4
Hyen and I mingled with the growing crowd outside the Fire Nation Cultural Center. It was still morning, and the sun was already blistering hot. We both had our coats draped over our arms, sweating and miserable. All around us, people in revealing red outfits milled around the square, talking, dancing to loud, brassy music, and investigating the stalls that had popped up overnight. I spotted a number of stands selling fireworks I was fairly certain the city had outlawed, but seeing as we were on goodwill duty, I decided against writing them up.
"Why're you sweating?" Hyen asked, taking a couple shuffling steps to stand in my shadow. "I thought firebenders were heat-proof."
"We're not." I wiped my forehead, wondering if people thought waterbenders were immune to drowning. "How much longer?"
Hyen glanced at the Cultural Center clocktower. "Thirty minutes. Let's go inside."
I checked my wallet for my ticket and followed Hyen up the ornate steps and into the Cultural Center building. Inside, the building reminded me of Akoza's school—huge and fancy, though not nearly as smoky. There were tapestries on the walls, and just about everything that could be decorated was.
Following the signs and the general flow of the crowd, we wound our way through the building and to the amphitheater.
The amphitheater was a massive stone construction, perfectly round with huge red awnings shading the seats. In the middle of the stage a yellow gem the size of a man's fist sat on a pedestal, but besides that it was empty. Hyen found our seats, five or six rows up, and I went back to buy us both a lemon ice from a vendor just outside the amphitheater entrance.
"This was a good idea," Hyen said, taking the offered drink. I nodded and sat. It was much more pleasant in here than outside or in the Center itself, but there was still a hot, sticky feeling to the air, kind of like just before a thunderstorm.
"Yeah," I said. "Better here than the office." I might have been hot and uncomfortable here, but it would have been the same at headquarters, and at least here I wasn't expected to get any work done. In fact, pretty soon I was going to get to watch a show and take my mind off the heat.
Next to me, Hyen got to chatting with the couple in the next row up and I occupied myself by checking the exits and scanning the crowd for suspicious behavior.
After a few minutes, a bare-chested man with metal bracers on his arms stepped onto the stage, the cord of a microphone trailing behind him. Bit by bit, the audience went quiet. The microphone man stopped short of the center of the stage and addressed the crowd, turning slowly on the spot. Speakers around the amphitheater repeated his words, all half a second off from one another, turning the man's voice into a cacophony.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your presence here today. This show is dedicated to the spirits of fire, of life and of light. I ask you now to call on the great spirits with me, that they may hear our voices and feel our love for them. Call for them with me! Paavir! Kivos! Raava!"
The crowd shouted out the names of the spirits, repeating after the man with the microphone while drums boomed from some hidden spot. Hyen joined in the cheering after the first round, but I kept my mouth shut, unable to put a finger on exactly why this was making me feel uncomfortable.
Just as the cheering reached a point of hoarseness, the microphone man made a slashing motion with his arms and the drums and the crowd went silent.
"Paavir!"
A gong struck and a massive bloom of orange flames erupted from the right side of the stage. The flames swirled for a moment and dissipated, revealing a man dressed all in tight black clothes, wearing a red mask adorned with horns and many, many white, pointed teeth. I supposed he was meant to be the spirit of fire.
"Kivos!"
The gong struck again and this time yellow flames burst from the left side of the stage. The man pretending to be the spirit of life had on green robes with a yellow mask shaped like the head of a cat-deer.
"Raava!"
The gong struck a third time and I gasped as blue-white flames filled my vision and a wave of heat rushed over me. Out of instinct I raised my arms to defend, but already the fire was gone. In its place stood a woman wearing a firebending master's gi, paper white with a pattern of blue stripes. Her face was covered by a white, diamond-shaped mask, blank except for a single blue eye in the center.
I spent a second trying to figure out how the performers had gotten onto the stage—trap doors?—but a moment later the thought was washed away as the drums started up again. The three benders dressed as spirits began dancing around the stage as the shirtless man narrated.
"Paavir fills the world with heat and power! He keeps our houses warm and makes us strong! Kivos provides the spark that burns in all living things and gives us will and passion! Raava is the source of all that is good! She lights our way and guides us into the glorious future!"
Yellow, orange and blue-white light bloomed and swirled on the stage and I found myself sweating again under my uniform, but I was too entranced to care. As the narrator explained the roles of the great spirits, the bursts of fire became continuous streams, morphing into solid-looking shapes with teeth and eyes and claws. Serpents, fish, hawks, dragons... fiery creatures paraded around the stage in time with the beating drums.
A fox made of yellow fire tethered to the man in the cat-deer mask flew over my head, close enough to make me flinch. I blinked and from the corner of my eye I caught sight of Hyen staring at the scene below, mouth open in awe.
The burning creatures continued their dance, faster and faster, and just when I was sure the benders were about to collapse from exhaustion, a woman screamed, her sharp voice carrying over the sound of the narrator, the drums and the roaring flames. For a split second I thought this was part of the act, but then the scream continued and the narrator stopped his monologue. In an instant, I was on my feet, trying to discern the source of the scream.
"There!" I shouted, pointing at a woman down in the first row, a fiery orange snake coiling around her. Hyen vaulted over the rows of seats between us and the woman, police coat in hand. I stayed where I was, placed a foot on the seat in front of me to steady myself and spread my arms wide in an effort to dissipate the flames that encircled the woman. Sparks flickered at my fingertips, but my bending had no effect on the fiery snake.
No good.
