Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson Read online

  It is true that the high-court fae were notoriously fickle. It is also true that a forest lord has two aspects: the first is civilized and beautiful as any of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the second is wild as the forest he rules. The sidhe lady eventually grew bored, or perhaps her distaste for her lover’s wilder half became too strong. Whatever the reason, she left her grown daughter and her lover without a farewell or notice, to return to the court.

  The forest lord mourned his lover only briefly, for his kind, too, are as light in their affections as they are terrible in their hatreds. For a while after she left, he still loved his daughter and took joy in her. But when her power eclipsed his own, he grew jealous and spiteful. When the other fae took notice of her gifts and came to her with gold and jewels to entice her to share her magic, his jealousy outgrew his love and made it as nothing.

  FOUR

  Samuel

  The pack customarily bedded down in the woods behind the witch’s cottage. It was mountainous there, but not particularly cold, though winter still held snow and autumn a fine frost. Our coats were thick, and the interior of the cottage was smoky, too warm, and reeked unpleasantly of rotting things both physical and spiritual.

  I don’t know about my da or the others, but I was happy to be out of the witch’s way as much as possible. She kept us hidden from those who sought her services, both as unseen protection—because she dealt with powerful and dread beings—and as a precaution because she only mostly controlled us. My da she never let too near her unless she had some of the other, more obedient wolves nearby.

  • • •

  My father, curled up by himself, raised his head as I came back from hunting. He stood and gave me a look before turning and trotting off into the woods where the leaves were ruddy and gold. I hesitated, but even then, the obedience was a part of our relationship. Instead of settling down to sleep until morning as I had planned, I stretched twice, then ran in his trail until I caught up. Though I didn’t look behind me, I knew that the others followed—as they always did.

  At first I thought the other wolves followed us to spy for the witch, but time had proven that wrong. There were six of us werewolves, seven really, though we all knew that Adda was dying—he had trouble stumbling down the trail into the hollow, and I would have to help him up it when we returned.

  I had the impression that my father had known some of the wolves from his childhood, but he never confirmed or denied it. He never spoke to them or of them when we were in human form—and they never left their wolf shape.

  Da had found a small sheltered hollow in the lee of a downed oak shortly after the witch had brought us here. It served to keep us hidden and offered some protection from the weather for our naked bodies. Even though my human skin didn’t get cold as it had before the wolf entered my soul, skin was not as good as fur. It wasn’t winter yet, but the leaves had begun to change to autumn’s colors, and there was a bite to the air.

  Da began his change as soon as we were in the oak’s protection, but instead of following his example as I usually did, I hesitated. Life was easier when I let the wolf rule the man. The wolf killed and killed, and it did not turn his stomach or make him mourn for the creature he used to be.

  Da saw that I was hesitating and growled at me—a demand the wolf wouldn’t disobey even if I wanted to.

  It hurt. I don’t know how my father even figured out that we could change back to human. I didn’t remember doing it the first time—if I thought about it too long, there were a frightening number of things I couldn’t remember very well. It had taken me a while before I realized that, when my grandmother chose to use my pain to feed her magic, she sometimes stole more than just blood or flesh.

  Skin absorbing fur felt like bee stings. The crack of bone was no less painful than a real break. The witch didn’t want her wolves to turn human, but I didn’t understand that then. Didn’t understand how her magic fought the change to human—I just knew that it hurt. She must have known we changed into our human skins. I do not know why she didn’t interrupt. Perhaps she was more afraid of my father than she let on.

  “Why are we still doing this?” I asked Da while I was still on hands and knees and sweating from the required effort. “What good does it do except to remind us of what we once were?”

  He frowned at me. “I made a promise to your mother, boy. When I told her what my blood was, I promised that I would never allow you to stay in my mother’s hands. If you lose your humanity to the wolf—then my mother has won.”

  I stood up, waited until I was steady on my feet, then raised my hands and turned around slowly so he could see all of me, naked and filthy. “There is more to being human than the resemblance I bear to a man, Da. I have left humanity so far behind . . .”

  “No,” he growled. He jerked his chin toward the other wolves. “Not like they have. You know right from wrong. Good from evil.”

  “It would be easier if I could forget.” I knew what he would say even before he said it; he was not fond of self-pity, my da.

  “Easier doesn’t mean better.” He didn’t say anything more. We never talked much at times like these, when he required me to take on human form. What was there to say? Neither of us wanted to talk of people long dead, nor of the day just past, or the one to come.

  He believed that his mother would grow complacent and make a mistake. I had believed him long past foolish hope, but years and decades, and then tens of decades had worn my faith away as a river wears away stone. But I loved my da, and I would not hurt him more with my disbelief—let him believe in a better end than I saw. The end would come whatever we believed, and he found comfort in that future he saw for us. I did not tell him that even if we broke free—we would still be the monsters she had made us. My da, he was a smart man, he knew that as well as I did.

  The other wolves waited, their eyes trained on my da. But it was the soft whine from Adda that my da acquiesced to. He sat down on the ground, threw back his head, and sang. I settled with my back to the oak and listened.

