by F. C. Yee
Except for her sword. Kyoshi had heard rumors about the green-enameled jian strapped to Tagaka’s waist in a scabbard plated with burial-quality jade. The sword had once belonged to the admiral of Ba Sing Se, a position that was now unfilled and defunct because of her. After her legendary duel with the last man to hold the job, she’d kept the blade. It was less certain what she’d done with the body.
Tagaka glanced at the twenty soldiers standing behind them and then spent much longer squinting at Kyoshi, up and down. Each pass of her gaze was like a spray of cold water icing over Kyoshi’s bodily functions.
“I didn’t realize we were supposed to be bringing so much muscle,” Tagaka said to Jianzhu. She looked behind her at the pair of bodyguards carrying only bone clubs and then again at Kyoshi. “That girl is a walking crow’s nest.”
Kyoshi could sense Jianzhu’s displeasure at the fact she’d drawn attention. She knew he and Yun had fought over her presence. She wanted to shrink into nothingness, hide from their adversary’s gaze, but that would only make it worse. Instead she tried to borrow the face Rangi normally used on the villagers. Cold, inscrutable disdain.
Her attempt at looking tough was met with mixed reactions. One of Tagaka’s escorts, a man with a stick-thin mustache in the Earth Kingdom style, frowned at her and shifted his feet. But the pirate queen herself remained unmoved.
“Where are my manners,” she said, giving Yun a perfunctory bow. “It’s my honor to greet the Avatar in the flesh.”
“Tagaka, Marquess of the Eastern Sea,” Yun said, using her self-styled title, “congratulations on your victory over the remnants of the Fade-Red Devils.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You knew of that business?”
“Yachey Hong and his crew were a bunch of sadistic murderers,” Yun said smoothly. “They had neither your wisdom nor your . . . ambition. You did the world a great service by wiping them out.”
“Ha!” She clapped once. “This one studies like Yangchen and flatters like Kuruk. I look forward to our battle of wits tomorrow. Shall we head to my camp? You must be hungry and tired.”
Tomorrow? Kyoshi thought. They weren’t going to wrap this up quickly and leave? They were going to sleep here, vulnerable throughout the night?
Apparently, that had been the plan all along. “Your hospitality is much appreciated,” Jianzhu said. “Come, everybody.”
It was a very, very awkward dinner.
Tagaka had set up a luxurious camp, the centerpiece a yurt as big as a house. The interior was lined with hung rugs and tapestries of mismatching colors that both kept the cold out and served as markers of how many tradeships she’d plundered. Stone lamps filled with melted fat provided an abundance of light.
Low tables and seat cushions were arranged in the manner of a grand feast. Yun held the place of honor, with Tagaka across from him. She didn’t mind the rest of their table being filled out by the Avatar’s inner circle. Jianzhu’s uniformed guardsmen rotated in and out, trading sneers with the pirate queen’s motley assortment of corsairs.
The Fifth Nation described themselves as an egalitarian outfit that disregarded the boundaries between the elements. According to the propaganda they sometimes left behind after a raid, no nation was superior, and under the rule of their enlightened captain, any adventurer or bender could join them in harmony, regardless of origin.
In reality, the most successful pirate fleet in the world was going to be nearly all sailors from the Water Tribes. And the food reflected that. To Kyoshi, most of the meal tasted like blood, the mineral saltiness too much for her. She did what she could to be polite, and watched Yun eat in perfect alignment with Water Tribe custom.
As Yun downed another tray of raw blubber with gusto, Tagaka cheering him on, Kyoshi wanted to whisper in Rangi’s ear and ask if they should be afraid of poison. Or the prospect of the dinner party stabbing them in the back with their meat skewers. Anything that reflected the hostilities that must have been bubbling under the surface. Why were they being so friendly?
It became too much once they began setting up Pai Sho boards for members of Tagaka’s crew who fancied themselves a match for the young Avatar’s famous skills. Kyoshi nudged Rangi in the side and tilted her chin at the merriment, widening her eyes for emphasis.
Rangi knew exactly what she was asking. While everyone’s attention focused on Yun playing three opponents at once, she pointed with her toe at two men and two women who had silently entered the tent after the party had finished eating, to clean up the plates.
