The Other Eye Prologue
Ranma 1/2 and Wheel of Time crossover
by Naquiel
Disclaimer - Ranma doesn't belong to me so please don't sue. And, also, Wheel of Time, is owned by Robert Jordan, the God of books, the lord of literature, the duke of... of... um... He's good.
I am referring all nine presently printed books of the Wheel of Time and "The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time".
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Chapter 0
Ranma was in pain, great pain.
The claws of his fellow victims savaged his flesh with uncontrollable hunger powering their cruel movements. He could almost sense the strikes before they tore his flesh. There was almost a rhythm, a pattern. His young body screamed in pain to his numbed mind. Blood gushed from his arterial wounds. He was beginning to feel the darkness of death encroaching.
"Oh, Kami." Begged the little boy, his lifeblood flowing into the shadowed, soiled dirt. "Please, somebody, something help me!"
More, relentless pain, the cats fearful and hungry, attacking each other and, of course, him. In their fear and anguish, they could not discern the difference between food and human. The dark emotions flickered in the air, invisible in the darkness.
The mind of the poor boy was so close to collapse that it had fought since the start, to no avail, as he would merely be returned to the hellhole. The mental agonies were almost as great as the physical ones, almost.
The boy's thrashing body became, suddenly, very still. Too much blood and effort had gone into trying to safe himself. He was frightened, but could not help giving in to resignation.
Under his voice, he spoke a prayer that his damaged mind wove to help him cope. It was a poem based on his philosophy on life, that it was a tapestry, a pattern. "And now I lay me down to sleep; I give to the wheel my soul to keep; and should I dream before I wake; I pray to the pattern that death me take."
He had long ago developed the basic principal, due to his youthful understanding of life, and had fervently developed it throughout the torturous regime into a method of understanding why. Why was it happening to him?
He desperately grasped for the power of his Chi, long ago mastered to a minute degree, and attempted to use it to save himself. It was a useless exercise, one that he had attempted every time he was taken to this hellhole.
He relaxed, not flinching even though his flesh was being slowly torn asunder. He could not live through this any more. He was resigned and came to terms with his inevitable death.
Quite suddenly, Ranma felt a powerful, calming influence enfold him. The pain in his body was less. He could almost feel the wounds start to heal. The feeling slipped from his fingers like water, in his wonder. The pain returned like before, but the wounds were ver-so-slightly smaller and let out a little less blood.
Ranma became angry. Anger at the hateful bastard, who called himself, his father. Anger for deluding himself into believing he was getting better. Anger at the innocent cats. Anger at the Wheel and Weave, his own belief and philosophy.
Then, as suddenly as the first presence, he felt a fiery, yet also icy, power raging inside himself. He had to fight it, with his own anger and will. It was strong; as strong as the other power, but it brought all of that influence to the fore. Ranma let it go, somehow.
He almost felt remorse at the loss of the power that intruded his mind. Now, without it despite the mental barriers against pain that he had built to help his sanity remain whole, he could sense that his sharp pains, were... different, more of a healing sort of pain than a pain telling of wounds and agonising damage.
Tentatively he attempted to reach again for those two oddly different powers. He did not succeed. Yet still, he tried, even as his newly healed wounds were reopened, or widened, or replaced with more blood-gates. Eventually he fell into resignation again.
I'll never see Mama. I'll never be the best! I'll never learn anything any more! I'll be cold and alone, and in here forever! He fell into depression and further into surrender, to the forces that would destroy him.
The calming and soothing influence returned to him. This time, he did not flinch, but remained in his present state, using all of his mental discipline to figure out the mysterious powers and ignore the nightmare outside his mental defences.
He could sense something above him. Not see, as such, but sense it. It was incomplete, a spiral of thread woven around another. He could not tell anything more about it.
He shifted his mind, like turning a radio, so that he could sense the thread more, and as he did so, he revealed the source of the presence.
A river, was the best way to describe it, powerful, ever-flowing, cool and intoxicating! He was amazed at the indescribable strength, and ancient force that the power took and flowed with. The river was like the other thing, the spiral that was woven around another, one that he could not see. Beside, and behind, and in front, of the River was the other power, silent for now, dormant until summoned. It was like two images superimposed on top of one another. Two things seen by either eye and then merged for the mind to comprehend.
He tried to embrace, to reach out and touch the river of power. It slipped away with each attempt. Finally, after many tries, he decided to not try, but instead, imagine it reaching out to him. It responded, and in his mind he could feel the delicious coolness of the river enfolding him. Suddenly, despite surrendering to it, he was in command.
