Agatha H and the Siege of Mechanicsburg

by Phil Foglio

Tarvek rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, he’ll figure out where we’re going.”

  “But if he doesn’t get out . . . ”

  “Oh, he’ll get out and somehow make me look bad while doing it.”

  Agatha looked at him and frowned. “You have issues.”

  Tarvek sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He studied her critically. “You’re still staggering a bit. Here.” So saying, he pushed the clank head into Agatha’s hands and then scooped her up in his arms.

  “No!” Agatha protested. “If you’re too slow she’ll kill you too.”

  Tarvek grinned at her sardonically. “Well, Lady Heterodyne, don’t let her.”

  Agatha paused, and her jaw firmed. “I won’t. Fine. Let’s go.” She pointed up a long flight of stairs. “The library should be right up there.”

  Tarvek grunted and took a step. “Your wish is my command, O princess.” He looked up the long set of stairs and groaned inwardly as he shifted Agatha’s solid weight. This looked a lot easier on the book covers.

  Agatha smacked his shoulder. “Faster!”

  In the conservatory, Zola staggered back, her face swollen from repeated blows. “I can’t believe this,” she growled. “How many times do I have to hit you?”

  Higgs frowned at the latest gash on his arm and resumed his determined stride towards her. He checked his movement, and her blade hummed scant millimeters from his face. He gave a small, tight smile. He was learning the rhythms of Zola’s fighting style. Soon.

  From where she was kneeling next to Zeetha, Violetta called out. “Don’t even try to knock her out, you hear me? She’s had a whole vial of Movit Eleven. She’ll be unstoppable until it wears off.”

  “I hear you,” Higgs muttered.

  But Zola could feel the effects of the drug beginning to fade. Thank goodness a boost like that isn’t sustainable for too long— Her rumination was cut off by yet another blow to her face. “I have other people to kill,” she screamed. “More important people than you! I’ve got to get Gil out of the plant and hunt down my inconvenient cousin, and you are getting in my way!” With that, she pivoted, but instead of moving away, she gracefully lunged towards the startled airman, dropping to one knee, and driving the sword up through his abdomen. “So stay down!”

  Zola had only microseconds to revel in the astonished look that crossed the airman’s face. She was pummeled, in quick succession, by one punishing blow after another. Finally, Higgs’s fist approached her face dead on and everything seemed to slow down. This must be it, Zola thought. The fist connected and she recognized that time hadn’t slowed; her attacker’s fist had. It bounced off of her swollen nose with a gentle bonk. She stared as the airman’s face slowly clenched in pain. Then, through clenched teeth, she heard a puzzled, “Ouch?”

  The implications of this terrified her. She scrambled back as the man slowly doubled over and dropped to his knees, a look of intense concentration on his face.

  “Ha!” Zola yelled. It felt so good that she yelled it again and shook her sword at him. “Ha! Take that!” He slowly swiveled his head towards her and glared.

  Zola stepped back. A distant part of her mind, the part occupied by Lucrezia, was shrieking at her: There was nowhere near enough blood. Zola hefted her blade, determined to finish this monster off, when a sharp jab in her exposed arm spun her about. But there was no one near. A quick search revealed the tiny dart of a Smoke Knight. She swore and pulled it free. She looked up to see Violetta reloading a trim little blowgun.

  “Ha!” she said yet again. “You pathetic loser! Did you just try to poison me?” She threw her head back and cackled manically. “As if that could stop me now!”

  Violetta smiled. “Oh, I know that. That wasn’t poison. That was another dose of Movit Number Eleven.” She finished loading her blowgun. “I wonder how much more you can take before you combust?”

  A tidal wave of ice-cold clarity and energy burst through Zola’s mind. Not much at all, it told her. She spun and used the sword to swat Violetta’s latest dart out of the air. “I just have to move fast enough to burn it off.” But instead of leaping forward, she crashed to the ground. Twisting about, she saw the airman—impossibly still alive—holding her ankle in a grip of iron. Pinpricks of fire bloomed throughout Zola’s body. I cannot let him keep me from moving, she thought with a jolt of terror. Screaming, she lashed out with her free leg, kicking desperately at the hand that held her. She might as well have been kicking at a steel manacle.

