Dragon-Ridden (33 page)

“How good are you at swimming?” she
asked with a small smile. Without waiting for a response, she moved towards the
door they’d used to get into the building.

He trailed after her. “I’ve never
tried before.”

Tate nodded distractedly, not
really paying attention. She was already forming a plan. His not being able to
swim might be a problem, but they could probably work it out. Her earlier depression
floated away as a renewed purpose invaded her. She never backed down from a
challenge, and she wasn’t going to start now. By the end of the night she was
going to be the first to have gone head to head with Jost and won. She just
knew it.

It took some fine tuning and
walking around the docks looking for someone who was willing to rent a boat to
them, but finally she was paddling back to the boathouse. Their boat was
smaller then the ship-to-shore boat Jost’s men used. This one was built to be
piloted by two people. It was more a rowboat with a flat bottom than the
ship-to-shore boat.

Dewdrop flailed at the water with
his paddle, not really being of much help. They started to drift and twist with
his wild motions. Patiently she showed him the proper way to grip the paddle
with one arm midway down the oar and the other wrapped around the pommel. He
caught on quickly, his strokes smoothing out and dipping gracefully into the
water in time with Tate’s. Soon they were gliding across the harbor. Tate steered
them to one of the floating parties.

“Can we join you?” she called out.

A welcoming cry went out, and they
quickly tied their little rowboat to a six-seater. A tipsy woman shoved a mug
filled with mulled wine into Tate’s hand, giving her a cheerful smile before
clambering into one of the other boats to curl up next to a man’s side.

Tate had made sure they’d tied up
their rowboat on the ocean side of the group, not wanting to have her back to
the boathouse only a small distance behind the little group.

“Is this your first time?” a man
asked stepping into the boat next to Tate’s. At her puzzled look he gestured to
her clothes. “You’re not exactly dressed as a reveler.”

She looked around. He was right.
Most of the people here had bright colorful clothes with the women adorned in
garments decorated with a crystal that sparkled and glowed even at night. Their
hair had been swept up into intricate hairstyles with some of the same glowing
crystal threaded into the strands.

Tate plucked at her shirt. Next to
them she was positively drab in her plain brown pants and tan shirt.

Aware of the man waiting for her
response, she smiled at him. “My brother and I just arrived in the city when we
noticed everybody heading out on boats.”

Dewdrop adopted the persona of an
enthusiastic little brother, his face earnest and young. “It seemed like such
fun so I begged my sister to let us try it. Thankfully she was just as curious
as me, and here we are.”

“You’ll love it,” one of the women
predicted. “At midnight we release the fire bulbs. It’s like seeing a million
stars being released at once as they float up into the sky.” She smiled
dreamily. “Tell me you each have one.”

Tate held up the little lantern
she’d received earlier in the evening. She was just a little surprised when Dewdrop
did the same. He shrugged at her questioning look.

“Oh good,” the woman said. “You
don’t want to miss this.”

“Because you’ve never done this
before, I bet you don’t know that you need to put a wish inside,” the first man
said.

Tate shook her head, though Dewdrop
rolled his eyes when he thought nobody was looking.

“A what?” Tate asked half laughing.

“It’s tradition,” the woman said.
“Does anybody have any paper left?” One of their fellow revelers held up a
piece of rectangular paper the length of Tate’s hand and half the width. It was
passed around until it reached Tate and Dewdrop. “You write a wish or something
you’re grateful for from the past year,” the woman explained. “Then you put it
into your fire bulb so when you release it, your wish is carried up into the
heavens.”

The woman wrapped her arms around
her legs looking up as if she could see the palace of the gods already.

What an odd tradition. Tate wasn’t
entirely sure she wanted to participate. According to the stories she’d heard
told by seamen on cold nights, the men and women who caught the eye of the gods
rarely fared well, usually ending up with some horrible fate while performing
some great deed. Not something Tate wished to share. Any wish she had, she’d
fulfill under her own power. There’d be no point otherwise.

