Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson

by Patricia Briggs

The first transformation from human to werewolf is harsh under the best of circumstances. I now know that most people attacked brutally enough to be Changed die. The witch had some way to interfere, to hold her victims to life until they became the beasts she desired. Even so, I would have died if my da had not anchored me. I heard his voice in my head, cool and demanding, and I had to obey him, had to live. That he was able to do this while undergoing a like fate to mine is a fair insight into the man my da is. That I lived was something that took me a very long time to forgive him for.

My da likes to say that sometimes forgetfulness is a gift. Perhaps had I remembered them clearly, remembered what I’d once had, I would not have survived my time serving the witch. I learned to live in the moment, and the wolf who shared my body and soul made it easy: a beast feels no remorse for the past nor hope for the future.

They called their daughter Ariana, which means silver, as she early on had an affinity for that metal. As she grew up, it became apparent that her power harked back to the height of fae glory. By the time she reached adulthood, her power outshone even the forest lord’s, and he was centuries old and steeped with the magic of the forest. 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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

“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.

“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.

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.

“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.”

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.

Haida’s lady, Ariana, was strong with magic from both sides of her bloodline. The magic allowed her to heal from things that would have killed a hobgoblin. Her father was a forest lord, an independent but powerful fae, her mother one of the high ladies of the highest courts—and would that she were here. But it had been years since she left, and not a word of reply to any message or plea sent by the hobgoblin who had once served her faithfully and now served her daughter.

“Samuel,” the beast murmured more gently, sounding too much like her lady. It released Haida and rubbed at its eyes as it whispered, “They come, the wolves. Death comes with them. Remember.”

When she had the proper shape of the magic within her, she settled her magic on the beast. She petted its forehead, and said, “Forget. Let the mists hide the worst and leave only the best.” Her magic snuck in and clothed the beast’s memories in kindness, a thing possible only because the beast allowed it. The change was immediate—the terrible beast faded. Instead of the horrible wounded thing, her lady blinked at Haida, the blackness shrinking down until it was pupil only and her eyes were wide and jewel green. Open wounds were absorbed by deep brown skin, scars hidden by glamour until she looked no different than she ever had.

Her father the forest lord was dual-natured. He had the form of the sidhe, and another of a forest fae. Ariana’s beast was born of that heritage, but had her father not brutalized her with pain and the terror of the hounds he commanded, it would never have materialized. The beast, a creature of the forest, unlike Ariana, could not disobey a direct order from the forest lord—what had started out as a punishment had borne useful fruit for Ariana’s father.

The little hobgoblin, green-gray and covered with wiry hair from head to feet, was closer to the Heart of Magic than the Tylwyth Teg, the greater fae like Ariana. Haida was like a shepherd who cared for the flocks and Ariana a weaver who worked tapestries with their yarn. One was not inherently more skilled or powerful than the other but differently able. Other fae did not see it as Ariana did, including Haida. To them, lesser fae were weak, but for her father, their home shivered and groaned, while only Haida could bring it comfort. If it had not been for Haida, Ariana knew she would have long ago been lost to the beast.

“How long this time?” she asked Haida as Ariana walked out of the kitchen and down the hall with the poise her mother had drilled into her before she left. The advantage of moving with grace was that it kept her centered, so she didn’t fall on her face. Every time her bare feet touched the floor, she drew magic from the earth to strengthen herself just as the food she’d eaten had strengthened her. “Four days,” Haida told her. “He left as soon as the dogs finished.” That was unusual. He liked to supervise her work, though what she did was so far outside of his forest-bound magic that he could not follow it.

There was nothing left, now, of the father who had loved her. The one who had taken her on long walks in the woods and taught her to speak to the deep-voiced oaks and the quivering willow. No more than there was anything left of the daughter who had loved him and believed that he could do no wrong. He’d told her that he had a commission for which he’d been well paid in favors and power—the power was what he craved, almost as much as he wanted to see her reduced to something that could only obey him, something he had no reason to be jealous of. She was to make a weapon that could be used to siphon the magic from any fae, sidhe, hobgoblin, and anything in between.

