...

Ayika stood alone on this deserted Exclusion street some distance from the Fire Temple. Mizumi would return shortly from her quick urgent task. Until then, Ayika only had to withstand this terrible wavering of the world around her. Huitzlan's curse lay across the city.

When Ayika was a little girl she had spent a lot of time with her Grandmother. Soon after Grandma Aka's son and his new wife moved down south to Ba Sing Se, Aka had easily established herself as a figure of note in the Bed. Being a recent immigrant did not harm your position when most around people had arrived even more recently. Uprooted and plunged down into a far distant land in self-imposed economic exile, many of the Bed residents clung to the little things that reminded them of their home. In this case it was a grumpy, grey haired woman puffing on a curved bone pipe sized for a man twice her height; a woman who knew the spirits of sea and mountain and all the old stories.

Aka might have resented her son's decision to move his family down away from the north after the war but when Ayika was little she did not notice. All she saw was that her grandmother knew everything. When someone was feeling sick she knew which spirits were bothering them. When people were fighting she knew how to chant and dispel the bad magic of the unbalanced spirit world. She even knew what to do when people died; how to clean their bodies, calm their ghosts, honor their spirits, and comfort their families. And after all that she still knew to tell plenty of stories about spirits and heroes to the little girl sitting at the foot of her grandmother's rocking chair.

Grandma Aka had not believed in only pleasant stories for children. In fact, with retrospect, Ayika figured that Aka had found a lot of entertainment in how much terror she could bring her granddaughter without the child running away to hide in the corner sobbing. Aka had made a lot of noise about it being bad for a woman of the Tribes to be born in this foreign land far from her own culture, but she still spent the time with Ayika and beyond any cultural pride, Aka had been practical. She taught Ayika stories of this land of infinite city that was now their home.

She had told of Blind Dog Lord the who could steal your breath and ruled over the local spirit court, she had told of the demon dogs, of the chained and split Kuang river spirit, of golden toads, and of the Nine-Step-Shadow of death. When knowledge remembered from the north or gleaned from the city failed her then she had told stories of pure invention. To this day Ayika was still uncertain which were which. She had never heard of another person speak of the terrifying Scissors-Man who had haunted her childhood dreams, but then again she had not mentioned that phantom to many people.

There were enough real things to be afraid of, like a tormented spirit world wounded by the Fire Sage's perverse ritual now spilling forth the hungry ghosts of the dead.

Ayika turned her head away from a grey spectral shape that bulged and stretched as it struggled to rise up in the street of the Exclusion, painfully entering into this material world. It was a horrifying yet pitiful sight. When a person died forgotten or without the proper rituals than their ghosts might not be reunited with their spirits for reincarnation and thus could linger in the spirit world, casting hungry looks across at the existence they had left behind. Such sad things faded in time, but they never truly went away, even if they never received any offerings or remembrance. They only became less human.

Ayika pressed her back against the red painted wall of this Exclusion building. She silently prayed for Mizumi to return from her task soon. The transparent grey shape in the street was rising higher, now almost of a height with her. It swayed and undulated with each bulge of effort in its struggle to cross over into this world. Now thick tendrils began to separate off it, strange appendages echoing a dying memory of arms. Then it turned towards Ayika. The ancient ghost no longer had a face, only a twisted spiral in the general proportions that might have been relative to a head. There was another, larger spiral on a lower bulge that protruded like the distended belly of a snake. A single transparent tendril reached out in a wavering path towards Ayika.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself. Ayika planted her feet on the paving stones and then stared back at the eyeless thing with all the force she could muster within her skull. The ghost halted. The hungry thing was not at fault, without connection to its soul it had slowly lost all its memories but a vague sense that things should be other than they were. It was this need that led to them reach out and grasp at this world, withering grass, causing illness, and twisting temperaments. It was not their fault.