Out of the corner of her eye she
saw Dewdrop pretend to write something before sticking his blank sheet in the
lantern. She went to do the same but stopped. Not knowing what possessed her,
she wrote something down. Well not really a wish so much as a goal. Folding it
up she stuck it in the lantern before she could change her mind.

The woman who’d been so friendly to
them clapped her hands and took the writing utensils they handed back.

Tate eyed the distance between her
group and the boathouse. For the next phase of her plan, the raft had to be
closer. Tate had no doubt Jost had people stationed in the harbor making sure
nobody tried to row up to the boathouse. She’d already considered whether any
of their new friends were plants by Jost. She didn’t think so as she recognized
pretty much everybody from her time on ship, but it was always possible they’d
picked up someone new or outsourced that task.

Dewdrop stuck his paddle in the
water and idly made a side paddling motion. He kept his movements slow and
random by picking his paddle up out of the water to bounce up and down as if he
was bored. None of the others seemed to take any notice, but Tate’s stomach was
tight expecting someone to call them out at any moment.

They still had about half an hour
until midnight. That was the time she decided would be the best moment to make
her move. She figured people would be looking up at the released fire bulbs
rather than at the sea. It might just give her enough of a window to slip in and
out.

Dewdrop, by himself, just wasn’t
enough to get the coupled boats close enough, and they’d only drifted a little
closer to the boathouse in the time since joining the group. Tate’s heart
nearly stopped when everybody began to uncouple the boats and drift away one by
one. Her friend with the wine, seeing her confusion, explained that everybody
separated ten minutes prior midnight to release the lanterns.

She smiled a thank you at him while
inside she was rejoicing. That was exactly what she needed to get closer to the
boathouse. Pushing away from the others, Tate and Dewdrop steered closer to the
seawall. She pulled a black cap from her pocket and toed off her shoes, before
removing all loose objects from her pockets. The only thing she kept was the knife
at her waist.

“Be careful.”

She nodded and leveraged herself
onto the lip of the rowboat before letting herself fall back into the water.
The splash was muted and drowned out by the shout that arose as thousands of
fire bulbs were released into the air.

Tate opened her eyes underwater and
stared up in a brief moment of awe. From her vantage point, it looked like a
snaking river of fire ascending into the heavens.

She pulled the black cap over her
hair before kicking her legs and arms, scissoring through the depths. She
glided beneath the water’s surface towards the dock, one arm straight in front
of her to keep her head from crashing into the wood. After what seemed an
eternity her fingers slid off the slimy algae that had attached itself to the
stone over time. She lifted her head out of the water just enough to draw a
breath through her nose and to get her bearings.

In seconds, she had sunk back
beneath the surface and was making her way carefully towards the boathouse,
keeping close to the seawall. Every few seconds she would reach out and touch
it to make sure she wasn’t veering off course. Even with the help of the fire
lanterns, she couldn’t make anything out in the black depths of the harbor.

Her questing hand encountered
nothing. She turned her body and swam through an opening, praying this was the
entrance to the boathouse and not some under water tunnel.

Her feet scraped against slick
wood, and moments later her hand hit something. Resisting the urge to simply
pop out of the water, she raised up just enough so her eyes were above the
surface. She blinked as the water streamed down her face, stinging her eyes.

Darkness greeted her. She blinked
again and chanced coming up enough to take a breath. By some stroke of luck,
she came up beneath the wooden slats of the boathouse. Footsteps echoed
overhead as someone walked back and forth. She was facing out towards the
harbor, where they would pull boats in to unload. Tate scooted to the edge of
her hidey-hole, peeking to both sides of the pilings. She was careful to make
no sound, moving slowly so there would be no splashing.

Nobody came into view. She moved
towards the open water, keeping as close to the edge as possible. From the
sound of things there was only one person near her. It took a moment to screw
up her courage, but she grabbed the wooden edge in her hands and pulled herself
up so she could look over it. She held her breath all the while. Nobody sounded
the cry however, and she released a sigh.

