Alan Harnum <harnums@thekeep.org> wrote:

Commentary's welcomed, as always, and much appreciated.

Okay... let's start with how to spell "commentaries." :-)

    "<A valuable lesson here, child.  Hiding pain in the 
presence of one's enemy is generally prudent; in the presence of 
friends, it isn't always so clear-cut a decision.>"

    "<Yes, great-grandmother.>"

This dialog is being remembered, rather than spoken in the present? Not
really clear.

    The woman stepped forward and stooped to present Shampoo's
clothing.  It had obviously been washed, and the tears that the
battle of Watcher's Hill had left mended so perfectly that they 
were invisible.  "<I am Mengyua.  My husband, Shengxyan, guarded

If you're using Pinyin, this should be spelled Shengxian. (Means "sage,
man of virtue" according to my dictionary.)

    Shengxyan leaned his hammer against the anvil.  "<Time flows
differently here.  Do not fear that you are too late.>"

Even though you are.... :)

    They turned the corner, and passed through an open door into
a plainly-appointed but comfortable sitting room.  Mengyua was
seated in a massive wooden armchair that lay with two others, and
a human-sized chair, on a circular rug whose design was one of
interlocking rings of green, gold and black.  Also on the carpet

I'd lose the comma after 'others'.

    Their feet touched bottom, and they were forced to duck 
their heads under the water to leave what was now obviously a
tunnel almost entirely filled with water.  Soaked from head to
toe, Nabiki stood upright, hand in hand with Kasumi in a deep
pond.

They ducked under water and then came right back out? The action's a
little unclear here.

    "Don't be angry, Nabiki," Kasumi said as she joined her on
the bank and pulled her dress overhead to do the same as Nabiki.  
"We'll see Mother soon."

"We'll join her in the afterlife!"

    "You," Nabiki said coldly, "are not my mother.  My mother is
dead."

    "What is dead?" the woman mused.  She took a few steps
forward, the animals following her like an entourage.

"Oh my, I know that! It's a condition involving a permanent cessation of
the body's circulatory system, resulting in the shutdown of brain
activity and the eventual decomposition of..."

    "Too soon, too soon," the woman in green murmured, whatever 
she might have otherwise spoken lost forever.  She looked around
the grove, at the adoring animals, and a vast grief passed across
her face.  "Go, children.  Forgive me."

Geez, drag 'em this far, and then just tell 'em to go away? :) 

    Nabiki stared numbly at the hair of the woman as she turned.
It was changing as she watched; green to gold, gold to black.  
Taking a hand each from Kasumi and Nabiki, the woman raised them
to her lips, kissed them each once.

    "Mother," Nabiki heard herself say.  
    

Nice.

    The pool was a step behind her.  Kuno a step in front of 
her.  Whatever had been done to him was partly her fault; it was
an irrational thought, but it was there all the same.  She wasn't
Ranma; hell, she wasn't even Akane.  But she hadn't learned
nothing from what few lessons her father had given her.  

The double negative in this particular form sounds a bit odd. Maybe 'she
had learned (something) from' or 'She hadn't gone through the few
lessons... without learning anything.'

    Inwardly, The Serpent seethed.  He knew very little about
the realities of the world Shouzin and his kin had fled to after

'of the world to which Shouzin and his kin had fled after' would be
grammatically correct.

    Her names came to him then, and her titles.  He reached down
and grabbed the golden pearl.  There were no words to scream.
Words were not necessary for him.  Will and hate were enough.

    A low moan, barely a whisper, came involuntarily from him.

The "to him"s and "for him" is a bit repetitious; you could probably get
rid of one or two of these clauses.

    Yoko almost cried out as the dome broke and the sea fell,
even filled as she was with so much power that she felt well able
to crack the core of the earth if she wanted.

That looks like a run-on sentence. In any case, the structure's
confusing.

    They were evenly matched, her and the last remnant of the

matched, she and the

    It had been even.  Until the sea came in, and the Lady of
Life raised her hands and turned it away from both of them,
letting it fall to either side as if broken upon rocks.  The sea
swept through the garden in an endless tide, pouring through the
huge hole in dome, drowning men and women and animals, 

in the dome,

    Cologne started, and so did everyone else.  Ryoga had begun
to think that Mousse didn't get noticed right now unless he
wanted to.  

Last sentence is unclear to me.

    "<You don't understand,>" the Serpent growled.  "<None of
them do either.  I will see this world die; I will see it cracked
and broken, and every living thing that walks or flies or crawls
or swims perish, every city thrown done, all that lives or is 

"thrown done?" Is that a typo?

    "<Our son, Lougui,>" Mengyua said.  Lougui raised his hand

(Checks dictionary... finds that it means "Objectionable practices.")

    "<Light shone on you, Maiden,>" Mengyua said.  She reached

Should that be shine?

    Fang Shi stalked down the trail, an honour guard of twenty
of the finest Joketsuzoku warriors surrounding her.  From the
last runner Bi Shou had sent back - well over an hour ago - the
outsiders hadn't even been smart enough to take the shortest
route between the Joketsuzoku village and Phoenix Mountain.  It
wouldn't be hard to find; the servant from the Circle had given
her a number of landmarks to locate it by, all of which she 

landmarks by which to locate it,

    Horror and sickness almost overwhelmed her.  What in god's

gods' if she means more than one... otherwise it should be capitalized,
I think.

    And at last, again, after so long a time, after division and
parting, beyond the passage through darkness and light, under 
stone and under sky, beneath sun and stars, rivers join again, 
into a single river, into Oceanus, into the ocean river, flowing
down into the depths of the sea.

For those of you following the "short attention span" version of this
series, this is the point where Ranma finally gets some action. :-)

Overall, a nicely done chapter... as usual, the narrative is skillfully
done and carries a wealth of detail. Everything is startign to converge
for the finale, and I'm eager to see how it all plays out.


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html