A Thousand Lonely Hills

A single, uninterrupted sweep of green and gold. It rolls and falls like the breeze-tossed surface of the sea. Among the swells and hummocks, the old roads run like a web of arcane lines – going nowhere, going everywhere. Groves of trees scatter the rich yellow light of late afternoon. Shadows pepper the cracked concrete paths and dance across the hillsides. Summer insects click and chatter in pools of rippling shade.

The prairie lands stretch away from the steam-cart's wheels like a wilderness sewn from pure possibility. From here, everything looks as peaceful and empty as a painting of the days before men. From here, one might not even notice that an entire city lies underfoot.

That is, if one ignores the obvious signs.

The tiny vents and crooked chimneys that pop out of the grass here and there, like furtive gophers. Hidden pillboxes draped with camouflage netting, nestled in the cusps between hills. Cables sheathed in segmented black ceramic, winding up trees and through the tall greenery. Jets of steam and exhaust that rise from hilltops from time to time like smoke signals. The unblinking lenses of cameras perched on branches. Oh, and the seemingly-abandoned – but still quite solid –hundred meter concrete wall that runs the perimeter of the entire region.

If one stayed blissfully ignorant of these and a myriad other warnings, one might pass over the Deep Shire and all the way to the shores of the Great Blue Sea without seeing a soul.

The breeze stirs the trees and ripples the surface of the grass with a gentle seething sound. The hot, dry scents of late summer blow up the road. His robes fill and flutter in the warm wind.

Iroh the Red sighs contentedly, adjusts his tinted goggles, and pulls back the ignition lever. The cart's engine grumbles, hisses, and roars to life. A torrent of heavy gray steam erupts from brass vents. The little blue vehicle shifts and shudders, and then takes off down the hillside trailing misty clouds.

It's not a particularly fancy vehicle, this steam-cart. The cab is open-air and contains just enough room for second passenger – that is, if they hold their breath and cinch their belt. The bed and chassis are a mottled gray-blue, patchy with many years' worth of spot-welds and jerry-rigged repairs. Weighted down as it is with packages and parcels, the whole affair skims low over the road, looking more comical than at all useful.

The day pulses with a dry, flat heat. Even as he rides down the road, Iroh can feel it radiating back up out of the concrete and into the soles of his sandals. The road winds down the hills and through the glades and meadows between. Copses of oak and nomad spruce encroach upon the ramshackle avenue. An ancient, crumbling timber structure passes on the left. A low, hidden yard filled with headstones passes on the right. The cart rumbles over a moss-festooned footbridge. The cool smell of the stream below it is like slow nectar in Iroh's nostrils. Ahead, the road dips through tall sycamores and lingers there, meandering, as if luxuriating in the leafy shade.

All is shadow and the road; hot wind through the branches and his hair; the chugging bark of the engine; hard green and soft gold; the smell of steam in his nostrils. His hands grip electric against the wheel.

A shape. In the corner of his eye. A shape – lithe, quick, coming fast. Dropping from the trees.

Iroh feels his eyes peel wide. Electric. A hand flails away – a perfect movement, quick and subtle as an adder. The staff sits in the perfunctory passenger's seat. His hand curls around its base.

Too late: The shape is here. The shape is now. Too fast. It strikes the bed of the cart and curls downward. The cart jolts and shudders.

Too late, old man. Too late.

Every muscle Iroh's body seems to shudder and clench. The wheel spins; the cart veers; the tires screech; the engine grinds and howls.

"Iroh!"

Iroh sees birds take flight, high in the tangle of branches above.

"Iroh, it's just me!"

Breaks whine; rubber squeals; broken cement thunders; teeth chatter. Iroh's eyes squeeze shut as the cart spins across the road and shudders to a halt. The only sound that remains is the engine, idling grudgingly.

"I guess I overdid it, huh?"

The old wizard allows himself to open his eyes and turn around slowly in his seat. A figure – the shape from the trees – leans over the cab of the cart. Sunlight pours through mussed black hair and throws a round, earnest face into silhouette. Wide, expressive gray eyes stare down in bemusement. The loose tail of a headband flutters in the breeze.

Iroh pulls the goggles up onto his forehead. The world's colors grow brighter and sharper. "Aang?" His lips part into a smile. "Aang, my boy!"

With a heady leap, Aang vaults from the bed of the cart and into its cab. He lands smoothly, brushing aside the technomancer's staff as he slouches his thin frame into the passenger seat. "Of course it's me!" Aang grins. "Who else do you think was gonna come let you in?"

Laughing, Iroh throws an arm over Aang's shoulder. "You scared the hell out of me, boy!"

"You're getting rusty," Aang says. "Uncle Jiraiya says that there wasn't a mutie alive that could sneak up on you in the old days."

A low, rolling chuckle. "Old days? Jiraiya, Jiraiya. That was like yesterday to me. But enough of that – let me get a look at you, boy. It's been, what –"

"Two years."

"Two years! By the VALAR, Aang, has it really been that long?"

