by Becket
Miss Broomble had accidentally torn away a small piece of the old flowery wallpaper. Shining out was blue light. She peeped through the tiny tear and exclaimed, “Yes, here it is!”
Then she and Key hurriedly tore away the wallpaper. Pega helped them, and Tudwal, too, scraping away the lower parts with his paws.
Behind the wallpaper was another stained glass window. Yet in this window were glass images of a king, a queen, and only one throne. The king and the queen were arguing about which one of them was allowed to sit on the throne and make royal decrees.
Miss Broomble placed her hand on Key’s back and urged her forward. “You say the password now.”
At first Key spoke a little too softly for the king and queen to hear, but at Miss Broomble’s prompting, she spoke more confidently, “Higgledy-Piggledy.”
At this utterance, the stained glass king and queen continued to fight as pieces of the stained glass window all around them folded away automatically. When the king’s left arm also folded away, the queen took advantage of his distraction, and she leaped onto the throne and shouted, “Ha! My new royal decree is this: There shall be no more —” But Key never got to hear the rest, as the stained glass window folded back into another golden doorframe.
Miss Broomble took Key and Tudwal through another long tunnel of large spinning cogwheels and swinging pendulums, until they came out into another turret on the far side of the castle.
— CHAPTER SEVEN —
Silas the Cybernetic Cyclops
Miss Broomble led Key, Pega, and Tudwal out of the Doorackle Alleyway.
Still atop the wall, though now much farther away from where they had been, Key looked out over the railing and saw tombs looking like townhouses; mausoleums resembling skyscrapers; and graveyards mimicking country clubs with golf courses. They had all been built along the gray-sand shore of the Lake of the Dead. The Lake was so large that it could have easily been mistaken for an ocean. Death-guards watched over it, chirruping bone-whistles whenever the lake’s murky waters made swimmers feel a little too alive.
On this side of the City of the Dead, Mostly Dead street vendors in the Early Medieval District were selling cold-dogs out of their coffins to semi-charred tourists from the Perpetually Burning Forest. Bonemen from the Jazz District were playing music in one of the many pubs along the Necropolis streets. Zombie Merchants were riding Brimstone Buses from Cringeable Way to the Financial District downtown. Key marveled at the way everything seemed so lively, despite the fact that this place was indeed the City of the Dead.
Miss Broomble pressed the button behind her ear and her half-mask unfolded outward, covering over her nose and mouth. She pointed down the side of the castle wall.
“Silas,” she said beneath her breath.
Key peered over the edge and now saw the full stature of the Cybernetic Cyclops. He seemed as broad as he was tall. His chest, one shoulder, and half a leg were plated in dinted pewter. His cybernetic joints were cogwheels of all sizes and shapes. One of his massive arms was completely robotic, at the end of which was not a hand, but an iron claw. Part of his bald head was covered in tarnished brass. Over his one eye was a mechanical monocle with a blood red lens, shooting out a blood red light that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Silas the Cybernetic Cyclops was not as tall as the tallest castle tower, but he stood almost as tall as the castle wall. In his hands was a massive club made of stone and metal, which he used to strike the wall. Every swing was like the mighty blow of an earthquake. Every bellow of his outrage was like a thunderclap.
Miss Broomble looked pensive behind her half mask. “He is angrier than I have seen him in a long while,” she remarked as she took the spyglass from her forearm. Gripping the smaller end she spoke into the wide lens.
“Dynabow.”
Like the Oscillobox that had transformed into a bridge when Key escaped from the flooded dungeon, the spyglass now folded into a crossbow with gauges and canisters. In each canister crackled a little bolt of electricity.
Miss Broomble showed Key the dynabow. “Compliments of the GadgetTronic Brothers,” she said with a wink, smiling proudly behind her half mask. She turned a dial on her chest and up came a series of swiveling lenses over her eyes. Aiming the dynabow down towards the Cyclops, she pressed a well-worn button on its side. An electric canister revolved up and locked into firing position. It broke open and an electric bolt came fizzling out and crackled along the shaft.