  His voice had lost the old man’s quaver I’d noticed in that last winter we’d spent together as humans, just as both of us had lost the silver hair and the aging skin. Made young again by my grandmother’s magic or the bite of the wolf, I had no reason to ask or care.

  My father had no instrument but that with which he was born, but that was fine indeed. When he sang, the others gathered around closely, but he only looked at the dying wolf, who laid his muzzle on my father’s naked thigh and listened as his breath wheezed in and out. The music and the touch of my da’s hand seemed to comfort him.

  Witches use the suffering of others for their power, and a werewolf could suffer a great deal before he died. The first sign that Adda was dying was when his ears never grew back quite right. Healthy, we could regrow bits and pieces we lost. Instead of leaving him be, letting him get stronger as she’d done a time or two to others, she’d taken his left front paw when she needed to harvest his pain for her power. We all did what we could for him. When he died, she would spend time with all of us again, until someone started to weaken. Then she would single him out and kill him by inches.

  There had been two other wolves who had died that slow death, but my father had not sung to them. Had not sung at all in all the years of our captivity until this wolf had appealed to him without words. I didn’t know why this wolf was different—and I would not ask him.

  After a while, I joined in Da’s song. Our voices worked well together, as they always had. Music hurt more than the shift to human had because music recalled better days, days when I had loved and was loved in return, days when the turning of seasons had meaning. But it hurt worse not to sing. Moreover, when it brought my father some bits of joy, even in the darkest day, how could I not sing?

  • • •

  When change came, it snuck up on me. I did not recognize it for what it was when it began. Autumn ruled, still,
but the nights were longer, and I could catch the acrid smell of snow in the air. Not today or the next day, but sometime in the next week there would be a storm.

  I was not far from the cottage when I spied one of the fair folk coming to call on the witch. That was unusual because the fair folk, the Tylwyth Teg, had their own powers and usually would have no truck with witchcraft. He was, as they all were, beautiful: tall with eyes as deep blue as the winter sea under dark skies. His skin was silvery with cracks of darkness like the bark of the bedwyn.

  Before my grandmother turned me into this beast I had never seen a fae, though I’d heard stories about them. They were still a rare enough sight to attract my interest. After a brief hesitation, I abandoned the rabbit’s trail I’d been following to ghost behind the fae instead.

  Tromping through the remains of the autumn leaves in the witch’s woods with no weapon in his hand and looking neither left nor right, this one looked as though he would be easy prey.

  I knew better.

  The fae were tough, vicious, and deadly—especially the ones that strode through the forest as though they owned it. The lesser fae mostly stayed to the shadows and kept out of the way of things with big, sharp teeth. This one was not one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the high-court lords, who, above all else, my grandmother feared, so I was under no obligation of her magical chains to report his intrusion. But he was a power; I could feel the forest’s attention upon him.

  I moved closer to let my nose get a better read on this one. His track smelled of bitterness and jealousy, small, sniveling emotions, though his body language and the forest alertness spoke of his power. I stayed out of his sight as he walked directly to the clearing where the witch made her home.

  He rapped sharply on the door, and my grandmother opened it. She was dressed in a thin shift that left nothing to the imagination, and her thick sandy hair glimmered in the sun like honey pouring over her shoulders and hips. She raised her eyebrows when she got a good look, but she stepped back from the entry and let him in without protest.

  Curiosity had me skulking to the side of the building and pressing my ear to the wall. She didn’t know we could hear what went on in the cottage, and we weren’t telling her.

  “I am surprised,” my grandmother said coyly, “to see one of your ilk here calling on such as me.”

  She was pretty, my grandmother, but not as beautiful as the fair folk; nor was she stupid. If she sounded coy, it was to make the fae believe her less than she was. Powerful things in his world didn’t bow and scrape or creep; they attacked from the front with plenty of warning.

  “I am the lord of this forest,” he told her.

  She believed the forest was hers; indeed, the locals called it the Witch’s Woods.

  “I know, I know,” she said without hesitation, and her disdain was sly and hidden. “The birds whisper it to me, and the wind sings with your power. But two nights ago a pair of faery sight hounds came to me. They wore coats of white and rust, and in that way I knew them for fear hounds, the banehounds of old. So fearsome they were, as to stop the very heart in my chest. They came to my dreams and told me that they were gone away. That you could no more hold them obedient. They broke free of your leash. Such creatures do not make good slaves, so they told me.” Her voice was innocent and light—but I could feel the malice in her intent.

  “Take care, witch,” he said.

  “They left a promise and a warning for you,” she said, her voice softening. “They said that the power you threw away to pad your vanity will not return to you because the followers of the sacrificed god have reached our shores. Already, Underhill writhes under their cold iron and colder prayers. In a few centuries, they will bind the magic in this land, and all the fae will be powerless before them.”

  I heard a noise, the sound of flat hand meeting cheek, and smirked inwardly because I cared not a smidgen for either of them. He had hit her, and he would pay dearly for it.

  “You overstep yourself, witch,” he snarled. “You are here on my sufferance, your presence debases my forest with foulness, and you draw the mortals who seek you through my lands.”

