Chapter Ten: The Written Truth
The elders at the Western Air Temple gathered faster than the ones at the Northern Air Temple. Within a matter of minutes the room was full. Saiben was a bit surprised by how many how many of the elders were woman at this temple. There were a few in the north, but they held the majority here easily.
"You said you acquired a new friend and a new problem. I see eth friend, what is the problem." The lady that had spoken was obviously the temples leader. It was also obvious that she had little patience.
Saiben was a little put off with her bluntness and acted accordingly, "Normally you introduce yourself before you start asking questions."
"Young man, I'm 102, I think you'll agree that I don't have that kind of time."
Saiben suppressed his shock because of her age a little anger because of her impatient attitude, "My name is Saiben Hythen, and this Coron Amttim." He left a pause afterwards for her introduction.
The lady bit back some insult and gave in, "My name is Bando, now can we get on with what your problem is?" Only her mouth moved, she didn't trust her face to hold back her anger.
Now Saiben became polite, "Yes, we got side tracked on the way here by the bending tournament. Coron was in it and I saw him get abducted by two people after one of his match. We chased the pair and were ambushed by more of them. Once they were gone we continued chasing the original two and found their hide out. It's a giant underground base. Their numbers are huge and they've been stealing bodies and taking the spirit of the human out of them so their other members can use them. They have enough now to have a small standing army. They also have some advanced weapons and the worst is they're actually be led by Koh, the Face Stealer."
Bando became very solemn and Saiben could tell she was thinking something but couldn't tell what, "You have a real knack for smelling out trouble. We can't just ignore this but the threat Fallen Fire poses is still greater. We'll send some of our own to check the base out and get a more accurate threat level. Did Koh assume any form in particular?"
"In the beginning he used one of a man that was bald except for a ponytail in the back. He was wearing a green rob that was trimmed in gold."
Something clicked in Bando's eyes as she replied, "All right we'll send them immediately. What direction and how far?"
Saiben turned and briefly consorted with Coron before answering, "West-south-west and probably around 200 kilometres (I'm Canadian, so sue me!), maybe more than that."
"All right." She motioned and the nomad standing near the door exited to gather a group to look into this new group." Bando now became less grim, "Now, unless there's yet another problem you sniffed out, the Airball tournament starts at noon tomorrow. You'd better be ready."
"What am I supposed to do until we leave for the Northern Air Temple again?" Coron was playing to the child look and pouting with surprising success.
"Oh, I'm sure we can find something for you to do." Bando had apparently seen through Coron's little charade and he gulped once he saw her grin.
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The next day before the Airball tournament started Coron was assigned the duty of preparing some of the temple. Though the nomads had done their best to repair the damage done to the temple when they'd returned to it, they weren't able to get to some places with the materials they needed and lacked the skills required sometimes.
Coron on the other hand was able to get the materials wherever they were needed and bended them into the proper shape. Obviously Bando had thought the task would've been a little harder for him. He didn't really mind though, it took his mind off of everything for the moment, and it gave a minute to talk with Argent.
"So, what do we know about Koh now? Why can't he see us?" Argent's wispy form had materialized the second Coron had started work.
"The avatar spirit seems to set up a ward wherever he is and stops and spirits from locating him directly unless he lets them. Saiben's even set a few up in places he doesn't want people to know about unintentionally. That being every air temple he's been to, Krix's house, his grandfather's and a large section of the capitol."
"Could Saiben learn to make these?"
"I doubt it. The skill seems innate and no one's noticed until now so he wouldn't even have the help of past avatars to help him. I can't even figure out how to do it." Argent seemed stymied at this and it made Coron smile. Argent sometimes seemed furious when he had a problem on his hands like this, but in truth he really enjoyed it.
"Okay, anything else you want to tell me?"
"Yeah, this ward is stronger than the others for some reason."
"And you can't figure out why, right. Well, I'll talk to him about it later. Probably when I start to teach him earth bending."
"You haven't started yet?"
"You knew that already so don't act so surprised. And have you seen what we've been through since we met up? It hasn't exactly been a walk in the park, contrary to what I make it look like!"
Argent gave a little laugh before he continued, "Well hurry up and finish, I'll what else I can dig up for you about Blind Seer and that enigma they call their leader."
"Good luck with that." Coron called a little louder than he meant to as Argent's form was eaten away by the wind. Coron finished up the repairs and came back down to the ground. The Airball tournament was in full tilt when he got there. Truth be told he had no idea how to play the game, but watching it was entertaining none the less.
The ball was flying around in the forest of pillars so fast he could hardly see it. Occasionally it would streak and would be narrowly avoided by one of the players. Even less occasionally it would streak out of one of the two circles at the ends of the playing field.
The nomads were keeping time somehow because it looked like the game ended suddenly and Saiben started doing what Coron vehemently hoped was just his victory dance and not what how he actually danced.
By the end of the day the teams weren't the only ones who were sweating. The sky had been clear and the sun had beet down on the spectators unmercifully. The team from the Northern Air Temple had one two of their three matches, which put them in second place. Saiben seemed happy with this, probably because in the match they lost he'd creamed the other goalie after sucking the ball back inches from his goal.
When the first and second place teams were given their awards Saiben was a little miffed at what it turned out to be. A pair of weathered looking books were given to the winning teams.
Bando caught his eye from out of the crowd and once the ceremony was over he found her, curious as to what she wanted to talk about.
As always, she wasted no time, "Our scouts came back with the information we needed. We're going to see what else what can figure out with it and figure out what to do tomorrow morning."
"Okay, err, I'm coming right?"
"Of course you are! You're the avatar, aren't you?"
"Sorry, just making sure." Bando was more grumpy than Kurota pretended to be, "Before you go though I have a question: what are the books about, the ones you gave us anyway."
Bando actually smiled when she heard that, "Those are the truth of the great war. Aang and all his closest allies wrote them. They tell what actually when Sokka and Katara found him right up to when Rayk sealed them all away."
"WHAT!?"
"I see Jiakka never told you the complete story of what happened. The story is broken into four parts: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, in that order. They ironically centre on that element for each book despite being the avatar cycle. We split the four into two groups so that if something ever happened to us there's a better chance the truth survives. We also needed something for the winners of the Airball tournament, so two birds with one stone. You can read Water and Earth, your team won the honour of guarding them anyway, now good day avatar."
"Wait! What did you mean when you said that Rayk sealed them all? He was supposedly on the same side as Aang when he left everybody."
"I'm not going to spoil the end. Just read them, they're quite riveting!" Bando spared Saiben a backwards glance but kept walking towards the council chamber.
Later that night Saiben was in his room and was sitting on his bed leaning his back against the wall. He had just convinced his team to let him read the books and he'd gone to his room to start right afterwards.
He opened it and was slightly shocked. The whole book had been broken in is much that the cover and most of the pages seemed to be almost made of liquid. The ink was as clear as one of his old school textbooks though and he started to read.
'Long ago the four nation lived together in harmony, but then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked…'
AN: Somehow it sounds like that should be saved for the last chapter doesn't it? Hope you liked how I worked the show's theme of episodes in there. Popped into my head a while ago and couldn't resist putting it in. Sorry for the inconsistent updates, that'll get better soon, so please wait a little longer. You might be able to stabilize it faster by reviewing though. Those things have mystical powers. o0