152 nd day of our journey. Nightime. A terrible thing has happened. We have lost Appa, the Avatar's bison, and are now stranded in the Si Wong desert.
We had found Wan Shi Tong's Library, which had been buried in the sand by the Spirit. Wan Shi Tong gave us leave to peruse his library, and there we found more than the map Sokka wanted: we found crucial information on how the Fire Nation can be defeated!
This knowledge is of the utmost importance, and must reach the Earth King in Ba Sing Se as soon as possible: an eclipse of the sun is on its way, on the first day of the eighth month, and during this time Firebenders will lose their Firebending skills, thus rendering the Fire Nation vulnerable to attack.
Obtaining this information has cost us dearly. Wan Shi Ton has re-buried his library, furious that we have used its knowledge for warfare. Professor Zei refused to leave the library, and has been buried with it.
We barely made it out of the sinking library, but as soon as we were out of it we realised that Sandbenders had kidnapped Appa.
The parched heat of the desert is incredibly draining, and morale is getting lower. The loss of his Flying Bison has affected the Avatar deeply, and not only because Appa was our means of escaping the desert, but also because there is a special bond between the two that may be difficult for others to understand ...
I had seen them circling Appa predatorily at the Misty Palms Oasis – those people dressed in layers of white clothing. Professor Zei had said they were Sandbenders, a hardy, well-acclimatised people who roamed the desert, scavenging whatever they could for a living.
They scavenged Appa.
Aang is distraught and completely beside himself at being separated from Appa. I have never seen him like this before.
It had started so promisingly yesterday afternoon, because, to my surprise, we actually found the Library. It took a long time and flying in the dry, superheated air of the desert was definitely something that I did not really enjoy. It did not bother Professor Zei, however, who is better acclimatised to the desert and had eyes only for Appa: he was ecstatic at the opportunity to fly on a Air Nomad's Bison.
It was Sokka who spotted the Library through his spyglass, even though only the topmost spire of it was visible – it stuck out of the sand dunes like some weird tower.
Proportionate to its size as depicted in Professor Zei's sketch, the building was huge. Toph confirmed it was, and that although buried beneath the sand, it was intact. A sleek fox holding a scroll in its mouth proceeded to show us the way in –through an elaborately carved window at the top of the spire.
Toph had no use for libraries, and Appa was scared of being underground, so they remained outside.
Perhaps, had they both come to the Library with us, none of this would have happened.
Or perhaps, without Toph on the outside, slowing down the sinking of the Library, we would have all perished... I just don't know.
We used ropes to climb up to the window at the top of the tower. When I looked inside it was really awesome. We were staring down at a huge space that sank down into the far distance. Our bird's eye view revealed a cavernous well beneath the spire with level upon level of library floors, disappearing into the distant dimness below – we couldn't even see where it ended, and it was richly decorated with symbols of the Knowledge Spirit's animal form, an owl. Professor Zei could barely contain his excitement, and when Sokka tied the rope securely to the window and threw the rope into the void, he was the first to climb down, followed by Sokka and Aang. I brought up the rear, hanging on to the rope for dear life, for if I lost my hold on it, I would plunge down I don't know how many storeys below. I could hear Professor Zei's voice echoing in the vast space.
'Look at those beautiful buttresses!' he exclaimed.
The two knuckleheads on the rope below me started chuckling at the butt joke.
'What's funny?' Professor Zei asked in bafflement.
'Nothing,' Aang answered, innocently 'We just like architecture.'
We were so light-hearted then... I can't believe how things changed so drastically in the space of just a few hours...
Wan Shi Tong found us almost immediately. The Spirit towered over us, a large, majestic black-feathered owl with a white face and large, intelligent, unblinking eyes. He did not like humans, saying they were always bent on destroying one another. He mentioned a Firebender who had done just that not so long ago...
I suppose he had a point, but then, in spite of all his incredible knowledge, I don't think the Knowledge Spirit understands or empathises with people who have suffered so much at Fire Nation hands, and that sometimes, it takes destruction to stop an even bigger destruction...
Thankfully, we found that having the Avatar with us made a difference. Aang gallantly vouched for us, and Wan Shi Tong took his word that we were not there to seek knowledge for destructive purposes. He did not see through Aang's blatant lie, and said we could use the library on condition we contributed something.
