The Dawn of Yangchen, page 12
“The pickup boat knows to come to a specific location should I ever announce a visit to Jonduri,” Yangchen had explained earlier. “I will hand you off there, and then return to the caravan since it’s part of my official cover.”
She had no reservations about referring to her fellow Air Nomads as such. “My minister left before us on a ship, while we were still at the Air Temple, and made public arrangements for me to plead my case. The Avatar still hopes for better conditions in the shang cities, and she’s willing to go to each one in turn. Like a proper beggar.”
“This minister is the one from Nanyan who’s selling you out?”
“Yes.” Yangchen puckered her lips. “My actions are believable because of how badly I fumbled my first try in Bin-Er. I’m sure by now he’s let every shang on the island know I was refused.”
“And when I get to the safe house?”
“You sit tight until I return from groveling in front of Zongdu Chaisee. It won’t take long because she’ll refuse me too. She’s the one who currently has control of Unanimity, after all. My contacts have experience and local knowledge, so we’ll want to consult with them on a plan to find out which shipment the assets will be traveling on.”
“If your loyalists in Jonduri know what they’re doing, why don’t you have them try to get closer to Chaisee instead of me?”
“They’re too old,” Yangchen said curtly.
Kavik tilted his head at her. “What I mean is, they’ve lived in Jonduri for a while and people know them,” she explained. “You, however, will be a completely fresh face once you’re on the island. We barely even need a cover for you. You came from the North because you were promised work. No family or friends in town.”
“The same story I used on you.”
His one victory over her, no matter how short-lived. She took the reminder well. “If it works, it works.”
After a few more minutes, Nujian came to a stop, hovering above the water. Yangchen hopped over to the saddle and rummaged through their supplies until she found a large empty bladder. With the might of airbending, she inflated it in one breath and tied the seal tight.
“What is that thing, some kind of signal?” Kavik said. “And if we’re at the handoff point, where’s the boat?”
She tossed the bladder over the side, where it bobbed gently, a makeshift buoy. “The boat won’t be here for another hour. Nujian and I can’t be spotted anywhere near it. And the float is for you to hold on to. I know I said it was a handoff, but it’s really more of a dead drop.”
Yangchen made a scooping motion with her arms and Kavik was sucked bodily into the air, the same way he’d been caught when they first met. He flew backward over the edge of the saddle and into the water. Popping his head above the surface, he grabbed the float. His eyes burned with salt and indignation.
“This was always the plan,” Yangchen said. “Consider it pay-back for trying to kill my lemur.”
The sea was warm. Kavik was a Waterbender, a good swimmer to boot, and in no danger of drowning or freezing. But that was beside the point. “Pik forgave me!”
Yangchen callously nudged him in the forehead with the end of her staff, sending him drifting away. “Pak did not.”
Kavik rode the serene ripples of the water up and down and cursed the Avatar’s name with each one. She’d flown away without so much as a glance back.
He wasted some time dreaming of an appropriate prank as revenge before remembering he had no plans to remain in Yangchen’s company any longer than necessary. The point was to get out of Bin-Er, not live up to his parents’ hopes and dreams for companionhood glory.
The pickup boat arrived sooner than she’d promised. The small fishing vessel approached with sails furled, pushed along by the man standing in the stern. His motions of waterbending were different from the form Kavik practiced, prone to sudden fast movements among the slow, his hands winding around each other as if he were reeling bolts of silken thread.
The boat came to a stop beside Kavik. The man reached down and they clasped each other by the forearm. The sensation of being helped out of the water by a strong, reliable presence made Kavik think for a moment that Kalyaan, wearing a different face, had come to pick him up.
His rescuer looked nothing like his brother though. The wiry Waterbender was twice as old, in his forties. He had a longer face and a chin like a stone plinth. After pulling Kavik on board, he broke out into a large smile. “Hey!” he said. “You’re kin!”
He was. Kavik dried himself off with a flick of waterbending, stepped back, and bowed. “Kavik, of Long Stretch, named after my mother’s grandfather. My parents are Ujurak and Tapeesa.”
