...
Xinfei ran back under the smoke choked sky towards another one of the ad hoc barricades. It had been hours now of random Mask attacks and sudden bouts of madness sweeping the crowds on both sides of the defenses. But all of a sudden there was something strange and tight in the air. He still had no idea where Ayika and Mizumi were, and hadn't seen Mua in ages. He'd lost them. And now someone had just told him that a regiment of city guards had approached from the secure side of this little safe zone they'd managed and decided to demand that the protective barricades be torn down.
Xinfei didn't even know why people were telling him this. He just had the black headband and now people were looking at him with something sickeningly like hope. How these ring-dwellers even knew what the hell the Black Bands were was also a mystery, but Xinfei ran back to the barricade all the same.
Lili ran along beside him, panting heavily and smeared with soot like the rest of the people who'd been trying to fight the fires. However, while the other citizens they passed on the street looked bedraggled and half dead, with a single wet rag Lili had managed to smoothly wipe away the blackening smoke on her cheeks and forehead, leaving her face with strategic patches that on her looked like fierce warpaint. Truthfully, Xinfei had accepted his odd elevation to mock leadership mainly to act as a mouthpiece for Lili's constant stream of orders and directives. All his own ideas came out jumbled and confused but somehow Lili could turn that nonsense into actual well phrased plans that the panicked citizens seemed to want to follow.
Ahead down the street, there was a crowd of worried people bunched up before the jumbled pile of tables, wagons, and unhinged doors. The locals peered over the barricade and murmured with worry. However this didn't sound like the kind of fevered, involuntary anxiety that usually signaled an upcoming wild spirit attack so Xinfei couldn't muster the energy to care about their feelings. Guided by a rather excessive amount of practice received tonight he let his running momentum carry him up a mountain slop of table legs and slanted dressers to the summit of the crude fortification in a few bounds. He briefly turned back to lend Lili a hand up. On the other side of the crude wall were fifteen angry city guards with a lot of rather sharp weapons.
"Hey guys!" Xinfei called down, having quickly learned the importance of maintaing control of these kinds confrontations. These were not the first guards they'd encountered tonight but for the most part the others were willing to leave well enough alone once they saw their job was half done for them. "The hot zones are inwards and north! Inspector Yang and Public Safety've been fighting a big group of Masks up there and would appreciate the reinforcement! Yellow Mountain street just over there should be clear and then it's a straight shot up to the branch canal."
Unfortunately, this time the guard in the most authoritatively embellished uniform was not happy with Xinfei's assistance. "I don't care about any masked hooligans! I've got orders to clear the streets and this is a clearly illegal blockage! Tear it down this instant or my men will begin enforcing penalties!"
"This barricade is the only thing keeping these people even slightly safe! There's spirits and freaking possessed berserkers raging around!"
"Spirits?! Forget spirits! I'm here, I'm real, and I will be obeyed!"
Xinfei groaned and began muttering an inaudible stream of curses. This man was behaving unreasonably. But then again, Xinfei could feel it too. The fear and anger that swirled in his head and made it difficult to think straight, even when the spirits weren't nearby. It came in waves but it was always there somewhere tonight. Ayika had said that it was the influence of the hungry ghosts and the Fire Sage's ritual twisting people's thoughts. Xinfei hadn't any ghost but he still knew that times of crisis always bred more crisis. Those guards down there were just as likely break and panic as the savage rioting crowds he'd seen outside the other barricades.
Lili joined balanced herself with a hand on Xinfei's shoulder as she called out, "Captain! Please! This area has regained order but there are many places out there still being torn apart by fighting!" She was trying to make her voice gentle and pleading, possibly hoping to appeal to some protective instinct in the commanding guard.
The captain squinted up at her. "Is that a Middle Ring accent? Miss, what are you doing out here when the gates are closed?"
"Is that really what you want to be asking right now?! Are there not any more pressing concerns? Are you really that stupid?!" Well, Lili's attempt to be gentle hadn't lasted long. She had to be at least as tired as Xinfei felt.
Still, he clapped his hand to his brow in frustration as Lili whispered him a quick apology. On the other side of the barricade the captain bristled and fumed even as most of his men nervously thumbed their sword-hilts, looking doubtfully at their commanding officer and the blocked street like they might agree with Lili's assessment of their priorities.
