by Phil Foglio
Theo glanced up at the smooth shaft above them. “Are you sure you can do this?”
“Wait!” Moloch waved his hands. “Now you ask this?”
Fraulein Snaug gently patted his leg. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
Moloch looked at her hopefully. “Yeah?”
She nodded encouragingly. “And if you die, I promise I’ll bring you back.”
Moloch looked into Snaug’s shining eyes and made an effort to smile. He really did. “Great.”
Snaug bit her lip and went slightly glassy-eyed. Moloch looked at her with concern. Poor kid, she’s actually worried. This was true. Snaug was envisioning the things she wanted to do to Moloch once he was strapped onto a revivification table and was concerned he wouldn’t last long enough for her to be able to get around to them all. But no. She shook her head and looked at Moloch fiercely. “You’re strong. You’ll make it.”
At that moment, Otilia crouched down with a pneumatic hiss. “Prepare,” she said.
Moloch clenched his hands tightly. “You have got to be—”
The great clank leapt. It cleared the rim of the shaft, but just barely. We’re far too short of the top, Moloch realized. He braced himself for the inevitable fall. The clank beneath him snapped its legs out, connected with the smooth wall before them, dug its claws into the fused stone, pivoted with a speed that almost caused Moloch to black out from the force of the turn, and then again leapt upwards. Three more times it performed this maneuver, until, to his amazement, Moloch saw they had risen above the lip of the hole. Otilia slammed onto the ledge, which began to crack. The great clank scrabbled frantically at the crumbling edge. “Jump little minion,” it howled. “Jump while you can!”
With a superhuman effort, Moloch rose to his feet and danced across the quaking and rattling cat clank beneath him. He hesitated and then felt the clank beginning to slip. This prompted him to hurl himself, screaming, towards the edge—which, he saw, he was going to miss. As he grasped this, a firm blow struck him from below, propelling him upwards and over the edge. As he flew, he glanced down in time to see Otilia falling back out of sight. It must have smacked me to get me over the edge and lost its grip, he marveled as he slammed onto the floor of the Great Movement Chamber.
Faintly, far below, he heard a great booming crash. He crawled back and peered down, hoping everyone was okay.
Theo coughed. A great cloud of dust rolled from the small crater Otilia had made when she hit the ground. With a shudder of relief, he realized there was no sign of von Zinzer, and if he had fallen from that height there would have been a great deal of evidence. “Are you all right, Madam Otilia?”
The great clank stirred and shook its head. “Tricky,” it rumbled as it smoothly rose to its feet. “But I think I now have the hang of it.” It shook itself again and regarded the rest of those before it with a toothy grin. “Who wants to go next?”
Several minutes later, with a triumphant metal scream, Otilia clambered out of the great hole. “HA! I knew I’d get it eventually!” The clank then gently lowered itself to allow Sleipnir to slide bonelessly, wide-eyed and shivering, into Theo’s waiting arms.
From the side, Fräulein Snaug nodded in satisfaction and turned to Moloch. He was gazing upwards, a frown of concentration on his face. “That’s the last of them. They’re all up and everyone’s still alive,” she said and shrugged philosophically. Moloch grunted.
Snaug followed his gaze. “Whacha doin’?”
“Working.” He gestured upwards. Over them towered a giant waterwheel. A piece of the ceiling had been dislodged and, falling, had smashed the great wheel’s shaft. The wheel itself lay to one side, where it shuddered uselessly in the water that rushed past its motionless blades. “Look. Even once our madgirl gets the Castle’s mind sorted out—we’ll still be in trouble. All the batteries are almost dead.22 There’s no new power being generated, not with this thing broken.”
Snaug stared upwards. “Well . . . sure. But that thing’s got to be almost thirty meters tall. What can we do?”
The little mechanic nodded. “We can fix it.”
“What!” Snaug stared at him. “Us? Fix that? It’s impossible! Even with the sparks it would—”
Moloch interrupted her. “We don’t even need the sparks for this.” The audacity of this statement rendered Snaug mute with astonishment. Moloch continued. “Sure, this is tough, but it’s not brains tough. It’s just hard work tough.” There was a soft chiming from near his feet and Moloch gently scooped up one of the small helper clanks, which handed him a series of measurements on a scrap of paper. He nodded in satisfaction and with a tilt of his head indicated the little clank. Snaug now realized there were hundreds of the little devices clustered around them in the darkness, waiting.