“Tayagum,” the man responded. “Of the Orca Islands, after my cousin. My parents are Angtan and Taganak.” He tossed Kavik a heavy pile of rigging. “I need you to help me get out of these doldrums, Kavik of Long Stretch.”
Together, they turned the boat around and waterbent swells to ride out of the patch of windless sea. Acting as the sole force moving a vessel was tiring work, and Kavik was glad when the breeze picked up. Once they unfurled the sails, they could take a breather. “It’s nice to meet another Waterbender,” he said as they worked on the rigging.
Tayagum seemed amused by his new passenger. “Don’t they have those in Bin-Er?”
Kavik shrugged. “It’s nice to be out of Bin-Er.”
“Mm. I spent some time there once. Of course this was before the Platinum Affair. Take in the jib a little bit, would you?”
Kavik hunched over the cleat and shortened the lines. “Little more,” Tayagum said. “Is Mama Ayunerak still doing her thing over by the Inner Corridor?”
Kavik wasn’t surprised he knew Ayunerak. The woman was a landmark, weathered by the changes in the city but still recognizable by visitors far and wide. “It’s the international district now,” he said. “Her place is still standing though. Is this enough?”
“Perfect! And they say city kids can’t sail.”
Kavik scoffed as he got up. “I’m not a city kid. We only moved to the continent when I was—”
A rope looped around his neck. Garrote, his mind screamed. Kavik barely got one hand up through the slack before it tightened, smashing his own forearm into the side of his head.
The boom of the mainsail dropped. Kavik was hauled into the air by the connected line, his feet dangling and kicking. With his free hand he launched a water whip at Tayagum, but the man diverted the blast with a flick of his wrist.
Tayagum looked up at his catch, who was struggling and twisting in the wind. “La’s fins, what do we have here,” he said in an unwavering rhythm, no hint of a question. “It’s a good thing I found you. What happened to your boat?”
Kavik grabbed the line above his head and pulled on it to relieve the pressure. “A rogue wave knocked me overboard,” he said between gulps of air. “I should never have been sailing alone. I’m lucky you came along.”
“I was following a school of silverskim. I guess I was meant to bring home a different haul today.”
That was as far as the prepared exchange went. Finally satisfied, Tayagum took the bottom of the rope suspending Kavik and gave it a deft flick. The line unwound and Kavik dropped back to the deck on all fours.
“Okay, look,” Tayagum said. “I don’t know what kind of raggedy kid’s games you play in Bin-Er. But in Jonduri, you better keep your head on straight or you’ll lose it. The pickup could have been compromised. You should have been ready to gut me and steal the boat the instant you laid eyes on me.”
Kavik wanted to tell him off, but he was right. The shame hurt worse than the rope burns. He was Qiu to this guy. That really stung.
“Would I have been able to?” he asked, deflecting the conversation away from his own sloppiness. “Overpower you and steal the boat?”
Tayagum snorted. “No. Don’t forget your passphrases next time.”
Jonduri grew swiftly on the horizon, an undulating rocky wave between the layers of blue. Kavik had heard stories about the sweltering island from contacts with international privileges. The place had a reputation for thin walls and hard checkpoints.
“Most of the island is surrounded by cliffs and dangerous shoals,” Tayagum explained. “So we can’t get you in through beaching the boat.”
“How dangerous are we talking about?”
“Nearly every section of the coast has a name like Tiger-dillo’s Roar or Limpet’s Teeth. Neither of us are good enough Waterbenders to survive an attempt to lay ashore. There is only one usable port in all of Jonduri.”
“Which I assume is guarded to the gills,” Kavik said.
“You assume correct. This boat is authorized to leave and enter the harbor with only two people, me and my assistant.”
Tayagum tossed a copper plate to Kavik. It was green with corrosion from the salt air. “Here’s his pass. He’s hiding out for today and you’re taking his place on the return home. The harbor agents know our faces. But one of them is brand-new and so far, not spectacular at his job. If everything went off perfectly last night, he should be too hungover to notice the switch. You’re the same height and build as my usual guy, so keep the sun at your back and the inspector won’t even look you in the eye.”