The captain, however, was incensed. Red cheeked, he yelled out. "This barrier is getting torn down! Men, forward! Any citizen still out in the street when we get past is to be instantly arrested!"
His men took a step forward, their boots thudding on the paving stones. Xinfei's breath caught in his chest. That was when the two Masks came dashing down a connecting street.
The glowing possessed men leapt and charged like a stampede of bulls, fueled by impossible spiritual strength. Lili tried to call out but the first warning the gathered guards received was a flying wooden door wheeling through the air to plow through their back line. The locals started throwing projectiles from the stacked piles of broken bricks they'd gathered. Such attacks couldn't even hurt the Masks through their spirit auras but past clashes had proved that such efforts provided enough mild annoyance to sometimes drive the possessed abominations away to seek easier entertainment elsewhere.
Xinfei felt his head reeling in the screaming and shouting. Ordinary people were standing up against monsters with bricks and bits of wood. It was inspiring. However, it wasn't working. The panicked and confused guards had a few earthbenders in their ranks who's panicked attempts to muster an even fight attracted the Mask's interest again. At least they managed to do so for the few seconds that the benders remained upright against this spiritual assault. Lili clutched at Xinfei arm but she did not scream as the front bender crumpled down onto a curb.
Those two Masks tore into the guard's formation. Men were flung left and right, smashing into the closed shutters of buildings on each side. But just as quickly they began the monsters suddenly halted. For no obvious cause, those spirit wrapped men stopped in a single instant and both turned to look off to the north. A soft mist of rain began to fall from the black clouds above, darkening the paving bricks that lay within the pools of lamplight.
The world breathed in through the sudden silence.
Then there was another light in the air above them. A noiseless sound like a bell of silk rang inaudibly through the sky and then there was a massive figure made of flame hanging in the air higher than the roof tiles. All the combatants, human and spirit froze in wonder and terror. The fire had the form of a human, but it was at once male and female, wavering like flame over water but somehow more solid than the earth beneath their feet. This was something more than a spirit. This was a god of fire and rain reigning over this city. Xinfei thought it almost looked familiar.
Then the giant reached out its hand and the Masks shuddered. The the light winked out and the burning god was gone as if it had never been there at all.
The nearest Mask straightened up and looked down in confusion at its hand wreathed in spectral claws. There seemed to be no change. Then it shrugged and casually lashed out at the guard captain with all its force. That man raised his arms to block, knowing it was a futile effort, yet trying all the same, flinching in the face of certain death. The bone-crushing blow landed, the watching humans despaired, and then they looked up in wonder.
The captain still stood. For a moment the scene froze again as both sides marveled. It wasn't possible. Everyone had seen the Masks things punch through stone and metal. But the guard captain stood, exchanging looks of wonder with the equally astonished Mask. Then the captain hit back, sinking his fist deep into the Mask's gut. The invincible monster doubled over in impossible pain and surprise. Something had changed. That god of fire had undone their strength.
The effect spread through the streets like lightning across the sky. Two hundred heads looked up. Seemingly at once a wordless cry rose up from the people, the guards and the citizens joining together to a building sound of anger and retribution; the triumph of no longer being powerless. Xinfei was startled to hear this primal roar coming from Lili beside him and then was more surprised to notice that it was also coming from his own throat. The remaining upright Mask wavered and took a step back towards its pained companion. A new emotion was entering its inhuman mind. Fear.
The crowd took a step forward, more citizens climbing up over the ruins of the barricade. The remaining guards raised their swords, joining in the call.
Then the Masks turned to run into the night and the people of the city chased.
Xinfei moved to follow in the charge but as he raced down from the barricade he tripped and fell painfully face first down onto the stones. Lili, who was perfectly content to not chase after the spirit powered monsters, came down much more slowly and helped him up.
"Yeah, thanks," Xinfei muttered as he gingerly rubbed his scraped chin. The fighting had already vanished down the street.
Lili looked away from him as he winced at his new bruises, to hide her smile and leave the man some dignity. Instead she glanced down at her pale green opera dress. It was now more grey and black than green, marked all over with smudges of smoke and ash. She felt a prickle of sweat on her forehead again. She must have wiped off her makeup some time ago. Absently, without looking away from the apocalypse before her she said, "This makeup really doesn't stand up to this kind of treatment."
