Avatar: The Heir of Ban

Chapter 1: The Mountain Master's Son

Part 2

"He's got a knife!" Wu yelled, referring to the already lifeless body from which he was removing his kukri. Wu had apparently just leapt across the room and drawn his weapon before Ti Xi even realized he had done it. The room exploded in shouting and fighting between the two gangs. Wu lunged at another attacking Du member. Ti Xi was stunned for just an instant, but momentarily he cut down an attacker, kicked another coming at him from behind, and threw his knife into a third. He began earthbending, and between him, Wu, and the rest of his men, all the Du members had been killed or fled within a few minutes.

Ti Xi counted his casualties. "Seventeen," he panted, and then he swore at himself. Although he recognized the necessity of it in his line of work, Ti Xi never liked losing men. Seventeen was pretty far above the normal losses for this sort of raid. "That's too many," Ti Xi said. He swore again and clenched his fists, creating small fissures in the ground at his feet. "Why did you do that?" he yelled at Wu. "I was trying to make a deal!"

Wu glared at Ti Xi but said nothing. He walked a few paces over to Jungshi's corpse and knelt next to it. He pulled back the body's sleeve, revealing some sort of strange gauntlet with a knife extending from it. The Du boss had been stalling, trying to get Ti Xi off-guard so he could stab him. And the Du always poisoned their blades. Even a scratch would have killed Ti Xi. "I saved your life," Wu told him.

Ti Xi was slightly taken aback, but at the moment he had more important things to think about. "Forget it. We'll discuss this later," Ti Xi told Wu. "Everybody outta here!" he called out to the men. He knew the rest of the Du would be out for blood when they found out their boss was dead. "Back to Ban turf!" he ordered.

This time Ti Xi and his men ran, rather than marched, back to their territory. He, Wu, and his other earthbending lieutenants made it back to the inner wall just as dawn broke. They earthbent a door in it and soon they were running through the gates of the Ban compound. When they were safely back on his property, Ti Xi finally stopped running and leaned on his knees, panting. Wu did the same.

"You shouldn't…have killed him," Ti Xi panted at Wu. "Not…like that."

"What should I…have done?" Wu replied. "He was going… to kill you."

"When you attacked…our men were caught…off guard! It's your fault we lost so many!"

"No!" the one-eyed man shot back at his friend as both men began to regain their breath. "I said it looked like a trap, but you went in anyway. What did you think would happen?" Wu did his best to reign in his anger, out of respect for his boss, but he was not very successful. They continued their argument as they walked through the dewy garden up towards the main house. "You have to stop thinking you can fix this city, Ti Xi. It's nothing but one big, worthless garbage pit! It was a pit before you were born, and it'll be a pit after you're dead!"

"The point is, you disobeyed your Mountain Master. You knew the plan was to avoid a fight and you outright assaulted the Du boss. That's a violation of your oath," Ti Xi said, sliding open the shoji for Wu. He paused, wearing a cold, stern look on his broad face. "I would be within my rights if I chose to kill you right now."

Wu looked at his boss with his one green eye. The moment was as heavy as a stone.

"Forget it," Wu said. "What's done is done." He stepped inside, and Ti Xi followed him. Without saying anything else, Wu stalked upstairs to his quarters. Lucky Cho, the clan's bookish accountant, followed at Wu's heels, yapping inquiries about the details of the raid.

Ti Xi, too tired to walk up to the master bedroom, sank onto a couch in the foyer and soon fell asleep. Ti Xi liked his sleep, and it was a joke among his men that he could sleep anywhere.

Ban Ti Xi laid low for the next few months. He did not leave his compound and did not mobilize his men, for fear of reprisals by the Du clan. Most of the rest of the world had currently become distracted by the news that Avatar Maiara of the Southern Water Tribe had just passed away, and a new Avatar would soon be born into the Earth Kingdom, but the Hei Chaoliu clans did not care about such things. The Du would certainly still be planning their revenge. Ti Xi spent most of the time sparring with his men in the courtyard, while One-Eyed Wu looked over the clan's financial records. He came to Ti Xi with unnerving news he had discovered.

"Look at this!" he said, bursting out of the back door to the main house with a scroll in his hand. Ti Xi quickly knocked down his last two opponents in order to turn his attention to his retainer. Wu didn't even pause. He threw open the scroll. "Here, look at these numbers. Look how much money we spent preparing the raid last week! And we didn't even capture the territory! Dà gē, you can't keep running the clan like this!"

Ti Xi just looked at the scroll and shook his head at his cyclopic colleague. "Wu, we have to make the public view us as a good influence on the community." He walked over to the bowl on the table and popped a betel nut in his mouth. "If we had captured that neighborhood all those people would be doing their business exclusively with us. As long as we treat the public well, they'll continue to do business exclusively with the Ban clan."

"I understand that, Ti Xi, but we're a crime syndicate. Do you think we're righteous bandits in a marsh or something, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor? You can't be a Mountain Master and a philanthropist," Wu admonished him. "You counted our losses last week yourself. Can you at least think about being a little more pragmatic?"