He felt more than human, greater, stronger, faster. It was like a rush of Chi, but more intoxicating, more persuasive. It made him feel higher than any drug could.
He gave up his new power, and ignored his yearning to once again touch the seductive purity of the river, and instead turned his attention to the other power.
He replayed the thoughts and emotions that he thought before he touch the second fiery power. His anger lent him the strength to change perspectives. Instead of a river and another invisible element, Ranma saw a torrent of aggressive power that flowed, coiled, like a Dragon around the river.
He tried surrendering to the second power, yet, it was unresponsive to his supplication. After a few moments of thought, he reached for it, forcefully. To his surprised and joy, he found the power writhing in his grasp like a snake. Still he had to fight for dominance with the power, and his boon was the same feeling of ecstasy and strength, but of a more aggressive nature, as he felt from the first power.
When he grasped and perceived the second power, the other half of the odd, probing spiral became visible, just as the other disappeared.
He could feel this new grasp wavering as his pain excelled with its scalpel of agony, at the boundaries of his mental barriers. Something was happening, disturbing the cats from their hunger's rhythm. Perhaps they noticed there was less food, or maybe Genma added more cats to the stew. Any number of things could have upset their balance and caused them to attack him more, to hoard their food from newcomers or those who would take it from them.
Ranma strained to reinforce his mental barriers. He tried and was failing. The newly surging agony was tearing away all of his mental walls. The connection between body and mind was being blocked up with messages of injury and damage.
Ranma was becoming desperate to escape the pain and influence of the pit. After a moments of true exposure to the pain his body was going through, his sanity would snap.
He desperately reached out for both of the new powers. He had neither the time nor the mental faculties to repeat the previous processes. Each attempt resulted in failure. One means for the one power counteracted the means to reach the other. He was in no position to be patient.
He imagined the coiling of the two powers and took it further. He imagined that the two powers became many threads and interwove with each other to make a sphere of woven fiery aggressive strength and rivets of passive power. The weave would not remain. The weaves slid on top of each other, distorting.
Ranma had a flash of brilliance. He imagined, despite as the pain was knocking on his mental doors. The two mysterious powers were based on two different parts of the emotional spectrum, passive and aggressive, which, he assumed, may be able to be bridged by something that could act almost like a negotiator between them. He changed his mental image and placed some of his Chi in the heart of the sphere, allowing it to sent threads of itself to the surrounding construct, giving it strength and unity.
Unknown to Ranma, for now, this was the first weave he had ever used. This was the first time he tapped into the True Source.
Now, using this mental view, he tapped into both powers, 'seeing' them both coiled around each other, with his Chi as a third thread interwoven into them. He felt the passive, calm of the first power, the aggressive, consuming power of the second and the exhilarating rush of his pure Chi flooding his system.
Now, with both of his new powers at his command, he could see the entire spiral probe. As he fought of the awareness of his agony, and his slow torture, he was unaware of the slightly healing wounds, and the deadening of some of the pain invading to his mind. Now, the first openings in the walls in his mind began to appear. Pain rushed in like a spray of spears.
Instinctively, Ranma reached out with the three powers and grasped the coiling thread above, with all of the strength and willpower at his command.
Kamarile Maradim Nindar fumed, with her colleagues, Elan Morin Tedronai, Mierin Eronaile and Ishar Morrad Chuain all with similar expressions of disappointment and bottled anger. They were present at a most rare event, the activation of another gateway, such as the two that lead to worlds where three wishes and whims were granted.
For three years, three years, she and her colleagues had been fighting over their rivals as to the designation of this new gateway. For the three years for it to be built and charged, they had squabbled like children over a topic that was undeniably, as she saw it, in her group's favour!
They were present in a large, circular room in the heart of the floating, egg-shaped, Collam Daan, in the city of V'saine. It was bleached white, without any shadows, and was quite plain. The walls were heavily worked stone, using the One Power to enhance and guard the rock against the possible explosions that may or may not happen upon activation of a gateway. Luckily, it was not a precaution that had been necessary in the past. At one side of the room, there was a large door, even more worked than the walls, and a low wall in front of that that ran in front of the circumference of the room, also, in case of an explosion. In the heart of the room was an odd, door-less doorframe.
It was four years ago that a team of researchers discovered a large meteorite, just right to use for a gateway, and it was three years ago that the subject of the possible destination of the finished ter-angreal split the group into two equal factions. Also, since, they had both used their influence to ask the Hall of Servants to solve the dispute. They found in favour of the factions led by Tersin Hadkin Bulloars, once a lover of Kamarile, but had long since split upon the discovery that he was by far too contemptuous of her way of life. She was into asceticism, and that was her choice. She half believed that their messy break-up was the driving force in the argument over the destination.