"Would that be a selling feature?" Xinfei said in the same comically calm tone; a relaxation born of pure exhaustion. "Sweat resistance? I guess even rich ladies get hot. I wonder how you'd go about assessing that. You know, I still have forty jars of that white base stuff and a secure contact for more down at the Harbor."
Here, as the city was tearing its self apart with spirits and ghosts and normal angry people, Xinfei was taking about selling makeup. Despite everything, Lili smiled. "Testing, psh. Just put out whatever claim you want on the label. There are no rules for tests like that. Especially with something as subjective as makeup it's the perception that matters most of all. People will see what they want to see. Is your stuff of good quality, though?"
He shrugged in the alternating breezes of chill night and blazing gusts that battled for dominance in this destruction driven weather pattern. A howl and a scream echoed together from deeper in the city. "Eh, how would I know? I was mostly planning on relying on the ritzy Fire Nation labels and getting them to the right Lower Ring places that wouldn't normally see stuff earmarked for the central rings. Of course, I got this load cheap because it's in irregular black jars without all of the normal decorations so I'm not sure I'll be able to convince people the product's genuine. I'm figuring I'll just mark it up double from wholesale and hope to get lucky for profit on a small number of sales."
Lili casually shook her head. "Don't bother with that. Be bold. Quintuple the price and go straight to the Middle Ring sellers. If one of my crowd saw twenty examples of the standard product and then a few strange black jars at over twice the price then you just know they'd have to buy the 'better' ones. Any shortage in stock would only work in your favor. Everyone wants to have found the newest secret."
Xinfei began to chuckle weakly, coughed on the smoke in the air, and then began to laugh harder. "I'll get right on that."
Lili grinned. "You'd better. As founding shareholder in your venture I'm expecting returns."
They still stood at the rickety barricade pile before a wall of burning city blocks. Around them and beyond their perception the fabric of the world creaked and wavered. Spirits, ghosts, and fiery gods made their mark and in the screaming streets two young people discussed the merits of a permanent retail location.
...
Douli Ma'er raced through the streets, pursuing the Masks who after the sudden appearance of that flaming apparition had quickly relearned how to flee. Ignoring the weariness in his bones he folded his had into a fist and reached out with his qi, making the stones and bricks sympathetically mirror the motions of his muscles. One sharp movement and a wall burst apart, slamming into the Mask who's silver feathered spirit aura was fading out of sight by the moment. They were still strong, but compared to a moment ago they were so very weak.
In truth, Ma'er suspected that if those possessed men could be kept distracted for a few minutes more they would no longer be a danger to the public. And never would be again. Ma'er had seen the pitted, blackened face of the last fighter they'd forcibly unmasked. This full level of spirit possession didn't seem to be survivable. These were dead men he was fighting which made this whole assault useless. That fiery apparition had done the work.
However, he was following Nia Mua. She ran through the alleys and streets pursuing the remaining Masks with a desperate fury to take this last chance at her vendetta. The soft rain bent in the air to gravitate towards her hands and streams of magical water trailed behind her, ready to be whipped forward to slice through flesh and bone the instant one of the possessed men fell within her grasp. It was a rampage. Ma'er had seen men behave like this in battle before. The pursuit of revenge was a deadly thing, often leaving the perpetrator as vulnerable as the victim. So he followed her, watching her long braided hair begin to darken in the gentle rain. In a night dominated by the dead he would not allow this woman to join them.
The dead now looked on. In the wake of that fire spirit flitting across this sector the ghosts had began to solidify even in Ma'er's sight even as they began to fade. The remaining ghosts stood at street-corners and on bridges; a grey shadow of a man staring a building, a woman looking a noodle shop, two unidentifiable visages side by side contemplating a small secluded bench, taking a last refuge in some memory as they slowly dissolved away from this world.
Then a glowing red man in a mask leaped out of an alley, aiming a clawed fist at Nia Mua. This was not the first time one of the Masks had tried a desperate final attack in this last half hour. They were like cornered beasts. Ma'er brought up his hands and bricks below the Mask's feet reached up to clamp down on its ankles as it lunged. In truth all that this interference did was pull the attacker back from the slicing arc Nia summoned into existence out of the rainy air. But the Mask did not avoid her second attack and now her floating water streams ran red once more.