They were Earth Kingdom citizens. Instead of the pirates’ mismatched riot of pilfered clothing, they wore plain peasant’s garb. And though they weren’t chained or restrained, they carried out their duties in a hunched and clumsy fashion. Like people fearing for their lives.
The stolen villagers. Yun and Rangi had undoubtedly spotted them earlier. Kyoshi cursed herself for treating them as invisible when she knew what it was like to move unnoticed among the people she served. The entire time, Yun had been putting on a false smile while Tagaka paraded her true spoils of war in front of him.
Rangi found her trembling hand and gave it a quick squeeze, sending a pulse of reassuring warmth over her skin. Stay strong.
They watched Yun demolish his opponents in three different ways, simultaneously. The first he blitzed down, the second he’d forced into a no-win situation, and the third he’d lured into a trap so diabolical that the hapless pirate thought he was winning the whole time until the last five moves.
The audience roared when Yun finished his last victim off. Coins clinked as wagers traded hands, and the challengers received slaps and jeers from their comrades.
Tagaka laughed and threw back another shot of strong wine. “Tell me, Avatar. Are you enjoying yourself?”
“I’ve been to many places around the world,” Yun said. “And your hospitality has been unmatched.”
“I’m so glad,” she said, reaching for more drink. “I was convinced you were planning to kill me before the night was through.”
The atmosphere of the gathering went from full speed to a dead stop. Tagaka’s men seemed as surprised as Jianzhu’s. The mass stillness that ran through the party nearly created its own sound. The tensing of neck muscles. Hairs raising on end.
Kyoshi tried to glance at Master Amak without making it obvious. The hardened Waterbender was sitting away from the main group, peering soberly at Tagaka over the edge of his unused wine cup. The floor was covered in skins and rugs, but underneath was a whole island of weaponry at his disposal. Instead of freezing up like everyone else, Kyoshi could see his shoulders relaxing, loosening, readying for a sudden surge of violence.
She thought Jianzhu might say something, take over for Yun now that the theatrics were off course, but he did nothing. Jianzhu calmly watched Yun stack the Pai Sho tiles between his fingers, as if the only thing he cared about was making sure his student displayed good manners by cleaning up after a finished game.
“Mistress Tagaka,” Yun said. “If this is about the size of my contingent, I assure you I meant no harm or insult. The soldiers who came with me are merely an honor guard. I didn’t want to bring them, but they were so excited about the chance to witness you make history with the Avatar.”
“I’m not concerned about a bunch of flunkies with spears, boy,” Tagaka said. Her voice had turned lower. The time for flattery was over. “I’m talking about those three.”
She pointed, her fingers forming a trident. Not at Amak or any of the armored Earth Kingdom soldiers, but at Jianzhu, Hei-Ran, and Kelsang.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Yun said. “Surely you know of my bending masters. The famed companions of Kuruk.”
“Yes, I know of them. And I know what it means when the Gravedigger of Zhulu Pass darkens my tent in person.”
Now Yun was confused for real. His easy smile faded, and his head tilted toward his shoulder. Kyoshi had heard of various battles and locations associated with Jianzhu’s name, and Zhulu Pa
ss was one of many, not a standout in a long list. He was a great hero of the Earth Kingdom after all, one of its leading sages.
“Are you referring to the story of how my esteemed mentor piously interred the bodies of villagers he found cut down by rebels, giving them their final rest and dignity?” Yun said. The game tiles clacked together in his palm.
Tagaka shook her head. “I’m referring to five thousand Yellow Necks, buried alive, the rest terrorized into submission. The entire uprising crushed by one man. Your ‘esteemed mentor.’”
She turned to Jianzhu. “I’m curious. Do their spirits haunt you when you sleep? Or did you plant them deep enough that the earth muffles their screams?”
There was a hollow thunk as one of the game pieces slipped out of Yun’s grasp and bounced off the board. He’d never heard of this. Kyoshi had never heard of this.
