By Appa, Omashu was a few days away. That gave Zuko plenty of time to freak out. On the first night, when he and his uncle made camp separately behind a rocky wall that prevented them from seeing or hearing the Avatar's party, Iroh asked him gently what he wanted to do. "Whatever you decide, I will support it."
Zuko sighed. "I thought that I was finally strong. But I was wrong. I'm still confused about my father, about the war, about everything." He closed his eyes. "I don't know what to do, Uncle."
"Do you have any advice?" Zuko opened his eyes to see Iroh addressing the icy dragon, which was trying to dig a hole in the rock-strewn dirt. It wasn't doing any better than it had on the ice.
The dragon stopped its digging and shook its head. It flapped its fins once and went back to digging. "That's its equivalent of a shrug," Zuko translated. "It doesn't think there's a problem."
"Then maybe there isn't one!" Iroh smiled. "Everything will work out just fine."
Zuko bit into his seal jerky and did not reply. An inner voice repeated, I'm weak. I'm not enough. I try, but it doesn't work. I'm weak. I'm in danger. It sounded like his own voice, but younger.
He went to bed hoping to find answers in sleep. But when he woke up, he was still just as confused as before. He crept out of the single tent that the Avatar had given Iroh, careful not to wake his uncle, and found a perch from which to look over the mountains. He thought about Katara's dire prediction. "Come on," he whispered to himself. "You can do this. It's a matter of life or death. You have to decide before it's too late." But even just thinking of making a final decision paralyzed his spiritbending, turning his insides to trembling water. He gripped his head. "Life or death. Those are my choices. I choose life. … But what does that mean?"
.
He didn't have any better luck the rest of that day, or the next. Iroh asked him gentle questions about life, the world, and everything. Zuko refused to answer. Several times, he snapped at his uncle to shut up. "Don't I have enough to think about?"
The Avatar peered around the boulder whose shade they were taking lunch under. "Is something wrong?"
"No," Zuko shot back. "Go away." The Avatar disappeared.
Iroh rubbed his beard. "Zuko, are you refusing to answer these questions because you don't want to, or because you can't?"
"I…" Zuko sputtered. "Because I can't. I don't know what I think of the clouds, Uncle. I don't know what I think of anything."
"You're questioning your values," Iroh murmured.
Zuko gulped. The last time I felt like this, I got out of it by temporarily dying. I don't want to do that again. There must be another way. He felt for his inner fire. It was flickering, fragile. I need another way. He stormed up to the water dragon, which was sitting still as if meditating. He didn't feel like involving Iroh, so he thought to it, All I need is another option. Please.
The dragon gave him a hug. Then it told him, Listen to the earth.
"What does that mean?"
It looked down. He knew it cared for him. It surely felt bad when seeing him so tormented. But it was not going to give him an easy way out. Zuko turned away. He told Iroh, "I'm going for a walk. Send Momo to me when you're all done."
The water dragon followed him, of course. It trotted along behind him as he explored the little ravine they had landed in. The ravine came to a dead end in front of him. Zuko groaned. "I can't fall apart now. Not after coming this far. I just need to keep it together."
The water dragon lifted something off of his neck. It was Kalika's necklace. He held it, sat down and closed his eyes, imagined her reassuring presence. Kalika, what should I do?
If the water spirit thinks everything will be fine, then it probably will be, he imagined her saying. Trust your friends, Lee.
"That's the problem," he said aloud. "I forget about everything else. When his eyes are on me, the rest of the world doesn't exist anymore."
He couldn't imagine a response for her to say. She faded away. He opened his eyes, put the necklace back on, and decided that he felt a little better. Momo chirred. The lemur sat on a rock nearby. How long had he been there?
Zuko returned to the boulder and climbed onto his mount without looking at anyone. They all flew off together. Nobody said anything, but the next day, the Avatar pointed out a river running below and said, "Hey, that would be a great place to practice waterbending! Gotta keep it fresh in my mind, right, Katara?" She agreed. They landed next to the river. Everyone except Zuko changed into bathing clothes. Iroh waded in until he could push off the bottom and float. Sokka performed a cannonball off a nearby tree. The Avatar and Katara passed a ball of water back and forth, after taking the saddle off of Appa so he could float on his back.
"Come in, Nephew," Iroh called. "The water's great! Lie on your back and let it carry you."