“I think I’ve got us some help,” Moloch finished.
Tarvek stood up and surveyed the intricate web of cables and components that now filled the small chamber. The severed clank head was nestled at its center. “How does it look?”
Agatha carefully tweaked a final dial and then nodded in satisfaction. “I think it’s as good as it’s going to get.”
Tarvek rubbed his hands. “Then it’s time to throw the switch!” In the next second their hands collided above the large knife switch. They stared at each other.
“Excuse me?” Agatha arched an eyebrow. “It’s my castle. I should throw the switch.”
Tarvek goggled at her. “But . . . ”
“But what?”
Tarvek opened and closed his mouth a few times and then stepped aside. Throwing the switch was the fun part. “Nothing. You go ahead.”
The corner of Agatha’s mouth quirked upwards. “You don’t like a girl throwing the switch?”
Tarvek went red. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered. “These are modern times.”
Agatha nodded in understanding. “I promise I’ll throw it in a very manly way.”
Tarvek rolled his eyes. “I don’t think that’s necessary—” The corner of his mouth went up. If she could tease him—. He gave her a wicked look: “—or even possible.”
“Then I’ll do it my way.”
The switch slammed home and a storm of applied energy swept through the apparatus around them. The head vibrated and its eyes flared impossibly bright—brighter—and then suddenly went dark. The electrical activity around them stopped with a solid, final thunk.
Tarvek released his breath and checked a readout. “That’s it. The system is in shut-down mode. The transfer should be complete.”
Agatha poked her head out into the main library. Everything was as silent and dark as when they had entered. Her chest felt cold. What if it hadn’t worked? She took a deep, steadying breath and called out to the still air of the Library. “Castle?”
A vast slow sound, like a mechanically created wind, arose from all around. Agatha waited, tense. The sound faded and swelled from different spots until, out of nowhere, there was a voice. “I am here.” It was the Castle’s voice, but . . . different. There was a richness and hint of subtlety to it that Agatha had never heard before. Her heart swelled with love and relief. It had worked! She felt a bit faint. It was only then she realized how frightened she had been. How much she had worried that shutting down the Castle would kill it for good and just how desperately terrible that would be, for so many reasons.
“Please wait . . . ” it continued. “I am still adjusting my parameters.”
“Is something wrong?”
The voice contained a sense of wonder now and it slowly began to grow in strength. “Ah. No, nothing is wrong, Mistress. Quite the contrary. However, my prison—” Agatha glanced at the inert Muse head. “—was so confining. Now I am home again . . . but it is so large. So many routines . . . so many codes that must be run simultaneously . . . so glorious!” The voice was definitely hitting its stride now. “I feel . . . like a raindrop given control over an ocean. And it feels good!” It paused. “We spoke in the crypts, and . . . and you have alread
y passed the test of blood. I remember that now. I remember everything. But . . . ”
Tarvek stepped up to Agatha’s side. “But—?”
The Castle sounded a bit embarrassed. “But collating and assimilating all of these separate memory streams . . . this will take some time, I’m afraid.”
Agatha swallowed and held out her hands. “Is there anything I should do?” What wouldn’t she do, for this terrible, wonderful home of her ancestors?
The Castle paused. “Duck.”
Tarvek dragged Agatha aside just as Zola’s blade sliced through the air where she’d been standing. With a snarl, Zola stepped out fully from behind the false door and pointed the tip of the weapon at Tarvek. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of this! I have all of Auntie Lucrezia’s secrets! Once this fool is dead, I can’t lose! Be nice and I’ll let you play out the original plan. Ha! You can even be my Storm King!”
Tarvek lashed out with a foot, catching Zola in the chest by surprise and tumbling her to the floor. “I am not your Storm King!” He leapt towards her, clutching a screwdriver like a knife. “And my plan was much better!”
To his astonishment, she batted his hand away, grabbed his hair, and slammed his head to the floor all in one swift, effortless motion. “Better? Did you plan on dying like a pig? Because that’s where any plan you have now is going unless you do as I say and stay down!”