Kavik couldn’t believe what he was hearing. After Tayagum’s warning to be on top of his game, he’d expected a secret entranceway buried under the water, or a hefty bribe to secure their entry. This was walking straight in through the front door and hoping no one noticed. “Are you kidding me? I’ve seen shell games run by twelve-year-olds less flimsy than this plan!”
“This was the plan we had time for, so therefore it’s the plan. Simple beats complex, most of the time.”
This distinctly felt like one of those other times. “At least tell me what this person sounds like, talks like. Is there anything noticeable about his gait?”
“Asu! I’m not asking you to perform Love amongst the Dragons here. Just keep your mouth shut and do what the agent tells you.”
Sweat beaded on Kavik’s brow as they got closer, humidity and fear working together against him. He could see the city of Jonduri now, the towering bamboo constructions inlaid into the steep hillside, the green riot of vine-covered cliffs. A gentler slope was painted in stripes—terraced tea fields.
Grand junks with battened sails dominated most of the harbor, behemoths at a trough, needing to be fed. Their sheer lines swooped fore and aft high above the water, wooden walls as thick as castles, as if to let anyone walking their decks sneer down at the surface dwellers below.
Smaller docks handled the boats the size of Tayagum’s. In the distance, Kavik saw a man already limping down the long pier, presumably to greet them. “Blast,” Tayagum muttered. “Blast, blast, blast. That’s not Ping waiting for us. That’s Ping’s boss.”
The boat rocked under Kavik’s feet. “What does that mean for the plan?”
“He’s seen my assistant before. Not as often as the junior agents, but he’s definitely met him at least once.”
Kavik took it to mean they were up a creek and steadily losing their grip on the paddle. “Do you think he’ll remember?”
“Shut up and let me think.”
“You don’t have much time to think!”
Tayagum ran around to the stern and pushed hard with waterbending to slow their approach. Kavik started to help him but was waved off. “No! If we stop too soon it’ll look suspicious!”
Arriving to their doom at the correct speed seemed like the wrong priority. Kavik could come up with only one idea, and it stunk. “You said I was the same height and build as your normal assistant. Do we have the same hair?”
The other Waterbender was too busy with the boat to look up. “What?”
“Do we have the same hair?”
“Yes, for Tui’s sake! You’re both lanky brats with wolf tails! Why?”
Kavik waited for the boat to rock in case the man on the dock was already watching. On the next upswell, he snagged the toe of one foot on the heel of the other, fell face-first into the railing, and landed on his nose with a crunch.
Stars of pain blinked in the darkness. Kavik caught the blood pouring from his nose and smeared it all around his face. The motion shifted his broken cartilage, and he screamed through clenched teeth.
Tayagum came running. “What did you—oh! Oh. This might work.”
It had better. Kavik kept his eyes shut as the boat pulled in and Tayagum lashed them to a piling. He was helped onto the planks of the dock.
“Harbormaster Lee,” Tayagum said. “Where’s, uh, where’s Ping?”
“Ping was terminated for incompetence,” said a voice like scraped sinews. “What happened here?”
“Got his foot caught on a coil and bashed his face in,” Tayagum said. Kavik groaned. He tented his hands over his face, droplets of blood pattering down from his elbows.
“Let me see how bad it is,” said Lee.
Kavik peeked through his fingers. The blurry shape of a weathered, ancient Fire Nation man came into view. Lee’s wrinkled frown was stone cold, but Kavik detected a hint of grandfatherly concern in his dingy gold eyes. Of all the ways he thought he might get nabbed in Jonduri, the kindness of a security agent wasn’t high on the list.
Kavik suddenly doubled over and retched pink slime near Lee’s mirror-shined boots. He wasn’t completely faking. Too much blood had trickled down his throat.
Lee hissed and jumped back, quick for his age. “You idiot,” the harbormaster snapped. “You’ve been at this job for how long and you still don’t have your sea legs?”
