...

"Aizhang Gaoli has been attempting to convince the King's ministers to let him expand his gas-lines, supposably for new street lamps. He wants to run pipes of flammable, explosive gas under all your houses! And why? Because he says that is what the Fire Nation does! He says that it's modernization! Well, I say he looks to no one's interest but his own! Money is his concern, not safety or loyalty!"

Xinfei had to admit that Zhangyi was on roll. A sizable crowd had joined them by now on their walk through these shaded evening streets of the Lower Ring. And many of those crowd members were sticking with the group despite the fact that they had walked enough miles that Xinfei's feet felt every aching paving stone through his thin sandals. This was the narrowest part of the ring but that did not make it small. Not having a tram passport, he had performed this walk across the Lower Ring many times but it was always more tiring when faced with the thought of a late return trip. The sky still glowed red in the west but here between the walls night had already fallen.

Student Jiang seemed to be suffering even more. The portly young man threw many depressed looks at his bag full of books he had found himself lugging all this way. Xiaobao had offered to carry it for him but Jiang had stammered that it was unnecessary. The rich kid probably thought Xiaobao would steal it.

Zhangyi and Chonglong, on the other hand, were high on the energy of the city. While Zhangyi crafted rhetorical appeals to each shopkeeper locking up and cook walking home, Chonglong targeted his message to the young men just beginning their night. One group heard of how all the industries would improve once domestic workers did not have to compete with the cheap goods of foreign imperialists. The other heard of how right and glorious it was to fight to defend their homeland. They all heard of the rich merchant Gaoli who smuggled in vile machines under the nose of bribed officials; machines designed to replace Kingdom citizens. A merchant associated with an insidious foreigner who wanted to take the iconic tram system whose vaulted tracks knitted the sprawling metropolis together and replace it with a smoke-belching metal monstrosity. That foreigner who was suspected in the murder of a professor of the Royal University. The light from the lamps held by members of the crowd glinted in Zhangyi's eyes.

They were attracting quite a lot of attention. The dimming streets were beginning to fill with the curious and the angry. Frequently dormant survival instincts began to rear up in Xinfei's mind. They'd managed to not run into any guard patrols yet but that could not last. In any case they were going to reach the gate to the Middle Ring soon and there was no way that this rowdy a crowd was going to be allowed through. Xiaobao gave him a significant look and Xinfei nodded. He moved over to speak to Jiang. "The guards are going to break us up soon. They have to, don't they?"

Jiang's cheeks were red and he was breathing through his mouth. If the walk was annoying for Xinfei it was much worse for someone who had never experienced a callus. Jiang said, "Not necessarily. Guards are citizens too, they have the same grievances we have. Our group is just walking, they'll find every excuse not to interfere with us." However, he was not exactly confident in this assessment.

There was a sudden sound of breaking wood from across the street. Xinfei whipped around to see members of their growing mob smashing the shutters of a shop that was attempting to close for the night. Xiaobao yelled out, "Hey!" in an attempt to stop this but no one listened. A few other men were shouting that this owner was cooperating with the foreigners. Others of the group rushed over to pull the vandalizers back but just as many ran to assist them in destroying any Fire Nation made products. If shops here in this part of the Lower Ring were carrying imports then their group must have gotten very close to the Merchant's Wall and therefor the guard-post. The roofs here overhung the street enough that Xinfei had somehow lost sight of that mountain range of a landmark. To loose track of the walls in the City was a feat in itself.

"I think the guards are going to run out of excuses very quickly." Xinfei said to Jiang who's mouth was working silently in indecision as he waved fruitlessly at the tussle outside the beleaguered shop. "My advice is when they come, run fast."

However, Zhangyi managed to regain control of this march. Chonglong was at his side grabbing figures to shove them back into the middle of the street as Zhangyi leapt up onto an unstable stack of empty crates. "I feel your anger, people! These imported goods are a vile symbol! But did this shopkeep let the foreigners in? No! Those who did live in the next ring! The grubbing merchants who handed out the keys to our City! So now we march to remind them that the people have not forgotten their crimes! We march together!"

Slowly, like a many headed creature awakening from a fitful dream the crowd began to resume its directed walk deeper into the city. There were now well over fifty people and more were filtering in out of side streets. Chonglong suddenly appeared at Jiang's side, panting but exhilarated. The more cautions Jiang said to his burly friend, "I think this guy may be right. This march has grown bigger than I expected. I'm not sure what Zhangyi was visualizing but this is beyond it. We should be considering disentanglement strategies."

Chonglong slapped Xinfei hard on the back as he replied to Jiang. "Don't let your wharf-rat friend worry. This march has full support of the Society. Look!" He pointed across the crowd. "That's Qiao and Gong from the meetings. There are others too. And some of them have to be the Initiated. We are protected. Tonight we get to make a show!" He grinned at Jiang. "And even if the Initiated decide not to show themselves, we are prepared to protect our own." He looked around before flipping up part of his belt to reveal the hilt of a hidden knife tucked behind it.

