...
The water taxi that pulled up to the steps down the moat-bank behind Mizumi's mansion was of the normal sort that patrolled the Kuang Harbor canals servicing those with coin to pay. It was five meters long with a square nose and tail that signaled a narrow flat bottom made for maneuvering in the crowded artificial waterways. The boat's center was occupied by a little wooden canopy with empty bamboo-framed windows under a reed-mat roof to shield passengers from the sun or rain. The pilot stood in the rear leaning against his single oar that served as both rudder and propulsion as he waited for the rich foreign girl and the one who must be her servant to gather their nerve and get on. Ayika casually walked aboard the slowly bobbing deck as easily as she might on a stone street. Though she had rarely afforded to charter such a boat she was no stranger to occasionally taking a shortcut directly across a well-packed canal to the irritated cries of boatmen who did not approve of random girls treading over their moving vessels. Mizumi touched her foot to the planks much more cautiously.
Ayika quickly spoke to the boatman, laying out their destination on Flowing Water Street up near the city wall. She'd heard Mama Mua the fortuneteller lived there. Mama Mua the waterbender. As Mizumi settled herself onto a hard wooden seat beside Ayika, the pilot began to gently but forcefully sway his oar from side to side, slowly guiding them away from the Exclusion and out over the dark green water of the moat. Mizumi was so excited to glimpse the ordinary traffic of the waterways from this new angle that Ayika began to catch some of her enthusiasm. They exited the Exclusion moat and made their way up another canal towards the distant but looming city wall. The sound of water lapping a few handbreadths away managed to sound peaceful despite the occasional loud and grating yells from their driver to other boats or shoreside persons.
Their pilot was using the canal-man dialect for these communications which was difficult enough for most citizens to understand let alone a newly-arrived Islander. However, on a matter of principle when his language turned particularly foul Ayika shot him a very knowing look of comprehension that caused his lips to suddenly glue together. Mizumi was still speaking excitedly about some shrine she had glimpsed down a branching waterway and might not have noticed the exchange at all. Ayika turned back in her seat on the plank with satisfaction on her face as they glided on. She had not felt so relaxed in a long time.
They were peaceably sitting side by side on their narrow seats when Mizumi leaned over suddenly. Her head was now almost resting on Ayika's shoulder and Ayika was not at all sure how she was supposed to react to that kind of personal contact. Fire Nation girls did seem to like to touch a lot. Mizumi whispered, "There is something you are not telling me."
Ayika's heart was pounding as she struggled and failed to vocalize some stammering protestation of innocence from that sudden blanket accusation while she franticly thought of whatever Mizumi might be referring to. Mizumi did not wait for that verbal roadblock to clear. "There was something more last night about the waterbender and the attack on Erliao. Something you did not tell everyone. It has something to do with the auras around the mask wearers you mentioned to Ma'er, does it not? Being attacked in the fog made most of the others forget what you had said to him. Colored shadows? When Lili was discussing the waterbender you had the same guarded look as you did then. A look of something not said."
In truth Ayika knew she ought to tell Mizumi about what she had seen: spirits in the fog. But no one else had perceived them. The thought of her new friend looking at her like she was going mad was an image that she jerked away from like a hand from scalding metal. She shook her head. "That mist was everywhere, and the bender was twisting it into all sorts of shapes. I thought I saw something but... It might've been nothing. We can ask Mama Mua, if it turns out she's the one we're looking for."
Mizumi seemed willing to accept that answer for now. She leaned back a bit and felt at her injured arm as she winced. They had not escaped from the fog unscathed. "What makes you think she will speak to us? Last night she attacked us!"
"I promise you, we'll have something to talk about. I think I...we know something she'll want to hear about. Maybe more than one." As Ayika said it she knew it to be true. There has been one other person who had seen the spirits in the mist. Someone who had been vey surprised by Ayika's presence. Someone who might be able to answer her questions about spirits and masks and murderers. Professor Lizhen had held onto her picture for a reason. Ayika guessed the mysterious water tribe woman who could command the spirits would be interested in another woman who apparently could do the same.
...
The boat made a slow pivoting turn as the boatman dug his oar deep into the dark water and the long nose now faced into a side channel that angled towards the cliff of the great wall. He had to work a little harder up in this part of the town, for though at a casual glance the water seemed just as still Ayika knew those subtle ripples betrayed a gentle current below the surface. They were near the city wall and thus near where the canal water emerged from its underground pipes that brought it down from the Lower Ring. At the origin pools the opaque liquid bubbled as it roiled upwards, filled with energy from its dark confinement and ready to give Flowing Water Street its name.
