The Shadow of Kyoshi (Avatar, The Last Airbender)

He began to take breaks from his missions with them to do research with Nyahitha. They visited the hidden library of the Bhanti, a contender for the greatest repository of spiritual knowledge in the physical realm. Together, under the peaked roofs of the stone pagodas, they pored over scrolls and tomes older than the Four Nations themselves.

They deduced that the spirits were trying to force their way through newly created cracks in the boundary between the Spirit World and the lands of humans. They did not know why or how these cracks were forming all of a sudden. Normally, places where spirits could cross over were ancient and sacred and rare. Special circumstances like the twilights of hallowed dates were required. That didn’t seem to be the case anymore.

They also searched for a better technique to subdue their foes but found none. Perhaps it had yet to be invented. Kuruk shuddered as he closed the last promising book in the Bhanti library without finding salvation.

As more attacks came, he realized he could stalk the dark creatures across the Spirit World itself, sometimes following the wake of great disturbances and storms across the ever-changing landscape, and sometimes relying on his own preternatural tracking skills, his ability to cut sign from sheer ice and bare rock and the smallest out-of-place blade of grass. On such excursions he always had to pass through a rift from the physical world to the spiritual, taking on his quarry with his physical body. Without his bending he stood no chance, and it made more sense to fight on the Spirit World side of the border, to minimize collateral damage to humans.

And so he hunted. He walked the realm beyond the physical, searching for spirits with murderous intent trying to force their way into a human population. Each time he found one, Kuruk tried his best to placate the being’s anger, at the cost of his blood and sweat and bones. Nothing worked. To save lives, he had to fight. He had to kill.

He and Nyahitha told no one what they did. They were like people graduating from petty theft to organized crime, in too deep to ever extricate themselves. By the time they reached a certain number of hunts, layfolk would have shunned them for the spirits they’d destroyed, let alone the Bhanti or the Air Nomads.

The world went on. It had competent people looking after it. Kuruk, never one for meetings, where the quickest minds were forced to adopt the pace of the slowest, began to sleep through them, exhausted by the lingering pain and the wine he drank to dull it. Jianzhu would inevitably work things out with the diplomats and ministers and ambassadors by the time he woke up.

His nights were spent carousing at parties, in taverns, at contests of bending prowess, trying to feel as human as possible with as many different humans as possible. He secretly hoped Nyahitha would find a sacred text declaring the official treatment for his symptoms was to be close to life, joy, and the touch of warm bodies, but no. The hedonism of his self-prescribed “healing process” was his own weakness showing through, nothing else. Nyahitha partook in the treatment as well, surprising Kyoshi with his indulgences. The formerly austere sage pursued excess with the immoderation of a man denied.

Kuruk barely noticed his friends splitting apart. The treasures of his life scattered over the Four Nations to pursue their own paths. They’d all come to the same conclusion. They were accomplishing nothing of worth in the Avatar’s company. It felt like one day he was playing his daily game of Pai Sho with Jianzhu, and the next, he was reading Jianzhu’s letter of admonishment for not attending Hei-Ran’s wedding.

Hei-Ran. Kuruk had been out of his mind with grief when he showed up at Kelsang’s with that poem. A spirit had tried to break through the day before, and his pent-up fury at himself for lying to Hei-Ran by omission about so many different things for all these years exploded. He had annihilated the creature w

ith the full power of the Avatar State, an unworthy act no matter the circumstances. The poem was a feeble attempt to turn back time to a point where he wasn’t such a miserable failure who abused Yangchen’s gifts, an age where he was still within reach of deserving Hei-Ran’s love.

He channeled his sorrow into more research with Nyahitha, longer expeditions into the Spirit World. He finally discovered how the tunnels to the physical realm were being created, his knowledge of beasts coming to the forefront once again. Animals often took over structures created by other animals, like how jaguar beetles would live in the vast complex mounds of angler termites after the original residents moved on to form other colonies.

The cracks in reality were being created by a single spirit. Kuruk switched his focus to pinpointing the origins of the tunnels instead of the spirits trying to use them, circling closer and closer to the source, until he encountered Father Glowworm. The World-Borer. It Within the Hole.

Finally he’d found a spirit that would talk to the Avatar. He learned Father Glowworm had the power to rasp away at the barrier between the physical and spiritual worlds, leaking wisps of its essence through the cracks it made to bask in the warmth and chaos of the mortal realm at his pleasure.

Did it take the occasional human, here and there? Yes, but what hunter didn’t snatch up choice prey when the opportunity presented itself? Father Glowworm was a wise and crafty predator. It could create tunnels to any location in the physical world, but kept the exits in deep, dark places where humans wouldn’t notice, and never lingered around the same settlements for very long. If lesser spirits wanted to make a go for the lands of humans using his abandoned passages, that was none of its concern.

Kuruk’s mistake was trading names with it. Spirits with self-appointed names were incredibly powerful and dangerous, Nyahitha had told him, and there was a power in introductions. Knowing Father Glowworm’s name finalized the curse that had been slowly building upon the Avatar over the years. It dried the ink on the contract.

Father Glowworm knew it too. The two of them were in it together for the long haul, the spirit declared. Perhaps they would have fun.

Kuruk, deadened with exhaustion, showed the human-eating spirit his definition of fun.

Their fight nearly created a gaping hole in the boundary between realms. Father Glowworm was stronger than the other spirits, and Kuruk was too stubborn to die. Their energies bit into each other like blades clashing edge-to-edge, leaving permanent notches.

With a strike that nearly broke the foundations of the bedrock around them, Kuruk wounded Father Glowworm grievously, the spirit diminishing in size and power several times over. But it managed to escape, wriggling away into an endless labyrinth of darkness.

It was an outcome the Avatar found acceptable. The disappointing secret of Pai Sho most novices never learned was that at the very highest levels, half the matches between masters ended in unsatisfying, inconclusive draws. He’d done lasting damage to his enemy, enough to ensure the spirit would keep out of the human world for at least a generation or two.

And it had marked him in return. Neither of them would ever fully heal from the encounter. They would know each other in their bones forever, like old friends . . .

Kyoshi stepped away from her predecessor’s memories gently, like they were pieces of crystal too delicate to handle. Unlike the communing session in North Chung-Ling, where she’d watched his youth unfold by herself, Kuruk had been standing beside her as they silently witnessed the horrors of his later life. There hadn’t been a right time to speak to him.

Still, she was grateful for his presence this time around. She couldn’t have handled watching those memories on her own. Father Glowworm had scared her witless, back when she had met the spirit in the flesh.

She looked at Kuruk, examining his strained but stoic face. By the time of his death, he would have been more injury than unbroken skin underneath his clothes. His appearance in the Spirit World must have been altered by his own perceptions and preferences. He remembered a version of himself from before the worst days of his life took over.

The meadow around them had been mended and no longer looked like a broken plate. “Why were there so many angry spirits during your era?” she asked. She understood now that Kuruk had only taken on the creatures that couldn’t be appeased by anything but death.

“That’s a question for another day,” he said. “In order to give you the aid you sought, I had to share memories of my Avatarhood and Father Glowworm. Now that you remember this portion of your past life, you’ll be able to find your boy in the physical world. Trust me.”

She found herself believing him. “What about the rest of your memories?” The words slipped out before Kyoshi realized she was prying.

Kuruk’s jaw tightened. “There’s little to see after I lost my friends.”

Where was Kuruk? Kyoshi had once asked Kelsang, curious about what happened after their group had split. Traveling the world had been the answer. Breaking hearts and taking names. Being Kuruk. It sounded like the Water Avatar had been living it up by himself, having one great adventure across the Four Nations.