The Tower of Silver Dreams

An Adventure of Zuko in Ba Sing Se

by

Jeremy Harper

"There is a fabulous fortune here, Taurus," Conan whispered; but the Nemedian answered impatiently, "Come on! If we secure the Heart, these and all other things shall be ours."

Robert E. Howard

The Tower of the Elephant

Chapter 1 – Thieves Cant

Zuko watched the two men entering the tea house warily, for they looked sorely out of place. Pao's Tea House attracted a respectable clientele for a Lower Ring establishment – even more so since word of the quality of Iroh's tea had spread – and the two men looked anything but respectable. They were dirty and unkempt, with suspicious eyes and scarred faces. Both wore long knives in battered leather scabbards openly on their belts, their hands staying close to the hilts. The larger of the two had his nose and ears pierced with steel studs, while tattooed snakes and scorpions crawled on the smaller one's bare arms. They glanced around the tea room, near empty since the lunchtime rush was over, then took a table off in a corner away from any customers. The few other patrons stared at the men with obvious trepidation, looking quickly away when glared at. One finished his tea with a huge swallow, placed copper cash on the table and hastily left.

Zuko leaned to Iroh, who was mixing fresh blends behind the counter. "Uncle," he whispered, "I don't like the looks of those two."

Iroh glanced up, spotted the men, and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Even bad men can enjoy tea," he whispered back. "Still, it would not hurt if you kept an eye on them. Just try not to get involved in another brawl – the incident you had with that Earth Kingdom boy last week upset Master Pao greatly."

Zuko grimaced but said nothing. He approached the men and sketched a polite bow. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. What may I get for you?" They looked up and started at the sight of his scar. The larger man sneered.

"Earth King's balls," he said, "aren't you an ugly one. What happen, someone throw tea in your face?"

Zuko's eyes narrowed angrily. "You want something, or did you come here to practice your alleged wit?" he snapped back. The larger man gave out a barking laugh. "Shut up, Han," said the smaller man. "Give us two cups of black and some biscuits, boy." Zuko nodded.

Han was not through yet. "You spit in our tea, I'll gut you like a fish. Understand, One-Eye?" Zuko glared ferociously at him, his left hand reaching underneath his apron; he deliberately wore it off-center to conceal the dao he wore on his hip. Han noticed the motion and grinned at Zuko as he reached for his long knife, revealing twin rows of decaying and broken teeth.

"Shut up, Han," said the smaller man with greater force. He glanced up at Zuko uneasily. "Go get our order, boy." Zuko continued to glare at Han; only the feel of Iroh's eyes on his back restrained him from drawing his dao and having at the lout. He nodded once, turned on his heel and walked stiffly to the counter to place the order. As he did so he concentrated on catching anything the men said – the tea room was quiet and his hearing was exceptionally sharp, a trait that benefited him on more than one occasion.

"Damn it, Han," muttered the smaller man with heat. "What the Hell is your problem? We don't need you picking fights right now."

"Just having fun with the freak, Ying Ko," Han answered back, not bothering to lower his voice. "I don't want to be in this stinking place anyhow. I want some rice beer down at Mama Orchid's."

Ying Ko looked at his companion sourly. "I have no idea how as good a thief as you can be so damn blind. You see how that kid moves? He knows how to fight, and he looks like he can do it well."

Han shrugged. "He's just some burnt freak refugee scum. He starts something with me, I'll kick his damn head in." The men fell silent as Zuko returned with their order. Han leered up at him. Zuko practically threw their tray on the table, causing biscuits to spill and aromatic black tea to splatter. Han opened his mouth, only to close it quickly at a quelling glare and slashing gesture from his friend. Zuko stalked to the other side of the room and started angrily wiping down a table. Three other customers departed.

The two men did not speak for a few minutes. Zuko stayed away from them, busying himself with cleaning tables, collecting payment and seeing to the other patrons' needs, using these activities to keep his emotions in check, transforming hot rage to cold anger. He also kept his distance to make the men think he was too far away to overhear their conversation. He wanted to know what brought them to Pao's. Finally they began to talk in low whispers.

