Despite being hairer than anything Mai had ever come across before, M Bison did not appear to be particularly bothered about the tropical
heat of the island that - as best she could tell - was the one Zuko had marked on the map. The sky bison had shed an astonishing amount of hair as they flew
through the equatorial regions, but had made not the least complaint more than he had done at the south pole. Then again, sky bison had apparently travelled
the world routinely with Air Nomads back in the day, so perhaps that indifference came naturally to his kind.
"This place reminds me of the swamp," Toph said as they set up camp on the beach. "Something about the
trees..."
Mai glanced around and then nodded. There were some similarities between these trees and the mangroves of the Foggy Swamp. Fortunately, the
ground seemed to be considerably more reliable. "If you get the chance, perhaps you can figure out Huu's trick of bending plants," she suggested.
"It could be useful if the buildings I saw from the air are this overgrown."
"That bad?" the younger girl asked. She could trace the roots of the trees through the soil inshore of the sands, but the leaves
and branches were far harder to make out at this distance.
"Bad enough." Mai finished unstrapping the saddle and stepped back to let M Bison work his way out of the heavy leather assembly.
Normally he would sleep while saddled allowing for a swift departure at need, but where possible Mai had been encouraged to give him the chance to rest or even
graze without it. Whatever they wound up doing on this island, the lack of population made it unlikely that they would need to depart in any sort of haste.
"I'm astonished the buildings were even visible, now that I get a closer look at these trees."
Toph used her earth bending to steepen the dunes around their campsite, sheltering them more from any winds. Between that and the mass of M
Bison, the only real risk was that of rain and Mai had brought canvas for that very reason, along with bamboo poles that could be used to suspend it above
them, warding that away from where they would sleep.
"What do you think you'll find here?" Mai asked as she laid out a fire pit. Tonights supper would not be as fine as that Fat
was no doubt serving to Piandao at this hour, but it would be warm and probably more edible than military rations in the armies of the Earth Kingdom and Fire
Nation.
"I'm not sure," admitted her sister. "Scrolls would probably have rotted away long ago, or simply be taken. But there will
be something here that will help with my fire bending."
Mai nodded, not voicing further doubts. "And then?"
Toph sat quietly for a moment. "Then I make war. It's summer now, not much more than two months before Sozin's Comet is in the
sky. When that happens, I need to have the Fire Lord and his soldiers focused entirely on something other that obliterating another nation. And the only thing
more pressing than that will be the Avatar."
"You've been thinking about it then?"
"Ever since I was playing Piandao at Pai Sho. Strategy, tactics, call it what you will. I need a plan that beats the Fire Lord's
plan and all the timing rests on -" and here Toph's voice grew amused "- something I'll be hard-pressed to notice without someone to tell me
it's in the sky."
"Do you have any candidates for that someone, little sister?" drawled Mai. She stepped back from the fire pit and Toph blew a plume
of fire over the driftwood that they had gathered. It lit up almost immediately and Mai placed the pot, already half filled with clean water from their
waterbags, on the fire to heat.
Toph grinned. "Let's keep it in the family," she proposed. "Older sister."
"What did you call me?" Mai asked, raising the ladle menacingly.
"The hearing is often the first thing to go. Have any of your hairs turned grey yet?"
.oOo.
It wasn't hard to believe that the city was thousands of years old, Mai thought as she and Toph entered its streets. Paving was cracked
and worn more by the elements than by human feet. The buildings, built to a somewhat truncated pattern, the walls angling in towards each other, wider at the
ground than the ceilings, suggested ancient building practises, as did the lack of any mortar holding them together. Nothing more than stones piled upon each
other. Mai suspected that any Sunwarriors not killed in the wars as they expanded their empire had migrated to more civilised settlements the first chance they
got, leaving nothing more than an empty capital when uprisings tore that nation apart.
Toph liked it, of course.
Rather than risk flying over something important, the two of them had elected to walk through the overgrown streets of the ruined city. Toph
had experimented with the trees as Mai hacked her way through the outer layers of the jungle, finding that under the canopy layer of the trees, there was much
less undergrowth. By the time they crossed the nebulous boundary between city and jungle, she was able to move aside at least the lighter growth, although they
still had to work around the heavier, more established trees.
"This place is a wreck," Mai observed.
Toph pushed another tree branch around so that they could progress further down an alleyway between two small buildings that were almost
certainly houses. "Let's be fair. Your room back in Omashu probably looks this bad and we've not even been gone a year."
The thought of her room in Omashu - a room that she'd hated the whole time she was there - sent an entirely unexpected pang of guilt
through Mai. Her mother had kept putting potted flowers there as id they would make it better. Of course, for all her supposedly love of plants, Mai's
mother didn't exactly have a green thumb. It wouldn't be at all unlike her to have forgotten all about them, leaving a maid to water them while they
grew until the entire room was consumed by green.