“Apologies,” Tayagum said. “I’ll get him fixed up.” He grabbed Kavik by the collar. “You keep your head down and forward, you hear?” he said. “Else you’ll choke.”
“Guh-huh,” Kavik moaned. Tayagum led him down the pier, his face lowered out of courtesy. People got out of their way.
He was in. And he’d bled for the Avatar. His parents would be so proud.
A PLACE TO LAY ONE’S HEAD
They hustled down the streets of Jonduri, Tayagum leading the way. Kavik’s eyes were too blurry to make anything out, but he could hear the shouts of the famed city hawkers offering morsels of food cooked to order right there in the open stalls, the clamor of dry goods pitchmen demonstrating the durability of their iron wares by bashing the metal together.
When they passed a square full of indistinct hollering, he thought they’d stumbled across a riot of the Bin-Er sort. But Tayagum said it was the clearing exchange, where merchants shouted orders at each other in a great crowd, using eye contact and hand gestures to move sums equal to pounds of gold at a time. Kavik was missing the sights, but he didn’t much care. He wasn’t in Jonduri to play tourist.
They moved up bouncing bamboo steps into a house on stilts. Tayagum gave him a place to sit and drip to his heart’s content. When the flow from his nose stanched to the point where he could see again, he discovered he was in the common room of an inn.
A Water Tribe–owned inn. There was a large soapstone qulliq in the middle of the floor providing smokeless light. While the room was too big to be completely lined with pelts, there were a few fine examples around the walls and floor. His house in Bin-Er looked like this. An effort to bring home outside the poles.
“I’ll leave you in Akuudan’s care for now,” said Tayagum. “I have to smooth things over at the dock. I’ll be back.”
He left before Kavik could ask who Akuudan was. Presumably it was the giant who came plodding down the stairs. Kavik was surprised the second floor could hold him.
“What the—Tayagum!” the huge southern man roared. “Get back here!”
“He’s gone,” Kavik said. “You’re Akuudan?”
“I am.” Akuudan sighed. “And you are a mess. I can bone set. Sit tight.”
Akuudan went behind a counter. As he picked through his shelves, Kavik saw he had only one arm, but it was bigger around than some people’s legs.
He brought over a leather roll and undid the knot with his teeth, unfurling a series of pouches, each with a different smooth, polished wooden instrument poking out. He selected a wishbone-shaped splint and two rods the size of brush handles. “Hold this curved one against your cheekbones,” he said to Kavik. “This is going to hurt.”
Without further warning Akuudan jammed the rods deep into Kavik’s nostrils to realign his breathing passages.
Ah, blinding pain. His old friend. “It’s been a long morning,” Kavik said, seeking the floor to lie down on while the setting implements remained attached to his face. “Do you mind if I close my eyes? Just for a minute.”
“Go wild. Take two.”
When Kavik woke up from his nap, he found pelts underneath him and a protective mask strapped to his head, shielding his nose from further injury. And Tayagum was back. He chatted quietly with Akuudan by the lamp, the two older Water Tribesmen occasionally glancing over at their guest.
Kavik struggled to his elbows. The swelling had gone down in his face, which was now clean and a little cold. Tayagum must have washed him off and applied ice with waterbending while he was passed out. Maybe some basic field healing too, but nothing on the level of the Avatar’s miraculous touch. He could breathe well enough to smell something delicious.
“Blood soup,” Akuudan said to Kavik. “To replace what you’ve lost. I also cooked seaweed noodles, and Tayagum picked up a chunk of turtle-seal. Still fresh. Taken properly, thanked by the hunter, and given a drink.”
Kavik swallowed his saliva. “How do you have fresh seal meat this far away from the poles?”
“Jonduri likes two things above all else,” Tayagum said. “Order and food. A lot of the exchange traders are Tribe who are willing to pay for a taste of home.”
The one thing about the shang territories was they were cosmopolitan. Kavik found the soup as hearty as any he’d had back home. The noodles as good as his mother’s, he was loath to admit. The meat was cut from the backbone, a prime morsel usually chosen quickly following a successful hunt.
