by Phil Foglio
Agatha was peeking through the curtain at the exiting crowd. Lars stood beside her, giving her a gentle hug. “You did good.”
“But I’m not sure what I did.”
Lars coughed delicately. “Well, I suppose I’ll just have to take some time and explain the nuances. For your own good, of course.”
Agatha felt her heart skip a beat. “Yes,” she said. “I think I’d like that.” She turned to Lars and shyly smiled. They looked into each other’s eyes, and leaned in for a kiss—
There was a brief clamor from one of the side doors, and an elegantly dressed retainer in a blue velvet coat and a powdered wig stepped backstage. He was met by Master Payne.
The retainer bowed his head respectfully. “His Highness wishes to convey his pleasure in your performance.” With this, he drew forth a thick leather purse, which he dropped into the circus master’s hand with a satisfying “chink.”
“How generous,” Payne murmured. It was certainly a surprise. Usually a Command Performance meant that, as one old showman had famously put it, “They command, we perform, nobody pays.” But this—
The retainer nodded and then continued. “In addition, the Royal Family was so taken with the young lady who played the Lady Lucrezia, your Madame Olga, I believe, that they have requested her presence at the palace for supper this evening.” His gaze found Agatha. “A coach is waiting.”
Several minutes later Agatha found herself the center of a great hum of activity. Several dressmakers were busy sewing her into a splendid lace confection colored a rather bilious sea foam green.
She critically examined a sleeve. “Um... I don’t know a lot about fashion,” she ventured, “but this color—”
“It looks terrible on you,” the seamstress said around a mouthful of pins. She sat back and eyed Agatha critically. “It would look terrible on almost anyone, but on you? It’s hideous.”
Agatha stared at her. “That’s good?”
The seamstress sighed. “It’s tricky. We can’t put you in rags, because that would be an insult. We have to put you in a good dress. But we want you to be subtlety unappealing enough that you won’t have to fend anybody off.” She spit a pin into her hand. “Princes hate being fended off. So we go for an off color. Simple, yes?”
Her hair was being plaited and set by two hairdressers and the troupe’s make up artist was delicately running brushes over her face. While this was going on, she was being given a crash course in court etiquette, which essentially boiled down to “Vaguely agree with everything, commit to nothing.”
Finally everyone was done and nodded at each other in satisfaction. Agatha turned to look at herself in a mirror and gasped in dismay. She looked... not terrible... it was a nice dress. Her hair was stylish and her make up was flawless, but she looked... totally uninteresting.
Even as she understood what had been done and appreciated the artistry behind it, it was a terrible thing to do to a young girl.
Marie knew what was going through her head and patted her hand. “Just think of it as another part, my dear.” Agatha tore her eyes away from the dull creature in the mirror and nodded.
Lars strode up and took her left hand. “Here,” he said briskly. “This couldn’t hurt.” He slipped a gold ring upon Agatha’s finger. She examined it. It was a wide band, seemingly constructed of smaller gold wires laced together. She looked up at Lars.
He grinned. “Tell him you’re married. Some of these guys don’t like to shop second-hand, if you know what I mean.” Agatha blushed. Lars continued. “I use it keep me out of trouble when I pass through a town.”
Agatha looked at him askance. “What kind of trouble?”
“Unasked for romantic entanglements,” he said frankly. “More importantly, it unfolds into a very serviceable lock pick that opens a wide variety of cell doors.” Lars smiled. “Trust me on that.”
Agatha leaned in and gave him a kiss. “Thank you, Lars.”
As Master Payne escorted her to the waiting coach, a small frown crossed her face. “People keep giving me rings,” she confided to him, “But I think a small death ray might be more practical.”
Master Payne merely patted her hand and assisted her into the waiting coach.
This was a splendid looking vehicle. A roomy, elegantly styled black compartment, adorned with fenders and finials of gleaming silver. Silver caged lights festooned the surface, and the now-familiar sword and gear sigil was emblazoned upon the sides.
