Summer Knight (The Dresden Files #4) - Jim Butcher Page 0,114
Knights mantle for keeps."
"Indeed. Something to be prevented at all costs." Mother Summer arched an eyebrow. "Then what is your question?"
"Who killed the Summer Knight? Who stole his mantle?"
Mother Summer gave me a disappointed glance and sipped her tea.
Mother Winter lifted her tea to her hood. I still couldnt see her facebut her hand looked withered, the fingers tinged with blue. She lowered her cup and said, "You ask a foolish question, boy. You are more clever than this."
I folded my arms. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Mother Summer frowned at Winter, but said, "It means that who is not as important as why. "
"And how, " Mother Winter added.
"Think, boy," Summer said. "What has the theft of the mantle accomplished?"
I frowned. War between the Courts, for one. Odd activity in the magical and natural world alike. But mostly the coming war, Winter and Summer gathering to battle at the Stone Table.
"Exactly," Winter whispered. The skin on the back of my neck rippled with a cold and unpleasant sensation. Hells bells, shed heard me thinking. "But think, wizard. How was it done? Theft is theft, whether the prize is food, or riches, or beauty or power."
Since it didnt seem to matter either way, I did my thinking out loud. "When something is stolen a couple of things can happen to it. It can be carried away where it cannot be reached."
"Hoarded," Summer put in. "Such as the dragons do."
"Yeah, okay. Uh, it can be destroyed."
"No, it cant," Mother Winter said. "Your own sage tells you that. The German fellow with the wild hair."
"Einstein," I muttered. "Okay, then, but it can be rendered valueless. Or it can be sold to someone else."
Mother Summer nodded. "Both of which are change. "
I held up a hand. "Hold it, hold it. Look, as I understand it, this power of the Summer Knight, his mantle, it cant just exist on its own. It has to be inside a vessel."
"Yes," Winter murmured. "Within one of the Queens, or within the Knight."
"And it isnt with one of the Queens."
"True," Summer said. "We would sense it, were it so."
"So its already in another Knight," I said. "But if that was true, thered be no imbalance." I scratched at my head, and as I did it slowly dawned on me. "Unless it had been changed. Unless the new Knight had been changed. Transformed into something else. Something that left the power trapped, inert, useless."
Both of them regarded me steadily, silently.
"All right," I said. "I have my question."
"Ask it," they said together.
"How does the mantle pass on from one Knight to the next?"
Mother Summer smiled, but the expression was a grim one. "It returns to the nearest reflection of itself. To the nearest vessel of Summer. She, in turn, chooses the next Knight."
That meant that only one of the Queens of Summer could be behind it. Titania was out alreadyshe had begun the war against Mab because she didnt know where the mantle was. Mother Summer would not have been telling me this information if shed been the one to do it. That left only one person.
"Stars and stones," I muttered. "Aurora."
The two Mothers set down their teacups together. "Time presses," Summer said.
"That which must not be may be," Winter continued.
"You, we judge, are the one who may set things aright once more"
"if you are strong enough."
"Brave enough."
"Whoa, hold your horses," I said. "Cant I just bring this out to Mab and Titania?"
"Beyond talk now," Mother Winter said. "They go to war."
"Stop them," I said. "You two have to be stronger than Mab and Titania. Make them shut up and listen to you."
"Not that simple," Winter said.
Summer nodded. "We have power, but bound within certain limits. We cannot interfere with the Queens or Ladies. Not even on a matter so dire as this."
"What can you do?"
"I?" Summer said. "Nothing."
I frowned and looked from her to Mother Winter.
One aged, cracked hand lifted and beckoned me. "Come closer, boy."
I started to say no. But my feet moved without asking the rest of me, and I knelt in front of Mother Winters rocking chair. I couldnt see her, even from here. Even her feet were covered by layers of dark cloth. But on her lap rested a pair of knitting needles, and a simple square of cloth, trailing thick threads of grey, undyed wool. Mother Winter reached down with her withered hands, and took up a pair of rusted shears. She cut the trailing threads and passed me the cloth.