  She rolled onto her back and swung the sword on high. “Chop head tiny bits!” she shrieked, bringing down—not a sword, but a long flower stalk that splatted harmlessly on the surprised airman’s hat.

  Behind her, Violetta chuckled as she examined the sword now in her hand. “Wow! You must be messed up! That never would’ve worked before.”

  Zola scrabbled at the ground and flung a handful of rocks and broken stones at Violetta, who stumbled backwards and fell against a large ornamental pot. This gave Zola time to twist her foot, slide it free of her boot, and leap to her feet. For an instant she considered staying—trying to finish them off—but inside her head Lucrezia was howling at her to run. She needed little convincing. “Fine!” Zola bolted from the room, shouting defiance. “I don’t have to stay here! I can kill people anywhere!”

  Cursing, Violetta wiped at the blood and dirt on her forehead and rolled to her feet. “Oh no you won’t, ’cause I’m going to make sure you—”

  “No.”

  Violetta turned and stared as Higgs slowly rose to his feet. Impossible, she thought.

  “Miss Zeetha is still alive. You stay here and make sure she stays that way.” He stood straight and rolled his shoulders. “This imposter is mine.”

  Violetta stepped back. “You got it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  The encyclopedia is the only place in the world where World Domination comes before Work!

  —The last words of Joaquin the Illiterate, just before he hit that big red button labeled Do Not Touch

  The room was immense. A circular cavern easily nine stories tall. It was capped with a thick dome of green glass, ornately embossed and etched. Years of accumulated debris on the outside blocked much of the light that would once have filled the room, but the dome remained whole, unlike many of the Castle’s other glass windows. Even from the ground, Agatha could see evidence of automatic hydraulic braces. Someone had taken a great deal of trouble to ensure that time and the elements would not touch this place.

  Wan chemical lights flickered from lanterns hanging from the ceiling or resting in alcoves. Agatha’s eye was drawn to a small reading room: a steel-lacework gazebo suspended from a cyclopean chain dangling halfway between dome and floor. Agatha realized her eyes had been avoiding the walls lined with ornately carved shelves of books for the simple reason that they were overwhelming.

  There were a stupefying number of books. Shelf upon shelf of them: neatly arrayed, stretching all the way up to the base of the great dome. Many were behind glass case doors. An entire section was carefully tucked into what appeared to be an atmospheric chamber filled with clouds of softly swirling green gas.

  Books bound in a thousand kinds of leather, in inlaid wood, in polished metal, and several other substances she couldn’t identify. They ranged in size from pamphlets so tiny they seemed to be made by insects, to enormous tomes that were surely created for studious giants. Titles picked out in gold and silver glinted from the semidarkness.

  And there were other things, there among the books. Scrolls, stelae, and stone tablets inscribed with languages dead or unknown. Enigmatic artifacts from every corner of the Earth. Strange, silent clock-like devices, and globes with odd markings.

  A mismatched collection of display cases was scattered throughout. Tantalizing shapes lay obscured by a thick layer of dust coating the glass lids. A row of gigantic oak flat mapmaker files held a multitude of drawers, each labeled with names out of history or, in some cases, what Agatha had assumed was mythology
. Clusters of small devices and exotic statuary covered every flat surface. The most mundane object was a frayed, but still opulent, oriental carpet that covered the only open spot on the room’s floor.

  Agatha and Tarvek stared at it all in wonder.

  “Oh my,” Agatha whispered.

  “Oh yes!” Tarvek conceded. “One of the most infamous libraries in Europa.” He gestured expansively. “And it’s all yours.”

  “That’s all very well,” Agatha replied, “but where do we start?” She turned slowly in place. “I don’t see anything that looks like a control panel.”

  “Oh, I haven’t got a clue,” Tarvek admitted. “But while we’re searching, we won’t be bored.” He snapped his fingers. “The Castle should know.” He gently rapped on the clank head tucked under Agatha’s arm. “Hello?”

  Agatha shook her head. “I think it’s shut down. Probably to preserve the memory cores.”

