Keys and Curses (Shadow Book 2)

Keys and Curses

Nina Smith

Copyright © 2015 Nina Smith

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Printing, 2015

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-943274-93-2

NOVELS BY NINA SMITH:

Thrillers:

Hailstone

Dead Silent

Fantasy:

Shadow Book 1: Bloody Fairies

Shadow Book 2: Keys and Curses

For Richard and Hazel, who filled my head with stories.

A very special thank you to the people who have been a part of bringing my characters to life in the Shadow Project for this book: Laura Raabe, Jez Bos, Lara Bos, Christine Bluett, Lee-Anne Spencer, Tess Indigo, Belle Oxenham and Walter Smith.

ONCE upon a time, a man who was neither God nor mortal unleashed a great evil, tipping the balance between order and chaos. The Goddess of Chaos herself stepped in, as the only being who could create a prison strong enough to hold this man and all whom he had corrupted: a bubble world, existing outside of time and space. This world came to be known as Shadow.

Thousands of years passed. The ancient evil lived on, while the descendants of the original exiles established tribes, cultures, religions and traditions. The tiny world grew into a thriving civilisation.

While an official census has never been undertaken, it is believed the following is a comprehensive list of all the peoples living in Shadow.

Muses:
Work hard to inspire creativity in the world of humans, which they call Dream. They prize physical beauty, learning and art, and are sternly loyal to their king. They see themselves as Shadow’s ruling class.

Bloody Fairies:
Enjoy shiny things and war. While they have historically been known to abandon battles because they saw something shiny, for the most part they are a formidable fighting force.

Freakin Fairies:
Obsessed with quicksilver, an abundant, toxic and very shiny element found in their territory. They maintain a monopoly over it, creating a constant shortage elsewhere in Shadow. Rogue Freakin Fairies have been known to run a black market sideline in vibe, a drug deadly to muses.

Bloomin Fairies:
Often live in giant pumpkin shells. Avid vegetable growers. These farming tribes are fiercely independent and very good at hiding whole villages amongst their crops.

Blasted Fairies:
A reclusive clan famous for their penchant for blowing things up. Nobody’s seen one for a while. Their origins are shrouded in as much mystery as their actual location.

Forest People:
Serious types with hooves for feet. Very territorial, fond of big axes and known as political dissidents. They are referred to colloquially as forest people not so much because they live deep in forests, as because nobody can ever remember their proper names. The two known tribes are the Fish-Tailed Green Dragon Dancer Tribe and the Three-Headed Red Elephant Tribe.

Vampires:
They like blood. Mostly they prefer fairy blood, although pixies will do at a stretch. They’re not so hot on muse blood, which can send them into anaphylactic shock.

Pixies:
Fond of darkness, depressing music, heavy makeup and writing poems about their endless pits of despair. Most people try not to have anything to do with them.

Dwarves:
Artisans, artists and architects who disdain hierarchy in favour of forming anarchist collectives for decision making. Easily the most intelligent citizens in all Shadow.

Fire Elves:
A tall, willowy people who have devoted three thousand years to their love affair with fire. They fight it, they dance with it, they juggle and create with it. Their reputation for being hot tempered and violent is well-deserved.

CHAPTER ONE

His flesh hissed under the white-hot brand.

A scar. A livid nine-pointed star of shame. He clawed at his own skin with broken, filthy fingernails as if one pain could make him forget the other.

“Weakness is disloyalty.”

The voice made his skin crawl. He clutched his burned wrist to his ribs. Every breath tore at his throat, but he would escape. The terror could not hold him. He ran, feet sliding on long, wet grass, his own blood hammering like drums of war. There were no more walls. The prison was gone. He was free.

He ran face-first into a tree trunk, bounced off, tripped on a rock and sprawled on his back in the grass.

A thousand Moon Troopers marched through his pounding head. The burn throbbed. He pressed his wrist into the cool grass, rolled over, dragged himself forward. His shirt soaked through in seconds. A great weight dragged at his neck. He closed his hand around the chain that held that weight and yanked.

A single voice broke through the clamour in his mind.

“Nikifor, if you don’t tell me where you are right this minute I swear to Mnemosyne I’ll leave you here to find the Freakin Fairies on your own!”

He yanked again. The chain broke. He collapsed, only to find himself head and shoulders over the drop-off. The sheer, chalky cliff face tilted. The flat ocean, far, far below, looked like oblivion.

