...

Ayika coughed as another shift in the heated air carried smoke into her mouth. She looked back once more to ensure that Mizumi was still there. Ever since Ma'er had disappeared in the commotion Ayika was terrified that at any moment she would turn around and Mizumi would be gone, taken, leaving Ayika alone in the hellish chaos of this nearly deserted neighborhood of the Lower Ring. The rising hordes of hungry ghosts were thick and grasping here and the flames of the burning buildings the two women passed behaved most strangely. At least there were actually fewer physical obstacles to moving down these streets than they had encountered earlier. The guards had never gotten the chance to raise the stone barricades here and the residents had fled quickly enough that no one had bothered to build their own. As long as Ayika concentrated on whatever ghost repelling aura her meager shaman powers could muster she and Mizumi were safe.

At that moment, to prove her a liar, Ayika heard a human woman cry out. Mizumi grasped Ayika's wrist but they soon both saw that there was no need to worry. As they wound their way through the half-seen specters in all their shapes, now visible to Mizumi as well, they saw a woman in a torn dress leaning against a brick wall. Her face in her hands and glowing spirit birds perched on her shoulders, plucking threads of memories from from her head while vaguely humanoid ghosts in drifting robes clutched at her legs. That woman was not the first person like that they had seen. They were getting closer to the epicenter and the spiritual disturbances that further out were provoking fear and conflict, here were too much for any unprepared human to deal with. The girls continued onward down the web of crowded deserted streets, lit by flickering orange light of wild fire through window-frames and doorways.

Mizumi was the first to speak in several minutes. She looked around at the burning buildings rising up on each side of them. "I have seen many examples of firebending but these fires are still very unnerving to me."

Ayika agreed. This near the mask of Naruhama the fire covered nearly every appartment and every shop yet it had lost its appetite. The all encompassing blaze flexed and pulsed in spreading waves but though the walls were black and pitted the fire had here gained a measure of unreality and did no more destruction. It required no fuel to sustain its self. Those whipping sheets of fire seemed to simply dwell here now, poking through the charred wood and bamboo like a new type of grass waving in a hot wind, clinging to walls like climbing vines.

Ayika and Mizumi advanced forward and eventually came into a small square around a central covered well made bright by fire on every side. The flagstones and the well were the only things that were not more blaze than substance as all the surrounding buildings were by now engulfed. On the far side of the stone flagging several red spirit dogs trotted across the space from other streets, but they avoided the approaching humans and quickly disappeared to make mischief elsewhere.

"All right." Ayika turned around and tried to sense if they were still advancing towards the center of the disturbance. She thought that they must be. The aching below her brain felt hallow and drum-like. They walked out into the square towards the edge of the well that once watered the departed families who had lived here. "I think we are almost there. When we find the ambassador's mask I'll try and..."

Loud, harsh laughter rang out across the square. "Child of the city! Why do you come seeking with us? What do you want with that drifting, fractured human? The fire-souled is so very interesting left how he is! Come, two autumn flowers clutching and withering, play with us instead!"

Mizumi had no more curses left in her as she turned to face the sound of the Mask calling to them. There were so many of them, leaping through fire and dropping down from the rooftops, their human hosts almost entirely concealed within the emerging spirit bodies that now just barely conformed to the standards of human shape. Ayika sagged and absently wiped some of the soot off her face with her sleeve. In the back of her mind some small voice commented that it was good that her opera-going outfit was made of such dark, stain-hiding cloth. They had gotten so close to their goal, but they had no more allies to fight for them.

One of the Masks landed down on the stones of the square. He was dressed like a prosperous middle ring shopkeeper but now those clothes were hidden behind the green glow that clung to his skin. Phantasmal tentacles wavered off his back; reaching, grasping.

Ayika looked up to meet that creature's attention. These were still spirits, no matter what twisted ritual had brought them here to what futile end. She stood as tall as she could and spoke with a confidence she did not feel. "I am Ayika of the Water Tribe here to complete the funeral rituals of Aza Naruhama. His unquiet ghost has been upsetting your world as well as our own. Our task is proper and will suffer no interference!"

