...
Ayika clung tightly to Mua and Mizumi as she struggled to maintain her footing on this magical ice raft skimming its way down the stream through dark grassy hills and fields of the Inner Ring. Mizumi in turn was mostly hanging off Ayika as she absolutely failed to to stay standing on Mua's frozen getaway. Cold water sprayed their legs as they raced past another huge and sprawling mansion glowing orange amid the black fields under the cool starlight. Then they heard a howl in the distance behind them. The Mask must have noticed the deception in Mua's misleading fog trail. Fortunately, this stream took them close enough to the tramway station that they were able to leap off and, once Ayika picked Mizumi up from her face-plant into the bank, run the rest of the distance to the cavernous entrance.
The tram station attendants were a little shaken up by the sudden appearance of three damp foreign women, one of them looked rather like she'd been thrown through a door and then rolled across five meters of stone flagging. However, Mizumi flashed her gold passport and launched into a forceful and concise explanation of their need to flee from a violent attack at Erliao's party. It was either her force of will that convinced the attendants or the fact that she would occasionally slip into the Fire Nation language that led them to believe this issue might be more political than they were being paid for. Either way, the three women were allowed onto the nearest tram where they collapsed in the seats of the Noble's Car.
But they weren't leaving. The tram still sat in its track in the middle of this vast marble station. Ayika stuck her head out the window to scream at the earthbender adepts in her most biting mix of Middle Ring and Harbor Town dialects. The earthbender who leaned out around from his perch in the back of the tram might still have ignored her if those complaints hadn't been punctuated by screams outside the station doors that ended with two armored guards sliding across the smooth marble floor. Then the Mask was standing in the doorway and against the dark night behind him there was the suggestion of purple vaporous wings boiling off his back. The adept decided that it was in fact time to depart, suddenly in complete agreement with Ayika's plan to get down to the other side of a large wall.
The Mask swiveled his head around and locked on them but for once Ayika was glad that everything in the Inner Ring was built on such as preposterous scale. By the time the Mask had run a quarter of the distance across the station floor their tram was sinking down to descend through the transport tunnel and more off-duty earthbender adepts were running out to intercept his path. Then there was only unlighted stone outside the cabin's windows and Ayika, Mizumi, and Mua sank down into their seats with relief.
Mizumi however, was the least relaxed. "Do you not think he will be able to follow us down this tunnel?"
Ayika waved her hand feebly. "Relax, these tunnels are some of the most defended parts of the walls. Even a possessed man like that wouldn't be able to fight through half the army."
They both turned at the sound of a soft thud. Mua slammed her fist into her thigh again. She was trembling and not just from the amount of waterbending power she'd exerted. "No, that's not how possession works! If a driftin spirit starts to creep in a person it upsets the balance of mind or the health of body as its influence washes through. Willingly welcoming in a spirit into your body's the height of the shaman's art but even then the shaman only gets wisdom or some small bit of the spirit's authority. I've seen shaman warriors back home! They don't fight like that! They don't lose their human eyes! What are those masks?!"
As Mua raged, the one other occupant of their car, a neatly dressed man in the very front row of seats, gripped his bag tightly and scooted as close to the wall as his bench would allow. The three women continued to ignore him.
Ayika felt just as lost and confused but Mizumi was looking at her expectantly so she tried to concentrate over the sound of Mua now punching her fist into the back of a tram bench. "Something's changed. The masks and the spirit world disruption are all linked. Gold Toad told us there was an 'anchor' or something out there and that's what's causing this change. That's the mask that Ma'er gave to Lizhen, I think, and what the Masks killed him to steal back. Whatever that is it's what's drawing the spirit world close and somehow Ma'er's assistant, Tian, is hiding out in the city with it."
Her head felt light as she struggled to think through this web. She didn't even notice how Mizumi and Mua were watching her with a level of astonishment. She continued, "Now the toad spirit told us that you've spent nearly all your spirit world favors, Mua, and I've of course got no credit but there's got to be some way we can find this anchor to stop these possessions or at least weaken them! Even if it means spending your last favor."
Up in the front of the car their fellow passenger was trying very hard to not be involved in any of their business. From an outside perspective this attempt looked like hunching over in his seat while shivering.
"Gold Toad told you about that favor?" Mama Mua was indignant with an intensity that bordered on horror.
Mizumi did not appreciate her reaction. "Of all this, that is what you take away from the speech?! Woman, what are your priorities?!"
