Agatha H and the Siege of Mechanicsburg

by Phil Foglio

  The Castle made a sound eerily reminiscent of a sigh. “I did mention that the mistress would prefer you . . . alive, did I not? Ah well, all of the masters had their little quirks . . . ”

  “She really thinks I’m going to just wander out into the middle of a battlefield?”

  Sleipnir snorted. “Didn’t you do just that the other day? Big army of war striders? You with a walking stick?” She tapped the side of his head. “Ring any bells?”

  “Once,” Gil said reasonably. “I did that once!”

  “I think maybe you just haven’t had another chance.”

  Gil threw his arms wide in a gesture of exasperation. “Oh, come on! Give me some credit. You were surprised to find us still here, right? What did you think I was doing? There are workshops scattered all through this place. Okay, sure, I am going out there—”

  Gil reached down and grabbed a device that had been near his feet. He snapped a switch and it began to glow. Lightning danced between a glass tube at its tip and contacts along the barrel. The whole thing began to pulse with a menacing thrum. “But I’m not going unarmed!”

  Agatha and Violetta were picking their way through a rubble-strewn hall lined with portraits and partially intact stained glass windows.

  “So you’re saying that Tarvek is not in the Castle at all? And the security clank that Otilia assigned him—”

  “Ah. I am . . . currently fighting battles on many fronts, but . . . one moment . . . ” The Castle went quiet for a while, then resumed.

  “Yes, that does seem to be the case. As for the fun-sized mobile death dispenser assigned to guard him . . . I am sorry to say it is no longer operational. It has been . . . smashed, and very professionally in my opinion. It must have happened just before you restored me to full operation . . . but you will be happy to know that I have . . . ah . . . I did manage to capture your other consort. I held him until Madame Otilia reached him.”

  “That is good, but—” she glanced at Violetta and felt a touch of guilt “—Tarvek . . . he wouldn’t have destroyed that clank himself would he?” She remembered her kiss with Gil. “He’s probably pretty mad—”

  Violetta shook her head. “No way! That’s not it!”

  Agatha looked uncertain. “He’s not here and whatever happened, he did leave the Castle. That means he’ll have to face all those attackers as well—and now he doesn’t even have a Mobile Fun Unit to help defend him.”

  “That is worrying,” the Castle acknowledged. “Hm . . . however, he does not appear to be currently engaging the attackers . . . but, my Lady, he . . . struck me as a resourceful young man. Excuse me . . . ”

  A number of explosions sounded in the distance. “Yes, as I was saying,” the Castle continued, “for now, we must trust in his strength and search for him later. I have accepted you as the Lady Heterodyne. Mechanicsburg needs you. There is fighting in the streets. I have informed the town leaders you are on the way. You must go forth to defend your town, as the Heterodyne should.”

  Violetta broke in, “That’s all very mythopoetic, but how are we to get to them alive? All those armies and things are still out there!”

  The Castle chuckled. “I still have a few last tricks saved up, and it looks like the Lady’s surviving consort should provide you with more than excellent cover. Hurry, though, it is almost time!”

  Within the curtain wall of Castle Heterodyne stood numerous small buildings. One particularly nondescript-looking one housed a trapdoor connecting to a tunnel system that, although comprising an excessive number of stairs, had managed to convey Vanamonde and the remnants of the actual City Council83 to the Castle without coming to the attention of the soldiers battling all around them. Van peered over a windowsill in time to see a squad of troops equipped with shiny brass legs go jogging past.

  “Get down, you young fool,” the Keeper of Public Records and Secret Histories hissed. “Do you want them to start shooting at us?”

  “Well, I have to watch for her, don’t I?” Vanamonde waved in the direction of the great front gates.

  “Don’t worry,” the Castle assured them, “you’ll know when she is here.”

  The Minister of Clanks and Dangerous Devices was in the process of tearing his handkerchief into shreds. “But I tell you, she’ll be shot instantly if she comes out here! Surely one of the old tunnels—”

  Again the Castle chuckled. “I think she’ll surprise you.”

  “She’ll have to,” the Mistress of Pain and Culture snapped. “We’re losing ground everywhere. There are at least seven different factions brawling out there. If this girl can’t come up with something pretty amazing, this town is finished!”