This bit of the harbor town was far from both the river and the Craftsman's gate, spread out along the edge of the wall as a creeping extension of another more planned neighborhood. The buildings here were at once newer and more dilapidated. Whatever had stood here before the war had been destroyed by neglect when the harbor's population had shrunk and these new dwellings had been hurriedly constructed from old bricks when the returning tide of trade revitalized the town. The reuse of cracked brick fragments and weathered wood reminded Ayika of the Bed though the faces she saw were all those of Kingdoms natives rather than immigrants.
There was a faint tap as a duck floated down the current and bumped its plated shell against the hull. It quacked softly as a breath of breeze swept down to ruffle the water. There was another thing in this neighborhood that reminded Ayika of home. There were spirit charms hanging from the eaves of every house. From behind her the boatman said that they were coming up on their destination. The canal boat slid to a stop by a set of ancient stone stairs spotted with well-trod grass growing from the cracks. On either side of the little landing, household laundry hung off the buildings that leaned out into the path of passing boats. Mizumi paid the boat-man while only giving the most subtle of glances to Ayika to confirm that she was handing over an appropriate sum. Then the two of them climbed up to the street.
This near the city wall the world only existed in three directions. To the south the blue sky stretched down to the town's tiled roofs while to the north, though the buildings were of of equal height, but they seemed hunched down. Those constructs had no choice but to abase themselves before the towering heights of the magic-made mountain range that was the City Wall behind them.
Up the street from the boat landing, Ayika saw a small square. In the middle of that brick paved space was an old and gnarled oak tree growing out of a sunken stone enclosure. The plant was of unusual size and age for a city as wood-starved as Ba Sing Se. Ayika had never been to this neighborhood before but she instantly know locals referred to it as The Tree, bestowing on it arboreal kingship over all its distant fellows who were to those town-dwellers purely theoretical.
This area was not rich. Those who lived here were for the most part those who had risen far enough to leave their farming villages out in the encircled land but who had not been able to save up enough to purchase city citizenship. They were a proud and solid people who might not own more than three sets of clothes but who had the earth in their bones. There was not one household here who could not claim at least one earthbender in the distant reaches of their well-documented ancestry. Well, all except for Mama Mua.
Amid this self assured shabbiness of cracking plaster and chipped tiles hers was the one building that stood out. It sat at the edge of the square behind The Tree and seemed designed to offend the unthinking structures around it. The beams that projected from its eaves were carved in scalloped waves and the walls were painted with undulating waves of blue and white and pale purple. From every corner and along the roofline hung wooden idols, their presence advertising the magical services provided inside. Ayika, being familiar with those who had immigrated from the Northern Water Tribes, recognized some of what she saw but there was a pervasive strangeness to this manifestation from one of a cousin tribe. It was her family's culture nurtured and raised in a distant land, hot and humid instead of chill and icy. A place where one might learn to command the water in the air as warriors of the north molded ice and sea. Ayika and Mizumi shared a look as they stood in front of this building for a moment before they pushed aside a hanging curtain and walked together through the open front door.
It was dim inside the fortuneteller's house and the air was thick. Part of that humidity must have come from the four large pots of water that sat in each corner of the room, their contents colored black as ink by the lacking light. There were no windows to be seen. A large number of wooden talismans hung from the rafters and faintly clacked with every breath of shifting air like a colony of carved bats. In the center of the room there was a low fire in a raised brick fire-pit, burned down to the point that it was mostly coals glowing to darkly illuminate the room that seemed be the entire building. It appeared untended but Ayika noted a few scattered leaves quickly crinkling away to blue and sweet smelling smoke. Those must have been added a few moments ago. Someone had seen them coming. There were four low stools sat around the fireplace but Ayika and Mizumi remained standing.
Mizumi moved in very close and took hold of Ayika's upper arm in a protective gesture. She whispered, "I am starting to have more doubts about our coming here. Maybe-" Whatever Mizumi thought Ayika would not get to hear because there was sudden motion at the back of the room.