The Mask cackled back beneath eyeholes filled with bubbling gold. "Yes, the worlds are upset here. And we are to benefit!" The mixture of spirit and man roared out, "We are the distant, the unwatched, the shadows of unremembered forests, the winds off leveled hills. Now we can return, and take our place from those spirits who allied with the humans. The humans of this land call out to metal and fire instead of their ancient pathetic friends, and they give no worship! The city gods face competition. But we who took the offered doors are not jealous, we can share the fears and fascination of mankind with the spirits of fire from over the sea. While the rest of our fellows are out playing in the city we few here at hand will ensure that you will not stop this new world."

He and his companions had converged here, drawn by the same vague sense of the weakening between worlds that attracted the faded human ghosts who wavered around them; just as Ayika and Mizumi had been drawn. Unfortunately, their party had remained together.

Now it was Mizumi who yelled back, proud and defiant over her terrified heart. "This land has its own spirits, its own gods to watch over them. I have seen them. You are not welcome! The Nation's gods are not for here! Those bodies you wear are the product of deceit and lies and damn politics! We are here to quiet the soul of a great man! Ambassador Naruhama will be at peace!"

Even as her voice rang off the burning walls another Mask dropped down from high above to land beside his green fellow, taking up the conversation as if he had been party to it all along. "The veil must remain weakened. What man as done we can not permit you to yet undo." This one was dressed in the black and white robes of a university student, now consumed with shifting shadows.

Every occupant of the square, spirit and human, jerked slightly as Ayika let out a sharp loud laugh. Despite the weariness in her bones and heart a smile twitched at the edges of her lips.

"Not yet, you say? Then you're not yet ready to claim your spot. Not ready to try and overthrow the Spirit Lords." She was surprised to find condescension in her voice mixed with a hint of pity. "You may call the gods of our land pitiful and weak, but you still fear them. You still fear this city!"

"We who have crossed fear nothing! Those who dwell here are bound in chains of ritual and rule! We are unrestrained, we are free." Even the ground seemed to shudder as the Shadow Mask roared.

Ayika tilted her head to the smile in goodnatured acceptance. Beside her she could hear the sound of water flowing along within the depths of the stone well. A crazy, unlikely idea had occurred to her. There was a freedom in hopelessness. "You're right, there. We do like our rules here. Well, then lets follow some. Mizumi, I..."

Mizumi interrupted her. "Do what you are doing." A cacophonous symphony of otherworldly growls rose from the semicircle of Masks at the edge of the square, drowning out the crackle of burning buildings. Mizumi turned half way away from them, showing her profile. Then she flexed her shoulders and her black coat slid down her back, falling the ground with a flick of her arms. Mizumi's hands curled into fists at her sides as she shifted her feet, turning her head to face them.

"I will stand before you."

The same cracking relief that had washed through Ayika now sounded in her voice. Mizumi was almost laughing.

"After everything that has happened to us, this is a very simple problem to face!"

The Masks roared. Ayika closed her eyes and felt her center. Despite the wincing anxiety of her heart she tried to shut out the sound of growls and screams that reached her ears. She felt the very core of this land reaching up through the soles of her feet but she did not begin the mystic chants to water and life that she had heard her Grandma Aka and Mama Mua both use. Instead she simply spoke in a low voice:

"Exchange is the rule. Well, I offer service for service. You spirit gods all live here too, and this mess is threatening to wipe you away. I will save your collective hides from a ghost god and the scavengers clinging to him so I think that buys me credit. And as for which of you I am calling, I'd have to say..." She took a breath. "Every. Damn. One"

A deep voice instantly spoke from beside her shoulder. "You are presumptuous, aren't you?"

Ayika opened her eyes to see the huge shape of Gold Toad rising out of the square's well. Before, on the night of the festival, his amphibian shape had been a pale yellow shadow, ethereal beneath the moon. Now, at the heart of the hole being torn from this world to the other, he shone like a molten fortune. His eyes were jade, his claws were ebony and his skin was glistening precious metal. He nodded down to Ayika and his wide mouth might have had a slight triumphant smile.

"It is good to see you again, young priest. Are those fool things in the masks still trying to find what I have hidden?"

