Child of Darkness-L-D-2 Read Free

Strip. Already, she could hear the sounds of it echoing through the concrete walls of her prison world. She came to the edge of the Faery Court, nodded to the guards who stood dressed in her mother’s livery, and broke into a joyous run toward the mouth of the tunnel.
    The Strip was the neutral ground between the worlds of Dark and Light. A huge tunnel, reaching far over the heads of the creatures on the ground, with dwellings and places of commerce stacked on top of each other, the Strip was home to those who took no side in the ongoing war between Lightworld and Darkworld. Mostly Humans, the fascinating ancestors of Cerridwen’s mother, and, she sometimes reminded herself with pride, of herself. Gypsies, who considered themselves apart from Humans, who claimed kinship to immortal creatures long ago. Bio-mechs, still Human, but fitted with metal parts. Then, there were those that were not so fascinating, not so much as they were repulsive or frightening. Vampires, with their thirst for the death of any mortal creature. The Gypsies that even other Gypsies would not consort with, who lured creatures away from the safety of the Strip to harvest their parts. They pulled stinking carts, hawking their wares, eyes and teeth and horns, and nameless, slimy things that no one, at least, no one that Cerridwen could think of, would want. She could not fathom why any Human would chose to live in the Underground with the very creatures their race had banished below. After the destruction of the Veil between the world of the Astral and the world of mortals, the Earth had to be shared. The Humans had taken more than their share by driving the races of the Underground into their sewers and cellars. Why some of the Humans would follow the creatures into their skyless prison, Cerridwen could not explain.
    She pushed her way across the wide tunnel, toward the stand that sold sweet Human bread, and the smell reminded her that she had not brought anything to trade with. She reached to her hair, where Governess had pinned a jeweled ornament. It was worth too much to trade for simple bread, but the sticky, spiced scent teased her empty belly. Tonight, she would be generous.
    A soft, tutting sound came close to her ear, and a voice whispered, “You know better than that, Cerri.”
    She jumped and laughed as she turned. “Fenrick, you frightened me!”
    As he always frightened her, a little. And thrilled her. He smiled, and his teeth stood out, brightly silver against the blue-black of his skin. “You should be frightened of me. You, Human, me Elf—we are, after all, mortal enemies.”
    “Mortal enemies,” she agreed, good-naturedly, but she wished he would not make such jokes. They were enemies, more than he knew. Between Elf and Human, no love was lost. But the animosity between the Faery Court and the kingdom of Elves went back much farther than their confinement in the Underground.
    He took the hair ornament from her hand and made a soft whistling sound as he examined it.
    “This looks like Faery craft. It fairly burns my skin to touch it.”
    “I found it in the mouth of a tunnel to the Lightworld.” It was not a complete lie. She had found it in the Lightworld.
    This impressed Fenrick; his pointed ears lifted as he smiled. “So much bravery for such a small thing! No doubt you’ll be at the front line when the great battle comes.”
    The great battle. They often mocked it together, the lust for blood and war and victory that both the Lightworld and Darkworld professed at length. It was speaking out against such ideals that had gotten the Elves expelled from the Lightworld in the first years since the Great War with the Humans. And it was what had gotten Fenrick’s father expelled from the Darkworld Elves only twenty-five years previous. Fenrick had grown, as Queene Ayla had, in the hardship of the Strip.
    Strange, Cerridwen thought, that it made her mother so angry and hardened at Humans, so different from Fenrick, who embraced the