Chapter X.
Sand and Paper
The rocky scrub land bordering the Si Wong had gone on for miles and bled seamlessly into the sand, allowing the desert to creep up beneath them in the night. They found themselves surrounded by dunes baking in the morning sunlight, the scrub lands they had traveled over now a distant memory.
A blue, merciless sky stretched on forever above them, its color free from the taint of clouds. Sky, wind, and sand made Sokka think of the tsunami that had hit the Fire Nation. It seemed like it had happened years ago while his last trip to the Si Wong Desert now felt only weeks behind him.
The company he kept prevented his sense of nostalgia from running away with him. Azula looked listlessly out over the sand dunes while Nekka sat cross-legged at the back of the saddle, preferring her inner world to the life on Appa's back.
He sorely regretted leaving Katara behind in the Fire Nation, especially given what he had heard from June. -Katara would know to handle this,- he thought.
Most of his worries regarding his sister stemmed from knowing how she would react to his treason. She would not sit idly by in the Fire Nation, hiding while he traipsed about the world to save Aang and the others. Her first stop would be the Northern Water Tribe and he hoped they had been wrong about there still being cult members in the city, hidden in dark corners like clutches of fish eggs under rocks.
He wondered how she would explain everything to Arnook. Would she make him sound crazy? Did she think he was? No, there was the monster on the beach, remember?
-Yes, the thing nobody got a good look at aside from you, and the people who might be doppelgangers. Possibly a few soldiers, who probably thought it was a squid.-
Sokka shook his head, but not to clear it. His thoughts had been alarmingly lucid as of late, just, unfamiliar.
He peered around Appa's neck to make sure he was still on the track of June and Nyla, who bounded over shallow, hard dunes in the rising heat. June would signal a stop soon, he guessed, and did not want to lose her while deep in his own thoughts.
Something stung the back of his head. "Ow! What the...?" A small pebble was nestled between his tunic and neck. He looked back, Azula was smiling.
"Hit another bug?"
"You...where did you find a rock?"
She patted a pocket on her tunic so he could here the rattle of stones. "I knew I'd get bored up here sooner or later and that you'd throw a fit if I used fire to annoy you, so rocks it is."
He flicked the stone back at her and missed by a fair bit. With no idea of what to make of this he settled down to ponder it, but saw June was waving her coiled whip and pointing to a spot up ahead.
It was mid-morning and the sun had made even the breezy air over Appa's saddle intolerably hot. June had signaled them towards a long rock formation with an overhang that was free of shifting sand. Appa landed, and along with Nyla weighed down two large canvasses June had bought in addition to the water skins. This formed a clumsy tent against the high, stone overhang, the shade of which kept the animals from wanting to move.
Nyla was panting hard and June let the creature drink most of a large water skin while Appa consumed the other half. Sokka had long ago noted that sky bison, or at least Appa, shared some of the camelelephant's ability to go without food or water for a long period of time, but unlike them he was not immune to the desert's heat.
"You two take first watch. Me and the girl are going to catch some shut eye," said June, laying down against Nyla beneath the canvass.
"Good idea. Your age and her inexperience are liabilities," said Azula.
June responded with a loud yawn while Azula wrapped her head and face in a scarf. Sokka did the same, shielding himself from the heat and sand.
"I knew this place would be dull, but I underestimated it," said Azula, stepping closer to the rock where the sand was harder.
"I could find you some cactus juice. That would make things pretty interesting," he said, shuddering at the notion of Azula hallucinating.
"I'll pass," said Azula.
They stood in silence for a time and Sokka thought this would be a fine opportunity to see if he could have a normal conversation with Princess Azula, but shuffling sand and the flap of canvass announced the arrival of Nekka who wore a scarf around her face. She joined the other two in the shade of the rock.
"I'm not tired," said Nekka. "I couldn't sleep if I was."
"Ah, I'd almost forgotten," said Azula, her voice pleasant and unashamedly false. "Sokka was babbling in his sleep the other night and he said two things that I found rather interesting. "Mi-Go," and "Yuggoth." Are those real words, or nonsense?"
Nekka's eyes widened in the cave formed by her scarf and hat. Her fear and hatred of Azula seemed overcome by an inner swell that animated her hands. "No, no, those are things. A-and it might help explain this oddness with the Fire Lord!"
"Spit it out, then!" Azula snapped. Frowning at Sokka, she bowed. "I mean, do go on."
"Well, the Mi-Go are said to be a race of beings from the stars, like the Old Ones. They live on a world known as Yuggoth, which relatively speaking is close to our own. Now, the old writings talk about Cthulhu as being a conqueror. He conquered the Old Ones for sure, and it's possible he also enslaved the Mi-Go."
"Like he enslaved Zuko and the others?" Sokka asked. "Is it permanent?"
"Let me finish," Nekka said, scared by her own assertiveness. "Body swapping is alluded to quite heavily many times in some old texts. It's theorized there are different ways to go about it, but the Mi-Go had mastered a particular way. Perhaps Cthulhu has used it on the Fire Lord and the others?"
"Could be," Sokka said. "Will the Necronomicon tell us how to reverse it?"
"I don't know," she said.
"I hope so, because these weird dreams of mine aren't really telling me much."