Professor Zei offered a book and I offered my Waterbending Scroll - the one I took from the pirates. I had nothing else (I had my little Earth book in the pouch beneath my water skin of course, but I wasn't about to relinquish that!). I had the Waterbending Scroll on me because I had been showing it to Professor Zei on our way here. It was a scroll I had hoped would one day lay in a Water Tribe library where it belonged, but I suppose a Spirit Library is a good place for it too. It will be preserved forever, though it's highly doubtful how many other Water Benders will see it. But I was willing to sacrifice it in order to get in – after all, I know all the bending forms in it. Aang donated his 'wanted' poster that he had taken from Xin Fu at the Earth Rumble arena. (I didn't know he was still carrying that around!). Wan Shi Tong wasn't very impressed, but took it any way. After all, there can't have been many Avatars who had 'wanted' posters of themselves plastered all over the Earth Kingdom and beyond! Sokka offered a string tied in a knot...
However, Won Shi Tong let us through. We didn't know where to start at first... the Library was huge ...books and scrolls and pictorial representations in thin clay tablets...there was anything and everything that the written word or painted images could possibly convey, from every corner of the world, and from every age since the dawn of mankind. There was mile upon mile of shelving that stretched as far as the eye could see on all the many levels of the library. Shelves that reached up to the high ceiling on every level. On prominent display beneath sealed glass cabinets, were the rarest or most ancient scrolls and books. The sheer number of books was incalculable. Professor Zei gave us a couple of hints about where maps or atlases could be located, then started running about from the myriad shelves eagerly pulling out scrolls and books.
'The library's shelving system is quite unique,' he said, as he sat down to look at some of the books he pulled out, 'It's nothing like the Library at Ba Sing Se University. The Knowledge Spirit has his own way of doing things, but the little descriptive banners on each shelve should help you.'
There were several sections on the outer more prominent part of the Library that looked promising. Sokka was helping himself to scrolls marked as 'maps' but I saw a little red banner with the word 'Avatar' written on it. That looked promising.
I pulled out a book at random. It was a very thick tome on the life history of Avatar Kyoshi. It went into great detail on the military campaigns of Chin the Great, and how he ruled the Earth Kingdom. It was not what I wanted to read about.
I pulled out another from a different shelf. It was about an Avatar from the Fire nation, but not Roku, an earlier one. That would have been so interesting to read. But it was also very, very, old. I needed something more recent ….or else something that explained more about being an Avatar. Aang had said once, at Sen Lin village, that he had no-one to teach him how to be an Avatar. Roku's spirit had helped him since then, but perhaps these accounts of past Avatar's lives would shed some light on how Aang is supposed to do stuff, too.
I pulled out another book. It was about the life of an Avatar who was an air bender, like Aang. Her name was Yangchen. She was, according to her biographer, an extremely wise and knowledgeable Avatar. That was interesting - not only because she was the last Air Bender Avatar before Aang, but also because there were many excerpts of her sayings and writings in this book.
'Slender in build, and small in stature, Avatar Yangchen looks deceptively delicate. When she walks, her feet barely leave an imprint on the grass, for she seems light as a feather and equally insubstantial, the author of book wrote But in her eyes there is an indomitable spirit and courage, as well as infinite wisdom. And a keen sense of duty that transcends all other aspects. And delicate she is not, for she has strength beyond imagining. Anyone watching her airbending a hurricane out of clear blue skies will know what I mean!'
I glanced over at Aang who was sitting cross-legged reading a manuscript with many drawings in it. Some aspects of Yangchen reminded me of the young airbender, though he has never produced a hurricane yet.
'Avatar Yangchen wrote many books and scrolls on the ways of the world. They are filled with a deep understanding of human beings. She wrote them in the hope that they will serve to educate people and help the four nations live in harmony She was left-handed, but her script was beautiful, and a work of art...' I smiled at that. Aang's wasn't. 'For some reason, she destroyed many of the treatises she had written before she died. One of them, which I had an opportunity to see before she destroyed it, was a treatise on the strengths and weaknesses of Avatars, especially in the Avatar State. The Avatar state is a defence mechanism, designed to empower the Avatar with the skills and knowledge of all the past Avatars; a combination of all past lives, focusing their energy through her body. In this state, the Avatar is at her most powerful, but also at her most vulnerable, for if killed in the Avatar state, the reincarnation cycle will be broken and the Avatar will cease to exist'.
I looked up from the book, worried. Did Aang know about this? This was bad news.
I glanced over at the young airbender, who started enthusiastically showing us pictures of fantastic mythological creatures.
'Aang, did you know in a past life, you were left-handed?' I started, not knowing quite how to break the news to him.
