by Jim Butcher
The Merlin sighed. “Under normal circumstances, Wizard Liberty, of course. But we have little time for the niceties of our usual procedures. Time is of the essence. So, all in—”
Injun Joe interrupted. “Wizard Schneider is a fine enchanter, and he has a reputation for skill and honesty. But he is young for such a responsibility. There are wizards present who are his senior in experience and the Art. They deserve the consideration of the Council.”
The Merlin shot Injun Joe a frown. “Thankyou for your perspective, Wizard Listens to Wind. But though your commentary is welcome, it was not asked for. There is no one present senior to Wizard Schneider who has not already declined a seat upon the Senior Council, and rather than run through meaningless nominations and repeated declinations, I had intended—”
Ebenezar cut in, sotto voce but loud enough for the Merlin to hear him, in English. “You had intended to shove your favorite down everyone’s throats while they were too worried to notice.”
The Merlin fell abruptly quiet, his eyes falling on Ebenezar in a sudden, pointed silence. He spoke in a low voice, his English carrying a rich British accent. “Go back to your mountain, Ebenezar. Back to your sheep. You are not welcome here, and never have been.”
Ebenezar looked up at the Merlin with a toothy smile, Scots creeping back into his vowels. “Aye, Alfred, laddie, I know.” He switched back to Latin and raised his voice again. “Every member of the Council has a right to speak his mind on these matters. You all know how important the appointment of one Senior Council member is. How many of you believe this matter too serious to leave to a consensus? Speak now.”
The theater rumbled with a general “Aye,” to which I added my own voice. Ebenezar looked around the room and then raised an eyebrow at the Merlin.
I could see frustration not quite hidden on the old man’s face. I could almost taste his desire to slam his fist down on the podium, but he controlled himself and nodded. “Very well. Then, in accordance with procedure, we will offer the position to the senior-most wizards present.” He looked to one side, where a slim-faced, prim-looking wizard sat with a quill, a bottle of ink, and pages and pages of parchment. “Wizard Peabody, will you consult the registry?”
Peabody reached under his table and came out with a bulging satchel. He muttered something to himself and rubbed some ink onto his nose with one finger, then he opened the satchel, which held what looked like a couple of reams of parchment. His eyes glazed over slightly, and he reached into the papers seemingly at random. He drew out a single page, put it on the desk before him, nodded in satisfaction, then read in a reedy voice, “Wizard Montjoy.”
“Research trip in the Yucatán,” Martha Liberty said.
Peabody nodded. “Wizard Gomez.”
“Still sleeping off that potion,” provided a grey-cloaked Warden standing by the wall.
Peabody nodded. “Wizard Luciozzi.”
“Sabbatical,” said the blue-bearded and tattooed wizard behind me. Ebenezar frowned, and one of his cheeks twitched in a nervous tic.
It went on like that for close to a quarter hour. Some of the more interesting reasons for absence included “He got real married,” “Living under the polar ice cap,” and “Pyramid sitting,” whatever that was.
Peabody finally read, with a glance up at the Merlin, “Wizard McCoy.” Ebenezar grunted and stood. Peabody read another half-dozen names before stating, “Wizard Schneider.”
A small, round-cheeked man with a fringe of gauzy white down over his scalp and a round belly stretching his robes stood up and gave Ebenezar a brief nod. Then he looked up at the Merlin and said, in Latin with a heavy Germanic accent, “While I am grateful for the offer, honored Merlin, I must respectfully decline your nomination, in favor of Wizard McCoy. He will serve the Council more ably than I.”
The Merlin looked as though someone had grated slices of lemon against his gums. “Very well,” he said. “Do any other senior wizards here wish to present themselves for consideration over Wizard McCoy?”
I was betting no one would, especially given the looks on the faces of the wizards nearby. Ebenezar himself never moved his eyes from the Merlin. He just stood with his feet spread wide apart and planted, his eyes steady, confident. Silence fell over the hall.
The Merlin looked around the hall, his lips pressed tightly together. Finally, he gave his head a very slight shake. “All in favor?”