  “I am aware of that, Lady Vitriox, but you’ve got to give her a chance. She’s a Heterodyne. Don’t you old-timers remember what that means?”

  “Do not worry, young seneschal, they . . . are about to be reminded.” A series of explosions erupted outside. The window frames rattled, and the gunhedz drifting above began to explode into flames. “I believe you may all now safely approach the windows. The show is about to begin.”

  The sight that greeted the Council’s wary eyes was a show indeed. The gates swung wide and a wave of the Castle’s security clanks poured forth, led by Gilgamesh Wulfenbach riding the largest of them all. He thundered out of the Castle gates shouting, “Ha! And that one’s for Agatha!” as he fired crackling bolts of energy from a glowing brass weapon the size of a small cannon. The smaller tiger clanks swept aside any infantry foolish enough to not immediately take to its heels. The soldiers never had a chance. Anyone who stood his ground and tried to shoot was brought down by the huge metal clanks. All hopes of covering fire from the forces overhead were being burst as Gil, roaring through the fray, sent great crackling bolts of energy into the sky, taking out one floating gunhed after another. He was laughing in mad delight and ranting as he rode: “Ha! You idiots missed! You sent those stupid balloon heads against Castle Heterodyne? Pathetic! And what are those? Siege hammers? Oh no, I don’t think so!” The siege hammers in question disappeared in an explosion of blue light. “Oooh! You brought wrecking treaders, did you? Nice! I love those things!” Another flash of blue light. “When they explode!” He paused for a bout of maniacal laughter.

  The City Council watched it all, jaws agape. The Treasurer and Smuggler’s Liaison turned to Vanamonde, who was regarding the carnage with a remarkable air of sangfroid.

  “I . . . I thought you said the new Heterodyne was a girl.”

  Van nodded. “She is. That’s just the boyfriend.”

  “That’s—”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They all stared at him now. A series of blasts punctuated by a gale of laughter lit up the room.

  The Town Coroner and Master of Recycling swallowed. “We’re . . . we’re going to have to break out those little iron cages for their children, aren’t we?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Bend. Lift. Drop. Breathe . . .

  Oublenmach precipitously comprehended he was no longer inside the bell tower. He was in the open air. On the roof. Before him loomed the great immensity that was the Doom Bell of Mechanicsburg. A shell of bronze easily five meters across, hanging before him, cast with a relief of a grinning skull on three sides, each skull bearing the trilobite of the Heterodynes on its forehead. He had done it! He had brought the hammer to the top! He had—

  There was a CRACK of metal snapping free of a shell of verdigris. Octavo, the towering demonic automaton that for years had lounged, inert, against the bell itself, moved. It rotated its head, then its shoulders. Debris pattered down onto the rooftop. Octavo pulled and, with another crack, its mighty arms snapped away from the spots where they had adhered to the bell. It swung them about, testing the joints. It then deigned to notice the man before him. “Aaah . . . ” It rumbled (although Oublenmach did not know it) in the voice of Castle Heterodyne, “It certainly took you long enough.”

  Ponderously, the automaton swung about on its squat legs, its knee joints
crunching horribly, until it was directly above the man. To his credit, Oublenmach was so astonished at what he was seeing that he quite forgot to cower. Octavo nodded respectfully and reached out, effortlessly lifting the great hammer. “Thank you, little man. Well done.” It began to turn away, paused, and then turned back. “You may want to cover your ears. Not that it will do you any good.”

  Oublenmach blinked, then truly remembered where he was. No, he realized with a growing horror, running wouldn’t do any good either.

  “Mistress, do have everything you will need?”

  Agatha looked around. “Probably not, but—”

  “Excellent! Because it is time for you to mercilessly crush your enemies beneath your boots like the insects they are! Muhhahaha!” The Castle was not prone to maniacal laughter, but it demonstrated a fine grasp of the essentials.

  Agatha rolled her eyes. “Marvelous. Here we go, then.”

  “Young von Mekkhan!” The Castle sounded almost giddy with excitement. “She is coming! You will all go out to meet her now.”