Han smeared jelly and cream on a biscuit, wolfed it down in a single bite and gulped his tea. He made a face. "Ying Ko, why are we here? I want liquor, damn it, not hot leaf juice. Also I think Fat Ass Suri should be off the rag by now, and I could use a -"

"Shut up, Han," said Ying Ko. "We're here because I have news. Big news, and I don't want any of our friends to catch wind of it."

"All right, what is it?"

"Yaran has sent away his personal guard – all of them except for a half-dozen of his best."

"What? Why? Where you hear this?"

"From what I understand Yaran wants his privacy for some complicated ritual he's conducting. Something concerning the moon. As for who told me, you don't know him. He works in the Temple District and his word is good. Anyway, he isn't important. What matters is that the Tower of Silver Dreams is practically unguarded."

"Are you insane?" Han hissed. "You want to steal from Yaran?"

"Why not? He has more gold than the Fortune of Wealth – you've seen the way he outfits his henchmen. Besides, there's also the Wand. We get a hold of that and the world will be ours."

"That's a fairy tale."

"You think that Yaran is a sorcerer, yet you don't believe in the Wand of Silver Dreams?"

"Hell yes I think he's a sorcerer. So do you, Ying Ko, and so does anyone living in Ba Sing Se with half a damn brain. Long Feng himself is afraid of Yaran, and you want to try to break into his stronghold to look for an opium dream? Thousand Gods!"

The two men fell silent as Zuko walked past to place an order of ginseng tea. When he left to serve the order, Ying Ko asked, "How do you explain the Tower being built in one night, if the Wand doesn't exist? Or how he's lived over a century and hasn't aged a day? Not even the most powerful Benders preserve so well."

Han shrugged impatiently. "He's a sorcerer. He probably sold his soul to some Infernal in exchange for youth and power. If we're lucky it'll come to drag him to Hell soon. Besides, if the Wand can do all the stories say, then why hasn't he made himself Earth King or something?"

"Like you said, he's a sorcerer. They don't think the same way real men do... Practical men, like you and I."

"I'm practical enough not to risk my life crossing a man that makes the Dai Li piss themselves."

Ying Ko sneered. "Never thought you a coward, Han. The biggest opportunity to ever come along, and you're too afraid to grab it. Even if you're right and the Wand doesn't exist, there's enough treasure in the Tower to make our fortune ten times over. You want to die an old thief or a rich thief?"

Han said nothing for a long moment, just staring at Ying Ko. "I heard Yaran has more than men guarding the Tower."

"We're the two best thieves in Ba Sing Se. Man, spirit or demon, no one can catch us." Han did not answer, instead glared down into his tea cup, and the two men spoke no further. They finished their tea and biscuits, paid their bill without tipping, and left. Zuko watched them go, his golden eyes thoughtful.

Zuko was still brooding over the thieves' conversation when Jin appeared toward closing time. The young woman gave him a happy wave and a big smile as she took a seat, which he returned with a somewhat restrained smile of his own. He honestly liked Jin – one would have to have no fire in his heart not to like her. She was pretty and had a cheerful, optimistic demeanor at odds with the hard life that was the lot of the denizens of the Lower Ring. And the memory of her lips against his was very sweet. Yet despite his natural attraction Zuko was wary of her. To let himself grow closer to her felt like a form of surrender, a foreswearing of the ambitions that had driven him the past three years. There was another reason, too, for his reticence. He reached up and briefly touched the small pebble he always tried to keep close to his heart. Still, he had no good reason to be unfriendly, and in truth did not want to be. He took her usual order of jelly cookies and sweet jasmine tea and when he brought it he lingered to talk.

Jin told him about her day and the interesting new refugees she had seen and was starting to drop broad hints that she would be interested in having another date with him when Zuko interjected. "Jin, you've lived in Ba Sing Se all of your life, right?"

