...

Ayika clung tightly to both Mama Mua and Mizumi as she struggled to maintain her footing on this magically propelled raft of ice crashing and skimming its way down a winding stream through grassy hills and fields of the Inner Ring. Mizumi was mostly hanging from her arms as she repeatedly failed to maintain her grip and balance on the frozen conveyance Mua's waterbending had created. They raced by another huge and sprawling mansion glowing orange amid dark rolling fields under the stars, and at that moment they heard a howl in the distance behind them. The Mask had noticed Mua's subterfuge of the misleading fog trail. Fortunately, this waterway took them close enough to the tramway station that they were able to leap off and run the rest of the distance to the cavernous entrance.

The tram station attendants were a little shaken up by the sudden appearance of three foreign women, one of them looking rather like she had been thrown through a door and then rolled across five meters of stone flagging. However, Mizumi flashed her gold passport and launched into a forceful and concise explanation of their need to flee from what was happening at Erliao's party. It was either her force of will that convinced the attendants or the fact that she would occasionally slip into the Fire Nation language that led them to believe this issue was more political than they were being paid for. Either way the three women were allowed onto the tram now scheduled to depart where they collapsed in the seats of the Noble's Car.

But they were not leaving. The tram still sat in its track in the middle of the vast marble station. Ayika stuck her head out the window to scream at the earthbender transportation adepts in her most biting mix of Middle Ring and Harbor Town dialects. The earth bender who leaned around from his perch behind the tram might still have ignored this curious tribal girl if her complaints had not been punctuated by a commotion outside the tall station doors that ended with two armored guards sliding across the smooth marble floor like metal bottomed pucks. The Purple Mask was standing in the doorway and against the dark night behind him there was the suggestion of vaporous wings boiling off his back. The adepts decided that it was in fact time to depart, suddenly in complete agreement with the plan to get down to the other side of a large wall.

The Mask swiveled his head around as if sniffing the air but for once Ayika was glad that everything in the Inner Ring was built on such as preposterous scale. By the time the Mask had run a quarter of the distance across the station floor the tram was sinking down to descend through the transport tunnel and more off duty earthbender adepts were running out to intercept his path. Then there was only unlighted stone outside the cabin's windows and Ayika, Mizumi, and Mua sank down into their seats with relief as the tram sank too.

Mizumi was the least relaxed. "Do you not think he will be able to follow us down this tunnel?"

Ayika waved her hand feebly. "Relax, these points are some of the most defended parts of the walls. Even a possessed man like that would not be able to fight through half the army."

They both turned at the sound of a soft thud. Mua slammed her fist into her thigh again. She was trembling and not just from the amount of waterbending power she had exerted. "It does not make sense! That's not how possession works! If a driftin spirit begins to creep in then it upsets the balance of the mind or the health of the body as its influence washes through. To willingly welcome in a spirit to ones body is the height of the shaman's art but even then the shaman receives only wisdom or a very specific aspect of the spirit's authority. I have seen shaman warriors back home! They do not fight like that! They do not lose their human eyes! What are those masks!?"

The one other occupant of their car, a neatly dressed man in the very front row of seats, gripped his bag tightly and scooted as close to the wall as his seat would allow. The three women continued to ignore him.

Ayika felt just as lost and confused but Mizumi was looking at her expectantly so she tried to concentrate. "I think there are two forces at work here, the masks and the spirit world disruption. Gold Toad told us that there was an anchor or something out there and that is what must be causing this change. That is the mask that Ma'er presented to Lizhen, and what the Masks killed him to steal back. Whatever that is it is what's drawing the spirit world close and somehow Ma'er's assistant, Tian, is hiding out in the city with it. Now the toad spirit told us that you have spent nearly all your spirit world favors, Mua, and I of course have no credit but there has to be some way we can find it and stop these possessions or at least weaken them! Even if it means spending your last favor."

Up in the front of the car their fellow passenger was trying very hard to not be involved in any of their business. From an outside perspective this attempt looked like hunching over in his seat while shivering.