Zuko did as requested. He walked onto the water until he'd reached the same depth as Iroh and Appa, then lay down on his back. The water relaxed, allowing him to sink into it. Its cool touch was refreshing. Zuko closed his eyes without meaning to.
An unknown amount of time later - had he dozed off? - he was brought back to the world by Sokka complaining that they had to get moving in order to reach Omashu. "Okay, okay. One last move," Aang said. "Let's do the octopus form!" He and Katara summoned up tentacles made of water and dueled each other. The tentacles turned out to be solid defenses; they couldn't reach each other when tentacles surrounded them both.
After some time of this, Appa lowed and Momo chirred. When Katara and Aang stopped splashing, the humans heard it too: music. Zuko looked up at the sky one last time, then got up and dashed off of the water before the approaching strangers could see him floating. They came from the woods: five strangers in mottled robes, three playing instruments and two dancing. The man in the lead sang as he played. "Don't fall in love with a traveling girl… She'll leave you broke and broken-hearted…" He stopped as he saw them. "Hey hey, river people!"
"We're not river people," Katara replied.
"You're not?" He seemed honestly confused. "Then what kind of people are ya?"
"Just people," Aang replied.
"Aren't we all, brother? Whoo!"
"Important people," Zuko clarified. "Unlike whatever you are."
The strange man seemed not at all offended. Maybe he was so dense he hadn't understood the insult? "We're nomads. Happy to go wherever the wind takes us."
"You guys are nomads?" Aang asked. "That's great! I'm a nomad!" He shot Zuko a look. Zuko rolled his eyes and silently agreed not to harass the strangers.
"Hey, me too!" the strange man replied.
"...I know. You just said that."
"What are all of your names?" Iroh asked, stepping out of the water.
"I'm Chong, and this is my wife, Lily. Whoo-ee! Nice underwear!"
Nobody wanted to think about Iroh's underwear, so they all hastily scrambled to get changed. Meanwhile, the nomads set up a temporary camp at the river's edge. Chong played a song about going for a walk and getting surprised by a wild animal. "If you feed a bear your hand, it'll go for the rest, so you'd better run away real fast… When you're running, don't look back, or it might be your last…" The lyrics lent themselves to a dark cautionary tale, but the way he sang it made running into a hungry predator sound no more consequential than getting caught in the rain. Aang clapped along to the happy ending where the song's audience escaped to adventure another day, then asked Chong about his nomadic life. Chong proceeded to list off a long series of places described mostly by things that had happened to the nomads when they were last there, with his wife chiming in to remind him of places he forgot about. Katara's hair was almost entirely braided by the time he finished. Aang interpreted this as evidence of them having been all over the Earth Kingdom.
"Can you take us to see the giant nightcrawler?" he asked.
"Sure," Chong replied.
One of the people that Chong was traveling with, the drummer, said, "On the way, there's a waterfall that creates a neverending rainbow!"
"Ugh," Zuko exclaimed, sticking his tongue out. "Don't tell me you people are actually considering going sightseeing? I thought the plan was to train with this Bumi guy."
"A neverending rainbow sounds like a sight worth seeing," Iroh argued. The dancer who was braiding his hair nodded.
"Some other time, Uncle. There are more important things to worry about."
"If you keep saying that, someday you'll look up and realize you spent all your time worrying and no time living," Chong said, strumming a few strings.
"You are a very wise man," Iroh told him.
"Just a creature of the earth, brother. Just a creature of the earth."
"That said," Katara said, standing up, "he's right. We need to find King Bumi so Aang can learn earthbending somewhere safe."
"Well, sounds like you're headed to Omashu." Chong sat up a bit. "There's an old story about a secret pass. Right through the mountains." Aang perked up.
"Is this real, or a legend?" Katara asked.
"Oh, it's a real legend," Chong replied. "And it's as old as earthbending itself." He sat up all the way and began to play another song. All the instrumentalists grabbed their instruments without moving from their positions, and the dancers got up to dance. "Two lovers… Forbidden from one another… A war divides their people… And a mountain divides them apart… Built a path to be together… I forget the next couple of lines, but then it goes: Secret tunnel!... Secret tunnel… Through the mountain… Secret, secret, secret, secret tunnel! Yeah!"
Sokka was most unimpressed. "I think we'll stick with flying."
Chong shrugged. "Watch out for those fire dudes. They're all over these parts."