Jiang jerked back, "Chonglong! What are you-?"

He was drowned out by a growing swell of voices. From his position at the front of the parade Zhangyi had begun a chant and it was being picked up.

"We are the City! Foreigners can't buy us! We are the City! Expose those who sell us!"

It was to this thumping beat that they crossed their final turning of the street and the close-packed buildings parted into the empty square before the massive gate to the Middle Ring. The wall appeared with frightening immediacy. All at once it stood thirty meters away and stretched out in each direction like the end of the world. Above, it reached up into the infinite night sky. Directly across this square, the wall bulged out with an integrated castle around the huge gateway. That gate alone was large enough that a ship could have sailed through it and a hundred lighted windows gleamed from the guard posts on each side of it. As the marchers strode across the empty flagstone before it the volume of their chanting lessened and their pace slowed as they were cowed by the weight of the stone.

Xinfei breathed a sigh of relief. This is where it would end. Thinking back it had been an exciting evening, if a little nerve-wracking. They had made a big show of force, demonstrating that the people had suffered enough of those Islander infiltrators. Now they could go home. This late the guards would be inspecting passports and no self respecting greenback would let a crowd like this pass no matter what their certification. However, Zhangyi was still walking in front of the group at an unflagging clip and by his sheer confidence drew the rest of the protesters with him.

Xinfei saw guards standing on each side of the gate and more peering down from viewports above. But no one moved to block their way. No earthbenders closed the gate's stone teeth. Beside him, Jiang sweated and Chonglong thumbed at his belt before resolving himself and pushing his way forward to reach Zhangyi. Zhangyi himself had come to a halt at the very lip of the long Gate tunnel. The marchers bunched up behind him and still none of the guard moved to drive them back. Across the the square behind them, local residents were filing out of inns and houses, peering into the dark at these protesters who's echoing chants still fitfully rang out.

Xinfei stood in the stationary crowd waiting for at any moment to hear the sounds of authoritative voices ordering dispersement. But none came. Then a shiver moved through the crowd and row by row they took a step forward. Forward towards the Middle Ring. They were entering the gate.

Beside him Jinag chuckled nervously. "See, what did I say? Nothing to worry about. I told you we have sympathizers everywhere."

Xinfei said nothing. Xiaobao was visibly nervous. Those guards had orders. Someone wanted this march to go through. Someone with rank or money had made sure they would not be obstructed. To what end he did not know, but now the protesters were gaining even more people as excited figures who had trailed behind before were now running across the square to join the impossible movement. They were enthusiastic, righteous and angry. And they were headed the Gaoli residence where Ayika might be. Xinfei knew he had to push ahead and warn her. Or maybe he needed to stay here. Maybe he could help maintain some level of control through Zhangyi and the other University students. Prevent this from getting even more out of hand. He didn't know, this all felt like some coded ritual in faith he did not understand.

Step by step he plunged into the long tunnel as its vaulted ceiling eclipsed the first few glimmers of stars above. Night had truly fallen.

...

In the hallway of her family mansion, Lili Gaoli wrung her hands as she fidgeted nervously outside the door to her father's audience room. Inside, she could hear the shouting continue.

"Frozen for the duration of the investigation?!" Her father roared out, his voice reverberating through the half-closed door. "Erliao, you motherless son of a pig, what is the meaning of this?!"

Another voice replied in a tone that tried to mirror the same ferocious affront but fell rather short in power. "It is a fairly standard measure in these situations. With the current climate the people need to see that the government is looking into the problem very carefully."

Her father was not tolerant of this explanation. "Seiran, I did not talk to you and if I did want to hear your voice I could just shove Erliao's hand up a dog's bum! Now I ask the Sub-Minister again, why do I have a missive here saying I must freeze all my commercial activity for an undefined length of time?!"

Lili knew that Port-Master Seiran would be tugging on his long black beard in anger while his other thumb repeatedly brushed his huge metal belt buckle of green and bronze as if he wished it was a sword-pommel. But she also knew her father would not care what this man thought. She had seen his eyes narrow when the servant came to tell him that the Harbor Master and the Sub-Minister of Poetry and Worthy Expression had arrived at their house for an unannounced social call. Any surprise contact from the government was never good, no matter how rich you were. Now Lili was sparing glances away from the slightly open audience room door to peer out the window that shielded view of the courtyard, sending out desperate wishes into the newly fallen night that the Miohuitos would not arrive on time. Islanders showing up to meet one of the leaders of the Conservative faction was the only thing that could make things worse.

