The Dawn of Yangchen, page 25
There was a third crack above the rooftops, distant enough that Kavik only suffered the report and not the blast directly. The damage was getting systematically spread over the city.
Don’t worry about it, had always been Kalyaan’s refrain. It had been the case in Bin-Er, when Kavik confronted him about why he wasn’t coming home much. And then again, further back in the past when they were stuck in that fearsome blizzard, Kavik thinking for certain the two of them were going to die.
How many times had he heard it during their march through the blinding white, the stinging snow, the storm that plugged their tracks so quickly that Kavik couldn’t be sure if they’d already perished, had left their bodies, and were merely floating atop the drifts? We’ll be fine. I’m your brother. I would never let anything bad happen.
As good a liar as Kavik was, he would only ever be second best in his family.
His family. He had to reach his parents. He got up and ran around the back of Ayunerak’s, toward the Water Tribe Quarter. People were scrambling to get inside, abandoning their positions at barricades, fleeing the streets. He raced alongside a group heading in the same direction, his lungs burning. Some of them he recognized from Nuqingaq’s.
Another explosion at their right broke their stride. The members of his little pack skidded on their heels, slipped, fell. Some had already begun to kneel where they were to beseech the spirits for mercy, too scared to take another step forward. Kavik turned his eyes away. He’d put his faith in the wrong party too.
He left them and kept running until he reached the Water Tribe Quarter, his house, and slammed his key repeatedly into the door, all misses from his shaking hands, until he finally got it right, one small thing right, and unlocked it.
Inside his parents huddled as far as they could from the walls, while dust rained around them each time a fresh explosion struck. Their silent relief when they saw his face was too much to bear. Kavik knelt down, threw his arms around his terrified mother and father, and hugged them harder than he ever had in his life.
“Kavik, where is the Avatar?” his mother asked through her tears. “Why isn’t she here? Why isn’t she with you?”
The one person who could have stood up to the nightmare in the sky, who saw the shangs and the zongdus and Unanimity for the brewing disasters they were, who had been right about everything the whole time except for her choice in friends, was somewhere far away across the sea. And that was Kavik’s doing.
“She’ll be here soon,” he said, rocking his parents in his arms, a mirror of the comfort they had given him as a child. “She’ll fix this.” Have faith.
They stayed in their house as much as possible. A peek through the windows at the empty lanes of the Water Tribe Quarter told them their neighbors had fled indoors too.
The city was completely dark at night. No one put up visible lights in their homes out of fear they’d draw the attention of the angry spirits above. Nor could anyone sleep through the noise, which sometimes arrived in walking barrages that crept closer and lower, descending, stalking, until Kavik was certain the final strikes would come crashing through his roof.
Within a short span, it seemed like the whole of Bin-Er had been beaten into submission. The residents of the city were being punished by forces beyond their comprehension. Henshe had secured his version of stability. Kavik wasn’t sure how Firebenders in his employ could be so powerful, what kind of technique allowed them to create explosions from afar, but he was certain the zongdu could no longer be challenged as long as he retained control over Unanimity.
Dazed by a lack of sleep, he lost track of how long it had been since he’d returned to Bin-Er. When the knock came at his door, he jumped, fearing any sound that resembled the faint tapping that could sometimes be heard before the greater concussions.
He kept his parents away from the entrance. Before opening the door, he pressed himself against the wall with water in hand. Gingerly, he unlatched it and peeked through the crack. Once he saw who it was, Kavik let the door swing fully open and stood face-to-face with his visitor.
Jujinta stared at him for a good long minute. He leaned to the side to look past Kavik’s shoulder, at his bewildered parents crouched in the corner behind the desk. He took in as much of the house as he could see from the threshold, before finally returning his attention to Kavik.
With great care Jujinta reached into his collar and pulled out the bison whistle Kavik had given to him before leaving Jonduri, along with instructions to use it whenever he meditated alone or made offerings to the spirits at shrines by himself. “You were right,” he said, placing it back into Kavik’s hands. “The answer came to me.”