She moved to slam his head into the floor again and Agatha plowed into her from the side, bowling them both over and sending Zola’s knife spinning away. “Your plan is over,” Agatha said. “You’ve failed! I am the Heterodyne!” She called out, “Castle?”
“I am sorry, Mistress . . . ” the Castle groaned. “Soon . . . ”
Zola laughed and shot out a leg to flip Agatha head over heels and down a short flight of stairs. Agatha’s squawk of surprise and pain ended in a loud shattering of glass. “There! Your stupid wind-up Castle is still grinding its gears!” Zola rolled to her feet, scooping up her blade. “And that gives me all the time I need to kill you, kill you, KILL YO—” a loud shot interrupted her as her left shoulder exploded in a spatter of blood and fabric.
Next to a smashed case, Tarvek swore as he broke open the antique gun that had been displayed inside and slammed in another of its delicately engraved shells. “Confounded thing pulls to the left,” he muttered. “Easy enough to compensate—”
Zola’s flying kick cracked the stock as she drove it into his chest, knocking Tarvek back into the case, tipping it over and sending a small armory of decorative weapons and ammunition clattering across the floor. “What kind of idiot are you,” Zola screamed. “I told you to stay down!”
Tarvek rolled to his feet. He was astonished. Zola looked like she had been lightly run through a meat grinder, and yet—“How are you even still moving?” he wondered aloud.
“HATE,” Zola shrieked triumphantly. “Hate and drugs! Lovely, lovely drugs! I am a beautiful chemical killing machine!” She spun like a dancer, the edge of her boot connecting to Tarvek’s jaw. He fell to his knees. Zola landed on his back like a gargoyle and began to pound him relentlessly about the head, babbling in a disturbing singsong voice. “But don’t worry! I’m not going to kill you! No! Oh no! I mean, I was going to! But then I had! A really! Really! Good idea!”
Tarvek had gone so limp there was no more fun to be had by hitting him, so Zola gracefully rolled to her feet and started kicking him instead. “You see, I’m thinking I’ll just core your stupid brain and make you my zombie slave! You will be so in love with me and you’ll positively hate yourself for having chosen her over me! You’ll spend the rest of your pathetic so-called ‘life’ dancing attendance on me and begging forgiveness and telling me how lovely and wonderful I am and—”
This fascinating and psychologically revealing diatribe was cut off when Agatha brutally bashed Zola in the head with a large book.
Zola rolled and rose to her feet, grinning at them with fever-bright eyes. “Aren’t you listening? It will take more than that to stop me!”
From behind her, Airman Higgs grunted. “I was listening.” He lashed out with his foot and expertly dislocated her knee.
Zola gasped. Then, balancing on her good leg, she pivoted and delivered a solid punch to the place she’d stabbed him earlier. Higgs gasped in pain.
Zola nodded. “My! If it weren’t for dear little Violetta’s Movit Eleven, that would’ve really slowed me down!” She began a lightning-fast series of punches, landing them on his injury. “How about you? Still feeling that wound?” With a faint gasp, Higgs fell backwards to the ground. “I guess so,” she said triumphantly. Then she grasped her knee and, with a meaty crunch, reset it, screaming in a hellish combination of pain and exultation.
Tarvek stared in horror. “That Movit stuff must be really strong,” he muttered.
Agatha tried to pull him to his feet. “But look how fast she’s moving! It’s worse than a P. R. R.23 She can’t sustain that. It’ll kill her!”
Zola was on them. She kicked Tarvek aside and slapped Agatha across the face. “No! Wait—is that your plan? Wait me out?” She laughed in cracked delight. “Pathetic!” Agatha gasped as Zola grabbed her in a headlock. She felt a sharp tightness around her throat. “I’m going to win!” Zola practically squealed with glee. “And I’m going to kill you first! Right—”
A block of stone a meter square dropped from the ceiling and crashed to the floor less than a hand’s length from Zola’s foot. She froze. “Release her!” The Castle’s voice was strong and menacing. “NOW!”