The tram's constant rumbling changed pitch as their downward slide halted and the earthbenders kicked them out of the dark tunnel and off onto the elevated track out over the Middle Ring. In many ways the night was just as dark outside the wall as it had been inside, but the dimly glowing expanse of festival candles and oil-fed street lamps out below was still comforting.
Muzmi looked out the window-space back the way they'd came. "Well, I can say that I had never thought I would look on those absurd walls with fondness but for once I am very grateful. The elevation of the Inner Ring must be at least one hundred...What is happening down there?"
Ayika jumped up to her side. She put her face right up against the window and shielded her eyes against both the interior light and the exterior wind as she looked back. Then she saw what Mizumi was pointing at. "Oh, that's the Jade Stair gate. You know, the way to walk up to the Inner Ring. I'm not sure who actually uses that, but there must be some strong licensed porters who make their living carrying...Wait, what's that?"
Then she actually noticed what Mizumi had seen. In the distance, little lights were rushing around out of the dark mouth of the stair entrance in a crazy fashion like glowing ants spilling forth from a crack in the sidewalk. In fact those lights now seemed to be chasing something. Something that was moving in the direction of the elevated tram line at a disturbing speed. Ayika had a sinking feeling that she knew what that something was, and the rate it was traveling was very worrisome.
"Mua? I think we'll be having a problem pretty soon. You said possessed people were drawn to shamans?" The earthbending powered tram traveled quickly, but it stopped at stations even if their earthbender might not prefer not to right now. And Ayika'd seen those Masks move faster than any normal human ever could. To someone like that, one jump and this elevated track-line would be just another open road leading straight to them.
Mizumi had made the same realization. She gulped. "Er, perhaps Mama Mua can form those fogs again? Or...no, we are on a track, it would not hide our path. No, but...But we must do something!"
Ayika turned backwards on her tram bench and looked Mua in the eyes, though the woman declined to meet her stare. "That man may have come to the Inner Ring to kill Erliao but I don't think whoever made those plans is still in control. When I first heard the Masks talking among themselves they were most concerned with avoiding attention and capture. What we have seen tonight's totally different. This...thing, didn't feel like a man at all. It feels alien. This is just a spirit now and I don't think it cares about the conspiracy it was brought in to aid. Instead it wants us." Mua was still looking away, her face twisted in the turmoil of her own internal thoughts. Ayika switched seats so she could turn around to face the shaman directly. "You still have one favor owed by the spirit world."
That got Mua's attention. Her head snapped up, the blue beads of her skull mask rattling. It was obvious that her first instinct was outright refusal. She'd set out tonight not expecting to survive. Now that Erliao was dead, even if by another's hand, the specifics of escaping were an overwhelmingly exhausting task she'd not prepared for. Her shoulders sagged but there was a rising fury in her eyes. Ayika was asking her to expend even more in pursuit of that old forgotten hope for survival. Ayika tried to meet that furious glare but it was too much. She looked away. Then Mizumi came over and sat backwards beside Ayika to add her hard stare, just as down behind the back of the seat her hand sought Ayika's and squeezed reassurance. This time Ayika squeezed back.
Neither of the girls could be sure exactly why but Mua's anger abruptly softened. She let out a single grunt that might even have been a laugh. Then Mua just smiled darkly as she turned to look out the window into the nighttime landscape of lights that streamed along below them.
Her voice was slow and lazy, absent of all the stress that had been boiling within her till now. "Word's gotten out of Erliao's murder. The guards'll be closing the gates between the rings. Not that this'd stop me, but Ah doubt that thing coming up behind us will give me the chance to show ya." She slowly breathed out. "Aahh, that favor. That last favor. You don't know what Ah did to earn that. What I paid."
"Nia, please," Ayika said, projecting out with every bit of force her personality could muster. She imagined she could feel energy flowing up from where Mizumi's palm grasped hers. They were racing along on the tramway high above the ground but in this moment of desperation Ayika felt rooted down to the bones of the earth. The Nine-Step-Shadow would not complete its prophecy tonight. She would not let it, even if she had to fight off the whole spirit world with her bare fists and wring Mua's neck until she finally helped. No one else was going to die.