The basic argument was that Kamarile, Elan, Mierin, and Ishar, all believed that the doorways should be linked to another world that was similar to their own, to intermix with and to interact. They believed that the possible benefits out weighed the risks by far. Tersin's faction believed that the doorway would be best suited to linking to another dimension like the Wish-granters, or the Secret-tellers, and from that, benefits can flow more readily than linking to another world similar to their own. The Hall of Servants agreed with the safer of the two choices and had ordered the discussion closed.
In the low-walled box in front of the between the entrance and the gateway, a number of seats were placed neatly in rows. The researchers sat, subtly divided into two halves, with a small number of other channelers present as well as a few non-channelers, filling the gap between the two glaring groups.
Kamarile could not bear the pleased smirk on Tersin's face, and so turned her attention, entirely towards the gateway. The tall structure was red-bronze with odd streaks of blue-grey metal in random order. Its frame seemed to twist in an odd and disturbing way, due to the dimensional weaves that ran it's length, causing the slight, if sickening alteration to the fabric of reality around the frame.
She was quietly proud of the ter-angreal that she helped create, after all, they needed someone skilled in the processes of the human mind to create the necessary targeting weaves, to find the right dimension and lock onto it. She had done her job well, but she almost wished she had not!
A young man stood up, only about fifty years old or so. He was the representative from the Hall of Servants, and as such, it fell to him to proclaim the activation of the gateway. It was a formality, a tradition, but a respected one.
All fell quiet.
He coughed into his hand and spoke. "We are here to witness the activation of a new gateway. Who knows the glories that await travellers through it's arch. We are seeing once again, a fabulous accomplishment by our world, another stepping stone into a greater era. Let the gate be opened!" he sat down with a riotous clapping chorus. A white-haired channeler, Kamarile had never seen before, stood up and sent the activation weave towards the gateway.
Everyone waited with baited breath. Those who could see the weaves reported to the non-channelers. The activation weave slipped nicely into its part of the pattern that made up the doorway. The next set of weaves began to pulse and writhe as the probing dimensional weaves attempted to find the predetermined dimension-type.
For a number of minutes, the people waited anxiously, Kamarile and her companions the most. Then, something odd happened. The weaves that should have pulsed and writhed were suddenly halted, as if grasped with an invisible hand. People moaned slightly in fear as the weaves contorted and were drawn towards a single point. The weaves settled, but somehow, something had forced the gateway to settle.
Space within the gateway appeared to be tightly drawn into a single, central point, then the gateways shattered. The dancing fragments screamed in a small, contained tornado, a grown man's height in width. It grew quickly almost halfway to touch the low wall, until it suddenly dissipated, the fragments of half-melted metal shrapnel, falling to the ground.
The frightened, stuttering people were more than shocked to see what they did.
Two meters, and more, of soil was piled up from the floor. It was damp and dark, with no root systems, although it did not immediately go through their minds, they later realised that the soil must have come from quite well down. The sides were sharply cut, and the top was exactly level. To top that off, a number of starved-looking cats ran yowling over the top of the mound and over the lip.
A weak whisper could be heard by some of the more silent of the frightened people. A small almost musical sound reached Kamarile, who cocked her ear to hear it better. Again, the voice whispered, carrying it pleading tone. She pulled up her practical, uncoloured skirts and used the One Power to levitate her up above the soil. She glided along, searching for the source of the voice.
All she could find was a pit in the centre of the earthy mass. When she saw it, she nearly screamed, but it was choked by a sudden desire to be sick.
A small boy, barely eight or nine, tied up with chains, and covered with dried and drying blood. He had no clothes left but a few tatters. Even now, a pride of cats were gnawing at his young flesh. His eyes were glazed with pain and she could see no expression on his face. He was lying on a carpet of sick, excretions and other messes, which intermingled, with the blood. The cats were also devouring their fallen comrades, and even their own lost limbs. She was too affected by the sight to have the wits to use the One Power.
Others came up behind her and saw the scene. A good number of them gagged and were sick. Another number screamed or cursed. It was Elan who had the wits to do something in the face of it.
He reached out with the One Power and shoved the cats away from the boy with weaves of air. Then he carried the boy above their reach, and towards himself. He had to bat away a few daring felines, who were still driven mad with hunger.
Shortly he was cradling the boy, and calling for her. "Get here girl! You are the best here with Restoration. Come on!"