As the footman assisted her up into the plush, satin-lined interior, Agatha realized that there were no horses. Once the door was closed, the driver threw a lever, and there was a great hissing from the back of the coach. Through the small, leaded rear window, Agatha saw an sturdy little motor burble into life, and with a cloud of steam, the coach rumbled off.
Agatha took the opportunity to examine the passing scenery. Balan’s Gap was a prosperous town, thanks to the pass, and had been so for quite awhile. All of its streets were paved with cobblestone or brick, and the night was illuminated by hundreds of lights.
Not just by the traditional torches, gaslamps and incidental fires of the still bustling shops and taverns, but also by the startling blue-white glare of the new-fangled electrical arc lamps that were coming out of England. Overall, surface travel was certainly reduced from its glory days, but you’d never know it here. Travelers from all across the Empire wove through the streets of Balan’s Gap.
But the town had its eye upon the future. They rolled past the airship docks, and Agatha could see that they were being expanded. Still brightly lit despite the lateness of the hour, teams of stevedores and balloonjacks were roaring and calling as cargo cranes groaned as they swung pallets loaded with cargo to and from the lines of waiting delivery wagons. The roads here were choked with carts and vans, their teamsters swearing and screaming at each other in a dozen different languages.
The driver of Agatha’s coach relied upon his distinctive horn to clear the way, but when that failed, he did not hesitate to leave the roadway and send pedestrians leaping for safety by driving down the sidewalks without ever reducing his considerable speed. Occasionally members of the city constabulary would hear the commotion, see the cause, and hastily drag themselves and anyone nearby to safety, stepping out again only when the royal coach had passed.
In this manner they approached the castle. This was a massive edifice, obviously built as a solid defense against a dangerous foe. Agatha realized with a start that this must be fabled Sturmhalten Castle itself.
Ancient battle scars covered its stone walls, but it stood unbroken. A wide moat, easily thirty meters wide surrounded it, spanned by a single grand causeway, lined with lights. The coach turned onto this, and Agatha glimpsed the gigantic doors of the castle itself, opening to admit them.
They passed beneath the massive portcullis and into an interior courtyard that was brightly lit with electrical lights and alive with servants bustling about.
Here the coach slowed and actually took some care as it threaded delicately between the people and inner structures. It finally glided to a stop, hissing, at the foot of a broad marble stairway, which was flanked by two statues holding large, electrically lit globes.
Several steps up, idly tapping his foot was a tall, elegantly dressed young man. Dark auburn hair was artlessly swept away from his eyes, which were adorned with a tiny pair of spectacles.
When the driver and footman saw him, they froze, and then leapt to the ground and frantically tried to get the coach door open while babbling. “Forgive me, your Highness!” Agatha then noticed the pin at the young man’s throat, which was the same sword-in-winged gear that adorned many of the walls and lampposts in the town. “We brought the young lady as swiftly as we could, Prince Tarvek—the market—!”
The young man waved his hand impatiently, cutting the babbling off dead. His voice, when he spoke was obviously amused. The sound of it sent an odd sensation down Agatha’s spine.
“Yes, yes. Calm yourself.” He stopped
before the bowing servants and languidly motioned for them to straighten up. “My Royal father insisted that I meet the coach.” The servants blinked and stood rooted to the spot. The young man sighed. “”You may now leave us. We shall escort our guest to dinner.”
He then turned to Agatha, who executed a perfect curtsey. “Your Highness,” she said.
Tarvek focused his attention upon her fully and his smile faltered. What the devil is she wearing? he thought to himself. For a moment he wondered whether the circus had tried to send a different girl. This plain thing bore only a superficial resemblance to the fiery actress he’d seen strutting about the stage—
Actress... Tarvek stopped and forced himself to mentally step back and analyze what he was seeing. The planes of her hair, the lines artfully painted upon her face, the perfection of awfulness that was her dress... His breath caught in admiration. There was cunning here.
The Prince smiled in genuine appreciation at a work of art, and took her hand, “Enchanté,” he murmured. He then folded her hand across his arm and they climbed the stairs, and entered the castle.