Ma'er looked down at the newly still form on the ground. The spirit aura had vanished to reveal a what remained of a young man, his face bitted and blackened. No matter how many Nia struck down none of them would be Chao Erliao, the focus of her vendetta. It didn't matter, that man had been dead from the moment he had put on the mask as the ritual reached its height. But still she fought across the city.
Nia panted heavily, trying to gather energy once more. She didn't say anything to Ma'er but she'd allowed him to watch over her and that was enough. As she tried to calm the shaking of her weary muscles, Ma'er quietly regarded a ghost that was standing across the narrow street, looking back in the direction of the two of them. It had to be one of the last few that remained by now, the great hungry hordes had almost all vanished to whatever place they'd come from. This poor thing must have died very recently, as it still retained most of its human shape. He was actually still almost as recognizable as he might have been in life. In fact...
"By the..." Ma'er started to swear. He stopped. "Professor Lizhen!"
Nia Mua looked up and gasped in sudden, strangled inhalation. What an endless, meaningless pursuit and constant conflict hadn't managed now came crashing down and her knees buckled. Her dark cheeks blanched. All the anger and mocking laughter that she projected in every waking moment vanished in horror and disbelief. She was left empty, an abandoned paper kite on the ground, to be blown and dashed against the bricks by the first breath of wind. Nia took a single, wavering step forward. Then the ghost of Chen Lizhen smiled warmly at her from across the empty street and she collapsed to her knees.
She fell down before the grey shadow.
"Forgive me," she whispered to the grey shadow.
"There is nothing to forgive, my love." The reply was faint beyond hearing, the sound of gentle shafts of afternoon sun crawling across a warm floor. It was a soft breeze under starlight.
The shade of Lizhen raised his hands to each side of Nia's face. A finger's breadth and all the distance of all the worlds lay between them. The ghost spoke once more, just at edge of hearing. "Be at peace, Nia. Do not fight for me, for you've already won Do not seek absolution when you need none. You have done something wonderful tonight. This land has taken a first step towards spiritual harmony. You will be here to guide the people who need you and I will go on to the next life of adventure."
Nia choked on a sob.
Lizhen was growing harder to see. "Maybe we will meet again, and when we do I want you to be a happy. Let that be your new mission."
Nia Mua was broken. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks in joy and sorrow and relief and despair. She could not speak, shuddering in heaving breath as Lizhen faded away from this world until his rebirth. Then he was gone, the last of the remaining specters, and Nia Mua collapsed completely, pressed to the cold paving bricks in a fetal genuflection.
Douli Ma'er wanted to turn away, to allow her to hide her sorrow from him. But Nia was a strong woman and even her grief was proud. It refused to accept concealment. So he only quietly walked up to her side. She raised herself up slightly, her palms pressed to the bricks while teardrops fell down between them to mix with raindrops. Then his rough calloused hand touched down on her shoulder.
They stayed there in silence, two hunters in an empty street as around them their prey stumbled and fell, their power stripped by the magic of the city and rituals beyond their knowledge. Soft drops of rain continued to fall through the late depths of night.
...
Ayika gasped and heaved for breath as the burning funeral mask dropped from her head to shatter against the edge of the underground aqueduct. She staggered backwards, falling against the wall, too starved for air to scream at the pain from her burned face. Naruhama's mask was broken, half of it falling into the black running water while the remaining splinters smoldered quietly on the stones of the walkway. There was no more magic in the fire but the shards were still made of wood. Naruhama was gone. It was over.
Ayika's balance reeled and she slid further down against the stone wall, the back of her dress ripping slightly on some chipped protruding brick. The floor was cool. The only sound in the dark tunnel was the echoing of her sharp gasps and the faint sound of flowing water. Then there was the sound of clicking metal on stone slowly approaching her. With great effort Ayika lifted up her swimming vision to look at the Scissors-Man in his face made of blades and points. He was more solid than she'd ever seen a spirit be in this world, though the wavering nature of the walls behind him suggested that it was Ayika who'd changed. She was drawing closer to the veil even as it retreated. She thought she might be dying.
Despite her pain, she managed to gather together enough breath to speak to the spirit, spitting out her bitter words. "What do you want from me now? What more? Do you want me to steal the sun? Unbar the gates to the other world?" She sagged down again. "Do you spirits ever not use us?" The melting, wavering nature of reality around her no long seemed bothersome. She remembered what Grandma Aka had said. At the moment of death the walls between worlds were at their most thin. Her chest heaved again and again. She thought that such a crossing now might not even be that bad.