There was a furious howl and Ayika turned back to face the fight again, fearfully looking for Mizumi. Four of the Masks had advanced forward, their natural inability to cooperate now overcome by the anticipation of easily overpowering the young Fire Nation girl who stood before them. But now they were drawn back and the shadow-draped Mask in the student robes was clutching at his arm from which ran a stream of very human blood. Mizumi still stood in her place, the blade of her knife decorated with a thin smear of red. The thick drops landed on the stones with a curiously loud sound that somehow carried over the fire and anguished panting of the spirit monster.

It threw up its twisted shifting face; now carved from wood, now living creature. "How?" it howled in confusion. "We have grown strong! Your physical weapons can not harm us! Our true forms are beyond those mortal tools!"

Mizumi openly laughed and that sweet sound echoed across the four walls of fire that surrounded them. "One day it will cease to amuse me when man-things underestimate us. My blade is shaman blessed! Ayika gave it the strength to rip any of you things apart and if you take a single step more I will do just that. I wield her power. So try me." She shifted her foot forward and the knife crept through the air, causing some of the Masks to lean back still further, unwelcome fear creeping into their otherworldly mind.

Ayika was not as sure as Mizumi. She did not know how to do anything like blessing a weapon. In truth she was not sure that was a thing that could happen. She was just as surprised as the Masks by what Mizumi had done.

In the well beside Ayika, Gold Toad grumbled deep from his expansive belly. His front claws gripped on the lip of the well as he pulled himself out and onto the stones beside it, his lone back leg twisted awkwardly to support him. He too took issue with Mizumi's explanation. "That is not the way things actually work."

But another voice, deep and dark, corrected him from behind. It was a hissing inhalation in from then shadows. "On this night, in this place, it is. The barrier is thin, and she is filled with belief. Tonight, anything done with that much... strength, it is ritual. After all, that is the key."

The Masks all stepped backwards in horror as Ayika and Mizumi turned around to see Blind Dog Lord in his long dark robes, rising up before the backdrop of fire in his dingy ancient glory. He was not alone. The spirit gods of this little corner of the city had responded to the call. They were the gods of Ayika's home. Beside Blind Dog Lord were other spirits, a woman who glittered like an iridescent beetle, wooden people wrapped in bands of iron, two hooded shadows, and woman made of shadowed water. Others were still arriving, birds and sackcloth men and cats with shining eyes. Even a small shirtless man who's claws gleamed like burning embers.

Mizumi called out with a cheerful excitement alien to their current situation, "You, fire spirit! I recognize you!"

In the midst of her relief Ayika managed to find some space for confusion as she frowned at the little spirit from Mua's fireplace. "You? Why are you with the city gods? I thought you were just trying to find a place still on this side." She and Mizumi might be struck down at any moment and yet Ayika was still bothered that this one spirit was out of place in her understanding of city cosmology.

The fire man laughed. "And I found that place! You would be surprised how many people offer prayers to gods when they are learning to use matches! Progress, always creating opportunities!"

Ayika turned back. The assembled Masks looked much less certain than they had a moment ago. They had been drawn here to the disturbance between the worlds but now instead of two women alone they faced a small horde of minor gods and even the humans had proved themselves capable of inflicting harm. But the wild spirits that had responded to Huitzlan's masks had heard Erliao's calls of anger and aggression so they could not keep themselves restrained for long. Indeed, in their frustration the ones at the edge of the square vented their rage with random destruction, turning around to further shred the flame-wreathed unburning buildings with their bare hands. One of the carelessly flung wooden beams actually almost hit Ayika and Mizumi but they managed to duck out of the way.

Blind Dog Lord took a glacial step forward across the square. His green robes, dark almost to black and embroidered with strange designs, swept across the stones. As the jaws in his withered canine head opened with a hiss, all the strange dancing flames that surrounded this space seemed to sway towards him at the same moment. Around him, the other local spirits all lowered themselves in bows. However, the Masks showed no such respect. As this governing spirit approached they rose up taller, wings, tentacles and spikes bristling like the fur on the backs of a wild beasts. The eyeless lord advanced until he was beside Ayika and Mizumi.

Blind Dog Lord spoke slowly, with a hissing inhalation clipped with impact like the thud of falling slate. "All those humans who planned for your crossing are gone on to await their reincarnation. Those who remain are inhabited by you and thus in no fit state to constitute a willful calling. The ritual you are party to has reached its completion stage. Do not interfere any further or you shall face penalty of enforcement."