A camouflaged curtain of hanging cloth strips suddenly parted to reveal a doorway and a stooped female figure. The fortuneteller Mama Mua was dressed in black robes decorated with stripes of blue and white with hints of pale pink thread. Around her neck hung the strap for a small leather drum like a pendant below her chest and there were tiny silver disks sewed across her lower shoulders. Most striking was her headwear which seemed to be a large square headboard wrapped and hidden under a cloth of a deep color between purple and red. Along the edges hung a fringe of beads and and tiny bits of tinkling metal which half shielded the piercing depths of the woman's eyes like a swaying curtain. Yet despite the costume and artifice one look was all it took for Ayika to confirm that this was their waterbender. She remembered those eyes shining out of the fog in fury and confusion.
Mizumi subtly shifted her feet across the floor-stones. Somehow she was now more planted and without moving had managed to project her body in front of Ayika. Ayika felt a surge of affection for the gesture but all she could think of was the fact that this waterbender could cut them both down in seconds. Suddenly the weight of the trust Mizumi had placed on her assessment of this unknown woman pressed on her heart. But she was right. She had to be.
The fortuneteller raised her hands. A powerful and sonorous voice intoned, "Greetings young ladies. It is auspicious that you came to Mama Mua on this day which..." She stopped suddenly. "Oh, for frickin'...! Well, that sure didn't take long. I guess ya found me." All at once the dramatic posturing collapsed into a casual and heavily accented speech that would hot have been amiss at the fish market. The fortune teller stood up straight and revealed herself to be both much taller and much younger than her stooped posture had suggested.
Mama Mua had recognized the two girls. With an exasperated sigh she ushered them to sit down, giving a casual hand gesture as she flopped down onto her own stool with considerably less ceremony than one expected from a fortuneteller in full regalia. Ayika was taken aback. The woman called Mua produced a little leather wrapped flask from somewhere in her robes and she took a quick swig as her guests stumbled against this abrupt change in formality. Ayika recovered fairly quickly and took a seat where she could look directly across the fire-pit into the other woman's eyes. Mizumi kept to Ayika's side and chose another of the four stools, though the Islander clearly did not enjoy that this seat was right beside Mua herself. Mizumi leaned ever so slightly towards Ayika as she sat down.
Mama Mua smacked her lips in a manner better suited a woman much older than her three decades or so, and then bottle vanished again. "So," she said. "Neither of ya know me and Ah know it wasn't the Fire Nation chit who found me." She met Ayika's stare with interest paid. "I suppose ya took your sweet time in comin here too." The woman's accent drifted in and out with the characteristic of someone who had once tried to learn to disguise it but had since given up the effort. Her eyes were sharp and suspicious.
Ayika knew she had to be cautious here. All they knew about this woman was that she was dangerous and had accused Sub-Minister Erliao of murder. And she knew about the spirits. But Ayika was willing to explain enough to answer the unvoiced question of how the two of them had found this place. "It was a matter of local knowledge. From what we saw last night there weren't too many who fit your profile. A woman bender of the tribes who could've been trained in combat and lived near enough to have known people in this slice of the city. I live here in the town. I'd heard your name before down around, waterbender and fortuneteller, so it was simple to put together."
Mua's brow furrowed a bit more and she gave a snort. "Took ya all of five minutes Ah bet. And Chao Erliao 'll be tearing up half the city lookin for where Ah ended up. I doubt he knows how many unregistered people there are here." She had her face twisted into a humorous and ugly expression but Ayika could see that she was beautiful despite her efforts. The woman's skin was smooth and did not hold the wrinkles that she forced in with those grimaces.
Mizumi leaned forward, hesitant but curious. "Minister Erliao. That is actually who we want to talk about, and about your...encounter...this previous evening."
"What of it? Ya cost me mah chance to catch hold of that bastard. He's hardly ever out of the Inner Ring and even less is out away from public and guards. Who knows when I'll get a chance again? And what's Chao's safety to ya? I know he's not your friend, Fire Nation. Perhaps he was yours, girl in the whore's outfit. Customer?" Mua responded to Mizumi but her gaze never left Ayika and her outrage was more baiting than genuine. She seemed on edge, expecting Ayika to do something at any moment. There was a level of apprehension that was not appropriate from someone who had carved up three men with blades of vapor.
Ayika had heard enough comments about her outfit for one day. Mizumi was ready to burst out with some angry exclamation but Ayika interrupted to say, "I work counter for a laundry. And we're not here for Erliao. We're here for Lizhen." She watched Mua's surprise flicker with a widening of the irises. Ayika gestured her head to Mizumi at her side, "She was a student at his school. Where I worked. Where he was killed." Mua gave a soft sharp inhalation. Ayika was scoring hits so she might as well press the advantage for information. There was some deeper story here. "He had your picture in his office, you know."
