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“You’re Tieguai the Immortal,” Kyoshi said.
“Oh?” Lao Ge said, fully interested now. “I suppose there was a description of me in Jesa’s journal? Long white hair, great dancer, devastatingly handsome?”
“It didn’t have that much detail. It said you were an underworld legend rumored to be two hundred years old, but that’s obviously a tall tale.”
“Of course. I’m a man, not a spirit, after all.”
“I know it’s you because of a different description,” Kyoshi said. “Tieguai fights with a crutch. I was looking for someone with a wooden crutch or a bad leg. Then I saw you leaning on your earthbending while you fought the lawmen in the square.”
Lao Ge sighed, as if he pitied her for putting two and two together. He put his hands on his knees and raised himself to his feet. Then he tiptoed down the web of roots until he was in Kyoshi’s face.
“Why would one such as yourself seek out Immortal Tieguai?” he said, no longer an old man but a human-headed monster asking a riddle in exchange for safe passage. “After all, your mother never did. She only called me Lao Ge.”
The root he perched on shouldn’t have been able to support a bird let alone
a human being. Kyoshi swallowed hard. She had a sense of tumbling downhill, her inner ears roiling like choppy seas. An inability to go back to the harbor.
“Because she was afraid of you,” Kyoshi said. “She didn’t know when you first joined the group, but her suspicions grew over time that you were Tieguai the Assassin. Tieguai who killed the fortieth Earth King. She figured out that you were using her smuggling gang as cover, to travel from place to place as you eliminated targets for your own purposes. She was too scared to confront you.”
The entries in her mother’s hand had been completely fearless while describing dangerous smuggling jobs, burglaries, and skirmishes with local militias. They were the musings of someone who’d thrilled to the life of a daofei. But the journal also had patches that were rife with criminal superstition, none more so than the scattered stories about a shadow who moved across the Earth Kingdom, snuffing out lives both exalted and lowly according to some unknowable design.
Jesa the smuggler had pieced together the pattern. Whenever the silly old man in her gang slipped away by himself, a death would happen nearby. Sometimes it would be a prominent noble who should have been safe behind thick walls and numerous guards.
Lao Ge—the name had stuck hard—lowered his head and mouthed a quick prayer for the dead. “That woman always was very observant. I’m surprised I didn’t catch her catching me. So what is it that her daughter wants? To bring me to justice?”
“No,” Kyoshi said. “I want you to teach me how to kill someone.”
If Lao Ge was surprised by her answer, he didn’t show it. “Hit them in the head really hard with a rock.”
“No,” Kyoshi repeated. “Bending and killing are not the same thing.” The image raced through her mind, the way Jianzhu had so casually done the unspeakable, first to Yun and then to Kelsang. As easy as breathing.
It needed to be that easy for her. She could afford no mental block, no hesitation when it came to taking his life. She had to be ready in all regards when she next saw Jianzhu.
A breeze in the night air puckered her skin. “You should go to sleep, girl,” Lao Ge said. “Because you’ve already learned lesson one.”
“So does that mean we’ll continue later”—she decided to test the waters—“Sifu?”
“If and when I believe the time is right.”
She bowed and left him to his meditations, backing away out of distrust as much as respect. Her footing was unsteady and threatened to roll her ankles. Right before she was about to turn, Lao Ge spoke up again.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell the others about my independent ventures,” he said. “I don’t wish to complicate matters with our little merry band.”
The relationship between Lao Ge and the other daofei was not her problem. But if that was the only leverage she had in order to get him to teach her, she’d use it. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Sifu.”
Lao Ge smiled benignly. It reminded her of Jianzhu’s, only more genuine. It reached his eyes. He had no need to hide what he was from her.
“And in return, I’ll keep your secret,” he said. “Kyoshi.”
THE AGREEMENT
Kyoshi slept poorly, fretting during the night over what the old man had said. Her secret. First Tagaka and now Lao Ge. If every old person could look into her eyes and deduce she had unusual power, or was the Avatar, then she’d be in trouble. The only benders she’d be able to learn from would be infants like Lek.
A toe in her ribs woke her. She clawed at the hard surface under her, dirt filling her fingers instead of her sheets. She found herself blearily missing her bed.
“Get up,” Rangi said. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the fire still had a few red embers glowing in it. Lao Ge was nowhere to be seen, and the others were engrossed in a three-way snoring contest. Gray predawn light made the dusty riverbank appear like it had been treated with lye, leached of color and vitality.
Kyoshi staggered to her feet. Having moved in the night, the good blanket fell off her onto the ground. “Wha-what?”