They crossed into a wider street and Toph turned towards the centre of the city. "There's something larger down that
way."
Mai squinted, trying to see past the trees. The buildings did seem higher there, although it might simply be a hill. "That would be
fairly near the centre of the city. I suppose important buildings would be there, and probably larger than these ones."
They turned and started walking down the street. For whatever reason, it seemed to be less cluttered. While trees still occupied parts of the
road, having forced their way through the paving, but unlike the narrower routes, there was almost always enough space for the two of them to go past without
Toph having to force the branches away or - as she had twice so far today - level a building to create a path.
"Stop." Toph held out an arm to block Mai from continuing.
The older girl looked down at her. "What's the matter?"
"I wondered what these were," Toph murmered, kneeling and pulling on a section of vine that crossed the road. Now that Mai saw it,
the way it hung was suspicious - just off the ground, around ankle height. A tripwire?
Toph yanked on it sharply and a sizeable section of paving immediately in front of her bare toes sank promptly, by about six inches. The
metal spikes that had been hidden between the paving didn't sink though. Mai could envisage someone tripping on the vine and tumbling face first into the
spikes. It wasn't a pleasent vision.
"That worked rather smoothly for something centuries old," she observed.
Toph exhaled slowly and made a pushing gesture before standing. "It's been maintained," she guessed. "Someone else is
here. Or has been, in the last few years." She stepped down, carefully placing her feet between the spokes as she crossed the depression. "I've
blocked this one, it's safe. But keep your eyes peeled. Where there's one trap -"
"- there are bound to be more."
.oOo.
The building at the centre of the city was further away than it had looked. It was also larger than Mai had realised at first, rearing up
over the city. Rather than a smooth, or at least regularly stepped exterior, it was a profusion of terraces and stairways. Every vertical surface was carved
and ornamental dragons were everywhere, interspersed in some depictions with firebenders but predominantly alone.
"Impressive," Toph conceded. "This must have taken forever to do."
"The great earth bender is impressed? Now I have seen everything."
Toph shook her head. "Sure, I could build something like this. But this isn't the work of an earth bender. Not even of an army of
earth benders. This was done by hand. That's quite a project. This must have been a palace or a temple of some kind."
Mai nodded. That made sense. She couldn't think of anything else that would occupy such a central and clearly important location.
"Let me guess. Anything important will be right at the top?"
"Either that or underneath it," Toph agreed. "And I can't feel any catacombs down there." She stamped her feet and
frowned.
"What's wrong?" A knife dropped into Mai's hand from sheer reflex.
"Something - maybe someone, maybe just an animal - moving in the distance." Toph sighed. "It's the right size for a
human... of course, I wouldn't be surprised if a place like this had giant monkeys wandering around."
"Apes."
"What?"
"Not giant monkeys, apes."
"Whatever." Toph set off up the steps and then paused as she felt another vibration through the stone. "That was
human feet. Lots of human feet. Up near the top of this thing!"
She set off running. Up the stairs, of course.
Mai smiled thinly and followed. She didn't let go of the knife though. Humans here might represent a link to the long dead sunwarriors,
to whatever secrets of firebending lore Toph had been directed here to find... but they were far more likely to represent a threat to her little sister. Or,
the world being what it was, both.
Toph's pace slowed as she came closer to the top. Not from exhaustion, although the climb - carried out under the sweltering heat - would
be wearisome for someone less energetic. Her concern - and that of Mai, whose longer legs made up for the fact that being post-pubescent she no longer had
limitless energy to work with - was of stealth.
The front of the pyramid projected forwards, creating a seperate building linked to the main structure by a bridge. The bridge was guarded.
The main structure - specifically the area at the other end of the bridge, previously shielded from their view - was occupied by firebenders. Quite a number of
firebenders, evenly divided between male and female. The latter was easy to tell, even at this distance, because -
"Does every hidden tribe in the world abhor clothing?" Mai asked under her breath, knowing that Toph would hear the words easily.
"First those swamp rats and now this lot."
"Well at least Yue's people wear clothes. I don't care how warm my island makes their city, they'd freeze without
them."
Mai chuckled, taking the measure of the two warriors at the near end of the bridge. Young and to judge by the spears, probably not fire
benders. Most benders didn't see the need for weapons other than their elements. "I imagine Zuko would be very happy if Yue did adopt the
practise." And that possibility didn't hurt any more, how about that?
"Why?" Toph asked with feigned innocence. Then again, nudity probably meant very little to her, Mai admitted privately.
