The Dawn of Yangchen, page 23
She chambered her fists and clumps of sod burst out of a bad seal in the log walls belonging to the house behind the three men. Patch and the fellow to his right took the soft but weighty masses of earth and grass to the backs of their heads and were out like candles. The third man, however, managed to twist at the last second, catching the sod in the ribs. He fell to his hands and knees, his knife clattering away, and looked up just in time to catch Yangchen’s hood falling off her head from an errant flying pebble.
For a moment they were both very still. Recognition dawned on the man’s face, and then sheer confusion took over. If he didn’t know she was the Avatar before, he certainly knew now. It occurred to Yangchen that they were arranged like a painting, the bridge between spirits and humans receiving a prostrating supplicant.
She used the man’s hesitation to air spout him up, and then drive him back to the ground hard, knocking him unconscious.
Yangchen looked around at the aftermath of the victory and bit the heel of her hand. Captives. She had captives now. Including one who knew she was the Avatar. Letting them go wasn’t an option, but any hidden prison she could bend, underground or in the ice outside the city, would more than likely kill them. They had to be brought inside somewhere, quickly.
She stared at her limp, downed foes as if they might offer up a solution. She herself could think of only one. And she really, really didn’t want to use it.
While most of Port Tuugaq had been constructed after the Platinum Affair, it had been the site of Water Tribe trade fairs going back into the ancient past. There were a few great qarmat of turf and stone in the city that had been carefully maintained over the centuries, and they remained important centers to those who knew their significance.
Yangchen knocked on the door of one such lodge. The door opened slightly ajar. Inside, flickering lamps cast warmth and light. A Water Tribesman in his thirties peered at her through the crack.
“I’m looking for a game,” she said.
At this distance it was impossible for him not to see her face and tattoos. His eyes widened and he tried to shut the door. Yangchen flicked her foot and earthbent a rock into the hinge, preventing him from locking her out. “I said I want a game. You’re not going to humor me and get the board?”
“I’m pretty sure you’re not a member,” he said.
Not the answer she wanted. “I see you favor the White Lotus Gambit. Not many still cling to the ancient ways,” Yangchen said, lowering her voice half in mimicry, half in mockery of this man who was trying to bar the garden gate to she who had eaten the fruit and tasted its mysteries. “Those who do can always find a friend,” she replied to herself normally.
The man pulled on the handle with more force, to no avail. Yangchen would continue having both sides of this conversation if need be. “Jasmine one-seven,” she said. “Rose two-six, White Lily three-six, Chrysanthemum four-six, White Jade five-six, Rhododendron six-six, Dragon at two-five, start with Knotweed at five-two.”
She stopped to take a breath. “Repeat tile sequence but mirror the placement along the zero-zero six-six line, repeat for the remaining three quadrants, following Knotweed with the appropriate tile in the element cycle. Welcome, sister. The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets.”
He stared at her, bewildered. She didn’t have time for him to parse out that her identifying arrangements were indeed correct. “Look, the deal is right there in the last part of the pass-phrase,” she said. “You can’t actually be certain that I’m not a member. The hurdle is knowing the secrets, and I know the secrets. You are obligated to open wide.”
While he didn’t comply with enthusiasm, he at least stuck his head out to check if Yangchen had been followed. “What is it you really want?”
She stepped back to reveal the three unconscious bodies she’d sledged here using earthbending under the cover of darkness. “Some help dealing with this.”
The color drained out of the man’s face. “I need to ask a higher-ranking Lotus,” he said. He pulled the door shut hard enough to snap the bottom hinge and left Yangchen waiting in the freezing night air.
CONVERSATIONS
Eventually the door keeper and two more men came around to drag away the tails Yangchen had knocked out. She was let into the qarmaq. The first thing she did was to go over to the qulliq and sit down. Without registering any of the other details inside, and before she could stop herself, she nodded off, helpless against her fatigue.
She woke up shouting a curse, unsure of where she was or whether her ship had set sail.
“Relax,” said a woman who was tending to the moss wicks of the oil lamp. “You’ve only been napping for an hour. The world’s not going to end before sunrise.”
Easy for her to say. “The ships,” Yangchen slurred. She slapped her cheeks with both hands until she was fully awake. “Did any ships leave port around sunset?”
“No vessels left after midday. No departures are scheduled tomorrow either, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Yangchen had already said more than she wanted to in front of this woman who was already prying. Unanimity was still in Port Tuugaq, which meant she could technically rest easy for a little while. Technically. “What happened to the men I brought?”
“They’re being held in a secure place until you decide what to do.” The woman had grasped the Air Avatar’s need to keep them silenced, but not harmed. She leaned closer to the firelight, letting Yangchen take in her weathered face, her pale blue eyes. “You can call me Mama.”
Yangchen knew Mama was checking to see if the Avatar recognized her. And the only reason she’d do that was if they’d crossed paths before. But Yangchen hadn’t seen this woman anywhere she could remember, at least not up close.
Advantage to her host. “Thank you, Mama.”
They were alone in the room. The woman beckoned at a cooking pot over the fire. A trail of soup streamed into a bowl, which she gave to Yangchen. “Meatless,” she said.
