As Azula made her way further into the city, she directed herself toward the staggeringly tall tower that seemed to be its centrepiece. In the luxuriant and distinguished range of buildings associated with it, Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University looked out of his office window, down into the streets of Ankh-Morpork. Behind him, the bespectacled form of Ponder Stibbons, head of the Department of Inadvisably Applied Magic, and Rincewind, head of Cruel and Unusual Geography waited for him to speak.
"Other dimensions opening onto ours?"
"Just one, sir," said Stibbons, "and fairly briefly, last night. The Cabinet of Curiosities was being folded up for the night, and we had an…incident."
"An incident? What? Did Bel-Shamharoth jump out and gob on you?" Ridcully boomed.
"Nothing quite that dramatic, sir," Rincewind said, "but there was a sudden disruption in the dimensional shifting, sir. The Head of Indefinite Studies was knocked clear across the room by an extruding drawer that came, in more ways than one, out of nowhere."
"Not hurt is he?" Ridcully asked, alarmed. The Cabinet of Curiosity was a notoriously unpredictable entity, the consequences of standing too close to which could only be described as 'curious.'
"Mostly just his pride, sir," said Ponder gravely.
"Lucky it wasn't me," Ridcully said jovially, "If I hurt my pride I'd be in my grave by now!"
Ponder coughed. "Yes, sir."
"Well what does it mean then," said Ridcully, "Dungeon dimensions about to burst open upon us at last?"
Rincewind flinched, "Uh, no Archchancellor. Mr. Stibbons and I investigated and some kind of…er, what did you call it again?"
"A quantum sympathetic tremor," Ponder said with some relish. "Something in another dimension has somehow resonated with something in ours."
"Resonated with what, damn you, Stibbons!" Ridcully had limited patience at the best of times, and Ponder's evident glee at such an occurrence and desire to keep dramatic flourish was not helping.
"With Great A'Tuin, Archchancellor."
Ridcully, on the rare occasion, was dumbstruck. "The Turtle? What resonates with Great A'Tuin?"
"We don't know, Archchancellor," said Stibbons, "but whatever it was, the resonation ran right up here into Ankh-Morpork."
"To what effect," Ridcully demanded.
"Uh, we don't know," said Stibbons.
"Then what do we do, man?"
"For starters, sir, I think we should warn the Patrician, and keep our eye on events in the city."
The streets here seemed to be much busier with the doings of a greater range of people.
Azula had made her way as directly as possible toward what seemed to be the centre of the city. She'd been delayed by trying to find the bridge across the river, which was quite possibly the most fetid, gelatinous body of water she'd ever been unlucky enough to encounter.
Luckily there had been a bridge, through a park in the high-class part of the city. But the tall tower and other distinguished buildings standing above their neighbours near the city centre made it look as though that was where the actual power was held.
The city streets were wide and rambling, all the intersections marking the street changing angle as it went.
Something was very odd about this city neighbourhood. For one thing, almost everyone she passed in the street here was afflicted with great shortness. Were it not for them all having long beards, she would have taken them for stout children. And many, if not most, carried impressive-looking steel axes slung over their backs or stuck through their belts.
And that was by no means the strangest thing she'd seen: a trio of what looked like hulking piles of garbage with limbs knuckled up the street, gathering up every bit of rubbish they came across.
Presently she noticed a building that looked like a tavern. She couldn't read the language of this country (in itself strange; she had at least a functional literacy in Earth Kingdom script and even a little Water Tribe). However the sign was a picture of a bucket. She went inside.
The tavern was bustling but not at its peak – it was barely after sunset – but Azula was brought up short by the presence of a number of people wearing armour.
One table off to the side was surrounded by them: they all wore brown tunics over dented and dull breastplates, and two of them – another of the short bearded people and a dusky man with a vacant expression – wore helmets. With them were another man with enormous spectacles and excessively neat hair and a petite, pale, dark-haired girl, who looked scarcely older than Azula.
Azula moved toward the bar, discomfited to realize she was attracting stares. She hadn't thought that she would have been so very conspicuous: a robe was common enough dress in the Four Nations, although this one was nothing like a resplendent as she would normally wear, but she had yet to see anyone wearing anything remotely like her clothing.
And this clothing was clearly not up to the weather. There was slush in the streets and it was clearly at least as far into winter here as it had been on Ember Island. Her feet were practically numb and her skin was all gooseflesh.
At least it was warm in here, Azula thought.
She tried to move toward a hearthside chair with as much dignity as befit a Fire Nation Princess. Everyone from the innkeeper to the armoured men and women to the decrepit beggar were looking at her as if she were a strange mythical creature that had just strolled in. The beggar muttered something about shrimp and shuffled off.
Azula sat by the fire, keeping her posture as straight as possible, her demeanour regal in these dingy surroundings.
The innkeeper appeared beside her, and with some measure of decorum, asked, "Something I can do for you, miss?"
Azula took a moment to process this through his strange accent, and then responded, "I require information. What is the name of this place?"
The man blinked, "Uh, the Bucket Pub, miss. Says so above the door."
Azula suppressed her impatience, "I…am from far away. I do not know what this place is."
"Why, miss," said the innkeeper, "This is Ankh-Morpork!"
"And is it part of the Earth Kingdoms?"
The innkeeper shook his head, "No kings here, miss. Only the Patrician, and the Watch, of course," he cocked his head towards the armoured patrons.
Her mind raced, and despite all the whirling strangeness, she felt her confidence rise. Wherever she was, it was a land unknown to the cartographers of the Four Nations. Such a concept was almost impossible to grasp, but nonetheless, it seemed to be so! After all, what places might a Lion Turtle be able to go?
