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ad lost control over much of its slime. It had fewer weapons to work with. “You presumptuous little stain. If Avatar Kuruk hadn’t weakened me all those years ago, I would have finished you in an instant.”
“And yet here I am!” Yun screamed, wasting precious air, agonizing his own torn muscles. “How inconvenient for you!”
Father Glowworm chuckled, knowing Yun could have been addressing someone else. “Yes,” the spirit said, considering his words. “You are more trouble than you’re worth. There are easier meals to be had.”
It gapped itself between two slender trunks, looking like a vertical squint of contemplation. Father Glowworm had started the battle the size of a wagon wheel but was now no bigger than an overgrown calabash. “What do you say to a truce of sorts? I have a proposition for you.”
After earthbending and Pai Sho, dealmaking was what Yun excelled at. He pressed a thumb to one nostril and expelled a clot of blood from the other. “I’m listening.”
“I can grant you some of my power. You’d be able to create passage between the worlds of human and spirit. In return, you would bring people to me. Not many. I don’t want to become well known.”
I could get back home. Sacrificing innocents did not sit with Yun, but it was important to hear the other side’s entire terms during a negotiation, no matter how outrageous. “What does it take? For you to give me such power?”
“Our forms would need to intertwine, but only briefly. It’s a simple act. A physical one.”
“You would . . . possess me? Pass through me?”
“Call it whatever you wish. As long as we both let our guards down long enough to merge together.”
The spirit turned magnanimous with its explanation, revealing more than it felt was needed. “You might notice some changes to your physical nature as a result, but it’s no issue. If anything, you’d become stronger.”
Yun knew a double-edged statement when he heard one. But keeping his good looks was not a concern. He fought through the pain in his arm and held his hands up. No sudden earthbending moves. “I accept.”
Father Glowworm relaxed its tendrils. A layer of slime blanketed the ground. “Come closer.”
Yun approached slowly. Scattered teeth rolled under his feet and trails of mucus clung to his soles. Nestled in the fork of a tree, Father Glowworm pulsed with anticipation. The branches surrounding it looked like part of a face. During their fight it had never left the partial cover of the grove. Yun remembered how the spirit had preferred to remain within the stone tunnel Jianzhu had opened in the mountain, back in Xishaan. An unprotected eye needed a socket.
A welcoming energy radiated from the spirit, promising terrible transformation, the liquid dissolution and rebirth of a larva wrapped in its cocoon. It had opened to him. It had made itself ready for its end of the bargain.
So had Yun.
He threw his hands apart. The entire floor of the grove followed them. The ground layer containing the roots of the trees washed to the left and right, dividing right down the middle in a line that ran under Father Glowworm.
The spirit suddenly had its clothing and protection stripped away by the tidal act of earthbending. It fell to the new level of ground Yun created and howled in surprise.
Yun nearly did the same. The brute force act had taken every ounce of his power. Kyoshi could have done it easily. But the effort of washing away the topsoil had almost killed him.
He had one last move to make. Hurling his arms back together, in a hug almost, he caught Father Glowworm in the jaws of an earthen vise. Crushed in his stony grip, the spirit shrank further.
“Wretched boy!” The spirit wriggled with impotent fury. “I offered you power and you resort to tricks? Not even Kuruk would have disgraced himself in such an—aaagh!”
Yun closed his thumb and forefinger. The boulders squeezed closer together. “Shut up about Kuruk.”
Under his unrelenting pressure, Father Glowworm had been crushed down to the volume of a sea prune. “Stop! Without merging with me you can’t return to your home!”
“I know.” Yun reached out and plucked the shrunken eye from the rock. It was wet and sticky like a sea prune too. “It’s just going to be on my terms, not yours.”
“What are you doing!?” Father Glowworm shrieked in his fingers, no less loud for its diminished size.
“Exactly what you were going to do to me.” Without giving it any further consideration, Yun popped the eyeball into his mouth.
The sphere burst between his teeth. The bitter taste of the jelly inside washed over his tongue and a scream rang through his limbs, vibrating his bones like the strings of an erhu. The sickly clouds overhead fled for the cover of the horizon. He could feel the trees hiding their faces in shame.
He didn’t need to be told by an older, wiser master to understand. Combining with an immortal being in such a sacrilegious way created a permanent hole in the weave. It was a crime against order. An abhorrent violation of spiritual balance.
Yun swallowed his mouthful and let change overcome him. He’d never been a picky eater.
RESIGNATION