Miss Broomble pulled the trigger. Electricity shot out from the dynabow, sliced through the air, and struck Silas on his mechanical monocle. Its blood red light flickered and started to fail. The Cybernetic Cyclops bellowed in pain and shock.
Before he realized what was happening, Miss Broomble pressed the button again, loaded another shot, and fired a second time. Another electric bolt struck the giant’s mechanical monocle in the same spot. This time the blood red light flickered off; it was as if he had gone completely blind.
Silas swung his large head back and forth, groping through the air and howling in pain, unable to see a thing. Tudwal barked ferociously at him. Silas bellowed back, so loud in fact and with such intensity that Key felt her bones rattle.
“One more shot should overload his system,” Miss Broomble said as she loaded another canister.
Pega’s matronly voice inquired tremulously, “What will happen then, Miss?”
“He should reboot. Any unsaved information will be lost. He’ll forget about this night completely and probably go back to his burial chamber.”
“How do you know,” asked Key, “that his system hasn’t saved his information already?”
“He always forgets to save.”
“The data won’t restore?”
Miss Broomble shook her head. “His operating system is outmoded, developed before auto-restore protocols.”
“His operating system isn’t DIOS?”
“No, he runs on Widdlewoes 95.”
Taking aim once more, Miss Broomble was about to fire, but the instant before she did, the haggard voice of an old woman incanted a curse.
“Ash and dust, rust and rain, strike my foe with flowing pain.”
Miss Broomble’s eyes widened with sudden agony. She dropped the dynabow and doubled over, gasping. Key knelt beside her, Pega’s invisible hand materialized just enough to rub Miss Broomble’s tense brow, and Tudwal growled as he now saw the one who had incanted the curse. Key looked and saw her, too. It was Old Queen Crinkle.
The Old Queen was coming out of another turret along the wall, cackling and sneering nastily at Miss Broomble’s suffering. Then she turned and looked over the wall at Silas.
The gears of his mechanical monocle started spinning again. Its red light flickered to life.
“Where have you been?” she asked him.
Forgetting about Miss Broomble, Silas looked up at the Old Queen, his mechanical monocle now fully operational again, though its color had changed from red to yellow, as if he were a tad fearful of her. To answer her question, he looked behind him at the wake of his destruction. Stones that he’d knocked from the castle wall now lay strewn across the Necropolis. He scratched his head with his club and nibbled his lower lip, lost in deep thought. Then he pointed in the direction he’d come from. “I’ve been there,” he boomed in his thunderous voice, “and now I’m here.”
“You were supposed to be here at sundown,” snapped the Old Queen. “I gave you an Enchanted Pocket Watch. What happened to it?”
“It was too chatty.”
“It was telling you the time.”
“Had to smash it.”
“It was five hundred years old.”
“Its pieces still are.”
The Old Queen glared at him witheringly, shaking with fury. Like a hissing crocodile she sighed, “Fine – let’s go – to the Grave of the Grim Goblin.”
The Cybernetic Cyclops held his hand to the edge of the wall. Old Queen Crinkle hiked up the hem of her patchwork dress and stepped onto his palm. The
n with slow movements, Silas turned and started to stride off with her into the Necropolis.
Miss Broomble had just enough strength to endure the pain and place her hand over her heart. With trembling lips she proceeded to incant her own magic. “Tollat crucem suam DIOS.” At this, her hand glowed for a moment with bright white light. A second later it seemed as if her pain had dissipated, although when the light on her hand faded away, too, she appeared quite weakened and winded. Feebly, her dark skin now somewhat wan, she got to her feet by leaning on Key.
She spoke once more into the circular black device on her wrist – the Scuttlecom, Key recalled.
“Crinkle is heading for the Grave of the Grim Goblin.”
“My dear Miss Broomble,” returned the staticky voice of Mr. Fuddlebee, “are you certain that’s where she’s headed?”
“Quite,” she replied with a tone of determination.
“What could be there?” asked Pega, sounding rather frightened.
“You mean besides something grim and gobliny?” Miss Broomble answered more snarkily than usual, wincing with the memory of her pain.
