Appa descended slowly onto the peak of a certain mountain, his six paws touching the ground with a softness that belied his size. Aang slid off his back and stood still for a moment, gazing at what remained of what had once been his home.
The Eastern Air Temple rose before him like a stone skeleton devoured by vegetation. Vines climbed over the fallen columns, and moss carpeted the cracked steps. The roofs that had once echoed with the laughter of young Airbenders had collapsed a century ago, and sunlight poured in through the holes in the ceiling, casting dusty beams of light over the rubble.
Aang walked forward slowly, sweeping his gaze across the place, as if he could still see what had disappeared.
—We used to race there… I always tried to take shortcuts with airbending, and my friends said I was cheating. And next to that fountain… —he sketched a faint smile as he pointed at the cracked stones—. Master Gyatso taught me my first meditation technique there. He told me to listen to the wind until I could distinguish its own voice from all the others.
He fell silent. Before his eyes, the ruins were momentarily covered by the image of the courtyards full of life, the laughter of the monks, and the orange robes fluttering under the sun. It was as if two worlds occupied the same space: the one he remembered and the one before him.
—Sometimes I can still see it all… as if it had never left.
His gaze slowly descended and, after a few seconds, he let out a melancholic sigh.
—But then I open my eyes again… and only this remains… ahh…
Aang sighed with a melancholy smile on his face and kept walking.
He crossed the outer courtyards and entered the main temple. The interior was dimly lit, illuminated only by the sunbeams filtering through the cracks in the ceiling. But what immediately caught his attention was the floor. In the center of the hall, carved into the stone, was a pattern of three intertwined wind swirls: the sacred insignia of the Air Nomads.
Aang knelt down and opened his travel bag. From inside, he began to take out rolled scrolls, small wooden statuettes, a bronze incense burner, and other objects he had been collecting during his travels. He placed them one by one around the swirl pattern, arranging them alongside other offerings he had brought on previous visits.
Then his fingers brushed against something familiar.
He carefully lifted the object. It was a necklace of wooden beads, the same one Master Gyatso had always worn over his orange kasaya. The cord was worn, and several beads had darkened over time, but it remained intact. Aang held it before his eyes, and a lump formed in his throat. Images of his master surged toward him like a silent tide.
—I miss you, Master —he whispered.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and let out a long, weary sigh.
It was then that he felt something. A barely perceptible vibration in the air. His expression changed. The arrow tattoos on his hands glowed faintly for an instant.
—Momo —he said, his voice suddenly turning serious—. Go wait outside with Appa.
The winged lemur, which had been perched on his shoulder, tilted its head with a confused squeak. Its ears twitched, and it did not move.
—Momo, I said…
A shadow fell across the floor.
Aang spun around out of pure instinct. A metal blade traced a horizontal arc exactly where his head had been a second before. The broadsword embedded itself in a column with a crash of splintered stone.
The attacker was a burly man, the lower half of his face covered by a black cloth. His eyes, the only visible part beneath the improvised mask, gleamed with cold determination. He pulled the broadsword to wrench it from the column.
Aang had no time to ask questions. A crack cut through the air to his left, and he ducked just in time to dodge a whip that grazed his shoulder. The second attacker was a woman, also with her face half-covered, already drawing back the whip for a second strike.
Aang leaped back. His feet barely touched the stone before another arrow whistled toward him from some high point. He stamped his foot against the ground, and a compact wall of earth rose before him, blocking the projectile, which embedded itself with a dull thud. A third woman, perched on a collapsed beam, was already nocking another arrow to her bow.
—Who are you? —Aang asked, breathless—. Why are you doing this?
No one answered. The woman with the whip attacked again, and Aang slid to the side, then back, dodging each strike with the fluidity of the air itself.
—Where is it? Where is it?
A fourth voice echoed inside the temple. A hunched man, also with his face covered, frantically searched among the group of Buddhist statues that Aang had been arranging. His hands roughly pushed aside the figurines, knocking some over and tossing others aside without care.
—This isn't it, this isn't it either!
—Hey! —Aang scolded him, indignant despite the situation—. Those are very valuable antiques!
He had to lean back to dodge another whip crack. The woman was persistent, and the man with the broadsword had already recovered and was approaching from his right flank. Meanwhile, the archer aimed from above. The three converged, cornering him against one of the temple's cracked walls.
Aang frowned. He had tried the peaceful route, but these guys kept insisting on attacking.
He struck the ground with an open palm.
—Enough!
A compressed air wave burst from the point of impact. Dust and debris flew in all directions. The three attackers were thrown backward like leaves in a gale: the man with the broadsword crashed into a column and fell with a grunt, the woman with the whip rolled across the floor until she hit a pile of rubble, and the archer lost her balance on her beam and had to cling to the wood to keep from falling.
—Wait, I found it!
The fifth member of the group, a thin man who also wore a half-covered face, appeared from behind a fallen altar. In his hands, he held a small statuette of a bodhisattva woman, carved from dark wood. On the base of the figure, the word "Sonam" was clearly legible.
Aang recognized it instantly. It was one of the oldest relics he had recently found.
The man raised the statuette high, and Aang made a quick gesture with his hand. A current of air wrapped around the figure and snatched it from his fingers. The statuette shot toward the ceiling, spinning in the air.
Aang pushed off with his feet, and a column of air catapulted him upward. His hand grasped a rope hanging from a beam just as his other hand caught the statuette in midair.
—Sonam? —he read on the base, turning the figure between his fingers—. Why are you going after this?
Below, the woman with the whip and the archer exchanged a glance. Then both leaped at the same time and landed on the blade of the burly man's broadsword, who was already on his feet. The man gathered all his strength and hurled the sword upward with a single brutal thrust. The two women shot upward like projectiles. The archer reached a beam and propelled herself to a higher one, while the woman with the whip hooked her weapon onto a column and swung to gain height, chasing Aang through the maze of ceiling beams.
Aang released the rope and jumped to another beam, then another, always one step ahead. The archer loosed an arrow that passed a hand's breadth from his ear and embedded itself in the wood. The woman with the whip cracked her weapon again and again, and Aang slid between the beams like a gust of wind, dodging every attack.
With a gesture, he knocked the archer down with a blast of air. The woman fell into the void, but the stocky man caught her below, cushioning her fall.