"The Gold toad Told you about that favor?" Mama Mua was indignant with an intensity that bordered on horror.

Mizumi did not appreciate that reaction. "Of all this information you did not know, that is what you take away from that speech?! Woman, what are your priorities?!"

The rumbling motion of the tram changed pitch as their downward slide halted and the earthbenders kicked them off onto the path the normal elevated course out over the Middle Ring. In many ways the night was just as dark outside the wall as it was within but the dim glow of the festival candles and oil-fed street lamps from below was comforting.

Muzmi looked out the window-space back the way they had came. "Well, I can say that I had never thought I would look on those absurd walls with fondness but for once I am very grateful. The elevation of the Inner Ring must be at least one hundred...What is happening down there?"

Ayika jumped up to her side. She put her face right up against the window and shielded her eyes against both the interior light and the exterior wind. She saw where Mizumi was looking. "Oh, that's the entrance to the Jade Stairs. You know, the way to walk up to the Inner Ring. I'm not sure who actually uses that, but there must be some strong licensed porters who make their living...Wait, what is that?"

The commotion that had drawn Mizumi's attention made its self known. The little lights in the distance were rushing around out of the dark mouth of the stair entrance in a crazy fashion; glowing ants spilling forth from a crack in the sidewalk. In fact they seemed to be chasing something. Something that was moving in the direction of the elevated tram line. Ayika had a sinking feeling that she knew what that something was.

"Mama Mua? I think we'll be having a problem pretty soon. You said the possessed were drawn to shamans?" The earthbending powered tram traveled quickly, but it stopped at stations Even if their earthbender would prefer not to. Ayika had seen those Masks move faster than any normal human ever could. To someone like that the track-line far above the streets would be just another road.

Mizumi had made the same realization. "Er, perhaps Mua can form those fogs again? Or...no, we are on a track, it would not do much to hide our path. But we must do something!"

Ayika kneeled backwards on the tram seat and looked Mama Mua in the eyes, though the woman declined to meet her stare. "That man may have come to the Inner Ring to kill Erliao but I do not think whatever man made those plans is still in control. When I first heard the Masks talking among themselves they were most concerned with avoiding attention and capture. What we have seen tonight does not match that. This...thing, did not feel like a man at all. It feels alien. This spirit does not care about the conspiracy it was brought in to aid." Mua was still looking away, her face twisted in the turmoil of her own internal thoughts. Ayika switched seats so she could turn around to face the shaman directly. "You still have one favor owed by the spirit world."

That got Mua's attention. Her head snapped up, smooth dark cheeks already darkening further with bruises from her first encounter with the Purple Mask.

It was obvious the woman's first instinct was outright refusal. She had set out tonight not expecting to survive and now that Erliao was dead, even if by another's hand the specifics of escaping were looking like an exceedingly onerous task. The fact that Ayika was asking her to expend even more in pursuit of that forgotten hope for survival caused a flash of anger. Mizumi came over and sat backwards beside Ayika to add her hard stare to the ocular assault, just as down behind the back of the seat her hand sought Ayika's and squeezed reassurance.

Neither of the girls could be sure exactly why but Mua's anger abruptly softened. The woman smiled darkly as she turned to look out the window into the nighttime landscape of lights that streamed along below them.

Her voice was slow and lazy, absent of all the stress that had been boiling within her till now. "Now that the word of Erliao's murder has gotten out guards'll be closing the gates between the rings. Not that this'd stop me but Ah doubt that thing coming up behind us will give me the chance to show ya." She slowly breathed out. "Ahh, that favor. You don't know what Ah did to earn that. What I paid."

"Nia, please." Ayika said, projecting out with every bit of force her personality could muster. She imagined she could feel energy flowing up from where Mizumi's palm grasped hers. They were racing along on the tramway high above the ground but in this moment of desperation Ayika felt rooted down to the bones of the earth. The Nine-Step-Shadow would not complete its prophecy tonight. She would not let it, even if she had to fight it off with her bare fists.