She bridled slightly at the 'girl' comment, after all, she was elder, but her concern for the boy outweighed that slight transgression. She levitated towards the child, and together, she and Elan took the boy away from the large pile of soil and the horror in its heart. The shocked spectators followed like ducklings.
Gently, they laid him down on the cold stone floor, posthumously warmed by a helpful weave from Meirin. Kamarile assessed his injuries with cool, collected probing, accounting for: five major broken bones, ten broken ribs, a hairline fracture in his femur and innumerable cuts, bruises and already healed wounds.
"This will required a powerful and immediate healing..." she began to state, before being interrupted by Tersin.
"What did the brat do?" he raved. "It's gone! My achievement! No! My gateway!" he suddenly turned around from his selfish ranting and looked with murder at the small boy. "I'll kill the bastard!" He lunged forward before being bound in weaves of air by the same Aes Sedai who activated the gateway.
"Calm down. You do not know what you say, and if you do, the Hall will bind you before you lay a finger on that boy!" he stated without particular inflection.
Tersin just sagged and wept.
Kamarile returned to her charge. "Does anyone here have an angreal or sa'angreal?"
The crowd managed to rustle up a few small, personal-use angreal, but no sa'angreal. She gratefully took the tools of power and gave the male ones to Elan, and tapped into the female ones.
Together they reached into both the One Power and again through the angreals. They formed a link and Kamarile melded the weaves of healing, placing them gently into the boy.
Ranma was in pain still, lesser, but still. He had reached out for that off coil and found himself, disorientated. For some reason the cats had left him alone for the most part. He had the vague memory of calling for help before retreating into his mind.
Now, things felt off. Different, from the hellish environment, of before. He slowly and tentatively brought down his mental barriers, to see a woman's face. She was kindly, yet beautiful in her way, and her eyes had some fine lines around it. She wore no makeup that he could see, but still smelt of roses and sweet cut grass. He could vaguely see an outline of white around her, along with a man he had to move his head to see.
The man was not that old, but had some white in his hair and had his own share of cologne and then some, dabbed on his self. The strong smell nearly made him sneeze.
He noticed that the woman had her hand on a reasonably unwounded portion of his arm. For a second he wondered, and then he could, for a split second, 'see' the weaves she had woven and slipped inside of his body.
His eyes flared open, his body became rigid as a pole. He felt numb and electrocuted at the same time. He felt some of his Chi being moulded to the task of healing his wounds. He could see that the method was imperfect, there was by far too much Chi loss and the repairing was happening at a much slower rate than it could, and so he decided to make some alterations to the weave she had granted him.
The crowd, for the most part, gasped when they saw a corona of light surround the child. A corona of both, of the powers, from the True Source: saidin and saidar.
Kamarile gasped as she felt gentle weaves intercept her own and redirect the pattern, into a slightly different form. The gentle weaves were as strong as steal, against any attempt to alter the new weave she was using, and for the boy's sake, she could not break off the weave too suddenly.
Then, suddenly, the weaves work was done, and she was receiving some feedback. She dispersed the weave she had used. The gentle weaves that had done the altering split and separated into their individual threads of spirit and earth. They were amazingly elegant and simple.
She released the Source and looked upon the child, opening her eyes. And gasped at the child, looking at her, glowing with held saidar.
The child spoke a question, in soft, lilting sounds. It sounded quite alien, despite coming from a child's mouth. She could not understand, and flashed a look at Elan, who had an astonished look on his face, which proved her theory. She was gagging for confirmation.
"How is it you hold both saidin and saidar, little one?" she asked tentatively, aware that the boy may not understand her language. Unfortunately, her suspicions were proven correct by the boy's puzzled expression.
Ranma wondered what it was that the pretty lady was saying.
It made no sense to the eight-year-old. The odd, low-toned sounds and light use of guttural 'g's and 'h's, and it's bizarre combinations of softer tones. It was quite different to his home's language.
He decided that she must be a gaijin. Now that he had any dislike for foreigners, but she sounded funny!
He was so curious as too what she said, he decided to use a mental trick he had learnt from an old sensei of his. Oddly enough, the sensei said that it was an ability he had never seen anyone able to use before. It didn't really matter to Ranma, so long as it helped in the art.
He drew his senses from his body and opened himself up to the thought of being her. He felt the tug of a shift in his awareness. He looked through her memory of her language, copied the knowledge and returned his awareness to his body.
Kamarile felt an odd disjointed sensation for just a moment, as she looked at the child, and had a sudden flash of looking through another's eyes at her own face. Also, she thought it odd that she referred to herself as the 'pretty lady'.
Ranma had all he needed to know now, so he looked at the lady, smiled and said to her. "I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this!"