'I always knew I was special,' he said light-heartedly, but then his attention was drawn to where Sokka was lifting the glass off one of the displays. He was walking off with what he had pulled from under the glass.
'Sokka, where are you going?' Aang asked.
Sokka had pulled out a charred parchment with a date and a short sentence "The 9th day of the 7th month of the Cultivate Rule Dragon Year was the darkest day in Fire Nation history".
My brother wanted to find out what happened on the Fire Nations' darkest day. With the help of Zei, who had figured out the Library's layout quicker than we did, we found a Hall that led to one of the four corners of the library, at the end of which was the Fire Nation symbol. Within would be books and scrolls pertaining exclusively to that Nation.
At the back of my mind, I was already thinking about a quick trip to find the corresponding hall leading to the Water Tribe section of the library – perhaps I would find copies of those scrolls and books about my people's culture and history that had been destroyed at the South Pole, when suddenly, everything flew out of my head as we entered the large chamber with the Fire Nation symbol.
It was burnt - all of it! Firebenders had been here before like Wan Shi Tong had said. No wonder he held a grudge against humans! But I wonder why, in his infinite knowledge, he can't or doesn't want to, distinguish between Fire Nation aggression and the rest of the human beings they oppress...
We thought the destruction meant the end of our search but then, strangely enough, we found help from an unlikely source – or perhaps, it was a likely source: the little fox spirit showed us the way to a Planetarium – an immense and awesome chamber with the heavens that moved in accordance with the huge mechanical dial and calendar set in the middle of the room. When Sokka put in the date on the burnt parchment, we found out it denoted a solar eclipse – literally 'the darkest day!'
Like Waterbenders loose their power in a lunar eclipse, the same could be said for the Fire benders . We were all very excited and thinking what a good thing it was to have come here -but that's when things rapidly started going downhill.
Wan Shi Tong heard Sokka whooping about how the Fire Lord is going down and he found us. He was furious. He didn't want to hear any explanations - he opened his wings and started to beat them. They were owl wings and thus completely silent, but seconds later, there was a creaking, crashing noise as the whole library suddenly started to shake and vibrate. Wan Shi Tong was sinking it down into the desert sands, and taking it back to the spirit world! Not only that, he took on a terrible, black-feathered dragon-like form and started chasing us!
We ran off, for Wan Shi Tong's wrath was terrible, but Sokka insisted on going back to the planetarium with Aang to find out the date of the next eclipse!
Perhaps, if he hadn't, we would have made it to the surface sooner...perhaps we would have been on time to save Appa, and then we wouldn't be lying here in this vast immense emptiness of the desert...
Of course, Sokka was right when he said it was our only chance of knowing when the next Solar Eclipse was due, but I didn't have a chance to protest, for they were already on their way back to the Planetarium, and Wan Shi Tong was after us, intent on killing us! I just grabbed Momo and ran! At a certain point, I lost professor Zei, but the Knowledge Spirit seemed to hone in on me even when I hid behind the bookshelves. Perhaps he could sense my presence somehow ... he is a spirit after all. For a moment, I lost my orientation in such a confusing sameness of shelves upon shelves of books, but finally in the distance, I recognised the main well beneath the domed spire where our rope hung and made a dash for it.
I almost made it on time but at the last minute, Wan Shi Tong flew silently on his owl wings right down on the bridge that led to the rope. I turned to face him, knowing I stood no chance of climbing the rope. He mocked me, saying he knew all Waterbending moves, but then Sokka, dropping down from where he had been clinging to Aang's glider, knocked him out with one of his own books! We ran for the rope. Sokka glimpsed Professor Zei between the bookshelves but he wouldn't come – the lure of the books and his life's ambition of finding this place were too hard for him to resist.
'Just go!' I shouted to Sokka.
We had lost enough time, and the Library was sinking fast. Zei was lost. Or else he might just be granted his heart's desire and have all eternity to read in the spirit world!
Unfortunately, Wan Shi Tong had recovered, and, grabbing hold of our rope, the spirit started shaking it, so that we were flung about like puppets. Suddenly, the rope broke. Luckily, Aang was still on his glider and as he dove down towards us, I grabbed on to the tail end of it and Sokka grabbed on to me. That's how we made it out of the sinking spire. Sokka's weight made me lose my grip on the glider when we were several feet in the air, so we landed hard, but the soft sand broke our fall.
I remember how elated I felt as seconds later, the spire of the Library disappeared beneath the sand, throwing Toph backwards. We were out of that place all in one piece and with valuable information that could lead to the Fire Nation's defeat!