The tram was just beginning to slow in approach to the first Middle Ring Station but Mua stood up so quickly that Ayika and Mizumi both jerked back in surprise. Mua's colorful festival dress was torn and dirtied but somehow it all still seemed to be part of the design. Even her bruises and bloody scrapes seemed drawn on by the designer's brush as the classical depiction of a character out of legend. She reached up and one graceful brown hand plucked off her beaded blue skull mask.

"Ah well, the dead miser has as much as the spendthrift. And besides, Ah've always wanted to see this one again." Mua stretched out one hand towards them. Ayika stood up in expectation of some partnership among shamans but Mua instead gently grasped at Mizumi's wrist. Mizumi blinked in surprise as Mua's fingers began to inspect the gold bracelet she was wearing.

"This's real?"

"Er, yes? That is to say, I believe that the gold is alloyed with other metals for improved hard, but I do not know why..."

"That'll do."

Mizumi suppressed a yelp as Mua was suddenly holding up the bracelet in front of her face. Ayika had to raise her eyebrows in respect. That lift had been so smooth and quick that even the best street-thief would be impressed. Mua was not concerned with their reaction. Nor did she seem concerned with the otherworldly roar which faintly echoed behind them and caused the tram to lurch slightly as their earthbender missed a step of his magical propulsion technique. Mizumi, unaccustomed to the city tramway, almost fell off her seat at the sudden shaking but the two Water Tribe women took the swaying up into their bodies and remained planted securely.

In another flourish Mua summoned forth a tiny steel knife in her other hand, such as for cutting thread. In a flourish she nicked the side of her wrist and then touched the gold bracelet to the small cut. "Blood and gold," Mua said. "That's about right for a god of law, isn't it? Could probably call for less but time's a bit of a factor even if it is the night of the festival. Girl," she addressed Ayika without looking at her while she held the red stained jewelry out in front of her in the middle of the tram's central isle. "You'll assist. Just add your callin' to mine."

It occurred to Ayika that Mua had enough not yet scabbed abrasions on her skin to spare any amount of blood without the involvement of a knife but now was not the time to criticize her as overly dramatic. Ayika clambered around Mizumi to stand with Mua in the center aisle of the tram. "What spirit are we calling? Shouldn't I know for my assistance to work?"

Mua's eyes were already closed as she concentrated on something deep within herself. Outside, Ayika imagined she could already hear the footsteps of the possessed Purple Mask in slavering pursuit.

"You have me spending my last resource, girl. We're summoning Blind Dog Lord."

The tram came to a halt at its first Middle Ring destination and the poor man stuck in the front of the Noble's car raced out the door the second a suddenly startled station attendant opened it. That same attendant peeked inside the car at the moment all the lamps in the station flickered slightly in unison. The attendant quickly snatched back his head and left alone the three foreign women performing a mysterious ritual. Mizumi yelled after him and then leaned out the window to hold a shouted conversation with the earthbender adept whose magic drove the tram. Fortunately, having seen what was chasing them was ample motivation for him to agree with a desire for speed.

Ayika had her eyes held closed as she heard the tram doors open and their fellow passenger dart out. The she heard Mizumi yell one last thing and the tram began to rumble again with the first hints of motion. Ayika was trying to recapture the feeling of the spirit world drawing close but she could not shake off her knowledge of the Purple Mask racing towards them to crush their heads in its otherworldly strength. Then she heard another someone moving around to descend from the upper deck of the tram car and opened her eyes as she remembered that Ba Sing Se tram cars did not have an upper deck. Never the less, this one now did.

Something about the quality of the light in here had changed and now by its unreal illumination a narrow wooden staircase ran up the back wall of the Noble's Car through a suddenly existent gap in the ceiling. Slow and steady footsteps above them now made their way towards it. Mizumi jumped to her feet, her hand shooting up inside her sleeve again before she recognized that whatever was happening here was beyond any solution that a knife could provide. But at a loss for anything else to do she smoothly stepped up to just behind Ayika and centered her balance as if prepared to attack all the same. Ayika noticed that she could on longer make out the passing station outside the tram windows. A darkened blurriness lit by dim smears of lantern-light had now filled each gap and they seemed to have somehow drifted out of sync with the rest of the world.