The room rumbled with a second, more affirmative “Aye.”
“Very well,” the Merlin said, his upper lip twisting and giving the words an acid edge. “Wizard McCoy, take your place upon the Senior Council.”
There was a murmur of what sounded a bit like relief from those in the hall. Ebenezar glanced back and winked at me. “One down. Two to go,” he murmured. “Stay sharp.” Then he hitched up his robes and stumped onto the stage, to the empty podium between Martha Liberty and Injun Joe. “Less talking, more doing,” he said, loudly enough to be heard by the whole hall. “There’s a war on.”
“Precisely what I was thinking,” the Merlin said, and nodded to one side. “Let us address the war. Warden Morgan, would you please stand forward and give the Council the Wardens’ tactical assessment of the Red Court?”
An oppressive silence settled over the room, so that I heard every sound of Morgan’s boots as he stepped up onto the stage. The Merlin moved aside, and Morgan placed a glittering gem or crystal of some kind upon the podium. Behind that, he set a candle, which he lit with a muttered incantation. Then he framed the candle with his hands and murmured again.
Light streaked from the candle into the crystal in a glowing stream and sprang up out of the crystal again in a large cone stretching up above the stage, several yards across at the top. Within the cone of light appeared a spinning globe of the Earth, its continents vaguely misshapen, like something drawn from a couple of centuries past.
A murmur ran through the room, and Bluebeard, at my table, muttered in Latin, “Impressive.”
“Bah,” I said in English. “He stole that fromReturn of the Jedi. ”
Bluebeard blinked at me, uncomprehending. I briefly debated trying to translateStar Wars into Latin and decided against it. See, I can have common sense, too.
Morgan’s low voice rumbled out in Latin phrases, rough but understandable. Which meant he spoke it better than me. Jerk. “The flashing red spots on the map are the locations of known attacks of the Red Court and their allies. Most of them resulted in casualties of one form or another.” As he spoke, widely scattered motes of red color began to form on the globe like the glowing lights of a Christmas tree. “As you can see, most of the activity has taken place in Western Europe.”
A mutter went through the room. The Old World was the domain of the Old School of wizardry—the “maintain secrecy and don’t attract attention” way of thinking. I guess they have a point, given the Inquisition and all. I don’t belong to the Old School. I have an ad in the Yellow Pages, under “Wizards.” Big shocker—I’m the only one there. I have to pay the bills somehow, don’t I?
Morgan droned on dispassionately. “We have known for a long time that the main power center of the Red Court is somewhere in South America. Our sources there are under pressure, and it has become difficult to get any information out of the area. We have had advance warning of several attacks, and the Wardens have managed to intercede with minimal losses of life, with the exception of the attack at Archangel.” The globe paused in its spinning, and my eyes fastened on the glowing point of light on the northwest coast of Russia. “Though it is presumed that Wizard Pietrovich’s death curse took a heavy toll on his attackers, no one in his household survived the attack. We don’t know how they got past his defenses. It would appear that the Red Court may have access to information or aspects of the Art that they have not before had.”
The Merlin stepped back to the podium, and Morgan collected his crystal. The globe vanished. “Thank you, Warden,” the Merlin said. “As we expected from Council records, our various
retreats and Paths through the Nevernever are threatened. Frankly speaking, ladies and gentlemen, the Red Court holds us at a disadvantage within the mortal world. Modern technology so often disagrees with us that it makes travel difficult under the best of circumstances and unreliable in a time of conflict. We vitally need to secure safe Paths through the Nevernever or else risk being engaged and overwhelmed in detail by an opponent who can move more rapidly than we. To that end, we have dispatched missives to both Queens of the Sidhe. Ancient Mai.”