  The Council looked even more nervous. “But—isn’t it still dangerous—?”

  Vanamonde raised a hand in the dismissive manner he had seen his grandfather use a thousand times before when the time for discussion was past. They fell silent. He squared his shoulders and headed towards the door. “Let’s go, ladies and gentlemen.” That said, Van couldn’t help flinching slightly as he stepped outside. He need not have worried. The great mechanical cats had swept the area clean of opposition. Van hopped atop a waist-high wall and peered down the great causeway that led to the rest of the town. Even from here, the effect of Gil’s sortie was unmistakable. Military units were shifting, even as he watched, as their commanders understood yet another power was now in play.

  “Impressive,” he murmured. “Wulfenbach’s really tearing through town. He’s already reached the Avenue of Oubliettes.84”

  The Mistress of Finance, Taxes, and Involuntary Servitude started. “Wulfenbach! You mean that’s the Baron’s son?”

  Lady Vitriox sniffed. “His father would’ve hit the gate and begun another sweep by now.”

  Van dismissed this as typical ageist hyperbole, but found himself frowning nonetheless. “Hm. Actually, I don’t really like that . . . ” he admitted thoughtfully. There was no denying that even in the few minutes he had been on the field, Gil was making a difference. In a stroke of good luck, the first few Wulfenbach units he encountered recognized him instantly, and a wave of organization and renewed purpose could be seen spreading outward from his position. Van turned back to the rest of the Council. “It’s bad to let the empire steal our thunder right from the start . . . ”

  The Master of Music and Assorted Dins shook his head. “Oh come, there’s hardly any fear of that, now, is there?”

  Van looked at him blankly. “Why not?”

  The old people stared back at him in astonishment. Then as one, they all craned to stare at the Tower of the Doom Bell. The master had been examining the tower with a set of opera glasses and offered to pass them around. The Master of Revels and Subsequent Regret snatched them and studied the tower. “Octavo is moving! He . . . yes! He has his hammer!”

  Van still looked puzzled. It was Lady Vitriox who realized it first. “You’re too young!” She swung back to the others in obvious distress. “He’s too young! He’s never heard it!”

  The Master of Death and Afterwards gasped, “None of the young ones have heard it!”

  Van broke in. “What am I missing here?”

  “Your family! Your official job! When there is a new Heterodyne—the Doom Bell rings!”

  Van absently patted the pocket where he kept a stack of business cards. The bell. Yes, he’d rather been looking forward to hearing it.

  “Nobody has heard it for ages! They removed the hammer!”

  “Even when the Heterodyne Boys were here, they never rang it! Not even for the birth of the child!”

  Van looked wary. “So?”

  The Master of Music and Assorted Dins gripped Van’s arms. “So even if you’re used to it . . . it has an effect. A terrible effect—”

  “Oh, so it’ll hinder any enemies in the area? That’s good.”

  “But it could cripple our own defenses! Even while there are more invaders incoming!”

  Van looked at the agitated elders and a trickle of uncertainty bloomed within his heart. “Oh . . . come on. You’re just messing with the new kid again, aren’t you?85 I mean, when all’s said and done, it is just a bell, right?”

  Agatha stepped out of the doorway and gasped. The courtyard before her was filled with rubble and the occasional body. Windows were shattered. Even as she watched, a small gatehouse slumped to the ground in a shower of blocks. From another structure, Vanamonde appeared leading a dozen old people who were so intent on her that they frequently stumbled on the debris that littered the ground. “Okay,” she muttered. “They’re all staring at me. You can get started any time.”

  “You have to say it,” the Castle demanded. “Just like I told you.”

  Agatha sighed. “All right.” She raised her voice and was astonished when it boomed forth, amplified beyond anything she could have naturally produced. “People of Mechanicsburg! The Castle is mine! I am your Heterodyne!” She hesitated.

  “All of it!” the Castle hissed in her ear.

  Again she sighed. “TREMBLE BEFORE ME!”

  Atop the tower, Octavo slowly wound up, the hammer rising majestically over its shoulder. It glanced down at Oublenmach, who had gone straight through terror and was now philosophically resigned to being terrified at a later date. “I love this part,” it said conspiratorially.