Mua's eyes were still closed as she stood with her back to the stairs, hands gripped tightly to the blood smeared gold bracelet, her lips moving faintly in silent whispers. Then a foot came down on the top of the phantom steps with a creak. Ayika stepped backwards and bumped into immobile Mizumi as there was another creak and black robes slowly flowed down the stairs, swaying forward with each slow and heavy step. The ceiling of the tram was eight feet above the floor and as this apparition descended, slowly revealing a broad golden belt set with a jade buckle, it was clear that it would occupy every bit of that space. It was not until it took the last step onto the floor that Mua turned to face the spirit Blind Dog Lord.

Ayika's Grandma Aka had told her stories of Blind Dog Lord. Some gods were made by the ministers, they were noble men chosen to be empowered with ritual offerings after their deaths. Some were natural formations of powerful belief that created a mold for some formless spirit to flow into and embody. Others were spirits who had nominated themselves and possessed the strength to uphold their claim. Blind Dog Lord was all of these or something else entirely. His robes were something like those of a government official but in some ancient fashion. The sleeves and hems were long enough to completely hide the body that wore them. The purpose of this concealment was made mysterious by the fact that his head and neck emerged unmasked as that of an aged canine who's notched ears brushed the ceiling, grey, emaciated, and with dry yawning sockets where eyes should be. But this sight was not pitiful as it might seem, instead authority and power roiled off the spirit with such intensity that Ayika felt her knees buckle involuntarily in a bone-rooted instinct to drop in genuflection.

Blind Dog Lord opened his mouth with its single yellow fang and each woman felt some small portion of air drawn up out of their lungs. He took a single step forward until he was looking straight down at the Water Tribe shaman.

The voice rolled out like the heavy collapse of distant mountains. "Nia Mua of the Water Nation, born in Cloudy Valley under Jade Dragon Mountain. Your request for audience is granted. Speak now of your petition and know that it is heard."

Before this looming spirit of black, gold and jade, Mua in her ripped dress of colorful ruffled sashes over bloody brown skin looked like a spirit herself. Both were equally removed from the normality of this city. The tram vibrated with the burst of acceleration from each magic motion the worried adept executed, oblivious to what was going on in the car. Then Mua gave a single soft bark of a laugh.

"I suppose in your mind just showin up makes us even. With all Ah sacrificed to earn that. I suppose Ah could've expected."

The spirit gave no sign of responding to the underlying bitterness. He said, "Cost is counted. Service is met with recompense. Even now."

Ayika bit the inside of her lip, recognizing the misdirected focus on Mua's face. So she herself spoke up.

"Mama Mua, we've kind of got a time pressure moving in! Initiate the exchange!" She suddenly remembered her manners. "Um, my Lord Spirit."

There was no motion in Blind Dog Lord's form but Ayika felt attention suddenly press down on her like the full weight of the Outer Wall. Behind her Mizumi felt it too and wished that she could somehow interpose herself.

The spirit spoke again. "I know what pursues you. None will interrupt."

Mua sighed, "Blind Dog Lord, I request that you intercede to protect us from those spirits who are chasing us with the bodies of their possessed hunan allies."

Suddenly, Ayika interrupted. "No!"

Mua spun around in confusion at Ayika's outburst. "What? This was your idea!"

"No, I mean I..." Ayika thought quickly. This was the most powerful spirit she was ever likely to meet face to face and they were requesting a service. There had to be a way to solve more than just one of their problems. The Purple Mask was coming but there were also other Masks out there doing something terrible to the connection with the spirit world and Nine-Step-Shadow was still drawing closer to one of the three of them. She actually had a chance to fix things. If only she could find a way to master the words.

Ayika struggled to make her clumsy mouth obey her racing brain. "We request that... you ensure that...All the spirits who...choose or are forced to follow we three here before you...with ill intent...be banished from influencing this world or have their power reduced to the point of impotence!"