My eyes flickered to the podium to the Merlin’s left, where stood another of the Senior Council members, apparently the Ancient Mai. She was a tiny woman of Oriental extraction, her skin fine and pale, her granite-colored hair worn in a long braid curled up at the back of her head and held with a pair of jade combs. She had delicate features only lightly touched by the passage of years, though her dark eyes were rheumy. She unfolded a letter written upon parchment and addressed the Council in a creaky but firm voice. “From Summer, we received this answer. ‘Queen Titania does not now, nor will she ever choose sides in the disputes of mortal and anthrophage. She bids both Council and Court alike to keep their war well away from the realms of Summer. She will remain neutral.” ’
Ebenezar frowned and leaned forward to ask, “And from Winter?”
I twitched.
The Ancient tilted her head and regarded Ebenezar in perfect silence for a moment, somehow implying her annoyance at his interruption. “Our courier did not return. Upon consulting records of former conflicts, we may confidently assume that Queen Mab will involve herself, if at all, in a time and manner of her own choosing.”
I twitched more. There was a pitcher of water on the table, along with some glasses. I poured a drink. The pitcher only rattled against the cup a little. I glanced back at Bluebeard and saw him regarding me with a pensive gaze.
Ebenezar scowled. “Now what is that supposed to mean?”
The Merlin stepped in smoothly. “It means that we must continue whatever diplomacy we may with Winter. At all costs, we must secure the cooperation of one of the Sidhe Queens—or at least prevent the Red Court from accomplishing an alliance of its own until this conflict can be resolved.”
Martha Liberty lifted both eyebrows. “Resolved?” she said, her tone pointed. “I would have chosen a word like ‘finished’ myself.”
The Merlin shook his head. “Wizard Liberty, there is no need for this dispute to devolve into an even more destructive conflict. If there exists even a small chance that an armistice can be attained—”
The black woman’s voice lashed out at the Merlin, harsh and cold. “Ask Simon Pietrovich how interested the vampires are in reaching a peaceable settlement.”
“Contain your emotions, Wizard,” the Merlin replied, his voice calm. “The loss of Pietrovich strikes each of us deeply, but we cannot allow that loss to blind us to potential solutions.”
“Simon knew them, Merlin,” Martha said, her tone flat. “He knew them better than any of us, and they killed him. Do you really think that they will be inclined to seek a reasonable peace with us, when they have already destroyed the wizard best able to protect himself against them? Why should they seek a peace, Merlin? They’rewinning .”
The Merlin waved a hand. “Your anger clouds your judgement. They will seek a peace because even in victory they would pay too high a cost.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Martha said. “They will never sue for peace.”
“In point of fact,” said the Merlin, “they already have.” He gestured to the second podium on his left. “Wizard LaFortier.”
LaFortier was an emaciated man of medium height and build. His cheekbones stood out grotesquely from his sunken face, and his bulging eyes looked a couple of sizes too large. He had no hair at all, not even eyebrows, and on the whole it gave him a skeletal look. When he spoke, his voice came out in a resonant basso, deep and warm and smooth. “Thank you, Merlin.” He held up an envelope in one thin-fingered hand. “I have here a missive from Duke Ortega, the war leader of the Red Court, received this morning. In it he details the Red Court’s motivations in this matter and the terms they desire for peace. He also offers, by token of goodwill, a temporary cessation of hostilities in order to give the Council time to consider, effective this morning.”
“Bullshit!” The word burst out of my mouth before my brain realized I had said it. A round of snickers, mostly from brown-robed apprentices, echoed through the theater, and I heard fabric rustle as every wizard in the place turned to look at me. I felt my face heat again, and cleared my throat. “Well, it is,” I said to the room. Ebenezar translated for me. “I was attacked by a Red Court hit squad only a few hours ago.”
LaFortier smiled at me. It stretched his lips out to show his teeth, like the dried face of a thousand-year-old mummy. “Even if you are not lying, Wizard Dresden, I would hardly expect perfect control of all Red Court forces given your role in precipitating this war.”
“Precipitatingit?” I exclaimed. “Do you have any idea what theydid ?”
LaFortier shrugged. “They defended an assault upon their sovereignty, Wizard. You, acting in the role of representative of this Council, attacked a noble of their court, damaged her property, and killed members of said noble’s household and her as well. In addition, the records of local newspapers and authorities reveal that during the altercation, several young men and women were also killed—burned up in a fire, I think. Does that sound familiar to you, Wizard Dresden?”
