Prologue

Once upon a time, in a hot, dusty land, where Djinn ruled and magic held sway, where travelers spoke of faraway wonders in foreign lands that few had seen, the desert kingdoms of Jin and Jiya on the continent of Sidon fought a long and bloody war. Similar in size and two weeks apart by camel, Jin and Jiya were known as the Twin Claws of the Desert.

Larger than their neighbours, they guarded the entrance to the southern arm of Sidon, and the smaller cities of Cantos, Parth and Jira clustered behind them. Until a king of Jin had stolen a royal bride of Jiya, they had been allies. The war had gone on for seven generations when the old king of Jiya grew ill and his son, Genma, assumed the throne of Jiya.

"Finally," the stout Prince breathed. "The fool is dead!" He stared down distastefully at the wasted form of his father, the dead King. Genma was a warrior, first and foremost, but it was very much to his taste to be accountable to no one.

His clothes were still dusty from battle and the smell of blood was still coppery in his nostrils- so urgently had he been summoned. But it was worth it to stand there and watch the old fool pass away.

“Now I am king,” Genma said. “The weakling is dead, long live the king!”

The old king's councilors looked upon the face of their new king and trembled inwardly. Genma was known as a cruel and merciless prince and already acknowledged as a ruthless warrior on the battlefield. They feared to see him rule their prosperous kingdom.

"Will you stay to govern after the Coronation, my lord?" asked Tofu, the royal chief councilor, hesitantly.

"Of course! It should be a pleasant diversion from battle, " Genma laughed. He looked around the spacious bedchamber, at the oriental silk tapestries adorning the carved wooden walls, and the thick Persian carpets underfoot. Burning incense from a brazier of coals at the foot of the enormous royal bed permeated the room with the smell of myrrh, the spice for the dead.

He squinted at the window, where harsh, white sunlight poured in. Of course, he'd rather be back in the heat of battle, seated on the back of his giant black warhorse as it churned the hot sand beneath its hooves, enemies falling as he scythed through them with his scimitar like they were grass.

Nevertheless, he would assume the throne of Jiya. He smiled slowly. A king's power would doubtless be as heady as war. He could bide his time. First, he would enjoy his kingdom.

King Genma was skilled with the sword and in kenpo, though after his coronation, it was the pursuit of the latter that began to consume much of his thoughts. The Saotome kings of Jiya and the Tendo kings of Jin together had created the Anything Goes style of kenpo. Now, of course, they practiced their craft separately.

At any rate, being strong of arm and sound of mind(he had not run naked in the courtyard like his grandfather) , but above all being the king, Genma did not find it too hard to pick a bride as his councilors advised.

The lady Nodoka caught his eye at a ball held for just such a purpose. A bevy of ladies dressed in every shade of silk or satin had already paraded themselves before the king, who surveyed them all coolly from the vantage point of his high throne, surrounded by the councilors. None had caught his eye as yet.

Genma sat up. “Who is that?” he asked. The councilors strained to see which beauty might have caught the King’s interest.

As Nodoka’s tall, slim form swayed on her partner's arm in the dance of the Jiyan court, her shapely form clothed in diamond studded veils, her hair flowing like flame around her creamy shoulders, Genma followed her movements with his eyes and imagined her in his bed.

”She’s already engaged, Majesty,” said Kalamari, one of the royal councilors. “Andrei Mori and she have been betrothed for years.”

Genma sat back with a gleaming smile. “IS she? We’ll see about that.”

The next day, a pale and protesting young Count Mori was escorted by an armed guard to the palace in chains and charged with treason. He was summarily found guilty and beheaded that very night. His head adorned the palace gates the next morning, much to the grief of his family and friends.

Genma and Nodoka were married with great pomp and ceremony the following week.

The beautiful King and the young Queen lived well enough in the palace, Genma leaving the governing of the country to his councilors and focusing on his martial arts, Nodoka acting as chatelaine of the palace. If Nodoka’s form seemed frailer as she glided like a wraith through the white marble halls, and her dark eyes sometimes haunted, none dared to voice any opinion on why that might be.

Eventually, as happens in the life of many a married couple, Nodoka grew heavy with child. The news was announced from the palace walls, and there was rejoicing in the city. Genma was jubilant.

”An heir! I shall have a son to carry on the Saotome style of fighting,” he crowed. Only a son would prove that he, Genma, was truly a man. A son to train, to be his heir...

One late evening, Nodoka gave birth to a girl.

Genma screamed when he heard the news. He strode up the stairs to the birthing chamber and dragged his bloody, exhausted wife from childbed in his rage. She fell moaning to the ground, her hands clawing at the rich Aubusson carpet until she fainted from sheer exhaustion and terror. The king would have dragged her down the stairs if he hadn’t been stopped by his councilors.