Instead of answering, Mai looked at the benders. They were standing in a circle, passing flames - each in a stylised shape - around it. There
was presumably some significance in their eyes and Mai wondered who they were. Some long lost remnant of the Sunwarriors or a more modern cult who merely
imagined that they were? "What are they doing?"
"I'm not sure." Toph placed one hand against the stones, fingers spread. "I think we can get closer it we approach from
below the bridge."
Mai looked at the guards, neither of whom could possibly see anything that was directly beneath the bridge that they were standing upon, and
the firebenders, who seemed entirely absorbed in their ritual. "Alright. I take it that you have a route down to the base of the bridge?"
Toph smirked and placed her hands together before drawing them apart sharply. A pit opened directly beneath her and the girl dropped silently
through it. Mai sighed and hopped into it, what she hoped was a safe distance behind, discovering that the pit was actually the entry to a chute that seemed to
spiral around the inside of the pyramid. It was also very fast, reminding Mai entirely too much of Omashu's mail system, and pitch black. By the time she
reached the bottom, which thankfully levelled out a bit slowing her to the point that the landing at the bottom - on the paving beneath the bridge - wasn't
too noisy. Which wasn't the same as it being painless. Mai shot an irritated look at the back of Toph's head as the other girl opened a hole in the
first pillar supporting the bridge for them to walk through.
It only took a few moments to cross the divide, with Toph neatly closing up the holes behind them as leaving evidence of their presence would
be almost as bad as being spotted themselves. The murmer of voices above above them was clearer but Mai still couldn't make out any words.
"Do you think we should introduce ourselves?" Toph asked.
The corners of Mai's lips curved upwards. "I don't think they'd appreciate the interuption," she said. "And if we
do approach them, it might be best to be above them."
Toph nodded, a grin appearing her face. "Let's take the stairs," she suggested, slapping the wall in front of them.
"They're right here." The wall opened smoothly, revealing stairs that led a few yards up and inside the pyramid to bare earth. Once they were
inside, the wall closed up behind them and Mai followed her sister up the stairs, not concerned when they didn't walk into the earth she'd seen at the
head of the stairs as Toph extended the stair upwards ahead of them, closing it behind them as they ascended.
"Earth bending has it's uses," the knife-wielding fire maiden noted.
"It does," Toph agreed. "It's definitely the greatest of all four bending arts."
"Isn't the Avatar supposed to be about balance, and fairness between all four elements?" Mai asked.
"And that's why you know I'm being fair and unbiased."
Mai rolled her eyes in the darkness. "Of course you are. Well, sneaking around like this and avoiding a fight probably counts as helping
you with airbending philosophy at any rate. Now if you can figure out how to sense vibrations in the air, you'll be all set."
Toph chuckled from a step ahead of her. "Not really practical. Air's just too unstable for that to work."
"That's a shame," Mai conceded.
"It isn't totally useless," admitted Toph, "It's just too easily distorted to be relied on for anything more than
generalities." She stopped walking and Mai, unwarned, took another step upwards before she halted. Two steps ahead of them, the stairs halted, this time
against a stone wall she disovered, reaching forward to touch it with one hand. "Someone's sneaky."
Mai frowned. "What's on the other side of this?"
"A mechanism of some kind," Toph told her. "Pressure balanced stones, very complicated. I'm not sure what all of it does
but if I try to go through that I could set something off without meaning to."
"Such as?"
"Well," and Mai could have sworn she could hear Toph grinning, "There's a vat of some kind of gluey liquid.
Enough to fill a good-sized room. If that starts flooding into a confined space like this..."
Mai shuddered. "I take your point. So, do you think we can work around it?"
Toph started walking again and Mia followed up the last two stairs and then into a tunnel that led off to the right. "Probably the
simplest way is just to go around it," the earth bender decided. "There isn't anyone around the back of the pyramid right now, so we can just go
up onto the back terrace and climb up that side."
"It sounds like more traps like the one you found earlier," Mai observed. "Which raises the question of what's behind
them. Does this fill up all of the top of the pyramid?"
"No, there's a room up above," Toph told her. "Sealed up tight, stone doors and everything."
Mai considered. "Let's see what's up there," she suggested. "It could be important."
A few moments later Toph opened up the ceiling of their route, leaving Mai blinking at the sudden sunlight pouring through the opening. Toph
closed up the hole by simply raising the ground beneath them until they were standing on the terrace behind the upper levels of the pyramid. True to Toph's
words, there was no one in sight, which seemed odd to Mai, given the guards on the bridge leading to the Pyramid.