Ranma 1/2 and Wheel of Time crossover
by Naquiel
Disclaimer - Ranma doesn't belong to me so please don't sue. And, also, Wheel of Time, is owned by Robert Jordan, the God of books, the lord of literature, the duke of... of... um... He's good.
I am referring all nine presently printed books of the Wheel of Time and "The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time".
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Chapter 0
Ranma was in pain, great pain.
The claws of his fellow victims savaged his flesh with uncontrollable hunger powering their cruel movements. He could almost sense the strikes before they tore his flesh. There was almost a rhythm, a pattern. His young body screamed in pain to his numbed mind. Blood gushed from his arterial wounds. He was beginning to feel the darkness of death encroaching.
"Oh, Kami." Begged the little boy, his lifeblood flowing into the shadowed, soiled dirt. "Please, somebody, something help me!"
More, relentless pain, the cats fearful and hungry, attacking each other and, of course, him. In their fear and anguish, they could not discern the difference between food and human. The dark emotions flickered in the air, invisible in the darkness.
The mind of the poor boy was so close to collapse that it had fought since the start, to no avail, as he would merely be returned to the hellhole. The mental agonies were almost as great as the physical ones, almost.
The boy's thrashing body became, suddenly, very still. Too much blood and effort had gone into trying to safe himself. He was frightened, but could not help giving in to resignation.
Under his voice, he spoke a prayer that his damaged mind wove to help him cope. It was a poem based on his philosophy on life, that it was a tapestry, a pattern. "And now I lay me down to sleep; I give to the wheel my soul to keep; and should I dream before I wake; I pray to the pattern that death me take."
He had long ago developed the basic principal, due to his youthful understanding of life, and had fervently developed it throughout the torturous regime into a method of understanding why. Why was it happening to him?
He desperately grasped for the power of his Chi, long ago mastered to a minute degree, and attempted to use it to save himself. It was a useless exercise, one that he had attempted every time he was taken to this hellhole.
He relaxed, not flinching even though his flesh was being slowly torn asunder. He could not live through this any more. He was resigned and came to terms with his inevitable death.
Quite suddenly, Ranma felt a powerful, calming influence enfold him. The pain in his body was less. He could almost feel the wounds start to heal. The feeling slipped from his fingers like water, in his wonder. The pain returned like before, but the wounds were ver-so-slightly smaller and let out a little less blood.
Ranma became angry. Anger at the hateful bastard, who called himself, his father. Anger for deluding himself into believing he was getting better. Anger at the innocent cats. Anger at the Wheel and Weave, his own belief and philosophy.
Then, as suddenly as the first presence, he felt a fiery, yet also icy, power raging inside himself. He had to fight it, with his own anger and will. It was strong; as strong as the other power, but it brought all of that influence to the fore. Ranma let it go, somehow.
He almost felt remorse at the loss of the power that intruded his mind. Now, without it despite the mental barriers against pain that he had built to help his sanity remain whole, he could sense that his sharp pains, were... different, more of a healing sort of pain than a pain telling of wounds and agonising damage.
Tentatively he attempted to reach again for those two oddly different powers. He did not succeed. Yet still, he tried, even as his newly healed wounds were reopened, or widened, or replaced with more blood-gates. Eventually he fell into resignation again.
I'll never see Mama. I'll never be the best! I'll never learn anything any more! I'll be cold and alone, and in here forever! He fell into depression and further into surrender, to the forces that would destroy him.
The calming and soothing influence returned to him. This time, he did not flinch, but remained in his present state, using all of his mental discipline to figure out the mysterious powers and ignore the nightmare outside his mental defences.
He could sense something above him. Not see, as such, but sense it. It was incomplete, a spiral of thread woven around another. He could not tell anything more about it.
He shifted his mind, like turning a radio, so that he could sense the thread more, and as he did so, he revealed the source of the presence.
A river, was the best way to describe it, powerful, ever-flowing, cool and intoxicating! He was amazed at the indescribable strength, and ancient force that the power took and flowed with. The river was like the other thing, the spiral that was woven around another, one that he could not see. Beside, and behind, and in front, of the River was the other power, silent for now, dormant until summoned. It was like two images superimposed on top of one another. Two things seen by either eye and then merged for the mind to comprehend.
He tried to embrace, to reach out and touch the river of power. It slipped away with each attempt. Finally, after many tries, he decided to not try, but instead, imagine it reaching out to him. It responded, and in his mind he could feel the delicious coolness of the river enfolding him. Suddenly, despite surrendering to it, he was in command.