The tram was just beginning to slow in approach to the first Middle Ring Station but when Mua stood up it was with such a snap that Ayika and Mizumi both jerked back in surprise. Mua's colorful festival dress was torn and dirtied but somehow it all still seemed to be part of the design. Even her bruises and bloody scrapes seemed drawn on by the designer's brush as the classical depiction of a character out of legend. She reached up and one graceful brown hand plucked off her beaded blue skull mask. It rattled softly as it dropped to the floor.
Then she laughed. "Ah well, the dead miser has as much as the spendthrift. And besides, Ah suppose Ah've always wanted to see this one again. As spirits go, he wasn't bad." Mua stretched out one hand towards them. Ayika stood up in expectation of some partnership among shamans but Mua instead gently grasped at Mizumi's wrist. Mizumi blinked in surprise as Mua's fingers began to inspect the gold bracelet she was wearing.
"This real?"
"Er, yes? That is to say, I believe that the gold is alloyed with other metals for improved hardness, but I do not know why-"
"That'll do."
Mizumi suppressed a yelp as Mua was suddenly holding up the bracelet in front of her face. Ayika had to raise her eyebrows in respect. That lift had been so smooth and quick that even the best street-thief would be impressed. However, Mua wasn't concerned with their reaction. Nor did she seem concerned with the otherworldly roar which burst out into a faint echo behind them. The tram lurched slightly as their earthbender missed a step of his qi driven propulsion technique. Mizumi, unaccustomed to the city tramway, almost fell off her seat at the sudden shaking but the two Water Tribe women took the swaying up into their bodies and remained planted securely on their feet.
With another flourish Mua summoned forth a tiny steel knife in her other hand, such as for cutting thread. In a sweeping gesture she nicked the side of her wrist and then touched the gold bracelet to the small cut. "Blood and gold," Mua said. "That's about right for a god of law, isn't it? Could probably call for less but time's a bit of a factor even if this's the festival night. Girl," she addressed Ayika without looking at her while she held the red stained jewelry out in front of her in the middle of the tram's central isle. "You'll assist. Just add your callin' to mine. You remember how I showed you."
It occurred to Ayika that Mua had enough abrasions on her skin to spare any amount of blood without the involvement of a knife but now was not the time to criticize their shaman as overly dramatic. Ayika clambered around Mizumi to stand with Mua in the center aisle of the tram. "Ok. Let's do this. What spirit are we calling? Shouldn't I know?"
Mua's eyes were already closed as she concentrated on something deep within herself. Outside the tram, Ayika imagined she could already hear the footsteps of the possessed Mask in slavering pursuit. It was closing in. Then she closed her eyes as well.
Mua's voice came in the dark. "You're have me spending my last resource, girl. I'm not goin' to half do this. We're summoning Blind Dog Lord."
The tram came to a halt at its first Middle Ring station and the poor man stuck with them in the Nobles' car raced out the door the second the platform attendant opened it. That same attendant peeked inside the car at the moment all the lamps in the station flickered slightly in unearthly unison. The attendant quickly snatched back his head and left alone the three foreign women performing a mysterious ritual. The there was more yelling outside as the adept earthbender who ran the tram seemed to have also noticed the chaos at Jade Stair gate. Having seen the Mask before, it seemed he had put two and two together for a conclusion of hurrying on his route as fast as this tram could possibly go.
Ayika held her eyes held closed as she heard the tram doors open and their fellow passenger dart out. Then the tram began to rumble again with the first hints of motion. Ayika tried to push all that from her mind, trying to recapture the feeling of the spirit world drawing close. But she couldn't shake off her knowledge of that the Mask was racing towards them to crush their heads in its otherworldly strength. That sort of thing was very distracting. She focused on her breathing, drowning all the anxiety in the steady motion of her chest in and out. Then she heard someone moving around above them to descend from the tram's upper deck and opened her eyes as she remembered that Ba Sing Se tram cars didn't have an upper deck.
Theirs now did.
Something about the quality of the light in the car had changed and now, by its unreal illumination, a narrow wooden staircase ran up the back wall through a suddenly existent gap in the ceiling. Slow and steady footsteps above them now made their way towards it. Mizumi jumped to her feet, her hand shooting up inside her sleeve again before she recognized that whatever was happening here was beyond any solution that a knife could provide. At a loss for anything else to do she rose up to stand just behind Ayika and centered her balance as if prepared to attack all the same. Ayika noticed that she could on longer make out the passing station outside the tram windows. Those spaces were now filled with a darkened blurriness lit by dim smears of lantern-light, and all the sound was muffled. They seemed to have somehow drifted out of sync with the rest of the world.