The Green Mask of spectral vines laughed mockingly. "You feeble grandiose thing," it spat. "Who are you to say what can be done? What have humans done that has earned you adopting their chains? Perhaps it is because you were once mortal, but could you actually remember any fondness for the creatures that left you starving, mutilated, wandering on bleeding paws through this barren stone forest they created? You were abandoned. Yet you still tried to help them! You gave food to some misbegotten priest and in return they let you die, only to say nice words after your crossing. You are still a slave to them. We are free!"

Blind Dog Lord did not change his posture at all. Only his grey notched ears over empty sockets moved in the slightest. "None of us are free. But some of us choose our chains. It is the bonds that hold us that are most precious. It is those bonds that give us strength. Now depart and leave this priest to her work." The robed figure seemed to grow still taller. "If you do not, I will expend every sliver of power I yet have even if it takes me three thousand years to regenerate." He gestured to the assembled gods behind him. "We all will. Are your compatriots willing to sacrifice that much?"

For a moment there was the sensation of incredible pressure and force wavering through the air. All around them in the burning buildings the flames all slowly halted and fell to motionlessness. Ayika found that she had forgotten to breath. Then the tension broke and the Green Mask stepped back. His black and white robed companion with the bleeding arm turned his head in growling frustration. That Mask then looked up at Blind Dog Lord through a face made of wood and shadow and somewhere inside, a human being.

"Slave." It hissed. But it made no move to challenge him. "Accepted. We will not harm your shaman."

The shadow-spirit Mask turned to leave as the rest of its kind made similar frustrated motions. Then the Mask shot out a clawed arm and grabbed Mizumi by her face. Ayika blinked at Mizumi's muffled scream and then the thing flung her through the air with a single small thrust of its palm. Mizumi slammed back into the side of the well with a heavy crack. She did not let out any sound as she rebounded onto the ground. Her knife clattered as it rattled loose over the cobbles.

The spirit gods and the Masks erupted into an earth shattering roar as they leapt together into battle. The fire that surrounded them resumed its tortured dance. Ayika heard none of it. Her ears were filled with a strange dim ringing. For two everlasting, unforgivable seconds she stood there thinking about the strangely sharp taste of smoke she could feel in her mouth from the burning houses. Then the nature of time changed again and she was suddenly on her knees beside Mizumi. Ayika reached out to stroke Mizumi's face to get her attention. Then she pulled back her hand as she realized her fingers were wet and red where they had touched the back of Mizumi's hair. Mizumi did not move.

All around Ayika a spiritual battle raged. Monsters that acted like men fought men that acted like monsters in a shifting, amorphous cacophony of slicing claws and tearing teeth that rent the border of the worlds. Ayika saw none of this. She knelt on the smooth, weathered cobble stones beside Mizumi's gently resting form. Then a black foot stepped into the edge of her sight.

She looked up to see a figure of shadow standing before her, a human shape carved out of black. The void it had above its shoulders met Ayika's gaze. Then the spirit bowed deeply and respectfully to the still girl lying beside her. Its duty was done, its omen delivered, its journey complete. The Nine-Step-Shadow rose again and turned to face the battle that was ripping the streets and buildings to shreds. Soft black ribbons unfolded from where it would have arms if it were truly human, spreading out like flexing wings. Then it stepped forward towards another target. It was, after all, only a messenger.

Ayika pulled herself up onto her feet. As she stood she stumbled slightly, and her foot slid forward to bump into Mizumi's side. In that instant all her numbing shock transformed. The warm blood on her fingers burned like molten metal; burned like the fire in Mizumi's soul. The world vibrated as Ayika's rage, anguish, and fury came bursting forth. Every fiber of her body held itself stiff with painful tension. She looked up at the battle. There was no thought, no plan. She just clapped her hands together and the blood on one spread to both.

The spirits and the Masks both froze, victor and defeated, whole and mangled all together. They were held, restrained by a magic too powerful to be party to any rules, by ritual older than memory. At the heart of the merging worlds Ayika pressed the blood of the woman she loved between her fingers into a single talisman. And then she pulled her hands apart, breaking that sign in half.

"Get out."