By the artifact’s very existence, it would cause a war that would not end until there was no one left who desired it. Ultimately it would bring an end to the fae and everything they would destroy in their wake.

“The main spell is set,” she told Haida, her voice raw. She held the destruction of the world in her hand. “We are undone.” “Can you use it to destroy him?” asked the hobgoblin, ever practical. “When the sight of him turns my knees to water?” Ariana said bitterly. “He has changed me. Made me a frightened and powerless creature who is as obedient to his command as any of his hounds ever were. I cannot move against him in his presence.” Once, she’d been strong-willed and powerful, but now she was nothing, a shadow of what she had been—broken to her father’s will except in these stolen moments.

“If you have finished what he wanted, we should leave. He will follow—he cannot be what he is and not give chase. But he will play with his new toy first. It will give us a chance to lose ourselves in the world. I can keep us hidden from his hounds for many days. My magic is not powerful, but it is subtle.”

Once a spell was sealed into the silver, she could not unwork it—any more than anyone else could. She held her hand near and watched as the silver called her magic. “As I said,” she told Haida slowly, “this will eat the magic of any fae.” She paused, examining the flow of the magic in the silver because there was something unexpected that she had to work out. “Maybe I can squeeze the flow until it is only a bare trickle. If it can only pull a little, how much harm can it do?”

“But I can make it so the magic it collects dissipates back to the Heart of Magic.” The Heart of Magic was the center of the world. Magic held in the Heart did not come readily to anyone’s hand but caused the wind to blow and the rain to fall. Ariana smiled fiercely at her little friend. “And—thus fulfilling the geas and thwarting my father.”

A fae of average power would have to keep the artifact the beast had crafted for weeks before it had an appreciable effect on his magic. So much the beast had managed. She lost track of time, so tired she did not realize that it meant the beast had come to help. When she came to herself, she held a silver bird in her hand and just enough magic in her body to tell that it was an artifact, sealed and done. But she could not tell if she had accomplished her purpose or not.

Whatever she and her beast had managed, it had thwarted her father’s will. She might die, but he could not use her to destroy the world. “It does what I promised you it would. What the thing you turned me into by the tender care of your hounds promised you that the artifact would do. It eats the magic of any fae the wielder desires and allows it to be consumed again. Finished and sealed, so it cannot again be altered.” She could not lie and did not need to. The first part had been done when she and Haida had sought to deflect the artifact’s purpose. The last she knew as well. However else the artifact functioned, she had not broken the word given by the beast.

There was a moment when we were free of thrall, after the forest lord blew his horn the second time, after we topped the rise, so he could plainly see that what had come to his call was not his hounds. While he stood in shock, we were free. I had not realized until then that the witch had given up her hold upon us when he summoned us with his horn. I was of free will for the first time since she’d knocked upon my door and turned my father and me into monsters.

The forest lord turned his attention to the girl curled up on the ground in front of him. “You are of no further use to me.” Next to his bulk, she looked frail and helpless. I could not see her face, only a long fall of pale silver hair touched with lavender that could not have belonged to a human. He looked at us then, smiled savagely, and said, “Direwolves. I had heard the witch had such to serve her. You are not my hounds, but you will suffice for this. Hurt this woman for me. She is meant to die today, but I want her to suffer first.” Slaved to his purpose, the pack ran to do his bidding. All except my father and I.

“I mean no harm, little one,” I told her. “I have some training. Let me help.” “You would help my lady? You who hurt her?” The words were clear, if oddly accented. “Before I was a monster, I was a healer,” I told her. “This hurt I and my—” My what? Fellow monsters? It had been a long, long time since I’d talked to anyone but my da. It felt odd to put my thoughts into words, especially as I was distracted. “My pack. We were under duress and would not have hurt her otherwise.” A lie. I did not lie. Once, it had been a matter of pride to me. So I amended my statement to make it truth. “I would not have hurt her otherwise.”

