Changes (The Dresden Files, #12)

by Jim Butcher

Maybe I should have known better. If you don’t stand on the sidelines and ignore the world around you, sooner or later you make enemies. One of mine, a vampire named Bianca, had abducted Susan and infected her with the blood thirst of the Red Court. Susan hadn’t gone all the way over—but if she ever lost control of herself, ever took another’s lifeblood, she would. She left me, afraid that if she didn’t, I’d be the kill that turned her into a monster, and set out into the world to find some way to cope. I told myself that she had good reason to do so, but reason and heartbreak don’t speak the same language. I’d never really forgiven myself for what had happened to her. I guess reason and guilt don’t speak the same language, either.

Wizards and computers get along about as well as flamethrowers and libraries.

The man once wrote: Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Tolkien had that one mostly right.

“Ack!” I said. Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that’s me.

didn’t sleep long, but I did it well. When my old Mickey Mouse windup alarm clock went off at seven, I had to fight my way up from a deep place on the far side of dreamland. I felt like I could use another eighteen or twenty hours.

The extramortal well of power that soulfire offered was formidable in ways I understood only imperfectly. I don’t know if it made my spells any more effective against the Red Court—though I had a hunch that it sure as H-E-double-hockey-sticks did—but I was dead certain that it had drawn upon my own life energy to do it. If I pulled on it too much, well. No more life energy kinda means no more life. And if that energy was indeed the same force that is commonly known as a soul, it might mean oblivion.

The headquarters of the White Council of wizards is a dull, dim, drafty sort of place—not unlike the insides of the heads of a great many people who work there.

“Did the Council carve it out?” “Nah,” I said. “That would have been too much like work. Rumor has it that it used to be the palace of the lord of the Daoine Sidhe. That the original Merlin won it from him in a bet.” “Like, Merlin Merlin?” she asked. “Sword in the stone and so on?” “Same guy,” I said. “Doubt he was much like in the movies.” “Wrote the Laws of Magic, founded the White Council, was custodian of one of the Swords and established a stronghold for the Council, too,” Molly said. “He must have been something else.” “He must have been a real bastard,” I said. “Guys who get their name splashed all over history and folklore don’t tend to be Boy Scout troop leaders.”

“An apprentice wizard? Really? What’s it like?” Molly shrugged, averting her eyes, frowning slightly. “A lot of reading, a lot of boring practice, with occasional flashes of pure terror.”

The freaking Council never does anything quickly, and I had a bad feeling that tempus was fugiting furiously.

People who ask questions and think about their faith are the last ones to embrace dogma—and the last to abandon their path once they’ve set out on it. I felt fairly sure that the Almighty, whatever name tag He had on at the moment, could handle a few questions from people sincerely looking for answers. Hell, He might even like it.

“You can’t plan for everything or you never get started in the first place.

Malevolent energy hovered around us, slow and thick like half-frozen honey. There was a gloating, miserly quality to it, bringing to my mind images of old Smaug lying in covetous slumber upon his bed of treasure.

Some things I had faith in. And faith isn’t about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn’t about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine. Faith is about what you do. It’s about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It’s about making sacrifices for the good of others—even when there’s not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.

“Whatever you do, do it for love. If you keep to that, your path will never wander so far from the light that you can never return.”

Death is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter how you get there. Just when.

“Butters,” I said. “Look at me.” He did, his eyes wide. “Polka,” I said, “will never die.”

“There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English into sanity.”

Thomas barked out a laugh. “There are seven of us against the Red King and his thirteen most powerful nobles, and it’s going well?” Mouse sneezed. “Eight,” Thomas corrected himself. He rolled his eyes and said, “And the psycho death faerie makes it nine.” “It is like movie,” Sanya said, nodding. “Dibs on Legolas.” “Are you kidding?” Thomas said. “I’m obviously Legolas. You’re . . .” He squinted thoughtfully at Sanya and then at Martin. “Well. He’s Boromir and you’re clearly Aragorn.”

“Martin is so dour, he is more like Gimli.” Sanya pointed at Susan. “Her sword is much more like Aragorn’s.” “Aragorn wishes he looked that good,” countered Thomas. “What about Karrin?” Sanya asked. “What—for Gimli?” Thomas mused. “She is fairly—” “Finish that sentence, Raith, and we throw down,” said Murphy in a calm, level voice. “Tough,” Thomas said, his expression aggrieved. “I was going to say ‘tough.’”

“Sanya,” I said. “Who did I get cast as?” “Sam,” Sanya said. I blinked at him. “Not . . . Oh, for crying out loud, it was perfectly obvious who I should have been.” Sanya shrugged. “It was no contest. They gave Gandalf to your godmother. You got Sam.” He started to leave and then paused. “Harry. You have read the books as well, yes?” “Sure,” I said. “Then you know that Sam was the true hero of the tale,” Sanya said. “That he faced far greater and more terrible foes than he ever should have had to face, and did so with courage. That he went alone into a black and terrible land, stormed a dark fortress, and resisted the most terrible temptation of his world for the sake of the friend he loved. That in the end, it was his actions and his actions alone that made it possible for light to overcome darkness.”

I shook my head and berated myself sharply. Here I was wasting time talking about a damned book. About a world of blacks and whites with precious little in the way of grey, where you could tell the good guys from the bad guys with about two seconds of effort.

“Shame, child, is for those who fail to live up to the ideal of what they believe they should be.”

“Stay out of those sunbeams,” I said, waving in the direction of several beams of light so brilliant that they made the Death Star lasers look like they needed to hit the gym.

“History suggests that kings who don’t exercise direct control over their armies don’t tend to remain kings for very long.

Numbers matter. That fact sucks, but that makes it no less true. No matter how just your cause, if you’re outnumbered two to one by a comparable force, you’re gonna have to be real creative to pull out a victory. Ask the Germans who fought on either front of World War II. German tankers would often complain that they would take out ten Allied tanks for every tank they lost—but the Allies always seemed to have tank number eleven ready to go.

“He’s Black Council,” I said. “Or maybe stupid,” Ebenezar countered. I thought about it. “Not sure which is scarier.” Ebenezar blinked at me, then snorted. “Stupid, Hoss. Every time. Only so many blackhearted villains in the world, and they only get uppity on occasion. Stupid’s everywhere, every day.”

I nodded back at him. Then I said, “I don’t know what to say.” His eyes wrinkled up even more heavily at the corners. “Hell, Hoss. Then don’t say anything.” He turned and called over his shoulder, “You get in less trouble that way!”

Even in Winter, the cold isn’t always bitter, and not every day is cruel.

The only thing certain in life is change.