In those first few seconds I didn't realise just how bad things were.
Just how bad things still are!
I think the first indication that something was wrong was when I saw Toph sitting dejectedly in the sand, her head buried in her hands. Not the reaction I expected.
But Aang had realised what was wrong immediately.
How could he not?
The sand dunes stretched for miles upon miles in every direction, the pitiless sun illuminating in harsh brightness every single contour of the dunes in their repeated sameness all around us: there was only one thing was glaringly missing.
'Where's Appa?' he asked tremulously, as though he knew the answer already.
Toph just shook her head and remained uncharacteristically silent.
In spite of the afternoon heat, I could feel the cold hand of a nameless dread clutch at my heart. There was no way we couldn't see a ten-ton bison in this open space unless...
...unless he was gone.
Appa was gone!
I saw Aang freeze in horror and a tear slid down his cheek as the truth sunk in.
'Sandbenders...lots of them,' Toph stood up and spoke finally, her voice a forlorn whisper 'They took Appa.'
We fanned out from the depression in the sand where the library spire had disappeared, scanning the orange, sandy horizon. There were some scuffle marks in the sand, perhaps some 20 yards away, but even as we stood there, a stiff breeze had come up and was already blowing sand across it, obliterating everything.
'How could you let them take Appa?!' I heard Aang shout at Toph 'Why didn't you stop them?!'
'I couldn't! The library was sinking!' Toph protested 'You guys were still inside and –'
'You could have come to get us!' Aang yelled, 'I could have saved him!'
'I can hardly feel any vibrations out here. The sandbenders snuck upon me, and there wasn't time for –'
But Aang cut right across her words, his features twisted in anger 'You just didn't care! You never liked Appa! You wanted him gone!'
I ran up to him quickly and put a calming hand on his shoulder. I knew he was under shock and distraught at Appa's loss, but that was a bit too much.
'Aang, stop it! You know Toph did all she could. She saved our lives!' I felt him tense beneath my hand, but his face remained rigid and white with shock and anger.
'Who's going to save our lives now?' I heard my brother say from the rim of the crater-like depression caused by the Library's sinking. 'We'll never make it out of here!'
I turned towards Sokka and slowly it dawned on me that he was right. This could be the loss not only of Appa, but the rest of us, too.
'That's all any of you guys care about: yourselves!' Aang shouted angrily as he stalked off towards the edge of the sand dune, 'You don't care whether Appa is okay or not!'
I could feel the familiar stirring of temper at his unreasonable words. I took a deep breath and quickly quashed my rising irritation, remembering I had promised myself to try and be equable, even in this arid desert. And now I needed every shred of patience I could find in the face of this new crisis.
'We're all concerned,' I told Aang calmly, trying to appeal to his better nature, 'but we can't afford to be fighting now.'
However, Aang's better nature seemed to have completely deserted him. The look on his face was almost frightening as he grabbed his staff and looked across the desert.
'I'm going after Appa,' he said, as he took off in a whirlwind of sand.
I ran after him, the sand particles stinging my face and arms, but he was gone. I looked up at the sky, squinting against the sun's burning light. Aang was soon a tiny speck in the distance.
There was nothing for it. I didn't want us to get separated, but at least he was on his glider and if there was one good thing about this vast, featureless expanse, it was that he could easily spot us again.
I knew he would come back. I just didn't know what he would happen if he actually did find the sandbenders and Appa. In the temper he was in, I figured that he'd probably attack them without stopping to think. Toph had said there were many of them, and they were in their natural element and on their home ground...
I glanced back at the other two. Toph was still standing forlornly on the rim of the crater-like depression, looking lost and miserable, and Sokka was trying to make out where we had last seen the disturbed sand that marked Appa's kidnapping.
With the stiff breeze that was now sweeping the desert it was all gone, wiped out completely by the shifting, wind-blown sand. But I knew Aang had taken that general westerly direction.
'We'd better start walking,' I told the other two. 'We're the only people who know about the solar eclipse. We have to get that information to Ba Sing Se'.
I spoke briskly and confidently, just as though Ba Sing Se was round the next sand dune. It was ridiculous, of course, but at least it had a semblance of a plan with an end in sight. Perhaps Aang would find Appa ... Shading my eyes against the sun, I looked out over the vast expanse of shifting desert sand. Any tracks were invisible now.
'How long had the sandbenders been here before we came out?' I asked Toph.