The boy nods. Aang sits with his legs folded beneath him, as if every moment at rest is one of forced meditation. He wears long, torn jeans of the sort manufactured en masse in Deep Shire and loose leather sandals. Despite the rude caress of the day's heat, he wears a long-sleeved black shirt under an open red vest. Fingerless gloves cover his palms and knuckles. The headband he wears is a faded burgundy, and bears a symbol in its center –

Wait. That symbol. Iroh feels his smile falter.

An old symbol. A stylized orb containing three coiling lines, wrought in faded gold threads. An old symbol indeed.

(And all at once, Iroh remembers a night that does not feel like yesterday. Only fifteen years gone, and sometimes Iroh pauses to wonder if it wasn't fifteen-hundred years in the past. All at once, he remembers the scent of rain on the wind and the stink of blood wafting up from stone stairs. He remembers lightning flashing against the black spines of the peaks and a downpour that always lay just over the horizon. He remembers red pools growing black and sticky amongst the rocks.)

"Where did you find that headband, Aang?" It slips past his lips before he can stop himself. Fool. For a man who has walked the wide world for a hundred lifetimes, one would expect more restraint. No matter. He will have to leave the self-flagellation for later.

"Oh, this?" Aang points at the symbol. His smile turns wry and self-conscious. "I just found it. At this old thrift shop on the Blue Concourse. I like it."

Iroh manages to hold back an obvious sigh of relief. All right, then. He has no idea. Good. His ingratiating grin returns. "Still hiding your tattoos, I see."

Aang shrugs. "It's not like that."

"Oh?"

"Well, I don't really like showing 'em off. But it's not like I want to get rid of them, either. They're the only thing I have left from my family – my birth family, I mean – and that's important." He lifts the edge of the headband and scratches at his hairline. A bit of sky blue peeks out beneath it. "I even had them touched up a bit. Spider took me to the guy who did his tattoos and he –"

"And still hanging out with the Jerusalem kid? For shame, Aang." Iroh clucks his tongue and shakes his head, only half-sarcastically.

"What can I say?" Aang says. "He makes me laugh."

This time, Iroh does sigh. He slips the goggles back over his eyes and fiddles with the steam-cart's controls for a moment. "Can't argue with that, I suppose." The engine purrs to life and the cart thumps and rumbles back onto the road.

"Ah, don't be like that. It's a big day! It's Uncle Jiraiya's eighty-eighth birthday! Eighty-eight, and he doesn't act a day over fifty," Aang marvels.

And doesn't look like it either, Iroh muses. "Don't you mean a day over fifteen?" he says with a grin.

Aang laughs, and they're off.

It's not a very long journey to where they need to go: A big hillock, sticking out from all the others with its steep sides and nearly flat peak. The mossy trees and knee-high grass that grow along its slopes are very green. Brightly, almost harshlygreen. Too green. The road skirts around its base, dodging off into the plains and sinking into stands of old scrub oak. Iroh knows the score – as the old concrete turns away from the trees against the hillside, he plunges the cart off the paved surface and between two stone markers.

The cart bumps and wheezes for only a moment before its tires hit cleverly-disguised, well-maintained asphalt. The hidden road takes Iroh and Aang around the base of the hillock, away from the open highway. After about a quarter mile, it runs straight into a lichen-covered rock wall. Iroh pulls the cart to a slow halt. Before the vehicle has even stopped moving, Aang jumps from the passenger seat.

"I'll take care of this," he announces happily.

Iroh waits, hands firmly on the controls, as Aang dashes to the rocks and begins pawing at a cluster of off-yellow moss. He presses, then pulls, at the surface to reveal a hidden panel. The impatient noise of the engine masks whatever it is that Aang says into that panel (though Iroh could figure that out if he wanted to) and the distance hides what he types into the keypad below it (and Iroh could figure that out, too). Aang darts back, all coiled energy and anxious excitement. Some seconds pass.

With a terrific groan and a seismic shudder beneath the road-bed, the rocks of the hillside split apart. The sound of old hydraulics squeals through the air. A fine pall of rust-stinking mist flows out of the space beyond the hillside. Somewhere, alarm klaxons wail and echo down into the earth.

Aang reappears in the passenger seat, and Iroh silently maneuvers the cart into the darkness behind the open hillside. The entire world fills with the sound of pistons, gears, and mighty cogs. The camouflaged gates close behind them with an immense crash, snuffing out the light of summer. Darkness swallows everything.

Iroh strips off his goggles and sits for a moment, breathing in the familiar smells of wet concrete, ancient grease, and ozone. Out in the void, something clicks and something clunks. A brief, bone-rattling hum. The familiar tingle of scanning fields passing over his body.

"Here we go," Aang murmurs.

Dozens of pulsating lights flare into existence and reveal the massive, sloping shaft that gives entry into the Deep Shire. Spinning beacons of amber and bright crimson line its length. Within moments, the sounds of machinery roaring to life pound against Iroh's eardrums. A titanic cargo elevator – empty but for the steam-cart and its two passengers – begins its slow descent into the labyrinthine subterranean city.

His face awash in gore red and fiery orange, Aang leans back and grins contentedly. "This is gonna be the best day ever," he sighs.