He felt more than human, greater, stronger, faster. It was like a rush of Chi, but more intoxicating, more persuasive. It made him feel higher than any drug could.
He gave up his new power, and ignored his yearning to once again touch the seductive purity of the river, and instead turned his attention to the other power.
He replayed the thoughts and emotions that he thought before he touch the second fiery power. His anger lent him the strength to change perspectives. Instead of a river and another invisible element, Ranma saw a torrent of aggressive power that flowed, coiled, like a Dragon around the river.
He tried surrendering to the second power, yet, it was unresponsive to his supplication. After a few moments of thought, he reached for it, forcefully. To his surprised and joy, he found the power writhing in his grasp like a snake. Still he had to fight for dominance with the power, and his boon was the same feeling of ecstasy and strength, but of a more aggressive nature, as he felt from the first power.
When he grasped and perceived the second power, the other half of the odd, probing spiral became visible, just as the other disappeared.
He could feel this new grasp wavering as his pain excelled with its scalpel of agony, at the boundaries of his mental barriers. Something was happening, disturbing the cats from their hunger's rhythm. Perhaps they noticed there was less food, or maybe Genma added more cats to the stew. Any number of things could have upset their balance and caused them to attack him more, to hoard their food from newcomers or those who would take it from them.
Ranma strained to reinforce his mental barriers. He tried and was failing. The newly surging agony was tearing away all of his mental walls. The connection between body and mind was being blocked up with messages of injury and damage.
Ranma was becoming desperate to escape the pain and influence of the pit. After a moments of true exposure to the pain his body was going through, his sanity would snap.
He desperately reached out for both of the new powers. He had neither the time nor the mental faculties to repeat the previous processes. Each attempt resulted in failure. One means for the one power counteracted the means to reach the other. He was in no position to be patient.
He imagined the coiling of the two powers and took it further. He imagined that the two powers became many threads and interwove with each other to make a sphere of woven fiery aggressive strength and rivets of passive power. The weave would not remain. The weaves slid on top of each other, distorting.
Ranma had a flash of brilliance. He imagined, despite as the pain was knocking on his mental doors. The two mysterious powers were based on two different parts of the emotional spectrum, passive and aggressive, which, he assumed, may be able to be bridged by something that could act almost like a negotiator between them. He changed his mental image and placed some of his Chi in the heart of the sphere, allowing it to sent threads of itself to the surrounding construct, giving it strength and unity.
Unknown to Ranma, for now, this was the first weave he had ever used. This was the first time he tapped into the True Source.
Now, using this mental view, he tapped into both powers, 'seeing' them both coiled around each other, with his Chi as a third thread interwoven into them. He felt the passive, calm of the first power, the aggressive, consuming power of the second and the exhilarating rush of his pure Chi flooding his system.
Now, with both of his new powers at his command, he could see the entire spiral probe. As he fought of the awareness of his agony, and his slow torture, he was unaware of the slightly healing wounds, and the deadening of some of the pain invading to his mind. Now, the first openings in the walls in his mind began to appear. Pain rushed in like a spray of spears.
Instinctively, Ranma reached out with the three powers and grasped the coiling thread above, with all of the strength and willpower at his command.
Kamarile Maradim Nindar fumed, with her colleagues, Elan Morin Tedronai, Mierin Eronaile and Ishar Morrad Chuain all with similar expressions of disappointment and bottled anger. They were present at a most rare event, the activation of another gateway, such as the two that lead to worlds where three wishes and whims were granted.
For three years, three years, she and her colleagues had been fighting over their rivals as to the designation of this new gateway. For the three years for it to be built and charged, they had squabbled like children over a topic that was undeniably, as she saw it, in her group's favour!
They were present in a large, circular room in the heart of the floating, egg-shaped, Collam Daan, in the city of V'saine. It was bleached white, without any shadows, and was quite plain. The walls were heavily worked stone, using the One Power to enhance and guard the rock against the possible explosions that may or may not happen upon activation of a gateway. Luckily, it was not a precaution that had been necessary in the past. At one side of the room, there was a large door, even more worked than the walls, and a low wall in front of that that ran in front of the circumference of the room, also, in case of an explosion. In the heart of the room was an odd, door-less doorframe.
It was four years ago that a team of researchers discovered a large meteorite, just right to use for a gateway, and it was three years ago that the subject of the possible destination of the finished ter-angreal split the group into two equal factions. Also, since, they had both used their influence to ask the Hall of Servants to solve the dispute. They found in favour of the factions led by Tersin Hadkin Bulloars, once a lover of Kamarile, but had long since split upon the discovery that he was by far too contemptuous of her way of life. She was into asceticism, and that was her choice. She half believed that their messy break-up was the driving force in the argument over the destination.