Still standing firm, Ayika lifted up bottom of her borrowed dress to reach a hand to the little purse she had tied to hang down from around her hips. Then she straightened up and copper coins clinked softly in her hand. She reached out her foot to mark a line on the dusty stones and the ghost swayed back slightly. Ritual rang loud to all things that resided in the spirit world. Ayika slid the coins back and forth between her two hands as she began to speak in a clear, calm voice, her own true emotions hidden well. She had its attention. Then she tossed her hands out, one after another, counting loudly the money that was cast out to the honor of this lost being. The hungry ghost leaned forward slightly and its tendrils arched nearer to her, but then it turned and began to move away, fading slightly as it searched for the coins that had been given to it.

Ayika let out a heavy breath of relief.

"Wow," Mizumi's voice came from right behind her and Ayika jumped. Mizumi quickly apologized.

"I am sorry. What was it that you did? It looked like it was a ritual."

Ayika gestured out to the departed specter Mizumi could not see. "It was... there was a hungry ghost. A dead person uncomforted by ritual or a proper funeral. It will not be the only one. Huitlzan's sabotage has weakened the veil between worlds more than I could have imagined."

Ayika turned back to Mizumi, who stood there, slightly disheveled and limping from having just climbed in and out of a third floor window to her mansion home. They had come back here to retrieve Naruhama's Fire Nation funeral artifact that Golden Toad had given them, but Mizumi had wisely recognized that if her father or indeed any of the servants had seen her she would never have been allowed out again tonight. So she had broken in. Ayika gave a questioning look and Mizumi patted a pocket of the short black coat she was now wearing, signaling success of her mission. She also winced, still pained by the burns Huitzlan had given her on her arm and leg.

Mizumi looked very unsettled at the mention of hungry ghosts but she continued, "Lili and Xinfei are not there. I do not know where they went. I think out of the Exclusion." She tilted her head back and took a deep breath to quiet her heart that must have been pounding from stress, pain, and exhaustion. But distraction was good medicine so she cocked her head inquisitively at Ayika. "You counted fairly high when you flung those coins. Where were you carrying that much money?"

Ayika was confused. "What?" Then she realized what Mizumi was talking about. "Oh. Oh! No, no, that was not..." Ayika opened her hand to reveal all six copper coins still held within. "Ghosts don't need actual money. What are they going to buy? It's the story that is important; the ritual. And even so I am surprised that worked. Grandma Aka always said that ghosts and spirits prefer their own kind, their own culture, and that wretch's form was very faded. They would have died long before there were people of the Tribes here in Ba Sing Se." She hiked her dress back up over her thigh to put the small coins back in her purse and despite everything still smiled when Mizumi awkwardly averted her eyes. It was her own fault for giving Ayika a dress without anywhere to carry things.

Mizumi coughed and said, "Now we have the burning mirror. If you can complete the funeral ritual with it like Teacher Lizhen tried to do then we might stop the ghost god. But how are we going to find the funeral mask of Ambassador Naruhama? Sage Hutizlan, curse his blood, gave no indication that anyone in his plot had ever recovered it."

"Then Ma'er's assistant Tian still has it." Ayika curled her hand into a fist. Her fingernails bit into her palm. "We saw him that night! We saw him carry that mask into the Gaoli warehouse where Zhangyi and the students were meeting with the Initiated. Before the building burned. He must have had that very mask with him! Tian got spooked and no one has found him since. Still, maybe Ma'er knows something that might help. It's our only chance."

"He and Mama Mua were fighting the Masks at the theater. Or perhaps they are continuing to assist you friend Xiaobao's black forehead-band people. That might be the best place to begin a search."

The two of them hurried down the empty main street of the Exclusion. The city-born workers had all been expelled and the residents were inside their houses and apartments, barred against the turmoil of violence that had erupted beyond the bounds of their artificial island. Ayika could not blame them. For a mad priest like Huitzlan an abstract goal of spiritual dominance might have been worth this chaos but most of the Islanders who lived in the Exclusion were mundane men and women. They wanted to make money, live their lives, and keep their families safe. In a strange contrast to the eerie emptiness of the deserted canyon-streets the Exclusion's gas lamps burned cheerful and bright, banishing the night to the tips of the red and black roofed towers above.