"The stairs are all on the other side," Toph told her when the older girl voiced her concerns. "They probably haven't seen
an earth bender in generations, as far away from everywhere as you told me this island is, and anyone else would find the sides of the pyramid almost
impassable." She raised steps leading up to the next terrace for the two of them, careful to use stone from the floor, not from the walls which might
suffer damage to their intricate carvings.
There were similar carvings upon the uppermost level of the pyramid. The apex was as large as a good sized house and capped by a dome, the
rear wall marked by two huge dragons carved in reliet, breathing fire towards the centre of wall where the shape of a human had been carved, engulfed in the
fiery wrath of both.
"How are you going to avoid damaging that?" Mai asked wryly.
Toph smirked and set her feet, taking a deep breath. A moment later and she swung the entire rear wall open like a huge door. "After
you, Spiky."
"Show off," Mai murmered and obediently walked inside, with Toph closing the wall behind them. The room within was lit via an
opening at the top of the dome that was covered only by a metal grid and while it was dimmer than the light outside, Mai found that a relief, her eyes still
adjusting from the darkness inside the pyramid. As it was, she almost gasped at the menacing shapes positioned around the room before realising that they were
merely statues and restrained herself from open reaction. "I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this isn't it," she admitted.
Toph stalked around the room's floor of interlocking red marble stones until she reached the opening in the circle of statues, by the
door. "The stones that move as part of the mechanism are all inside the circle," she told Mai as she entered the area, making it obvious that she was
avoiding certain slabs.
Mai looked at the statues. Each was of a man, face obscured by an gruesome mask, wearing the garb of an ancient Sun Warrior and probably one
of high stature to judge by the elaborate nature of the clothes and mask that had been sculpted. The two sides more or less mirrored each other, as far as she
could tell, each statue positioned in unstable looking poses that were either intended to look as foolish as possible or... well, it could be something to do
with bending perhaps. That looked fairly silly when there wasn't fire involved, and sometimes when it did.
"What do you think these are for?"
Toph looked up. "Some sort of fire bending form perhaps. It's also a key."
"A key?"
"The pressure plates are all aligned with where the statues stand. I'm pretty sure that it's activated by having two people
execute out the form at once, standing on each pressure plate in turn." Toph frowned and then pointed to the centre of the chamber. "Opening a
compartment there although I think there's more to it than that. Whoever came up with this was a mad genius."
Mai shrugged. "Well, are you going to open it up or do you want to approach the celebrants of that little festival
outside?"
"They're heading up the pyramid now," reported Toph before answering: "Let's wait for them. I wouldn't like
someone going through my super secret hiding places if I had any and we might be asking them for favours."
"Are you learning diplomacy, little sister?" asked Mai.
"I can be diplomatic when I want to. I just don't bother much," Toph said and shrugged.
.oOo.
Ham Ghao was proud to lead the procession of Sunwarriors up the pyramid towards their destination. Every year, a member of the tribe who had
distinguished himself was allowed the honour and this was the second summer solstice that he had been granted the right.
It didn't occur to Ham Ghao that the leader of the procession was the only man amongst them who didn't walk next to anyone. Or that
the rest of the tribe considered his smugness over the honour to be an entirely acceptable excuse not to have to walk alongside him for upwards of an hour,
listening to what the most sympathetic of ears in the tribe labelled as 'whining and bitching'.
They were nearing the end of the climb now, coming up on the archway that marked the top of the stairs, and the self-absorbed fire bender
noticed that the light from the sunstone was now tracking across the keystone to the ancient door that led into the Great Pyramid. Hastening his pace, Ham Ghao
led the procession towards the door, each line of Sunwarriors breaking away to form a circle around the lines laid out on the stones.
As they took position, the keystone reacted to the carefully focused and redirected sunlight; the stone doors slowly sliding open. Because
Ham Ghao had lingered to saver his position at the head of the group, he was the first one to see inside the sanctum.
There were two girls inside, facing the doors. Alive, in a chamber that had not been opened for a year. They were alike in appearance - pale
skinned with long dark hair in high ponytails, wearing burgundy dresses. Trespassing where even the sunwarriors, the heirs to the legacy of a thousand years of
the sacred art of firebending would hesitate to walk. One was clearly still a child in years, the other young but evidently a woman.
"Intruders!" Ham Ghao shouted in warning, calling fire to his hands.
But for the moment he did not attack. He was not unreasonable: the trespassers would be given a chance to surrender themselves.
Behind him, he heard gasps and the fire around his fingers wavered. Turning to look back Ham Ghao saw the light of the day begin to dim. In
the sky a black arc of the sun began to vanish, as if being devoured by some terrible beast.
"They've desecrated the sanctum!" he shouted, appalled and pointed through the door. "Kill them!"