Her hands were shaking and her armpits felt damp with the burst of mental exertion she had just went through but Ayika was triumphant. She did not think she had ever felt her brain work faster before in her life. She did not think she could safely fit more into a single request without twisting the rules of language and grammar beyond their breaking point. Still, all the stories of wishes gone poorly her grandmother had ever told her were swimming through her head mocking her for her confidence.

Mua stared at Ayika in confusion before turning back to the spirit with a shrug. "Sure, what the girl said. That."

Blind Dog Lord straightened up, somehow now even taller than the tram car ought to allow yet still comfortably fitting inside. Then he answered.

"No."

"What?!" Mua snapped. "After all Ah paid to...!"

The spirit held up one sleeve-covered hand. "A wise administrator does not interfere in what is written. As much as I may disapprove, spells of life and death are being cast over this, my sliver of the city and it is not my place to interrupt a ritual before its completion. Such an operation is years in the making and ten thousand minds are its components even though they do not know it. I too have superiors. I too have debts."

Ayika was at a loss. The prayed for rope had just been yanked back from the grasp of the drowning sailor. "But, but...if you don't..." Nine-Step-Shadow was a spirit of death and it was still drawing closer. At Erliao's mansion it had only been a few paces away. And if it was not foretelling Mua's death then it could...

Blind Dog Lord interrupted. "But I will gladly comply with the intent of the original request." Those withered spectral lips tucked back in what might have been a canine smile. "Priest Nia Mua, I lend you a portion of my power. My authority, respected as it is within this small section of the city, may not be able to halt the great machinations but local festivals are well within the purview of my court. The rules of rituals are precise and exacting, and harsh on those who break them but the rules of the Festival of Veils are...looser. Tonight it is acceptable that the visiting spirits find their subsidized crossings canceled even before the sun rises. That will remove the pursuing threat you summoned me to resolve."

With that final word the spirit suddenly moved. Before Ayika or Mizumi could react the spirit's sleeve drew back and something dark shot forward into the center of Mua's chest. Mizumi pushed forward but Ayika held her back as she realized that the spirit's arm had not pierced Mua's shuddering body but instead had disappeared inside it with a cloud of hazy light at the border between them. The rest of Blind Dog Lord's looming body slowly began to fade away, becoming nothing more than a transparent shadow rising before the woman until it vanished entirely. The pervasive touch of the spirit world seemed to retreat and lead them back to the realm of normality.

Ayika reached out towards the shaman's arm.

"Mama Mua, are you...?"

Mua spun round but her eyes did not see them. In fact they began to roll up into her head. She was looking at something far beyond the little rows of seats in this tram car. Then her hands shot up and she began to make the smooth sinuous motions of waterbending. However, they were in a dry train in an elevated stone station so nothing happened. Outside the now unshadowed windows Ayika could see the station guards frowning at them and waving the tram's earthbender adept back to his driver position at the rear of the car. After a moment the tram resumed its motion and they slowly began to rumble of the station.

"That is...unsettling," Mizumi said looking at Mua's performance. She sounded as if she could not remember an appropriately strong word to describe this behavior. "At least the lights are back to normal. I mean that I can see outside the tram again now and...oh."

There was the sound of yells from outside them. Ayika ran to the side of the car and suck her torso out the window to look back at the elevated stone track slicing across the city under the shadow of the gibbous moon. Light from festival streets bled up at allowed Ayika to pick out the approaching shadow. The Purple Mask had finally caught up to its prey and he dashed forward with a screeching roar. Ayika heard their adept yell something not fit for the mouth of a government employee and the tram blew through the next Middle Ring station without slowing down in the slightest. By now the glowing shadow that clung to the Mask human host were gaining a distinct outline. The purple edges of filmy wings wavered into sight as the possessed man darted and pushed past terrified station guards in pursuit of the departing tram.

Ayika yelled back inside the car. "The Mask is still here! Mua, you have to get him to...!"