The square was quiet. The spirit gods were gone. The human forms of the Masks collapsed down onto the ground; still, blackened things, pitted and ruined forever by the spirit possessors who had never planned to leave. One of the wooden masks rocked slightly as it slid off its former wearer onto the ground. Ayika recognized the motionless, openmouthed face of Chonglong in those black and white univeristy robes, but there was nothing more to be felt there. Anger had departed with every evidence of life around her. Sorrow had yet to arrive.

Ayika stood alone in the empty square. Distantly, the city roared from every direction with the sounds of fire and screams and conflict. But here the fire made no sound other than the faint fluttering of whipping flame as it continued to burn without consuming the wood on which it climbed. That subtle noise mixed with the muffled sound of running water that filtered up from the open mouth of the square's well. Distant memories of city exploration chimed themselves to Ayika's attention. She knew what to look for now.

It was just around the corner. There was a small narrow staircase leading down to the dark under the street. Down to the fresh-water aqueduct that here within the walls of the city had been built over by the perpetual waves of construction. It was somewhere that a scared young man might hide from monsters who were searching for him, enough water to hide the spiritual fire. It was a heavy burden to lift but Ayika held Mizumi in her arms as she walked to the mouth of those stairs. There had been a barring door of some sort to stop access but that had burnt away sometime earlier tonight. Ayika looked straight ahead, never down at her burden. She was not sure why she was doing this, but she also knew that she had no choice. The muscles in her arms already hurt from carrying the weight. She ignored them.

There was a black shadow standing beside her once more. She did not look at it.

"I told you all to leave."

The male voice that answered was kindly even as it clicked with the faint sound of metal sliding over metal. "I have a special set of circumstances, Ayika."

She turned her head by the smallest degree possible. This spirit was dressed in black as well, but by the light of the fires she could finally see under his hood. His face was made of ten thousand metal blades, all fluctuated as if they moved on hidden hinges. His knife-edge lips clicked as they moved.

Ayika looked away again. At least she recognized him now. "Scissors-man," She said, flatly. "I didn't think you were real."

The terror of her childhood shrugged, the bladed body beneath those manifested clothes making more metal noises. "There was a time when I was not, despite my existence. The frightened belief of a young shaman is a powerful thing."

Ayika did not bother to think about that. She could not bring herself to wonder or to fear. It was all irrelevant. "You've spoken to me before." She remembered dark hooded figures speaking cryptically from shadows or from mist.

"Several times. But I do not mind that you did not recognize me. It was my honor to provide welcome and warning."

Ayika's arms were beginning to vibrate under their limp burden. "Stay out of my way."

The spirit bowed his head of points, edges and hinges. "I would dream of nothing else. You gave me form and place. You have done so very much."

Ayika grunted and stepped down into the dark staircase to the underground aqueduct.

The vaulted tunnel through which the water ran should have been a dark cavern but now small clusters of flames magically sprouted into existence, licking at bare stone before melting away again. Even the surface of the water grew these same brief fires that all seemed to be pulsing outward in expanding rings. A little way down the tunnel, on the thin walkway beside the watercourse there was a young man sitting huddled, knees against his chest, pressed against the fitted stone wall in anguished fear.

Then he saw Ayika step out into view and gasped in panic. He scrabbled to hide some object behind him.

"Get back! You're not with them are you?! I can't let them find me!" His voice was weak and erratic.

Ayika did not answer. She gently lowered Mizumi down onto the cool stones beside the running water, managing to be careful in this motion even as her arms almost gave out. Distantly Ayika noticed that one of her sleeves and the corresponding side of her dress were now covered in blood. Bits of flame licked across the flowing water. Faintly, a thick droplet fell from Ayika's hand into that current. Then she stood up and looked at the young man.

"None of the Masks can find you. Gold Toad honors his deals well, and you asked to make sure they could not. No spirit can find you, Tian."

The young man froze. "You know who I am?" Ma'er's missing assistant was a pitiful sight. Ayika had only ever seen him twice before and still she recognized that. He cheeks were sunken and from the drooping under his eyes he had not slept in days. He yelled out horsily, "How do you know my name?! And who's that?"