Fire lashed out towards the startled pair.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
heat of the island that - as best she could tell - was the one Zuko had marked on the map. The sky bison had shed an astonishing amount of hair as they flew
through the equatorial regions, but had made not the least complaint more than he had done at the south pole. Then again, sky bison had apparently travelled
the world routinely with Air Nomads back in the day, so perhaps that indifference came naturally to his kind.
"This place reminds me of the swamp," Toph said as they set up camp on the beach. "Something about the
trees..."
Mai glanced around and then nodded. There were some similarities between these trees and the mangroves of the Foggy Swamp. Fortunately, the
ground seemed to be considerably more reliable. "If you get the chance, perhaps you can figure out Huu's trick of bending plants," she suggested.
"It could be useful if the buildings I saw from the air are this overgrown."
"That bad?" the younger girl asked. She could trace the roots of the trees through the soil inshore of the sands, but the leaves
and branches were far harder to make out at this distance.
"Bad enough." Mai finished unstrapping the saddle and stepped back to let M Bison work his way out of the heavy leather assembly.
Normally he would sleep while saddled allowing for a swift departure at need, but where possible Mai had been encouraged to give him the chance to rest or even
graze without it. Whatever they wound up doing on this island, the lack of population made it unlikely that they would need to depart in any sort of haste.
"I'm astonished the buildings were even visible, now that I get a closer look at these trees."
Toph used her earth bending to steepen the dunes around their campsite, sheltering them more from any winds. Between that and the mass of M
Bison, the only real risk was that of rain and Mai had brought canvas for that very reason, along with bamboo poles that could be used to suspend it above
them, warding that away from where they would sleep.
"What do you think you'll find here?" Mai asked as she laid out a fire pit. Tonights supper would not be as fine as that Fat
was no doubt serving to Piandao at this hour, but it would be warm and probably more edible than military rations in the armies of the Earth Kingdom and Fire
Nation.
"I'm not sure," admitted her sister. "Scrolls would probably have rotted away long ago, or simply be taken. But there will
be something here that will help with my fire bending."
Mai nodded, not voicing further doubts. "And then?"
Toph sat quietly for a moment. "Then I make war. It's summer now, not much more than two months before Sozin's Comet is in the
sky. When that happens, I need to have the Fire Lord and his soldiers focused entirely on something other that obliterating another nation. And the only thing
more pressing than that will be the Avatar."
"You've been thinking about it then?"
"Ever since I was playing Piandao at Pai Sho. Strategy, tactics, call it what you will. I need a plan that beats the Fire Lord's
plan and all the timing rests on -" and here Toph's voice grew amused "- something I'll be hard-pressed to notice without someone to tell me
it's in the sky."
"Do you have any candidates for that someone, little sister?" drawled Mai. She stepped back from the fire pit and Toph blew a plume
of fire over the driftwood that they had gathered. It lit up almost immediately and Mai placed the pot, already half filled with clean water from their
waterbags, on the fire to heat.
Toph grinned. "Let's keep it in the family," she proposed. "Older sister."
"What did you call me?" Mai asked, raising the ladle menacingly.
"The hearing is often the first thing to go. Have any of your hairs turned grey yet?"
.oOo.
It wasn't hard to believe that the city was thousands of years old, Mai thought as she and Toph entered its streets. Paving was cracked
and worn more by the elements than by human feet. The buildings, built to a somewhat truncated pattern, the walls angling in towards each other, wider at the
ground than the ceilings, suggested ancient building practises, as did the lack of any mortar holding them together. Nothing more than stones piled upon each
other. Mai suspected that any Sunwarriors not killed in the wars as they expanded their empire had migrated to more civilised settlements the first chance they
got, leaving nothing more than an empty capital when uprisings tore that nation apart.
Toph liked it, of course.
Rather than risk flying over something important, the two of them had elected to walk through the overgrown streets of the ruined city. Toph
had experimented with the trees as Mai hacked her way through the outer layers of the jungle, finding that under the canopy layer of the trees, there was much
less undergrowth. By the time they crossed the nebulous boundary between city and jungle, she was able to move aside at least the lighter growth, although they
still had to work around the heavier, more established trees.
"This place is a wreck," Mai observed.
Toph pushed another tree branch around so that they could progress further down an alleyway between two small buildings that were almost
certainly houses. "Let's be fair. Your room back in Omashu probably looks this bad and we've not even been gone a year."
The thought of her room in Omashu - a room that she'd hated the whole time she was there - sent an entirely unexpected pang of guilt
through Mai. Her mother had kept putting potted flowers there as id they would make it better. Of course, for all her supposedly love of plants, Mai's
mother didn't exactly have a green thumb. It wouldn't be at all unlike her to have forgotten all about them, leaving a maid to water them while they
grew until the entire room was consumed by green.