I breathed and tried again, just as Hyen reached the woman and tried to wrap the coat around her to smother the flames. Again my bending didn't work and I shouted in frustration. I snatched my own coat and launched myself over the heads of the audience on a burst of solstice-powered flames to land beside Hyen. The woman was on her knees, screaming as the fire writhed around her. An awful smell of cooking meat and burnt hair filled the air.
I beat at the flames with my coat as Hyen did the same, terrified I might be hurting her more than helping. A few seconds later the flames were gone, though the poor woman was still crying and screaming in pain.
"Get her out of here!" I shouted as Hyen pulled the woman to her feet. My partner shouted something in response, but I missed the words as I took in the scene around us. It was chaos.
The drums had stopped, replaced by screams and howling wind. People were running for the exits, tripping over seats and each other, trying desperately to get away from the fiery creatures that tore through them like burning brands through paper. The stage had become an inferno and I had the impression I was standing on the surface of the sun itself.
"Cover me!" Hyen shouted, pulling me back into reality.
"Go!" I shouted back and blasted myself down onto the stage. I landed in my horse stance, feet wide and knees bent for stability as I brought a wall of flame up in front of me to create a barrier between the fleeing audience and the raging inferno.
Heat and power coursed through me and out of me, fueled by my drive to protect Hyen and the audience and my fear of the fiery creatures that weren't acting how they should. Why hadn't my bending worked on the snake? Where were the masked performers? I had to know, but I was trapped. My wall of fire blocked my view of the stage and I couldn't move until I was sure Hyen and the audience were safe or else my wall would collapse and the creatures would attack.
An instant later my worries about my bending and the performers were swept away as one of the creatures tore through the wall, dissipating the flames and forcing its way through like a firebender would. The creature was man-shaped, but far too tall and thin, made of flames with something dark and smoldering inside its chest.
The creature's mouth opened and to my horror it spoke to me in a voice like crackling flames and whistling wind, strangely high pitched for its size.
"You burn bright, little bender, but brightness blinds-"
A fireball smashed into the creature's head, deforming it and making it stumble back. I looked towards where the blast had come from, moving only my eyes. A woman in a charred fancy dress stood on the stands, fist still extended. She drew back her arm and fired again, forcing the creature back into my wall.
I lowered my arms and let the wall put itself out as the woman jumped from the stands and blasted the creature a third time while still in the air. I added my fire to hers, pushing the creature back, and raised the wall again, arms shaking from the effort.
"Get out of here!" I shouted. The woman was clearly an audience member, part of the general public, which made me responsible for her safety.
Above me something moved and I looked up to see a wooden rafter barreling towards me, trailing flames and red cloth. Something hit me in the side and a moment later the wooden beam crashed next to me and the firebender woman who had knocked me out of the way. I coughed and tried to stand, but the wind was knocked out of me and the air by now was so hot it was almost unbreathable.
The firebender woman got to her feet before I did and was fighting again, trying to hold back a group of burning spider-flies, each of them bigger than she was. She didn't see the threat just behind her, a creature made of smoke more than flames. It rose up through the stone floor, shapeless and semi-opaque, like liquid shadow.
I shouted something incoherent and thrust a fist towards the smoke creature, but I didn't have the breath to put any force into my fire. The woman turned just as the shadowy shape reached her, enveloping her in darkness.
I gasped, finding my breath. "No!" I pushed myself to my feet and flung myself after the woman and the shadow as they both melted back into the stage. I scrabbled on my hands and knees, searching for a trapdoor, fingers scraped raw on the rough stone.
"Where? How-?"
A flaming boarcupine rammed into me, burning the exposed skin on the side of my face and tossing me into the air. For the briefest of moments I thought I was back on the Pro-bending platform, getting knocked into the drink.
I oriented myself with a burst of flame so I was facing feet down and landed in a crouch. The boarcupine squealed, charged at me. I somersaulted out of the way and brought my fists around to blast the creature back, only to have to spin and fire again at a hawk the size of an ostrich-horse that swooped down at me.
There were too many of them. It was too hot and the whole place was burning, falling down around me. I coughed, blasted back another fiery creature and took a step back, trying to figure out where I could run to, knowing I didn't have the energy left to boost myself back up into the stands.
The creatures kept on coming, pushing me until I was back against the wall. Desperate, I tried to find that empty place within myself, that place without fear or caring as I ducked and weaved, doing what I could to avoid the creatures. Maybe lightning could do to them what fire couldn't.
A sharp sound got my attention—a whistle—and I looked up. Hyen was in the stands above me, hanging onto the railing, one hand extended. I took one last look at the chaos in front of me and put every last drop of fear and drive into my jump. I blasted myself off the stage and grabbed onto Hyen's hand as my partner directed my momentum up and over the railing and into the burning stands.
"C'mon!"
Hyen grabbed me again by the fabric of my uniform and pulled me up the stairs and towards an emergency exit. Even as I was being pulled, I looked back at the amphitheater, searching for the firebending woman who had saved my life.
Hyen dragged me through the door and then we were outside again, the blue sky filled with black smoke. Sirens wailed and I found myself being herded towards a truck with a big crescent and waves symbol on it—an emergency healer's vehicle.
"No! I gotta go back!" I shouted as Hyen and a medic forced me into the back of the truck. "I gotta go," I said again as the medic sliced my ruined uniform off me and started smearing numbing ointment on my burns. Only then did I realize I'd been hurt at all, that every breath stung, that I was bruised and tired and bloodied.
"You did good, buddy," Hyen said, patting my head. "You did good."