Mua's eyes were still closed as she stood with her back to those mysterious stairs, hands gripped tightly to the blood-smeared gold bracelet, her lips moving faintly in silent whispers. Then a foot came down on the top of the phantom steps with a creak. Ayika stepped backwards and bumped into Mizumi as there was another creak and black robes slowly flowed down the stairs, swaying forward with each slow and heavy step. The ceiling of the tram was eight feet above the floor and as this apparition descended, slowly revealing a broad golden belt set with a jade buckle, it was clear that it would occupy every bit of that space. It was not until it took the last step down onto the floor that Mua turned to face the spirit god, Blind Dog Lord.
Ayika's grandmother had told her stories of Blind Dog Lord. Some gods were raised by the ministers, noble men chosen to be empowered with ritual offerings after their deaths. Some were natural formations of powerful belief that created a mold for some formless spirit to flow into and embody. Others were spirits who had nominated themselves and possessed the strength to uphold their claim. Blind Dog Lord was all of these or something else entirely.
His rich robes were something like those of a government official but in some ancient fashion. The sleeves and hems were long enough to completely hide the body that wore them. However, his head and neck emerged unmasked as that of a ragged ancient canine who's notched ears brushed the ceiling, grey, emaciated, and with dry yawning sockets where eyes should be. But this sight was not pitiful as it might have been, instead authority and power roiled off the spirit with such intensity that Ayika felt her knees buckle involuntarily in a bone-rooted instinct to drop in genuflection.
Blind Dog Lord opened his mouth with its single yellow fang and each woman felt some small portion of air drawn up out of their lungs. He took a single step forward until he was looking straight down at the Water Tribe shaman. Before him, she so small.
The voice rolled out like the heavy collapse of distant mountains. "Nia Mua of the Water Nation, born in Cloudy Valley under Jade Dragon Mountain. Your request for audience is granted. Speak now of your petition and know that it is heard."
Before this looming spirit of black, gold and jade, Mua looked like a spirit herself in her ripped dress of colorful ruffled sashes over bloody brown skin. Both were equally removed from the normality of this city. Distant and muffled, tram vibrated with the burst of acceleration from each magic motion the worried adept executed his in his fear of what was pursuing, oblivious to what was going on in the car. Then Mua gave a single soft bark of a laugh.
"I suppose in your mind just showin up makes us even. With all Ah sacrificed to earn that. I suppose Ah could've expected."
The spirit gave no sign of responding to the underlying bitterness. He only said, "Cost is counted. Service is met with recompense. Even now."
Ayika bit the inside of her lip, recognizing the familiar misdirected anger on Mua's face. So she herself spoke up.
"Mua, we've kind of got a time pressure moving in! Do the exchange!" She suddenly remembered her manners. "Um, my Lord Spirit."
Blind Dog Lord did not so much as shift but Ayika suddenly felt attention press down on her like the full weight of the Outer Wall. Behind her Mizumi felt it too and found herself frozen, as much wished that she could somehow interpose herself between Ayika and this danger. Ten thousand eyes were now watching her in terrible judgment.
The spirit spoke again. "I know what pursues you. None will interrupt us while the petition is underway."
Mua sighed and reluctantly laid out her wish. "Blind Dog Lord, I request that you intercede to protect us from those spirits who are chasing us with the bodies of their possessed hunan allies."
Suddenly, Ayika interrupted. "No!"
Mua spun around in confusion at Ayika's outburst. "What? This was your idea!"
"No, I mean I... Wait a second." Ayika thought quickly. This was the most powerful spirit she was ever likely to meet face to face and they were requesting a service. There had to be a way to solve more than just one of their problems with one wish. That purple aura'd Mask would be on them in moments but there were also other Masks out there doing something terrible to the connection with the spirit world and Nine-Step-Shadow was still drawing closer to one of the three of them. She actually had a chance to fix things here. If only she could find a way to master the words.
Ayika struggled to make her clumsy mouth obey her racing brain. "Lord Spirit, we request that... you ensure that...All the spirits who...choose or are forced to follow us three here before you...with ill intent...be banished from influencing this world or have their power reduced to the point of being harmless!"