They crossed into a wider street and Toph turned towards the centre of the city. "There's something larger down that
way."
Mai squinted, trying to see past the trees. The buildings did seem higher there, although it might simply be a hill. "That would be
fairly near the centre of the city. I suppose important buildings would be there, and probably larger than these ones."
They turned and started walking down the street. For whatever reason, it seemed to be less cluttered. While trees still occupied parts of the
road, having forced their way through the paving, but unlike the narrower routes, there was almost always enough space for the two of them to go past without
Toph having to force the branches away or - as she had twice so far today - level a building to create a path.
"Stop." Toph held out an arm to block Mai from continuing.
The older girl looked down at her. "What's the matter?"
"I wondered what these were," Toph murmered, kneeling and pulling on a section of vine that crossed the road. Now that Mai saw it,
the way it hung was suspicious - just off the ground, around ankle height. A tripwire?
Toph yanked on it sharply and a sizeable section of paving immediately in front of her bare toes sank promptly, by about six inches. The
metal spikes that had been hidden between the paving didn't sink though. Mai could envisage someone tripping on the vine and tumbling face first into the
spikes. It wasn't a pleasent vision.
"That worked rather smoothly for something centuries old," she observed.
Toph exhaled slowly and made a pushing gesture before standing. "It's been maintained," she guessed. "Someone else is
here. Or has been, in the last few years." She stepped down, carefully placing her feet between the spokes as she crossed the depression. "I've
blocked this one, it's safe. But keep your eyes peeled. Where there's one trap -"
"- there are bound to be more."
.oOo.
The building at the centre of the city was further away than it had looked. It was also larger than Mai had realised at first, rearing up
over the city. Rather than a smooth, or at least regularly stepped exterior, it was a profusion of terraces and stairways. Every vertical surface was carved
and ornamental dragons were everywhere, interspersed in some depictions with firebenders but predominantly alone.
"Impressive," Toph conceded. "This must have taken forever to do."
"The great earth bender is impressed? Now I have seen everything."
Toph shook her head. "Sure, I could build something like this. But this isn't the work of an earth bender. Not even of an army of
earth benders. This was done by hand. That's quite a project. This must have been a palace or a temple of some kind."
Mai nodded. That made sense. She couldn't think of anything else that would occupy such a central and clearly important location.
"Let me guess. Anything important will be right at the top?"
"Either that or underneath it," Toph agreed. "And I can't feel any catacombs down there." She stamped her feet and
frowned.
"What's wrong?" A knife dropped into Mai's hand from sheer reflex.
"Something - maybe someone, maybe just an animal - moving in the distance." Toph sighed. "It's the right size for a
human... of course, I wouldn't be surprised if a place like this had giant monkeys wandering around."
"Apes."
"What?"
"Not giant monkeys, apes."
"Whatever." Toph set off up the steps and then paused as she felt another vibration through the stone. "That was
human feet. Lots of human feet. Up near the top of this thing!"
She set off running. Up the stairs, of course.
Mai smiled thinly and followed. She didn't let go of the knife though. Humans here might represent a link to the long dead sunwarriors,
to whatever secrets of firebending lore Toph had been directed here to find... but they were far more likely to represent a threat to her little sister. Or,
the world being what it was, both.
Toph's pace slowed as she came closer to the top. Not from exhaustion, although the climb - carried out under the sweltering heat - would
be wearisome for someone less energetic. Her concern - and that of Mai, whose longer legs made up for the fact that being post-pubescent she no longer had
limitless energy to work with - was of stealth.
The front of the pyramid projected forwards, creating a seperate building linked to the main structure by a bridge. The bridge was guarded.
The main structure - specifically the area at the other end of the bridge, previously shielded from their view - was occupied by firebenders. Quite a number of
firebenders, evenly divided between male and female. The latter was easy to tell, even at this distance, because -
"Does every hidden tribe in the world abhor clothing?" Mai asked under her breath, knowing that Toph would hear the words easily.
"First those swamp rats and now this lot."
"Well at least Yue's people wear clothes. I don't care how warm my island makes their city, they'd freeze without
them."
Mai chuckled, taking the measure of the two warriors at the near end of the bridge. Young and to judge by the spears, probably not fire
benders. Most benders didn't see the need for weapons other than their elements. "I imagine Zuko would be very happy if Yue did adopt the
practise." And that possibility didn't hurt any more, how about that?
"Why?" Toph asked with feigned innocence. Then again, nudity probably meant very little to her, Mai admitted privately.