  Then it swung—

  DOOOM!

  And the Doom Bell’s awful tolling washed over the town.

  Deep under Castle Heterodyne, the air in the Great Movement Chamber was alive with expectancy. Moloch von Zinzer took a deep breath, cupped his hands around his mouth, and roared: “Now for the last time—PULL!”

  Below him hundreds—no, it had to be thousands—of little clanks tightened their grippers around cables. A sound like an ocean of ticking watches arose and the clanks began to creep forward. Lines tightened, freshly greased pulleys began to groan as they slowly turned, and the great paddlewheel began to sway upwards into position.

  Moloch was standing on the newly replaced spindle shaft, guiding it towards its socket by way of signals to the teams of clanks who adjusted the guide ropes accordingly. He was also employing excessive amounts of swearing.86 The wheel shuddered as it thudded gently—a bit too much to the right of the opening. Moloch signaled the clanks to pull back and try again and, this time, as the wheel swung free, he grabbed hold of a rope, kicked off, then slammed his feet onto the side of the shaft as it slid forward, nudging it perfectly into place.

  “Release the ropes!” With a series of coordinated tugs, the carefully tied knots unraveled and dropped away.

  Atop the wheelhouse, Fräulein Snaug threw her weight onto the great clutch lever, engaging the gears. Far below, the paddles stopped fighting the rushing torrent of the River Dyne and, sluggishly, began to move with it. Within the tower, gears clunked against each other, resisted for a moment, then engaged. Fresh applications of grease began to spread within hidden surfaces as they were, once again, warmed by friction. More and more of the mechanism ground to life.

  Within the Great Movement Chamber itself, there came a flickering of lights. Before Moloch’s satisfied eyes, all the telltales began gleaming brighter, successive waves of them switching from red to green. With a whoop, Moloch did an ecstatic hornpipe jig atop the now-turning shaft. He then grabbed the rope anew and, with a quick hand-over-hand pull, hoisted himself to the top of the tower. There, Fräulein Snaug pulled him up and into a spontaneous hug of joy.

  “Hey, Castle,” Moloch called out. “You feel that, you stupid pile of rocks? It’s fixed! Your power’s back on!”

  “Well done the two of you! And just in time!�
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  DOOOM!

  Even here, deep underground, the toll of the Doom Bell overwhelmed all other sounds. Moloch and Snaug screamed and clutched at their ears. Their eyes rolled up into their heads and they fell, senseless, to the top of the juddering tower.

  The Castle gave a little tut of disapproval. “Well, you’ll get used to it. The minions always do.”

  The Heliolux Airship Fleet swept towards Mechanicsburg from the east. The communication room of the flagship was an organized babble as dozens of operators coordinated the movements of the rest of the empire’s army. Or rather . . . tried to. One of the operators sat back and stared blankly at her receiver. “It’s stopped,” she announced in surprise.

  Her supervisor looked up from her clipboard. “What? What do you mean it’s stopped? They were in mid-sentence.”

  “I know!” The operator frowned and slammed her fist down on top of the receiver in a practiced manner. This did nothing and she shrugged apologetically. Her supervisor bit her lip and examined her sheet with a growing worry. Similar scenes were taking place across the room. Something was . . .

  The supervisor’s thoughts were not aided by the bellow of the ship’s captain from the doorway. “Lieutenant Hagopia, am I to get any confirmations at all today?”

  Captain L’Marge was tall and round, everything the manual told you a good airship officer wasn’t. She was also the oldest airship officer serving under the Baron, so no one had ever dared to bring this up. Her no-nonsense waddle-strut was often imitated, but never within five hundred kilometers of her last known location. What all the imitators got wrong, though, was how fast the woman moved. Lieutenant Hagopia found herself directly under L’Marge’s pitiless eye as her precious clipboard was snapped away and examined. “We are supposed to be invading Mechanicsburg today. It would be delightful if I knew other people from our unit would be joining us.”

  “We’re trying, ma’am, but everything’s gone higgledy-piggledy.”

  L’Marge stared at her. “Believe it or not, Lieutenant, I rather pride myself on how well we facilitate communication. You should try it.”