Mizumi interrupted. "That is not what I was talking about. I think she is already addressing the problem."

Ayika had trouble hearing Mizumi exactly over the rumble of the tram wheels from her position half outside the car. "What are you...Oh."

The corner of her eye noticed what was coming just as it spilled up over the edge of the open-walled tram station. It was fog, massive, endless waves of thick white vapor rising from the streets and alleys below. Then Ayika spun around to look out across the city and saw it was everywhere. As far as she could see across the Middle Ring, roofs were vanishing like sinking ships beneath the slow undulations of an airy sea that swallowed even the shining lights of the festival. Sheets of white mist blended with the festival lights to blanket the city in a shining golden haze. Then the fog thickened and the light faded. The endless web of lantern-strung streets melted away into the depths as the white finally rose up to swallow the tram tracks themselves.

Just before the mists closed over them Ayika turned back to see the Purple Mask encounter a drift of the vapor slowly dancing his way. As the mist touched him he suddenly thrashed and collapsed forward as the glowing spirit shadow disappeared from around him. Ayika's last sight was three station guards leaping on the now prone man's back. Then they were lost in a dark sea as in the very edge of hearing there was a faint sound that might have been the echoing howl of a dog.

Ayika pulled herself back into the car trusting that the earthbender adept could both follow a track and was as interested as getting to the next station as they were.

"Well that...worked?"

She looked back at Mizumi who was still regarding the swaying motions of Mama Mua with a level of suspicion that indicated those knives in her sleeves could reappear on less than a second's notice. Ayika said, "Is she out of it yet?"

Mizumi frowned and leaned a little closer. "I do not think..."

Mua coughed loudly and Mizumi jerked backwards barely halting herself before she slashed out with the blade that sure enough was now clutched in her fist. For her part, Mua was holding onto a seat-back for support as she continued to cough. When she finally straightened up she did not pay any attention to Mizumi's knife or the steady stream of muttered profanity in the Islander language. Instead she turned around until she found Ayika.

"That...is not pleasant."

"And what was it?"

Mua shrugged her shoulders, a gesture which a distant part of Ayika's brain noted made her wide cut top briefly slide even lower down her chest before returning to its previous post.

"Blind Dog Lord was sending a message. But for doing stuff effectively in the material world even spirits like him need some material conduit. He decided to use my waterbending. Bending acts a bit odd when it interacts with spirits." Here she looked out the window, such as it was. They were still rushing along but there might as well have been a sheet hanging over the portal. "Even stodgy old spirits like him tend to be flamboyant when they get about it."

Mizumi said, "All right. I may not understand spiritual matters but we seem to have reached some resolution there so we should probably look to our other problems. I can only assume that we have drawn attention tonight. City law enforcement attention, and more than we would like. The earthbender operating this tram will probably try to have us arrested at the next station on general suspicion. We should take this time to prepare our alibis. After all, despite our best efforts I do not think we have actually done anything against the local law. Well, Mua tried to kill a minister but the victim was murdered by someone else so that will be hard to prove the attempt happened, us being the only witnesses." Mizumi did not sound as if she was even convincing herself.

Mua's coughing now turned into hoarse laughter. "Alibis? Law? They've not got us chained yet, girl. I'm a waterbender surrounded by a sea of fog. No one's catchin us. That is, if ya two are up to boltin once we hit the next station."

Mizumi's gold mask shifted in the suggestion that she had raised an eyebrow to indicate that she saw Mua was bruised black, blue, and looking uncertain about keeping her own knees under her while the other two women were miraculously unscathed. Silently Ayika had to agree. If Mua was planning to continue bending then Ayika and Mizumi would be carrying her before too long.

With skeptical inhalation Mizumi continued, "That still leaves the matter of the ring gates. I understand protocol is to close them in response to crisis. You yourself told us that. The murder of a minister and the subsequent rampage of a possessed man in a mask seems to me to be a crisis."

Mua waved her hand to dismiss these worries. "Relax. I also told ya that closed gates mean nothin to me. I've got mah own ways around this city."

...