Jim Butcher - Changes

“Yeah.”

“Good. It’s more familiar.”

Lea let out a peal of merry laughter.

Murphy opened an eye and gave Lea a decidedly frosty look. “What?”

“You think that this is like what you have done before,” my godmother said. “So precious.”

Murphy stared at her for a moment and then looked at me. “Harry?”

I leaned my head back against the window, so that the hood fell over my eyes. Murphy was way too good at picking up on it when I lied. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we’ll see.”

It took Glenmael less than twenty minutes to get to Aurora. We got out at a park there, a pretty little community place. It was empty this time of night, and all the lights were out.

“Pitcher’s mound, folks,” I said, piling out and taking the lead.

I was walking with long, long strides, staying ahead of everyone. Murphy caught up to me, moving at a slow jog.

“Harry,” she said, her voice low. “Your godmother?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we trust her?”

I scowled. She wouldn’t be able to see the expression, with the hood and all. “Do you trust me?”

“Why do you think I’m asking you?”

I thought about it for a moment and then slowed down, so that everyone else was nearer. That included my godmother.

“Okay, folks. Let’s clear the air about the scary Sidhe lady. She’s under orders to go with me and to help. She will. She’s got a vested interest in making sure I come out of this all right, and if she doesn’t do it, she’s in trouble with the queen. As long as you all are helpful to her mission, getting me in and out in one piece, she’ll support you. The second she thinks you’re a liability or counterproductive to her mission, she’s going to let bad things happen to you. Maybe even do them herself.” I looked at Lea. “Is that about right?”

“That is precisely right,” she said, smiling.

Susan arched an eyebrow and looked from me to my godmother. “You have no shame about it at all, do you?”

“Shame, child, is for those who fail to live up to the ideal of what they believe they should be.” She waved her hand. “It was shame that drove me to my queen, to beseech her aid.” Her long, delicate fingers idly moved to the streaks of white in her otherwise flawless red tresses. “But she showed me the way back to myself, through exquisite pain, and now I am here to watch over my dear godson—and the rest of you, as long as it is quite convenient.”

“Spooky death Sidhe lady,” Molly said. “Now upgraded to spooky, crazy death Sidhe lady.”

The Leanansidhe bared her canine teeth in a foxlike smile. “Bless you, child. You have such potential. We should talk when this is over.”

I glowered openly at Lea, who looked unrepentant. “Okay, folks. The plan is going to be for me to stand where the fire is hottest. And if one of you gets cut off or goes down, I’m going to go back for you.” I kept glaring at my godmother. “Everyone who goes in with me is coming out again, dead or alive. I’m bringing you all home.”

Lea paused for a few steps and arched an eyebrow at me. Then she narrowed her eyes.

“If they can all carry themselves out,” I said, “I believe that would be more ‘quite convenient’ than if they couldn’t. Wouldn’t it, Godmother?”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Impossible child.” But there was a hint of a smile on her mouth. She bowed her head to me slightly, like a fencer acknowledging a touch, and I returned it.

Then I figured I’d best not threaten her ego any more than I had to. “Be careful when you speak to her,” I told the others. “Don’t make her any offers. Don’t accept any, not even in passing, not even things that seem harmless or that could only be construed through context. Words are binding around the Sidhe, and she is one of the most dangerous creatures in all of Faerie.” I bowed my head to her. “Fortunately for us. Before the night’s over, we’ll all be glad she’s with us.”

“Oh,” the Leanansidhe purred, all but literally preening. “A trifle obvious, but . . . how the child has grown.”

“Da,” said Sanya cheerfully. “I am glad that she is here. For the first time, I got to ride in a limousine. Already it is a good night. And if spooky crazy death Sidhe lady can help serve a good cause, then we who bear the Swords”—he paused for a smiling second—“all three of them”—he paused for another second, still smiling—“will welcome her aid.”

“Such charm, O Knight of the Sword,” Lea replied, smiling even more endearingly than Sanya. “We are all being so pleasant tonight. Please be assured that should one of the Swords be dropped or somehow misemployed, I will do everything in my power to recover it.”

“Sanya,” I said. “Please shut up now.”

He let out a booming laugh, settled the strap of the shotgun a little more firmly over his shoulder, and said nothing more.

I checked my mother’s memories and nodded as I reached the pitcher’s mound. “Okay, folks. First leg here. Should be a simple walk down a trail next to a river. Don’t get freaked when you notice the water is flowing uphill.” I stared at the air over the pitcher’s mound and began to draw in my will.

“Right,” I said, mostly to myself. “Annnnnd here we go. Aparturum. ”

The first leg of the trip was simple, a walk down a forest trail next to a backward-flowing river until we reached a menhir—that’s a large, upright standing stone, to those of you without a pressing need to find out what a menhir is. I found where a pentangle had been inscribed on the stone, a five-pointed star within a circle, like the one around my neck. It had been done with a small chisel of some kind, and was a little lopsided. My mother had put it there to mark which side of the stone to open the Way on.

I ran my fingers over it for a moment. As much as my necklace or the gem that now adorned it, it was tangible proof of her presence. She had been real, even if I had no personal memories of her, and that innocuous little marking was further proof.

“My mother made this mark,” I said quietly.

I didn’t look back at Thomas, but I could all but feel the sudden intensity of his interest.

He had a few more memories than I did, but not many. And it was possible that he had me outclassed in the parental-figure issues department, too.

I opened another Way, and we came through into a dry gulch with a stone wall, next to a deep channel in the stone that might once have held a river—now it was full of sand. It was dark and chilly, and the sky was full of stars.

“Okay,” I said. “Now we walk.”

I summoned a light and took the lead. Martin scanned the skies above us. “Uh. The constellations . . . Where are we?”

I clambered up a stiff little slope that was all hard stone and loose sand, and looked out over a vast expanse of silver-white beneath the moon. Great shapes loomed up from the sand, their sides almost serrated in the clear moonlight, lines and right angles that clashed sharply with the ocean of sand and flatland around them.

“Giza,” I said. “You can’t see the Sphinx from this side, but I never claimed to be a tour guide. Come on.”

It was a stiff two or three miles from the hidden gully to the pyramids, and sand all the way. I took the lead, moving in a shambling, loosekneed jog. There wasn’t any worry about heat—dawn was under way, and in an hour the place would be like one giant cookie pan in an oven, but we’d be gone by then. My mother’s amulet led me directly to the base of the smallest and most crumbly pyramid, and I had to climb up three levels to reach the next Waypoint. I stopped to caution the party that we were about to move into someplace hot, and to shield their eyes. Then I opened the Way and we continued through.