I clenched my jaw, the sudden rush of rage spilling through me in such a torrent that I could scarcely see, much less trust myself to speak. I’d been brought before the Council for the first time when I had been put on trial for violating the First Law of Magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. I’d burned my old mentor, Justin, to death. When I’d clashed with Bianca, lately of the Red Court, the previous year, I’d called up a firestorm when it looked as if my companions and I were going to buy it anyway. A lot of vampires burned. The bodies of some people had been found afterward, too. There was no way to tell which of them had been victims of the vampires and already dead when the fire got to them and which, if any, had been alive before I came along. I still have nightmares about it. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a willing murderer.
To my shock, I felt myself gathering in power, getting ready to unleash it at LaFortier, with his skeletal smirk. Ebenezar caught my eye, his own a little wide, and shook his head quickly. I clenched my hands into tight fists instead of blasting anybody with magic and forced myself to sit down again before I spoke. Self-disciplined, that’s me. “I have already detailed my recollection of the events in my report to the Council. I stand by them. Anyone who tells you differently than what you read there is lying.”
LaFortier rolled his eyes. “How comfortable it must be to live in such a clear-cut world, Wizard Dresden. But we are not counting the cost of your actions in coins or hours wasted—we are counting it in blood. Wizards aredying because of whatyou did while acting in this Council’s name.” LaFortier swept his gaze to the rest of the theater, his expression stern, controlled. “Frankly, I think it may be wise for the Council to consider that we may indeed stand in the wrong in this matter and that it might be prudent to give careful considerations to the Red Court’s terms for peace.”
“What do they want?” I snarled at the man, Ebenezar providing the Latin for the rest of the Council. “A pint of blood a month from each of us? Rights to hunt freely wherever they choose? Amulets to shield them from the light of the sun?”
LaFortier smiled at me and folded his hands atop his podium. “Nothing so dramatic, Dresden. They simply want what any of us would want in this situation. They want justice.” He leaned toward me, bulging eyes glittering. “They want you.”
Chapter Six
Gulp.
“Me?” I said.Et la, LaFortier. Feel the bite of my rapier wit.
“Yes. Duke Ortega writes that you, Wizard Dresden, are considered a criminal by the Red Court. In order to
end this conflict they wish to extradite you to an area of their designation for trial. A resolution that is, perhaps, distasteful, but may also be only just.”
He didn’t get the last word out of his mouth before several dozen wizards around the auditorium rose to their feet with outraged shouts. Others stood up to cry out against them, and still more against them. The room descended into a cacophony of shouts, threats, and cussing (among wizards, cursing is a different matter altogether) in dozens of languages.
The Merlin let people shout for a moment before he called out in a ringing voice, “Order!” No one paid him any attention. He tried once more, then lifted his staff and slammmed it down hard on the stage beside him.
There was a flash of light, a roar of sound, and a concussion that slopped the water in my glass up over the brim, spilling it on my flannel bathrobe. A couple of the wispier wizards were knocked down by the force of it—but in any case, the shouting ceased.
“Order!” the Merlin demanded again, in exactly the same tone. “I am well aware of the implications of this situation. But lives are at stake. Your lives and my own. We must consider our options with the utmost gravity.”
“What options?” Ebenezar demanded. “We are wizards, not a herd of frightened sheep. Will we give one of our own to the vampires now and pretend that none of this has happened?”
LaFortier snapped, “You read Dresden’s report. By his own admission, what the Red Court accuses him of is true. They have a just grievance.”
“The situation was clearly a manipulation, a scheme to force Dresden to those actions in hopes of killing him.”
“Then he should have been smarter,” LaFortier said, his tone flat. “Politics is not a game for children. Dresden played and was beaten. It is time for him to pay the price so that the rest of us may live in peace.”
Injun Joe put a hand on Ebenezar’s arm and spoke quietly. “Peace cannot be bought, Aleron,” he murmured to LaFortier. “History teaches that lesson. I learned it. You should have, too.”