They swept past rows of bowing servants. Several of these darted on ahead, no doubt to warn the rest of the staff, as wherever they went, they were met by downturned heads. Agatha began to wonder if Royalty was inclined to study phrenology.
“My father and my sister will be joining us.” Tarvek said. “It will be a small, family meal tonight. You must forgive the impromptu informality of the occasion, but we know your troupe will want to leave tomorrow, and we quite enjoyed your performance.”
The castle interior was magnificently decorated, with rich carpets and floor tiles arranged in intricate mathematical patterns. Grand tapestries depicting scenes of the Storm King’s legend lined the hallways, and where they were absent, lavish paneling and cunning woodwork carved into fantastically interwoven geometric shapes were to be seen.
They entered a large open area, which was dominated by a grand fireplace. Agatha paused in admiration. Most fireplaces, in her experience, served as large, efficient heat pumps apparently designed to suck warmth from all other parts of the room. This one, however, had been overlaid with a fantastic arrangement of large glass pipes, filled with a slow roiling liquid, which swept out from the sides of the fireplace and curled around the entire room in a series of graceful arabesques. As a result, the large room was delightfully warm, even here at the doorway. Agatha was impressed.
“The heat is stored in the liquid, which is piped around the room, where it evenly radiates back out,” she declared in admiration. She studied the liquid slowly moving through the nearest pipe. “This isn’t water, is it?”
Tarvek had looked surprised at her analysis, then pleased. “Close. It’s actually a super-saturated oil and brine solution of my own formulation.”
“You designed this?” She surveyed the system and looked at the Prince with a new respect.
Tarvek shrugged diffidently, while standing a little taller. “Oh, years ago.” He patted a pipe gently. “It has held up quite well though.”
“Your Highness is a Spark?”
The prince nodded. “A family trait we’ve managed to endure for the last five generations.” Warily he looked at Agatha. He saw that this news had not caused the usual reactions of visible fear, uneasiness or screaming. Indeed, and even more disconcerting, Agatha’s attention had shifted to the spinet that rested in the center of the room. How refreshing.
“What a beautiful instrument,” she exclaimed. It was slender and low. Its dark, varnished wood decorated with a splash of festive rosemåling. The top was open, and the mathematical perfection of the strings glinted silver in the light.
“Mademoiselle has a good eye. It’s a Christofori[44].” At this news, Agatha snatched her hand away.
Tarvek laughed. “It’s quite alright, this is certainly no museum.” He paused, “Do you play?”
Agatha nodded, and looked at the spinet with longing. To play such an instrument...
Tarvek came up behind her and murmured, “I would very much like to hear you play something. Perhaps after dinner.”
Agatha bit her lip. Tarvek really had a very nice voice. What Lars strove to create on stage, the Prince of Sturmhalten did naturally. The Countess had told her to try to get back as soon as possible, but surely, a little musical entertainment wouldn’t cause any problems...
“Please, brother—” A new voice crackled from the doorway. An odd, metallic voice. “Save the flirtation for dessert. It will go well with the rest of the cheese.”
The two of them turned. A small procession had entered the room. Leading the way was a grandly appointed lady, in a magnificent red brocade outfit. It was edged and looped by strings of gold beadwork that flashed in the light. Her retinue consisted of several maids, some of which were dressed in rather exotic outfits, no doubt gleaned from foreign traders that had passed through the city.
However the thing that drew the eye, was a foursome of liveried footmen, who carried upon their shoulders sort of palanquin that supported a large device. It was over a meter in diameter, and had been sculpted and adorned with flowers and assorted allegorical figures, which failed to hide the glowing dials and gauges covering the rest of its surface. On the back, a small engine chuffed quietly, powering a collection of filters and bellows, and sending out small puffs of blue smoke. Three thick leather pipes exited from the mouth of a carved serpent, and stretched down to connect to the back of the lady.
With a start, Agatha looked at her again and saw that she was not excessively made up, as she had first assumed, but was in fact, some of human-like clank, one that in construction, reminded Agatha of nothing so much as Moxana. The clank girl continued. “During dinner itself, I really must insist upon intelligent conversation.”