'I dunno. They disappeared with Appa about a quarter of an hour before you guys appeared. Not much, but enough to put some distance behind them, especially if they were using some transportation of sorts. They probably were, but I don't know what... everything looked so fuzzy...' there was a pleading note in her voice, and she turned to face Sokka who had just come up to us, thinking he was me.
When I spoke again, she realised her mistake and turned immediately towards me: 'It's okay, Toph. I know you did the right thing when you chose to save us– I would have done the same. Aang's upset because Appa's not just a means of transport for him...'
'You're telling me! He bit my head off when I accused Appa of shedding, remember?'
'And you were right about the shedding - it's just we were all a bit sleep-deprived then, and not thinking straight.,' I looked up at the searing afternoon sun 'This is worse, though.'
'I'll say it's worse! How're we gonna get out of here unless Aang finds Appa?' Sokka grumbled.
'I know it's asking a lot, Sokka, but could you please be a bit more sensitive about Appa?' I said crossly 'He's not a dumb and expendable beast of burden for Aang ... or even for me, for that matter, but for Aang especially...'
'I like Appa,' my brother protested 'but Appa's a big bison, he can take care of himself. I don't see why Aang's making such a fuss –'
'That's because you were too busy sucking mango-juice back at the Misty Palms to hear what Professor Zei was saying about the Sandbenders!' I retorted sharply, 'They're scavengers mostly, but they've been known to kill weary travellers and take their possessions, if they can get away with it. Professor Zei said the desert is littered with the bones of men and animals that did not make it across the desert, and he insisted that half of them were not killed by the desert, but by the Sandbenders. They're ruthless, and Aang knows it. Perhaps he's worried whether Appa's been kidnapped to be sold as a dead trophy by the Sandbenders...'
There was a stunned silence following my words.
'Not – not Appa!' my brother stuttered 'I'm sure he'll be worth more alive...'
'Unless he tries to escape or becomes difficult to handle, in which case...' I let my words hang in dire warning in the hot desert wind and turned to look ahead, leaving each to his or her thoughts.
The torrid sun was beating down relentlessly on our heads and I did not really want to give voice to my fears again. I wanted to keep our spirits up, but I also had to explain, in part at least, Aang's unreasonable outburst.
There was more to it than that, of course.
There was the close bond between Aang and Appa that even I could not really fully understand. I had come to realise this slowly over the months as I observed them together, but only now did it hit home exactly how close they were. Appa and Aang were connected by more than those symbolic arrow tattoos - I remember how, back in the Foggy Swamp, Aang had used this connection to find where Appa was. But the Foggy Swamp and the Banyan Grove Tree were far away, and as different as night and day from this lifeless sea of dunes. Aang had to rely on his sight to find Appa, and even with such a short head start, those Sandbenders could be anywhere - those sandskiffs were pretty fast and Aang's glider had a limited range.
We walked for two hours in silence, the burning sun scorching our faces. It was difficult to think clearly, and my befuddled, heat-drugged brain seemed to be seeing things: the dunes seemed to sway and move in the shimmering air. My brother said it was just an illusion brought on by the super-heated air.
We walked in single file, for Toph found it easier to 'see' where we were moving like this, but even so, I kept glancing back in case she strayed in a different direction. I didn't want any more of us separating. Thankfully, the wind had died down then, for the abrasive, stinging sand-particles hitting our sun-burnt skin was exquisitely painful, and I didn't have any spare water for healing. Our feet sunk deep into the shifting sands, and step after plodding step, we walked in what I fervently hoped was the direction Aang had taken, and the direction Appa had been taken, too. It was a westward direction and if I remembered correctly, Sokka had said the Library was in the North-western part of the desert, thus, heading West, we would be going towards the centre of the desert.
We were all sweating freely and I knew that dehydration would soon set in. Every so often I scoured the skies, squinting against the blinding sun, hoping to see Aang's orange glider, but I could see nothing but cloudless, bright blue skies.
Judging by the sun's slow progress, it was an hour later that Toph begged me for some water. I bended a bit out of my water-skin for them – we had to be careful with it now. Aang was still nowhere in sight, and he'd need water too.
I refrained from drinking. I think I can hold out much longer.
Unfortunately, my brother isn't so good with enduring lack of food or water, and when he saw a lone cactus tree sticking out of the sand, he took his own amateur desert-survival advice, and drank its juice before I could stop him.
Toph was bewildered by the sudden break in our single file, so I grabbed her hand and dragged her to the cactus bush where now Momo, too, was helping himself.
