Avatar: The Last Airbender Created By: Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko
Avatar: The Last Airbender Owned By: Nickelodeon, a subsidiary of Viacom
All original content and characters © Acastus
Chapter XXXVI – The Dam
The hatch opened onto a long concrete platform. The dull gray surface was dimly illuminated by natural light coming from their right. Nikon stepped gingerly over the threshold and out onto the concrete. Iroh followed suit, extinguishing the flame he had held aloft in his hand.
The edge of the platform, perhaps ten feet in front of them, was painted or dyed a bright yellow. Beyond lay a single metal rail that ran alongside its entire length.
These observations momentarily escaped the Fire Nation soldiers; however, for what lay beyond the platform and its lonely rail captivated them instantly. The edifice hung suspended over a dark, still lake that extended farther than the eye could see in a cavern that felt large enough to hold the fleet that had brought them over the sea. The rail alongside the platform was supported at regular intervals by thick metal columns that emerged from the water without a trace of rust.
To their right the cavern opened into daylight, its mouth large enough to frame a city. The water terminated at a low barrier of unnaturally smooth, brown stone that jutted a few feet above its surface and ran from one side of the cavern wall to the other. Hundreds of feet across, the stone barrier restrained a massive amount of water.
It was a dam and without any doubt the mightiest engineered structure either had ever seen.
The platform extended a short distance over the top of the dam, ending roughly where the roof of the cavern ended. The rail ended, twisted and broken, a few feet beyond the edge of the platform.
On their left the sunlight rapidly failed and the cavern turned first to shadow, then utter darkness. The concrete surface extended perhaps half a mile in that direction before it was lost in the gloom, though the distance was difficult to judge.
"What do you say about those fairy tales now?" Iroh asked in wonder.
"I take it all back!" his friend exclaimed in response, "This is incredible!"
The daimyo turned around to look back from where they had emerged. The cavern wall was neatly tiled up to the height of a single story building. The tiles were laid in an attractive pattern of whites, blacks and greens that repeated in identical blocks every ten feet or so. The top and bottom three rows of tiles, however, were a striking cerulean blue. Two of the nearby blocks that should have had tile arrangements, however, instead had intricate mosaics.
"Hey, look at this!" Nikon called out.
Iroh tore himself away from the magnificent spectacle to see what his friend was talking about. He saw the mosaics and stepped forward to examine the closest.
The background of the mosaic was white. A single blue line constructed of tiny glass beads ran along almost its entire length. At regular intervals along this blue line, larger blue crystal spheres were mounted. Characters appeared above or below each of the blue spheres.
He pulled out the crystal he'd picked up in the tunnel and compared it to the ones in the mosaic.
"They don't look the same," Nikon observed as he stepped closer.
Iroh agreed. The crystal in his hand was oblong and translucent. Those mounted in the mosaic were opaque, smaller and perfectly round. He put the yellow crystal back in his pocket and returned to his study.
Several of the mosaic's crystals were larger than the rest. Iroh traced his fingers over one of these larger spheres. It had a blue center but was surrounded by a neat rim of green crystal. From this sphere a different line, this one green, extended to the upper right and lower left corners of the mosaic. This line, similar to the horizontal blue line, had many larger spheres of green with different labels attached to them. One of the crystals on the blue line had a pair of golden arrows pointing to it from above and below.
Red, orange and white lines intersected the blue and green lines at other points, each at a larger, multi-hued sphere. A couple of the spheres lay at the intersection of multiple lines. These were distinguished by clear crystals. Many of the lines ended in neat loops, some of which had larger crystals in them, while others did not.
"A map maybe?" Nikon offered, "I can't read most of the writing… It is writing, isn't it?"
"Yes, I think so."
"A monorail station then? And this is the system map? Looks like the ones we saw in Edo anyway, though these are like… works of art compared to those."
"Makes sense," the young general agreed, tracing a finger across the line of blue crystals, "but this monorail didn't rely on earthbending."
"How do you know that?"
"The rail is made of metal, see?"
"Yes…" Nikon agreed, turning to examine the rail quickly, "never seen that before, but why –"
"Because," Iroh inserted, anticipating the question, "they need stone rails to repel from in order to move their trains. These wouldn't do earthbenders any good."
They examined the map for a few moments in silence.
"Can you read any of it?" the daimyo asked finally.
Iroh looked at him in some surprise.
"What makes you think I can read any of this?"
"Well… you did go to the Fire Nation Academy and had all those tutors and stuff! Besides, you're the one who read the book, right?"
"That's true, my friend," the young general replied a trifle absently, returning to his study of the mosaic, "you were too busy making unsavory jokes and baiting Tien Shin to do anything useful like reading fairy tales about underground dams."
Nikon laughed, and pointing to the map once more, prompted, "So, any ideas?"
"A few…," he mused thoughtfully, "this one," he pointed to the last sphere on the right side of the blue line, "says "OMAHA", which I think is one of the old names for Omashu. That was in the book. So was this one," he said, pointing to a large, clear sphere about a third of the way down the line, "If I remember right this says "WEST PORTAL" or something like that."