He was a changed man. Before, whenever they’d spoken, Jujinta’s eyes had always been slightly vacant and dull, as if part of him were trapped in another place and time. But now he was fully present. He shone with inner purpose. Meeting the Avatar face-to-face could do that to a person.
The fact that he was at Kavik’s door with the whistle said the rest. The message to Yangchen had been successfully passed on. The Avatar was in Bin-Er.
“Come on,” Jujinta said, never one to waste words. “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
THE DISPLAY
Henshe, who was arguably the most powerful man on the continent right now, had been reduced to a glorified porter. The three Firebenders—he had no other label for them that fit—ate voraciously, and they were leaving their stations too frequently for food. Given that he was the only person in the city he trusted with the secret of their existence, he went and fetched their meals himself.
He tromped up the stairs of the empty, dingy lodge to the second floor, carrying trays of buns and dumplings instantly gone cold in the chill air, and nudged himself through a door with his foot. Long-eared Thapa maintained his vigil at the window. Since he had the most raw power of the three, his task was to keep the encroaching forces of the Earth King at bay, and his hiding place overlooked the outskirts of the city. The other benders, Yingsu and Xiaoyun, were posted in separate apartments deeper in, with good views of Bin-Er’s major districts. Henshe had selected their locations well in advance and covered his tracks just in case.
He was about to ask for a status update when Thapa put up his hand. “Hold on,” the Firebender said, craning his neck. “Movement.” He stepped back from the window to perform his technique. Henshe put the food down to watch. It was fascinating every time.
Thapa began a series of inhalations, each one bigger than the last, until his chest ballooned in and out. When he got to about twenty or thirty massive breaths taken, his eyes widened, and he threw his head forward. His gut caved into his body and a rush of air lifted the debris in the room. There was a pop-pop, an arrhythmic double drumbeat.
And then the roar.
Far downfield over the snowy plain a seed of fire flowered into a spherical inferno, boiling snow and hurling soil, sending ripples through the air. Fireworks were an obvious but poor comparison. Henshe had once seen a grain silo explode in the Middle Ring, and that kind of damage was more apt. Thapa’s little warning shot could have taken out a small city block.
“Movement’s stopped,” Thapa said. He rubbed his forehead in a strange way after the act, using the fingers of both hands to press into the skin above his eyebrows and stretch it apart. It was as if he needed to widen an imaginary hole in his head to relieve the pressure.
Such destruction at such range. There was no other bending like it in the world. The Earth Kingdom scout brigade amassed at the opposite end of the plain shrank farther back into the tree line, where Thapa had kept them penned. They wouldn’t be marching upon Bin-Er anytime soon. Thapa himself had cleverly suggested that he blow apart the ground on occasion, to make Earthbenders considering a tunnel into the city fearful of cave-ins.
The other two Firebenders, who were more precise, had a different mission. Their role was to cow the populace by aiming explosions over the city itself. They’d complied beautifully, stunning unruly crowds, forcing them back indoors. He’d allowed them to aim at empty barricades, blast craters in the streets, even take out the top floor of the Gidu Shrine, which he always found ugly, a mar upon the skyline. Whole sections of town, strongholds of the agitators, had been made to suffer, slammed repeatedly by violent bursts above them throughout the night.
But the benders who comprised Unanimity weren’t to kill anyone. Henshe didn’t want to destroy Bin-Er or its residents. At some point he needed business to resume, or else he’d never get his money.
Thapa took a break to eat. He consumed the food joylessly, washing down half-chewed mouthfuls with water so he could finish faster. If there was a downside at all to his technique, it was the energy it drained from him, and the time it took to gather enough strength for the next explosion. Henshe shuddered to think of a bender who didn’t have such weaknesses.