Nekka bobbed her head, working herself up to say something. Sokka held his hand up for Azula to be still. "You started having these dreams after you were attacked by the Old One?" Nekka asked. "Maybe you weren't being attacked, exactly."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, one batch of crazy at a time. Back to the Mi-Go and this mind swapping stuff. How do they do it? Is it like a spirit-thing or do they literally shuffle people's brains around?"
"I don't know," said Nekka, twisting her hands. "I suspect the complete Necronomicon will have plenty to say on the subject, given what's mentioned in the fragments I've seen."
Azula covered a silent yawn with her hand, despite her mouth being behind a scarf. "In short, we won't know anything until we have that book. And, since you're not sleeping and I prefer to rest in the daylight, you and Sokka can keep watch."
She retired to the flapping tent, leaving Sokka alone with Nekka.
His ear ached and itched which he supposed was a good sign, but now he had ominous things to ponder for long hours. It must have shown on his face.
"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you more," Nekka said.
"What were you saying about the Old One not really attacking me?"
She bobbed her head again, working into a lather what she was going to say before she began. "The Mi-Go are masters of body exchange, but they're not the only ones who can do it. Had the Old One wanted to hurt you it would likely have done something more conventional, but instead you were put into a coma for two weeks without a mark on you, correct? Then you began dreaming of things you had never experienced before."
"Right, so you're saying it tried to take my mind and got stuck in there? Like the shoggoth did to Azula?"
"Not exactly," said Nekka. "I don't know what it did to you, or why, but you should know it's not likely the Old Ones are serving Cthulhu willingly, and they might not be entirely loyal to him."
"So, you think it might have been trying to help me? Pfft. Some help. I can't make sense of these stupid dreams even when I can remember them."
Nekka was still twisting in her uncertainty, but he could see her eyes darting, reflecting her churning thoughts. "Perhaps...perhaps you could try meditating? People like Al-Hazred claimed they learned much of what they wrote through meditation. Under the right conditions it let them talk to certain beings...maybe you could use it to remember your dreams."
"Like, what kind of conditions?"
"None I'd recommend you try, but the desert is a very spiritual place on its own, maybe doing it the normal way will be enough?"
"Alright, I'll give it a shot. Just make sure you keep an eye on the skies and be ready to make a lot of noise if you see anything that isn't a buzzard wasp. Actually, yell if you see buzzard wasps, too."
He took a blanket to the top of the rock formation and sat upon it. Sokka had never been one for meditating, much to Piandao's chagrin, but he was determined now to do it properly, come what may.
One could never truly clear their mind; this he had learned from Piandao. Meditation was not about making the mind blank and free of thoughts, but about focusing on where those thoughts came from. To do that, he simply had to relax and close his eyes, imagine himself stepping back from his body to watch images, sounds, and vaporous impressions float up from the dark void of his sub-conscience.
"Where do thoughts come from?" Piandao had asked him one day as they sat in the stone garden behind his villa.
"Uh, our heads?" Sokka had replied.
"Where are they before they spring into our heads?"
"I don't know, our minds kind of make them, I guess."
"Where does it make them? Where are the raw materials stored an assembled?"
He did not know, and said as much. Piandao did not profess any secret knowledge on the matter, but he had made Sokka aware of how his mind was layered. The waking part of himself, what he considered his entire mind, was the open area atop a vast, impenetrable darkness, the soil where his mind had taken root.
It was to the blackness that he turned his attention as the sun over the Si Wong Desert pressed down on him. He felt the wind carrying the sand from a million dunes blow across his shoulder and could see the dark field before him, his mind shining at the edges of its horizon.
There was the pain in his ear, Suki, Suzi, Azula, Aang, monsters attacking him, Wan Shi Tong attacking him, Nekka, June, Chief Arnook, the sand in his boots, the cold night, the cold ocean, the night, the moon, Yue, moonless nights, the deep ocean, the gulf of space.
The gulf of space. From earth, it looked thick with the stars but the truth was the space between those points of light was in essence an infinity, at least to those who did not know the secrets of how the world was bonded together. Sokka had gone through these gulfs before, in a body that knew those secrets. It was like falling. Distances that were long could be made short, then traversed. Speed had nothing to do with it. Where were these thoughts coming from? He pressed against the darkness like it was a blanket over water. It yielded and he pushed harder. Now there was resistance. More resistance. He slipped and was shot backward.
"Ugh!" he opened his eyes as if waking. He was back under the sun, in the sand. There was something behind him, but when he turned he saw nothing but windblown dunes rolling outward and on forever. He closed his eyes again and it was like his sweat-soaked skin was sliding into a giant glove.
Sokka saw himself sitting on the blanket atop the sand-covered rock. Behind him was something like an upright sea cucumber, barrel-shaped with a starfish head. He was back in his own body again, looking out of his own two eyes. Something was still behind him.
The sweat that poured down his face was cold. Slowly, he turned around and looked up. There it stood, it's tube-body bent forward, all five of its tooth-lined starfish arms bent forward to glare at him, giving it the aspect of a squid. From seams in its body, white tentacles uncoiled and twirled listlessly around. Some thick and sucker coated, some tipped with boney blades, others small like baby vines.
-What are you?- Sokka asked.
There was a piping noise in his mind, as if the wind were blowing a reed flute in time with a song. -A thought.-
The words were in his own voice.