The sound of clicking metal feet told her that Scissors-Man had followed her down. Apparently spirits could still be shown where Tian was. As always, there was a loophole. But that still didn't matter. None of it did. She still had things she needed to say. Tian continued to cower before her.

"You broke into the school. You wore the white mask. You killed Professor Lizhen." These were no longer questions, she had pieced it together long ago but it was necessary that some things be spoken; be real.

Tian let out a single sob, sinking further into his bony knees. "No! Yes! I didn't...I got in the room and suddenly there was something else that was controlling me. They had asked me to steal it back, what Master Ma'er had taken, so they could destroy it, stop anyone from purifying it. That mask...it, they didn't tell me it was going to get stronger!"

"I doubt they even knew." It had been an accident. The consequence of three forces all trying to control a power they did not fully understand for aims that did not take the others' plans into account. No one had posessed enough information. Huitzlan, Erliao, and Tailang; they had all destroyed themselves. "And you never gave Naruhama's masks back to the Initiated. You hid with it instead."

Tian frowned, recognition finally flitting across his face. "Wait, I know you. At Lizhen's school, and then at the meeting in the harbor. You were there!"

"Where's the mask, Tian?"

He shook his head, muttering to himself. "I got rid of the other. The white one. The one they gave me. It was...It was watching me. But this one...I, I thought it might be important. Important to stopping it all. But it just made things worse! I tried to take it down here, to the dark and the water, to protect Master Ma'er protect my family, but something went wrong. It went crazy and, I think bad stuff happened up there. Outside this tunnel. I tried to stop it. I really did." He was broken; a lost young man trying to fight spiritual influences beyond his understanding. It looked as if he had not slept in days.

Ayika breathed out. "I know you did."

Tian reached to his side and now held a large, thick, wooden mask clutched in his hands. It was unpainted, carved of a deep dark material from the bones of some tropical tree. Ayika had seen it on the body of the Ambassador paraded in his funeral procession. Or, she supposed, she had seen a duplicate, one of Huitzlan's tricks. That one had been the public focus of a foreign funeral, this one was the one that had truly began the death rituals. It was the anchor of a hungry ghost empowered to godhood by sacrifices of gold and iron and blood. To Ayika's eyes it warped the world even in this boy's hands.

Ayika felt the pounding in her head. She remembered her dreams. This artifact ached to be burned, for the funeral ritual to be complete and the ghost to be pacified. It called out to the fire that the living once wielded control over. Naruhama stood across the worlds, torn apart into soul and ghost, unable to continue on to reincarnation. Ayika imagined she could hear those anguished, silent cries. She now realized that Lizhen's Fire Nation funeral burning charm had been left up in the square in the pocket of Mizumi's coat. But she also knew it was not worth going back for.

Ayika held out her hand towards Tian and the death mask.

"Give it to me. I will get rid of it."

Tian looked away from it, back up at Ayika. "No. It...I have dreams. There has to be something special. If it is destroyed before..."

"Give it to me."

To Ayika's ears she repeated those words in the same flat, weary tone, but Tian flinched and looked at her with widening eyes. It was not the Scissors-Man spirit who brought on this fear, he was still far behind her at the entrance. The boy was afraid of her. But that did not matter.

After a long moment, Tian slowly, shakily rose to his feet. He was much taller than Ayika but he was huddled and wretched as if she towered over him. He held forth Naruhama's mask.

She grabbed it. It felt like heavy wood. It felt normal.

"Thank you. Your boss Ma'er is out there looking for you. I think your family thinks you're dead." Her mouth was working automatically, but Tian heard something it there.

Now he was gone and Ayika was alone in the tunnel beside the dark flowing water. The spirit of her childhood belief given form watched her with quiet, amused attention. Mizumi lay silently on the damp stones. Ayika held the weighty mask in her hands. Professor Lizhen had been an expert on funeral rituals from many different lands. He would have recognized this mask for what it was instantly and he would have known the precise forms to compleat the ritual, pacifying the ghost and reuniting it with the soul of his dead friend, the ambassador. He had waited until after the setting sun, he had arranged authentic charms and instruments, he had said the right words. Ayika knew none of those. But tonight, when the worlds were pulled together on their screaming path, anything was ritual. Anything was possible.

Ayika pressed the mask to her face and her heart reached out to drag the burning god into her.

...