh, I was curious about the feathers?"

     "Ranma...."

     "All right."  Ranma sighed.  "It's like this.  I love my
wife.  I love Shampoo.  I love the others, too.  I can't do this
without loving them at least a little, see?  I think my children
are just wonderful.  And I meet you, and you're strong, and
gutsy, and beautiful... all the things I like.  And I see that
you want me, not forever, just for a little while.  And I figure
it won't hurt anyone, 'cause they're not going to find out, so I
can give you what you want... and I want it too, 'cause I am a
rogue, and an adulterer, and a womanizer.  But a very picky one,
so I'm not a slut."

     Kiima was watching him with her elbows on the table and
hands clasped together, her mouth hidden behind them.  "That was
the real you too, wasn't it?"

     "I think so, yeah."

     "And you said all that just because I asked you to tell the
truth, thinking I was going to end the fling right now and send
you home to your wife, didn't you?"

     Ranma shrugged uncomfortably.  "Something like that."

     "Well, I'm not.  You should tell the truth-- more of the
truth-- more often, Ranma.  I can't speak for all women, but I
think I would forgive a man a lot as long as it was my choice to
do so, as long as I wasn't deceived into doing it.  In this case,
there isn't even anything to forgive, because I didn't ask you
for any promises before inviting you into my bed.  Just don't try
to seduce any other women while you're here with me."

     "No problem," Ranma said fervently.

     "What sort of woman is your wife?" Kiima asked.

     "She's... calm.  She's a great cook, and a good mom, and she
keeps a nice house.  She's kind and gentle and always smiling."

     "Does she know?"

     Ranma considered.  "I think so, but we don't talk about it,
so I'm not sure.  She's the kind that wouldn't mind as long as I
kept it discreet and treated her right, I think.  I sure try to."

     "Hmm."

     "What about you?  I can't believe that a woman like you
isn't married, or at least got someone special."

     Kiima smiled wryly behind her hands.  "Fanael says the same
thing.  Part of it's probably because there just aren't enough
men in Phoenix Mountain.  To maintain my line, I must mate with a
noble, and there are only a few suitable mates."

     "So you turned them all down?  Like you said you turned down
Helubor?"

     "Yes....  I know I'm desirable, of course.  Men used to
chase me, and occasionally I'd let one catch me, but they all
wanted more than I would give.  They wanted me to give up being
Seneschal, or they wanted me to be domestic, or they wanted to
prove their manhood by conquering the haughty Lady Kiima-- you
can imagine how I reacted to THAT."

     "Why me, then?"

     "Because you're special."

     "Gaah."

     Kiima's laughing eyes sobered.  "Ranma, you must know how
beautiful you are.  And you helped me when I needed it, without
counting the cost.  But I think I began to love you when we were
falling to our deaths and you let go.  What decided me to try to
have a fling with you, though, was that you liked me for who I
was... and I liked who I was when I was with you."

     ~~~~~

     Lounging in Kiima's large bed on a lazy, rainy morning,
Ranma let his eyes wander over Kiima's lithe form.  It was a
pleasant journey.  Kiima lay on her side with her wings stretched
out behind her and her head pillowed on her forearm; it was a
posture that displayed the long curve of her hip and thigh very
attractively.  He noticed something that reminded him of
something he'd meant to ask about.  "I see you have a navel."

     "Much like yours."  Kiima was eyeing him about the same way.

     "So your people are born, not hatched?"

     "Of course."  Kiima frowned a little and her eyes went
distant, and Ranma knew she was thinking of Taragon, currently
resting in a large egg in the vault.  He'd stay there until
someone decided to take on the responsibility of rehabilitating
him.

     "Kiima, don't take this the wrong way, but you really ought
to find a guy you can respect and have some kids."

     "There you go talking like Fanael again," Kiima said fondly.
"Ever since she had hers, she's been talking up family whenever
she gets a chance."

     "Well, she's right," Ranma said.  "Kids are great.  And
yours would be terrific."

     Kiima smiled and drew a hand across her belly.  "Perhaps
that is already taken care of."

     "Urk."  Something that should have been obvious occurred to
Ranma.  "Are we, uh, are winged people and other people, you
know, cross-fertile?"