Sub-Minister Erliao's voice was as smooth as always. Since the funeral in that fog he had recovered his equilibrium. "Peace, Aizhang. The government is very concerned about this despicable case of arson. In particular, why your warehouse was targeted. An agent at the scene found possible evidence the attack could have originated in the Exclusion itself. We can only moderate our grief by thanking whatever spirit caused the criminal to set his fire in a building so heavily insured against just that crime." The careful modulation betrayed no hidden implication and thus broadcast it loudly.

After a moment of silence Mister Gaoli gave a low belly laugh, deep and bitter. "So that's your game. Trade Representative Tailang is really scoring points against you is he? Using these cases of persecution and violence to get more concessions out of the King? So in retaliation you press down on Seiran and Public Safety to knock me out of the game for a bit, knowing that it's going to hurt Miohuito and the rest of the Exclusion. Tailang is still hoping to be named as the new ambassador isn't he? But you can threaten to make his tenure as Trade Representative look less than stellar by denying one of his largest traders his import connection." There was a pause here. Lili assumed her father was taking a puff from his pipe. "You know, I had wondered how those rumors of the Fire Nation burning down my place got started."

"Harmony and stability are my only concerns."

Gaoli gave a snort. "Harmony. It was not particularly harmonious when Professor Lizhen was killed in his office. Have your friends in green made any progress on that investigation?"

Seiran burst out angrily. "Hey now! You can not accuse-!"

Something Lili could not hear cut him off. Now anger was beginning to creep into Erliao's voice. "As I have said before, I would never have wished such a thing on him and I resent the tones you are taking. Chen Lizhen's death was a tragedy, a mistake, even if such sorrow had been long predicted. His mystical sacrileges finally caught up to him. He had long been known to associate with unsavory characters; Fire sorcerers, shamans, and swamp witches. It was only a matter of time before one of his reckless contacts led him to harm."

Gaoli spoke again, but now with a bit of secret humor beneath his anger. "Yes, swamp witch. I think I may have heard that story. All of that story." He was clearly needling Erliao about something.

This was fascinating information. Beneath Erliao's vitriol it sounded to Lili like he did indeed know Professor Lizhen very well. In particular when he listed undesirable associates Lili interpreted his tone to say that each example was a reference to a particular memory. And then there was some story about a witch? But before she could hear any more a female voice rang out down the hallway behind her hiding spot.

"Yun! Do be sure third daughter knows not to bother her father. She's always creeping around in a most unseemly way."

Lili turned to look behind her as the footman Yun bowed deeply to someone out of sight. From where Lili stood in the hallway to her father's audience room, the servant and the young lady could see each other clearly through an empty archway to the parlor room where the command had originated. However, Yun made no sign that he knew where Lili might be found. She smiled faintly to herself. She supposed that in Yun's customarily highly literal interpretation of his duties the fact that she had heard meant his task was already completed. Or perhaps he was just being nice to her. Lili had no desire to see her mother right now.

Liling Gaoli was currently settled down in the second parlor hard at work as usual on her poetry. Lili snorted to herself. If indeed this activity could be called poetry. Some years ago her mother had decided that Long Xun's "Dream of Willows" was the pinnacle of the art and since then once a day she had sat down to recopy that six line poem. Supposedly some quirk of calligraphy would eventually allow a greater insight to the author's brilliance but Lili quietly suspected that her mother was simply frustrated by books where each page insisted on having new and different words. Lili's father Aizhang Gaoli was a brilliant and ambitions man. Liling was beautiful and her father had been rich. Lili was old enough to know how marriage worked. She was just lucky that her elder sisters' grand dowries had meant her own nuptials would by necessity of bookkeeping be delayed several years. That is, unless her father suddenly needed to make a new businesses friend who needed a good gift.

"And see that it stays that way!" Her father was yelling back behind the door.

"I will do what I can," said silver-tongued Erliao. "And do keep yourself safe. On our way here it seemed that the streets were particularly restless tonight. Apparently, there is some disturbance in the direction of the Lower Ring Gate."

Lili jumped when she heard the sound of the men in the audience room moving to leave. For a moment she prepared to scurry away from the door but then she remembered that no male guests would be exiting through the women's wing. Once again her peaceful night at home would be undisturbed. Yay.

Maneuvering her eye behind a gap in a carved window-screen she looked out through clear Island-made glass at the courtyard where the stone lanterns stood shining twice-over with their reflections in the long pools. Seiran and Erliao were making their way out to the main gate. Good riddance. And a hired carriage was pulling up beside theirs on the street. One with red uniformed men clinging to the back. Oh, the Miohuitos were here. Lili had actually forgotten them for a moment. She saw the two government men stop for a moment in their exit as they saw who had arrived.

Lili pursed her lips. Well, this should be interesting.

...