'There's water trapped inside these!' Sokka said, holding up a cut piece of cactus.
There did, indeed, seem to be what looked like clear, refreshing water in it. For a moment, I hesitated. The thirst I was adamant I was not feeling, suddenly made me realise just how parched I was. But a deep-seated feeling that this was too good to be true held me back. Sokka and I are Water Tribe: we have no idea how to survive in this kind of desert environment. Back at the South Pole, we knew not to drink from the snow beneath which the purple Crustose Lichen grew, or mistake the poisonous, oval, Sea Grass rhizomes for the edible Sea Prune, but here we were strangers. Aang, who might have known more about the desert, was not with us...
It was just as well that I didn't drink, for next instant, Sokka's pupils dilated, he started shaking uncontrollably and broke into a sweat (or rather, sweated more profusely than he had been doing).
'Drink cactus juice,' he said in a weird voice, 'It'll quench ya! Nothing's quenchier. It's the quenchiest!'
Momo started flying in tight circles above our heads, before dive-bombing straight into the sand.
Alarmed, I dumped the cactus and its juice straight into the sand and observed my brother closely as he remarked that Toph was on fire.
A poisoning out here in the middle of the desert! As though things weren't bad enough! But Sokka's symptoms seemed similar to nothing more serious than drunkenness: perhaps something inside that Cactus had fermented... His dilated pupils and the hallucinatory aspect of his symptoms however, told me there was some other plant alkaloid at work too. I took a deep breath and picked up Momo, who was stunned by his fall.
Assuming whatever he drank did not permanently harm him; Sokka was completely out of it now.
I could only hope the effect was temporary.
'Come on, we need to find Aang,' I said, leading Toph away.
I had to keep my hold on her, because with Sokka weaving in and out of the single file we were supposed to be keeping to, it wasn't easy for her to 'see' where both of us were. This was further complicated when Sokka, who seemed to think we were in the middle of the ocean, kept trying to swim in the sand.
Several times, I had to dig him out of where he buried himself, in his attempts to 'swim'.
'Why does the ocean taste so gritty today?' he asked, confusedly, spitting out sand 'And it looks orange...'
His symptoms seemed to be getting worse, not better.
I gritted my teeth and ploughed onwards, feeling Toph progressively drag her feet with weariness, until I was practically pulling her along. She said nothing much, but I saw her a few times lift her head up, as though listening for a sound from the skies, her sunburnt face set in rigid lines.
She, too, was waiting to hear Aang return.
'He'll come back, you'll see,' I told her, speaking with a confidence I wanted to believe I felt.
Toph's cloudy, sightless eyes turned towards me.
'I hate this sand! If it was rock, I could see – I could probably even see where they've taken Appa, because nothing much moves in a desert, and Appa's so big...' she hung her head morosely 'But I'm lost here...'
Toph was feeling lost and, I suspect, even guilty that Appa's kidnapping had driven Aang away, even though it wasn't her fault. I knew better than to say anything though. She likes to appear tougher than she is and any platitudes would probably only goad her to anger. Unlike me, she is not completely out of her element here, for sand is earth, of sorts, but I think she is feeling her blindness almost as keenly as when in water, and her bending here is nowhere as great as it should be.
I glanced over at Sokka, but he was laughing at Momo, who was circling him like a crazed bee-wasp again. The little Lemur circled so tight that his long tail wound around Sokka's neck, effectively bringing him to a halt.
'We're all a bit lost here, Toph,' I said as I pulled her determinedly onwards. 'But we'll get through.'
Just then we were blasted by a strong gust of hot wind. I looked behind us and in the far distance, a huge mushroom-shaped dust-cloud rose silently many hundreds of feet in the air, as though somebody had exploded a large barrelful of Blasting Jelly in the sand. Yet there was no accompanying sound of explosion – just the silent, orange cloud bellowing fiercely upwards, tons of sand shooting up from the dunes and then expanding high in the sky into a rolling, heaving overhang.
Sokka waved delightedly at the mushroom, and Momo chittered excitedly, his normally green eyes appearing larger and darker with his pupils dilated by the cactus juice. My mind flittered uneasily to the many possible and worrying explanations ... nothing moved air currents like that except airbending. Could it be Aang, or Appa? Or could it be, perhaps, an example of Sandbending ? I had never seen sandbending up close, and I had no idea what powers Sandbenders had, and how, or if, they could raise mushroom clouds like that.
At what or at whom, the cloud was directed ...?