-I don't have thoughts like you.-
-Still.-
-What do you want?-
-For you to succeed.-
-How? How do we beat Cthulhu?-
The piping became dissonant, and Sokka felt his head swell, threatening to burst.
-Only hinder...he wishes the power...to bend all things...to bind and bond...like Avatar...-
-Bending doesn't work like that," Sokka thought, now in immense pain. -He's wasting his time.-
-No. You must thwart him...otherwise he will bind, absorb Azathoth..."
-How do we stop him!?- Sokka felt bile churning in his stomach, pain vibrating from his head down.
-Necronomicon...his forces are scattered...moves against you even now.-
-Do you know how to stop him? What's in that book?-
-Your language. Too crude. Your thoughts...-
Sokka let out a soundless howl of frustration. The pain was crippling, different than any sensation he had experienced. -Tell me!- All the answers were there, right before him! Why could it not speak plainly, why was he in such pain?
-I am a thought.-
-Yeah, you're...-
A gust of wind blew sand into Sokka's face and he sputtered. When he opened hid eyes, the Old One was gone and he was covered in his own stinking vomit. He was no longer in pain, but the memory of it was enough to make him fall backward onto the hot sand. There he took deep breaths in through his mouth, letting them out his nose. He needed water.
-888-
The sun was low in the sky and already the sands were giving back the heat absorbed during the long daylight hours. They had broken camp and their bellies were full of Sokka's cooking, which was not sitting well with him. He wore his light tunic, being used to the cold, while Azula had donned her heavy coat and left the front open and the hood down. "I thought you could use your bending to keep you warm?" he asked as she was about to climb into Appa's saddle.
"It's a waste of energy when I have a fur coat, dummy," she said.
"Come over here a minute, I need to talk to you."
Nekka was with June, using Hoplo's journal to refresh Nyla's scent memory. According to June's map, Nyla was leading them to the region Sokka had specified, something he was pleased to hear.
Azula stepped off Appa's flat tail, causing the bison to grunt.
"What is it?" she asked.
He told her about his meditating and experience with the Old One, feeling better about it as he spoke. As expected, she understood completely. "They can infect our minds like diseases," she said. "You got the Old One the same way I got the shoggoth. I'd probably have my mind eaten if I tried to contact it like you did."
"Shhh," he said, looking to see Nekka was petting Nyla while June climbed up on his back. "I'll run it by Nekka later, but June can't know I'm seeing things."
"Afraid she'll decide we're crazy and take off?" Azula asked. "No matter. Once we have the library, she'll be useless to us."
"Ugh. Give that stuff a rest, will ya? Come on, let's just go."
Nekka came running over as Azula climbed into Appa's saddle while Sokka double-check their camp to make sure everything was packed. "I'm going to ride with June if that's okay?" she said.
"Uh, yeah, whatever you want," he said. "Just don't weird her out, okay?"
Nekka gave a quick nod and darted back to Nyla.
Sokka assumed his position on Appa, and jostled the reins. "Yip-yip!" The bison grunted and rose into the gloaming sky.
"Why is she not coming with us?" Azula asked, leaning over the front of Appa's saddle. "What's the meaning of this?"
"That's what being mean to people gets you," he said. "You're a princess in name only, nobody has to listen to you."
He had been harsher than he had intended to be, and he awaited a retort but none came. When they were in the air cruising through the sharp wind, Sokka had to pay careful attention on the ground so he did not lose Nyla against the black, starlit dunes. He chanced a glance back at Azula, who was keeping a sour lookout for flying attackers.
Should he apologize? No, he had been right. Another setback, he supposed, nothing he could do anything about now without making it worse. Sokka tried to ponder what the Old One had told him, about Cthulhu needing the Avatar to absorb Azathoth, or had it been bond with Azathoth? What that had to do with the Avatar, he had no clue. He had often heard Aang complain that much of the Avatar lore had been lost in the one-hundred years he spent frozen in a block of ice, but back then it seemed like little more than an annoyance for sages and scholars.
The wind whipped his face; he tried to keep his mind on the sensation, and the feel of Appa's warm fur under him. They let him recall better days quite vividly, but part of him knew those days only seemed bright and carefree because he had survived them, they all had. Whether they would live again was another story, and that fact soured his mood. He looked back and saw Azula sitting calmly, neither sour nor anything else, lost in thought and watching the starry sky for black silhouettes.
The mind was a playground, a place anything could happen with no consequences. Unable to piece together the puzzle of Cthulhu and the Avatar, he set it aside and wondered about himself and Azula. As nebulous and strange as the idea was, it was calming, and since no one could see or hear his thoughts, he let himself enjoy them.
-888-
"I spy with my little eye, something that begins with S."
"If it's sand dune, sand, sky, or saddle,, I'm going to spy something that begins with B. I'll give you some clues, burned, bruised, beaten..."
"I'm not sure that's how you play the game," said Sokka, yawning. He had already spied Nyla, Nekka, June, and Appa. "And hey, at least I haven't spied something that begins with 'Aah!' as in, 'Ah, it's those flying monsters!'"
"This is the worst traveling game I've ever played," said Azula. She was directly behind him, sitting on the edge of the saddle. "This can't be how you peasants entertain each other while migrating."
"One, we don't migrate. Most of us. Two, normally we don't play this game in an endless desert."