“How did you come by this power?” he asked. Henshe knew what to expect from Unanimity, how to deploy the assets properly, but nothing about their origins. Chaisee was the last person in the world who would volunteer such information.
Thapa glanced up from his meal. “Bitter work,” he said, as if taking offense to the words come by. “Torturous training. I didn’t find this ability like a coin in the street, and neither did the others. We three are the product of significant investment.”
Henshe found it odd that the Firebender could talk about himself so. Especially given how little he’d spoken until now.
“You look disappointed,” Thapa said. “Did you want me to say it was chance? A spiritual blessing? Because it was neither. I took a big gamble on myself to get to this point.” He paused in contemplation before taking his next bite. “I mean, a lot of us who tried to develop this technique drowned.”
“Wait, what? Drowned?”
Thapa smirked as he chewed, taking his time now, as if speaking with his mouth full would be the rudest thing he could possibly do today. “I don’t think I benefit from telling you more,” he said. “Let’s talk about something else. Like the money you’re going to pay me.”
“We already discussed your compensation.” And it had been painful enough. The most crucial part of getting the assets to Bin-Er was Henshe’s promise to pay each of the Firebenders an outrageous sum. His debts had birthed children, an entire clan of their own. He was going to need to profit more than all of his predecessors combined to have a chance of coming out ahead.
I can do it, he’d reassured himself. Only he had the full measure of what was happening in Bin-Er. The shangs were holed up in their manors, heard the noise, saw the lights, but they still didn’t know the details of Unanimity. He alone held all the information.
“The situation’s changed since we last bargained,” Thapa said, puncturing his thoughts. “I can still tell what’s happening in the city from this room. I certainly can tell what’s going on with the Earth Kingdom troops I’ve been aiming at. And you, my friend, are in way over your head. You’re hanging on by your fingernails.”
Henshe didn’t like how he was being talked to. He wiped the sudden perspiration from his brow. “We have a deal,” he said, his voice coming out shakier than it should have.
“We had a deal. Let me guess what you were originally trying to do here. Once you had me and the other two in your possession, you were going to work out an arrangement with the shangs and the Earth Kingdom both, where you claimed a good chunk of the wealth in Bin-Er for yourself. You’d keep us a secret, and if anyone crossed you, bang!”
Thapa reached for another bun. “But for you to have a credible enough position, you’d need to show the people who you were bargaining with your power,” he said. “The way you’ve had us blasting away without end—it’s all been one big demonstration, hasn’t it? You can’t threaten someone with a weapon they don’t understand the effects of.”
“Congratulations,” Henshe snapped. “You know the basics of negotiation.”
“Yes,” Thapa said, grinning widely. “Which means I understand your position is worse now, not better. You’ve demonstrated that Yingsu, Xiaoyun, and I are the only force keeping the army of the Earth King camped outside the city from marching in here to discover your part in the whole enterprise. You’ve demonstrated to us that we control whether Bin-Er is open for business, not you or the shangs. Our value has taken a leap sky-ward, don’t you think?”
He tore into the soft bread. “I talked it over with the others before we started this little venture with you, in case we spotted an opportunity. Given what the Earth King would do to you if he knew the whole story, I think paying us our original price twenty-fold is good.”
Henshe staggered back a step. “Twe—twenty . . .” His foot hit a chair. “You want twenty times what we agreed upon?!”
Dark red bean paste spilled from the bun like entrails. Thapa shrugged. “To start.”
More sweat prickled down Henshe’s neck and back. Blood rose to his face. He felt a pounding in his ears from within.
He couldn’t bear that cost, not even in his most optimistic plans. And it wouldn’t stop at twenty. Once the Firebenders realized how desperate he was, it would go to fifty, a hundred-fold.
He was lost. Out of every direction his defeat could have come from, it was his own assets. His leverage turning against him.
Thapa finally finished his food. “I bet you thought you held all the tiles,” he said. “Funny thing about that. Once you play your tiles, you no longer hold them.”