Daquan Chang heard the knock on the door of his Lower Ring apartment. He did not also need the pointed eyebrow raise from his wife across the room but he got that as well.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going to get it." He popped the last of the little dried plums that were his dessert into his mouth. He grunted as he got out of his battered chair. Where had the years gone? There was a time he'd run five miles in full armor. Now he repaired wooden shutters for a living and his hair was grey.

The knock at the door repeated. His wife spoke up. "Get it. It could be him back finally. Don't leave him outside."

"Well if it is him then you can start scolding him instead as soon as he gets in. Small wonder the boy's been staying away." Daquan reached the door before another knock came. He wondered if he would have to repaint, it sounded like whoever it was was rapping with some metal or a rock. As he undid the latch he was already talking. "I'm coming. Too late for decent visiting but I'm coming. I...Sir!" he exclaimed in surprise.

Daquan opened the door to see a man dressed in greens so dark that in this young night they blended into the background better than blacks. The visitor was slightly younger than Daquan but the scars on his cheeks and the grey at his temples showed that his life had been even more stressful than hanging shutters.

As soon as Daquan saw the visitor he reflexively stood straighter but the visitor nodded his head respectfully. "Mister Chang, I am sorry for coming to call so late. I hope you will forgive the rudeness." Even in submission the garden designer radiated power and control.

Daquan sputtered, "Of course Mister Ma'er. Not at all."

Behind him his wife spoke up, hope welling in her voice. "Is that Ma'er? Is he with-?"

"I'm going to ask him!" Daquan snapped. He turned back sheepishly to Ma'er. "I'm sorry sir."

Ma'er shook his head. "Daquan, just call me Douli. I think it's been long enough for that. But I have something to ask you. Has your son been back here in the last night or so?"

Daquan's face fell. "Oh. No, we thought Tian was sleeping over at his job with you again. We've not seen him since the day after that foreign ambassador's funeral. I was about to ask...You don't think that...?" He forced a smile onto his face and spoke louder for his wife's benefit as well as his own. "He probably went out with some friends and got drunk and is working up the courage to come back and tell you he spent all his wage. That or there's a girl somewhere. I'm telling you it's about time on that one."

Daquan's speech did not provoke much reaction on Douli Ma'er's face except for that he scowled and turned his head to glare back out into the indistinct night. The father leaned in closer. "Do you think it could have something to do with...you know." Ma'er raised an eyebrow. Daquan continued, "No disrespect, sir, er, Ma'er, er, Douli, but no one who knows you would believe you're completely out of the game. And my boy, well he's discreet but I have two decades of experience sniffing truth out of him. I know you have some game you're running and Tian's helping you. Does it have something to do with those people who just marched up through the ring tonight?"

Now it was Ma'er's turn to look surprised. "What marchers?"

Daquan gestured his head to the side. "My neighbor, Old Ma, came by a little bit ago and said that there was this whole group of people on the street, marching up from the harbor gate to the middle ring. Those, you know, those people who are all against the Islanders. Not that anyone is for them mind you, but folks don't have any cause to be telling the King of Kings what to do. Not seemly."

Now Ma'er was staring back in the direction of the Middle Ring gate as if he could see straight through all those miles of walls and roofs. "I had not heard anything about that. Damn it, if Tian is..."

Daquan took a step forward. He spoke softly so his wife could not hear back in the apartment behind him. "Is my boy in any danger? I mean, he's a man, he knows his own risks but...He's my only son."

Ma'er sighed. "It was his own idea, but I agreed to it. I...I'm afraid that I may have let him get too deep into..." He stopped and started again. "Every sign I can find indicates that your son is alive and out of hostile hands. However, he is also avoiding friendly hands. There's something I am missing. Something's going on that is so big I cannot see it in front of me."

Daquan nodded sagely. "You don't need Long Feng's wisdom to see that things are sliding into trouble. Fire Nation machines taking jobs. Royal ministers caring more about their own reputation than for the Kingdom. And now protesters are going to try and bust up some merchant named Ligao or something in the Middle Ring."

Ma'er growled, "Gaoli? Him again? Damn it, that could be bad." Then he spoke up in a formally courteous tone as he projected past Daquan's shoulder into the apartment. "My regards to Hong. I'm afraid I must go. As soon as I find your son I will send him home."

The supposed gardener slunk back off the doorstep and onto the dirt side-street. Then he thrust his hands to the side and the earth opened up with magic to let him drop down out of sight. A second later there was no trace of where the sudden pit had been. Daquan felt a faint smile twitch at the edge of his lips. A Dai Li never truly retired. Whoever was troubling his son was about to be a very unfortunate person. Hopefully, the years of gardening had not lead Ma'er to forget any of the one hundred and fifty-two effective tortures. Daquan had personally been partial to number ninety three in his old job work but it was hard to get the right seeds these days.

He shut the door and latched it behind him.

...