'Let's just keep moving,' I said, 'I hope Aang's okay... '
The cloud was very far away and if there were Sandbenders at the bottom of it, I didn't think we stood a chance of winning a fight against them in our current condition. It was all I could do to keep us together until Aang came back, so I turned my back on the dust cloud and pulled Toph onwards.
The sun continued in its painfully slow but burning arch across the sky, burning ever lower and with less fury. Sokka still had the unnatural energy bequeathed by the cactus juice, and Momo kept trying to fly off in all the wrong directions. I told Sokka to keep a firm hold on him at all times – after a few inane comments, he got my meaning and clung on tightly to Momo's tail. As for Toph, however, she was getting increasingly tired – I don't think she has ever walked so far and in such conditions.
And neither have I, though perhaps I am slightly more used to walking long distances and pushing myself, if I have to.
Toph seemed barely able to stand and I think she was just concentrating all her energies to putting one foot ahead of the other in what must appear to her a vast, shapeless, dark world. She was as helpless as I had never seen her before, despite her blindness, and though I would never tell her so...it showed. Sokka was no help either– usually he always comes up with some idea or plan, but now he just smiling blandly at nothing in particular.
And Aang was gone where I could not see him.
It felt very lonely.
I felt alone in this vast, empty desert... this dry, featureless land that seemed to leach the very life force out of me. My lips were cracked and parched, I could even taste the grittiness of the sand, and my face was sunburnt as it had never been before...
But I wasn't alone.
Others depended on me, for they were helpless now. So I forced myself onwards, not even having the strength to pull Toph along. I led them along the crest of the largest sand-dunes I could find, for that way, at least, I could see better from the higher vantage point. Not that was anything much to see beyond the endless ripples of the shifting dunes. Sometimes I squinted up at the sky through inflamed eyes, hoping to see one orange speck unlike any other against the darkening blue of the sky, but I saw nothing.
I think I may have lost my sense of direction after a while, for I vaguely realised the setting sun was to my right, which meant we were heading South, but the dunes were very high and in our state, we could only take the easiest path: along their crest. The searing heat had lessened somewhat, and on either side of us, the desert stretched to infinity, the blazing colours of the setting sun tiger-striping the landscape in an undulating orange-and-black pattern.
I don't know what made me look up – I think a fleeting shadow passed overhead, but next instant, I saw Aang land on his glider a few yards away in a cloud of dust and sand.
Relief flooded through me, and I ran up to him. But he remained crouched where he had landed, head bent. I knew he hadn't found Appa, but at that moment, I was just happy to see he was safe and sound.
'I'm sorry, Aang. I know it's hard for you right now,' I said, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder, 'but we need to focus on getting out of here'.
But Aang was far more depressed than I thought. He pulled himself away from my hand.
'What's the difference?' he mumbled in a low voice, 'We won't survive without Appa. We all know it.'
I was really taken aback at his words. I had hoped he would help me get the other two out of this mess, but he had come back so defeated, so sad and hopeless... I had never seen him like this. He had even given up on life itself!
I looked round at Toph, but she was swaying as she stood.
'As far as I can feel, we're trapped in a giant bowl of sand pudding' she said, 'I got nothin'.'
I turned to my brother who had thrown himself on the sand, smiling up at the sky: 'Sokka? Any ideas how to find Ba-Sing-Se?'
At this point, I didn't even care where we went, as long as we got out of the desert, but I hoped the mention of the city would ring a bell somewhere in Sokka's addled brain – it had been his plan after all.
'Why don't we ask the circle birds?' came the answer.
He pointed upwards and I saw, silhouetted against the darkening sky, several Buzzard-wasps silently circling above us. Carrion-eaters! I had heard of them, and Professor Zei, when describing his own adventures in the desert, had added more graphic descriptions of their role in the desert: Sometimes, if their prey was moribund, they did not wait for death...
I looked round at the others - Aang was still hunched over, numb and uncaring; Toph staggered slightly with weariness, and Sokka was actually giggling at the carrion-eaters. Something deep inside me slowly twisted into a ball of cold anger.
Well, the carrion eaters had made a huge mistake! I wasn't going to let them get us! I was more alone than before now, for Aang was too dejected to be of any help, and the other two were incapacitated. But we hadn't come so far to give in now! I felt the tight ball of anger inside me coalesce into a core of sheer determination. If the others couldn't help themselves, then it was going to be up to me.