As they hurried along, Mizumi was muttering to herself, repeatedly tapping the pocket of her coat in reassurance that the burning mirror was still there amid a growled litany in the Islander language.

"What is it?" Ayika asked. She looked at the black sleeve hiding Mizumi's heat blistered upper arm in concern. That had to be very painful and Huitzlan had inflicted a similar injury on Mizumi's thigh as well.

Mizumi twisted her mouth before eventually responding. "My people are responsible for this. Minister Erliao is wearing the mask but it was Representative Tailang who wanted to provoke the nationalists and it was Sage Huitzlan who called forth the angry spirits. And I think in their minds they truly believed they were in some way helping the people of Ba Sing Se. It is arrogance! They say that the natives are hindered by their traditions, but why are ours better? The Nation industrialized before this land, but that is an accident of history, not culture. Why does everyone need to be like us! Rah!"

Mizumi abruptly became aware of how much fury she had been projecting and rapidly reeled herself in. "Oh. Ayika, I apologize. I know that you are aware of all this but..."

They were approaching the Bridge of Fire that marked the edge of the Exclusion. Ayika saw the grey shadows of more hungry ghosts rising up into this world to drift across the surface of the empty water in the surrounding moat. She shuddered.

"Don't apologize. You've done nothing wrong." Ayika actually felt her cheeks twitch into a slight smile at hearing Mizumi defending Ayika's home. Then she remembered what Chao Erliao had screamed out in the playhouse. She thought of the people who would have agreed with him. Ba Sing Se had no less to answer for. Spirits could only amplify what people already felt and the people of the city had hated and envied the Fire Nation for a very long time. She supposed in some ways the war had never truly ended.

They were almost half way across the bridge when the Fire Nation marines posted there notice them and began to call out. Mizumi responded back in their language and pressed forward despite the shouted commands that even Ayika could interpret to be demands that they turn back at once. Ayika did not know what the plan was, it was possible that Mizumi planned to personally fight her way through the soldiers and then the Ba Sing Se city guards posted at the other side of the bridge. Fortunately, it did not come to that.

There was a loud noise to the right, down the long canal that here formed this side of the Exclusion's moat. The girls and the marines both spun around reflexively in time to see, in the distance, part of a carriage fly through the air to impact the second story of a large brick and plaster building near the ring of blank walls that faced the Exclusion. The sounds of shouts drifted down over the water and then they were followed by a droning, inhuman roar that carried with it the notes of ancient grudges against all the material world. Something that was not a carraige landed on the flotilla of tethered boats that lined the walls of the canal, capsizing one and setting the rest rocking to spill their cargo of casks forth into the water. It rose up to show a vague human silhouette that glowed a sinister red. The Masks were doing their work.

One of the Fire Nation marines said a word that Ayika recognized from some of Mizumi's angrier moments. Down at the end of the Bridge of Fire the small group of local city guards posted there had a moment of silent unanimity and proceeded to run in the direction opposite the Masks. The Fire Nation marines yelled at each other and ran forward to seize control of the bridge mouth as some more of them sprinted past to dash along the canal-side street for an attempt to drive back the Mask that was rampaging there. Ayika and Mizumi no longer ranked as their chief concerns. The two women managed to get off the bridge and run out into the streets of the town.

Just before they rounded a corner, Ayika turned to look back. A man-shaped thing rose up from the shattered canopy of one of the canal boats, glowing red with transparent spines and claws. All around him floated a flock of bobbing half-smashed barrels that had been knocked free from other boats onto the water burbled forth their liquid contents. The Fire Nation marines dashed to close the last of the distance and punched out, jets of magical fire blinking into existence from their fists. Ayika just had time to recognize that the reflections on the water surface had looked strangely colored when there was a loud distant thoomp and crash and a flash of fire. Then the other lamp oil barrels exploded as the now burning oil on the surface of the water spread while the marines and the Mask clashed, neither side carrying much for the survival of the buildings around them.

...