There was a great big silence. Zuko felt eyes on him from all directions. He crossed his arms and pretended he didn't notice. "...You were mentioning a tunnel through the mountain?" Katara asked.
.
Two hours later, Chong had led them up the mountain, then back down the mountain, through a rockfall, around a cliff, and finally through a bunch of ancient ruins. It was clear why nobody wanted to live there anymore. "How far are we from the tunnel?" Sokka asked.
"Actually, it's not just one tunnel," Chong replied. "The lovers didn't want anyone to find out about their love, so they built a whole labyrinth."
Sokka stopped in his tracks. "Labyrinth?!"
"You're only mentioning this now?!" Zuko added.
"Eh, I'm sure we'll figure it out," Chong said.
They kept walking. Lily said, "All you need to do is trust in love, according to the curse."
"Curse?!"
Zuko and Sokka were both in a foul mood by the time they came to an enormous, dark tunnel. They looked at each other, then looked away. "What exactly is this curse?" Sokka asked.
"The curse says that only those that trust in love can make it through the caves. Otherwise you'll be trapped in them forever."
"And die," his wife added.
"Oh yeah, and die." They sounded just like they had when singing the cautionary tale before.
"That's it. There's no way we're going through some cursed hole," Sokka said while turning around. "Sorry, jerkface, but we're taking our chances with the Fire Nation."
Zuko paled. "Maybe 'trust in love' is code for something."
"Giddyup."
Zuko glanced into the cave. "We could make it a race. I'm confident the earth won't allow me to be trapped in there forever."
Katara looked back at the cave. "Love is a force that keeps people together. Splitting up can't be the right answer."
Aang looked between them. "Appa hates being underground."
"And my nephew's afraid of the Fire Nation," Iroh explained to Chong. "What are we to do?"
"Trust in love," Chong replied, as if it was stupidly obvious.
"Love keeps people together," Katara murmured. "And it protects the weak. That's it. We're going through the cave."
"I'm not weak!" Zuko snapped. His inner voice continued to repeat, I'm not strong enough. I can't face them. I can't.
"Wait," Katara said, suddenly remembering that she had promised not to make decisions for other people without consulting them. She turned to Sokka. "Sokka, if we stick with him, I'm sure the spirit of earth won't let us be trapped either. It's not as dangerous as it sounds."
Sokka rubbed his chin and thought about it. "What if the earth spirit does diddly squat?"
"I need to trust my friends," Zuko said. "Maybe that's what the curse means. You can't find your way through the mountain on your own, so you have to trust someone else to help you."
"Most people don't have spirits chatting them up, so I'm sure that's not what it means," Sokka said.
Aang looked at Katara. He took a deep breath. "We can't be second guessing each other, not when the curse says we have to trust. Come on, Sokka."
"What?" Sokka asked. "I'm the second-guessing guy. It's what I do."
"You might get us all killed then," Chong told him. From his voice, he might as well have predicted that Sokka would find them cake.
Sokka sighed. "Fine. This is a weird thing. It's not like anything I've dealt with before. You lead the way, Katara."
Appa lowed unhappily, but followed them into the enormous cave. Before long, it was too dark to see. Chong lit a torch. "We've got ten hours of light before we're doomed."
"Not true, actually," Sokka replied. He waved at Zuko. "Do that glowy ice thing again." Zuko placed a hand on the icy dragon and sent a spark of flame into it. The entire dragon became a giant torch. Sokka took Chong's torch from him and extinguished it.
"Whoa," Chong said. "Nice glowwyrm you got there."
"Give me the rest of your torches," Sokka demanded. "We should distribute them so everyone has light in case we get split up." Once torches were distributed more or less evenly, he leaned against Appa's side. "Okay, Katara. Your turn."
"Uh…" She glanced around nervously, then sighed. "I don't know how to find our way through. It's not like the spirit of love is going to come visit us if we trust it enough and give us a map, okay? I know we should stick together and trust each other. But that's all I know."
"What about you?" Sokka asked Zuko. "The earth spirit sending you any secret messages?"
"No," Zuko admitted.
"In that case, I have a plan." Sokka climbed onto Appa's back and rummaged for paper. "It's not as hard to get through a labyrinth as it sounds. All we have to do is make a map. I'll keep track of all the tunnels we go through. If we reach a dead end, just go back to the last fork and take the other path. It could take a long time, but we'll make it."
