“But they’re children. Children like my little brothers and sisters. And you want me to carry them away.”
“Of course. It is the ideal time to learn, to be trained until they come into their strength and are ready to do battle,” Mab said. “It is the only way to prepare them for what is to come. The only way to give them a chance to survive the duties I require of them.”
“How long?” I asked through clenched teeth. “How long will they be gone?”
“Until they are no longer needed,” Mab said.
“Until they’re killed, you mean,” I said. “They’re never going back home.”
“Your outrage is irrelevant,” Mab said. Her voice was flat, calm, filled with undeniable logic. “I have condemned millions of the children of Winter to a life of violence and death in battle, because it must be done. If we fail in our duty, there will be no home to which they can return. There will be no mortal world, safe and whole for your brothers and sisters.”
“But …” My protest trailed off weakly.
“If you have an alternative, I would be more than willing to consider it.”
Silence stretched.
“I don’t,” I said quietly.
“Then do your duty,” Mab said.
I opened the door and looked back at her. “I don’t yet,” I said, and I said it hard. “This isn’t over.”
Mab gave me the slow blink again. Then she inclined her head by a fraction of an inch, her expression pensive.
I turned and left the broken form of Carlos Ramirez behind me to steal away the Miksani’s children.
And I couldn’t stop crying.
When you set out to write a wizard, there are a lot of issues you have to face: How does the magic work? Where did he get his power? What is the nature of magic in relation to the universe? How do people regard magic in that story world? And on and on and on. Those are pretty obvious questions. They make for some really fun and occasionally thought-provoking tales.
But as story devices, wizards also have some inherent problems with their popular perception: They are generally loner figures, living in some tower and only occasionally interacting with the world—which works great when the wizard is a supporting figure, and is complete garbage when it comes to having a wizard as a central character. Wizards have tremendous power—which is great when it’s coming from a supporting character who has limitations that mean he can only occasionally do something. But, again, when casting a wizard as the central character, from a storytelling standpoint all of that power is a liability, not an asset. Protagonists have to be challenged, struggle, and grow, not just mow down everything that gets in their way with their Tenser’s Mystic Inflammable Bulldozer spell.
So, I knew I was going to have to subvert some of these popular perceptions from the very get-go. To do that, I turned to a different set of archetypes: magicians. Short version, there are three archetypes of performing magicians: the dark and mysterious guy, the glitzy professional-showman guy, and the apparently incompetent buffoon. The popular perception of wizards definitely fits in that first category—but it ain’t a simple trick to write dark and mysterious in a first-person protagonist. By its very nature, first-person viewpoint is incredibly intimate, and hiding things from the audience while using that viewpoint works against its deepest strength. So dark and mysterious was out. Glitzy was out, too, because I’m not sure Burt Wonderstone could carry a series.
So I basically went with option three, the buffoon. And the way I chose to do it was to make my protagonist a young, clumsy puppy of a wizard who was absolutely incompetent at real life, in this case reflected in how his magical powers disrupt modern technology. Once I knew I was doing that, it seemed clear that I had to go all in: While I needed him to be pretty savvy about matters pertaining to the wild side of life so that he could be good at his job, I wanted to make him into a character who was constantly challenged by the most mundane issues—paying his bills, fixing his car, dealing with his landlord, struggling with taxes and the DMV, and all the dumb stuff we grown-ups have to do, which, in our honest moments, we admit that we just hate doing and would much rather have some milk and a cookie and a nap.
This tale, set after the events of Skin Game, chronicles the latest clash between the mighty wizard Dresden and the dread forces of the Real World: in this case, a summons to jury duty.
“I don’t believe it. They found me,” I muttered grimly. I looked left and right, checking around me for lurking threats. “I don’t know how, but they did it. I’ve been back in the world for less than a month, and they found me.”
Will Borden, engineer and werewolf, set down a heavy box of books on the kitchen table and looked at me with concern. Then he came over and looked down at the letter in my hands before snorting. “Such a drama queen.”
“I’m serious!” I said, and shook the letter. “I’m being hunted! By my own government!”
“It’s a summons to jury duty, Harry,” Will said. He opened the fridge and helped himself to a bottle of Mac’s ale. He had to navigate around a few boxes to do it. I didn’t think I’d had much out on the island, but it’s amazing how many boxes it takes to hold not much. It had taken most of a day to ferry it all from the island into Molly’s apartment in town. She rarely used the place these days and had given it to me to live in until I found my own digs.
“I don’t like it,” I said.
“Too bad,” Will said. “You got it. Look, you probably won’t be selected anyway.”
“Summons,” I said, glowering. “It’s a freaking command. They want to see what a real summoning is, I could show them.”
Will laughed at me. He was younger than me, shorter than average, and built like a linebacker. “How dare they intrude upon the solitude of the mighty wizard Dresden?”
“Nngh,” I said, and tossed the paper onto the top of a box of unopened envelopes—my mail, which had accumulated for more than a year, most of it junk. Some of it had been at the post office. More had been set aside by the new owner of my old address, formerly Mrs. Spunkelcrief’s boardinghouse, and now the Better Future Society. I hadn’t been able to stomach asking the new owner for my mail, but Butters had gotten it for me.
“Maybe I won’t show up,” I said. I paused. “What happens if I don’t show up?”
“You can be held in contempt of court or fined or jailed or something,” Will said. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Now that I think about it, they actually leave it kind of vague, what’s going to happen.”
“Good threats are like that. Scarier when you can use your imagination.”
“The government isn’t the mob, Harry.”
“Aren’t they?” I asked. “Pay them money every year to protect you, and God help you if you don’t.”
Will rolled his eyes and got another bottle from the fridge. He opened it for me and passed it over. “Mac would kill you for drinking this cold, et cetera and so on.”
“It’s hot out,” I said, and took a long pull. “Especially for this early in the year. And he would just give me that disappointed grunting sound. Damned government. Not like I don’t have things to do.”
“Is justice worth having?” Will asked.
I eyed him.
“Is it?”
“Mostly,” I said. Warily.
“Well, that’s why there’s a legal system.”
“What does justice have to do with the legal system?”
“Do you really want to tear it all apart and start over from 1776?” Will asked.
“Not particularly. I have books to read.”
He spread his hands. “The courts aren’t perfect,” Will said, “but they can do okay a lot of the time.” He reached into the box and picked up the summons. “And if you really think the courts aren’t working, maybe you should do something about it. If only there was some way you could directly participate …”
I snatched the letter back from him with a scowl. “Think you’re smart, huh?”