Dragon-Ridden (15 page)

“What must we do?” Umi asked
turning to Tate.

Tate studied Umi wondering if she
was as stalwart as she was projecting. Kadien and Tempest seemed loyal but
loyalty could be bought. Not many well off ladies would be able to brave the
seedy underbelly, especially after a prior kidnapping attempt.

Tate grinned. Maybe she and Umi
would get along after all.

“First we’ll work on getting you
clothes that will make it a little easier to blend in. Then we’ll take it from
there.”

An hour later, Umi was dressed very
similar to Tate, in a loose long sleeved shirt and pants that fit perfectly. To
Tate’s surprise the boys had found clothes that were worn enough to fit in with
Aurelia’s criminal citizens but not so ragged as to make people think they were
beggars.

Kadien wore a simple brown tunic
the sleeves falling just shy of his wrists. The fabric had been worn smooth by
time and the color faded over the years. His pants were made of a sturdier
material but were equally as drab.

Tempest had chosen a too big shirt
that dwarfed his slim build with a belt pulling the extra fabric in at his
waist. It made him look about five years younger. Not many would suspect him of
being a bodyguard as long as his actions didn’t give him away.

The modified clothes didn’t help as
much as Tate had hoped. Though designed to fit in with the market’s customers,
it would be difficult for them to pass as lower city folk.

As Tate had feared, Umi and the
boys wouldn’t fool anybody.

For one thing, Umi’s back was still
rigidly straight with her head held regally as she looked to Tate for guidance.
Umi could balance a stack books on her head with how perfect her posture was.
Kadien looked like a warrior, his body held in a constant state of readiness.

Tate frowned. They wouldn’t last
ten minutes before somebody would either try to take their valuables or carry
Umi off for ransom.

“Umi, slouch more. Kadien and
Tempest quit standing like you’re preparing for an attack.”

“Slouch?” Umi questioned a confused
look on her face.

“Yes, slouch. You know, have bad
posture.” Tate demonstrated by rounding her back and hunching her shoulders.

Umi tried and ended up with her
shoulders around her ears and her torso bent forward awkwardly. Tate burst out
laughing. She looked like a child playing monsters and hunters. While amusing,
it wasn’t the look Tate wanted.

“Copy me,” Tate said. She shifted
most of her weight to one leg and stuck her hip out cockily and relaxed her
shoulders. Her arms hung loosely at her sides but not with the stiff formality
Umi had projected.

Umi nodded, carefully observing the
way Tate stood. She arranged her arms and legs to mirror Tate, trying to
project the same easy confidence, but without the regal perfection of before.

Tate judged her mildly successful.

She still stood too straight with a
stiffness most people lacked. Though her innate ability to project authority
would be right at home, she lacked the deceptive relaxation most of those same
criminals adapted.

Oh well. They’d work on it.

Tate looked at Kadien and Tempest,
expecting to have to correct them as well. To her surprise the two looked back
with sullen expressions that would be right at home on the streets. Tempest was
better at adapting the persona of an angry youth, which wasn’t too surprising
given his lack of formality compared to the other two. While Kadien couldn’t
quite sell the expression, he did manage to pull off a badass vibe that would
make most criminals think twice before attacking.

Now that their attitudes matched
their clothes, mostly, it was time to do something about the two most
distinguishing features. Their hair and eyes.

A hat or bandana would hide their
hair’s length and color. Their eyes remained the problem.

“I don’t suppose you know of a way
to hide your eye color,” Tate asked doubtfully. Given all the things she didn’t
know about the magic, it was highly possible they had a way to hide their eyes.

There was a lot of eye flicking as
Tempest and Kadien looked at each other and then Umi for guidance. Tate’s eyes
narrowed. Seems like there was a way, but would they use it was the question
now.

Umi looked like she was considering
something as silence filled the room. Tate kept her thoughts to herself. Either
they trusted her to help them or they didn’t. She’d already told them what
would happen if they didn’t make this work.

Umi’s lips tightened and she nodded
as if she’d come to a decision. “We have a way to change our eye color.”

“They need to look like a human’s,”
Tate said wanting to be clear. “Simply changing the black to another color
won’t work. They need to look ordinary, something people won’t remember if
asked later.”

Umi nodded, her face serious as she
considered Tate’s words. “What color do you think would work best?”

Tate studied the three. She wanted
something that wouldn’t stand out. With their light golden tans, brown would
probably be best. Yes, that would work.

Once the decision was made it was a
matter of minutes before the three stood before her with their hair covered and
their eyes an ordinary muddy brown. Tate grinned as she looked at the three
shifty characters in front of her. There were still a few adjustments to be
made, but on first glance they would pass for ordinary Aurelian citizens.
Fooling the first glance was all they really needed. If someone accepts what is
in front of them, they rarely take the time to take a look at the cracks in the
mirage.

Perhaps they could do this after
all.

Two hours later, Tate peered down
at the path leading to the underground market with a deep sense of unease. When
Ryu had called it the underground market, Tate hadn’t realized he meant it was
literally underground. She’d thought he simply meant it was one of those moving
markets that often popped up in random warehouses to keep the Provost Marshal
from discovering them and breaking up the fun.

Had she known they’d be going
underground, she’d have made more of an effort to escape earlier. It was still
an option. She could simply wait until their backs were turned and then leave
them to it. Nothing was stopping her. Her shoulders slumped. She’d given her
word, Saviors take it, and there was still the inconvenience of her conscious.

The market’s entrance was located
on the side of town that butted up against the black cliffs. Its stairs were
next to an ordinary building that had been kept up. To normal passer bys the
entrance would simply look like they led to the house’s basement. Tate had made
the mistake of assuming that was the case earlier. She’d been happy in her
assumption until Umi had assured her this was how they got to the market.