A very long time later…
Sokka stared at the map, befuddled. "This isn't right. I know this isn't right. I'm the one who drew this thing, so I'm the expert on whether it's right or not, and it's not right."
"Did we take a side tunnel and end up in some other part of the labyrinth by accident?" Aang asked. "This isn't the fork we were last at. The last fork only had two branches. This one has three."
Katara investigated the third tunnel. "The rock is too smooth here. There's no dust and no pebbles. Like something came through behind us and made it just a little while ago."
Sokka whimpered. "I'd rather not get found by whatever did that. We need to hurry. Uh… Chong, you said the song, and this cave, is as old as earthbending itself. So the original labyrinth that was built through the mountain must be centuries old. Let's stick to the plan and check every tunnel before entering. If it looks new, ignore it."
By following only the oldest-looking tunnels, they made what might have been progress. Occasionally, they felt distant rumbling. Once, the rumbling was strong enough to dislodge pebbles from the ceiling. "Wait," Zuko called. They all stopped. "If something in this mountain can make tunnels, who's to say it can't close them? The labyrinth might not exist anymore!"
The air chilled. Sokka lowered his map. "We're in deep doo-doo," he moaned.
"Trust in love," Katara repeated. "Trust in love."
"What does that mean?!" Sokka asked.
"Don't panic, Sokka," Aang said. "We'll figure it out." He looked straight at Katara and Zuko as he spoke.
"Trust in love," Zuko repeated, pacing back and forth. "It has to be a code or something."
"Sokka's right that this tunnel wasn't made to be used by people who could talk to spirits, so it can't mean trusting your spirit friends," Katara said. She stopped and gasped. "Maybe it's talking about the tunnel-makers! If we're nice to them, they'll make a tunnel for us!"
"Why would anyone build a labyrinth if the way through is really being defended by tunnel-making monsters?" Zuko asked. "That's just unnecessary."
"Intentional or not, if we can find them and befriend them, they'll take us straight to the other side of the mountain," Katara replied.
"Good point. Now how do we do that?"
There was another distant rumble. "Vibrations!" Sokka exclaimed. "We can send a message to them through the rock itself!"
Zuko turned to his dragon. "An ice spike with all the qualities of metal," he requested. The water spirit shaped such a spike and drove it into the wall for him. Sokka took spare strings that Chong carried for his lute and tied them to the existing strings, then wrapped their other ends around the spike.
"Play on!" Sokka declared.
Chong backed up so the spare strings were nice and taut. Then he began to play. "Two lovers… Forbidden from one another… A war divides their people…" His instrument sounded very different. The other instrumentalists joined in, Lily playing her flute and the drummer his drums with great vigor. The dancers danced just because.
They played the whole song with no rumbling from the mountain. Chong immediately started up a love song. "Even if you're lost, you can't lose the love because it's in your heart…"
A strange screeching and wailing came from another tunnel. Chong kept playing as if he didn't hear it. Zuko and Iroh prepared to defend themselves. Out of the air flew a giant flying thing with teeth. Then another, and another, and dozens more. Zuko and Iroh shot roaring fireballs at them, but the creatures were undeterred. They zoomed overhead without a pause. Zuko and Iroh stopped shooting and watched them pass. "Looks like it's working," Iroh said, peering down the tunnel.
Just as Chong finished the song, the wall of the tunnel exploded. They heard the same sound again, and again. Three badger moles as large as Appa surrounded them. They looked menacing and all of the humans were terrified, but they did not attack. The first badger mole stepped closer, tilting its head. "Hi there," Katara said. "Nice badger mole." Appa roared. Momo hid inside Aang's shirt. Sokka brandished his sword.
After a while of tense, frightened silence, the badger moles snorted. They pawed at the ground. "They weren't upset before, but they are now," Zuko translated. "Uh… Maybe total silence makes them uneasy. Play something!"
Sokka sliced through the spare strings. Chong immediately started up another song. The rest of his band joined him. The badger moles stopped acting agitated and listened. They began to sway along to the music. "Nice badger mole," Aang said quietly, approaching the nearest one. While it was pacified by the music, he stroked its cheek. As the song ended, he announced, "I think they're blind. They must get around by listening to the rock."
The badger mole snorted and stomped one huge foot. They all listened as the thump of its foot shook pebbles loose and echoed off the walls. "The earth uses sound," Aang murmured. "There's not much to see when you look at it, but there's a lot you can hear." He patted the badger mole's cheek again. It licked his face.