Perhaps it was my usual angry response to life's unfair challenges; perhaps it was the sight of the avaricious Buzzard-wasps; perhaps it was seeing everyone so helpless...I don't know... but I felt goaded to prove Aang wrong! We weren't going to die here. I was filled with renewed determination and even some energy – a bit like that mysterious reserve of energy that gives you the edge in a crisis situation like battle, and your body is pushed to limits you would never imagine it can endure...
'We're getting out of this desert, and we're going to do it together! Aang, get up!' I ordered sharply, underlining my words by grabbing his staff and tugging him to a standing position.
'Everybody hold hands,' I ordered, glaring at them till they did what I told them to. 'We can do this. We have to.'
Nobody protested, but they all fell in line. Aang sullenly grabbed Toph's proffered hand, and she fumbled around till she found Sokka's, who had Momo by the tail.
'We'll move along the length of this dune, then we'll turn north', I said, pulling at Aang's staff. 'Ba Sing Se is in that direction.'
We proceeded in silence, for we needed to keep all our energy for walking the treacherously-shifting, sandy peak. I don't think Aang had anything to say anyway – he was lost in dark thoughts of his own, though he never once let go of Toph. She was the weakest of us without earthbending, for her strides were the shortest and she was unused to walking for so long. She said nothing but let Aang half-drag her along the sandy crest without protest. Sokka and Momo were the only two who remained obliviously happy.
The Buzzard-wasps soon stopped circling us, although it was more than an hour later that they finally stopped following us. I don't think they're nocturnal. The first stars were already coming out, when we finally arrived at the end of the large dune we had been walking along. We let go of each other and slid or stumbled down the slope of the dune, after which I led them in what I hoped was a northerly direction.
It was harder this way – going up and down slopes at an angle rather than along their crest is tough, but there was no other way. However, I could see they had all arrived at the end of their strength, so I called a stop for the night just as we reached the top of a large sand dune.
They have practically fallen asleep where they stood, collapsing in a tired heap in the sand. Sokka seems to be getting over the effects of the cactus juice, though his pupils still seem a bit dilated - its hard to tell when you're judging someone's eyes by starlight, - and he still seems to overreact to everything. Like when I asked for the maps he had stolen from Wan Shi Tong's Library. It was so stupid of me – I should have thought about this earlier: Sokka had managed to pilfer some really useful scrolls from the Library. One of them is an Astrological Map of the heavens. I told them we will travel by night and rest during the worst of the heat of the day.
That means we will have to start again in a few hours.
The desert is silent.
There are no birds or bugs or animals to disturb its silence with their calls, or rustling and scurrying. The snowy tundra is a bit like that in the middle of winter, but back at my village, there is always the soothing sound of the ocean.
Here, there is nothing, and the thoughts in one's head sound all the louder. But I have channelled those thoughts to studying the Star Chart. And the rest of the time writing this.
I have persisted in writing in this little earth book for a reason:
We have just used up the last of the water in my water skin. Without water, our days in the desert, even if we travel at night, are numbered.
The hard core of resolve within me is still very strong. It is as though I am somehow disassociated from my body, and I can ignore the hardships and pain it is suffering. It has come to the point where even tiredness and sleep-deprivation do not affect me.
And I have stayed awake to write this because if this Earth Book is found, when I am past speaking for myself, then, at least, I may hope that the important information I have recorded in the visible part of my journal may somehow still arrive to Ba Sing Se. Aang is the Avatar – I hope he can somehow escape death in this arid desert. The Avatar State saved him once from drowning in a cold, storm-tossed ocean, and it may, once again, save him from burning to death in this parched desert. It is a slim chance, but I have taken it.
In the meantime, I have to hope. Tomorrow there is still chance that we will make it. If the worst comes to the worst, I have a small amount of the Spirit Ink - less than a cupful - with which I am writing this down – if we do not find our way out of the desert by tomorrow, I will try to separate the ink and the other ingredients from the Spirit Water and insist Aang takes it. He must be the one to survive.
If that has to happen, then this might, indeed, be the last entry in this diary.
I can't afford to think like that. I can't afford to let anyone see my doubts or any sign of weakness. For many hours now, this strength has sustained me in this burning place, where, as a waterbender, I am at my most helpless and vulnerable. I guess it is a strength that does not stem from bending, but from ... well, I don't really know from what, actually. But I know my mother had it. Perhaps it is her spirit in me that is giving me this strength.
In this windless night, the stars are an amazing carpet of twinkling lights above my head and their slow movement across the heavens means it is past the middle of the night, and time to resume our journey.
Long may my mother's spirit guide me in the hours that are coming.