II
Dawn hesitated to stretch its fingers over the labyrinthine streets of Ba Sing Se. As if Sozin's comet had shaken the skies and made them wary of any sudden movements, lest all should come crashing down upon the earth, the darkness lasted a few moments too long. Merchants and farmers who timed their days by the sun took notice and murmured superstitiously to themselves and the spirits.
Prison guards at the deepest levels of the city did not take notice. They were otherwise occupied, and quite frenzied with that occupation.
The breakout had happened some hours before the suggestion of dawn.
They used bending against him at first. He had expected that.
He had spent his time remembering, planning, instead of pacing his cell and trying, over and fruitlessly over, to feel the fire just out of reach. He rehearsed in his mind the earthbending moves that he would need to react to.
When the time came, there was no bending involved at all. The Earth Nation guard, green greaves and dark skin, set Ozai's tray of food down a bit too slowly. Then his hands, were no longer his own.
The former Fire Lord had no trouble with turning the wrist lock into a chokehold.Before the guard could earthbend, he had forgotten about his feet and was concentrating entirely on the red haze that was eating his vision. His breathing pinched off.
Ozai left the guard and paced down the hallway. His daughter was not in any of the stone-and-metal cells he passed. The earthbenders and old masters had been intelligent–there was no one nearby whom Ozai could by loyalty or intimidation make an ally.
There were only guards, to be made allies by death.
Some hallways smelled like dust, like rock, like ages. Others had air flowing in them, and these he followed, to yellow sunlight, and to the earthbenders who had been preparing for him ever since his weight left the stones of his cell.
The floor shook as miniature tectonic shifts turned it into a range of head-high cliffs and shards. Ozai ducked and ran through the obstacle course of rock-tents, making for the flesh-and-blood benders behind them. Pain filled a slash across his shoulder blades. Dust and peddles fell like rain. The rock-tents decreased in size as the benders peered around their traps and saw him coming through.
The corridor was filled with dust, with the creaking of rock. Ozai caught the last, the smallest rock tent, now more like an arrow to impale him, in his hands and jumped over it. Momentum fueled a kick that broke one earthbender's nose and sent the man reeling into another. The sight of wide eyes and paled faces charged the lightning of his anger--The earthbenders scattered as Ozai neared them, but the clicking and huffing sounds that he could hear from a perpendicular corridor proved to him that they had more plans to prevent his escape. He searched the walls and found a torch, like those that were used for illumination in all the halls.
Oh how opportune, that they had thought he would not again consider fire.
He reached up to wrest the torch from its socket just as another guard appeared around the corner, behind the hissing head and riding the lurching flanks of a tall eelhound.
Purpose drove Ozai. Ever since he had had the strength only to tell the Avatar's friends that he was still alive, revenge had been stewing in him, wiping away thoughts of family and consequence (what family was there now? What Fire Nation? Azula as good as dead–he had hoped the war would kill her–Zuko was taking the world into a soft era.) Rallying a war was a far-away, challenging step. Even if Ozai did one day rally allies, those remembering the glory of the Fire Nation, those looking down on the primitive Earthbenders and Waterbenders...such plans would distract him from his true, first goals.
Retrieve his fire-power, and kill the Avatar.
Kill Aang not in a showdown, but in the night, in his sleep, by whatever means necessary. That did not matter. The inglorious defeat demanded vengeance.
Demanded it, because deep in himself where he did not want to tread, Ozai knew that the world was tired of the Fire Nation, that they preferred to be ruled by children, that they would challenge him at every turn...but if he accepted that, he would have naught to do but die.
He had not listened to his soft son's words about learning.
He had not responded to his soft son's words about Ursa.
He did not know where she had gone, when he had, like everyone else in the murderous political circles of Azulon's time, thought she was dead. He could not say why he doubted the veracity of that death, even if he had mourned her, even if he had never seen her walk away–
The eelhound in the tunnel plunged its green-gray head toward him, and he held the torch in one hand. When that stinking, toothy mouth almost brushed against his skin, he ducked beneath the creature's muscled neck and swept the torch across the creature's reins and the guard's skirts.
They never expected him to use fire this way.
The guard's clothes caught, and as the man panicked, batting at the fire with his calloused hands, Ozai found a foothold on the eelhound's shoulder, dropped the torch, grasped the guard by his lapels, and slammed the frantic man to the floor. As the guard rolled–into the torch, Ozai hoped–Ozai took the eelhound's reins. No matter how loyal the beast was—he wrestled it around by its bit.
His elbow was scorched. Pain washed through it on the wake of his heartbeats, and he had never felt anything quite like this.
The eelhound bucked and huffed, but the corridor was narrow and it had been trained to follow its rider's commands. He propelled it up a sloping hallway.
The next wave of guards were sleepy. Many were trampled. Ozai ripped another torch off the wall as it hurtled past.
He did not stop at the gates of the underground section of the prison. The eelhound barged through them, into the cool air and dim starlight. The torch arced through the air and set a thatch-roofed guard shack alight.
Predictably, the prison staff occupied themselves with being sure that anyone asleep in the guard shack was rescued from the blaze, before chasing their prisoner.
The eelhound burst through the second gate. Ozai was in the open now, in the streets of history-laden Ba Sing Se, but his mount sunk to its recurved knees, shaking its head. It must have
been hurt by one of the gates.
No matter. Ozai knew that it was stealth that was needed now. He took to the streets and ran.
For a few moments it was like a nightmare of pursuit, twisting allies and low fences, darkness and people's unwary backyards.
Finally he found an appropriate patch of ground, in a park seeded with grass. He sat down, unexpectedly weary. He had been imprisoned for less than a week, but the difference between gruel and the rich, healthy food he had been used to had taken some toll.
But he ignored weakness as best he could, and began to chant, softly under his breath. Under the shadow of trees, quick syllables whispered into the cool darkness fell like seeds.
He hoped that they would grow a demon.
Fire Nation royalty had long held an affinity for half-magical creatures. Rare dragons were venerated by firebenders, but partially the reverse held true. And somewhere down in the press of years, a Fire Lord had taught his progeny a secret that they would pass down through the generations, a true secret, a true conspiracy unused in war because it was too dangerous.
Ozai feared the spell too, but not enough to stop him from calling the one being which might prove a true ally—the Face-Stealer.
An old spirit, a hungry one, hungry for emotions and flesh and a semblance of form beyond creeping centipede-legs and amphibian-sheen, Koh could be called from the spirit world if one intoned correctly. If one did not lose one's visage to him, one could ask for information. Koh, it was said, knew more about any world than any spirit.
When the final syllable sunk into the air, the ground split open.
Koh looked like a woman's mask, lying on the grass, innocent and fake.
Ozai knew the myth: to show emotion in front of Koh is to die by his claw. It did not trouble him. "Face-Stealer", said Ozai, "I have a bargain for you. Help me to regain the firebending that the Avatar has taken from me, and you may have your pick of his friends' faces."