Mr. Fuddlebee’s voice spoke again, but too much static fuzzled through, and the only word that could be heard was, “Key.”
“Me?” she said with sudden alarm. “What am I doing there?”
“No, no,” said Mr. Fuddlebee’s voice more clearly now. “The Key of Time has been hidden there, ever since Thomas à Tempus became a resident in the Necropolis. The Queen is going after that Key.”
“How,” the witch asked, “did the Queen find out about its hiding place?”
“My dear, Miss Broomble,” came the voice of the elderly ghost, “how she found out is no longer relevant – she knows now – though I have the distinct feeling that she may have overheard the bragging of someone who’d had a little too much pumpkin rum at The Pirate Patch & Pub.”
Some color returned to Miss Broomble’s dark cheeks as she blushed.
Key leaned towards the Scuttlecom and asked, “What does the Key of Time open?”
“Well, my dear,” replied the voice of Mr. Fuddlebee, “that is not its only name. Some have called it the ‘Key of Time;’ others have called it the ‘Tau of Life.’ Once it was called ‘The Wigglenator.’ I, however, refer to it by its most accurate name.”
“What could that be?” asked Pega anxiously.
Miss Broomble sighed heavily and answered her in a solemn voice: “The Eye of DIOS.”
Tudwal yipped in agreement, as if he’d known the answer all along.
Alarmed, Key now inquired, “What can the Queen do with the Eye?”
“She plans to use the Eye like a key,” the witch said.
“That’s why it’s also called the Key of Time,” Mr. Fuddlebee chimed in.
“She plans to open a doorway from the present to the past.”
“Or the future.”
“And the Eye of DIOS,” asked Key, “is hidden at the Grave of the Grim Goblin?”
“It is,” replied Mr. Fuddlebee and Miss Broomble together.
“However,” added the elderly ghost, “that will not be the journey’s end.”
Miss Broomble nodded pensively but made no reply.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Pega muttered nervously. “I don’t think my poor ghostly bones can take anymore of this.”
Key, however, eager for Mr. Fuddlebee to go on, asked, “Where will the Queen go from there?”
“The Eye of DIOS opens the Tower Tomb of Thomas à Tempus,” he replied, only this time his voice did not come through the Scuttlecom. He had floated up from the castle, through the floor, and was now turning in midair to fly after Silas and the Old Queen. Eerie green light was swirling at his wingtips and sparkling green ghost dust was drizzling trails in his wake. Smiling politely he tipped his bowler hat towards Key and Miss Broomble. “You go to the Grim Goblin’s Grave. If Crinkle cannot be stopped there, I’ll be waiting for her at the Tower Tomb.”
Miss Broomble nodded and the elderly ghost serenely soared after Old Queen Crinkle and her Cybernetic Cyclops.
— CHAPTER EIGHT —
The MotorHog
All this time, Silas had been making gigantic strides through Necropolis streets, stepping on the roofs of tombs and knocking the tops off mausoleums. By now he was quite some distance away, but that did not matter to Tudwal, who had been barking at him vigorously. With fearless enthusiasm, the immortal puppy leaped from the castle walls straight towards the Cybernetic Cyclops. It was an amazing leap, much longer than any mere football field, and it seemed as if he would land on Silas’s shoulder. Unfortunately his leap fell a little short and he plummeted like a stone straight towards the Sepulcher of the Seven Headed Serpent. He came inches from crashing through its glass ceiling when Pega swiftly swooped down and snatched him back up with her hand, which was once more as invisible as her.
She floated Tudwal past Mr. Fuddlebee, who, as he glided on, saluted them politely with the tip of his umbrella. The invisible ghost maid then flew near enough to drop Tudwal on Silas’s cybernetic shoulder, whereupon the immortal puppy began his vicious attack by savagely biting the giant’s monstrous ear.
Silas howled in pain.
Key was terribly worried for her puppy, but Miss Broomble took her by the hand and guided her back inside the turret with the Doorackle Alleyway, assuring her that Tudwal would be fine, though the witch did look a little doubtful.