Instead of answering, Mai looked at the benders. They were standing in a circle, passing flames - each in a stylised shape - around it. There
was presumably some significance in their eyes and Mai wondered who they were. Some long lost remnant of the Sunwarriors or a more modern cult who merely
imagined that they were? "What are they doing?"
"I'm not sure." Toph placed one hand against the stones, fingers spread. "I think we can get closer it we approach from
below the bridge."
Mai looked at the guards, neither of whom could possibly see anything that was directly beneath the bridge that they were standing upon, and
the firebenders, who seemed entirely absorbed in their ritual. "Alright. I take it that you have a route down to the base of the bridge?"
Toph smirked and placed her hands together before drawing them apart sharply. A pit opened directly beneath her and the girl dropped silently
through it. Mai sighed and hopped into it, what she hoped was a safe distance behind, discovering that the pit was actually the entry to a chute that seemed to
spiral around the inside of the pyramid. It was also very fast, reminding Mai entirely too much of Omashu's mail system, and pitch black. By the time she
reached the bottom, which thankfully levelled out a bit slowing her to the point that the landing at the bottom - on the paving beneath the bridge - wasn't
too noisy. Which wasn't the same as it being painless. Mai shot an irritated look at the back of Toph's head as the other girl opened a hole in the
first pillar supporting the bridge for them to walk through.
It only took a few moments to cross the divide, with Toph neatly closing up the holes behind them as leaving evidence of their presence would
be almost as bad as being spotted themselves. The murmer of voices above above them was clearer but Mai still couldn't make out any words.
"Do you think we should introduce ourselves?" Toph asked.
The corners of Mai's lips curved upwards. "I don't think they'd appreciate the interuption," she said. "And if we
do approach them, it might be best to be above them."
Toph nodded, a grin appearing her face. "Let's take the stairs," she suggested, slapping the wall in front of them.
"They're right here." The wall opened smoothly, revealing stairs that led a few yards up and inside the pyramid to bare earth. Once they were
inside, the wall closed up behind them and Mai followed her sister up the stairs, not concerned when they didn't walk into the earth she'd seen at the
head of the stairs as Toph extended the stair upwards ahead of them, closing it behind them as they ascended.
"Earth bending has it's uses," the knife-wielding fire maiden noted.
"It does," Toph agreed. "It's definitely the greatest of all four bending arts."
"Isn't the Avatar supposed to be about balance, and fairness between all four elements?" Mai asked.
"And that's why you know I'm being fair and unbiased."
Mai rolled her eyes in the darkness. "Of course you are. Well, sneaking around like this and avoiding a fight probably counts as helping
you with airbending philosophy at any rate. Now if you can figure out how to sense vibrations in the air, you'll be all set."
Toph chuckled from a step ahead of her. "Not really practical. Air's just too unstable for that to work."
"That's a shame," Mai conceded.
"It isn't totally useless," admitted Toph, "It's just too easily distorted to be relied on for anything more than
generalities." She stopped walking and Mai, unwarned, took another step upwards before she halted. Two steps ahead of them, the stairs halted, this time
against a stone wall she disovered, reaching forward to touch it with one hand. "Someone's sneaky."
Mai frowned. "What's on the other side of this?"
"A mechanism of some kind," Toph told her. "Pressure balanced stones, very complicated. I'm not sure what all of it does
but if I try to go through that I could set something off without meaning to."
"Such as?"
"Well," and Mai could have sworn she could hear Toph grinning, "There's a vat of some kind of gluey liquid.
Enough to fill a good-sized room. If that starts flooding into a confined space like this..."
Mai shuddered. "I take your point. So, do you think we can work around it?"
Toph started walking again and Mia followed up the last two stairs and then into a tunnel that led off to the right. "Probably the
simplest way is just to go around it," the earth bender decided. "There isn't anyone around the back of the pyramid right now, so we can just go
up onto the back terrace and climb up that side."
"It sounds like more traps like the one you found earlier," Mai observed. "Which raises the question of what's behind
them. Does this fill up all of the top of the pyramid?"
"No, there's a room up above," Toph told her. "Sealed up tight, stone doors and everything."
Mai considered. "Let's see what's up there," she suggested. "It could be important."
A few moments later Toph opened up the ceiling of their route, leaving Mai blinking at the sudden sunlight pouring through the opening. Toph
closed up the hole by simply raising the ground beneath them until they were standing on the terrace behind the upper levels of the pyramid. True to Toph's
words, there was no one in sight, which seemed odd to Mai, given the guards on the bridge leading to the Pyramid.