She smiled faintly. She was beyond the reach of Zuko, or the Earth King, or anyone else! Truly, a clean slate.
So this was a city that forswore kings? Well, she overthrew Long Feng, a pretender to royal power, in Ba Sing Se. Now she was in a new city, where no one knew what she was capable of.
But it would not be easy. She was starting from nothing at all. She had no army, no ships, no allies. But she also had her wits and her bending powers.
The Watch, the barman had called those armoured people. That means they're the power of the law here, she thought.
For a moment, Azula was no longer in this tavern in a strange city. She was among the immense palaces and walls of Ba Sing Se. The Dai Li were 'the Watch' there, and she'd mastered them through superior will and cunning. That was her great success, the height of her power, and of the Fire Nation's.
For an instant she found herself sliding into memories of what had followed; betrayal, abandonment, defeat…
She shook off the thoughts angrily and then looked round. The armoured party sprang to their feet as an almighty commotion ensued out in the street.
Azula rose and moved swiftly to the door. Two of the hulking trash-creatures she'd seen earlier was attacking the people in the streets. They were howling and throwing various pieces of rubbish. One turned to face the watchmen, and Azula had to duck sideways as a cracked old jug spun by her head and smashed inside the tavern. One of the short, bearded men watched from behind her, and exclaimed, "It just went mad! Never seen anything like it!"
"I've always said they shouldn't allow gnolls," growled another.
Azula slipped out of the tavern and past where the fight was intensifying. What she needed, she realized, was to get her claws into the Watch. She had to give them a reason to want to follow her. In Ba Sing Se, she'd placed herself at the head of the Dai Li by presenting them with a way to seize power. She had but to do the same here. She could win their respect, and work from there.
Something jogged at the back of her mind, making her focus waver, but then she looked at the ground. She could see footprints consistent with the creatures coming up the street. Bits and drips of rubbish surrounded the prints, including one dark trail of liquid, covering in places by a dusting of snow. Grimacing, she dabbed a finger in and sniffed. It was alcoholic – spirits of some sort. She smiled. With a single finger she produced a flash of flame, which ignited the trail. A little crest of blue flames running along the cobbles stretched rapidly out ahead. She took off in pursuit.
She followed the trail around a curve in the street and up to the front of a ramshackle old townhouse. It had two doors, one at ground level above a stoop, the other at the bottom of a short stairwell, below the street.
Clearly this was a city plagued by monsters. She would demonstrate her power over them. A corner of her mind noticed the irony: the Avatar had supposedly relieved villages of the depredations of the spirit world. Azula, the Avatar of Fire? A promising idea!
Drawing in breath, feeling the energy flow, Azula sent a concussive fire blast out that shattered the door. She was through the door before the flaming splinters had finished clattering to the ground.
The tableau that greeted her was like an underground version of things she'd thought would only go on in the universities of the Fire Nation or Ba Sing Se. There were rows of wooden benches, groaning under the weight of what, at a glance, seemed to be several identical sets of burners, cauldrons and bottles. Each was being worked on by a man in heavy leather gloves, aprons and goggles. It was stiflingly hot and stank in a distinctly chemical way. Rows of jars lined the walls on shelves.
The workers were overseen, so it appeared, by a combination of the short, bearded folk and a few hulking creatures that looked like they were made of living stone. The former carried axes, the latter big clubs.
There was a moment when the whole room stared at the intruder, nonplussed. Then Azula let fly a fireball at one of the rock-creatures. It staggered back, roaring, but its fellows, and the other armed members of the group, all charged her at once. She summoned whips and scythes of flame and threw them forward. The rock creatures took it, and one raised his club.
Azula stumbled back as the club, the step into gravel. She scrambled backward up into the street, thinking fast. Frantically, in fact. She'd show them. As fast as possible, she began the kata for lightning.
For a moment she heard her own voice: "I'll show you lightning!" She saw Zuko's face, and a traitorous inner voice asked, 'What if you fail?'
The spark jumped from her fingertips and exploded. She was blown backward and sprawled on the slushy, grimy street. One of the rock creatures, howling and stumbling, loomed in her vision, club raised.
A big shape, a man, flew out of nowhere and tackled the beast, bowling them both over with a crash. Azula was on her feet again in a flash. The man stunned the rock beast with a punch and stood. He was tall, statuesque, not unlike her father, Azula thought dimly, but he was clad in armour and a brown tunic, carried a wooden club or baton, and had hair the colour of copper.
"Please get clear of the building, Miss," he shouted, "We have it under control."
The other watchmen were joining the fray. The bespectacled man seized a fleeing worker by the coat tails. The petite woman was squaring up against one of the rock monsters, and the dusky man was holding two bearded persons by the scruffs.
The third rock beast was suddenly sent staggering as another of its kind, clad in a version of the armour the watchmen wore, lunged into the fray. It was smaller than its opponent though, who knocked it back and raised its club again.
Azula seized the chance – for what she hadn't really thought about – and punched out a projectile of blue fire at the monster.
The dark-haired woman narrowly missed being caught in it, and the rock monster shifted his weight and it missed him too. The flame sped on and back through the cellar door. The man in the bespectacled watchman's grip screamed, and before she knew it Azula had been knocked over by the big red-haired man and he'd thrown his body across her and yelled "Everyone down!"
There was a 'whump,' and then a moment later, #30 Gleam Street, and everything else within a two-address radius, exploded.