closer, socketing itself in the gap between two nearby trees. Yun shrieked and fell backward on his elbows. He’d made a mistake. A crucial, invisible barrier had been broken by saying the name aloud, and now he was more connected and vulnerable to it than ever.
“I call myself that,” the spirit said. Father Glowworm’s pupil darted around unnervingly, the iris squeezing narrower. Its gaze had the heft of a probing tongue. “Now, child, I believe you owe me your name.”
Like a fool, Yun had fallen into the role of the bumpkin from cautionary Earth Kingdom folktales, the poor field hand or woodcutter who fell under a curse or was simply eaten. He could only think of how he’d be consumed. Rasped into pulp, maybe, and absorbed into the slime.
“My name is Yun.” His palms were slick with fear. In some of those tales, the stupid boy survived through sheer pluck. Yun was already prey; his only chance was to become interesting prey. “I—I—”
His poise was failing him. His slickness under pressure that had impressed the Fire Lord and the Earth King, the chieftains of the Water Tribes and Head Abbots of the Air Temples alike, was nowhere to be found. Maybe Avatar Yun had the confidence to talk his way out of this, but no such person existed anymore.
Father Glowworm shifted in the trees, and Yun knew he was going to die if he didn’t say something quick. His mind leaped back to the moments in his past when his fate was cradled in someone else’s hands.
“I wish to submit myself for consideration as your student!” he yelped.
Was there a way for a single eye to look surprised? The forest was silent except for the rush of falling water. “I . . . kneel before you as a humble spiritual traveler seeking answers,” Yun said. He shifted around so his posture matched his words. “Please teach me the ways of the Spirit World. I beseech you.”
Father Glowworm burst into laughter. It had no lids to narrow, but its sphere tilted upward in the universal direction of amusement. “Boy, do you think this is a game?”
Everything is a game, Yun thought, trying to still his shaking. I will draw this one out as far as I can. I will survive a turn longer.
There was no more Avatar Yun. He would have to be Yun the swindler again. “I can hardly be faulted for wanting to ask questions of a spirit wiser than the best of humanity.” When in doubt, flatter the mark. “The Earth Kingdom’s finest sages couldn’t identify the Avatar for sixteen years. And yet you did it in a matter of seconds.”
“Hmph. You don’t fight the kind of battle Kuruk and I did and not be able to recognize your opponent’s spirit. I could already feel Jianzhu bringing his reincarnation closer to one of my tunnels. It had to be one of you children.”
Yun’s ears perked at the word tunnels. “You have routes to the human world? More than one?”
Father Glowworm laughed again. “I know what you’re doing,” it sneered. “And it doesn’t impress me. Yes, I can create passages to the human realm. No, you will not trick or convince me into sending you back. You’re not the bridge between spirits and humans, boy. You’re the stone that needed to be pitched away by the sculptor. The impurity in the ore. I’ve tasted your blood, and you’re nothing. You’re not even worth this conversation.”
The eye crept closer. “I can tell how upset you are by the truth,” it said in a soothing sweet tone. “Don’t be. Who needs Avatarhood? You will find your own use, and your own immortality. Once I strengthen myself on your blood, part of your essence will exist within me, forever.”
The problem with any game was that eventually, the opponent decided to stop playing. Father Glowworm suddenly rushed Yun, spiraling through the forest, tendrils of slime grasping and parting the trees like the beads of a curtain.
“Now, be grateful!” the spirit roared. “For we are about to become one!”
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Brother Po once told Kuji the nickname for the dao sword was “all men’s courage.” Hold the sturdy chopping blade that let you hack away at a foe with abandon, and you’d feel braver immediately.
Kuji did not feel braver as he gripped the haft of his dao with clammy palms and watched the door. And his blade did not feel very sturdy. It was a rusted, chipped specimen that seemed like it would shatter if