“Nikifor I mean it! Where are you?”

He didn’t shrink away from the drop. Instead he opened his hand and took one last look at the key. So small, so innocuous, two tiny intertwined rings that made him a monster, that had threatened to destroy his last tenuous grip on sanity ever since-

No.

No, he couldn’t think about that, not yet. He twisted the two halves to break them so nobody could find and use the cursed thing. Then he let them tumble, tiny deadly streaks of light, far, far down into the uncaring ocean.

A gasp behind his shoulder. “Nikifor, what have you done?”

A coughing fit racked his ribs so hard he almost tumbled off the cliff. Strong hands grasped him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back from the edge. Some of the hardness went from her tone. “Come on, get up out of the grass, it’s not good for you to get cold. It can’t be far now.”

His voice came out like a rusty hinge. “You’ve been saying that for days.”

“In that case we’re days closer than we were. I can’t believe you just threw away your key!”

Nikifor sat up and curled over on himself, trying to stifle the shuddering in his ribs. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? That’s it? What kind of a muse just tosses his link between the worlds into the sea? What happened was tragic, but there will be other artists!”

“I will never inflict myself on another artist.”

“You’re a muse, it’s in your nature to inspire! What would the king say if he could see you now?”

Nikifor flinched. “Don’t let him, Flower. Don’t let him see me like this.”

She gave a gusty, long-suffering sigh. “I won’t. I promised you we’d find the Freakin Fairies, didn’t I? When they’ve cured you we’ll find the king. Come on, we need to keep moving.”

He didn’t move. He’d caught sight of the scar. On his knees on cold flagstones. Unable to flinch or beg for mercy or feel anything but the pain.

“Weakness is disloyalty,” said the voice.

His breath came shallow and fast. He raised the red, throbbing scar before his eyes.

“Nikifor!”

This time she was really angry. He got to his feet and swayed there, struggling to keep her in his sight. “The scar,” he said. “It burns.”

She laid cool fingers over his wrist and tapped him on the forehead. “It’s all in there, remember? You’re hallucinating. You’ve had that old scar for twenty-five years.”

“Who gave it to me?” The familiar fear gripped his ribs.

“I don’t know. But we’ll find out. The king will help us, but first you have to get well. Look.” She moved her fingers away from his wrist. “Look at it Nikifor, it’s just a scar.”

He looked at the pink outline on his skin. His shoulders drooped with relief. “Just a scar.”

“Now come on.” Flower walked away.

Nikifor took two halting steps after her. He shuddered when a cold wind knifed through his wet shirt, rippled the long grass that swept from the forest to the cliff edge, quivered the branches of the Ghost Figs reaching their naked, cracked limbs into the unforgiving sky. His breath rattled in his throat. The scar. The scar was bright red, red like molten lava. Smoke curled up from his skin. He yelled in fright and fled for the safety of the trees.

A definitive twang. His foot snagged on something taut and thin and he sprawled face-first into the grass. A wicked little chuckle erupted from the trees.

Nikifor clawed at the grass and raised himself up on his elbows, confused. “Flower?”

Flower walked slowly towards him, her hands in the air, palms up to show she was unarmed. “It’s alright,” she said. “I think we found the Freakin Fairies.”

Nikifor struggled into a sitting position. Five men and three women, all not much more than half his height, emerged from amongst the skeletal Ghost Figs. Their dark hair was tangled in knots and dreadlocks, from which hung objects he suspected had started life in the mouth of a snake. Every one of them wore pants and long-sleeved shirts of tough black leather etched with curling silver designs. Silver dots traced intricate patterns over the women’s faces. “Are you Freakin Fairies?” he blurted.

One of the women loosened a knife at her belt. “Who’s asking?”

Flower began to reply, but the woman shook her head and pointed at Nikifor. “Let the crazy man tell us.”

Nikifor looked up and up and up. The Tormentor’s shadow made him cold. The brand glowed. His eyes hurt in its light. Flagstones hard and cold beneath his knees. He forced words through frozen lips. “No. No don’t do it, it’s madness, please, no, don’t do it-”

A small, leathery hand curled into his hair and yanked his head back. The Freakin Fairy woman’s black eyes loomed so close he could see the flecks of silver in them. She clicked her fingers in front of his eyes. Each tiny sound hit him like a thunderclap.