The spirit kneeled down beside where she was half propped, half sprawled against the tunnel wall. "Something like that. Yes, spirits use, and we are used in return. Everything has a cost."
He held out a hand made of scissors blades, the visualization of a frightened young girl years ago who didn't know the power of her own belief. That hand pointed off down the tunnel. He was pointing at Mizumi, laid neatly on the stones of the walkway near the exit stairs.
Scissors-Man said, "Everything has a cost. And tonight you have done those on the other side a service. One greater than you can see. The gods of this land are in your debt beyond their reckoning and the veil of reality is still thin for a few moments more. Now name your price, shaman."
The world was like paper. Ayika could see through the walls, the ground, and the water. She slowly pulled herself up to her feet, body aching and screaming in complaint. Her footsteps were staggering and uncertain. She navigated her way through two worlds, a universe of elements and energy and souls swirled before her eyes as she stood at the edge. Mizumi lay where Ayika had set her down, the threads of that gold qipao glistened under the black smudges and red stains. Locks of Mizumi's hair across her forehead were dark and tinged with the color of shining rust. The back of her hair was soaked with blood.
A clicking whisper echoed through the shadows, its speaker already gone. "Name your price."
Ayika did not kneel as she approached. She couldn't bring herself to feel hope. She could hardly bare to breath. The city lay in a web of magic and ritual and spiritual power that she didn't understand but what did any of that matter? There was only one thing that did.
She whispered to the shadows, using every shred of breath she could muster.
"Mizumi."
"Ugh," came the gentle groaning reply, earth-shattering in its simplicity. "What...Ah, ah. Ow. Well, that did hurt. What happened when...Ayika! Blood, your arm! Sit down! Did you carry me here? Let me look at you! It looks like it has dripped all down your side. And...oh, my poor thing! Your face! Did those vile Masks do this to-"
Mizumi had barely raised up to a sitting position when Ayika wrapped arms around her with enough force to bring them both down again. Everything in Ayika's body screamed out in pain but it was a glorious pain beyond anything she had ever known.
"Ayika!" Mizumi winced as the tight hug held her down onto the ground, Ayika's face pressed against her chest. "Ah, this, this quite hurts. I believe I may have been more injured that I thought. Ooh, blood in my hair. That may explain the headache. Ayika, please, let me look at you. Your face is burned and your entire left arm is covered in blood!"
Ayika couldn't bring herself to say anything yet. All she could do was squeeze yet tighter and feel the sweet, wonderful pain of Mizumi's dress against her raw cheek. Everything had a cost and she would gladly pay for this moment.
...
It was still dark as Ayika and Mizumi walked along the deserted city streets through a drifting, rain-like mist that fell down from the dense clouds above. However, by now there was a growing lightness to the world. There was no sign of a source but their vision had slowly become a little clearer; the lines in the shadows a little sharper. Somewhere beyond the city walls, above the gentle storm, the sun was beginning to rise.
They were alone here in these scorched blocks of the Lower Ring. Population and fire were both departed and soft precipitation hung in the air, consuming the sound of the two women's footsteps to leave only silence and hush. Those little droplets drifted this way and that in their gradual decent. The rain cleaned the air as it floated, scrubbing it free of the choking smoke and leaving a clammy predawn chill. Ayika held onto Mizumi and felt the glorious, unbelievable heat of life flowing from her hand. In her own state of exhaustion that was all she could do.
Mizumi looked around, her eyes straining in the near blackness to make some sense out of the charred exposed ribs of extinguished buildings on each side. "So..." she said. "We succeeded? It is over? I do not hear anything, is that a good sign?"
Ayika gave a barely perceptible shrug which at her current capabilities threatened to bring her to to the ground. Mizumi hurried to hold her up until it was clear she wasn't going to collapse. "I don't know, " Ayika answered after a moment. "I'm assuming it is, and if it's not then some other idiot can take over. We're done."
Mizumi hadn't asked what had happened after her last memory of the confrontation with the Masks and now she still resisted. Instead she craned her head to look around again. "All right. On a different note, do you happen to know which direction this is? I cannot see the city walls and even if the sun is indeed rising I cannot tell east from west under these clouds."