Ayika and Mizumi found Xiaobao and Ma'er more easily than they had expected. In fact, they found everyone; Lili and Xinfei had joined Mua in the ad hoc command center Zhangyi and Jiang had helped Xiaobao's neighborhood watch set up. The black bands were doing their best to maintain order, ensuring that the government guards were fighting the Masks and not pushing down the Kuang residents. This little distance from the Exclusion Ayika could already tell that the hungry ghosts were growing slightly denser, and that trend likely continued all the way to the Lower Ring where Ma'er said his apprentice Tian was probably hiding. However, those concealing warrens were on the far side of a large group of rampaging Masks, a terrified town, an equally terrified guard regiment, and the great wall of Ba Sing Se.

"We need to get into the Lower Ring. Naruhama's mask has to be at the center of these rising ghosts and we need to find it. Completing the funeral is our only chance of healing the border with the spirit world." Ayika turned to Nia Mua half sitting half leaning on the edge of a low wall, resting from administering a bit of magical water healing to Mizumi's burns that had left them improved but still raw. "Could you get us under the wall?"

Mizumi was not excited about this plan. She remembered the last waterbending powered traverse of the walls, down through the pitch black tunnels of the splintered and imprisoned Kuang river. "No, no, not, absolutely not."

Mua clucked dismissively at Mizumi. "Calm yourself, girl. It's not goin' to happen anyway. The greenies, the guards, have got a big push they're makin' out from the Craftsman's Gate. We'd never get to my house or boat and we'd certainly never get to the source spring tunnels."

Zhangyi said, "Is it possible that Mister Ma'er could..."

The ex Dai-Li agent shook his head curtly. "There is no way I could get us through the gate if that is what you are asking. Whatever you people seem to think, I have no governmental authority and have not had any in a very long time. I would be arrested as quickly as any of you."

Ayika clapped her hands. "Right, so if it is our only chance, then we need to find a way to get Mua past the guard patrols to the water tunnels that go under the wall. We need to get into the Lower Ring to find Tian and Naruhama's funeral mask."

Lili stopped her nervous pacing for a moment. "Well, I don't know what...Mizumi, what are you looking at? The tram? That is not operational now."

Mizumi had actually been looking at anything that might offer a counter proposal to fighting their way through groups of soldiers so they could drown themselves under the walls of Ba Sing Se. Her eyes had landed on that section of the elevated tram track above the town rooftops out of pure nostalgia for simpler solutions in earlier days. But Lili remarking on it made her think. And then there was a twitching motion at the corners of her mouth.

"Mister Ma'er, how well secured are the tram traverse tunnels at times like this?"

Ma'er raised a greying eyebrow. "Not as well as the main body of the gate, but that is because the tram stations are already under government watch and the earthbenders posted in those wall tunnels could stop anyone trying to walk along the elevated tracks."

Xinfei made a noise of sudden inhalation and abrupt realization. Ayika twisted around to look at him and he was staring at Mizumi with disbelief and amazement. Now Mizumi was actually grinning.

"I was not thinking about walking."

...

Mizumi's father, Tetzamatl Miohuito, was an importer of many products but his speciality was machines. And of all those machines, he had staked his hopes on convincing the King of Kings to convert the earthbender powered tram network that connected and fed the unmanageably vast city into a machine powered train system. He had met with a lot of resistance but in the wake of sympathy for the attack against his train-yard he had finally managed to arrange governmental permission for a single practical demonstration. That had been two days ago, so there was currently a Fire Nation built locomotive engine sitting on the track of the tram maintenance station near line terminus at the customs building.

"Well, this is insane."

Xinfei had to agree with Mama Mua's assessment. Their small group was standing beside that large black metal hulk painted with stripes of red and bristling with pipes and levers and wheels in wheels. Mizumi had climbed aboard and lit the onboard furnace quickly enough, but apparently now they had to wait for things to heat fully. Beside him, Lili was starting to twitch and fidget with nervous energy. Such unsettledness was contagious and after a brief moment of silently waiting for 'pressure to build', he decided he had stood enough and scrambled up the monstrosity to squeeze inside the command cabin with Mizumi. He squatted down on his heels beside the Islander girl who was in the same position staring at the fiery furnace mouth set at the end of a chamber which was filled with dials and wheels and things you were meant to spin and things that would explode if you touched them.