"I'm starting to hope we do see some star-spawn, soon," she said. "That's how boring you are."
"Oh, I'm boring am I? Try having an annoying princess who won't leave you alone. Ow!" She had punched him in the arm. "I'm flyin' a bison here! What happened, did you run out of rocks to throw at me?"
"Yes, and the bison is perfectly capable of flying itself while I thrash you," she said.
The sun was rising like an angry buzzard wasp, beating its hot wings over the sand which drank up and spit back the heat. Rest would have to come soon, he could hear Appa breathing through his mouth making him seem like a giant furnace.
He was watching for June's signal when Azula grabbed his shoulder. "I spy something that begins with L," she said, pointing to vertical lines squiggling in the sun-cooked haze.
The stone domes and spires of the Great Library of Wan Shi Tong sat in a crater of sand, the top of which was ringed with poles and tan canvasses to keep the sand from taking the building back. Sokka pulled up on Appa's reins to make him fly higher so he could see over the hole, but there was nothing to explain the massive excavation. The wind-blasted canvass shield had not been put up recently, but Sokka was not a man of the dunes and could not say how long it had been holding back the desert, only that it had failed in some places and let the sand in.
Nyla charged to the crater, and crashed through the canvass wall to slide down and stop before the library's ornate steps. Appa circled the building, and Sokka took a close look at the tallest spire, the one he and his friends had first entered the library from when it was all buried in sand. The topmost window was dark and Sokka could feel the emptiness inside pull at him like a vacuum.
"This is weird," announced Sokka, as Appa landed. June and Nekka had climbed down from Nyla, and all were glad for the small shade the crater and library provided.
"I'm gonna guess this is it?" said June.
"Age certainly hasn't dulled your bounty hunter deductive powers," said Azula.
"Oops, she meant to say, nice work, and thank you very, very much," said Sokka, putting himself between the two. "How much of a bonus would you need to come inside with us?"
"I'll stay out here and watch your bison for free, but only because the sun is about to come up and there's no way Nyla is running in this heat," said June. "I'm not going to wait up for you, though."
"Fair enough. Thanks for your help, June," Sokka said, shaking her hand. June nodded politely to Nekka and made a rude gesture at Azula, who returned it.
"Hope you lovebirds find your book," June said.
"Let's go," said Sokka. "We don't have time to mess around, remember? Nekka, you got Hoplo's journal?"
Nekka held it up, and Sokka took it. "I'm the one who more or less made the owl spirit mad last time, I think it's best I try to be the one who patches things up. Who knows, maybe the library being uncovered means he's in a better mood."
"Who uncovered it?" Azula asked, not expecting an answer.
"Ah, that's a good question," Sokka said. "Saved us a lot of work whoever they were."
"I don't like this," Azula said.
He looked around briefly for clues, but saw none. There were no signs of leftover or broken tools, no footprints, nothing to indicate who had dug the massive building out of the sand, or how. It had to have been sandbenders, or Wan Shi Tong himself. Perhaps the severe old owl had undergone a change of heart, or merely realized his knowledge gatherers, the tiny jackal spirits, had no way of getting in with the library completely buried.
"I don't like it either," he said, looking up at the ornate, stone columns.
The proper entrance to the library was a set of double stone doors that inched open with little effort. The stale, paper air had a thickness to it, but it was cool and therefore welcome. The building had been built to channel and reflect light from outside, leaving the shelves of scrolls and furniture cast in perpetual gloom. There were no sconces or torches lit, so Azula conjured a bright, blue flame from her hand.
Sokka's legs wobbled when he saw the tipped shelves, the scattered and torn scrolls, the broken tables and benches. Nekka staggered around in breathless horror, Azula cursed, and Sokka took a closer look at the damage. The scrolls were all unfurled, and many had been scratched and torn, but to him it had the look of simple rough treatment, not an act of deliberate destruction.
"I don't suppose it was like this the last time you were here?" Azula asked, bending over something on the floor.
"No," said Sokka, wincing at the dead jackal she had found. It had died a violent death, but it showed no sign of rot and appeared bloodless. "That's one of the librarian's spirit helpers. Oh, man this is bad."
Azula stood upright and lit a wall sconce. "This happened recently," she said. "There's no dust on the scrolls, and this helper-thing seems fresh. The only question that matters is did they get what they were looking for?"
"Are they still here might be a better question," said Sokka.
"Of course they are," Azula said, looking around at the deep recess created by toppled shelves. The main hall was at least a hundred feet high, with two mezzanines all holding book and scroll shelves. "I can feel them, can't you?"
Without jackal spirits running to and fro, the Great Library of Wan Shi Tong was still as a tomb. He strained his ears for any noise at all, but beyond Nekka's quiet feet and the blood in his own ears there was almost nothing.
"Do you hear that?" he asked, thinking his mind had to be playing a trick.
"I don't hear anything. I don't need to. I can tell they're here."
It was impossible what he heard. It made no sense. "Nekka," he said, and she stopped moving. He listened and could hear his own living body, the wind against the thick stone outside, and violin music. "Forget it, it's nothing," he said.
"Don't count on it. Now, where's this librarian you were so worried about appeasing? How do we summon him?"
"He should have shown up already," said Sokka. "Maybe he's dead."