"We'll run into someone eventually. It's the city. You're never really alone." Ayika smiled ever so slightly and then gave a shallow gasp at the pain from the sensitive skin around the edge of her face. Mizumi turned with concern and lent more of her arm for Ayika to hang off of. However, this proved to be a little too much weight for Mizumi in her own unsteady state and they both stumbled.
"Perhaps we should rest for another moment," Mizumi offered generously, still trying to mask how heavily she herself was breathing. Just ahead, the narrow street arced over a canal and as they came up to that point they both leaned back against the stone pilings that marked the bridge's edge.
Both women were on their way to being soaked in the cold tail-end of night. Mizumi said, "I suppose that we are heroes now. Or, more correctly, you are. Not that I think there would be many who might believe the account. I barely understand it myself."
Ayika breathed in and felt the chill air fill her lungs. "We're not supposed to understand. I don't think anyone really does." She looked out at the black water of the canal, choked with soot and ash and shadow, now effectively a void that stretched below them into infinity. "For politics, for spirits, for just... life, there's too many moving parts. Everyone thinks they know how their story goes, and thinks there's a consistency; a plan. But there's no plan. No one in control. It's all just accidents." Her voice trailed off into weariness.
Mizumi turned her head to face Ayika who in turn looked up at her. "Yes," she said very simply. "And I am quite a fan of accidents. Accidents have a meaning. After all, I never planned to meet you."
They were side by side, each with a single hand pressed down on the smooth stone railing for support.
Ayika murmured, "I don't know if Xinfei and Xiaobao are still alive. The whole city could've burned down for all we know. I don't really remember much of from when..." She trailed off unable or unwilling to turn her thoughts to the spirit world now.
Mizumi nodded, "My father could be lying in the rubble of the Exclusionary district. And yet for some reason I cannot bring myself to feel fear about that for the moment. I think I may have exhausted that emotion. But we will be returned to the real world soon enough. We will see what awaits us there."
Ayika angled her head up a little more to maintain eye contact, wondering when Mizumi had drawn so very close to her. She could feel her breath. "And what's that going to be?"
"I do not know. But we will find out."
They leaned together. The touch was pain and exhaustion; a tired desire for support and comfort. It was exhilaration and desperation; yearning and fear and disregard for everything that was yet to come. It was fire and water; sky and stone. For a single brief moment they even forgot to breath. Neither could have said for how long.
Then their lips came apart. Nothing perceptible about the light had changed but somehow everything was clearer to see. Somewhere above the clouds the sun had risen over the vast and tangled expanse of the Impenetrable City.
...
Senior Minister for Capital Urban Governance Tianyou Zhu resisted the urge to reach forward and adjust the small stack of documents that were neatly set out on the table before him. Technically, all this information must be on hand to present should it be required of him, but in fifteen years of holding this office that had never come up at one of these meetings. Even if the papers were crucial, it would be an incredible breach of decorum to for him move out of turn during the monthly presentation of affairs to Kui, the King of Kings of Earth Under Heaven. Tianyou just wished that this ceremony could be done in less than four hours. He was wilting before the mountain-like mass of of gold and jade that loomed behind the king.
The long table of ministers stretched out to his left in a row of identical place settings with unused brushes, untouched ink-stones, and pristine stacks of documents before bearded men in varied robes of identical finery. To his right the line stretched even further. The outer walls of the throne room vanished into the same shadowed distance that consumed the ceiling supported by the endless rows of mammoth stone columns. Then the Senior Minister of Literary Consensus sat back down in his chair at Tianyou's side and he rose in turn to present an account of his own ministry.
"Mighty King of Kings of Earth Under Heaven, I come to give report of how your will has been obeyed." The proscribed opening given, Tianyou continued, inwardly thankful that the King had shortened the prelude speech early on in Tianyou's own service. The droning recitation of the classical forms had led to many instances of dozing ministers and kings. Of course, in the days of Minister Long Feng this ceremony had been dispensed with entirely but one couldn't have everything. After all, everyone knew how well that regime had worked out.
Tianyou gave his report. "In the north of the the city, the drainage channels continue to be taxed by heavier than expected rainfall, however they are still within the secondary overflow measures. Preparations for the new census next year continue apace. Related to that, Northern Undersecretary of Numeration Lord Huigang Chi has requested to be relieved of his position so that he may travel to his ancestral district in the city's west for the two hundred days of morning for his departed father Lord Chi. A new appointment will need to be made." Then Tianyou paused slightly, knowing matter what he had now come to. But he continued before anyone could notice his hesitance.