Jost’s back was facing her as he
spoke to another crewmember. Tate chanced a look around, noting the position of
several barrels against the wall and netting hanging from hooks on the ceiling.
She slipped back into the water before she was seen.

“Our men say the Kairi should be
here soon,” Riply was telling Jost.

“Good. The sooner this is over the
better,” Jost said. He sounded tired.

“Aye,” Riply replied. After a pause
he asked, “Do you think she’ll be alright? Danner said she was hurt pretty
bad.”

Tate’s ears perked up, and she
stared in the direction of the voices though she couldn’t see them. Her? Who
was she? Perhaps Tate? Or were they talking about someone else?

“It doesn’t concern us,” Jost said.
“She’s not crew anymore. She made her choice, and there’s nothing we can do
about it now.”

Tate sank into the water, her eyes
feeling tight and itchy. They were talking about her.

“Yeah, but-“

“It’s already done,” Jost said
sharply.

She missed what was said after
that, instead dunking her head under the water and curling into a tight ball.
It was over. She could never go back, and the only person she had to blame was
herself. She’d known all this when she left; now she had to accept it and move
on.

She straightened, breathing deep
when she came up for air. She cocked her head. It was silent with nobody moving
above her.

She swam out of her nook and looked
around, finding the room clear. She pulled herself out of the water, a puddle
forming at her feet. Anybody who saw the water would know they had visitors.
She needed to move quickly.

Hearing voices in the hall, she
slipped behind some barrels. Her caution was unwarranted because the owners of
those voices turned into a room. Moving silently, Tate followed them and peeked
around the corner. Seeing several of the crew playing cards, she crept passed
the room. She looked into several rooms and backed out quickly when all she
found was the smell of fish and not much else.

As she moved across the floor in
one of these rooms, she was startled at the slight give in the boards. She
bounced lightly on them. Next, she bent and knocked on one and then walked a
few feet to knock on another board. The first knock produced a hollow thump
while the second was much crisper.

She grinned. A smuggler’s hole.
What better place to hide illegal goods then a hidden hole designed to be
undetected? She tapped around until she found the edge and pried up the hatch.
Tate peered down into the expressionless face of a young boy.

He had long white hair coupled with
pale skin and a tracery of iridescent blue patterns on his forehead and neck. His
eyes were so pale a blue that they were almost colorless. His gaze seemed
ancient in his young body.

Tate had opened her mouth to form
an apology when he shifted and the heavy clink of metal on metal reached her.
Her eyes flicked to the chain that disappeared under his ornate robes. She
licked her lips. It couldn’t be. This child couldn’t be the fulcrum everybody
was fighting over.

The boy still hadn’t spoken and
watched her passively. His skin was remarkably clean for someone being held in
captivity, she noted, and only the smallest smudges of dirt showed on his rich
clothing. An empty plate and mug beside him said his captors had been feeding
him regularly.

Object her ass. The fulcrum wasn’t
some artifact to be placed in a room and forgotten. He was a hostage for his
people’s good behavior.

“Hello,” Tate said weakly.

He didn’t respond. Not even to
blink. Tate glanced over her shoulder. How much more time did she have before
she was discovered? After a brief war with herself, she dropped into the
smuggler’s hole beside him. He backed up to make space for her, as it was a
narrow space with little headroom. She had to bend over to avoid hitting her
head against the ceiling. He was short enough to be able to stand fully upright
with about an inch of space between the top of his head and the wood.

“My name’s Tate,” she said. “What’s
yours?”

His face remained neutral, and he
didn’t answer. Tate’s smile wilted around the edges. She didn’t want to just
grab him and run. That seemed wrong after everything that had happened to the
poor guy. Scarring a kid mentally for life wasn’t appealing, but they were
running out of time. Any second she expected to hear feet pounding toward them.

Leaving him here wasn’t an option
either. Umi was coming, and her plans for the fulcrum didn’t sound pleasant.
She resisted the urge to kick something. A child shouldn’t be caught up in this
situation.