After a number of seconds he leaned over to Mizumi and said, "You have no idea what to do next, do you?"

"Not at all. My science textbook showed the engine when it was not incorporated in the locomotive."

"But doesn't your dad make these? Shouldn't you..."

"Yes, Xinfei, it has become painfully clear that I should have done quite a few things in my life very differently. Thank you for that observation."

He saw her twist to look out at the rest of the group waiting outside and at Ayika's proud, confidant face. Xinfei sighed.

"Well, let's try and figure this out."

As he got up and moved forward Mizumi opened her mouth to say something about being careful because this was a very complicated and expensive piece of machinery. Fortunately, she caught herself and swallowed whatever that comment was before he had time to do more than narrow his eyes back at her.

Xinfei cast his gaze over the walls housing all the pipes and valves. There were little engraved plaques screwed onto the metal here and there. "Hey, this is instructions!"

"You can read...?"

"Of course I can read you high nosed...!"

"No! I meant that I had thought such things would be written in the Nation's language! But then again, this is the demonstration car. I suppose father left nothing to chance for operator error."

They both leaned over to look at the little metal plates which has been screwed onto the walls near various contraptions. There were indeed instructions engraved there, though Xinfei may have exaggerated just how much he could understand. There were several characters he had never seen before. Judging from the radicals, one pair seemed to have something to do with water and, in context...arresting motion? Near his shoulder he heard Mizumi mutter something in a questioning tone. That was not a very good sign.

There was a little hinged arm in the center of a circle in a prominent place. The arm was slowly moving and pointing to tiny lines labeled with numbers. Above several of the numbers it was labeled simply, "Good."

Xinfei scratched at his head. "Good?", he read.

"Really? Great!" Ayika called up from down below. "Guys, they've got it working. Everyone up!"

The cabin very quickly started getting crowded as the rest of their strange party climbed in.

Now pressed up against the side wall and separated from whatever Mizumi was doing, Xinfei said, "Um, right. Well, the furnace runs on coal so we need to keep that fed. Maolin, could you...Oh." Ma'er flicked his hand and a large heap of coal magically sailed through the air from the rear hopper into the furnace.

"Right, uh, you take care of that." Xinfei looked over. Mizumi had her hand on an important looking lever with an expression of about eighty-five percent confidence. The little metal pointer was now starting to leave "Good" on the other side. Xinfei grabbed a long pole that disappeared down into the floor and pulled it backwards. The label said "disengage before motion something start" so that seemed to be a safe bet.

"Right, Mizumi, whenever you are ready." Ayika clearly had complete faith in her foreign friend. Xinfei looked back go see that his brother had much less faith in him. Mua looked resigned to immediate fiery death, and Ma'er never had any emotion on his face. However, then Xinfei caught a glimpse of Lili and she was unabashedly impressed with his command of the machine. Confidence welling in his chest, he twisted one last knob and announced:

"All right, start it!"

The engine shuddered and made a lot of very unpleasant noises that sounded very expensive to fix. Xinfei twisted a lot more things and slammed a few more levers until, after several heart pounding seconds, the metal pointer stopped its plummeting fall out of "Good". The train shook again and then began to chug with the impression of forward and backward motion as it started to slowly creep along the track.

While Mizumi tried to covertly dab the sweat off her forehead that showed she was the only one who knew exactly what those noises had signified Lili nodded in approval, raising her voice to be heard over the building metallic din. "Not bad. Loud though! And it is not exactly fast but...oh, it is still going." The train gave another rumble and she stumbled forward as the machine continued to accelerate, catching her hand on Xinfei's hunched shoulder for support.