"Pretty much."

"Do you know anything about the Tower of Silver Dreams?"

Jin's pretty green eyes widened. "Where did you hear of it?"

"Two customers were talking about it this early afternoon. It sounded, uh... interesting."

"It's not," she said earnestly. "It's a terrible place." Zuko looked at her closely. Her smile had vanished and a gleam of fear shone in her eyes.

"Why so?"

"It's the home of Yaran. Anyone with any sense is afraid of him."

Zuko digested this for a moment. "The men talking about it said he was a sorcerer."

Jin nodded. "He is. It's said that he's over a century old, but looks like a man in his forties. And he built his tower in one night out of stone that does not exist anywhere near Ba Sing Se. He summoned it out of his thought, using the Wand of Silver Dreams."

"What's that?"

"An artifact that increases his power a hundred fold. He supposedly traded his soul and the soul of the woman he loved to a King of Hell in exchange for it." Jin grimaced and took a sip of tea. "It's a horrible story. All the stories about Yaran are horrible."

"What kind of stories have you heard?"

"People passing by the Tower at night have vanished without a trace. Strange sounds can be heard from it at all hours – he consorts with demons, and has dark spirits bound to his will." She paused for a moment. "He also killed the Earth King's grandfather. King Ku had summoned Yaran to court to demand an accounting of the sorcerer's activities. Yaran just looked at him, and the Earth King fell over dead, blood streaming from his nose and mouth."

Zuko looked at Jin, rubbing his jaw in thought. "The Tower is in the Temple District. That's in the Middle Ring, right?"

Jin nodded. "Please don't go there. Even if the stories I've heard are just stories, it's not healthy to be curious about it." She gave Zuko a pleading look. "Could we talk about something else, Li? Please?"

"Okay," he said, giving her a small smile. They chatted until closing time, but after she left he returned to his brooding contemplations.

The Tower of Silver Dreams and the Wand that legend said had erected it continued to dominate Zuko's mind the next day. Several times he tried to dismiss it as foolish local legends – stories told for no better purpose than to induce juvenile fright, yet despite his rationalizations he could not let it go. What Ying Ko had said kept echoing through his thoughts: Get a hold of the Wand and the world will be ours. Ridiculous. A fairy tale even more preposterous than stories of dragon pearls and enchanted salt mills. Yet it was a seductive fairy tale – if Yaran had used this Wand to construct his tower in one night, what else could it do?

Zuko was sullen and introspective his entire shift at Pao's, speaking only in grunts and monosyllables. Both Pao and Iroh chastised him about his rudeness several times, but he ignored them. No doubt Pao would have fired him if not for how highly the tea shop owner valued his new tea brewer. On their walk home to their apartment Iroh kept giving him sad, reproachful looks, but he did not notice. Once home, he sat on his futon thinking for a few minutes before rising. "Uncle, I'm going out for a while. Don't wait up."

Iroh looked up from his cup of jasmine and the broadsheet he was perusing. "Oh?" He smiled. "Another date with Jin?"

"No!" Zuko snapped with a sharp shake of his head. "I just feel restless. I need to stretch my legs and get some air."

"All right," said Iroh in a placating tone. "Don't stay out too late." Zuko grunted as he caught up his sword belt, buckling it on before stalking out. He aimlessly wandered the streets around the apartment for a time, head bowed in thought, scowling as he tapped his palm against the pommel of his dao. Without meaning to he arrived at the Firelight Fountain and there paused, looking about. The area was deserted and the lanterns were again unlit. Zuko's scowled softened and he folded his arms across his chest. He breathed in deeply, finally coming to a decision. "It wouldn't hurt to just look," he muttered softly. He turned away from the fountain and made his way to the closest monorail station.