Tate scrunched up her nose. It was
just so dark and brought back memories of another underground chamber. Tate
contemplated just walking away. Who cared about honor? She’d just avoid mirrors
for a while until the sting went away.

Her dragon uncurled and looked down
with equal distaste at the dark hole the stairs disappeared into. It was no
happier about this course of action than her. Being underground in such cramped
quarters went against its basic need for open spaces and unlimited sky
overhead.

 “Tate?” Umi’s voice held a
question and the other two gave her slightly impatient looks.

Tate paused in the act of turning.
All three looked at her expectantly. She grimaced and shifted nervously.

“I asked if you wanted to go down
first,” Umi said when it was apparent that Tate wasn’t going to answer.

“Oh. No, I’ll follow you,” Tate
gave them a reassuring smile. Her lips felt slightly numb with the effort. “You
know where you’re going after all.”

She wiped damp palms on her pants
before following the others down smooth stone steps, feeling like the ceiling
would come crashing down at any moment. She edged closer to the other three.
She could do this. It wasn’t as if she was afraid of being underground. She
knew some of this inexplicable dread came from that other half of her.
Determined not to let it influence her, Tate steeled herself against this
weakness.

An old door barred their path. With
an intricate moon carved onto its surface, it was the last threshold before
they entered what was formerly known as the catacombs. It opened easily under
Kadien’s hand. He’d taken the lead of the little group with Umi sandwiched
between him and Tempest. Tate brought up the rear.

Around Umi was a little bubble of
space neither of her guards ventured into. Not even their new wardrobe could
make them anything but what they were. Bodyguards protecting their employer.
Tate cocked her head. Perhaps they could work with that.

Crime lords had been known to
employ their own men to provide protection. After all, who knew better what
could happen to the lone wolf then men who made it their job to foster the
violence and greed.

Even Jost, when he was meeting with
potential ‘investors,’ had brought along some of the crew to act as protection
in case the meeting went bad. It was a good thing, too, because they’d had to
fight their way out of more than one situation.

It was pointless to try to convince
Kadien and Tempest not to act like bodyguards, but it might be just possible to
get Umi to act like a small-time Night Lord. A plan in place, Tate’s stride
grew buoyant as she followed Kadien down still more steps.

By the time they reached the
bottom, Tate’s previous optimism had drained to a grim determination. They were
deep enough under the city that its sounds could no longer be heard. Tate
strained her ears trying to hear the clatter of wheels against the street, but
no luck.

She fought off a shiver and wrapped
her arms around her stomach fighting off memories of the chamber. Still, they
rose. After waking up on the floor with only a dim light hanging over her for
company, Tate had lain there for what felt like days trying to recover some
semblance of strength in her limbs. When she finally tottered to her feet it
was to find a single door that led to a labyrinth of corridors that seemed
endless. There had been no food. She’d gone hungry for days. The only water she
had access to she had to lick off walls where it had dribbled down from cracks
in the surface. She’d been down there for far longer than she cared to think
about. It was only by chance that she’d found the lit corridor that had eventually
led to the surface.

In that dark place the dragon had
spoken to her for the first time. Providing companionship when she’d thought
she’d go mad. She still wasn’t convinced that the being invading her mind and
body wasn’t a figment of her imagination, resurrected so her already fractured
mind had a way of dealing with her situation.

She forced her thoughts away from
the dark paths they’d turned to and back onto her surroundings. If she got
separated from the others, she needed to be able to find her way out. The
tunnel they were in was narrow, letting them travel one by one and were
constructed out of the same black stone that was in the cliffs. That stone
probably ran deep under the city.

It was odd, though. She’d have
thought being this close to the ocean, and this deep underground, that there
would be some water in the tunnels. Instead it was dry, a little cool, but
incredibly dry. No trace of water on any of the ceilings or walls.

Tate rested her palm against the
wall. Equally strange was that the stone was surprisingly warm against her
hand, not cold as she would have expected considering how far down they were.

“Don’t get out of sight of us,”
Tempest said, startling Tate out of her speculation. “This place is like a
maze. If you don’t know where you’re going, you could be stuck wandering down
here until you died.”

“What is this place?”

“Nobody knows.” Tempest turned
expecting Tate to follow behind. They caught up with the others before they
turned down another corridor. Being below ground was screwing up Tate’s
admittedly weak sense of direction. She marked on the side of one wall with a
piece of rock she’d found. “Some of the mages from the academy theorize that it
was built by the First People when they came to this world.”

“The First People?” Tate asked. Her
brow crinkled. She’d heard something about the term, but she couldn’t remember
from where.

Tempest stopped dead and turned to
stare. Tate blinked owlishly at him, waiting for him to continue his story.
When he didn’t and only stared at her while Kadien and Umi got farther and
farther away, she gave him a shove in their direction. Getting left behind
wasn’t in her plans for the evening. The sooner they completed their task and
got back to the surface the better.

“Everybody has stories of the First
People,” Tempest whispered. “Who are you that you don’t?”

Tate gave him her death glare. He
wasn’t overly impressed, instead facing forward and catching up to the others.

They’d made two more turns, Tate
marking them when his back was turned, before he continued, “The tunnels aren’t
fully explored and mapped. Every so often the academy sends scholars down with
the intent of learning more, but the tunnels go on for days. There are also
traps and dangerous… creatures, making exploring down here hazardous.”

Tate noticed his hesitation when he
said creatures but refrained from commenting, not wanting him to stop. This was
the longest conversation the two of them had had without the threat of it
devolving into a physical altercation.

Silently she urged him to continue,
almost bubbling over with questions. Were there other endless tunnels? How did
they know where they were going? Who were the First People? How much longer
would it be until they got to their destination? The list of questions went on
and on.