The metal mechanical tram pulled out of the service building diversion and slowly merged back onto the main elevated track. An earthbender powered counterpart would have been three blocks ahead by now and perhaps still gaining distance but there was something disconcerting about the constant, relentless acceleration of the steam engine. Ma'er continued to transfer coal from hopper to furnace and with each back-blast of heat the machine seemed to gain a little more purpose. It was a mass of metal the weight of a house barreling along in response to Xinfei's command. Well, Mizumi's command since she had possession of the important brass lever but that was not the point. Xinfei straightened up and could not help a grin bursting onto his face. Carefully, he pushed past his brother and leaned out the entrance door to the cabin so he could see the roofs of Kuang Harbor Town passing beneath him while the building wind whipped through his hair.

White smoke billowed out of the chimney on top of the engine, stretching behind them as the train pushed onward into the night. From up on the open track Xinfei could see the growing chaos spreading out in the town front of him. Dots of smoke and flickering light indicated several fires across from the riverside wharfs to the border with the surrounding farms. Even over the deafening chugging of the engine and the rattle of the metal wheels he could hear a few fire bells resolutely pealing out for help. In the streets below, clashing crowds of angry people looked up, their conflict frozen in a moment of confused amazement as something loud and new passed over the roofs of their houses, charging away down the stone vaulted trackway towards the growing mass of the city wall.

Suddenly, someone else was hanging off of Xinfei with their arm around his shoulders and another hand on the doorframe. It was Lili, still beautiful even covered with soot as she leaned out dangerously far over the edge of the track.

"Look at it! We're still going faster!" She burst out into exhilarated laugher.

Xiaobao grabbed them both and hauled them back inside. He said, "That's good I guess. But what happens when we reach the wall?"

They all turned to look at Ma'er who simply said, "I do not know. This is not a scenario gate troops train for.

Mizumi had peaked her own head out one of the little forward windows and said, "Well, we will find out soon! We are getting near!"

Ayika was standing by her side but now looked as if there were a few cracks in her confidence in the Islander woman. She spoke, almost yelling to be heard. "Are we still gaining speed? Should we hold off a bit? I can't imagine this thing stops quickly!"

Mizumi shook her head. "That speed is going to be what makes sure the soldiers can not board us!"

"Yeah, but what if they just earthbend up a bunch of stones and seal the tunnel in front of us? Make it a solid wall?"

"We just...!" Mizumi stopped. There was a brief pause. "I...I had not considered that possibility!"

Mua muttered something that was unintelligible under the roar of the train as she gripped tighter onto her ad hoc seat.

In the tunnel guard station, a man leaned back in his chair. The soldiers whose job it was to guard the elevated tram tunnel through the first city wall knew that bad things were happening tonight. However, they had regarded the distant sounds of shouting and fire below them as something to be dealt with by soldiers who had drawn less fortunate posting assignments. After all, on a night like this the only people with the authority to use the tram tracks would be government agents who lowly soldiers were not to question or hinder in any way. It was an easy job. And so, though they had heard the distant chugging sound steadily getting closer, their discussion had been one of idle curiosity and a joint resolution to ask someone at the next shift change if they knew exactly what had been going on out in the harbor.

When one of the more astute men noticed that there was something up on the tracks, it took him a few moments to gather up his fellows to come up and look at it and offer their opinions. What they discovered was that the thing on the tracks was quite larger than it had been a moment ago, and it growing distressing nearer by the second. The rails on the stone-walled vaulted track and in the tunnel were now both giving off a disconcerting murmuring sound of deep vibration. There was no protocol for this. Then the thing was upon them, roaring out of the dark night and spewing smoke; a massive black and red monstrosity louder than an army. The earthbending soldiers defaulted to their training in a panic and punched out with earth magic to halt the stone structure of the train as they would a speeding earth-tram but it shrugged off their techniques with absolutely no effect.

The train shot into the tunnel at an incredible speed and for a moment the soldiers were rendered insensible by the rumbling and screeching and smoke. Somewhere amid the din one of them thought he heard a girl's voice call out an explanation for their failure.

"It is made of metal!"

The soldier thought that the voice was being unnecessarily cheeky about the whole affair.

...