"Spirits are almost impossible to truly kill, but they can be weakened or diminished," said Nekka, moving quickly out of the gloom to stand near him.
"Look for a diminished owl, then."
Sokka moved between piles of scrolls and books, trying and failing to keep from stepping on them. He was looking for something long, almost serpentine in shape with a round white face. Wan Shi Tong had been massive, larger than Appa, but who knew what form he had taken on if what Nekka said was accurate?
Each crinkle of paper was a crescendo in the silent, musty air. He saw that they had foolishly let themselves be spread thin. Nekka stood between two tipped bookshelves rolling up a scroll, while Azula had gone farther on. She held a small blue flame close to her chest, rightly believing she stood in the center of an inferno awaiting the slightest accident.
-If we get attacked, this place is going up in smoke,- he thought.
"If we were going to be ambushed they would have attacked by now, don't you think?" Sokka said, after walking over to Azula. She looked as if she had realized the danger her bending posed, but was not as concerned as he wanted her to be.
"We keep defeating them, perhaps they've gotten smart," she said. "Or they fear what I could do in a place like this."
"I think we're all afraid of that. Come on, there's nothing here. Let's go down that hallway."
He called Nekka over and the three of them went down the long, stone corridor. The library was laid out for ease of navigation and as they went along the passage and through antechambers, Azula stopped to light the small wall sconces and reading lanterns.
Everywhere they went had been ransacked; no scroll or book had been left untouched. Many had been ripped in the same fashion as the ones in the main hall, and there was no end to Nekka's groaning. "None of them look like they've been shredded, so maybe we can come back later and straighten the place out," Sokka said.
They walked for half an hour before Sokka found a map of the library hung in an alcove and took it down. Once he identified where they were, he led them on a systematic walk through the first floor. They found more turned over shelves, torn scrolls, bent and ripped books, and a few dead knowledge seekers.
The sensation of being watched never left them and Azula became visibly anxious, as if she expected an ambush at every juncture, room, and alcove. Sokka, too, began to feel as though they were merely wandering around looking for a fight.
Sokka consulted the map when the halls and tipped shelves began to look familiar. They were heading for the calendar room, a place he had been looking forward to seeing again. He stopped before the door, and turned to his companions. "I hope they didn't wreck this place up too bad, it's pretty awesome. After we check it, we'll head down to the sub-levels. If we don't find creepy monsters there, we won't find any."
The floor of the calendar room was a sheet of glass, under which could be seen hundreds of gears, dials, and rods. The walls and ceiling were a half sphere where brass hoops fitted with crystals, circles of jade, marble, and many other beautiful materials could be turned. The baubles represented stars, planets, and comets which would move when a dial at center of the room was adjusted.
The room was intact and he stood before the dial, examining it.
"Is something the matter? The place looks in order," asked Azula.
"Eh, nothing I guess. It's just that the last time I was here, I used this place to figure out what happened on the so-called Fire Nation's Darkest Day. The Day of Black Sun, remember it? It looks like it got moved since then."
"Perhaps your bird spirit fiddled with it," she said.
"Yeah, maybe. Or that weird professor."
"It's been set to the vernal equinox," said Nekka. "That's when the length of the day and night will be the same." She was looking up now. "This is amazing! If accurate, and I'm sure it is, one could plant crops better, follow seal and whale migrations, or determine the dates of historical events."
"You could find out when the stars are right," said Azula, narrowing her eyes at the false heavens.
Sokka had not been much of a stargazer, but his years of navigating small boats and Appa had given him a knowledge of the major constellations and a passing familiarity with some of the smaller ones. Something was off about the sky he was now looking at. "Vernal equinox," he said. "Sounds creepy."
"It's not creepy," said Nekka. "The equinox happens twice a year. It's when the day is the same duration as night. Yin and Yang are equal before one yields to the other. It's said to be a time when rivals come together to find common ground."
Azula and Sokka both snorted in unison.
"It's also said to be a time when the barrier between worlds is thinnest," said Nekka, quieter
"Barrier? What are you talking about?" asked Azula.
Nekka hesitated until Sokka gave her a nod. "It's a well-known theory that the spirit world occupies the same space as this one, it's just separate somehow," said Nekka, holding her hands flat, then locking her fingers together. "But in my area of research there's more than just the spirit world. We have the same theory, that all worlds occupy the same space so to speak, but are separate somehow. Most writers characterize the separating mechanism as a barrier and it's supposed to be thinnest at the equinoxes."
"Good to know," said Azula, sounding unimpressed. "And we've had how many equinoxes since Cthulhu has been around?"
"Let's just make a note of this and move on," said Sokka. "Maybe if we find Professor Zei down here he can tell us something."
"Who?"
"He's an archeologist from Ba Sing Se. He's how we found this place to begin with. When Wan Shi Tong got all mad and sunk the place, he decided to stay behind."
"I hate to be the one to tell you this, but he's probably a corpse," said Azula.
"We won't know until we find him," said Sokka, annoyed. "Come on, let's get going."
The map directed them to a flight of stairs that took them down to a place where the hallways were tighter. They found small, portable lanterns that still had oil which Azula lit for Sokka and Nekka to carry.