Ti Xi spoke calmly, but there was anger on the edges of his voice. "I protect my clan brothers. Don't imply otherwise. And I am the leader of this clan." Ti Xi narrowed his eyes. "So offer advice if you want, but I decide how this clan will operate. Period." Another Chaoliu boss might have killed such an insubordinate underling, but Ti Xi and Wu were friends, and had known each other for years. Ti Xi trusted him and valued his input, but this argument had been coming up between them a lot.

He was about to speak, but at that moment he heard a knock at the compound's main door. Ti Xi nodded to a low-ranking retainer, who moved to open the door. It swung open and standing there was Xin Kao, finally returned from Bian Se Long. He was holding something wrapped in a yellow blanket.

"Kao?" Ti Xi asked, turning toward the doorway.

"Mountain Master," Kao entered the courtyard, "I present to you the heir of Ban," Kao smiled, handing Ti Xi a sleeping baby boy.

The suddenness of this new arrival set off quite a bit of whispered chattering among the other retainers present, especially since none but Kao and Wu had even known Ti Xi was expecting.

Ti Xi, seemingly stupefied by the novelty of so suddenly having a clan heir to care for, unconsciously let his jaw hang slack as he took the child from his friend. The little round-faced baby yawned peacefully.

"Have you chosen a name?" Kao asked.

Ti Xi looked at his friend, then back at his son. He thought. "Zhengyi," he said finally. "Ban Zhengyi…my heir."

"So, who's the mother?" Wu grinned mischievously, craning his neck to get a look at the kid.

Ti Xi laughed. "I don't kiss and tell."

Wu understood the practice of clan heads keeping the identities of their wives, mistresses, or offspring secret from other clans. Anyone close to a clan head became possible targets for rival clans. In addition, Hei Chaoliu families were like royal families in many respects, one of which was the ability to use intermarriage for diplomacy. Of course, that was mostly academic with Ti Xi. He was too much of a philanderer to keep to one woman, even if she was the mother of the clan heir. He's probably hiding her from his other girlfriends around the city as much as from the Du or Tong, Wu thought with a grin Wu still wondered why Ti Xi couldn't let his own second-highest lieutenant at least know who she was. But if Ti Xi hadn't told him by now, he wasn't going to.

"There is, uh, something else you should know, Mountain Master," Kao said. "I have reason to believe your son was born within moments of Avatar Maiara's death." If anyone in Ti Xi's employ cared to keep track of when the previous Avatar had died, it was Kao. Although he had been born poor and was forced to become a gangster out of necessity, he was still a spiritual person and tried to help Ti Xi enforce a code of honor in his clan. He was a devotee of one of the main Earth spirits, Jian Lao, and his sister was a nun at a nearby abbey dedicated to that spirit. "As you know, there are hundreds of candidates every time a new Avatar is born…but it is possible that this child is the next Avatar."

"Incredible!" Wu said. An heir to the clan was one thing, but this news really set off a din of conversation among the men.

"I'm already in touch with an old spiritualist friend of mine," Kao explained, "but the child can't be tested until he's a few months old, when he can crawl on his own."

"Ah, don't get excited," Ti Xi said, looking over his shoulder at his men. "I'm just glad he's healthy. I mean, do you really think the universe would allow the next Avatar to be born the son of a crime boss?" he laughed.

Ti Xi spent the next long while playing with his new baby, apparently quite glad of the diversion from the usual sordid Hei Chaoliu business. Of course, when it came time to feed, burp, and change the baby, Ti Xi was just as glad to delegate the task to Kao. But then, what good are retainers if you don't use them?

Things went on this way for another few months, until Zhengyi was about seven months old. During the day, Ti Xi left Zhengyi in the care of the wife of one of the clan officers who lived at the compound so that he could go back to business as usual. Ti Xi usually had an audience with his liaison officer, whose job was to bring the boss messages from his customers or other clans in the city. This was held in the massive main dining room, sometimes called the "throne room" by the men, because of the ornate chair the boss sat in whenever he held these audiences. Ti Xi used this room for many functions, including promotion ceremonies and planning attacks on other clans.

On this day, Ti Xi was holding such an audience. Kao stood at the right side of the chair petting a pygmy puma. Wu crunched on an apple at the boss's left as the liaison officer blandly read the requests. "From one Mr. Sheng Bing Nu, of the Lower Ring:" the officer read, his eyes ticking up and down the lines on the paper. "He took out a loan last month...da, da, da"—the officer skipped the less important information—"daughter's fallen ill… herbalists charge so much…da, da, da… ah! He says he doesn't need any more money, but he can't pay on time. He wants a two-month extension." He looked up at Ti Xi, waiting for a decision.

"He had plenty of time to pay," Wu sneered.

Ti Xi raised his left hand to silence Wu. "I'll give Mr. Sheng a two month extension. But no longer," Ti Xi said. Wu rolled his eye and took a large bite out of his apple.

Suddenly, one of Ti Xi's younger lieutenants rushed into the room.