Henshe thought he might explode himself. He imagined his innards covering the floor. Where had it all gone wrong? What law had been written into the cosmos that declared he should fail, where people just like him had received successes and riches out of their wildest dreams?
“Huh,” he said. The sound of his complete shattering. Huh.
He looked around the room. Behind him, there was a window that faced the interior of the city. He could think of only one thing large enough to break, to hurl, to smash.
“Agreed,” he said to Thapa. “Twenty times. You’ll get your money. But I realize we’ve overlooked one thing.”
“Oh?”
“We haven’t demonstrated how far we’re willing to go.” Henshe blinked slowly, calmly. “You were right. For the plan to work, I’d have to admit to some degree the explosions were happening under my direction. But so far, I’ve told you not to kill anyone. What good a threat is that?”
An outsized shriek for an outsized loss. This city had ruined him. He’d make a mark on it in return. “Without some bodies to count, people will think this was all just a warning from some angry spirits,” Henshe said. “Let’s draw some blood.”
Thapa’s interest was piqued. “Now you’re talking like a proper man on the brink. What should we take out?”
“Whatever you feel like. Whomever. Leave a toll.”
Thapa crossed over to the window facing the rest of Bin-Er and gazed into the distance. “Can’t see much from here, except for a lot of Water Tribe homes. A couple of wooden houses next to them. I’ll start with those.”
Henshe made a grunt of indifference.
The Firebender started breathing in, breathing out, forcing the air in his chest to comply with his will. Five, Henshe found himself counting, with a strange sort of giddiness. Ten. Twenty.
Thapa hit thirty breaths. This blast was going to be huge. There would barely be a Water Tribe Quarter left.
Forty. Forty? “What’s wrong?” Henshe asked, confused. “What are you holding back for?”
“I’m not.” The Firebender was sweating as badly as Henshe had been a few moments ago. The technique was taxing, certainly, but it wasn’t supposed to fail before the blast. “It’s like I can’t get enough air,” Thapa muttered. “I don’t know what’s . . . what happening . . .”
He backed away from the window, completely abandoning his buildup. He clutched at his throat. Henshe opened his mouth to comment, but as soon as he did his ears were stricken by a bout of uneven pressure. He jawed up and down, trying to relieve the swell. Thapa was saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear clearly.
Dizziness. His head spun. Edges of darkness crept around his vision. What in the name of the spirits was going on? It wasn’t just him; Thapa’s eyes were rolling back into his head, and his face had turned blue.
Henshe attempted to slump into the chair, landed short, his hips sliding off while he clung to the back for dear life. His breath was gone. His lungs had no strength to open. He fought for consciousness and succeeded long enough to watch Thapa keel over.
He felt more than heard the smack of the large man hitting the floor. Someone else must have detected it too, been waiting for it, because the moment after the Firebender collapsed, feet tromped up the stairs and into the room.
With them came air, sweeter than he could have believed. His ears popped and he could hear again, but he was too weak to do anything but hold on to the furniture, as if he’d drown without it. He looked up to see two Water Tribe men, one with a waterskin at the ready, a bender, and the other a giant even bigger than Thapa. While the Waterbender checked the corners of the room for hidden dangers, the huge man hefted Thapa over his shoulder and carried him away with one arm. He had only the one.
A young woman wearing a heavy cloak walked in. She crouched down and threw her hood back to reveal an orange collar, a blue arrow, and a familiar face. “Zongdu Henshe,” said the Avatar. “You’ve been busy since we last spoke.”
Henshe finally gave up his death grip on the chair. It slid away with a wooden screech. He collapsed and rolled over onto his back. “How did you know I was—how did any of this—” He summoned enough strength to hammer the back of his skull against the floor repeatedly. He wished he had the capacity to shout instead of wheezing impotently. “How? How?!”
The Avatar slid one hand under his head to protect him. “Trade secrets.”