Yangchen would certainly have been forgiven by the Western Temple in this case, but she was grateful for the accommodation anyway. She took the bowl and said nothing until she’d finished three servings. It was the first meal she’d eaten in days.
“The paths of the White Lotus and the Avatar normally only intertwine during moments of generational import,” Mama said. “Not because someone needs to stash a few bodies. I don’t know how one of your past lives got access to our recognition codes, but it was a mistake to let it happen.”
“How do you know it wasn’t me who got access to them?”
Mama fixed her with her gaze. “Because you’re an amateur.” She filled a cup with tea and pushed it into Yangchen’s hands. “You’re the rankest sort of amateur there is. You’re too active, you do too many things yourself on the operation, and you expect results too quickly. You’ve no ability to wait, whatsoever.”
This was why she didn’t ask favors from the White Lotus. For Mama to say that meant they had watched her struggle after Tienhaishi. Nothing during her travails back then suggested an organization of the world’s wisest masters was secretly helping her behind the scenes. The White Lotus, like everyone else, had turned their eyes away from immense suffering and done nothing. She couldn’t forgive that.
Perhaps Mama was referring to her actions around Unanimity, and she’d been under observation this whole time like an insect tricked into thinking the stick and leaf in her jar made up the entire world. “You’re not the local depot keeper,” Yangchen said. “As far as I can tell, you’re too high ranking of a Lotus. And you’re from the North, not the South. That means you’ve come all the way down to Port Tuugaq for an important task that couldn’t be trusted to anyone else. You’re investigating something, aren’t you?”
Mama didn’t answer.
“We could do an information trade,” Yangchen offered. “That’s what you professionals do all the time, isn’t it? If you think I’m such a fool, let’s compare leads and see who got further to their goal.”
“Stop,” Mama said, looking as exasperated as any Western Temple elder. “Just stop. Stop playing around and for once think about the kind of Avatar you want to be.”
You mean what kind of figurehead, Yangchen thought. How should I pose for my statue? Have the people around me been sufficiently awed by my presence? How long did awe feed a person anyway? How long did it keep them warm?
Mama could see she wasn’t getting through. “You think spying and intelligence and deception is a good use of your power. Such a waste when you, more than any person in known history, could inspire people with the truth instead.”
“And what do you mean by that?”
“Practically every Avatar struggles to commune with their past selves,” Mama said. “But you! The wealth of knowledge and wisdom at your fingertips! If you embraced your gift, walked with your predecessors along the courses of their lives to the breadth and depth you alone among the generations seem to be able to do, then there would be no limit to your accomplishments! You could guide the Four Nations to a new gilded era, because you were there for the old ones!”
“How do you know about my gift?”
Yangchen’s question was sharp and swift enough for the older woman to realize she’d made a mistake. The lights grew dim. The emotions of Firebenders could manifest in surrounding flames and right now the Avatar was ready to burst. “How do you know about my gift?” Yangchen repeated slowly.
Only the Western Temple elders fully understood her relationship with her past lives. They’d kept the secret well, just like they’d promised to each other. For a member of the White Lotus to know . . .
That meant Yangchen had been spied upon since childhood. Since before she’d been revealed to the world as the Avatar.
“You had someone in the Western Air Temple,” she murmured. “You had someone in my home, evaluating me like an asset. In my home.”
“You were the most important child in the world.” Mama wouldn’t look her in the eye. “And you were unstable. It would have been irresponsible not to monitor you.”
The lamplight fractured into crosses, blurred by Yangchen’s tears. The sheer hypocrisy of telling her not to be concerned with spies, to then go on and explain she’d been the target of spies since before she could remember. “That was my home, do you understand? That was my home!”
She was holding tea for some reason. She put it down and stood up. The motion made her dizzy and her shoulder found a wall to rest on. “That was my home,” she said again, as if enough repetitions could force Mama to fully understand the extent of the violation, that Yangchen wasn’t talking about a place but a time in her life, her own life.
Her childhood in the Western Temple was supposed to be the part of her that was real. The part free of manipulations and ulterior motives. And it was gone now. It had been painted with the same dirty ink as every other operation that had gone on in the history of the Four Nations.
Could it have been Dagmola or Tsering answering to the White Lotus? Was she to suspect Boma forevermore? And Jetsun. If Jetsun had masters outside the temple, had been feigning sisterhood with Yangchen to get an outcome better suited to their needs . . .
Then there wasn’t a Yangchen. There was no person inside the robes. She’d be as the phoenix-eels said. An empty shell with no yolk inside.
She slid down the wall, the seams of her coat tearing against the rough-hewn stone. “That was my home,” she said, choking on the falsehood of it all.
Yangchen folded into the corner. Mama came over and knelt beside her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, with a flatness that acknowledged how useless the apology was. She turned Yangchen so she wasn’t bending her spine sideways and tucked a rolled-up quilt between her and the wall.
Mama’s earlier confession robbed the warmth from the gesture. She wasn’t trying to provide Yangchen comfort. She was making sure the Avatar didn’t hit her head. The White Lotus’s agent inside the temple had told them about the liability. The asset had to be protected.