”I shall drown your brat myself!” he promised as he twisted away from their halting grasp. But the councilors came from old families, and believed it was bad luck to kill the royal firstborn child.

”Leave the Queen, your Majesty,” they pleaded. “The child is valuable. It will gain you lands and armies if you sell it to an ally. It will only strengthen your bonds with them.” The councilors did not dare to refer to the child by its sex for fear of sending Genma into another rage.

”Bah! Take it from my sight then. I don’t want to see it until it is grown and can be sold!”

So the babe was named Kasumi and taken away to be cared for by the queen’s handmaidens. The Queen dared only to nurse her child herself and left it to the handmaidens at all other times.

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In a different palace, far away to the west, a young man, hardly more than a boy, sat musing on his enormous throne. Kunou, descendant of the Tatewaki kings of Dara, was tall and dark-haired. Dressed in long golden robes and wearing a long-sleeved golden glove on his left hand, he had a sinister beauty, like that of the spider in its web.

His features were noble and he was fair of complexion. Only the large, dark eyes showed a coldness that hinted of cruelty. The gaze of those dark eyes fell to contemplate the servant that had just crawled forward to the middle of the throne room.

”What is it?” he asked, his voice warm and velvety. Anyone hearing that voice for the first time would be charmed by its warmth and timbre.

”O Golden One, Happousai is here,” said the servant, bowing to the floor.

The young king smirked and glanced to his right, where a man in white oriental robes, with long dark hair, seemingly little older than the king himself, stood smiling. The young man tilted his head so his large, round spectacles glinted opaque in the light.

”It looks like the wily old rat has fallen for the cheese, Mousse,” Kunou said. “I really admit that I am surprised.”

”I was sure he would respond, my lord,” Mousse replied. He turned his head slightly, and now one could see that his leaf-green eyes glinted with pleasure. “We sent a strong invitation. And we offer him a great prize.”

”But does he have the patience to grasp it at the right moment? He is already old.”

”The old have learned patience, my lord.”

Kunou pondered his advisor for a moment. “This has to work, Mousse! Very well. Bring him in!”

The little man who was ushered into the throne-room was so short that at first, both the men on the raised dais thought that Happosai was a dwarf. On closer inspection, they realized he was merely very, very short, and quite fat.

He bowed to Kunou, but did not bend his knees. He was the leader of the desert tribes of Arun, and as such owed allegiance to no one. Kunou knew this yet Happosai’s temerity annoyed him. All the desert tribes and kingdoms annoyed him immensely.

Kunou spotted Happosai glancing around covertly. The throne room was empty except for them and the deaf and dumb guards who were with the King at all times. Mousse had made sure that it was done discreetly.

”His Majesty King Kunou has summoned you to his presence,” said Mousse. “It is good that you arrived so promptly.”

Happosai glanced up. “I could hardly refuse so gracious an invitation from the King of Dara himself,” he said dryly. Five hundred armed soldiers had accompanied the deliverer of the royal message.

Kunou spoke for the first time. “Happosai, Chief of the Arun. We greet you.”

Doesn’t he think highly of himself? Happosai thought silently. He said, “How may I be of service, Great One?”

”You are aware of the kingdom of Jiya?”

Happosai looked startled. “Certainly. Genma the Vicious has recently come into the kingship.”

Kunou smiled down at the midget Arun Chief. “Happousai, I am about to fulfill your wildest dreams.”

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Almost before Nodoka was recovered from her labor, Genma proceeded to frequent her bed until she had conceived again. This took nearly a year, because to the west of Jiya, Jin and the other civilized countries, news came of the Arun, a horde of nomads led by a charismatic and unstoppable leader named Happosai. Genma was forced to leave his wife for long periods of time. He was kept busy defending his territories in the far west.

In the meantime, the old king of Jiya died as well, and left the kingdom to his son, Soun. Soun took a wife to him and proceeded to continue the war with Happosai and the six tribes of Arun.

The following year, another daughter was born to the Queen and Genma’s rage could not be contained. He hung his wife from her wrists in the Great Hall and whipped her till the blood from her back pooled at her feet.

Hatred for her husband coiled like a cold black snake in the queen’s breast as she hung from the chains. Any other woman would have died, but Nodoka came of a warrior race, so she hung there and hated. The councilors again begged for the King to spare the child and he thundered at them, “If she bears me another girl child, I shall kill her and burn all her babes before her dying eyes.”

The councilors shuddered and retreated and worked all their arts, and every day a potion was sent to the queen, so that she might bear a boy child, but another year passed before the queen grew heavy with child again.

Around this time, spies brought the news to Genma that Soun’s wife was pregnant as well. A month before Nodoka was due, Genma received news that his enemy’s wife had delivered a healthy son.