  Tarvek sighed. “That makes sense, but it certainly makes our job more difficult.”

  “That’s true, but . . . ” Agatha stopped and looked about. “Wait. The supplies we sent ahead. They aren’t here yet.”

  “The stuff you sent with your little helper clanks? Something must have happened to them. That’s bad. They were carrying a lot of important equipment.”

  “We couldn’t have carried it ourselves.” Agatha frowned. “But with the Castle shut down, I wouldn’t have thought there was anything here that could give them that much trouble.”

  “I am perfectly willing to believe there are dangerous things besides the Castle itself running around this place.”

  Agatha shook her head. “Something like that might incapacitate a few of them. Maybe. But all of them? Maybe they just got lost. In which case they’ll find us eventually. We still have the head; that’s the only irreplaceable bit.”

  “But how do we hook it up without any equipment?”

  “At this point we don’t know what we have to hook it up to.” Agatha blew a lock of hair out of her face. “I guess I was expecting some kind of obvious interface, like we found down in the crypts.15 But there’s nothing. Nothing here at all.”

  “But this is where it told you to come.”

  “Yes. It said that when I got here, it would give me a map of where it needed to be repaired.” She paused and looked at the map cases. Then she shook her head. “No, that makes no sense. How could an old map made before the Castle was damaged show where it needs to be repaired now?” Agatha began walking in a tight circle. “Down in the crypt, the Castle I spoke to prided itself on the strength of its defenses. It was meant to be inaccessible. Even to me. Considering that, I’d think the existence of a permanent, detailed map of its interior and its defenses would be seen as an unacceptable weakness.”

  She slowly sank to the floor and rubbed her fingers over her temples. “If only we could get it to talk again. Just for a minute or two.”

  “Damage . . . sustained.”

  Agatha blinked. “What?”

  Tarvek looked at her blankly. “What what?”

  She held up a hand.

  “Damage sustained.” The words were muffled.

  “Can you hear that?”

  “No,” Tarvek whispered.

  “I can,” Agatha muttered, “so it’s closer to me, but what . . . ”

  “Damage sustained.”

  Agatha slowly smiled, and hopped to her feet. “Help me roll up this rug.”

  Tarvek had questions, but he kept them for later. He began rolling the carpet along with Agatha. The floor underneath was not stone, but a thick slab of dark glass. As the carpet was removed, small lights began to appear in the depths below.

  “There’s something still active down there,” he said in surprise.

  “I think I understand now,” Agatha said. “The Castle is strong. And one of the reasons is because it doesn’t have a centralized brain, per se. I think the whole Castle is the brain.”

  Tarvek considered this. “Yes, that does make sense. It explains why it fragmented the way it did.”

  “Uh-huh.” She allowed Tarvek to proceed with the carpet while she stared down at what was being revealed. “Did you see this room? The way it’s built? I think the Heterodynes thought the library was the most important part of the Castle. It seems like the most reinforced and secure place in the entire building. Which means that when I used the Lion,16 I didn’t kill everything.”

  Tarvek finished rolling up the carpet, turned, and gasped in wonder. A ghostly outline of Castle Heterodyne flickered to life in the air before them. As they watched, more and more details were added until a complete wireframe rendering of the entire Castle appeared. Red lights wobbled on within the sketch. Then, starting in what Agatha recognized as the Great Movement Chamber, waves of disruption slowly began radiating upwards and outwards, scrambling the delicate lines as it grew. Agatha grabbed Tarvek’s arm and pointed to a floating set of numbers that slowly advanced as they watched. “That’s a date and time signature,” she said with excitement. “The date that Castle Heterodyne was attacked!”

  The numbers clicked forward, each advancement accompanied by growing waves of destruction sweeping over the model before them. “It’s a recording of the actual event,” Tarvek said, awe filling his voice. He glanced down. Within the glass-covered pit was a large sphere, its surface bejeweled with ever-changing lights. “That’s your map. One that can be updated on the fly. During attacks it would be invaluable.”

  Agatha was staring at the model. “But it wasn’t attacked.” She pointed to the epicenter of the largest disruption. “If these were explosions, and they certainly behave like mathematical models of explosions, they all started inside Castle Heterodyne.”