Zuko looked at the spike. "You can't hear it unless you touch it." He looked down. "Air uses touch, but also sight when it picks up leaves or dirt. Water uses sound and… Definitely not sight, since it distorts light… And Fire uses sight and sound, but not touch."
"Maybe trusting your spirit friends is the answer," Aang said. "Put out the light. Everybody, touch the cave."
Zuko took the spark back from the dragon and touched the wall next to the spike. The party was plunged into darkness. The breathing of the badger moles suddenly seemed much louder. Appa lowed anxiously. Through his feet, Zuko felt the bison shifting his weight as if he was going to panic and charge around recklessly. "Appa, calm down," he called.
"Is that light?" Katara asked. "Behind the badger mole, to the left."
Aang used airbending to leap up into the air. "I see it!" He reached out and felt the badger mole's thick fur brush his palm. "Thank you, buddy." With gentle pushing, he guided the creature out of the way. Blindly, groping their way along by the feel of the walls and the sound of each other's footsteps, they headed towards the light.
It turned out to be a trail of glowing crystals. "There's only one trail," Zuko observed. "Maybe the path through the mountain is intact after all." The crystals illuminated their path well enough for walking. Appa roared and dashed on ahead. The humans chased after him. They heard a huge crash and found Appa standing in front of a circular door, which was now wide open. Inside the door was a huge, open space lined with statues, obviously worked by human hands. Two large coffins lay in the center, side by side.
Katara and Aang climbed down first. While everybody else made their way down the difficult-to-use single-person path, Katara read aloud the writing on the tombs. "They met on top of the mountain that divided their two villages. The villages were enemies, so they could not be together. But their love was strong, and they found a way. The two lovers learned earthbending from the badger moles. They became the first earthbenders. They built elaborate tunnels so that they could meet secretly. Anyone who tried to follow them would be lost forever in the labyrinth. But one day, the man didn't come. He died in the war between their two villages. Devastated, the woman unleashed a terrible display of her earthbending power. She could have destroyed them all. But instead, she declared the war over. Both villages helped her build a new city where they would live together in peace. The woman's name was Oma, and the man's name was Shu. The great city was named Omashu as a monument to their love."
"Whoo-ee," Chong whispered. "That's some story."
"Their love was powerful enough to end a war," Iroh murmured. "Amazing."
"It's a nice history lesson," Sokka said. "But don't we have crystals to be following?" Everyone turned to look at him. He shrank a little bit. "What?"
"We learned a basic secret of how earth works, made friends with the original earthbenders, and visited the tomb of people who lived and died for their love. And you're still trying to hurry us along?" Katara snapped. "Get some perspective, Sokka!"
"It's…really cool that they were willing to put so much work into seeing each other. Devotion like that is rare." Sokka straightened. "According to the story, Omashu's the home of all earthbending. That makes it the perfect place for Aang to learn."
"And the badger moles the perfect teachers," Aang said. "Maybe Bumi will let me come back to visit them." Appa roared. "But we do need to get moving."
Appa flew over the tomb to the far side. The humans climbed up, again one by one, and resumed their journey. The exit wasn't far away. They all stepped out into full daylight. Appa roared and stretched in the open air. Momo flew around. Even the water dragon trotted forward to greet the breeze. "Oh, sunlight, how I missed you!" Sokka exclaimed.
"It is good to be out of the cave," Katara agreed. "We did it! We trusted in love, and it guided us through."
"Love, and huge ferocious beasts," Sokka said.
"Beasts need love too," Aang said. "Right, Zuko?"
"Is that supposed to be an insult?"
"What? No, I didn't mean it like that!"
Zuko sighed. "Let's just…get to Omashu."
They said goodbye to the nomads, who were not going to go to Omashu with them. Chong wished them well. His last words before leaving were, "Love the journey, partners! Love the journey." He launched into the song about love always being in one's heart. They listened as it faded away.
There was more walking to do before they would see Omashu. "Earthbending training, here we come," Sokka said as they climbed the last hill. "I present to you the Earth Kingdom city of O -" His voice cut off. "Oh, no."
Zuko's insides froze. In the Earth Kingdom, that could only mean one thing. Sure enough, an enormous Fire Nation banner just like the one that used to hang in his bedroom hung over the city gate.