  There was a little silence.

  I wondered if we would feast on a forest lord tonight. I licked my lips. Hunting had been lean within the area around the cottage where we could roam without leave from the witch, and she had not been inclined to allow us to forage farther afield.

  “I meant no disrespect, sir,” she said in an obsequious voice that managed to convey fear and respect. Oh, yes, I thought, we would dine on this one. “I only relay information I have been given. I thought you came because you needed something from me. Did you come to drive me away?”

  I could hear the rustle of fabric as he paced.

  “I need to call my hounds again,” the fae lord said, his voice low and vicious. “I have a task to set them to. You will make it possible, or you will not need to worry about where you might live.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. I understand, sir,” her voice was sweet and honey-soft. “Is your need life-and-death? Or simply desire?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I cannot help if you do not tell me,” she pled. “My magic responds to need. I must know what you want and how much you want it.” I wondered why the fae could not hear the lie as clearly as I could—but he did not know her, and she lied very well. The fae lied not at all, and so were not always good at seeing untruths when they were uttered.

  “Yes,” his answer to her was reluctant. “Life-and-death. My word has been given to someone who will destroy me if I cannot keep it.”

  “Then I can do something,” said my grandmother briskly, as if a servile tone had never touched her voice. “I can give you power to call hounds. But, as I am sure you know, my power works on sacrifice. For this, the cost will be dear.”

  “Not just any hounds,” he said sharply, thinking he saw her trap. The fae didn’t lie, but deception was an art form to them. “The magical beasts.”

  I didn’t need to see her smile to feel her satisfaction as he came to her trap without seeing it at all. He was prey, no matter how powerful he was. He was not clever enough to escape her—and she would forgive neither the slap nor the threat.

  “Magical beasts in doglike form,” she clarified. He hadn’t listened to her. She’d told him that he wouldn’t be able to call the fae dogs again. But she was not fae. She could lie all the time—and she did so when it suited her. But I could tell that she had not lied about that. Magical beasts in doglike form—that would be us.

  She meant to let him call wolves when he expected his own hounds. Maybe, maybe if he had controlled the fae banehounds, who were fearsome beasts, he could control us. For a while.

  “Yes,” the forest lord said, not questioning her phrasing. After all, she was only responding to his request to clarify. He never thought to ask her what other magical doglike beasts there were nearby.

  I didn’t know if he was truly stupid, or if he did not recognize the threat she represented. The fae were proud, worse back in those days, when they ruled, and the humans feared. They did not easily take notice of threats that were not fae in origin.

  “I can do that,” she said slowly, as if after careful consideration. “You will pay me a pound of silver.”

  “Fine,” he said easily, though it was more than she’d normally have seen in ten years of work.

  “That is the cost you owe me,” she told him. “But the magic will cost your hand—all witchcraft magic has a price, and I cannot bear that for you. You can decide if it is the left or right.”

  Silence enveloped the hut, and I left before that changed. If she realized I was there, she would make me do it—just because she knew it would hurt me. There was the faint possibility that she might do it herself; she enjoyed causing pain. But bones are hard to sever—and that one’s wrath would focus on the one who took his hand. Probably it wou
ld be Dafydd, who led our pack. Let Dafydd chew the fae’s hand off; he would enjoy it more than I.

  Dafydd was not the name the leader of our wolf pack was born with, any more than my father was Selyf or I was Sawyl—David, Solomon, and Samuel. She changed our names each time she moved—which she did when the mood took her. Sometimes we moved every month for a year. Sometimes we stayed in a place, as we had here, for decades. This time in this place, it pleased my grandmother to use names found in the stories of the followers of the sacrificed god. I did not know why and did not care.

  I had forgotten my own name. Sawyl or Samuel would do. Whatever name she called him by, though, my da, he was Bran—and she could not take that away from me.

  FIVE

  Ariana

  The little hobgoblin did her best to follow orders no matter how her heart hurt. Haida cleaned the shivering, scared thing that used to be her lady, paying no attention to the way it flinched or gibbered or cried—just as she had been instructed. She also ignored the way the magic swirled around it, volatile and miserable and . . . deadly.

  Haida covered the open wounds in salves that she had made herself this morning from plants she had gathered Outside. Neither she nor her lady trusted anything in their home: it was unstable, reflecting the madness of its lord. In an older time, this would not have been dangerous: Underhill was vast and had been robust, healing itself of spiritual wounds. But Underhill was losing its connection to the mundane world and becoming capricious. For those who dwelt in the forest lord’s home in Underhill, the wise ate and drank nothing that had been in the cupboards overnight nor anything that had dwelt in the home as long as a day.

  When the hobgoblin had done what she could for the wounds with her salves, she covered the shivering form with clothing and jewels strung on silver chains, then began the process of helping the creature to a stool where it could sit and eat.

  “Don’t think of me as a person when I’m like that,” her lady had told her. “I know I look like myself, but it is not me. It is a beast. A dangerous beast. Be cautious and careful. You alone can help me defeat him.”