     "I don't know," Kiima said.  "We are not very fertile to
begin with; large families are rare, especially among the nobles.
And there is no record of any of our folk mating with a wingless
person for centuries, at least."  She gave Ranma a demure smile.
"I checked."

     "So probably not, then?"  Ranma wasn't sure whether to be
relieved or disappointed, mostly because it wasn't clear how
Kiima felt about it.  "Probably just as well.  It'd be pretty bad
for a kid to have one wing, or small wings...."

     Kiima shook her head.  "It doesn't work that way.  The
earliest legends of our people are not exactly history, but
Samofere infers from them that wings have very strong heredity.
And then there's Jusenkyo; we've both been touched by the magic
waters."

     "You mean--"

     Kiima smiled again, warmly.  "If I conceive, my child will
probably be a daughter, and she will certainly have wings."

     "Wow."  Ranma thought about that.  "Can you imagine how cute
she'll be?"

     "Oh, yes."

     "But what about the child of a wingless person growing up in
Phoenix Mountain--?"

     Kiima's eyes glittered.  "I would teach her to fight in any
case, of course."

     "I'll bet."  Ranma thought about that some more.  "How do
you feel about it, Kiima?"

     Kiima shrugged, her wings flexing.  "It would be...
inconvenient.  But certainly not disastrous; I have enough power
to avert any... social problems.  If it happens, the child will
be welcome."

     "Um...."  Ranma twiddled his fingers bashfully.  "You know
how I feel about kids.  Is there any way you could, you know, let
me know?"

     "Perhaps."  Kiima smiled at Ranma's crestfallen look and
leaned over to kiss him.  "Or you could come back to see...."

     ~~~~~

     "WAAAAHAAA!"

     Kiima tightened her hold on Ranma as they flashed over the
bare stone crest of a ridge, caught the updraft, and rocketed
skywards.  Tucking her wings partway in, she plunged into
afternoon shadows filling a narrow, winding canyon, streaking
upstream at breakneck speed that slackened as the valley rose.  A
waterfall loomed ahead, eliciting a gasp from Ranma, but Kiima
pulled up hard, laughing, before the thundering spray at its base
could trigger his curse.

     She sideslipped off the stall at the top, righted herself,
and flew back down the valley.  "On hot days, it's a real
pleasure to fly through the spray!" she called over the wind in
their ears.

     "I'll bet!"  Ranma called back.  "Hey, look!"  She pointed
aside at an eagle overtaking them a hundred yards away.  "Let's
race!"

     Kiima laughed.  "I'm swift for one of the Phoenix Folk, but
not as swift as that one."

     "Aww--"

     They flew back towards Phoenix Mountain as the shadows
lengthened, and then came the long, spiral climb up the tall
spire.  Ranma felt Kiima breathing deeply against his back as her
smooth, strong wingbeats carried them steadily upwards.
Doorways, terraces and buildings perched on the sides of the
mountain slid by one after the other, and finally he saw the
familiar little platform ahead.  He kept his feet held up out of
the slipstream until the last moment, when Kiima pulled up,
braked, and dropped her own feet to a soft landing.  She released
him and he took a step forward.

     "That was fantastic," Ranma said happily, looking out over
the mountainous scene, ridges and peaks lit by the last rays of
the setting sun and valleys cloaked in shadow.  "I wish I had
wings."

     Kiima embraced him again from behind, her arms now loving
and gentle rather than the strong grip that had supported him in
flight.  "I wish you had wings too," she whispered, her breath
tickling his ear.

     Ranma was silent for a while.  Finally he said, "I guess
it's time for me to leave."

     "I... suppose it is.  But not tonight.  In the morning."
Kiima's wings swung forward on either side and tightened,
wrapping Ranma in a cloud of smooth white feathers carrying the
faint scent of clean mountain air and Kiima.

     ~~~~~

     Carrying Ranma in her arms, Kiima glided along a ridge, her
wings shifting and tilting as they rode the air currents.
Finally they curved hard, cupping air and braking to drop them to
a gentle landing atop the ridge where a path emerged from a
bamboo grove.  Kiima set Ranma on his feet, folding her wings
behind her.  Ranma put his pack down and looked at Kiima,
fidgeting a little.  "It's been great," he said.  "All of it.
From the first fight to, uh... well, thanks."