Better not to know who it was. Better never to ask. “I already tried,” Yangchen whispered. Her throat was scraped and raw, as if a common illness had chosen to strike her at her lowest point.
“Tried what?”
“I already tried your suggestion.” She shivered and pulled the corners of the quilt around her. “I sought out the Avatars of eras gone by. At some point I figured, why not go on the attack, you know?” The emotional storms brought on by memories of her past lives so vivid she couldn’t tell who or where or when she was, didn’t preclude trying to commune the more dignified way.
“I only let the elders know about a fraction of my successes,” Yangchen said. “I spoke to dozens of previous Avatars. Upon dozens. Upon dozens.”
She watched Mama frown. You don’t actually like that do you? That I’ve done exactly as you’ve proposed. Telling Yangchen to bury herself in history had probably seemed like wise counsel in the older woman’s head, but carried out and made real? It cheapened a sacred component of Avatarhood.
“I saw through their eyes, watched their lives unfurl,” Yangchen said. “Time doesn’t pass the same way inside a vision as it does in the physical world. At first I was overwhelmed by the noise of it all. As someone who appreciates intelligence, I’m sure you understand. The sheer quantity of information you have to sift through to find something relevant.
“And then I started noticing patterns over the eras I witnessed. Repetition. I sat in front of my predecessors humbly, asked so many questions, listened to so many answers. Do you know what I learned?”
Yangchen clenched her fists around the quilt. “Their lives are full of regret,” she said. “Lost chances to make the world a better place. To me, that’s what sticks out sharpest in their memories. Their regrets over the times they did nothing.”
Why are you like this? The answer, here. “I have felt the shame of Avatars gone by,” she said. “Lived through failures not recorded in history. And I can tell you with absolute certainty—not a single one of my past selves that I’ve connected with wishes they waited longer to solve a problem.”
Acting only in moments of generational import. Who decided which moments were important? And how many people suffered in between? There had never been any gilded ages, as far as Yangchen had seen.
Mama picked up an atqun and went over to the qulliq to tend the wick. A few touches of the small stick and the flame was restored along the lip of the soapstone lamp. “I come here from the North on a regular basis, to meet with my fellows,” she said. “But this time I’m in town to investigate a possible spiritual disturbance. There have been reports of bright lights and loud noises along the tundra outside the city.”
Yangchen was so unimpressed with Mama’s reason for being in Port Tuugaq that it took her a while to realize her proposal for an information trade had been accepted. “That’s it?” she said. “Lights and noise?” That wasn’t much, as far as accounts of spiritual activity were concerned.
“I will admit, it’s a more interesting lead now that the Avatar is here.” Mama cocked her head as if to say your turn now. She obviously anticipated getting the better end of this exchange.
Could Yangchen trust the White Lotus? And more importantly, did she need their help? Three bruised men being held against their will said yes. Her exhaustion, her lack of knowledge about the area, said yes. She couldn’t let pride be the reason she failed, not at this juncture.
I hope I don’t regret this. “I’m not following up on spiritual business,” Yangchen said. She told Mama everything she knew about Unanimity.
TRACES
“This is . . . news,” Mama said as she tried to absorb the salient points. Yangchen didn’t think she was feigning ignorance. The White Lotus had been caught unawares by Henshe and Chaisee’s secret project. While Mama could criticize Yangchen’s recklessness all she wanted, her organization was several steps behind the Avatar. “What was the name of the ship you were looking for?”
“The Sunbeam,” Yangchen said.
“Are you sure? I didn’t see any records of a Sunbeam docking here in the last two months.”
Hmph. At some point during her investigation, Mama must have stolen a glimpse of some logbooks. Yangchen felt vindicated that her tactics had merit. But the discrepancy didn’t make sense. “My source verified the name. Three-masted junk.”
Mama’s response was immediate and reflexive. “And you trust this source?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” Yangchen felt more energized now that the food had taken hold. She decided she’d been too dismissive of Mama’s information. “Show me the area where the spiritual disturbances were reported.”
“I can do that.” Mama raised her teacup to her lips but then lowered it before taking a sip. “You mean now? You’ve barely slept!”
Yangchen threw off the blanket and got to her feet. “The night is clear,” she said. “There’s enough moon. And I’ve told you how I feel about waiting.”
Whoever Mama was, she had enough influence to walk out of Port Tuugaq late at night with a guest in tow. She’d waved a pair of passes at the gate guards but hadn’t even bothered to let Yangchen hold hers.
When they were far enough away, Yangchen whistled for Nujian. She noted Mama’s ease around the giant bison. They got on and flew farther inland, over a fresh layer of sugary snow.
“There,” Mama said, pointing at a large hill in the distance.
They landed on the highest point, where one side fell away sharply into a cliff. The powder reached their knees when they jumped down from Nujian. Yangchen rubbed her arms as she looked around, first down the white slope of the hill, and then at the field the cliff sat atop. No tracks since the snow had fallen.
“Do you sense any spirits?” Mama asked.