He went to the Queen’s chamber and gave her the news himself.

”Do you remember my vow last year, my dear?” he asked maliciously.

”I had fainted from your beating, my lord,” Nodoka reminded him tonelessly. She could still feel the strain of the scars when she bent her back.

”Well, I feel free to repeat it. If this third child is a girl, I will rip open your belly so that no more such spawn will leave your womb.” With that, he left her.

A month passed slowly, and as the date of the birth grew nearer, Genma’s councilors grew more and more terrified.

”If Nodoka births a girl child this time, the King will kill us all along with the Queen in his rage,” said Lord Tofu. “I have a young son myself, and I would like to live to see him grow up.”

”There’s a solution,” mused Kalamari, his long nose twitching. “It’s a slim chance, but Genma might agree to it.” When Kalamari's nose twitched, it was a sign that he was thinking very fast. He told them what he was thinking.

The advisors put their heads together but could not find a way to improve on Kalamari’s plan. They went to seek an audience with Genma.

”You know that the Arun are massing in the foothills, Majesty,” they said.

Genma glanced at them. “Aren’t we even now waiting for a reply from Cantos to join with us?” Cantos was Jiya’s greatest ally, though not nearly as powerful.

”Uhm,” Kalamari coughed. “Yes, Majesty. We received a reply today. They have seen the strength of the hordes of Arun and don’t think that allying with us will save them. They want us to have a third ally.”

”What?” barked Genma. He rose from his throne and strode to where Kalamari knelt, offering up a scroll. He snatched it and peered at it, but he was not very good at reading, and finally he glared at them.

”Who do they want us to ally with?” he asked.

Kalamari, feeling his knees protest against the cold stone floor, did not want to see his King’s face when he replied, but he stayed looking up so as to avoid the foot that doubtless would be coming his way.

”Jin, Majesty.”

There was a long silence. Kalamari had to skip nimbly to avoid the foot that nevertheless managed a painful kick to his ribs.

”What filth are you spouting, you mangy son of a camel?” Genma roared. “Why would I EVER want to...?”

”There are advantages, majesty,” ventured Kalamari.

Genma’s cold eyes lit on his advisor.

”Interrupt me again and I shall have your tongue sliced from you with a blunt blade.” The councilors quaked on their knees. “What advantages?”

Tofu looked up at this point.

”When old enemies become allies, it is customary to give each other a token of their good will. Usually, that token is a son or a daughter. Each king will foster the child of the other as his own. The child is a surety against betrayal.”

”What is so wonderful about sending off three girl brats? I will give them away freely to any beggar that asks,” said Genma.

No one questioned that the third child would be a girl child.

”Ah, but if you give them to Soun, Majesty, in return you will get a son,” Kalamari said craftily. “His son. To raise as your own.”

Genma paused, the words reverberating in his mind. A son. To raise as his own. To train as he wished. A son. To be his own.

”But why would he take three daughters for one son? Everyone knows a son outweighs any number of daughters in value.”

”Ah, you will only offer him your youngest daughter, majesty,” Kalamari said, his long nose twitching. “The more daughters you give him, the less he will value them.”

”What will make him value your youngest will be that you will engage your daughter to him,” Tofu continued hastily. The King was clever, and if he decided that they were deceiving him in any manner, their bones would soon adorn the palace walls. “It is popularly known that King Soun covets land. Since Jin is slightly smaller than our kingdom, Jinian kings have always tried to steal our land.”

”If you swear to make Soun’s son heir to Jiya, then his greed will win over any affection he might have for his son. He will never interfere with you adopting and raising his son as long as you marry that son to your true daughter.”

”This war with the Aruns is likely to be a long war,” Genma mused. “I would have the boy for many years. Yes. Betrothed to my daughter he would be bound in a double bond to me and Jiya. And he will rule after me. Let Soun have another son to rule after him.”

He looked down at his cowering councilors. “Very well. You may contact Soun of Jin.”

When the third daughter was born, no one was really surprised. The Queen looked up with tired terror in her eyes as Genma entered the room.

He will kill me this time, she thought.

But he only smiled a strange smile at her and took the baby away. She dared not ask where. The arrangements had been made. The two kings sent each other documents with their seals pledging their children Ranma and Akane to each other.

Genma was afire with eagerness. The only reason he waited till his daughter was weaned was that he did not want her to die on the way to Jin, thus stealing him of his new son.

One cool summer morning, a procession of slaves, servants, and courtiers, Kalamari at its head, left the city of Jiya with the baby princess Akane. Across the desert, a similar procession carrying the little prince, Ranma, began the same journey to Jiya.

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AN: Okay, you know what to do, review!!!