Agatha was so astonished at this apparition that her mind made the obvious connection and she spoke without thinking. “Tinka?”
Prince Tarvek gave a start at this and regarded her with amazement. “This, mademoiselle, is my sister, the princess Anevka Sturmvarous.” Agatha quickly repeated her curtsey. Tarvek continued. “And this, Anevka dear, is Mademoiselle Olga. Her circus—”
He paused, and then clapped his hand to his head and laughed. “Of course! Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure! I had forgotten their name! No wonder she knew about Tinka!”
Anevka’s eyes had been examining Agatha. Darting about and focusing with a series of quick, audible clicks. Now she glided forward. The men behind her stepped forward as she did, maintaining their exact distance, as if they were connected to her by an invisible yoke.
“Extraordinary.” Anekva’s voice, while odd, was fascinating. Her face, it appeared, had only a limited range of expression. Her actual voice emanated from a small, decorated grill nestled in a jeweled collar at her throat. “Then it is to your wonderful circus that I owe my life.”
Agatha blinked. “Do tell.”
Tarvek shrugged. “An—” he hesitated. “Experiment of my father’s went wrong. As a result, my sister was dying. Her body itself was failing. I won’t bore you with the details as they were quite horrifying, but the only thing that could save her was to remove her. Easy enough, of course, but the associated psychological trauma of no longer having no actual body was almost as deadly.”
Anevka fluttered her fan. “I had just redone my entire wardrobe. The irony was simply too much to bear.”
Tarvek ignored this. “Then a traveling show came along. And there, treated as just another sideshow novelty, was a Van Rijn! A real one! I’ve been studying them for years, and there was no mistake.”
He shook his head at the memory. “Well, I took it. I’m not proud of that, but time was running out.”
He straightened up and gestured at his sister. “And I did it. I was able to reverse engineer enough of Van Rijn’s designs that I could build Anevka a working body that was more sophisticated than a hand puppet. I sent payment to the circus, but by then they’d quite sensibly left town.”
&nb
sp; Agatha stepped forward and examined Anevka’s head in wonder. A frown crossed her face.
“And your brain fits in there? I would think the necessary mechanisms alone—” Belatedly Agatha realized what she was saying and her hand flew to her mouth in embarrassment. “Forgive me, your Highness! I... I was just—”
Anevka burst out laughing and lightly bonked the top of Agatha’s head with her fan. “Don’t be ridiculous, dear girl! You can’t imagine how refreshing it is to have some honest curiosity. Most people do their damndest to pretend that everything is perfectly normal.”
She swiveled about and indicated the device the four retainers carried upon their shoulders. “That is where the corpus Anevka is located. My catafalque keeps me alive, and through these—” she indicated the leather hoses, “I am able to manipulate and control this clever little doll my brother built for me.”
Agatha regarded the device and the obviously delighted Anevka with awe. “Your brother has done you proud, your Highness. It’s a magnificent feat of medical engineering.” She realized that this might be a bit abstract as far as compliments go. “And you wear it so well.”
Anevka laughed. “He’s very clever, for a boy who kept buttoning his shoes together.”
Tarvek rolled his eyes. “I was four!”
“Four and a half.”
Tarvek turned to Agatha. “Ignore her. As you can see, she still needs work.” With his hand, he quite openly made the universal gesture that all mechanics made to declare “This is a dangerously crazy machine[45].”
Agatha tried to ignore this. “But what happened to Tinka?”
Tarvek immediately stopped smiling. “Ah. Once again my father enters the story.”
“Hi—hihi—ness—ness—”
They all turned, and coming from another doorway was a second clank woman. She was dressed in a simple robe. But unlike Anevka, this was obviously an automaton. She moved in a distressing, jerky motion, and even when she stood in one spot, she swayed slightly, as if she was perpetually off balance.
“Tinka!” Tarvek quickly moved to the clank’s side and helped steady her. “Tinka, why have you left the lab?”