"Dà gē, Ying Su is back! She's back from Omashu!" he announced excitedly. Momentarily, a woman walked past him. She was beautiful, with flowing black hair, a bright, round face, and sharp eyes of brown. Her black qun skirt swayed at her heels as she strode toward the throne. Ti Xi strode over and embraced her convivially.

"How are you?" Ti Xi asked. "How was your trip?"

"Oh...it was fine," the Ban consigliore replied. Ying Su was another good friend and retainer of Ti Xi. The Mountain Master had given her an advisory position because of her preternatural skill for martial strategy. Although she was a beautiful and elegant woman, Ying Su had a general's mind.

"Really?" Wu interrupted skeptically, swallowing a bite of apple. "Because as I hear, the people in Omashu don't really care for people from Ba Sing Se these days. I heard they were thinking of replacing the Earth King with their own guy. We might even be going to war soon. But it was really still fine?"

Wu hoped to draw her out and make her look foolish, as the many gang officers in the room were now watching their exchange. "I used an assumed identity, obviously," Ying Su told him.

"We need you back, Su," Ti Xi told her. "We tried to take some Du territory a few months ago and we completely failed."

"Well, I'm back now. If my Mountain Master wishes, I'll start putting the logistics together immediately. This year we'll wipe them out and make the Ban THE clan in this city!" she said, more to the assembled clan members than to Ti Xi.

Ti Xi smiled at her. "Su, have you met the heir to our clan yet?"

Ying Su gasped. "So we have an heir at last? I'd like nothing more, Mountain Master." They began chatting as Ti Xi escorted her from the room.

As Kao put his puma down and took Ti Xi's place on the throne to see to the remaining requests, Wu took another bite of his apple.

A few requests later, the retainer who had announced Ying Su's arrival came to Kao with another announcement. "Deputy Mountain Master, Spiritualist Kei Guan has arrived, " he proclaimed. Dressed in formal green and white robes, and carrying a large sack, the spiritualist approached Kao on the throne.

"Kei Guan, old friend!" Kao said, rising from the chair with barely-noticeable effort.

"Xin Kao, how are you?" the spiritualist asked, hefting his sack.

Kao approached him. "Old," he joked. They laughed.

"You must show me to this child. I've brought the Avatar relics all the way from Taku. I just tested a newborn there." Kei Guan moved in closer to Kao, lowered his voice. "You know, other spiritualists are going to be quite…er, surprised…if this crime lord's son turned out to be the Avatar. If I didn't know you, Kao, I would have to agree that a future Avatar should not be left to grow up in this environment."

"I'll look out for him. Don't worry, Zhengyi probably isn't even the Avatar," Kao said. "He will be tested this evening. Make yourself at home for now." He motioned to another retainer, "Lucky Cho, show Kei Guan to his room."

That evening, Ti Xi and a few of his friends were assembled in the courtyard, under the setting sun, standing on the bare earth. He had dismissed most of his men, other than Ying Su, Cao and his daughter Fung, Wu (and one of his apples), a few pygmy pumas, and of course Kei Guan and Zhengyi. Ti Xi bounced Zhengyi in his arms as he spoke to Ying Su, but momentarily Kei Guan emerged from the house with his satchel, and everyone fell silent. Kei Guan walked out into the courtyard ceremoniously. He opened his sack and placed almost a hundred toys on the ground. The inside of the sack was in fact an embroidered blanket, and this he placed before the toys. He took Zhengyi from Ti Xi and placed him on the blanket.

Everyone waited expectantly for the baby to do something. First, he spent a few minutes trying to suck his toes. Eventually he noticed the toys and crawled over. He picked up a toy wooden hog-monkey. Then a tiny drum on a handle. Then a toy turtle, and finally a whirlybird toy that flew with a string.

As Zhengyi sat among his chosen toys sucking on the turtle, Kei Guan looked to Ti Xi with wide eyes. "Your son…is the Avatar," he whispered, sinking to his knees to bow to the baby.

Everyone there stared at the child. "Ai-yah…" Su breathed. Wu's apple dropped right out of his hand.

Ti Xi's eyes widened at his son. He found himself with his hand over his mouth, pensively kneading the flesh around his jaw. He was a Mountain Master is the Hei chaoliu. He had killed men and seen friends killed, but right now he was as scared as he had ever been. Would the clan be in more danger because of this? Would Zhengyi? Would they have to keep him hidden from the world? Should they? Would he be taken away from them if word got out?

The Avatar, born into the Hei Chaoliu. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Ti Xi turned to Kao. "What does this mean for us?"

Kao was as surprised as any of the others, but he was mostly able to keep his head. "I think you should take the rest of the night to think. He's your son, Ti Xi. We'll be better prepared to figure things out tomorrow. You ought to put the baby to bed."

"I'll do it," Wu volunteered. Ti Xi casually nodded in assent, still distracted. Su looked at him suspiciously for a moment, but followed Ti Xi inside to attend him.

Wu walked over and lifted the young Avatar under the armpits. He looked at the little baby as he climbed the ornate main staircase up to the nursery room. The sun was just about to disappear and it bathed the room in orange light as Wu entered. "Xiǎo Zhengyi," he said, grinning, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."