"Additionally, fifteen days ago there was a notable fire in a part of the southern city, centered in the districts known to the classics as the Kuang Folds. The blaze was suppressed, but it is suspected to be deliberate in origin rather than accidental. Reports from the Agency for the Public Safety have indicated that the arson incident precipitated from a personal dispute between the late Fire Nation Trade Mission Representative and a missing minor governmental official that spilled into the public sphere. This civil unrest was accompanied by a minor spiritual disruption that has since been contained and resolved to the satisfaction of the priestly officials."
Up on his elevated platform that stretched beyond sight to both the left and the right, King Kui leaned forward on his small ornate chair before the massive treasure-filled backdrop. "A spiritual disruption? Is it of a nature that should involve the Avatar?"
Tianyou shook his head, relieved that he had already considered this possibility. "The Senior Minister of Ritual and Observance will speak more expertly than I, but every report I have received indicates that the issue has been locally handled to the thorough satisfaction of the other world. In fact, temple attendance in that sector is up enough that the Ministry of Worship and Consecration is considering reopening several sites along the classical Kuang banks."
The King leaned back, absently adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Very well." Then another thought seemed to occur to him. "How much of the city did the fire effect?"
That figure was on the fourth sheet of paper in the neat little stack but Tianyou didn't need to look at it. "Very little, your grace. Considering all damage and disruption, zero point seven three percent of the city saw any effect. It was a minor affair."
"Regrettable in any case," the King said but he'd now moved on to other thoughts. "I suppose I shall hear more of the Fire Lord's response to that political mess from the Senior Minister for External Trade. I hope the Fire Nation gets around to appointing a new ambassador soon, it will make clearing this mess up a lot easier. At least in light of Tailang's alleged crimes they seem willing to call his death a diplomatic draw."
That was Minister Tianyou's dismissal and he gladly sat down in time to hear the Senior Minister for Local Agriculture rise in his right to give his report on the yields of the encircled lands. Tianyou was just glad he had not had any truly upsetting news to relay. These little incidents happened all the time in Ba Sing Se.
Outside the royal audience hall, in glittering foyers, the ranks of Vice Ministers conferred with the most senior of their Sub Ministers who in turn left to deliver orders to their departmental staff. In the palace halls and high ceilinged rooms beyond them, an army of butlers oversaw their legions of servants, tending to cavernous chambers that might see a single instance of use in a year. As they tended, a few had time to look out the windows to see the vast marble floored parade grounds that surrounded this monumental palace building that was itself only the gatehouse of the larger royal residences. Across those grand spaces outside, entire military battalions, the best of the best of a continent, repeated well-rehearsed formations with footsteps that rumbled in the air. In that sun-drenched white stone plain, armies larger than these could vanish.
Beyond the parade grounds were the circular Divine Walls that separated the King's palaces from the sprawling estates of the surrounding Inner Ring that stretched on through manicured garden and rolling hills to a distant terminus beyond the horizon. At that far off point here rose another circular wall to keep out the ring of uncountable rich merchants, scholars, and artists who owned, catalogued, and depicted the world. They dwelled between ring walls in twenty wide kilometers of sparkling waterways and clean streets lined with tended willows in carved stone planters overseen by dwellings of art and magnificence. Their shops and dwellings pressed right up to their own wall that led to the land of craftsmen and laborers.
In the Lower Ring apartments piled up around the edges of crowded market squares while industry and commerce boomed out constant noise and smoke into the air that trembled with the energy of millions. In each direction was an unending arching expanse of the same that slowly curved across hundreds of kilometers to meet again in a spot far enough away to feel climatic differences. This ring's residents were crowded but they were still proud because they were supported by those who dwelled beyond the city walls. Past those gates was Kuang Harbor and a hundred other limpet towns between the far stretching fields of the encircled lands that from nearly any vantage seemed endless.
Somewhere out in the distance was the outer wall of Ba Sing Se, shining white in the bright sun. On one side of that cliff of fitted stone was an entire living world. Across it was another. Through bounds ran the thin brown line of a river: strong and free.
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(Author's Note: Thank you for reading my story. I would love to to hear any response, input, or comments you might have. Every bit of feedback is a chance to improve.)