The basic argument was that Kamarile, Elan, Mierin, and Ishar, all believed that the doorways should be linked to another world that was similar to their own, to intermix with and to interact. They believed that the possible benefits out weighed the risks by far. Tersin's faction believed that the doorway would be best suited to linking to another dimension like the Wish-granters, or the Secret-tellers, and from that, benefits can flow more readily than linking to another world similar to their own. The Hall of Servants agreed with the safer of the two choices and had ordered the discussion closed.
In the low-walled box in front of the between the entrance and the gateway, a number of seats were placed neatly in rows. The researchers sat, subtly divided into two halves, with a small number of other channelers present as well as a few non-channelers, filling the gap between the two glaring groups.
Kamarile could not bear the pleased smirk on Tersin's face, and so turned her attention, entirely towards the gateway. The tall structure was red-bronze with odd streaks of blue-grey metal in random order. Its frame seemed to twist in an odd and disturbing way, due to the dimensional weaves that ran it's length, causing the slight, if sickening alteration to the fabric of reality around the frame.
She was quietly proud of the ter-angreal that she helped create, after all, they needed someone skilled in the processes of the human mind to create the necessary targeting weaves, to find the right dimension and lock onto it. She had done her job well, but she almost wished she had not!
A young man stood up, only about fifty years old or so. He was the representative from the Hall of Servants, and as such, it fell to him to proclaim the activation of the gateway. It was a formality, a tradition, but a respected one.
All fell quiet.
He coughed into his hand and spoke. "We are here to witness the activation of a new gateway. Who knows the glories that await travellers through it's arch. We are seeing once again, a fabulous accomplishment by our world, another stepping stone into a greater era. Let the gate be opened!" he sat down with a riotous clapping chorus. A white-haired channeler, Kamarile had never seen before, stood up and sent the activation weave towards the gateway.
Everyone waited with baited breath. Those who could see the weaves reported to the non-channelers. The activation weave slipped nicely into its part of the pattern that made up the doorway. The next set of weaves began to pulse and writhe as the probing dimensional weaves attempted to find the predetermined dimension-type.
For a number of minutes, the people waited anxiously, Kamarile and her companions the most. Then, something odd happened. The weaves that should have pulsed and writhed were suddenly halted, as if grasped with an invisible hand. People moaned slightly in fear as the weaves contorted and were drawn towards a single point. The weaves settled, but somehow, something had forced the gateway to settle.
Space within the gateway appeared to be tightly drawn into a single, central point, then the gateways shattered. The dancing fragments screamed in a small, contained tornado, a grown man's height in width. It grew quickly almost halfway to touch the low wall, until it suddenly dissipated, the fragments of half-melted metal shrapnel, falling to the ground.
The frightened, stuttering people were more than shocked to see what they did.
Two meters, and more, of soil was piled up from the floor. It was damp and dark, with no root systems, although it did not immediately go through their minds, they later realised that the soil must have come from quite well down. The sides were sharply cut, and the top was exactly level. To top that off, a number of starved-looking cats ran yowling over the top of the mound and over the lip.
A weak whisper could be heard by some of the more silent of the frightened people. A small almost musical sound reached Kamarile, who cocked her ear to hear it better. Again, the voice whispered, carrying it pleading tone. She pulled up her practical, uncoloured skirts and used the One Power to levitate her up above the soil. She glided along, searching for the source of the voice.
All she could find was a pit in the centre of the earthy mass. When she saw it, she nearly screamed, but it was choked by a sudden desire to be sick.
A small boy, barely eight or nine, tied up with chains, and covered with dried and drying blood. He had no clothes left but a few tatters. Even now, a pride of cats were gnawing at his young flesh. His eyes were glazed with pain and she could see no expression on his face. He was lying on a carpet of sick, excretions and other messes, which intermingled, with the blood. The cats were also devouring their fallen comrades, and even their own lost limbs. She was too affected by the sight to have the wits to use the One Power.
Others came up behind her and saw the scene. A good number of them gagged and were sick. Another number screamed or cursed. It was Elan who had the wits to do something in the face of it.
He reached out with the One Power and shoved the cats away from the boy with weaves of air. Then he carried the boy above their reach, and towards himself. He had to bat away a few daring felines, who were still driven mad with hunger.
Shortly he was cradling the boy, and calling for her. "Get here girl! You are the best here with Restoration. Come on!"