     Kiima smiled, a little sadly.  "I'm not good at goodbyes
either."  She brought one of her wings around in front of her,
felt through the feathers for a moment, then tugged and winced.
"Here," she said, handing Ranma a long, perfect white feather.

     Ranma took it slowly.  "Thanks... didn't that hurt?"

     "We lose feathers the way we-- and you-- lose hair," Kiima
said, shrugging with shoulder and wing.  "They fall out when they
get worn out, and then grow back in.  The older and rattier a
feather is, the easier it falls out, and the less it hurts."  Her
eyes traced his face as though engraving its lines on her memory.
"To answer your question, yes, that one hurt... but you deserve
the best I can give."

     "Jeez, Kiima," Ranma protested, reddening.

     "It's nothing compared to the good you've done me.  You will
be welcome, should you decide to pass this way again... but next
time, don't be so hard on the guards, all right?"  Kiima smiled,
then sobered.  "I can't promise that you'll be welcome as a
lover... but I will always count you my friend."

     Ranma nodded.  "Fair enough."

     "And this," Kiima said, taking a jade bracelet off her
wrist, "this is for your wife, in apology for delaying your
return to her."

     "That's fair too, I guess," Ranma said, stowing the
bracelet.  "I might not tell her that, of course...."

     Kiima laughed.  "That's your affair.  This is ours."  She
started to lean down to kiss him, but Ranma hopped sideways-- and
suddenly was a little taller than she was.  Kiima looked down at
the stone, then up at his mirth-filled eyes, and kissed him once,
quickly, smiling.  "Fare well, Ranma."  She took two steps back,
saluted, and leapt into the air.

     Ranma hopped down off the rock and shouldered his pack, then
paused, gently stroking the white feather, and looked down at the
flat stone with the characters incised on its side.  "Thanks,
buddy."  Shading his eyes with his hand, he stared south for a
long moment before setting off over the ridge for home.

     ~~~~~ end Ranma and the Heart of the Phoenix ~~~~~

Notes:

     Yes, I imagine you were expecting more "Centaur".  So was I.
I got this instead, so you did too.  :)

     "A Man Among Women" was inspired by a question Dave Roeder
asked me: what serious and in-character scenario could be
contrived in which ALL the "fiancees" got Ranma?  We batted that
back and forth for a while, and eventually I wrote a story:

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/other/amaw.txt

     It's not a likely scenario, I admit, and readers have
pointed out significant flaws in it, but it is possible, and the
responses I received indicate that it seems to have captured the
imagination of many of its readers.  It certainly captured mine.

     Even as I wrote AMAW, it seemed to me that it was just a
fragment of a much larger story.  It was necessary to allude to
the events which culminated in AMAW, and while I did not imagine
them in much detail at that time, the broad outline was clear
enough to provide the necessary foundation.

     In the aftermath of the release of AMAW, I realized that
there were several stories that could be told in that timeline:

* How it came about that Ranma married Kasumi instead of Akane.

* Ranma's first "training trip", to Kansai and China.

* The effects of Kodachi becoming Ranma's mistress.

* Akane and Ranma finally consummating their long-hidden love.

* "Ranma and the Heart of the Phoenix".

I expect to tell all of these stories eventually, and then the
original AMAW will be merely an epilogue.

     I have no idea what made me include a reference to Kiima in
AMAW, except perhaps that I admire her greatly for her strength,
courage, and devotion to duty... and her exotic beauty doesn't
hurt.  But these are characteristics that Ranma would find
attractive as well, and if they hadn't met the way they did in
the manga Phoenix Mountain story, perhaps they might find
themselves well suited.

     Kiima doesn't appear much in fanfic, with two outstanding
exceptions: Alan Harnum's chilling "Simulacrum":

http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/simulac.txt

and his magnificent "Waters Under Earth":

http://www.thekeep.org/~harnums/wue.html

     I felt sorry for Kiima's fate in WUE, and wished her better
fortune, so when Alan asked me to tell the tale of how she and
Ranma met in his comments on AMAW, my imagination ran with it.
Kiima deserves to be a hero in a story of her own, or at least to
share top billing, and I was glad of a chance to give her that.

     I am also grateful to Alan for giving me permission to use
some of the characters and settings he created for WUE, an act of
meta-fan-fiction intended strictly as homage.

     Prereading services provided by Dave Roeder and Darniil
Entroth; thanks, guys!