“She is two-natured, like you and her father, though not two-formed. This aspect, her sidhe aspect, is impervious to her father’s commands. But her other self is closer to the natural world and must obey him. It rises to protect her from danger or harm. Her father needed her obedience to build a thing—a powerful and bad thing. She would not do it, so he tortured her with fear and pain until the other part of her rose.”

My father said a name that slid off my ears. He waited a moment, then said, “Samuel?” I must have looked a little wild-eyed when I turned to him. “She stole my memories. Stole my name.” He nodded once. “There will be a reckoning.” “Do you remember them? My wife and children?” I asked. When he nodded again, my panic eased. “As long as someone does, they aren’t lost.” “They are not lost as long as I live,” my father agreed. “I’ll remember them for you.

She contemplated another True Name she had not let escape: Samuel Silverheart. She was named for the metal—Ariana and silver were not always the same. But she feared that the name meant what it sounded like; she could not love a wolf. “I am Ariana,” she told him when the bowl was empty. He bowed his head. “I wish that our first meeting had been different, lady. But upon this our second meeting, I say that I am happy to make your acquaintance.”

If it hadn’t been for his kindness to her little champion, she might have resisted him longer—no matter the serious attention he’d given to her women’s work. He was human (and wolf, warned her beast, though it wasn’t loud around Samuel). Ariana wasn’t used to small kindnesses being dealt out by men, and she felt herself falling under the spell of the soft-spoken Samuel, just as Haida was.

It took her a week before she admitted that she’d named him true: Silverheart, Ariana’s heart. Her body loved his form, but her heart loved the man within who had so much kindness inside him.

Some of the ingredients were new to me. When I asked about those, Haida’s eyes grew round, and she ducked her head, glancing around herself, as if asking for permission. “That would be Underhill,” she said. “This part of Underhill, anyway. It likes you. Brings out favorites to share with you.” Some of those ingredients I learned centuries later. Saffron, paprika, black pepper—spices from all over the world. It was there I first tasted oranges, bananas, and potatoes. Some of the foods I ate there I never knowingly tasted again.

“Of course you will. Everyone hurts everyone—it is a part of living.

“Ariana is strong and true as a good oak tree.” Haida set her wooden spoon to rest on a small table and turned to look at me. “No,” she said, heavily. “No, she is not. Once, she was lovely and sweet and, it hurts me to confess, spoiled. Beloved daughter. But immortality is more curse than blessing. All things pass away. Love may live for a month or a year, but sooner or later, it leaves.” I stopped working with the mortar. “No,” I told her, because my heart knew better. “That is not true.” “Have you lived so long as I?” she asked. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I have lived long enough to know that love doesn’t die.”

Love, like any other living thing, needs to be fed. Only if you starve it will it die.”

Ariana’s father ruined her. If you hurt her or scare her, the beast will attack. It is dangerous.” “So am I,” I told her. “It was afraid of her father and could not disobey him,” she said. “But her father is no more, and it will do anything to protect her. Anything. And nothing you are is sufficient to protect yourself from it.” She meant it. I could smell her fear of the beast inside her lady.

“Take this,” she said, and she gave me a silver chain, long enough to wrap twice around my neck. “My home can be difficult to find. If you are wearing this chain in my father’s . . . in this forest and say my name three times, you’ll find yourself on my doorstep without delay.” The silver burned my hand, and I dropped it with a hiss. She picked it up. “Silver burns evil,” I told her. “Nonsense,” she said. “My father wore silver, and it never burned him.” She ran the chain through her fingers once. “I don’t have much magic left, but silver loves me. Try it now.” I took it, and it lay gently on my hands. And when I put the chain over my head and settled it around my neck, it did not burn. It was chill from her magic. “I don’t know that I will be able to come back,” I said. “If you will let me have a lock of your hair, with Haida’s aid I can come to you,” Ariana told me. “I may be without power, but Haida is more than a match for a mortal witch. I have a debt to settle.”