From Mizumi's perspective there was no reaction, but Ayika caught sight of the tightening tendons in the waterbender's hands. Mua would have shown the same response to slap across the face. But she made no retort and instead casually straightened up on her short stool. "Student of Chen? Then ya know that he was murdered. What explanation do ya want of me? Ya heard me last night. I discerned who the killer was and Ah confronted him. Chao Erliao escaped, but trust me soon I'll do my part to... simplify your politics, fire girl. His crime will be secret no longer." She mimicked Ayika's side head motion to direct her speech at Mizumi while still looking forward across the fire. "I take it you've not got Chao stuffed in a sack on ya, so why come here to hear what ya could've figured out for yourself?"
Mizumi was ready to continue but Ayika raised her hand at her to hold off. She took a breath. "That's not the only question I'm asking about that night."
A venomous smile began to creep across Mua's lips. "Oh, isn't it? What else 'bout last night do ya want too know?"
Ayika would have to approach this topic carefully. "There were many more... persons out in that fog than I expected. Than I expected to see."
Mua raised a single eyebrow knowingly. "And there was certainly at least one more than Ah expected. Where did this she come from?" She was not going to give anything away before her own questions were answered.
Ayika took a long pause before saying, "I saw what you did."
Mua let her own pause drag on a few moments longer. "As I saw you."
Ayika took a breath. "I saw your friends."
Mua narrowed her eyes. "And I yours."
Both Water Tribe women were startled by a sudden yell. "That is enough!" The two looked over with equal confusion at Mizumi who had slammed her hands down forcefully on her knees and was glaring at them both.
"Ayika, you have been mysterious about something since last night! I have not pressed you much because I trust you. But now you two are playing some sort of game where you both refuse to say what it is obvious you both know. And it is infuriating! You might as well be two mistresses who have both slept with the same married man! One of you spit it out or waterbender lady kill us both right now because I am sick of all this ridiculous posturing!" With that she slapped her palms on her knees again and sat with her ramrod straight posture as she alternated her glare between them.
There was dead silence save for the faint clacking of the spirit charms hanging in the rafters and Mizumi's elevated breathing. The low-burning fire let out a single pop. Then Mama Mua laughed and its sound was sweet and youthful. "There's that Fire Nation directness! That's why Chen loved your people so much. Well, laundry girl, Ah think we must do as she says." The little flask appeared in her hand again and Mua casually leaned an elbow on her knee. "I'll tell ya what Ah saw last night. You've got the talent for a shaman. Ya can see the hidden Spirits. And they see you."
Mizumi gasped. Whatever she had expected the secret to be, it was not that. For Ayika it was a confirmation that she had not gone crazy; that she had in fact seen something true. That one question answered she was suddenly filled with ten thousand more. "I knew it! How did you call the Spirits last night? They were obeying you! Why did no one else see them? Are the Masks using this same sort of power? That explains why the others weren't seeing the colored auras. Somehow they're binding spirit energy to their masks, that must be it!" Thoughts were racing to link together in her mind and she felt a tremor in her hands as her veins flushed with exhilaration.
Mua now put on a face of confusion behind the swaying curtain of beads hanging from her headdress. "Masks? What are you talking about?"
Ayika was not in the mood for more dissembling. She was finally close to getting answers for what was tearing this city apart. So she snapped, "Don't lie. The Initiated. The leaders of the nationalists. You know, the ones who were tearing up lampposts and killing earthbenders with their bare hands in the middle ring last night while you did your fog trick! The ones who killed Lizhen! They put on masks and gain power and skill. It has to be related to you doing your spirit stuff! Because they also had a quality around them, like a hazy shadow that clung to their heads and hands and feet and no one else seemed to see that either even though it was giving them power! Those colors have something to do with spirits if only I could see them. And why are their fighters getting stronger each day?"
Mama Mua sat up, her leather-wrapped flask forgotten on its way back to her mouth. The woman's eyes blinked slowly. Ayika started to think that she had overestimated how much the fortune teller knew about this whole situation. Mua stared for a long moment before slowly screwed the flask top back on. "Maybe we should start from the beginning. With introductions. I am Nia Mua, and you two are much more interesting than Ah expected ya to be."
...