After a short distance, Sokka bid them to stop having spied something something he sorely missed from life in the Fire Nation. "Hold up," he said, walking over to an opening in the wall that led down a short passage, which veered off to the right. "Nature calls, ladies, and I've had enough of pooping in the desert."
Azula made a disgusted sound as Nekka pointed out a restroom for women down the hall and on the other side.
The men's restroom was surprisingly well-lit from mirrors set in the high ceiling and to his immense joy he found wiping paper in one of the stalls. It was old, but it served, and there was even a wash basin that pumped lukewarm water through a brass spout with the turn of a dial.
His washing reverie was interrupted by a scream, which became curses and threats. Sokka ran to the women's restroom, pausing for a moment on seeing the sign marked "Women," before entering, boomerang at the ready.
Azula stood over the cringing form of a man, both hands blazing with blue fire while Nekka cowered behind her. "Start talking, fish-man, or I'll pan sear you!"
The man wore ratty clothing, and seemed more dust than skin. His eyes, while wide with fear, held nothing of the Outer-Maw look.
"Professor Zei?" Sokka said, urging Azula to lower her flames.
The professor looked up at him, his face stretching for recognition. He was thin and pale, but not unhealthily so, and his clothes were the sort of disheveled that came from long, but not hard usage. The scratches he bore on his hands, and the bags beneath his eyes seemed more recent.
"Y-you...it's you, from before! The Avatar is here!" Zei said.
Sokka helped him to his feet. "Ah, afraid not; it's just me and these two. Listen, Professor Zei, it's a long, long story, but I need to know what happened here. Where's the Necronomicon?"
Zei shoved him so abruptly, Sokka fell backward and landed on his rear. He hit the ground a moment before Zei did, the professor's legs having been kicked out from under him by Azula who put her foot on his chest and prepared to lance him with a narrow jet of fire.
"Bad move, creep!" she shouted.
"You won't get it! You won't trick me! I'll die first!" He writhed under Azula's foot, but could not escape.
Sokka got to his feet and went to Zei, holding him down and gently pushing Azula off him. "Keep an eye on the door," he told her, and she reluctantly obeyed. "Stop. Professor, stop! Fine, you don't have to tell us where the book is, just tell me what happened here, okay?"
The professor still struggled and Sokka strained to hold him before deciding to let him up. Zei scurried to one of the stalls where he sequestered himself like a frightened mouse. "I won't be tricked! Your ransacking, your desecration, didn't work and neither will pathetic disguises."
"When you're done fooling around with him say the word and I'll make him talk," said Azula.
"Professor, please, it's me, Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe. We met three years ago when we found this place. It was me who used the library to find out the Fire Nation's weakness, which angered Wan Shi Tong and caused him to bury this place. We're here because we think Cthulhu has kidnapped the Avatar and we need the Necronomicon to get him back."
"Cthulhu?" Zei's eyes were wide in the shadow of the stall.
"Enough!" shouted Azula. "Tell us what we want to know or suffer the consequences!" Both her hands were in flames and Sokka moved to stand between her and Professor Zei.
"Azula, that's enough. Professor Zei, please..."
It was Nekka's turn to stand before Zei. She extended her hand, as if to a stray cat. "Professor? My name is Nekka, of the Northern Water Tribe. I studied under Sifu Misso and I've read several of your books."
"Misso," said Zei. "It's been years...how is he?"
Sokka cringed, but Nekka seemed to suffer no great shock. She bowed he head and spoke softly. "He's gone. He was murdered by a cult that worships Cthulhu, the entity described in the Pnakotic Fragments and in the writings of Al-Hazred." She held up Hoplo's journal. "This belonged to my ancestor, Hoplo. You're of course familiar with the name. His journal was recovered at the south pole, by these two. They corroborate stories about the Old Ones and shoggoths."
Trembling, Zei stepped out of the stall and examined the journal. "Lies tend to be simple. You're story is quite convoluted. Let's say I believe you, what do you hope to accomplish with the Necronomicon?"
Azula stifled a howl of rage between her teeth and Sokka had to calm her down. "We don't know," he said. "We won't know that until we've read it. I'm hoping it's got a drawing of Cthulhu and a little X where to hit him, but we'll take what we can get."
Zei stroked his chin, his fear giving way to the same spark Sokka had seen in Nekka's eyes when she talked about odd things. "I doubt it has anything like that, but if what Al-Hazred wrote was more than fiction then perhaps it would be useful."
"I don't suppose you've read it?" Sokka asked.
"Oh my, no," said Professor Zei. "Wan Shi Tong keeps that particular book strictly off limits, which is saying something given what else he leaves lying around here. I was intrigued, but not surprised, to learn he had a complete copy of the Necronomicon, but the tome never interested me."
"Off limits, huh? Professor, can you tell us what happened here? Who, or what, tore this place apart?"
"And are they still here?" asked Azula.
Zei trembled, but composed himself. "We didn't notice the digging until it was too late. How they unearthed the library so quickly I haven't a clue, but once it was done they tore through here like nothing I've ever seen. I didn't get a good look at them, Wan Shi Tong suggested I hide as best I could and that's what I did. There were dozens and dozens of them. All I remember seeing was claws, massive ones, and a man's voice shouting at them in some strange language.
"What did Wan Shi Tong do during all this?" Sokka asked, some of Zei's own paranoia and mistrust having taken root in him.