The Temple District was the largest ward in the Middle Ring, rivaled only by the grounds of the University of Ba Sing Se. People from all levels of society congregated here to pay homage to their patron gods, for each one of the Thousand Gods of the Earth Kingdom were represented here, their temples ranging in size from humble single chamber structures of wood and plaster to sacred pagodas the size of small castles, blindingly tiled in gold and silver. All gods were given honor here, no matter how low they stood in the Celestial Hierarchy. There were even shrines dedicated to the more prominent Spirits of the Earth Kingdom. Despite the late hour the District had much foot traffic, for many of the temples held night services. As he strode amongst the shrines and temples Zuko could not help feeling a patrician disdain for the riot of often dubious divinities the people of the Earth Kingdom worshiped. The religion of the Fire Nation was by far more pristine and elegant; though several spirits, saints and heroes were venerated, the children of Fire bent knee to only one god – Agni, the Lord Sun, Excellent Master of the Sacred Flame. From ash Agni breathed strength and life into man, and to ash man returned. This is what Zuko believed, a faith beautiful in its simplicity, and thus he found it easy to ignore the beauty that surrounded him – the graceful shrines, the harmonious voices singing hymns and chanting sutras, the mellow tones of bronze gongs and dulcet chimes of silver bells – as he methodically made his way through the orderly streets searching for the Tower of Silver Dreams. He did not stop to ask for the way, for he did not wish to draw attention to himself, and he figured anyone he broached the subject to would be reluctant to give an answer.

Finally he found the Tower, standing alone with no temples within a hundred yards of it, the streets winding reluctantly around it illuminated only by moonlight and starlight diffused by the clouds hanging thick in the night sky. Smooth and featureless, wrought from stone that shimmered like burnished silver, it rose some two-hundred feet into the air, the tallest structure within sight, dwarfing and diminishing all temples near it with its size and splendor, a great argent cylinder that seemed too delicate to remain standing, yet miraculously did. Zuko looked upon it in wonder, understanding now why people gave credence to the story of its creation; whatever craft that had built it was one far more subtle than brute Earthbending.

A curtain wall some twelve feet high surrounded the Tower grounds. Zuko quietly made way toward it, crouching down in its shadow. He waited a span, listening for the footfalls of sentries. He heard nothing. He stood and jumped up, catching the coping of the wall and silently hauled himself up to lay flat on the wall and survey the grounds. Off to his right was a second, inner wall encircling the Tower proper. He spotted its gate, but saw no sign of any guards. From the gate a straight path cobbled with pearlescent white stones cut through the huge, well-manicured grounds, leading to the gate set in the outer wall. Halfway between the two gates, along the side of the path opposite of him, a wooden scaffold had been erected. Two figures depended from its lintel.

Zuko frowned. He scanned the grounds one last time for watchmen before dropping cat-like from the wall and walking to the scaffold. No one raised a hue and cry, and in truth he now expected none, at least here in these outer grounds. Obviously no guards were stationed here. He stopped when he reached the cobbled path, careful not to step on it, and stared up at the corpses of the thieves Han and Ying Ko, hanging naked and unlovely. Their faces were contorted in agony, their skin colored red from dried blood, their flesh blackened from bruises and contusions.

"I guess you're not the best thieves in Ba Sing Se after all," Zuko whispered. He looked down from the sight, pinching the bridge of his nose. Melancholy fell over him, the natural reaction of any healthy man when confronted with such ugly death. He felt stupid coming here, courting needless trouble because he was foolish enough to take heed of peasant myths. He should leave now before his bad luck brought that trouble down on his head. He lifted his head to take one last look at the Tower.

The clouds had parted, revealing a full moon against the black enormity of the night sky. Its radiance poured down on the Tower, seeming to set it ablaze with a witch fire of silver light, sinisterly beautiful. Suddenly Zuko's melancholy dropped away from him, and in its place emerged a strange, dangerous mood, wild and fey. All doubts, all thoughts of returning to the apartment and Iroh, vanished, replaced with the overwhelming urge to challenge the dangers of the Tower of Silver Dreams, to plunder its treasures and its secrets.

Zuko stalked towards the inner wall.