“I wasted the fairy lord’s pain, not realizing what I had until I had finished with it—the fool angered me too much, and I was not attending my business properly. He told me he was a great lord—but all the fae do that. I didn’t believe him. I have never heard of a great fae lord losing his magic—not while Underhill still stands. They cannot lie, Sawyl, but they can stretch the truth into a lie. Assuming he was less than he claimed, I tried to use the magic his sacrifice gave me. It was too much, and I forfeited the power of it rather than destroy myself.” That explained the burnt hut. Magic’s first child is always fire.

As I paced slowly forward, my eyes lingered on him. Don’t let her touch you. Do not give her access to the fae woman. She broke some larger spell when she threw away the fae lord’s power. Without more fae blood, she will die. She must die. I had only once heard my da’s voice so clearly in my head, when he had held me alive when Dafydd’s fangs had changed me into what I now was. The shock of it froze me where I stood.

Yet between us lay the death of Haida, forming an impenetrable barrier between us. “I will carry you in my heart until it beats no more,” I told her, giving her the only thing I could think of that would not hurt her more.

He had never seen the two fae again, either, but unlike any of the vampires he’d met since then, he saw the sun every day and it did not burn him. He no longer needed to feed from a vampire in order to survive. Margaret had given him everything he’d desired as well as the feeding he’d asked for.

The fae didn’t like vampires. Thomas would have left because, with one exception, he didn’t like the fae, either. But it hadn’t been Nick who had brought him here; it had been Margaret. For her, he would do what he could. “I owe Margaret Flanagan,” said Thomas, who was better educated about fae than he’d been a hundred years ago. He knew what he was admitting—and that the fae would take it very seriously. “What she did for me was far more than what little I managed for her. I swear I mean no harm to her or hers.”

As soon as he entered the room on Nick’s heels, everyone stood up—almost everyone. The kid on the piano bench just relaxed a little more. Thomas judged him the biggest threat: the really powerful ones often disguised themselves as something soft and helpless.

“Let me begin this tale in its proper place—with the Flanagan,” he said. “He was high-court fae.

“Once upon a time, the Irish fae would have squashed them all, but then came the ironmongers and their Christ and they bound the old places. Left us crippled and weak.” “It didn’t hurt us as badly,” said the woman softly. “We have more iron-kissed among us, we Finns and Nordic folk.” “Iron-kissed?” asked Thomas. “Those who work metals: dwarves, hiisi—some of them anyway, metal mages. So for thirty years we controlled the land here, and among us was one, a hiisi, who . . . was not kind to the other fae.”

“He pushed the hiisi—this was an old and powerful hiisi—into summoning the Iku-Tursas. The Flanagan could have worked something out, but he pushed and pushed and would not compromise.” Thomas frowned. Iku-Tursas. The name sounded familiar. He’d had some friends in school: Juhani Koskinen, Matti Makela, and another boy who was also Finnish. They told him a story once. “The dragon,” Thomas said. “But I thought it was a sea serpent.”

“It picked groups of miners with fae among them to frighten,” said Nick, picking up his story from where he’d left off. “Eventually one of them figured out that the water they’d been hitting wasn’t just an accident of geology. He took the tale to the Flanagan.” “He was supposed to charge off to confront the Finnish fae who was tormenting his people,” said the old man. “He would have, too, if certain people hadn’t gone to him and told him that what he faced wasn’t just any fae.” “There was betrayal on both sides,” said the woman. “Some did not think that the Flanagan was strong enough to keep his promises and it would be the less powerful fae who would suffer. Others looked to him for justice and a way out from under the hiisi’s thumb.” She rubbed absently at the fabric of the couch where she sat. “It didn’t matter. He went anyway.”