Yet when Key entered the turret, she was very surprised to see that the Doorackle Alleyway was now missing. She turned questioningly to Miss Broomble and searched her eyes for an explanation, but the witch only replied, “That happens from time to time. The Doorackle Alleyway probably went to a less noisy spot. They’re all a bunch of sleepyheads.”
In its place now was a mangy-looking cat, with black curlicues for stripes. It was Warhag. The castle cat had often made surprise visits down to the Dungeon of Despair, padding softly in and out, like a stealthy predator. Now, the cat briefly paused from her grooming to glare at Key. Her glowing violet eyes narrowed menacingly as she considered whether she should unleash the full storm of her feline fury upon this steampunk vampire girl for catching her at a bath. But as her grooming was far more important than slaying helpless creatures, the castle cat decided to return her attention to a particularly matted clump of orange fur.
Miss Broomble started taking off her armor shirt, removing each copper plate one by one, as well as her half-mask, laying them all out very neatly along the floor.
Underneath her armor she had been wearing a plain, formfitting, black outfit, with just enough room in one pocket for her Crinomatic, which she took out now. Before speaking into it, however, she turned a small dial on one of the copper plates, flipped some switches on another, and pressed a few buttons on a third.
Then she stepped back and opened her Crinomatic like a compact mirror. “The Nobbler Threads,” she spoke into it.
The bright light of DIOS burst forth from its small opening, blinding all eyes around, but then in a flash the light disappeared, leaving Miss Broomble in entirely new attire.
The Crinomatic had outfitted her in her usual top hat with goggles around the rim. But now she was also wearing a clockwork choker, a deep blue jacket with several brass buttons from her neck to her waist, where her coat divided into a long skirt, revealing dark brown pants and tall black boots. Over her chest and arms and legs were all kinds of gears and gadgets and gauges. Slung over one shoulder like a baldric was a mechanical snake with its tail in its mouth; its sapphire eyes sparkled with intelligence; and along its body were small pouches.
The transformation of her armor shirt would take a few more minutes, as electric currents zapped between the copper plates on the floor, crackling up and down, rattling them, and drawing them nearer towards one another. They came together with such sudden force that they clanged like a church bell. Instantly folding over themselves, they formed next into a small copper sphere. And in the brief second before it started transforming aga
in, as it sat perfectly still, Key could just make out words stamped across its surface.
The GadgetTronic Brothers, Est ∞
The sphere then began to unfold. Steam gushed out as it expanded into the shape of a steamer trunk, except it also had a seat long enough for two people to straddle, as if it were a motorcycle without wheels. One end then shaped into a steering column set with two wide-gripped handlebars while at the other end were the two smokestacks that had ornamented Miss Broomble’s back. Before they had spewed out steam; now they were actually belching out black smoke. A fire had begun roaring from within this transforming machine. It sounded alive, growling or snarling, as its engine revved.
Key had never seen anything like it. “What is this?” she asked, staring at it in wonder.
“The GadgetTronic Brothers call it,” Miss Broomble said, “the Veloci-Trixicle 2020.” She grinned, unable to hide her delight, or her pride, as it continued unfolding. “But I just call her my MotorHog.”
Right at that moment, Key heard a voice shouting from the other end of the castle wall. “There she is! There’s the Dungeon Troll.”
Emerging from the other turret was Raithe. She was pointing at Key and glaring at her with utter loathing. Following behind her were Crudgel and their gang of vampires, all as angry as Raithe, some perhaps mildly nastier.
“Throw the Troll into Melancholy Moat,” Raithe shouted with all her hate. “Throw her to the belly of Killjoy the Kraken!”
The MotorHog was still unfolding. Key knew she had to somehow slow down Raithe and her gang, so she looked around for something that might do just that, but the turret was practically empty. Then she happened to notice that Miss Broomble had hooked her dynabow onto her belt. Key quickly snatched it and gave it a new command: “Electronet.” Key had no idea what an electronet was, and she had no idea if the dynabow would know either, but her instinct had told her to say that, and she was beginning to trust herself again, the way she once did, before her tragic ninth birthday.