Her hands were shaking and her armpits felt damp with the burst of mental exertion she had just went through but Ayika was suddenly triumphant. She didn't think she had ever felt her brain work faster before in her life. As far as she could see no one could safely fit more into a single request without twisting the rules of language and grammar beyond their breaking point. Still, all the stories of wishes gone poorly her grandmother had ever told her were swimming through her head mocking her for this confidence.
Mua stared at Ayika in confusion for a long moment before turning back to the spirit with a shrug. "Sure, what the girl said. That. I want that."
Blind Dog Lord straightened up, somehow now even taller than the tram car ought to allow yet still comfortably fitting inside. Then he answered.
"No."
"What?!" Mua snapped. "After all Ah paid to-!"
The spirit held up one sleeve-shrouded arm. "A wise administrator does not interfere in what is written. As much as I may disapprove, spells of life and death are being cast over this, my sliver of the city and it is not my place to interrupt a ritual before its completion. Such an operation is years in the making and ten thousand minds are its components even though they do not know it. I too have superiors. I too have debts."
Ayika was at a loss. Their prayed-for rope had just been yanked back from their grasp and now she was drowning. "But, but...if you don't..." Nine-Step-Shadow, the spirit of death, was still drawing closer. At Erliao's mansion it had only been a few paces away. And if it was not foretelling Mua's death then it could be after...
Blind Dog Lord interrupted her stammering. "But I will gladly comply with the intent of the original request." Those withered spectral lips tucked back in what might have been a canine smile. "Priest Nia Mua, I lend you a portion of my power. My authority, respected as it is within this small section of the city, may not be able to halt the great machinations but local festivals are well within the purview of my court. The rules of rituals are precise and exacting, and harsh on those who break them but the rules of the Festival of Veils are...looser. Tonight it is acceptable that the visiting spirits might find their subsidized crossings canceled even before the sun rises. That will remove the immediate threat to you, at least."
Then he turned and that withered eyeless head stared straight at Ayika. "But beware, the greater crisis is growing. The restless ghosts stand at the edge of worlds. Soon they will all burst forth and even I can do nothing to stop that. You humans must find the key and play your parts quickly, all of you. The price must be paid for reward to be received."
With that final word the spirit suddenly moved. Before Ayika or Mizumi could react the spirit's sleeve drew back and a dark claw shot forward into the center of Mua's chest. Mizumi pushed forward but Ayika held her back as she realized that the spirit's arm hadn't pierced Mua's shuddering body but instead had disappeared inside it with a cloud of hazy light at the border between them. The rest of Blind Dog Lord's looming form slowly began to fade away, becoming nothing more than a transparent shadow rising before the woman until it vanished entirely. The pervasive touch of the spirit world seemed to retreat and lead them back to the realm of normality. The rattling of the tram's stone track suddenly returned to full volume.
Ayika reached out towards the shaman's arm.
"Mama Mua, are you...?"
Mua spun around but her eyes did not see them. In fact they began to roll up into her head. She faced a blank wall but somehow if was clear her attention was focused on something far beyond the little rows of seats in this tram car. Then her hands shot up and she began to make the smooth sinuous motions of waterbending. Nothing happened. In this dry train on an elevated stone track far from the canals or rivers, there was no material for her techniques to touch and yet still she danced in those arcane stances. Outside the now unshadowed windows Ayika could see the next station quickly approaching up ahead. Her heart sank as she saw station guards advancing to halt the tram car. They yelled out at the adept earthbender who continued to pant out his own motions for his qi energy to propel them along no matter what the station might say. He could hear the Mask's roar, now all too close.
"That is...unsettling," Mizumi said looking at Mua's performance. She sounded as if she could not remember an appropriately strong word to describe this behavior. "At least the lights are back to normal. I mean that I can see outside the tram again now and...oh."
There was the sound of yells from outside them. Ayika ran to the side of the car and suck her torso out the window to look back at the elevated stone track slicing across the city under the shadow of the gibbous moon. Light from festival streets bled up at allowed Ayika to pick out the approaching shadow that raced along the top of the track. The Mask had finally caught up to its prey and he dashed forward with another screeching roar. Ayika heard their adept yell something not fit for the mouth of a government employee and the tram blew straight through that Middle Ring station without slowing down in the slightest. By now the glowing shadow that clung to the Mask human host were gaining a distinct outline. The purple edges of filmy wings wavered into sight as the possessed man burst forward and slammed through terrified station guards in his pursuit of the departing tram. He was like an unstoppable stampede.