Now that he was being addressed directly, Jianzhu deemed it proper to speak up. “Respectfully, I fear that rumors from the Earth Kingdom interior tend to grow wilder the closer they get to the South Pole. Many tales of my past exploits are pure exaggerations by now.”
“Respectfully, I gained my position through knowing facts beyond what you think a typical blue-eyed southern rustic should know,” Tagaka snapped. “For example, I know who holds the Royal Academy record for the most ‘accidental’ kills during Agni Kais, Madam Headmistress.”
If Hei-Ran was offended by the accusation, she didn’t show it. Instead Rangi looked like she was going to leap on Tagaka and cook the woman’s head off her shoulders. Kyoshi instinctively reached out to her and got her hand swatted away for the trouble.
“And Master Kelsang,” Tagaka said. “Listen, young Avatar. Have you ever wondered why my fleets stay cooped up in the Eastern Sea, where the pickings are slim, engaged in costly battles for territory with other crews? It’s solely because of that man right there.”
Of the three masters, only Kelsang looked afraid of what Tagaka might reveal. Afraid and ashamed. Kyoshi already wanted to defend him from whatever charges the pirate might levy. Kelsang was hers more than anyone else’s.
“My father used to call him the Living Typhoon,” Tagaka said. “We criminal types have a fondness for theatrical nicknames, but in this case, the billing was correct. Grandad once took the family and a splinter fleet westward, around the southern tip of the Earth Kingdom. The threat they presented must have been great indeed, because Master Kelsang, then a young man in the height of his power, rode out on his bison and summoned a storm to turn them back.
“Sounds like a perfect solution to a naval threat without any bloodshed, eh?” she said. “But have any of you pulled a shivered timber the size of a jian from your thigh? Or been thrown into the sea and then tried to keep your head above a thirty-foot wave?”
Tagaka drank in the Airbender’s discomfort and smiled. “I should thank you, Master Kelsang. I lost several uncles on that expedition. You saved me from a gruesome succession battle. But the fear of a repeat performance kept the Fifth Nation and other crews bottled up in the Eastern Sea, my father’s entire generation terrified of a single Air Nomad. They thought Kelsang was watching them from the peaks of the Southern Air Temple. Patrolling the skies above their heads.”
Kyoshi looked at Kelsang, who was hunched in agony. Were you? she thought. Is that where you went between stays in Yokoya? You were hunting pirates?
“A lesson from your airbending master,” Tagaka said to Yun. “The most effective threat is only performed once. So you can imagine my distress when I saw you bring this . . . this collection of butchers to our peace treaty signing. I thought for certain it meant violence was in our future.”
Yun hummed, pretending to be lost in thought. The Pai Sho tile that he’d fumbled was now flipping over his knuckles, back and forth across his hand. He was in control again.
“Mistress Tagaka,” he said. “You have nothing to fear from my masters. And if we’re giving credence to gruesome reputations, I believe I would have equal cause for concern.”
“Yes,” Tagaka said, staring him down, her fingers lying on the hilt of her sword. “You absolutely do.”
The mission hinged there, on the eye contact between Yun and the undisputed lord of the Eastern Sea. Tagaka might have been looking at the Avatar, but Kyoshi could only see her friend, young and vulnerable and literally out of his element.
Whatever Tagaka was searching for inside Yun’s head, she found it. She backed off and smiled.
“You know, it’s bad luck to undertake an important ceremony with blood on your spirit,” she said. “I purified myself of my past crimes with sweat and ice before you arrived, but with the stain of so much death still hanging over your side, I suddenly feel the need to do it again before tomorrow morning. You may stay here as long as you’d like.”
Tagaka snapped her fingers, and her men filed out of the tent, as unquestioningly as if she’d bent them away. The Earth Kingdom captives went last, ducking through the exit flaps without so much as a glance behind them. The act seemed like a planned insult by Tagaka, designed to say they’re more afraid of me than they’re hopeful of you.
Jianzhu swung his hands together. “You did well for—”
“Is it true?” Yun snapped.
Kyoshi had never heard Yun interrupt his master before, and from the twinge in his brow, neither had Jianzhu. The earth sage sighed in a manner that warned the others not to speak. This matter was between him and his disciple. “Is what true?”