"He fought, of course, but two things became clear very quickly. The first was the battle would lead to the destruction of countless scrolls and valuable tomes. The second was the attackers sought only one thing, the Necronomicon. I've been busy hiding, leaving only to secure food, but I'm fairly certain Wan Shi Tong retreated in order to guard the Forbidden Room where the Necronomicon is kept."
"Do you know if the monster's are still here?" Sokka asked.
"I didn't hear them leave," said Zei.
"We know they're here," Azula said. "The only question is have they secured the book or not, and if so, are they planning an ambush for us?"
"Can you take us to this room?" asked Sokka.
"I can get you close, but just the two of you..."
"Will be more than enough," said Azula.
Zei looked between the three of them as he chewed his lip. "Very well. Come with me, I'll take you as far as I dare go."
They learned that Zei had not been able to survey much of the damage to the library's books and scrolls. When he saw what had been done to the vast collection of knowledge they had to stop while he wailed and moaned and tried to set a ruined bookshelf back in order. Sokka explained to him most of the books and papers had merely been scattered; this got the scholar moving again but did little to quiet him.
When they came to a large reading room, Zei bent over a dead knowledge seeker. Grieved beyond words, he picked it up and set it upon a table.
"Professor Zei..." Sokka said, getting ready to have him point out where the Forbidden Room was on the map if he could not go farther. Zei looked up from the knowledge seeker, his face set in anger.
"We're here. In that alcove over there is a stairwell that will take you down to the Forbidden Room. I'm coming with you." He took a tall candlestick to wield like a pole arm and Sokka could see there was nothing he could say to dissuade the man from coming further.
Inspired, Nekka bent the water from one of her water skins and promptly spilled it on the floor. Azula sighed as she ignited both her hands and led the way into the dark alcove.
There was no door to the stairwell and it was wider than Sokka had expected. Azula's fire cast the walls in blue and she lit sconces on the way down which burned orange on their own. He had considered telling her they should try to be sneaky, but did not bother. Their enemies knew they were coming.
At the bottom of the stairs Azula's blue light peeled back the darkness inside a massive, square chamber and was reflected in dozens upon dozens of black, round eyes. Long, white claws attached to shovel-like hands took a blue hue as they clacked together. The creatures were short and round with loose, gray skin that hung off them to form bag-like crevasses. They had no heads, just black orbs set into their round bodies above a seam that Sokka could see concealed ropey, white tentacles.
They all stood before a giant, black door that absorbed the light in the room, making it seem more like empty space than a barrier. Out from the shadows behind the monsters shuffled a hunched form wearing filthy, gray robes. Sokka braced himself against seeing its face, but it kept its hood up and features concealed. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" the priest gargled. "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"
It pointed at them with some strange appendage from under its sleeve that defied any earthly analogy, save perhaps a diseased tree branch. "The Red Star is on the horizon! The barrier becomes thin. R'lyeh will lie sunken no more and mighty Cthulhu will walk free! You will be ground into nothing! Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!" the priest shouted.
Azula conjured a round ball of blue lightning which floated in front of her a moment before she tapped it into the air then jumped to slap it like a kuai ball. It sailed over the inhuman priest's head where it exploded. The attack did more to cause panic than death, and Sokka shouted for them all to retreat farther up the stairs, counting on the higher elevation and narrower space to dampen the advantage of the monster's numbers.
There were over a score of the stocky, densely built creatures. They moved fast, the ones in the front opening their seams to lash out with a nest of white tentacles that sought to grab and pull towards their claws. Azula fired a powerful bolt of lightning into the center of one and it exploded, sending sloughs of skin and burnt goop all over.
The priest shouted something and the tentacles withdrew, leaving the creatures to come toward them solely with their claws. Azula's lightning had less an effect now, but it still worked to slow them down.
"Get out of here!" Sokka shouted. "Go, find June! We'll hold them off."
Nekka and Zei did as they were told, while Sokka darted forward with his boomerang, dodging swiping claws to take pecking strikes at the spots between black orb eyes.
Even when gravely wounded the things were making their way up the stairs, goaded onward by the priest who stood behind them. "Cut off the head and the body dies," shouted Azula, leaping over the monsters, using them like stepping stones in a river to reach the priest.
"Azula, no!" he shouted, seeing her knocked out of the air and go under the sea of gray bodies.
Sokka pulled the same stunt she had, his feet going from one creature to the next. He got just as far as Azula had, just with less grace, and yet before he went down he hurled his boomerang at the priest and saw it strike him under the hood with a satisfying, wet thunk.
Sokka landed hard and knew his only chance would be to keep moving. He was being dealt savage blows by sharp claws and he felt his back become warm and wet. -Blood,- he thought. -What a way to go.-
While painful and bloody, the blows were not well-aimed and none of his vitals or spine took hard shots. Sokka kept his head covered by his hands and ran towards the fire and lightning he saw through the mass of bodies. Somehow he came out on the other side, torn, bruised, and bleeding. Azula was next to him, her hair matted in blood and hanging in front of her face. Her lightning blasts were becoming weaker, the creatures coming closer. Azula created a wall of fire before them, but the things walked right through it, heedless of the searing their saggy-skinned bodies took in braving the barrier.