"The stairs are all on the other side," Toph told her when the older girl voiced her concerns. "They probably haven't seen
an earth bender in generations, as far away from everywhere as you told me this island is, and anyone else would find the sides of the pyramid almost
impassable." She raised steps leading up to the next terrace for the two of them, careful to use stone from the floor, not from the walls which might
suffer damage to their intricate carvings.
There were similar carvings upon the uppermost level of the pyramid. The apex was as large as a good sized house and capped by a dome, the
rear wall marked by two huge dragons carved in reliet, breathing fire towards the centre of wall where the shape of a human had been carved, engulfed in the
fiery wrath of both.
"How are you going to avoid damaging that?" Mai asked wryly.
Toph smirked and set her feet, taking a deep breath. A moment later and she swung the entire rear wall open like a huge door. "After
you, Spiky."
"Show off," Mai murmered and obediently walked inside, with Toph closing the wall behind them. The room within was lit via an
opening at the top of the dome that was covered only by a metal grid and while it was dimmer than the light outside, Mai found that a relief, her eyes still
adjusting from the darkness inside the pyramid. As it was, she almost gasped at the menacing shapes positioned around the room before realising that they were
merely statues and restrained herself from open reaction. "I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this isn't it," she admitted.
Toph stalked around the room's floor of interlocking red marble stones until she reached the opening in the circle of statues, by the
door. "The stones that move as part of the mechanism are all inside the circle," she told Mai as she entered the area, making it obvious that she was
avoiding certain slabs.
Mai looked at the statues. Each was of a man, face obscured by an gruesome mask, wearing the garb of an ancient Sun Warrior and probably one
of high stature to judge by the elaborate nature of the clothes and mask that had been sculpted. The two sides more or less mirrored each other, as far as she
could tell, each statue positioned in unstable looking poses that were either intended to look as foolish as possible or... well, it could be something to do
with bending perhaps. That looked fairly silly when there wasn't fire involved, and sometimes when it did.
"What do you think these are for?"
Toph looked up. "Some sort of fire bending form perhaps. It's also a key."
"A key?"
"The pressure plates are all aligned with where the statues stand. I'm pretty sure that it's activated by having two people
execute out the form at once, standing on each pressure plate in turn." Toph frowned and then pointed to the centre of the chamber. "Opening a
compartment there although I think there's more to it than that. Whoever came up with this was a mad genius."
Mai shrugged. "Well, are you going to open it up or do you want to approach the celebrants of that little festival
outside?"
"They're heading up the pyramid now," reported Toph before answering: "Let's wait for them. I wouldn't like
someone going through my super secret hiding places if I had any and we might be asking them for favours."
"Are you learning diplomacy, little sister?" asked Mai.
"I can be diplomatic when I want to. I just don't bother much," Toph said and shrugged.
.oOo.
Ham Ghao was proud to lead the procession of Sunwarriors up the pyramid towards their destination. Every year, a member of the tribe who had
distinguished himself was allowed the honour and this was the second summer solstice that he had been granted the right.
It didn't occur to Ham Ghao that the leader of the procession was the only man amongst them who didn't walk next to anyone. Or that
the rest of the tribe considered his smugness over the honour to be an entirely acceptable excuse not to have to walk alongside him for upwards of an hour,
listening to what the most sympathetic of ears in the tribe labelled as 'whining and bitching'.
They were nearing the end of the climb now, coming up on the archway that marked the top of the stairs, and the self-absorbed fire bender
noticed that the light from the sunstone was now tracking across the keystone to the ancient door that led into the Great Pyramid. Hastening his pace, Ham Ghao
led the procession towards the door, each line of Sunwarriors breaking away to form a circle around the lines laid out on the stones.
As they took position, the keystone reacted to the carefully focused and redirected sunlight; the stone doors slowly sliding open. Because
Ham Ghao had lingered to saver his position at the head of the group, he was the first one to see inside the sanctum.
There were two girls inside, facing the doors. Alive, in a chamber that had not been opened for a year. They were alike in appearance - pale
skinned with long dark hair in high ponytails, wearing burgundy dresses. Trespassing where even the sunwarriors, the heirs to the legacy of a thousand years of
the sacred art of firebending would hesitate to walk. One was clearly still a child in years, the other young but evidently a woman.
"Intruders!" Ham Ghao shouted in warning, calling fire to his hands.
But for the moment he did not attack. He was not unreasonable: the trespassers would be given a chance to surrender themselves.
Behind him, he heard gasps and the fire around his fingers wavered. Turning to look back Ham Ghao saw the light of the day begin to dim. In
the sky a black arc of the sun began to vanish, as if being devoured by some terrible beast.
"They've desecrated the sanctum!" he shouted, appalled and pointed through the door. "Kill them!"
Fire lashed out towards the startled pair.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.