“Five thousand? You buried five thousand people alive?”
“That’s an overstatement made by a criminal.”
“Then what’s the truth?” Yun said. “It was only five hundred? One hundred? What’s the number that makes it justified?”
Jianzhu laughed silently, a halting shift of his chest. “The truth? The truth is that the Yellow Necks were scum of the lowest order who thought they could plunder, murder, and destroy with impunity. They saw nothing, no future beyond the points of their swords. They believed they could hurt people with no repercussions.”
He slammed his finger down onto the center of the Pai Sho board.
“I visited consequences upon them,” Jianzhu said. “Because that’s what justice is. Nothing but the proper consequences. I made it clear that whatever horrors they inflicted would come back to haunt them, no more, no less. And guess what? It worked. The remnants of the daofei that escaped me dispersed into the countryside because at last they knew there would be consequences if they continued down their outlaw path.”
Jianzhu glanced at the exit, in the direction Tagaka had gone. “Perhaps the reason you’ve never heard about this from decent citizens of the Earth Kingdom is because they see it the same way I do. A criminal like her watches justice being done and bewails the lack of forgiveness, conveniently forgetting about what they did in the first place to deserve punishment.”
Yun looked like he had trouble breathing. Kyoshi wanted to go to his side, but Jianzhu’s spell had frozen the air inside the tent, immobilizing her.
“Yun,” Kelsang said. “You don’t understand the times back then. We did what we had to do, to save lives and maintain balance. We had to act without an Avatar.”
Yun steadied himself. “How fortunate for you all,” he said, his voice a hollow deadpan. “Now you can shift the burden of ending so many lives onto me. I’ll try to follow the examples my teachers have set.”
“Enough!” Jianzhu roared. “You’ve allowed yourself to be rattled by the baseless accusations of a pirate! The rest of you get out. I need to speak to the Avatar, alone.”
Rangi stormed out the fastest. Hei-Ran watched her go. Maybe it was because they used the same tight-lipped expression to hide their emotions, but Kyoshi could tell she wanted to chase her daughter. Instead Hei-Ran walked stiffly out the opposite side of the tent.
When Kyoshi looked back, Kelsang had vanished. Only the trailing swish of an orange hem under a curtain betrayed which way he’d gone. She gave a quick bow to Jianzhu and Yun,
avoiding eye contact, and ran after the Airbender.
She found Kelsang a dozen paces away, alone, sitting on a stool that had presumably been abandoned by one of Tagaka’s guards. The legs had sunk deep into the snow under his weight. He shivered, but not from the cold.
“You know, after Kuruk died, I thought my failure to set him on the right path was my last and greatest mistake,” he said quietly to the icy ground in front of his toes. “It turned out I wasn’t finished disgracing myself.”
Kyoshi knew, in an academic sense, that Air Nomads held all life sacred. They were utmost pacifists who considered no one their enemy, no criminal beyond forgiveness and redemption. But surely exceptional circumstances allowed for those convictions to be put on hold. Surely Kelsang could be forgiven for saving entire towns along the coasts of the western seas.
The strain in his voice said otherwise.
“I never told you how far I fell within the Southern Air Temple as a result of that day.” Kelsang tried to force a smile through his pain, but it slipped out of his control, turning into a fractured, tearful mess. “I violated my beliefs as an Airbender. I let my teachers down. I let my entire people down.”
Kyoshi was suddenly furious on his behalf, though she didn’t know at whom. At the whole world, perhaps, for allowing its darkness to infect such a good man and make him hate himself. She threw her arms around Kelsang and hugged him as tightly as she could.
“You’ve never let me down,” she said in a gruff bark. “Do you hear me? Never.”
Kelsang put up with her attempt to crush his shoulder blades through the force of sheer affection and rocked slightly in her embrace, patting at her clasped hands. Kyoshi only let go when the sound of a plate shattering pierced the stillness of the night.
Their gazes snapped toward the crash. It had come from the tent. Yun and Jianzhu were still inside.
Kelsang stood up, his own troubles forgotten. He looked worried. “Best if you head back to camp,” he said to Kyoshi. The muffled sound of arguing grew louder through the felt walls.