  They paused as the great central tower began slowly leaning sideways. They found themselves unconsciously holding their breaths until it came to rest in the position the real tower occupied today.

  Tarvek nodded slowly. “Everyone always said that the attack on Castle Heterodyne was the first attack by the Other. But every subsequent attack on a Great House was completely different. There was an initial aerial bombardment followed by ground attacks by revenants and slaver wasps.” He turned to Agatha, a troubled look in his eye. “My family, and a few other inner members of the Council, knew Lucrezia was the Other, but she always claimed her attacks were retribution. She claimed other sparks had attacked Castle Heterodyne first.” He turned back to the model and studied it closely. “There were inconsistencies with her story, even from the beginning, but she was eliminating dozens of powerful, upstart spark families, so they were all too happy to aid her.”

  He glanced back at the model Castle, in time to see the great northern tower crack apart from the main structure and slide down the hillside. Once it came to rest the structure and lights within it faded and eventually vanished. A few seconds later it again flickered into existence and the cycle repeated. “Now I’m wondering: if the Heterodyne Boys hadn’t stopped her, would there have come a day when even the Order would have found themselves on the receiving end of those bombardments?”

  Agatha touched the locket at her throat. Tarvek guessed at her thoughts and put his hand atop hers. “Don’t even think about letting Lucrezia out. She lied about this for so long, I doubt that I could get her to recant just because I could show her I knew she was lying. She’d just take it as a challenge”

  “So . . . ” Agatha stared at the shimmering Castle. Glowing red spots were beginning to appear again throughout the structure. She had a sinking feeling every one of them was something important. “So Lucrezia is the one who damaged the Castle? But she was one of its masters. It was the main thing protecting her and her . . . ” Agatha remembered the tiny tombstone she had seen in the crypts. The one that purportedly held the bones of her infant brother.17 She stared at Tarvek. “She wouldn’t have killed her own child, would she?”

  Tarvek gently placed a hand on Agatha’s shoulder. “It certainly hasn’t slowed her down as far as you’re concerned.” He
glanced back at the still glowing model. “But I wonder what really happened there?”

  Sleipnir stared at Theo in annoyance. “Theo! Please! You have to move Von Pinn!”

  “Impossible!” Theo briefly stepped back from the jumble of equipment and snagged a hypodermic needle. “She is prepped and ready! I can’t just disconnect her and then hook her back up like a set of toy trains! It shouldn’t be much longer.” He glanced up at the ceiling as a few small bits of debris pattered down about him. “The others will be back soon, and then we can complete the transfer.”

  Sleipnir stamped her foot. “But I’m telling you, the ceiling is unstable! It could collapse at any moment!”

  Theo nodded. “That is why you are over there. Out of harm’s way.”

  Sleipnir furiously jerked at the shackle that bound her wrist to the wall. She couldn’t believe how easily Theo had suckered her into it. “If you die, I’ll hate you forever you selfish pig!”

  A larger shard fell and shattered at Theo’s feet. “Good,” he growled. “Hate me for years and years and years!”

  A faint rolling rumble sounded from somewhere distant and began to grow. Sleipnir felt panic slice through her. “NO! THEO! Get away!”

  The rumbling grew louder and a faint vibration could be felt. Theo stared upwards. “It-it’s not the ceiling,” he yelled back. “What could cause—?”

  Sleipnir screamed. “It’s over here! It’s coming for me!” She stared up into the blackness of the secret stairwell. The noise was growing louder by the second. It sounded like an avalanche of ironmongery. “It’s coming down the stairs!”

  “Sleipnir!” In a flash, Theo was at her side. Frantically he jammed the key into the shackle’s lock and tried to turn it, but the vibration and the noise was stronger here, washing over them. He enveloped Sleipnir in his arms and slammed her against the wall as the great mechanical security clank roared past them like a golden locomotive, steam pouring out as it spun about to a gentle halt.

  Fräulein Snaug rode on its back, squealing with delight and squeezing its other occupant, von Zinzer, tightly from behind. When the great clank had stopped, she bounced down to the ground and took in a great lungful of air before whooping: “That was so much fun!”