Sokka looked to the stairs and knew he and Azula would be freshly dead by the time June came with Nyla, who was large but narrow enough to fit through the library's passages. -No, I hope she doesn't come,- he thought. -Let Nekka and Zei get away and tell the world what's happening-
When the fire and lightning stopped, he reached out and grabbed Azula's hand. He felt her squeeze him back and was about to look at her when he saw movement by the stairs.
He thought they were dogs at first, then knowledge seekers, but when they began to gibber and yip he realized they were something else entirely. Their calls gave the surging monsters pause, and as the sound became all Sokka could hear, he saw the stairwell was clogged with the weird, loping creatures. They came down it like running water and splashed against the rear guard of the star-spawn.
Sokka tried to make out more of the new creatures, for they had a humanoid aspect to them he found most disturbing. He was distracted, however , by the closest of the star-spawn who had resumed their forward march.
Azula experienced a short-lived burst of energy which she used to send chain lightning along the row of oncoming monsters. The one she hit directly went down, but the others continued forward. She collapsed to her knees alongside Sokka, who was now dizzy from blood loss. "Aw, man. Hey. Sorry I got us killed," he said.
"When we get to the afterlife, start running," Azula said, taking his hand once more.
He laughed, thinking she would likely still have a grip on him when they got there, but his dizzy mirth was short-lived when the black door behind them moved.
A long, dark shape dove over them into the mass of star-spawn. It turned almost like a feathered serpent and Sokka saw the round, white face and angry black eyes directing a tearing, ripping beak.
"Wan Shi Tong!" he shouted, and almost passed out.
Alone, the owl spirit might have had a hard time defeating the star-spawn, for their instinct when he attacked was to cover themselves with their claws and hunker down. With the smaller creatures harrying them, however, Wan Shi Tong was landing killing blows as he swirled about the room like a hot, night wind.
Sokka's jubilation was tempered by his wounds and he looked to see Azula was in as rough a shape as he was. He kept still and watched the battle play out. Wall sconces had been lit, perhaps by Wan Shi Tong, and he could see the strange new creatures held both human and jackal aspects. They were almost skeletal, their skins either pale or a sickly yellow but they moved and bit and clawed with alarming vigor. Many had been broken by the star-spawn's claws, but those creatures were slowly dwindling under the combined onslaught of the owl spirit and skeletal dog-men.
When the last star-spawn were dead along with their priest, Wan Shi Tong wasted no time in blowing over to tower above Sokka and Azula. "Wait, hang on a second," Sokka said, holding up a bloody-smeared hand.
"I will not slay you," said the spirit, bending down to bring his white face directly over Sokka where it hung like the burning sun. "But if you should die, that is of no consequence to me."
The spirit's attitude did not bode well for their mission, he noted, but his impending doom was a real possibility if he did not get help soon, same for Azula. When he saw the dog-like things going up the stairs, he waited, then collapsed when he saw Nekka coming down.
He must have passed out, for he did not remember how he got up the stairs and to the reading room.
"Oh, you're both hurt bad," Nekka exclaimed.
Sokka lay on a table while Azula had been set in a chair. "See to him first," she said. "He's hurt badly, and I'm stronger besides."
"I'm fine," Sokka lied. "It's mostly scratches. Nekka, help her."
"Keep away from me, oaf. Make your mistakes on him first," hissed Azula, who slumped further down in the chair.
"I can help you both stop bleeding," said Nekka. "Oh no, I need more bandages!"
"Then go get them!" Azula shouted, and Nekka ran.
"What were those things?" Sokka asked, feeling himself fading out again.
"I assume you mean the newcomers? Friends of the owl, I thought."
"They didn't look like it," Sokka said. "Be honest, how bad are you hurt?"
"I need stitches," Azula said. "As do you, but I'm not letting her touch me until she's proven herself."
Sokka picked his head up to find Zei, but a wave of dizziness sent him back under.
-888-
"I learned a lot about sewing up wounds when Nyla was younger. He'd get a little over-eager with bounties, you see," said June, who had been summoned into the library.
They were still in the reading room. Zei had brought in two large water basins and used skins and a nearby restroom to fill them. A paper screen had been erected between Sokka and Azula, who both lay on tables. June worked on her, while Nekka and Zei assisted Sokka. The dressing had not been painless by any means, but neither patient argued with the need to clean their wounds. The salve used on Sokka's ear before was all but spent on them both now and Nekka did what she could with her water healing.
When it was over, Sokka and Azula were given fresh blankets and the screen between them was removed. "I will plead your case before Wan Shi Tong," said Zei. "If Miss Nekka will accompany me, perhaps we can persuade him to assist you, but you know how he can be."
Azula protested, but Sokka thought this the best course of action given the friendliest the spirit had been to him lately was allowing him to bleed out on his own. June went with the scholars down the stairs, leaving Sokka alone in the big room with Azula.
"Well, that was close," he said. "I don't think I ever got hurt this bad during the war."
"I underestimated them. Luckily those other things showed up when they did. You say they're not the owl's servants?"
"I don't think so," said Sokka. "We can ask Nekka or Zei when they get back."
"Do you think those spineless bookworms will be able to sway the spirit?"
"I don't think we're going to force him into anything, spines or no spines, so let's hope so."
He looked over at her as she stared at the ceiling. His hand closed on itself, remembering the heat and pressure from hers.
To be continued...