"Never heard of it," the daimyo stated, shaking his head.
"Me neither, but the book said that city was destroyed in ancient times by a three headed monster that shot lightning from each of its mouths."
"A dragon?"
"No, not a dragon," Iroh clarified in a slightly hushed voice, "much larger, at least according to the description. I didn't think much of it at the time… but, since the dams and the monorails are real…"
"Let's hope not," Nikon replied, expelling a deep breath, "we have enough problems without anything like that… Is this where we are now?" the daimyo continued, pointing at the blue sphere bracketed by the arrows.
"Seems likely, I suppose."
"Yeh, I guess it does, but why is it the only label that uses modern writing?"
The four symbols next to the crystal bracketed by the gold arrows said clearly, "FLOOD CONTROL DAM THREE."
"The rest use all those weird ancient scripts or… I mean, what are those? What do these say?" Nikon interrupted himself, pointing to the labels attached to the crystals in the upper right hand quadrant of the green line. Nikon didn't any recognize any of those symbols. Traditional writing and its ancient variants all used multiple strokes to create characters. These symbols looked as if they were each made all at once, with many exhibiting rounded edges.
The end of the green line was labeled "AIRPORT" and the stop before it "METROPARK."
"I don't know," Iroh admitted, "I've never seen writing like that before."
"Do you see Ba Sing Se anywhere on here?" Nikon asked, before pointing at the blue crystal ringed in green, "Is it this one?"
"No, at least I don't think so. I can't read that one, but I think that one there might be Amiganza," the young general guessed, pointing to the blue crystal two stops to the left of the crystal with the golden arrows, "again I think its Kanji script… looks like it would be pronounced "Amagansett."
The young commoner pointed at a clear crystal that lay at the junction of three lines.
"What about this one?"
Iroh examined it.
"Not sure, looks like "LIBRARY."
They regarded the mosaic for a few more moments before Nikon drew a quick breath.
"All right, I'll go see if there's anything more further down."
Nikon left Iroh to his examination and set off down the platform. He soon arrived at a huge archway; the other side of the blast door looked just as grey, dull and impenetrable as the other side had.
"Here's the other side of the main entrance," he called out as he passed.
The daimyo continued walking before he stopped once more. The regular pattern of tiles was here again disrupted, this time by four very large tiles that each contained a symbol. To his right another mosaic, identical to the first, was dimly visible in the shadows.
"Well, no doubt about it now," he reported, raising his voice to ensure he would be heard, "there's another system map over here and some of the tiles in between it and the main entrance say "FLOOD CONTROL DAM THREE." I'll say one thing, whoever built this place must have had some pretty damn long trains!"
Nikon's eyes failed to pierce the gloom deeper in the cavern, so he turned and walked back to his commander.
Iroh had turned to survey the lake once more.
"I still don't get it," Nikon puzzled as he rejoined his friend, "I mean if they didn't use earthbending, how did they make the monorail work? And what did they build all this for anyway? There doesn't seem to be any running water."
"I don't know that either. All this water had to come from somewhere though. Maybe the source dried up or goes someplace else now? Anyway, it's a mystery we don't have time to solve."
Together they walked towards the cavern's exit. Wind began to stir their hair as they drew near. The end of the platform terminated in a cul de sac, clearly meant to provide a scenic view of the dam and the valley it protected. From that position they could see the whole height of the dam. The dry river bed lay underneath them hundreds of feet below.
Nikon whistled.
"Agni Almighty, have you ever seen a dam this big before?"
"Not even close," Iroh replied, "the biggest one I know is back home - the one at Shenzen, but that's nothing compared to this. You could fit the whole capital in this cavern!"
"Yeh, no question about it," Nikon agreed, then, in an awestruck voice, "Maybe this was… a tourist attraction or something. This has to be one of the great wonders of the world."
The Crown Prince put his hands on his hips. He looked out across the ravine where another finger of the escarpment blocked their view of the steppes and the green clad army they knew was moving against them.
He turned back to Nikon.
"Yes, it is," Iroh agreed, then with a wistful expression, "I wish Chieng were here to see it."
Nikon cast a side long glance at his friend, but made no comment.
Iroh sighed and continued with a mock rueful expression, "It's probably just as well she isn't here, though, since we're going to have to destroy it. What a shame."
His friend grinned. Iroh answered with one of his own.
"Yes, too bad, isn't it?" Nikon replied, making a "tut-tutting" noise, "Well, hey, if this is "Flood Control Dam Number Three", that means there are at least two others, right? The world won't miss this one, will it?"
They both laughed.
Iroh looked up to the sky. The sun continued to shine brightly overhead. The two Fire Nation soldiers were bathed in sunlight as was the entire face of the dam.
"Not a cloud in the sky, but I think there might be some thunder and lightning soon, don't you?" the Crown Prince japed, elbowing his friend in the tummy.
"Why, yes, General, I think there might be!" the daimyo agreed heartily, adopting his superior's tone of mock innocence.
Suddenly Nikon held up one finger in a motion of deferral. He quickly knelt down on the edge of the platform and took a quick look underneath.