Ayika yelled back inside the car. "The Mask's still here! Mua, you've got to get him-!"
Mizumi interrupted. "No, Ayika. That is not what stopped me before. That is not what i saw. Look, I think she is already addressing the problem."
Ayika had trouble hearing Mizumi exactly over the rumble of the tram wheels from her position half outside the car. "What are you..." Then she saw it too. "Oh."
Dense mist spilled up over the edge of the open-walled tram station. It was a sea of impossible fog, massive, endless waves of thick white vapor rising from the streets and alleys below. Then Ayika spun around to look out across the city and saw it was everywhere, in every direction. As far as she could see across the Middle Ring, roofs were vanishing like sinking ships beneath the slow undulations of an opaque airy sea that swallowed even the shining lights of the festival. Sheets of white mist blended with the festival lights to blanket the city in a shining golden haze. This was sorcery beyond what any human was capable of. Then the fog thickened and the light beneath faded. The endless web of lantern-strung streets melted away into the depths as the white finally rose up to swallow the tram tracks themselves.
Just before the mists closed over them Ayika turned back to see the Mask encounter a drift of the vapor slowly dancing his way across the station floor. As the mist touched him he suddenly thrashed and collapsed forward. The glowing purple spirit shadow disappeared from around him before he hit the stone floor. Ayika's last sight was three station guards leaping on the now prone man's back. Then they were lost in a dark sea as in the very edge of hearing there was a faint sound that might have been the echoing howl of a dog.
Ayika pulled herself back into the car trusting that the earthbender adept could both follow a track and was as interested as getting to the next station as they were.
"Well that...worked?"
She looked back at Mizumi who was still regarding the swaying motions of Mama Mua with a level of suspicion that indicated those knives in her sleeves could reappear on less than a second's notice. Ayika said, "Is she out of it yet?"
Mizumi frowned and leaned a little closer, still hesitant and fearful. "I do not think-"
Mua coughed loudly and Mizumi jerked backwards, barely halting herself before she slashed out with the blade that sure enough was now clutched in her fist. For her part, Mua was just holding onto a seat-back for support as she continued to cough. When she finally straightened up she didn't pay any attention to Mizumi's knife or the steady stream of muttered profanity in the Islander language. Instead she turned around until she found Ayika.
"That...is not pleasant."
"And what was it?"
Mua shrugged her shoulders forward, a gesture which a distant part of Ayika's brain noted made her wide-cut top briefly slide even lower down her chest before returning to its previous post.
"Blind Dog Lord was sending a message. But for doing stuff effectively in the material world even spirits like him need some material conduit. He decided to use my waterbending. Bending acts a bit odd when it interacts with spirits." Here she looked out the window, such as it was. They were still rushing along but there might as well have been a sheet hanging over the portal. "Even stodgy old spirits like him tend to be flamboyant when they get about it."
Mizumi said, "All right. I may not understand spiritual matters but we seem to have reached some resolution at least. We should probably look to our other problems. I can only assume that we have drawn attention tonight, city law enforcement attention, and more than we would like. The earthbender operating this tram will probably try to have us arrested at the next station on general suspicion. We should take this time to prepare our alibis. After all, despite our best efforts I do not think we have actually succeeded in doing anything against the local law. Well, Mua tried to kill a minister but the victim was murdered by someone else so that will be hard to prove that the attempt happened, us being the only witnesses." Mizumi didn't sound as if she was even convincing herself.
Mua's coughing now turned into hoarse laughter. "Alibis? Law? Ha, they've not got us chained yet, girl. I'm a waterbender surrounded by a sea of fog. No one's catchin us. That is, if ya two are up to boltin once we hit the next station."
Mizumi's had raised an eyebrow to indicate that she saw Mua was bruised black, blue, and looking uncertain about keeping her own knees under her while the other two women were miraculously unscathed. Silently Ayika had to agree. If Mua was planning to continue her magic then Ayika and Mizumi would be carrying her before too long.
With a skeptical inhalation Mizumi continued, "That still leaves the matter of the ring gates. I understand protocol is to close them in response to crisis. You yourself told us that. The murder of a minister and the subsequent rampage of a possessed man in a mask seems to me to be a crisis. How will we get back to Kuang Harbor?"
Mua waved her hand to dismiss these worries. "Relax. I also told ya that closed gates mean nothin to me. I've got mah own ways around this city."
...