“The Castle!” Zola whispered. She shook Agatha in fury. “You really managed to repair it.” Suddenly she relaxed slightly. “But wait . . . ” She thought furiously. “You! Castle!” she stepped away from the walls. “You’re still not in complete control, are you? If you were, you wouldn’t warn me, you’d just kill me! You don’t have the delicate control you need yet!” A whisper of sound behind her made her spin, raising Agatha before her like a shield. Tarvek froze, and lowered the weapon he had been aiming at Zola’s back. Zola grinned. “And you! I’ve got a microgarrote24 around her neck!” Tarvek grimaced. “That’s right! You’ve had enough training that you know what I can do, right?” Tarvek swallowed and nodded. Zola grinned. “Then stay back, and I won’t kill her . . . yet”
For several seconds the room was silent except for the sound of deep breathing. “Stalemate,” Agatha whispered. Zola shook her roughly. Agatha gasped. “But only until the Castle is fully operational.”
Zola made a decision. “Come along, dear cousin, it’s time for us to leave.”
“How?”
Zola jerked Agatha’s head back so that she was forced to look upwards. “We’ll go through the dome.” She began to drag Agatha along. “You see, I know everything Auntie knew, and there is so much more in here than just dry old books.” They came to a small cage elevator. Zola hauled Agatha in after her, making sure to keep her between herself and Tarvek. As he watched, fuming, she hit the “Up” button with her hip and, with a jerk and a squeal, they slowly began to rise. “Your family collected all sorts of useful little toys.”
Agatha watched as Tarvek dashed up the stairs, trying to keep even with the ascending elevator, but quickly falling behind. They finally came to the top floor and the cage wheezed to a stop. Zola pushed Agatha forward until they were before a large wood-and-glass display case that contained an elaborate coat. It appeared to be made of tubes and small fans and seemed to be in remarkably good shape.
“Look at that,” Zola said. “The Flight Raiment of King Darius the Incandescent!25 And it’s as good as new!” She heaved Agatha to one side and spun a small combination lock. With a screech, the door swung open. “Thank you, Auntie,” Zola murmured. She examined the outfit and nodded. She then gave Agatha a sharp smack behind her right ear. Agatha dropped to her knees, stars spinning across her field of vision. Within seconds, Zola was back—now enveloped by the bulky garment—yanking Agatha to her feet. “Design
ed for quick escapes,” she said with approval. “Now this should take us both up and out of here.” She strode over to the wall and threw a switch. With a squawk of protest, a section of the overhead dome began to slide open.
“NO!” Tarvek stood before them panting slightly, his weapon leveled at them unwaveringly. “You’ve got the coat. Leave Agatha here and I swear I won’t stop you.”
Zola stuck her tongue out at him. “Ooh, you are such a liar! I am giving you some credit for smarts, you know. There is no way you’re the kind of noble fool who would actually keep a promise like that.” She glanced upwards. “And even if you were, I’m sure the Castle wouldn’t.”
A deep, architectural grumble was the only response.
Zola laughed. “You see? She leaves with me. But rest assured, once I’m away, I’ll release her immediately!” She giggled and then paused with a frown. “Oh dear, did I say that out loud?” She swayed slightly. “Definitely time to go.”
She slapped a button on her lapel, allowing herself to fall backwards off of the walkway, dragging Agatha along. “Farewell, O Mighty Storm King!” As they fell through space, the tubes on the coat gave a cough, then began to roar. Agatha reflexively grabbed hold of Zola—
—And they were no longer falling. They hung in midair, bobbing slightly in place. Zola rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe it! It won’t carry two people?” She glared at Agatha, “Although it’s hardly surprising really, with your great big butt.”
Agatha snarled, “Oh, you are one to talk, Pinky Miss Fatty-Pants!” She viciously punched Zola’s sternum with her elbow. “And you’ve dropped your garrote!”
Zola drove a knee into Agatha’s back. “It looks like I’ll have to drop you off sooner than I’d planned!”
Agatha felt her hands start to slip. Tarvek launched himself off of the walkway and into the empty space beyond. He slammed into them both, one hand firmly clutching Zola’s raiment, the other gripping Agatha. “Hold on!” he growled. The three of them began to spiral downward, while Zola screamed and lashed out furiously.