"Just wanted to check how this thing is supported," he explained, "it's not attached to the dam, it's got metal supports coming out of the cavern wall."
"Good thinking," Iroh agreed as he began to remove his chest armor.
Soon both of their burnished breastplates lay beside each other in the sunlight.
Nikon rubbed his hands together, the silly grin still plastered on his face.
"I have to admit, I really like to just blow things up!"
"Shhh!" Iroh admonished with mock severity, "We're supposed to be celebrating the power of Agni on Earth! Not acting like a couple of kids blowing off fireworks at the solstice!"
The Crown Prince's face became serious, his friend's followed suit.
"Let's hope the sacrifice is worth it."
Nikon nodded once in agreement. Jokes aside, they knew what they were about to do.
Iroh and his friend began to regulate their breathing, each drawing to themselves their inner chi. They stepped away from each other, maximizing their room to maneuver and widening their stances to the point where they appeared bandy legged. Each found his root and prepared to strike.
"Aim low," Iroh commanded in a low voice, "We have to hit the base, and pace yourself, this will almost certainly demand multiple strikes since the bottom is probably where the dam is thickest."
After a few moments pause and a single full breath, both executed a series of identical, graceful movements. In unison they swung their left arms in a wide semicircle. Blue sparks instantly began to dance around their hands and finger tips. As their left arms completed their swings they began the same motion with their right arms. With their arms crackling and popping with the same energy as their opposite, both men brought their middle and index fingers of each hand together.
Aiming down, they separated their fingertips to release their charges simultaneously through their left arms. Lightning shot forth in jagged blue bolts towards the smooth, featureless surface of the dam. The blows struck the target at its center, hundreds of feet below them. A large cloud of vapor instantly erupted from the impact site, followed by a huge shower of ejecta that rained down into the canyon.
"Again!"
Lightning arced once more from their hands, perspiration springing from their foreheads with the exertion. Within moments of the second impact, huge cracks appeared from the edge of the crater and spread across the whole face of the dam.
They stood still after the second discharge, breathing heavily. Every few seconds ominous echoes from the cavern, as if from the shifting of some enormous weight, reached their ears. The rolling thunder continued to echo even as the vapor dissipated and the stone fragments rained down into the canyon.
"You sure this platform is secure?" Iroh asked, his eyes shifting from the dam to the hatch a few hundred feet away.
"Well, no," his second in command equivocated, "I said it was supported from the cave wall. I'm not an engineer, I have no clue whether it will hold when this thing goes or not."
Water suddenly erupted in several large jets from the damaged area. The ominous echoes grew louder, joined by the noise of stone grinding on stone.
"It is too bad Chieng isn't here," Nikon shouted over the din, "Never thought I'd ever hear myself say that!"
Iroh shook his head in disagreement, "She's safer where she is. Get ready to run. When it goes it's going to go all at once. The moment it collapses we have to run for that hatch."
Nikon nodded, already drawing his breath for the next and probably final assault on the dam.
The moment they discharged their next gout of electricity, several things happened at once. The dam had stood pristine for countless years, its smooth surface seemingly immune to the effects of time. Now, weakened by the lightning strikes, its lower mid-section gave way. A massive wall of water erupted from the gaping wound, followed almost instantly by massive chunks of the dam itself.
The platform and indeed the world began to shake violently. Iroh and Nikon both struggled to retain their balance and lost. Nikon rolled over twice before his body swung off the edge. Iroh hauled him back up by his forearms as the top of the dam gave way. The sound of rushing water rang in their heads like a bell and made conversation impossible.
As the Fire Nation soldiers stood they saw the river bed below submerged beneath hundreds of feet of water which flowed out of the gully in a torrent. They grabbed their armor and, barely able to keep their balance, ran down the platform towards the hatch. The water level of the lake had already dropped significantly, revealing another ten or twenty feet of the metal structure which supported the monorail line.
Nikon jumped into the open hatchway without looking back. Iroh spared a single backwards glance in time to see the rest of the dam give way with a hollow, thunderous boom. He followed his daimyo and shut the door, spinning the wheel as fast as he could to secure it tight.
Once more they stood on the vista, but this time the view through their sight glasses was far different. Below them the formerly dry channel still roiled with huge amounts of muddy water that rocketed towards the steppes in a vast deluge.
The bridges they had seen before were gone, the river they had forded swollen beyond belief into a monster mightier than the Song.
"Sparks and flame, Iroh, just take a look at that!" Nikon exclaimed.
His companion declined to respond, instead calmly surveying the scene below them.
The Army of the Granite Mountains was now almost entirely surrounded by water. Huge tracts of low lying land had flooded when the river had overflowed its banks. The vanguard of Nifong's army lay bunched on the opposite bank of the newly engorged channel, cut off from the main body. Many other smaller groups were similarly marooned on hastily occupied high ground.
"That's going to take a few days to get around at least," Nikon ventured with satisfaction, "even if they still have waterbenders."
Iroh, his mood once again somber, replied, "Let's hope it's enough."
When they had fully absorbed the spectacle, they turned and made their way back to the ruin. They mounted their steeds in silence and made haste to rejoin their comrades in the desert.