She bridled slightly at the 'girl' comment, after all, she was elder, but her concern for the boy outweighed that slight transgression. She levitated towards the child, and together, she and Elan took the boy away from the large pile of soil and the horror in its heart. The shocked spectators followed like ducklings.
Gently, they laid him down on the cold stone floor, posthumously warmed by a helpful weave from Meirin. Kamarile assessed his injuries with cool, collected probing, accounting for: five major broken bones, ten broken ribs, a hairline fracture in his femur and innumerable cuts, bruises and already healed wounds.
"This will required a powerful and immediate healing..." she began to state, before being interrupted by Tersin.
"What did the brat do?" he raved. "It's gone! My achievement! No! My gateway!" he suddenly turned around from his selfish ranting and looked with murder at the small boy. "I'll kill the bastard!" He lunged forward before being bound in weaves of air by the same Aes Sedai who activated the gateway.
"Calm down. You do not know what you say, and if you do, the Hall will bind you before you lay a finger on that boy!" he stated without particular inflection.
Tersin just sagged and wept.
Kamarile returned to her charge. "Does anyone here have an angreal or sa'angreal?"
The crowd managed to rustle up a few small, personal-use angreal, but no sa'angreal. She gratefully took the tools of power and gave the male ones to Elan, and tapped into the female ones.
Together they reached into both the One Power and again through the angreals. They formed a link and Kamarile melded the weaves of healing, placing them gently into the boy.
Ranma was in pain still, lesser, but still. He had reached out for that off coil and found himself, disorientated. For some reason the cats had left him alone for the most part. He had the vague memory of calling for help before retreating into his mind.
Now, things felt off. Different, from the hellish environment, of before. He slowly and tentatively brought down his mental barriers, to see a woman's face. She was kindly, yet beautiful in her way, and her eyes had some fine lines around it. She wore no makeup that he could see, but still smelt of roses and sweet cut grass. He could vaguely see an outline of white around her, along with a man he had to move his head to see.
The man was not that old, but had some white in his hair and had his own share of cologne and then some, dabbed on his self. The strong smell nearly made him sneeze.
He noticed that the woman had her hand on a reasonably unwounded portion of his arm. For a second he wondered, and then he could, for a split second, 'see' the weaves she had woven and slipped inside of his body.
His eyes flared open, his body became rigid as a pole. He felt numb and electrocuted at the same time. He felt some of his Chi being moulded to the task of healing his wounds. He could see that the method was imperfect, there was by far too much Chi loss and the repairing was happening at a much slower rate than it could, and so he decided to make some alterations to the weave she had granted him.
The crowd, for the most part, gasped when they saw a corona of light surround the child. A corona of both, of the powers, from the True Source: saidin and saidar.
Kamarile gasped as she felt gentle weaves intercept her own and redirect the pattern, into a slightly different form. The gentle weaves were as strong as steal, against any attempt to alter the new weave she was using, and for the boy's sake, she could not break off the weave too suddenly.
Then, suddenly, the weaves work was done, and she was receiving some feedback. She dispersed the weave she had used. The gentle weaves that had done the altering split and separated into their individual threads of spirit and earth. They were amazingly elegant and simple.
She released the Source and looked upon the child, opening her eyes. And gasped at the child, looking at her, glowing with held saidar.
The child spoke a question, in soft, lilting sounds. It sounded quite alien, despite coming from a child's mouth. She could not understand, and flashed a look at Elan, who had an astonished look on his face, which proved her theory. She was gagging for confirmation.
"How is it you hold both saidin and saidar, little one?" she asked tentatively, aware that the boy may not understand her language. Unfortunately, her suspicions were proven correct by the boy's puzzled expression.
Ranma wondered what it was that the pretty lady was saying.
It made no sense to the eight-year-old. The odd, low-toned sounds and light use of guttural 'g's and 'h's, and it's bizarre combinations of softer tones. It was quite different to his home's language.
He decided that she must be a gaijin. Now that he had any dislike for foreigners, but she sounded funny!
He was so curious as too what she said, he decided to use a mental trick he had learnt from an old sensei of his. Oddly enough, the sensei said that it was an ability he had never seen anyone able to use before. It didn't really matter to Ranma, so long as it helped in the art.
He drew his senses from his body and opened himself up to the thought of being her. He felt the tug of a shift in his awareness. He looked through her memory of her language, copied the knowledge and returned his awareness to his body.
Kamarile felt an odd disjointed sensation for just a moment, as she looked at the child, and had a sudden flash of looking through another's eyes at her own face. Also, she thought it odd that she referred to herself as the 'pretty lady'.
Ranma had all he needed to know now, so he looked at the lady, smiled and said to her. "I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this!"